Levelling Up: New Player Advice

 Hi all, mistercreepy here with the first of my series of posts on how to level up your Uniwar game. This post is meant to apply to brand new players starting out up to those ranked 1700. (This original version was written on November 25, 2016, so I'll update it as needed.) Hi! Welcome to Uniwar! So you just downloaded this free game. Step one is a mental one and it's huge. You need to recognize that this is not your typical mobile game. While it shares a lot of features with other freemium games (free to download but comes with ads until you pay more), it's not like 95% of games in its category. Uniwar is much more like Warhammer or Chess than Angry Birds. Crazy random things do not happen very often in Uniwar, and when they do it's from player choice rather than the design of the game. Don't expect RNGesus to save you and don't expect flashy plays to wow you.

So that means you need to buckle down and be patient. Uniwar has a TON of depth to it and it will reward you for sticking with it. Just check out the profiles of many players, a large number of us have been playing since 2010/11.

Uniwar can be enjoyed at all levels of gameplay, but I think that you'll get the most out of it by first aiming for a score of 1700. Reaching for 1700 will help you achieve a basic mastery of all the units of all the races on a variety of map sizes and terrain layouts. This is the springboard to further success on the ranked ladder and also essential to being able to maximize your options in team and free for all games.

To get to 1700, I suggest the following tasks. In no particular order, here are your quests from mistercreepy: complete the campaign, join newbie tournaments, play random ranked games, invite your friends, and save your Uni-Coins.

Complete the campaign

You don't need to do this all the way through, and in fact I don't recommend playing it straight through without doing the other tasks on this list, because it's rather boring. The campaign functions as the tutorial for the game, teaching you the basics of each unit for each race. And as an incentive for completing the campaign, if you do it within one month of signing up, you get free Uni-Coins.

Join the newbie tournaments

While this will push your limited game slots to the max, it's definitely worth it to have the opportunity to compete in these tournaments. Since the score threshold for newbie tournaments is 1700, you ought to never feel like you are completely outclassed in any match. Find these tournaments by clicking the trophy menu button. Most of the newbie tournaments are round robin in the opening rounds, kind of like the opening group stages of the world cup. For each round, you play your other opponents once. A win is three points, a tie is one, a loss is zero. Get the most points and move on. Check tournament details for more info.

Be available to at least one random ranked game

Random ranked games are the primary way you can improve your score, so try to always have one of these games going at a time. The matchmaking system will try to pair you with a player close to your skill level. You'll be involved in a one on one game on a random ranked map as a random race. This will expose you to new maps and force you to improve your skill in all the races, not just your favorite.

A common question is "why do random games keep showing up", and that's because there is a setting that let's you adjust how many random ranked games you get added to. You can adjust this number not from your profile but under "My Account" which ought to be visible in the settings menu (from the default online page showing all your games click the gear icon).

Get your friends to try it out

Invite your friends! You get a few Uni-Coins for referrals. But moreover you get extra enjoyment out of the best modes in Uniwar, team matches and free for alls. While you can experience those modes without having friends who play the game, I think that those are a lot better when you play them with people you know. It means that the long time investment of an epic battles is adding to an existing friendship. It's also great for free for alls because one of the worst things is when someone quits unexpectedly, acting as a kingmaker to whoever is nearby and able to grab their bases. While that can still happen among friends, at least you can give them a hard time about it and not add them to your next game.

Note: first you need friends. Uniwar is a very relaxed gaming community and if you become active in chat (which you need to unlock, discussed below) you can certainly make Unifriends. Be warned however that your significant other will certainly roll his/her eyes at you when you tell them about your Unifriends, or perhaps ban you from discussing Uniwar altogether.

Save your Uni-Coins

This advice I think is subject to change the most over the next few months as new units, which cost Uni-Coins to unlock, are added to the game. New units are essentially like an expansion pack to the game, so they might be something you want to purchase first. At this point I don't believe it will be a pay to win system. My understanding is that the random ranked games and tournaments will make adjustments to the units that are available so that a player will never be in a position where their opponent has more units available to them.

Many of the available purchases are cosmetic or offer a little bit of flexibility in the game but won't really help your level of play improve. Flag packs do absolutely nothing but you can splash for your home state or zodiac or whatever, go pandas. Extra game slots are nice but not essential, extra archive slots are...well I have 20 but I don't know why they are there? I would suggest holding off on map tokens but if you love doing that or have dreams of the perfect map go for it.

No, the number one purchase you should save up for is infinite turn undo. This will increase the quality of your play so very much and I believe is an absolute must for advancing higher in the ranks. Yes there are many out there who have achieved a high rank without it, in fact I am on a top ranked three player team and our best player, with a ranking above 2400, doesn't use it. But people like him are the exception not the rule. Maybe if you are already highly skilled at chess you will find Uniwar childs play in comparison, if so, please give me lessons. I will go into further details in my next post in this series, but for new players starting out, please trust me and aim for this first. You'll need it.

My only major caveat is that since you start with only four game slots if you intend on being 100% free to play it might make more sense to expand your game slots first in order to earn more Uni-coins over the long run. I don't believe in free to play myself, I have a bit of expendable income and since I have a lot of respect for the small dev team I supported them with the "Best Value" purchase. However "Most Popular" is a great investment as well but if you want to wait until you hit 1700 that's a fine choice. So, good luck, Uniwarrior! One other purchase when you hit 1700 is to access the chat function. When you get to the chat, send me a message! I'll be happy to play a game or two with you. (You can do that earlier if you like, just send me a private message in game or add me to a custom game.) And also, please give me feedback about this post. I've been playing since 2011 so maybe my advice is way off. Let me know!