Guide for Battle Islands - General hints and tips (2024)

Battle Islands requires some skill and strategy to 100%. Not only must you build a strong army, you must also build a strong defense since other players can attack you at any time (as long as you aren't camouflaged). You must also keep in mind that wasting resources will delay your completion significantly. Below is my recommendation for building the most efficient army to ensure the fastest route to 100%:

Command Bunker: Unfortunately, you won't get very far without upgrading your command bunker. And sadly, although the strategies below do not require you to upgrade to rank 10 (max), you will want to get to rank 9. Sorry, it's just what it is. You can speed up the time by having a 24 boost for 10 gold. I highly suggest using it. Keep in mind that any unit that you are training while your command bunker is upgrading will freeze until the command bunker has finished upgrading (or been canceled).

Islands: Buy them all as soon as they become available. Greatly helps defensive strategies.

Offense:

1. Bombers: By far the most critical part to your army. Their primary targets are defenses. Once all those are destroyed, they will bomb everything else. Time to build is longer compared to other units but well worth it. You can have 5 bombers per hanger for a max total of 10 bombers in your army. Therefore your top priority should be upgrading your hangers to rank 5 (max) and train your bombers to at least rank 5. The damage bombers dish out is unmatched and greatly outweighs their low speed and health. The goal should be keeping your bombers alive as long as possible. But even if they all die, they will take a lot down with them. YOU WILL NOT 100% TROPHIES QUICKLY WITHOUT BOMBERS!
2. Paratroopers: Arguably more important than bombers since they can be dropped anywhere and at max rank, can destroy almost anything before being killed. They target everything. Each paratrooper consists of 3 units. You can have 5 paratroopers per comms center for a max total of 5 paratroopers (15 units) in your army. Therefore, you should upgrade your comms center to rank 5 (max) while also upgrading your hangers. After that, train your paratroopers to at least rank 3. They have no flaws other than build time. So it is important to have enough gold on hand to instant build when going for final trophies (more on that later).
3. Gunboats: Probably the most interchangeable unit on this list. The biggest perk is speed and cost. You must use gunboats wisely or else they will go down quickly. Spawned too closely together and they will go down fast vs. splash damage. You could use heavy gunboats instead, which I feel is a good strategy as well since the time to produce is essentially the same as gunboats (1 heavy gunboat @ 2 housing spaces = 2 gunboats @ 2 housing spaces; time to build 1 heavy gunboat = 2 gunboats). Both units target everything so it just comes down to preference. You can have 15 gunboats per shipyard for a max total of 45 gunboats in your army. Upgrading shipyards are fairly cheap and not as time consuming as barracks and hangers so sneak in upgrading them when you can. Same goes for training gunboats. The ideal rank would be at least rank 5 but more important to have quantity first than quality if going the gunboats route. Opposite holds true if you prefer heavy gunboats. The main goal is eliminate naval defenses and as long as you accomplish that, then you're good.
4. Riflemen: Cheapest and quickest unit to produce. They target everything. If left unchecked, they will dominate any attack. On the flip side, riflemen are unpredictable in that they will attack everything and are not coded to prioritize. For example, your riflemen may waste time destroying a barracks while getting picked off by machine guns, or worse, howitzers. It is not encouraged to deploy all your riflemen at once since any splash damage can wipe out your whole army. It is best if you deploy your riflemen at 3-4 groups at a time and from different areas of the map. You can have 50 riflemen per barracks for a max total of 150 in your army. However, this strategy only calls for a minimum of 82 riflemen. Therefore, you will only need to upgrade your barracks to at least rank 7 but you will want to train your riflemen to least rank 9.
5. Jeeps: Fast and lethal. Not too weak, not too costly. Just the right vehicle unit for your army. Their primary targets are supplies. Once all those are destroyed, the will attack everything else. Time to build is relatively same when taking into account the other units you will be building in this army. The main use for jeeps in this strategy is to take down walls and set off land mines, clearing a safe path for your riflemen. The fact they go straight for supplies and will draw fire from defenses is just an extra perk. You can have 16 jeeps per barracks for a max total of 48 jeeps in your army. However, this strategy only calls for a minimum of 14 jeeps. Therefore, you will only need to upgrade your barracks to at least rank 7. You will also want to train your jeeps to at least rank 4.
6. Ranger & Hunter: These are special units that can be brought to any attack. Both have special abilities that affect surrounding troops. Both can be the deciding factors in any battle. Therefore, it goes without saying that you should be upgrading these units at all times. They do not require any engineers to train but are costly and time-consuming. But for purposes of this strategy, you will want to have your Ranger's rank at 18 (minimum) and your hunter's rank at 7 (minimum).
7. Landing Craft: You won't win many battles if you have low-rank landing crafts. A safe minimum rank is 4 for purposes of this strategy.
8. Fighters: You will have 2 extra housing spaces per hanger for a total of 4 extra housing spaces. I suggest getting fighters over escort fighters because they attack everything (escorts will only attack air units). You can have 4 fighters total vs. 2 escort fighters total. The main perk for this is to draw fire away from your bombers. This is their only use (sadly). Good news is that you only need to train fighters to rank 2 (minimum) for this strategy.

Strategy:

• Note that you only need to accomplish 1 of the following to obtain victory: destroy enemy command bunker or destroy 50% of enemy forces. You will obtain a 3 star victory if you do both. You have 20 seconds to scout before you attack (you can also retreat without penalty during this time). IF YOU ATTACK BEFORE THE 20 SECONDS HAS PASSED, THE BATTLE WILL START AND YOU WILL BE LOSE THE BATTLE IF YOU RETREAT. Once you start the attack, you have 3 minutes to obtain victory.
• It is important to pick and choose your battles. If you are obviously outmatched, retreat before the 20 seconds expire and choose a different opponent.
• First step is to take out enemy naval units. Do this by deploying 1 gunboat within range of enemy hunter and enemy harbor. Deploy another gunboat at any corner of the map (preferably 1 that has a building, if placed there). This will draw out enemy naval units. Once all enemy naval units are in the open, spawn all gunboats in a circle surrounding the enemy units, keep them as far a part as possible. Sometimes you will have to spawn a few at a time and spawn others as gunboats are destroyed. But gunboat speed is faster than any other naval unit so you will win these 8/10 times when done correctly. Afterwards, spawn all other gunboats to attack any sea fort in open waters.
• The second step is to either a) destroy command bunker with paratroopers if positioned in an area surrounded by defenses; b) destroy command bunker with other units if positioned in the area that is unprotected by defenses, or c) destroy enemy anti-air guns using paratroopers. If doing a or c, chances are you will trigger enemy ground or air units since most players build them in range of their command bunkers. If this is the case, use your naval units and spawn few riflemen to lure and destroy them before deploying your bombers.
• The third step is to deploy jeeps throughout the map, triggering any land mines as they move through enemy defenses.
• The final step is to deploy all riflemen, fighters, and bombers (in that order) and watch and see what happens.

Chances are with this strategy that you will destroy enemy bunker 5/10 times, destroy 50% of enemy forces 3/10 times and get a 3-star victory 2/10. The goal is to fight enemies that have at least 100 dog tags more than you, that way you are getting max dog tags in victories.

Defense:

1. How you build your defense is very important. On one hand, you need a weak defense to lure enemies to attack you so you can unlock certain trophies and medals. On the other, you need your defense strong enough to not get wiped out and lose supplies. Thankfully, you can only lose 10% of your supplies per attack. So if you have 1,000,000 supplies on hand, the enemy can only get 100,000. On the flip side, rarely will you be attacked if you always use up all your supplies as quickly as possible.
2. Watch replays of attacks so you can place land and sea mines where enemies most likely deploy their armies.
3. Your best bet is to utilize a zig-zag strategy for your land buildings as shown here.

• By doing this, it requires enemy forces to have to destroy walls each and every time in order to advance. If you build everything close together, therefore combining your walls, enemy troops can advance into the main base once they destroy that first wall. Therefore, you will want to be mindful of what buildings you build walls around and where you place them. It is best to have some buildings, mainly defenses, without any walls so they can be placed in spots where they are already surrounded by walls.
• Also, notice how the island layout creates a natural wall for defenses as well. Be sure to place your islands in good defensive positions. You can view the top players in the game for good defense setup examples (accessible through divisions page on screen, leaderboards subtab).

For purposes of 100% this game, you will want to place your camp central to everything since you do not know where the enemy will strike but also do not want to have your camp destroyed before all troops have been deployed. You will also want to upgrade your camp to at least rank 5.

Other Tips:

1. Gold Spending: You gain gold by daily rations, supply chain (located at bottom right corner of daily ration/Supplies page on screen (1 free spin per day, then 5 gold per spin, based on chance), air supply drops (2 max on screen at any give time, rare), earning medals (see medals page on screen) and leveling up (gold given = level (i.e. level up to rank 50 = earn 50 gold). You can spend gold on a multitude of things. But it is very crucial to save gold as much as possible and under no circumstances should you be using gold to get supplies. It is a complete waste. Instead, use gold to get at least 1 extra engineer (2 if very active) and boosting command bunker training speed (10 gold for 24 hour boost). Other than that, save it for when you are going for 2500 dog tag trophy in 1 session where you will use it to instant build troops, specifically paratroopers.
2. Alliances & Warfare: The benefits of alliances and participating in warfare are not that great in my opinion, mainly because most alliances will not include you in warfare due to your level. For purposes of this walkthrough, you do not need to participate in any of these.
3. Upgrading: Upgrading buildings for first few ranks is not an issue but for later ranks, especially with command bunker, it is time-consuming. The best plan is to do long upgrades centered around personal time. Going on vacation for a week? Do your time-consuming upgrades during that time. Or really, switch games when doing long upgrades and only check in to get daily bonuses, refill supplies, boost level/build armies 1-5 times a day.
4. Supplies: The lifeblood of this game is supplies. You should definitely aim for max rank and build at least 4 supply depots. And always stock up every way possible (except but buying it with gold or money if Free-to-Play gamer). No excuses.
5. Intentional Defeats: There is a great benefit to purposefully retreating once you start a battle (remember that the battle doesn't officially begin until you either deploy a unit or 20 seconds has passed). Specifically, you get to control your dog tag rank. Too high and you'll rarely defeat enemies but regardless of dog tag rank, there are always, ALWAYS players that will have +400,000 supplies available to loot. Ideally, you want to target players with at least +650,000 but obviously only attack those you are confident you can beat and destroy their supply buildings.
6. Scouting: In addition to all the above, keep an eye out for enemies who are upgrading their defenses. This is most easily seen with howitzers and anti-air guns, which will be positioned in a downward angle and not moving. This means they will not defend, making battles much easier to win.

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