Guide
General tips
Oil is power
Controlling more derricks than your opponent is always better. You will require a power generator for each 4 derricks. Keep an eye on your power generators to be sure you have enough of them. When a derrick is not bound to a power generator, it's arm stays still and an alert is shown on your energy bar.
Building a power module on a power generator will increase a lot your energy production, but it will require two construction trucks to constantly repair it. While the module is in construction, the generator is not producing energy. So make sure you have enough energy before building the module not to lock yourself at worst. It is a good idea to start producing the module when an other generator is available and when you have more than two trucks to still be able to start emergency constructions.
When you don't have the military advantage, you may try to gain time by attacking derricks or the trucks repairing a generator to harm your opponent's production while you adapt yours.
Keep your energy low
While gathering a lot of oil is good, stockpiling energy is a waste. You should be constantly producing, building or researching to keep your energy low. If your energy keeps increasing, build more production facilities to turn the overflow into something useful. On the contrary, if your energy is constantly negative, some of your facilities were produced too early and are not useful at that time. In both cases it may turn against you if your opponent used their energy efficiently to create a striking force for example.
Keep your units busy
Every unit should be built on purpose. Leaving some tanks sitting at the base could be useful in case of a sudden attack, but there are often better ways to use them. Scouting is the key. You will be attacked if you don't put enough pressure on your opponent. If you have enough map control, you will also know when and where an attack will happen. You will have then some more time to react. When you spot the tanks when they are already in your base, it is already too late. You should spot them when they start moving out, or better, when they are produced.
Basic starting options
The options available from start can be a little puzzling. Your main objective when starting the game is to focus on production. And producing more by balancing derricks and facilities, then taking more derricks. At lower levels, managing your energy efficiently is far better than trying to think about strategies and counters.
When the build order is finished, it's up to you to pick researches and upgrade your army.
You can assign a production chain to both your trucks by holding Shift while placing new structures. Always use both trucks on the same building in the early-game, so it is finished faster and can be used sooner.
The following build orders are not optimal. They list a few easy starting options to guide you on your fist games.
Standard defensive build order
Start by assigning both your trucks to build in that order a factory, a research centre, two derricks on the nearest oil patches and a second power generator in your base.
While the factory is being finished, design a bug (yellow body) tracks pulse and a viper (grey) wheels construction truck.
Once the factory is finished, queue two pulse tanks and a construction truck. Keep those two tanks near your trucks to defend them in case of a rush.
Once the research lab is finished, start researching the cannon (this is maybe the easiest weapon to handle). Until the research is finished, you can produce more pulse tracks. When it is finished you can design a viper (grey) wheels cannon and continuously build them in your factory.
By then, you should have a third construction truck, you can send it with a few tanks to create more derricks. Your two initial trucks can build a second factory, and you can start researching a second weapon type or upgrading the cannons.
After that, the general strategy will be creating and destroying derricks (cannons are very good at it), and create a new factory every two derricks, and a power generator every four. Once you see you control more derricks than your opponent since a few minutes, regroup all your army and attack.
All-in rush
Rushing can be a bit annoying but can also rather easily be defended against when you are prepared. This build will either make you win or have a hard time to recover from the losses.
Start by queuing two factories with both your construction trucks, the two nearest derricks, and a research lab.
Design a bug (yellow) hover pulse, and place the rally point of the factory at the entry of your opponent base and repeat the production indefinitely. Do the same with the second factory.
Your goal is to destroy the construction trucks. Unless you face other hover pulses, you probably won't be able to destroy pulse wheels or tracks, let alone lookout towers.
If the trucks are down, your constant pressure will make you win. If you can't take down the trucks, the rush has failed. You'll have to stop one factory to return to a more standard strategy.
Tech rush
This build will focus on attacking quickly with a T1 weapon instead of pulse guns. Like the all-in rush it is easy to spot and can be countered by scouting.
Start by queuing a research lab, and two factories, then two derricks.
Research machinegun (the cheapest T1 weapon to build) and design bug (yellow) wheel machineguns. Then like for the all-in rush, put the rally point of your factories at the entrance of your opponent's base and produce tanks continuously.
A tier one weapon (the machinegun) will be able to stand a fight against tracks pulses and you will briefly have more T1 tanks than your opponent. Your objective can be preventing your opponent to leave their base and force them to build defensive structures. Use that advantage to control a few more derricks before pushing a final attack.
Standard scouting
Once you are comfortable with a few builds, this one is a variation of the standard defensive build and production that aims to adjust your strategy according to what your opponent is doing.
Start by building a factory, a research lab, two derricks, a power generator and a second factory.
Your first units are a bug (yellow) hover pulse and a bug hover construction truck. Your scout will visit your opponent's base to check what is happening there. It must not be destroyed but doesn't have to deal any damage. Your hover truck will assist your starting trucks or build some nearby derricks when possible. Start researching a weapon you have chosen before starting the game as soon as the research lab is finished.
You'll be able to guess what opening your opponent is doing. If you see two factories without a lab, or your scount was destroyed before reaching the base, it's a rush. You must cancel your construction truck if not finished, produce a few track pulse and build a few lookout towers at your base until your first weapon is researched. Then you can produce some T1 tanks and repel the pulse tanks out of your base or destroy them.
If you see a lab first and a factory, you can either rush or use some time to pick a few derricks before you see what weapon was researched first and switch your production to counter it. Don't switch your current research.
If you see a factory first and a lab, you can continue to build things and come back to check for changes from time to time.
How to react
When the players are little more experienced, the games will go past the first strikes and information will be crucial to know what to do.
The game has basically three states and their associated objectives. You and your opponent will be either attacking, defending or expanding.
Where and when to attack
Attacking is putting pressure on your opponent and having lesser losses. It may not be a frontal assault of an army against an other.
You can attack when you have spotted a target that could be destroyed without exposing yourself. It may be a distant derrick, a small group of tanks, an isolated truck...
You just need to send what is required to pick that target, and keep the rest not to be caught off-guard. Your goal is to force your opponent to defend and react instead of having the initiative. Attack is the only way to victory, either directly, or by snowballing.
How to defend
Defending is about responding to an attack. It aims to reduce your losses, or force your opponent to cancel their attack. It is not desirable. It's a temporary state to prevent you from losing instantly, but it will not lead you to the victory (unless your opponent make mistakes).
Most of the time, you'll have to spend energy to protect yourself, either building slower tanks, defensive structures or cancelling strikes to bring reinforcements back. You should find a way to build more firepower on the short run. It will mostly leave you a little behind on the long run, it is better than losing instantly. Once your defensive structures are not in use, you may demolish them to gain some extra energy to use elsewhere.
Your objective is to revert the pressure. While your opponent is attacking, they may have left some weak points that you can attack with small and fast forces. Unlocking a new weapon, body or upgrade can make your troops more suitable. Or if a strike is countered pretty well, an instant counter attack can take down some targets.
When to expand
Expanding consist in building new derricks, power generators or modules, facilities, or researching new topics.
Building derricks and running researches cost energy. That energy isn't used to instantly increase your firepower. If your opponent has used that energy to build an army, you will lose before you can get any benefit from your expansion.
The best way to have room for expansion is to attack. If you have less losses, it will snowball into a bigger advantage. If your opponent is stuck defending, they cannot strike you effectively by that time.
When you feel stuck in a small portion of the map, or being constantly raided, you shouldn't try to expand. Use your energy to regain some map control instead. Otherwise you will find yourself in such a bad situation that your expansions won't have the time to bring an advantage.
Tips for vanilla Warzone 2100 players
Battleplan is very different from the vanilla game. Due to some differences about costs and very early weapons availability, some strategies that are optimal can be counter-productive in Battleplan.
Early trucks are an invitation for a rush. Hovers and weapons are available right from start, you don't have a safe early game to expand. When you opponent sees early that you have produced construction trucks instead of tanks, they can just mass hover pulse tanks and win.
Researches are expensive. Labs and researches are costly. Building a lab and starting a T1 research is about the same cost as 3 T1 tanks or 5-6 pulse tanks. Having one more tank can make the difference during the early game. The first lab will let you research a T1 weapon and get a good advantage against pulse guns. The second one won't bring you anything useful for its cost, until you can have a fair amount of tanks to benefit from upgrades.
Derricks are not free. You will have to wait 30 seconds once the derrick is built before it has repaid for itself. Plus 1 minute 30 if you have to build an extra power generator. Your 5th derrick will cost you the game if you aren't sure you can survive the next 2 minutes.
Collective body is bad for the early game. Even if the strong armour can be appealing, the starting pulse gun ignores it. You end up only having less tanks because they are more expensive. They become useful once you know you already have enough firepower or when their armour is really worth their cost.
Lancers don't have a bonus against tanks. There are no cyborgs and lancers don't deal more damage against tanks. They super-high damage can seem overpowered, but they are rather costly and handle badly a lot of cheap units. Like a group of bug pulse tanks which is very easy to build during the early game. Mix them with pulse tanks to guard them and finish heavily damaged units.
Howitzers require map control. Their long range make them good to cover a vast area, but you still need a strong front line to cover them (T2 and T3 cannons or VTOLs will shred them). They are also very expensive and weak until you end up massing them. Even then, if you only play defensively, your opponent will build a counter, no matter which strategy you are using.