Terrain

Terrain plays a vital role in combat, as it can provide tremendous bonuses and maluses to both the attacker and the defender. Effective use of the landscape is an intrinsic part of victory on Gladius Prime.

Each map tile has a terrain type, any number of possible features and rarely also contains one special feature. A tile gets its invidvidual resource effects from its type, its features and from adjacent special features. These effects influence the output of buildings built on it. The exception are the yellow percentages ontop of special features, which are city wide bonuses. Some factions, Space Marines and Necrons, get slightly different resources from tiles.

Features may reduce the amount of on the tile or increase the amount of  points required to enter the tile as well as break line of sight. Buildings can't be built on tiles with special features at all.

When a non-Flyer unit enters a tile containing a special feature, an outpost will instantly be erected and the tile's resource production will be added to the player's. In order to make use of a special feature's percentage boost effect, the tile needs to be acquired by a city. Space Marines, instead of having to acquire the tile, are able to obtain the percentage boost for their city by constructing a Fortress of Redemption on an adjacent tile.

Tiles also have a height value ranging from 1 to 4. When mousing over a tile, the third number that is displayed is the tile's height. Any unit can travel from one tile to another that is 1 level below or above it, but when two tiles are next to each other with a height difference of 2 or more, then that creates an impassible cliff that can only be traversed by Flyer units. Height differences can also break line of sight.

Strategies

 * When deciding where to build a new city, it's a generally a good idea to pick a spot where multiple special features will be in city radius. Not just because of the special features' city wide bonus, but because the tiles adjacent to special features have fantastic resource yields for buildings.
 * Deciding when and when not to clear forests is an important strategic decision. Forests provide cover, break line of sight and potentially slow down an invading enemy's movement. Units inside forests are hidden from enemies until they start shooting or an enemy enters an adjacent tile. You will have to judge where and when the forests will be more useful to you than your enemy. In cities you might want to remove forests to get access to more building slots, but you will lose the +10% Ore bonus in the process.