A Guide to Combat Success

Battlestations: Midway calls for constantly engaged strategy with a great deal of foresight. Whether you're handling complicated fleet maneuvers to corner an enemy, raiding enemy installations on bombing runs, or hunting down a submarine, a challenging encounter is around every corner. The following tips should get you started on the way to victory in Battlestations: Midway.

Anti-air fire—inaccurate but essential.

Tutorials
No game on Xbox 360™ requires a player to prepare via tutorials more than Midway. You can feel free to hop into the game, but odds are you will start out weakly. Even reading the manual won't cut it, so do yourself a favor and learn everything the tutorials have to teach you.

Tactical Map
Viewing the action up close may be pretty, but it doesn't afford the same strategic focus as the tactical map. Pressing the back button will open up the map and let you see the entire surrounding environment, as well as the positions and movement of every unit.

More importantly, you can issue orders from this view, making it the ideal angle from which to view a large scale battle. Only switch to a more localized view after you've made your larger decisions.

Unit Strengths
Each unit offers a different set of strengths and weaknesses against opposing units. Learn this balance well to keep from wasting manpower on useless attacks. There's no use ordering fighter planes to focus on a sub unless they have torpedoes, but a nearby destroyer armed with depth charges will make short work of it. Sending a bomber to attack another bomber is an act of futility, but a fighter will take it out.

Dogfighting over the Pacific.

Angle of Attack
In naval combat, the advantage of a strong attack angle is as important as the strength of your guns. Ideally you should approach from behind or in front of your enemy, at a right angle to their bow or stern. This way you can utilize all your weaponry while limiting your exposure to fire from your enemy. Set your ship to Free Fire mode and focus on steering, creating the most advantageous angle of attack.

Patrol Areas
Smaller, faster vehicles are ideal for setting up patrols. You can select a nearby installation or unit for your units to patrol. This increases your odds of locating hard to spot units, such as submarines, as well as offering help to other nearby units.

Don't Fly Solo
Far too often players take a specific interest in individual units, giving them orders and setting them up for attack independent from other units. Freelancing isn't considered a virtue in the military for a reason, so unless you have a clear-cut reason for breaking from a formation, keep it tight. This way they can react as a group, protecting one another, and freeing you to keep an eagle eye on everything.

The work of a 1,000 pound bomb.

Last Stand
At some point you will come to realize that a unit is fatally wounded and will not survive. When that happens, turn that unit to the most important enemy target in sight and give it your all before it goes down in flames.

Key Unit Protection
Each group of units has a particularly tactically important unit, such as the aircraft carrier in a fleet or the bomber in a squadron. These units can deal excellent damage, but they have weak defenses and they need support to survive. In order to keep them at peak effectiveness, make sure to assign units whose only job is protection.

Hands Off
The more you play, the more easily you can take control of your units and successfully defeat opponents. This can tend to have you focus too much on battling a single unit or a single group, taking time away from the battle at large. Resist this temptation and let the A.I. take care of the basics for you.

Article by Ryan Treit