Getting Started

Starting at the beginning of a round

Train your stats

Training your stats 24/7 is important for ranking up quickly and ensuring top performance in battle. Generally, you should train intelligence when online and leadership/communication when offline. Communication takes the longest at about an hour so a full queue is about 8 hours, which is good for sleeping. Most players train strength very minimally, but it can be viable early round to take it to about 10 or so.

Capture Countries

Capturing Countries for your team is helpful and the best way to rank up! Find a country is not 100% controlled by either team and go sit there with troops and you will gain up to 2% control per hour.

Early round you should go to very tiny countries so you can cap with even just 1 assault. When its 100% controlled, the controlling team gains hourly income from that country. If you are rank #7 (Lieutenant Colonel) place a Ground Defense Facilities once it hits 100% so it won't degrade control when you leave.

       -Note: You need about ~1 assault per 100km2 of land, so when you have few troops go to the very small countries at the start. 
       
       Hover over the country to find the land value, or go into the World Tab -> and it should show you near the top the stats of that country you are in, such as land, Coastline, GD's, AD's, Economy resources (Oil/Factories/Mines), and more.

        The team you are on in general needs about ~1 assault per 100km2 of land. So early game, it is smart to group up with team mates for slightly larger countries that might need 2-3+ players worth of units to get it capping. On regular meta maps, you will see this happen early game around higher resource countries; such as Bahrain and other middle east island countries.

Rank Up

Training stats, capping and attacking all get you experience so you can rank up. Ranking up gets you more income per hour, along with other unlocks which you can see here. Rank up as fast as you can, the faster you rank up the higher your 'networth' is and the more damage you do in battle. Networth is king so prioritize maximizing income per hour.

Reimburse

The biggest early game milestone is to hit rank 10 (Major General) so you can reimburse. This refunds you for all troops lost and facilities placed (even those from before you hit rank 10). Your reimbursement can be used every 24 hours.

If you hit rank 10 before other players, this will give you a massive advantage when fighting them.

Build Types

Don't mix unit types, this is called a rainbow build and is generally considered a bad idea. For more information on why rainbow builds are not viable when attacking, visit the Attacking#Attack Engine Mechanics page. Pick a build and stick to it until your troops die or you sell in spawn (note: selling takes 24 hours to get all the money back), then pick a new one if you so wish.

A build calculator can be found here: https://finalearthtools.com/

Why you should do all of this

In order to keep your team vault full so everyone can reimburse their losses and keep fighting, the team needs to keep valuable countries capped at 100%. (You can see the most valuable countries by going to world, selecting countries tab and then sorting by income.)

You also need to ensure that the enemy team does not take full control of any regions controlling your team's spawns. If this happens they can enter and capture your spawn. If all your teams spawns are taken, you lose and the round is over.

-Note capturing spawns won't be a concern the first week or two of the round as taking down the ground defences will be too hard.*

Starting in the middle of a round

Starting in the middle of a round will mean you will always be at a disadvantage, however this doesn't mean you can't still have fun and make a difference for your team.

Suggested forum thread:New Players FAQ

Train your stats

Do intelligence/leadership when online and leadership/comms when offline. Comms is longest training at about an hour so a full queue is about 8 hours, which perfect for when you sleep

Capture Countries.

If a country is not 100% controlled by either team go sit there with troops and you will gain up to 2% control per hour. When its 100% controlled your team will gain hourly income from the country. If you are rank #7 you can place Ground Defenses once it hits 100% so it wont degrade when you leave.

Ranking Up

Ranking up gets you more income per hour. Rank up as fast as you can. You gain experience by training, capturing countries, attacking, and bombing.

The Big Goal

The big goal is to hit rank #10 (Major General) so you can reimburse. This refunds you for all troops lost and facilities placed (even those from before you hit rank 10). When you can 'reimb' you can start attacking other players and go into more dangerous fights.

Don't Mix Troop Types

This is called a rainbow build and is bad. Pick a build and stick to it until your troops die, then pick a new one. The types of units are Infantry, Jeeps, Tanks, Choppers and Planes. Check Axis Build Guides and Allies Build Guides for more info.

Why all this matters

In order to keep our team vault full so we can all reimburse our losses we need to keep valuable countries capped at 100%. you can see the most valuable countries by going to world, selecting the countries tab and then sorting by income. Use other filters to find countries with no other units. Go to higher income countries to cap, but stay away from the most valuable ones as those will attract strong players.

Consider Bombing

Another good way to help you team if you joined is late is to consider going the bomber route. Once you reach rank #6 you can buy spec ops. You can link up with other bombers on your team and go through capped enemy countries destroying ground defenses. This hurts the enemies income. Bombing can be a good choice for late starters who cannot reimburse yet since ideally you will try to avoid letting the enemy catch you.