100-89-88-75-63-50-45 Strategy:
First set all taxes to 100% by pressing "T" on the keyboard, enter the new tax rate and click OK.

Go into the ML (management lab) by pressing "V" on the keyboard.

Setting the 89% Tax rate.
Click on the REV tab.
Select all the cities with a population over 1100 and making $8 or more and set the tax to 89%.

Setting 88% Tax rate.
Select all cities less than $8 and change to 88%.

Setting 75% Tax rate.
Select all cities less than $7 and change to 75%.

Setting 63% Tax rate.
Select all cities less than $6 and change to 63%.

Setting 45% Tax rate.
Select all cities less than $5 and change to 45%.
Note: The reason is that some of the cities with 45% will give you $4 income and its the same as the 50% tax but with a better population growth for the next turn.

Setting 50% Tax rate.
Select all cities less than $4 and change to 50%.

There are a few other taxation strategies around, such as Auverne's Taxation Strategy, so check out some of the other MKers websites (check the MK Links page), and play around with the taxes a little to try to find what you think works best.

Key Expansion Techs: Panther, Hercules, and Shark if in a game with wrecks enabled.

Key War Techs: M-31/Elf, Commando, Stryker/Tiger, Grizzli, Patriot, Artillery, Scorpion, Captain, Furtif, Nuke.

Non-Key War Techs: Air Freedom, Scud, Metal Knight, Destroyer, Shooter, Predator, Apache, Eagle, Falcon.

As you can see, all the Expansion units are considered to be Key Units, while only some of the War units can be considered as Key units and the rest are Non-Key units. The general rule for success in Metal Knights is for a player to first expand to the point at which he is confident enough to go to war and only then to begin a war. Therefore, a player should buy his Expansion Universities first and his War Universities second.

Radar is probably the most effective intelligence gathering tool available to a player. Without it, you can only see which cities and mines that your opponents own and the "topmost" of any any units in the squares outside of any cities, resources, or bases. Also, Porcupines and Sharks are invisible to a player without radar. Radar isn't perfect though. You cannot see Commandos or Furtifs with it, nor can you see which enemy mines have a truck assigned and which enemy cities are fortified and/or have a factory (which is where Spying comes in). Also, you can only see 3 or 4 of the units in a city, resource or base. The "Radar" section of the "Status window" shows enemy cities, resources and bases as well as regular units. Sometimes the icon for the city, resource or base will appear along with the units. If you see 3 units icons and a city, resource or base icon then it only means that there are at least 3 units in that place instead of at least 4. It does not in any way imply that there are only 3 units there.
A nearby opponent that you have signed a peace treaty with can thwart your expansion with a few well placed and otherwise invisible units. Without the radar, you are quite likely to find yourself forced to waste movement points going around invisible obstacles or returning to a place where you can go in another direction. You shouldn't just attack the enemy unit to get it out of the way in most cases. You would have to pay to break a treaty, which is highly counterproductive to your expansion rate and exactly what your opponent is hoping for! With a radar, you can spot enemy Porcupines and Sharks and go right around them without being slowed down at all. Obviously this is what you want to do. Note that there is no countermeasure against this use of the radar.
Radar may give you a clue as to the location of enemy factories/universities. This usage sometimes also gives you warning that your opponent is planning an attack and where. Take a look at the enemies cities. If you can see a city that is close enough for your opponent to attack you from if they built a factory and it is filled with units (even basic expansion units), that is a pretty good clue that they have built a factory there and are planning to attack you. Some slow witted types even put porcupines in soon to be factories in an attempt to protect their investment. This is a dead giveaway. If you see a city full of Porcupines within 14 squares of your base, you know that they are going to attack your base next turn. You can then either protect your base adequately or go on the offensive and take their city before their factory matures (and then protect that). The same goes for universities. If an opponent is close to you along a broad front and you can see cities with flags or Porcupines in them, chances are your opponent is trying to protect his most valuable cities.
In the early stages of the game when players usually only have one base and everything else is relatively lightly defended, it is a relatively simple matter to determine how well an enemy base is protected. Simply take a look at the statistics screen to see how many units that opponent has, and then use your radar to count up all the units that are outside their base. How many units are unaccounted for by this are the maximum number of units that could be in the enemy base. Some units may be invisible and make this count higher than it should be, but it certainly won't lower the maximum number. The same goes for cities and the like that are heavily protected and have at least three or even four units in them. With this information, you can determine whether or not it is worthwhile to attack the enemy’s base or go for their empire instead (or even whether it is worthwhile attacking at all).
On most maps, you can be in range to attack several different opponents before going to war, depending on where you build factories. However, you don't want to waste money and you want assured kills. So you need information about who is protecting themselves properly and who isn't. So you take a look inside everyone's base to see what is there. If there are 0-2 units in there besides the base icon, that is all there is and they are ripe for killing. You build a factory near these suckers first (assuming they have an empire worth conquering). If everyone has 3 or more units in their bases, then you need to use the technique outlined above to determine the maximum number of units in each opponent’s base. As before, you can then pick the target/s who are the worst defended and most valuable to conquer to build your factories in range of.

Commando's have the ability to spy enemy cities, resources and bases. If you attempt to move them into any of these and it is defended by units or a Fort, then you won't attack and will instead spy the location. Spying is relatively ineffective against resources, because you can use radar to tell what is in there for up to four units anyhow and the resource screen only flashes up for a second (units are not displayed on the resource screen, so it is irrelevant).
With this spying ability, Commando's can be highly useful. They are the ultimate backup to the intelligence gathering powers of Radar. Once you have determined that now is a good time to attack with your Radar, you use Commandos anywhere that additional information would be helpful in taking out your opponent. In some cases, you'll only use the one Commando to spy out the cities on the way to the enemy base and the enemy base itself. In other cases, it will be necessary to plow through the defences of a fully prepared opponent. In these cases, you will probably need one commando per attack group to scout out enemy cities.
As far as countermeasures go, there is only one way to stop a Commando from spying your cities and bases. Find it and kill it or stop it from getting anywhere near it's target. The information the Commando garners is of a highly specific nature and cannot be confused. It is however, very local in nature. It actually has to be there doing it's thing to get the information and there must be war between you and your opponent for him to accomplish this, so you can freely blow away the Commando (even though they are invisible, if you use a long range unit to target every square that a Commando could possibly be, you'll get it eventually).
When spied upon the city information window comes up and you can get a lot of information. First and foremost, you can see what is actually in the city. At least the first seven units anyway. Beyond that, you can get a pretty good estimate, because the scroll bar for the units is stuck so you just can't use it... To determine how many units are actually there, just estimate how many times the scrolly bit would fit into the full length of the scroll bar and multiply that by 7. Finally, you can take a look at the pretty picture at the top of the screen to see if there is a factory, fort, university, bank and/or farm in the city.
When you spy an enemy base, you get some very useful information indeed. You can see exactly how much money they have in their budget and whether or not they have bought radar (look for the radar in the pretty picture). However, the best part is that you can swap between the various tabs in the window and see what technologies your opponent has learnt as well as being able to estimate how many units your opponent has in his base (both of these things are done by estimation with the scroll bar as with cities)! If your opponent has technologies that you don't, it may be a good idea to attack their cities until you can find it instead of trying to take their base (which could leave you open to another enemy).

Invisible units offer you three primary advantages in an attack against your enemies. The first thing you can do is deploy invisible units in surprising places. The only unit that is very effective in this role is the Furtif as it is truly invisible and actually kicks a fair amount of ass in combat. A Furtif placed where an enemy transportation unit can run into it can be very useful. It is also very hard to plan a proper attack when half the enemy units are invisible Furtifs. Simply put, they could be anywhere! On the one hand, they could be blocking your attack routes. On the other hand, they could be parked somewhere within attack range of your base, just waiting for the chance to roar in and blow your inadequate defenses away... With enough money to field this highly dangerous unit, you can pull of some really sneaky stuff.
The second thing you can do is put your invisible units in really surprising places. Just think about what happens to an opponent you makes a drive right at your base because it appears to be virtually undefended, only to find it filled with Furtifs and/or Commandos (if your feeling really poor). If you are lucky, he will have blown all his money on that effort and you can then turn on him and destroy his units with ease.
The third thing you can do with invisible units is to simply have some. If your opponent can't see all your units, he will have to assume that your bases are more heavily protected than they actually are. Because of this, you may survive another round as they wait to get more power.
The Shark is also invisible to an opponent until that opponent buys radar. With luck and skill, you can place sharks in positions that force an opponent to waste the movement of expansion units while doing nothing to your own expansion.
One expample of this is to go up a river collecting wrecks and then stop at a bridge near enemy territory. As you opponent can't see you, he may try to move a transport across the bridge only to find an invisible unit in the way and be forced to return (because his units don't have the power to destroy a Shark).
Another example of this is to place your sharks where you suspect an enemy cargo will attempt to go (when there are two ways the cargo could go). If your enemy heads towards your Shark/s he will waste movement trying to go around or be forced to go back the way he came.

While you're moving your transports through enemy territory, the patriots inside may have nothing to attack as they're often just there for protection. So, if you're within' range, aim those patriots at some farms and roads, ESPECIALLY roads that are traveled by transports and trucks to collect resources.

To identify which cities are fortified, and which are safe to invade, attack the cities with Long Range Units. One Artillery unit can identify ten unfortified cities and still make an attack. This will eliminate much wasted effort and movement.

There are two ways to attack an opponent's cities, resources or units. You can simply move your unit on the opponent's unit (your Unit will take the place of that Unit if it kills that Unit). Or you can use the ATTACK mode and your Unit will stay where it is after the attack, even if it kills the other Unit.

When taking someone's base, it is best not to do it when there's someone else nearby, who could kill you the next turn unless you can sufficiently defend the new base. Instead, try to take the base of someone who is only being attacked by you. Also try to take out the biggest threat in the game (if possible). Try to apply a sensible balance in your attack strategies.
Infantry units are the only units that can capture cities, resources, and enemy bases. You can win a game of Metal Knights without any other units at all (if your opponent is grotesquely incompetent), but you can't win a game without the Infantry.
Unless the kill is crucial, steal cities and resources of your enemy first, rather than going for the kill straight away, especially if it is down to just the 2 of you left. Depriving them of income can make a huge difference. Likewise, take cities from enemies the same turn before killing them (if you can use already bought units and the cost to you is nil) allows you to take advantage of the extra city tax you'll collect as you conquer them.

If you suspect your opponent of having Furtif's, use the Patriot that you no doubt have in your transportation unit to try and attack every square along the path of your Hercules or Cargo (you probably won't be using a Transport in a combat situation where expensive stuff like this is available). If an invisible unit like the Furtif is in a square, the Patriot will attack it and you can tell what it is. If it is not in a square, you do not lose anything.

When a Unit attacks another Unit and causes some damage to it, the unit acquires experience worth one point (represented by a star). If this unit completely destroys the opponent, it acquires 2 experience points. Those points raise the skill of the unit and increase its following performances by 5% (up to an increase of 40% with 8 stars).

When you capture an enemy university, the game checks to see if you have a higher or equal level of technology in the original field of the university (as compared to that enemy). If you do not, then you are awarded one level of technology in that field (ie. if you had up to commando, you would get the Striker but not the Tiger). If you do have a higher level, then it checks the other fields and applies the same comparison. For example, if both players have up to the Patriot in Ground Technology and up to the Hercules in Air Technology, then neither player would be able to steal more advanced technology from their opponent. But if one of the players had the Artillery technology as well, then no matter what kind of university the other player stole he would get the only technology he didn't have yet (ie. the Artillery). If your opponent has all the naval technologies and you have none, but the rest of your technology is the same, you will steal their naval technologies whenever you capture any kind of university from them.

The Surround Bonus is a critical factor when attacking opponents!
If the opponent's unit is surrounded, its efficiency is decreased. Its attack and defense power drop by 10% for each unit surrounding it. You can use any unit you like for surround; Porcs, hercs, flags and also cities and mines. Every unit counts as 1, so 20 flags would do the surround you need to get to 200%. Thus surrounding a City, Resource, Unit, or a Base will improve your attacking strength of your units. The Max Surrounding effect is 200%. So, 20 units (any units, cities, flags and mines) will give you the 200%.
When you sell a Transport unit before selling it’s contents the units that were in it end up in a "stack". This can be advantageous when attacking a fortified position or more importantly a base where you are forced to surround it with transports or hercs just to get that surround bonus. This is very effective when you cannot store the transport/cargo/herc in a nearby city where you can unload the used units. Moreover, the defendant will have to blast away each unit one at the time in order to get out of his stronghold. This can be done anywhere the transportation unit is sold, whether over mountains (herc), on an uncaptured city (infantry won’t take it if dropped on the city like this), and even the depths of sea (herc or cargo).

It is a good idea to keep a notebook by the computer to record the porcupines you've killed. For each unit's attack, write the number of porcs (or other units) subunits left. Once your attacks hit a porc with less than the full 8 subunits, you know exactly how many porcs remain, and their status as well. Now you can apply the minimum force necessary to take the base, saving yourself money. (There may be other units besides porcs in the base, such as flags, but they will usually be so weak as to not be highly significant). When you are taking 2 or 3 bases in one turn, efficient attacks become very crucial. Recording exactly what's left in the base makes this possible.

Once you kill the targeted enemy, you inherit their empire, which includes the good and the bad. You get to deal with all their cities, mines, units, cash remaining, factories, perimeter defense, and hostile neighbors. Be sure to defend the newly aquired addition to your empire (read the Defense section above) by porcing it up, then porcing some more!

Naval Units

Air Units

Metros

Here is a case in which where understanding the pace of a game is vital. It takes at least until turn 8 to get a metro - if the game won't last that long (and on most modern maps they shouldn't), there's no need for them! The only time I ever make metros is when I use 2 of them for the 4 air advances between herc and nuke. The reason I only ever use 2, is that herc and nuke are key tech levels; I want the herc ASAP (well before turn8) , but the adv. air units are useless until the nuke. You might as well wait for metros to save you $676. If you are making a metro set it's tax to 0% and keep it there until it'll break 5k in population. Cases: fast game: None!; Slow nuke game: 2; Non-nuke game: None!

Here is a special tactic related to Farms and going for a Metropolis. If you have enough spare cash, you can buy 2 farms straight away in a City that you want to become a Metropolis. Because of the time it takes for a City to reach the Metropolis level, you will probably be producing quite a bit of food. Shortly after you got the Metroplis, you can expect the game to end. This is very interesting because under normal circumstances you would have to buy a 3rd Farm to feed the population of a Metropolis ($30) before the end of the game. In effect you are investing are putting in that $20 a little bit earlier so you never have to pay the additional $30. If you are trying to get several Metropolis then you could save yourself hundreds!

How to Use Odd Cash

When you don't have enough cash left to send out another full Combination, what do you do with it all? At later stages of the game you would spend it on Farms for Metropoles or on Porcupines for your Base or a Factory. In the early stages though, where every last dollar counts in terms of Expansion, using this odd amount of cash correctly is vital. My favored technique is to first buy a new Transportation Unit. If cash is left over after that, one would buy first a Bulldozer (if possible) and/or then an Infantry Unit. What you do with an empty Transportation Unit is send it as far as you can in a direction you want to expand. Next turn, you can send out a loaded Transportation Unit and transfer the contents to your first Transportation Unit. You are now able to captures Cities and Resources a full Turn worth of movement further away than if you had done nothing with that Odd Cash! The same rule applies in a different way to Transportation Units that you couldn't put an Infantry Unit and/or Truck into. You would fill the new Transportation Unit with the right units to look after the first Transportation Unit and if possible to expand in several directions from that point, you would then fill any spare spaces with other Units.

Odd Bits of Movement

Of course, if you have 0 Movement then you can't move at all, but if you have 1 Movement then you can move into squares that normally cost 2 or 3 points to enter. If you plan your movement carefully, you can take advantage of this fact in two different ways. Firstly, you can use the last Movement Point of a Transportation Unit to move into a 2 or 3 Movement point square.
Sometimes you can't do this, because your most efficient line of travel in the next turn forbids it, but usually it is possible to take advantage of these "free" Movement points. Secondly, you can use the last Movement Point of a Bulldozer to move into a 2 or 3 Movement Point square. It runs out of Movement this Turn, but next turn you will be able to build a Road there and then move your Bulldozer back into the Transportation Unit which takes advantage of it. This can save you a movement point here and there. Finally, you can use this to get a final move out of combat Units or Infantry that are expanding unaided through a difficult area.

Low Mobility Units

Low mobility units have special movement restrictions. They have 2 movement points, but they cannot move anywhere except into or out of a Base, City, Resource or transportation unit. Also, moving out of these into any other kind of square uses up all their movement. Essentially, you can't move them very far without the aid of a transportation unit.

The Undo Option

If you make a mistake by moving on forest instead of grass, or sail into the coast by accident, or any other basic terrain move, then simple UNDO the move (This option is found in the menus on top of the screen). This is a lifesaver for many that play the game quickly or simply make the same silly mistakes over and over. There are several things that cannot be undone. You cannot undo attacks, invasions, mine or city captures, the collection of a wreck, and a bunch of other things. You cannot undo a move after you look inside a city, base, or mine. So make sure you are satisfied with the move before going on to do something, only to find that you want to change what you did.

Using the War Report

Non-Hostile Times: The War Report has a few helpful bits of info on it even when you are at peace. It tells you who entered the game since you left, who signed peace treaties and with whom, who broke peace treaties and with whom, who went to war and with whom, who captured who’s base, and finally who went to war with you which brings up to the next part.
Hostile Times: The war report tells you what the enemy is doing in regards to attacks and invasions. Attacks are reported as damage reports, telling you what type of unit was attacked and what happened to it. You are also told of any cities or mines that are invaded, if any universities are stolen, and if any commandos have been spying around.
Using the War Report to Hunt Down Commandos: The war report is very helpful in nagging those pesky commandos. Where it says you have been spied, it tells you what was spied. It’ll either have a city name or it’ll be your base. When it is a city, use the Search for City option found in the menus on the top of the screen and you’ll be where you want to be. Assuming the enemy didn’t sell or transport the commando away, it’ll be somewhere in this area. Use the following tactic to rid your land of these invaders.
Buy a Patriot from your base(that unit has 10 squares range to attack) and use the A(attack)button and then search all the squares around your base. If there is nothing on the square, you won’t see a window on your screen. But if there is a commando, a window will appear with the question: "Sir, are you sure you want to declare war on this player?" If you haven't made Peace or with the question: "You have signed a Peace ..." If you have Peace. So...in this way you can check if there is a commando in a 10 square range around your base. If you do the same by having the patriot in the Hercules, you will be able to check a 24 squares around your base (Hercules 14 + patriot 10 =24 squares).

Killing Long Range Units

If you see Artillery or Scuds, or any other high attack/low defence units, try to wipe them out. Use units with no range to prevent counterattack damage.

How to Deal with Crowders by Phred
This section discusses ways to deal with being crowded. Full credit for this particular section goes solely to Phred!

PHRED'S CROWDING PRIMER:
Crowding shares the spotlight with the double turn as one of the most contentious issues in MK today. There is no clear cut definition of crowding, with the most conservative definition being attacks on turn 0, and often ludicrous definitions involving placements 20 or even 30 hexes away with no early combat at all. The game itself prohibits a few actions as a method of controlling early combat. The 9 hexes between a base and the nearest unit placement rule, the no kills before turn 4 rule, and the no points before turn 4 rule all limit the offensive action possible early in the game. In the strictest gaming terms, everything else is legal, and therefore allowed unless the players in the game have stipulated other rules. Since the program only limits early combat in the 3 ways I've listed, everyone playing the game will run into close placement and early combat at least occasionally.
EARLY COMBAT IN SOLO GAMES:
The 4 prime motivations for close placement and early combat in solo games seem to be vendetta, ignorance, greed, and unbalanced maps. Vendetta isn't worth spending much time on, if someone is very pissed at you and decides they want to take you out of a few games at all cost, there isn't much anyone can do about it. Ignorance will get cured over time for the individual player as most new players quickly learn how difficult it is to start a war on turn 0 or turn 1 and still win. Since the lifeblood of the game is new players, cadets and recruits will always be around to start wars way too early for their own good. The greed motivation is here to stay as well since some players value HoF rankings over won/lost percentages. As long as there is a HoF, there will be players who enter games with the sole intention of killing someone worth lots of bonus points, winning the game be damned. As far as unbalanced maps go, if you join a game on a map where there is clearly one spot better than the rest of the map and a single player gets it without opposition, the game is lost. If you're not willing to fight for that spot early, you really have no business being on the map. Of course there are always games to be joined which feature early combat for all, and those games (there's almost always a 10 player game on a 48x48 map somewhere) the early combat is simply representative of the game type the creator wanted, not a limited battle affecting only a subset of the game's players.
In most cases, crowding is simply a stupid tactic because there are much better long range strategies available, or the crowder doesn't have the skill to pull off the low tech attack and still be a force in the game. Crowdees typically over react to the tactic and wind up losing because they concentrated too much on fighting and not enough on expanding. Being in a war from turn 0 is not an easy way to win. Unless the first blow is truly staggering, it can result in 4 turns of warfare expenditures waiting for the flip to turn 4 so someone can be killed. Spending money fighting while other people are spending money expanding and researching can easily put you in the hole if you're not careful, or if the real estate being fought over isn't rich enough to make it worth it. This is where, I think, most player's problem with crowding really lies. Being denied the opportunity to win the game by a strategy that is clearly destined to lose the game as well, is frustrating as hell. But, since crowding is not going away, player's would be better off honing their strategies against it and enjoying the different challenge it presents than railing against it and wasting all that adrenaline on something that's supposed to be fun.
EARLY COMBAT IN ALLIED GAMES:
There are more opportunities for crowding to be a quality tactic in Allied games. The obvious situation like tech sharing jumps to mind. Breaking up a tech swap for the shark on turn 0 simply wins games. Denying an enemy a resource rich starting spot can also make the difference. In an Allied game the crowder doesn't necessarily have to fend for themselves in the later part of the game, they have their allies to carry some of the load. This makes it much easier to get into an early battle and spend some of that precious early money on war instead of expansion. Early combat is very effective in allied play, plan for it, get used to it, use it to your advantage. Starting an early war with an opponent, while your allied partner expands right behind you unchecked can be a deadly strategy.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT:
Anyone who joins a game with players they don't know, places just their base and comes back hours later expecting everyone to have set up equidistant from each other and all signed peace is living in a fantasy world. Sure, sometimes it works out that way, especially on maps like BigMatchpak. Usually though, someone will take advantage of the lack of expansion aber of times you're crowded, but it won't keep it from happening. Once crowded, if you want to come out of it in decent shape you have to split your attention between 3 strategic goals: expansion, defense, and offense. This is a most excellent time to plan for and use a double if at all possible.
Finding a way to continue to expand is of paramount importance. If you do not continue to grow your empire while engaged in early combat you might as well surrender. Divert some of that peace money you wanted to spend on technical development to transport vehicles and soldiers. Avoid your opponents cities which are closest to you, and go after ones closer to his/her base, at this point they probably aren't defended and you get the added advantage of collecting your opponents taxes when you get the city. That's money immediately available for you to use instead of your opponent, plus you might stumble across one of your opponents universities. A Panther uni deep behind enemy lines can win the game at this point.
Defend key locations properly. A fortified city, while expensive, has a 1% chance of completely destroying a soldier. If you don't get lucky and completely kill it, you've got a good chance of wounding it sufficiently to take it out with another soldier and decent surround, or a panther with no surround. Flags at this point can also stop an early assault in it's tracks because your opponent probably doesn't have that many units to work with. Of course, a porc dropped right in front of where a loaded transport is obviously headed can be well worth the $36 spent on the porc and a sold transport, since radar probably isn't in your opponents arsenal yet.
Offensive tactics need to be well planned and pointed. Fast movement transport vehicles should be your primary target. If you can find one loaded up it is well worth spending the money on Alphas or Panthers to blow it and it's contents up. At this point in the expansion phase of the game, you need to kill it if you attack it. A soldier with 1 unit left can still conquer a city. Don't spread yourself too thin, you're better off flagging a transport off than killing it down to 2 units and leaving it and it's 3 soldier cargo free to roam inside your defense perimeter.
Most importantly, have fun with it. Sure you might not win the game as often, but if you beat off a very early assault and do win the game, the feeling of accomplishment is extraordinary. If you don't manage to win the game, at least win the 1 on 1 part of it the other guy started, then you won the "game within the game" that was created.

"The best advice I can give to the average unregistered player is to get registered! Besides that, the best thing that can be said of unregistered tactics is that they are merely a subset of registered tactics. Unfortunately for the unregistered player, this subset contains the worst tactics available to the registered player and not the best. The main difference between registered and unregistered tactics is that an unregistered player should never buy any universities until it is absolutely necessary they do so. These necessities are:

- To buy Sharks in one turn so that you can get out there and capture wrecks. Don't buy the destroyer uni one turn and the shark uni the next. You are better served using the money to get more cities and mines and to send out trucks to pick up your accumulated resources. At some point, you will then be sufficiently rich to be able to buy the Destroyer and Shark universities at once. Another reason for this is you want to be able to get as many wrecks in a turn as you can when you start getting them. The reason for this is that, in the first turn, two of your wrecks will almost certainly turn out to be blueprints. However, in following turns you lose all your advances and so four of the wrecks you pick up will be blueprints and essentially worth nothing to you (unless you are ready to attack someone's base with Captains! A good player will not put his base where they can be attacked by Captains though). As each wreck is worth a little under $50 (thanks to the $0 blueprints), you are effectively squandering about $200 each extra turn that it takes you to pick up all the wrecks you can. Obviously, this is to be avoided at all costs.

- To buy Panthers with which to expand rapidly, but only in city dense areas. In other areas, soldiers will do the same job for less money if used correctly.

- To buy Hercules with which to expand. In general, you should wait to buy the Hercules until you have the Metropolis. In fact, for unregistered players it is a wise investment to leave approximately 1/4 of their cities on a tax rate of 0% so as to have as many Metropolises as you can. You can then pay $264 for the Predator/Hercules double university. You should buy any Hercules that you want to use the moment the turn starts in which this double university develops. For one thing, you can only buy the Predator from such cities and so must buy the Hercules from your base or a factory (which you can do on that turn only). Namely, buying all the advances up to Patriot and then buying the advances for Predator and Hercules which costs $904 if you build the 1st, 2nd and 4th of your ground universities in Metropolises (which is not easy to do...) If you use no Metropolises at all, it will cost you $1244. This may be even more expensive in the long run than taking the time to develop 3 Metropolises for every time you want to buy a bunch of advanced units later in the game. Buy the herc only if it will actually improve your expansion rates to do so or if you are on such a rich map that you can easily afford it and indeed must to keep up with the registered players (who will have the Hercules on Turn 2 at the latest if the map is that rich).

- To attack an enemy. Of course, you have to buy the technologies the turn before you use them and be absolutely certain that you buy the minimum level of technology required to get the job done. A lot of registered players will just keep buying technologies until they reach Scorpions and Hercules. An unregistered player should not buy these advances unless it will fulfil one of the points outlined above or they will be ready to make an attack in the next turn and absolutely require these units.

In general, the Grizzly unit is very much sufficient for the unregistered player to take out any target, so the Scorpion should almost never be purchased. In some very rare cases, however, an unregistered player may be in such a position in which he can only just reach a mildly defended base with a Commando riding in a Hercules. In such a case, it may be advisable to buy Scorpions to destroy any Porcupines defending the base. Scorpions have the same movement as a Commando and so can actually reach the base (unlike the Grizzly which would not be able to get close enough to even attack the base) and provide a surround bonus for themselves (unlike Artillery which is almost as strong as the Scorpion, but is a long range unit). This is an extreme situation which I just outlined, and even a registered player that got a kill out of it in that turn would have to consider themselves very lucky indeed...
If you follow these guidelines in purchasing your universities, you probably will not waste much more cash than utterly necessary and may just pull of a win against a half-decent registered player. On a moderate to small map anyhow... On a very large map, you will find yourself being forced to freight your units in from long distances to fight in an ongoing battle and will probably be pushed back by the superior mobility of a registered players forces (because they can have their new units appear instantly at the front and you will lose the ability to produce units as the cities containing the relevant universities are lost unless you purchase more. Which will put you behind again of course...).

Also due to that need for technology, an unregistered player must be constantly on the search for the oppositions own universities. They will probably be higher technology than the unregistered players own and they will also be within the opponents own empire, making them almost as good as a factory (sure you can only build one tech, but if you find say the Panther and the Grizzli Universities close to one another, you can really go burn a hole instead your enemies empire). Which brings me to the topic of maps for unregistered players. The correct choice of maps is very useful in helping you find enemy Universities. The kind of maps we are talking about here are the "pod" maps. The best examples of these maps are Airwar, Airwar 2, Antartica and RiverRace. Other maps follow the pod style to a certain extent, but on these maps, the placement of universities is at its most predictable. Then there are the maps on which you probably should not play at all. These are the big maps. The ones were you don't have a hope in hell of finding enemy universities amongst the hundreds of cities they own (and if they know what they are doing, they are on the other side of their empire from you anyhow....). You also wind up wasting thousands of dollars from buying your technologies over and over again (when you get in attack range of an opponents base usually).

The final difference between unregistered play and registered is that you must protect your empire even more vigilantly than that of the registered player. If a registered player loses a university, he has only allowed the opposition to gain a place from which to buy some units. But the importance of that same university to an unregistered player is vastly more. The unregistered player loses his ability to produce the unit from that university (at least in that area if he has more than one such university) until such time as he is capable of recapturing that university or is able to build a new one of the same type. If the university that is lost is of a high level, then this may very well be impossible and cost the unregistered player the game! To protect against this, the unregistered player must make every effort to ensure that he does not lose these very valuable cities. If this means that he must fortify and put at least one Porcupine in every one of these cities, then that is what he must do!

NOTE: Strangely enough, some people actually find this added difficulty attractive and so you may well find quite experienced players playing under unregistered aliases. I won't pretend to sympathize with that desire. In any case, be warned that there is a subculture of experienced unregistered players who will take you down a peg or two if you get lazy."

"This is a list of all the unwritten rules that exist in MK.
These rules tend to make the game a much more enjoyable experience for everyone. There are a lot of players who follow most if not all of these unwritten rules, especially the old breed of MK. My motto in this sense, has always been, "don't do to others, what you wouldn't want them to do to you". In short, just like you wouldn't want to be crowded, don't crowd someone yourself either!