Strategy thread, Discuss here

I did not write this, credit to Krishach from the nid mod forums. His analyzing was expert.

The Fortress: You know this guy. He has 38247598 turrets, camps his troops in one concentrated area, usually a chokepoint. He will not expand unless some protection for the expansions is made, be it troops or turrets. Defeating a player comes second to his safety, tech upgrades after a good frontline.
This person will rarely divide his troops, and use them all to respond or attack, and will not attack unless a full force is available to do it with. Resources will be spent on upgrading and expanding squads before building a new squad. An attack on the base will always bring the attention of the full army, even if the army is otherwise engaged. If your playing this person, your best defense is a good offense. Attack, attack, counter attack. This is a very effective strategy against the AI, and impossible to win with against a skilled player.

The Farmer:Will send troops to the far reaches of the universe to grab strategic points as soon as possible. Power plants are quickly built in sets. This person will spend vast amounts of resources to guarantee their resources later in the game.
The only way to spot this person is to scout constantly or to be a farmer yourself. This person will always be weak at the game start, and should be hit quickly. If you wait (-.-) then you should trim his listening posts as much as you can, with minor forces. If you allow this ball to get rolling, he will be much harder to stop.

The Cancer: IT NEVER GOES AWAY!! This is the guy who builds another base, and another, and another, and another... expending tremendous resources to be sure hes got a second base somewhere. Again, good scouting goes a long way.
This is a classic divide-and-conquer scenario. There will always be a primary base, better defended, and will typically have the army, unless base 2 is between you and the prime (a launch point for assault). This person is also typically a Fortress. Split your army and hit the under defended base first. This will usually get a response from the opponents army, so do not fully commit, until you know where that army will be.

The Sacrifice: A remnant of older, inferior RTS's, this player will often be a Farmer as well. This person is noted by the attacks, the squads come in waves, showing little to no coordination since they are not micromanaged. The strategy is simple; make a squad, reinforce it, and send it off to die. Waves battering a player until he collapses.
This strategy is still effective, especially against the Fortress. Resources are often undefended, the bases main defense is the newly created squads. This player is monogamous with certain unit types, and if you see one type of unit, you will see a LOT more of the same. This can be countered by making opposing weapons/troop types, and MUST be scouted to be sure the troop-type doesn't change.

The General: These are micro-manage types. The General will focus on placement strategy, lining up troops to hit in the proper order. Usually fighting to the death, this can still be devastating unless you see it coming. It's easy to disrupt this player if you hit first. A General will line up troops right outside your base/army, then assault in close waves, so hit his first troops while they are lining up with long range. Draw apart and the line quickly disentigrates. As this happens, the General tends to become...

The Manager: Focused on keeping squads alive, reinforcing, you'll see ANY broken squad pull back quickly, and is the most noted for a lack of attrition fighting. You may notice this in early game skirmishes. LOVE THY FLAMETHROWERS. Breaking squads quickly will see the army in constant disarray.

The Tree Climber: I'm sure we have all done this one before... especially when the game is fresh out of the box and you want to see the cool stuff. But there still remain the ones who will hit tier 3 before you do NO MATTER WHAT! There is no activity whatsoever from this player, except resource gathering and UPGRADES. This one is easy to spot, even if you don't scout bases. All the listening posts will be upgraded, no armies in sight. Don't mistake this for a Fortress player, they start dug in, but its temporary, and very lightweight. He spends resources on tech before defense.
Simply hit his base on tier one for a quick victory. This player thrives on being ignored long enough to bring in the big guns. So if a player isn't doing anything anyway... why are you letting him live?
*CREDIT TO MINISTRY for a big one I forgot*

*(bows to Ministry)*
The Rusher: DO NOT engage the Rushers force away from your or his base in the first rush! I would like to add another effective counter-measure to the blitz squad. The Rusher will almost always use 1 squad type, which you should know by early game scouting, or even guessing if you know the armies well. He will most certainly be scouting you. If he finds you before you find him this is a good sign of this type of player. In the case of this player, your response should really be your heroic character. Tier 1 hero is a great stalling tank. Set him in front of base defense, or a ranged attack squad, and let them plink away. He also will scatter troops that ignore him in favor of buildings. Ignore the enemy hero until last, he doesn't do as much damage as a full squad and is harder to kill.
A 2nd, more devious, way is to hit him first. Let your hero guard your base and camp your 1 squad outside his base. Wait till hes a little less than 1/2 way to your base, then hit him. Doesn't have to be a stronger force than his, the idea is to buy a little time. He'll be forced to turn around, or pray to beat you in a time race. And if he doesn't turn around, you are hammering on his base way before he gets to yours. 2-Squads-and-a-Hero (v) a-Hero do not kill bases as fast as 1-Squad-With-Head-Start (v) Enemies-Best-Wishes. This is risky but SO much fun. By the time he figures it out, your 2nd squad is built. He will think twice before trying that stunt again if you time it well.

Good players will touch on these strategies all during the course of the game. Balance between them is key to victory. But players will always lean some way. Exploit these weaknesses. They will get you much further than planning against army types.