Halo Wars 2 – How the Golden Triangle Works

If you want to be successful in Halo Wars 2, you’re going to need to understand the “Golden Triangle” that makes up the combat system in real-time strategy games. The Golden Triangle is a rock, paper, scissors concept that determines which units are the most lethal to others. We’ll discuss the Halo Wars 2 Golden Triangle in depth below, as well as offer some advice to help you make sure you’re using it to your advantage.

What is the Golden Triangle?

Those who haven’t spent a lot of time in RTS games might not fully understand the idea of the “Golden Triangle”. Basically, this concept acts as a rock, paper, scissors system within the game. One unit type does well against another, then that second unit type is strong against a third, and so on down the line. In real-time strategy games this three-pronged system boils down to the three main types of units, air, infantry, and vehicle.

In Halo Wars 2 this means that infantry units, like the Marine or Hellbringer, do well against air units like the Banshee or Hornet.  On the other end of the spectrum, air vehicles like the Banshee or Hornet will do better against ground vehicles like the Skorpion or Warthog. Ground vehicles will then do better against infantry. It’s not a confusing system, though it can be a bit hard to follow in the RTS environment where everything moves quickly when battle happens. Obviously, with armored vehicles the damage ratio changes, but the combat system follows this basic triangle of efficiency throughout the game.

How to Use the Golden Triangle

Using the Golden Triangle to your advantage relies heavily upon creating strong armies of like-minded units. These armies, which act as groups of units, can then be toggled and easy directed with a few clicks on your controller. This type of movement is important because it allows you to easily maintain large armies with a much greater ease than if you simply highlighted every enemy.

While you could simply create groups that are broken down into each unit type, this isn’t a very good way to combat the Golden Triangle. Instead, you should group units from each unit type together, allowing each of your armies a chance at fighting against the enemy. This means that each of your groups will be able to take on air, ground, or infantry units without having to worry about being overrun. You’ll need to refresh troops at some point, obviously, but it’s a much better situation than simply having to make your armies of Marines run halfway across the map because you saw a couple of Banshees heading your way.

That being said, you shouldn’t focus your entire war effort around the Golden Triangle. While it is important to remember the triangle, it isn’t always going to mean the different between life or death in a fight. Sometimes your army will be able to take down a group that it is weak against, other times it won’t. The beauty of RTS games is in learning how to tell the different between a fight that you can win and a fight that you’ve already lost.

For more helpful guides like this head over to our free Halo Wars 2 guide. We also have features that will help you understand how to play Blitz, as well as a guide to help you create the best Blitz decks for your playstyle.