Nothing can be more annoying than losing a harvester early on. Most players live by the motto "the best defense is a good offense," but this can leave your harvesters wide open for attack. Its better to follow the mantra "the best defense is the one that exists".
There will come a time when you won't be able to use mainstream combat units to defend your harvesters - following these techniques will buy you valuable time to delay your opponent from killing your harvesters. Although this may not save your harvester, its better than leaving it as a sitting duck.
First and foremost, remember to scout the enemy to see what his forces are up too. If you see a lot of Attack Bikes, Pitbulls or Ravagers then expect that "Harvester under attack" warning. Always make sure you have some units stationed in your base, in case of a sneaky attack. The following three micro techniques will help you keep your harvesters safe.
Circling Cover
When the enemy attacks a single harvester, run it to nearest War Factory or Refinery. The key here is to circle around the building as many times necessary to block the attack units from reaching your harvester. This technique is very effective against single target hunters like Attack Bikes and can really give you that extra few seconds for you to bring back (or build) the cavalry.
Shielding
Before you say this is for Reaper-17 only, its not. Shielding involves using cheap structures, like a Barracks or Powerplants, to be quickly constructed between the enemy forces and your harvester. To do this make sure you have a structure queued in your construction tab and as soon as those harassers attack your harvester build the structure right in front of them and run away. Rinse, wash, repeat. By keeping a steady supply of shields to detour the enemy attack you can effective delay them for your forces to take them out. Additionally you can place 2 buildings at once to create a larger obstacle if you have a second build queue. If possible, its best to use buildings that are needed for teching up, and crawl in the direction of another tiberium field. That tactic takes care of two birds with one stone.
Tag Team
This is a very risky and very hard to use technique. When your harvester takes damage run towards your nearest War Factory. Now here comes the tricky bit: quickly select your War Factory and command your drones to focus on repairing it, meanwhile use another harvester to block the enemy units so the damaged harvester can get repaired. The key here is to get your opponent to swap targets from the damaged harvester to the 'shield' harvester. This will allow your damaged harvester to be repaired to full health so it can quickly swap places with the shield harvester and thus the cycle repeats itself. Also remember to use the Circling Cover method to compliment this maneuver.
Summary
- Having no defense for your harvesters isn't a good idea if you want to keep your economy afloat
- If your harvesters are being attacked, don't sit around waiting for units to get there. Perform these maneuvers to grant you more time
- Practice will reap dividends and mastering these techniques will make you a much more skillful player
