Sure! I learned quite a bit from this thread myself. Earthsplitters wreck face on offense maps, they are a little micro/macro at times, but it saves you the casualty count if you got good APM.
The mandate generation doesn’t seem to have a limit, but it may have diminishing returns for royal guard units after getting around 15+ because the number generation seems like it goes up very little passed that point. Similar to Stettman, it is far more beneficial to tech up as fast as you can and get the upgrade for the Imperial Witness to generate more mandate. And you want to build at least 6 Imperial Witness in any given mission, 8 at most. Also similar to Stettman, you want to park an Imperial Witness over each mineral line owned by you and you are partner because they boost the overall speed of the units within the radius. If we use the Void Thrashing map as an example, you could have 100 points ready for the Dogs of War ability before the Thrashers appear on the left side of the map if you rush the witnesses as fast as possible.
Oddly I rarely ever found a use for that chemical warfare ability that costs 25 mandate, I was always saving up to 100 mandate to drop either the zerg or the nukes and one or the other would be off cooldown by the time I reach 100 again. Usually when I do drop one of those, it’s because the game is pretty long and I will reach a point where both will be on cooldown while at 100. The ability itself has a learning curve of timing the drop, and in all honesty it doesn’t really help that much and I pretend that it doesn’t exist most of the time; if they were to buff anything on Mengsk, it should be that calldown.
As for the selection of units, the safest and easiest way to push objectives with or without Earthsplitters is massing Aegis Guards with some AA missile trooper support. Aegis Guards are incredibly tanky and the forward AoE-cone shotgun blasts from their grenade explosions shred the hell out of any ground units no matter the size. They also happen to be the fastest and cheapest-produced royal guard in the arsenal. I train at least 8 of these guys before I build any other unit due to their performance and for that quick mandate generation.
When it comes to defensive maps like Dead of Night or defending in general, Mengsk places #2 in this category. Like Karax, defending the entire base as Mengsk at his full potential in Dead of Night is a little tricky due to how your ally builds their base. If your ally plays like its a ladder match (blocking off entrances with main buildings) or just sloppily builds all over the place, there won’t be any room to put a healthy amount of Earthsplitters to be effective. If anyone is one of those players and is reading this, please build as neatly as possible on Dead of Night, it makes things a lot easier.
Another tip I can give (some always argue this) is when you are defending a position, do not rely on siege tanks for AoE clearing. They are not much more effective than a regular tank in terms of performance and they cost a ton of gas and take a while to build. You are better off putting in upgraded troopers in bunkers and building Earthsplitters to compensate, especially on Dead of Night.
I mainly hotkey the Command Center(s) and Earthsplitters. Everything else is pretty basic. As for builds, this is what I did:
Pre-level 15:
Build a few workers, send a worker to the front door of your base and build 3 supply bunkers in formation while still building workers. Get your refineries and barracks up during that process. Right before the first attack wave arrives at the front door, break off 12 workers and arm them as troopers and garrison the front-most bunkers while still building workers. When the enemy dies, get the troops out of the bunkers and send them to clear your rocks.
When the rocks are clear build a supply depot, switch the troopers to workers, and then build the Command Center and Refineries. Should the enemy attack again while you are doing this, break off another 12 workers, arm them, and send them to same bunkers again; then return them when the enemy is dead. By the time that expo is done building, you should be at max workers for your main mineral line and gas and filling in the expansion base.
While expo is being filled, get the Engineering Bay started and break off 4-10 workers from the mineral line to rush-build the Factory, Starport, Fusion Core, and Armory in that order. The worker amount depends on your available funds, you can have up to 10 workers on 1 building. If you don’t have access to the Fusion Core yet don’t fret.
By this time your ally should be ready and pushing the objective when the 3rd attack wave arrives. While they are busy, you need to rush out 4 Imperial Witnesses and park them at each base to generate your mandate then at least 1 more to follow your army; and also build 2 more Command Centers to start mass-producing Troopers and another barracks to produce your Aegis Guards in pairs.
From here you can either start building cannons to push your objectives if you have them unlocked, or you can wait for at least 4 Aegis Guards to be trained and accompanied by around 40 Troopers and then push. At least 8 Troopers should carry flamethrowers at all times til you have at least 8 Aegis Guards to start face-tanking the enemy. As long as you keep the Troopers behind the Aegis Guards, you casualties should be at a minimum.
At any time you push or your ally pushes when you are not ready, try to drop the 100 point Dogs of War calldown to assist. if your ally is competent, this will be more than enough to push any first objective.
Level 15 with 90 Mastery:
My mastery settings:
Set 1
Laborer and Trooper Imperial Support Gain - 30
Set 2
Royal Guard cost reduction - 30
Set 3
Initial Starting Imperial Mandate - 30
The build is roughly the same, the difference is the start of the game. As soon as the game starts, drop 2 supply bunkers at the front door, evac the troopers and send them to clear your rocks and your ally’s while setting up the barracks and engineering bay.
By the time they finish clearing rocks, the first attack wave should be on its way and you will get back in time to re-garrison those bunkers and deal with the enemy.
When the enemy is dead, evac the bunkers and switch the troopers to workers and build your expansion base. After that follow the previous steps and you are good to go.
Hope this helps!