Author Topic: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure  (Read 2395 times)

Offline Coppermantis

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Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« on: August 04, 2011, 03:50:46 am »

This is the story of my adventures on a 10-planet map, which I heard from the Wiki was very hard to play. Deciding to test that theory, I set the AI types to Zenith Descendant and Attritioner, both difficulty 7. Most minor factions don’t work on 10 planet maps, but the ones I have enabled are Mauraders, Resistance Fighters and Golems-Hard. My starting ship is the Bombardment Frigate. This is a little wordy, so if you don't want to read it all a summary is included at the bottom of each chapter.

Image of the map

Preface
The Base at planet Lusitania was arguably doomed from the start. Those who staffed it had been assigned to the most difficult sector of the galaxy. A mere 10 planets within the range of any ship, and no chance of escape after the blockade runners had ferried them there. Surrounded on all sides by High-level planets, gaining territory would be extremely difficult, and maintaining the garrison itself had been a nightmare.

But then, the officer in charge of Lusitania was killed by an AI bombing raid, and needed to be replaced. As such, the Human High Command sent a new commander to the garrison, who’s skill turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to the tiny sector.



Chapter 1: Hold the Fort

In the battle in which the previous general was killed, the Human fighting forces had been decimated, and needed to be rebuilt. Our space docks began churning out Mk. I vehicles as the scouts began to locate key targets, and our scientists use what knowledge we had to develop new ship designs.  Turrets were mounted, mines laid and shields booted up. Everyone knew that the AI would not wait to let us get a head start, even now our scouts detected forces massing at our borders.
The low amount of worlds did give us one advantage though: Almost every planet had something of value. It would be impossible to take a planet needlessly. The scouts found that all but two worlds had Research Stations, and Fabricators, Factories and Golems were abundant. Both planets adjacent to Lusitania had advanced factories, but one also had two golems and an ARS, as well as next to no heavy defense. After we fought the initial AI wave, our ships quickly took Talnon.

After erecting our command station and building the basic defenses and material harvesters, we built a full cap of basic ships as well as a few mk.II and III ships. The advanced factory gave us Mk. IV ships, and we also built a cap of Sentinel Frigates and Parasite Mk. Vs from the fabricators. The ARS gave us acid sprayers, and a fleet of those was built too.  We began to repair the golems, but the next AI wave arrived before they could be completed. The AI was still underestimating us, so their waves were easy, for the moment. After both Golems were completed (A Botnet and Hive), we looked for other prime targets. There were two available wormholes, one, Iridia, containing A Hive and Black Widow golem, as well as an ARS, and the other, Earth, which was of little use, and bordered a world with two armored golems and another ARS. We hastily valued Iridia as a higher target, and once the hive golem had amassed its 500 wasps we sent an EMP in and immediately after launched all our ships, including the Golems. It was a mistake. Iridia bordered the AI homeworld, and was stocked entirely with Mk. V ships. The botnet golem could not attack them and they ate up the 500 wasps, not to mention they were unaffected by the EMP. We immediately fell back and rebuilt our forces, defending against the backlash.

Needing more ships, we attacked Earth to gain knowledge, as well as energy and materials, which were abundant. Oddly enough, command withdrew the units before the command station was even damaged. We would go for it later, because our scanners had detected an incoming exogalactic wave: Golems would soon be entering our territory. We needed to build defenses fast.

Worryingly, Iridia had massed almost 1000 ships. Desperate to reduce the numbers, fearing that should we have to move ships elsewhere, the AI would attack, command resorted to the tactic of “Fling lighting warheads at them until something good happens.” It was surprisingly successful, taking out half the ships guarding the wormhole. A few missiles were destroyed by warhead interceptors*, but most of them got through. A quarter of the remaining ships began to retaliate, but were slowed by gravity turrets, bombarded by fleet ships and swarmed by wasps until the number of Mk. V ships was down to 400. Now it was time to brace for the arrival of the Golems.

SUMMARY: We build initial defenses, beat a few waves, and then take planet Talnon for it’s Advanced Factory, ARS and Fabricators. After an attack on Iridia with 500 wasps and 600 standard ships is beaten by the Mk. V ships (Which, I was too late to discover, are immune to EMPs and Reclamation making my Botnet Golem useless), we are forced to launch missiles at them repeatedly, hoping to get their numbers down. We destroy several starships in the progress, but are forced to stop as an Exogalactic Strike Force warning puts us on defensive mode.

NEXT GOAL: Capture one of two Mk. IV planets, as well as Earth. Survive the Exogalactic Wave.





*This increased my AI Progress, yet the warhead interceptor's tooltip said that it did not increase the AIP?
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline Coppermantis

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2011, 02:48:00 am »
Hmm, people don't seem to be reading this. Oh well, I wrote another segment this one is much shorter. A third is under way with some interesting choices on my part (Not necessarily good ones)



Part 2: Land Grab

The exogalactic strike force proved to be underwhelming. No golems at all, contrary to initial expectations, just a few ships that were immediately eaten up by the Botnet Golem. Low AI progress is Low. (70). After that thing that could hardly be considered a real attack, we finally took Earth and cleaned up the guard posts and the remaining Mk. II Fortress. Scouting revealed that Murdoch had a mere 400 ships garrisoned, so the Hive golem was deployed and even the Mk. V ships could not stand to the wasps. A few hundred regular ships cleaned up the rest. Another Colony ship was brought in and in a few minutes a bunch of goodies were ours:

-Two broken Armored Golems
-Two Anti-Starship Arachnid Fabricators
-A Translocator Fabricator
-A Warbird Fabricator
-A Bomber starship Mk. IV fabricator.
-An Orbital Mass Driver
-A Mk. III Ion Cannon.
-An ARS, which gave us Sentinel Frigates
-And most importantly, a door directly to the AI Home command at Apex.


A few more waves were beaten back by the golems, although one broken armored mysteriously disappeared, presumably destroyed. Several shields are placed around the fabricators to protect them from enemy fire. The Armored Golem is repaired and ready for action as another Exogalactic Strike Force warning pops up. As this chapter closes, the force is at 70%.

SUMMARY: The Exogalactic Force was rather small due to low AIP. After it is beaten in literally 3 seconds thanks to golems, we capture Earth and, shortly after, Murdoch. The latter contains a bunch of useful new ship types from Fabricators and an ARS.

NEXT GOAL: Fortify current planets, and hopefully Capture Iridia.




Funny thing, I actually lost during this segment because I neglected to pause while going AFK for an hour or so. When I returned I was greeted by a nice, big red "YOU LOSE" I reloaded a save, because I imagine this is a suitable situation in which to do so.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2011, 02:50:45 am by Coppermantis »
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline Coppermantis

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2011, 01:56:58 pm »
What just happened was so epic, I'm going to skip the narration for a few hours worth of play. Essentially, what happened was I finally captured Iridia with a full Hive Golem to take out the ships, and captured a second Hive and a Black Widow in the process. The Hives proved invaluable in taking out large AI Waves, and I devised a plan. Using warheads to take out heavy ships like Zenith and Spire starships cleared the way for my two full Hive Golems. The 100 wasps made short work of all 700 AI Mk. V ships, and every single Core guard post, along with the Core shield generator,. The Botnet Golem almost singlehandedly defended against the wave sent against us during that time, as a mere 200 ships waltzed in and blew up the AI Home Command. The Avenger demolished the whole strike force, but the buildup of wasps in Iridia's Hive Golem prevented it from doing any damage to the home command. Iridia was destroyed, but we had gained a much more significant victory. Thank god for Hive Golems. They may not be the prettiest, but they are certainly a gift from God.

Well, that was fun. Now for the next Home Command at Anillon!
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline Nalgas

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2011, 04:49:20 am »
Hmm, people don't seem to be reading this.

I haven't really been around much for the past couple weeks, so I just saw it now.  It's kind of making me want to play with a similar setup, because I don't think I've done under 40 before since before 4.0 or with any of the expansions.

Speaking of which, I've always kind of felt like the perception of it being so much harder came from the base game, where it presumably still is more true, maybe.  With so few planets, you have very little knowledge and not much you can unlock to fight with, and without the expansions you don't have golems and stuff just laying around to compensate for that.  With the older versions/without expansions you also had fewer things that you started with unlocked for free, you didn't get mk2 versions of things for free from ARSes, and it seemed like there were a lot fewer fabricators and things like that, so you had less to work with.  On the other hand, some of the ship types were ridiculously, absurdly unbalanced, and the AI did some exploitably stupid things, so who knows how it really compares?  Heh.

Offline Coppermantis

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2011, 12:18:57 pm »
True, With the Zenith Remnant, I found two golems on seven of the ten planets. So I now have two hive golems, a botnet, an armored and a black widow. Plus, the ARSs on most planets make up for the lack of science. Still one more AI Homeworld, but my golems are plowing through the remaining Mk. IV planets. (I control 6/10ths of the galaxy.) Oh, and a fleet of 1000 zombie bots doesn't hurt either.  I think after I beat this one I'll play against harder AIs, maybe Golemite and Scorched Earth. I imagine having golems next door with a lack of science and resources would be tougher.
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline Nalgas

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2011, 02:33:25 pm »
Inspired by this thread, I went ahead and started a ten planet game yesterday, with nothing but Hard Golems enabled and random easy/medium 7/7 AIs (who turned out to be a Gravity Driller and a Neinzul Cluster-Bomber, although I was convinced for a while that one of them had to be a Spireling again because of the sheer number of blade spawners, stealth battleships, and tractor platforms I saw...).

The planet next to me had an armored golem on it, and once I repaired that, it was able to single-handedly tank nearly the entire galaxy.  It was pretty ridiculous.  There was a single gravity drill, and it happened to be in the most central location that separated the two AI homeworlds from each other and both of them from my own, which was perfect.  Nothing was able to get through there to reach me, my golem was immune to it, and it could go on its merry way roflstomping across the stars.  I picked up a hive golem for backup but didn't really need it for much, and everything was fairly trivially cleared out all the way to one of the homeworlds, including all the core shield generators on that side.

And of course that's where the problems came in.  From the gravity drill planet, there were two exits to two separate planets that both bordered the second homeworld, one of which had the final core shield generator.  Unfortunately, the second homeworld had a core raid engine.  The core raid engine could not be damaged without taking out the core shield generator.  The core shield generator could not be taken out without capturing the planet.  The planet could not be captured without destroying a mk5 warp counterattack guardpost and a couple command shield posts...all of which were under shields, of course.  And this all had to be done while a constant stream of mk5 ships was being spat out.

There is no golem strong enough.  The armored golem, cursed golem, artillery golem, hive golem, and my fleet got laughed at.  I even tried nuking it ahead of time and then sending stuff in, but it only made them angry, and this was after I had previously managed to successfully micro my way through a ~2000 strong high mark ship/guardian counterattack using nothing but the armored golem and gravity drill.  With the raid engine spitting them out faster than I could kill them, it was just no good.  Oh well.  It was fun while it lasted.

Offline Coppermantis

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #6 on: August 16, 2011, 08:32:26 pm »
Oh wow, that sounds brutal. You lost with all those golems? Geez.


Update: I now own all the systems except for the last AI Homeworld and one planet that got destroyed along with the first avenger. My botnet golem was destroyed during an exogalactic strike, and a Core Neinzul Cockroach spawner really hurt during my attempt at taking the last planet. I've pretty much given up on narration since I tend to play faster than I can write new stuff.
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline Nalgas

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2011, 05:05:15 am »
Sounds like yours is working out a lot better.  May the random number generator continue to smile upon you.  I suppose if the AI only has one planet left, though, you can't really spend much time sitting around slacking, because all of its reinforcements are going to that one planet and generally making a mess of it.

Offline Coppermantis

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2011, 12:43:49 pm »
I know, it's really a pain. They get reinforcements really fast, so basically I have to take it all out in one strike. Plus, the exogalactic wormhole on the first AI Home is being annoying as well. Hive Golems are good at chipping away at the core guard posts though, but every time I unleash them the Neinzul Cockroach spawner post. (Is this supposed to exist even when I don't have CoN? It seems the vanilla game includes something from each expansion.)
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline Nalgas

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Re: Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure
« Reply #9 on: August 18, 2011, 09:02:13 am »
the Neinzul Cockroach spawner post. (Is this supposed to exist even when I don't have CoN? It seems the vanilla game includes something from each expansion.)

Yup.  Along with each expansion, they've added related content to the base game, so there are a few similarly-themed ships and guardposts from each you can run into even without any of the expansions.

I started over yesterday with similar settings but a different map, and the RNG hates me.  I got another raid engine on a homeworld, but at least this one's only a normal raid engine under a forcefield and heavily guarded by a bunch of evil stuff, not a core raid engine that's completely indestructible, so it's theoretically possible, maybe.  I rushed through everything else with no trouble and am ready to at least attempt to figure out some way of dealing with it before the first exowave even got announced, so that's a start.  If I can get enough raid starships over there or something, the rest of it shouldn't be too much of a problem, I don't think...

 

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