Cheat!

Hi Guys.

I have finished the campaign on challenging, v1.1.  The idea I used for siege was to colonize as much as possible until the DL's show up, then build small, fast ships that can outrun and outsensor range the Dreadlord battleships, and thereby take down the transports, thus defending your planet base.  Sometimes you will need to sacrifice the interceptor, so keep them cheap and build a lot, at least one per world.  A single laser and lots of engines is all it needs.

Very satisfying to skip in, kill the transports, then skip away before the BS can catch you.

Keep this up until you can build some transports of your own and take one of their worlds.  Save before you take the world, then keep retaking it until you win a good weapon tech like disruptors or photons from the conquered world.  The savegame is a bit of a fudge I guess, and it does work without taking the save, but takes longer.  Then build some good ships and go for the Dreadlords.  Start with the planets they have colonized recently, as they will have nothing on them.  Their planet population is very low, even though their tech is high.  It feels really good when you take that first BS down with weapons you took from them.

Tony

Plus in the siege mission, you don't actually have to fight the DLs at all- just rush to Planetary invasion and take the world before the DLs have pumped out anything more than a few scouts. As the mission description states 'Do not attempt to engage the Dread Lords'- it can't be much clearer than that.

In the later missions, use your allies as a shield. Build up your tech before making a push against the DLs. Try to trade planets with the DLs (capture a planet, leave it undefended until the DLs take it, then capture again and repeat) and very soon your ships will be almost as good, if not better, than the DLs themselves.

And always, always strike first. With any luck, you can destroy the DL ships before they get a shot off.

The DLs are SUPPOSED to be ridiculously powerful. That's what makes the campaign fun.

Oh, and trade techs with your team mates like mad. They aren't going to backstab you, so it's in everyone's best interests to have all the best tech.

man, you're fighting a guerilla war. think of it as russia versus afghanistan; ak47 versus gunship...

you cant actually go head to head with them with the pea shooters you start with. so get ready properly as you have quite a few turns before they even come looking for you:

1. you start with 20 000 credits so you have the option to fully develope your worlds.

2. colonise fast, but do not become the front line let your allies take point. if you have to, colonise those front line worlds and give them to your allies.

3. on planets you want to keep, you need to be able to build quckly and research fast so plenty of factories and research buildings. don't worry too much about finance as you'll be selling tech and ships as they become obsolete.

4. keep your allies alive by supporting them with your own fleets, but if the worst happens and the front line falls then retake the world, hopefully get tech, give back to allies. repeat as desired.

5. occasionally a battleship or escort ship finds its way around the front line, so its good to have fleets on standby on your core worlds.

6. play on at least challenging/tough because all the DL ever do is churn out ships, and you need effective allies so give em a chance to help you.

7: eventually you'll get to the point where you are stronger than the DL and then go and kick their asses.

its not easy, but its not that hard to beat them either. i've yet to redo the campaign with v1.1, hope its harder than the last time...

later and good luck, init

Try the ai on genius the AI in your team goes through the roof, and they end up way stronger than youd think. But be prepared to bend over backwards in trades for techs...

One thing that has worked for me is taking a big boost in population growth and a soldiering boost combined with rush buying factories and labs with a huge push on tech so I can get more soldiering boosts. I have fought off 5 or so DL planet invasions on tough setting in one mission.

What I don't get is how people seem to say a single DL is harder than a well developed drengin fleet. It isn'. I've seen fleets using plasma with higher stats than a DL, and then the big red bugs only have the same HP as any other ship.

That, and they can't fleet or make more ships. How is it that difficult by mission 5? Siege perhaps, when laser etc is down. But the only advantage they really have is 10 speed, and insane soldiering.

"take out their troop transports, which are unescorted and undefended." That was crap. only 1/2 of their troop transports were undefended, the other half travelled in a group with an "escort".

I finally beat this mission, but it took in the neighbourhood of about 6 hours, here is why:
1)Allies grabbed most of the planets before I could, that was even with buying colony ships instantly. In the time it took to fly to the planets to grab them, the altarians and Thorians were already there. The Arceans were stuck with a single planet. They did nothing but offer mild distraction for DL during the game.

2)Since I only could grab one additional planet (3 total) I was somewhat limited with my research. Even with Matrixes on 2 of the planets (total like 7 o 8) and a couple discovery spheres (DLs took one of my planets briefly and proceeded to queue up two discovery spheres, I left them) and a tech capital on the planet with 5 matrixes, there came a point where it was taking 100+ weeks to advance in a tech. THey were were really throwing out the shields, so my lasers were worthless. I decided to go with driver weapons since I grabbed a tech on one. After 6 hours, I ended at Graviton drivers II (though I had some sort of special one, I got somewhere it did damage 5 it started with n, but wasn't neutrino bullets)

3)even with manufacturing plant, 4 industrial zones with one on a 100% bonus, hyperion shipyard, it still took 18 weeks to make my "top" ship. 45 driver attack, and nothing else. I later adjusted to 8 weeks to make a 44 beam attack huge ship using phasors when DL switched most of its ships to use armor. This was essentially pointless, because a single ship couldn't do much (they were pushing 30 and 48 shields in beam and armor at this point). It only had a move of 3, which means I had to get really lucky to space it out so that I got first attack . The only way out of this was to "manipulate" the AI. Moving ships into sectors with no planets seemed to almost make them invisible to them. I could sit them 2 spots away from them and they wouldn't attack. This allowed me to build fleets.

4) As time passed I massed small fleets and started taking pot shots at them, occassionally, even shooting first with overwhelming firepower (140 drive attack against a combined 40 hp with 48 drive defense resulted in my 3 ships being wiped out, and them not losing a single HP and I shot first) i occasionally lost htem and had to start over. This was purely defensive attacks, I used the manipulating to cloak the ships and jumped out as they passed on the way by to attack someone. I couldn't be offensive because with them having 11 move and me 3, it was inevitable I'd get picked off, and it took 32 weeks to make a new fleet.

I kept pumping tech into my neighbours and trading when they'd get one I didn't have, but they made crappy ships and did little more then tie them up for a turn.

Eventually I made some scanner 24 ships to keep an eye on the whole map, so I could guage them (hdiing them in non planet sectors) and started maneuvering in to take their planet. When I picked off the 2 defenders they had with a charge, and assaulted the one group they had in the field, they surrendered to the thorians.

Great strategy, if you don't mind teching for 300 years, and only made workable by manipulating AI holes.

not exactly my idea of a "stellar" game.

Crossmr, ships fire independantly. Not as a group.

If they have shields, you're screwed. They don't normally do this. Oh yeah, 7 or 8 total invention matrix is terrible. You want 10 on the planet with the tech capital.

You have to build your own transports.

And it's meant to take a long time. If thousands of people can beat it, then it's nothing wrong with the game.

Whats the point in making them a fleet? Maybe you missed how my ships were set up, they had 3 ships defense 16 each on armor. I had 4 ships, attack 35 mass driver. I attacked first. There is no reason they should have survived, let alone without a scratch

WRONG. Attacking as a fleet means you get quicker kills. They fire their weapons individually. It's ship v ship in the end, if they have 5 defence and you have 10 ships with 4 attack, you'll barely touch it. All weapons fire the same, and an unarmed DL will go down to a fleet.

Once I got my tech up high enough I could make a ship that had potential to do damage to them, they started making every ship with shields of some kind.

Stick to plasma. So they don't adapt. If you got past phasor, you're spending too long on the mish.

I only had 3 planets total, and I still needed room to be able to have a manufacturing capital. The planets also need basic structurs like a farm to help defend against the DL if they planet assault, at least 1 or 2 entertainment items, and a market to keep me from going broke. No planet had room for 10 invention matrixes AND a tech capital. You're looking at least class 15 or 16 for that, and I don't think there is a single one in the scenario. If you're going to talk out of your ass, check your facts.

No. You have 1 econ capital. 1 manu capital. 1 tech capital. It works much better.

I can't see how its intended to take 6 hours of extremely repetitive play. Long isn't bad if there is thought behind it. Making it long solely because the DLs have top tech and you basically just need to pick off transports while you tech up for years on end isn't quality gameplay.

Not true. If you play it right, it's easy to beat them. I LOVE playing the DL, because I evolve and they don't. And I get to see my ships ever so slowly get the advantage.

Hope this helps a bit.

Personally I find the Drengin much more threatening than the DL. They can evolve, fleet, adapt, do anything I can do. The DL are gimped by the fact they have mediocre end-level ships and can't change them. I stayed around long enough on the third level to design a ship capable of wiping out a DL ships (I broke the alliance and the Altarians tried to kill me ) and then of course lost the techs I had for siege

Then do explain why a ship with 14 hitpoints and 16 armor survived a 35 attack mass driver without losing a hitpoint, now explain why they had 3 of those ships and I had 4 of the 35 attack and they didn't lose a single hitpoint across the board, yet in every other similar fight they did?

Because it's roll damage. Did you not know that? So they're 35 attack each, and did you have defences? no. So duh, you're going to die. And they heal fast

I switch to mass driver because every DL ship had 30+ shield. Laser wasn't doing any good. Maybe read posts before you reply. I already explained that they started showing up with shields as soon as my weapons started to get powerful enough to hurt them.

Firstly, you're a bloody hypocrite. Secondly, you aren't meant to fight them. Thirdly, any ship can do damage. If you have enough ships with particle beam, it'll take out a DL. You won't go mano-a-mano with them, or anything near fair odds. Expect a 4 on 1 fight win to be lucky, and try and avoid them. Which is what I said. Stick to ships with 4 attack so they don't adapt, otherwise your stupidity angers them.

Again, read posts before you reply. 1)My planets were only class 8,9 and 11 2)planets need a few basic buildings to exist, 1 farm to survive DL attacks, 2 entertainment centers to keep morale up, and 1 market each to prevent you from completely tanking. That doesn't leave you any kind of ability to create a planet with 10 tech buildings, or 10 of anything. Make each one a capital and you only have the following build space left: 2, 3, 5. After teching up with the planetary improvements, I believe it was 4, 5, 7. But the game was well established by the time I was able to get habitat. I had other more important techs to work on.

AGAIN, hypocrite.PQ doesn't matter, just try and specialise. Colonising left me (on tough) with almost all the planets, so you're doing something wrong. And the idea is not to fight the DL, don't hang around working on habitat.

Did I say it was hard? Not really. Its just the fact thats its insanely time consuming and filled with extremely repetitive play. Make a fast ship with a laser, run it around and pick off transports for several hours while you tech up. Not exactly "Fun" gameplay. Its a lame way to artificially lengthen the campaign.

You did. And you seem to be having difficulty actually reading what I'm saying as well. If you don't like it, play sandbox. That's the real game.