Doctor J

Join Date 04/2003

Campaign - First Scenario Compare notes

Wondering about replay and mention a bug too

First, for SD, a minor bug. Several times during the first mission in the campaign the Dregin mention the 'Acreans'. I thought they were Arcaens. No biggie, but maybe a fix for later when things quiet down.

On to my experience...

I played Beginner level, btw. The mission pits the human (me) and my so-called ally the Altarians against the Drengin. Each of us is in our seperate corner, with an unclaimed system in the middle with a class 10 planet and a few others of little note. In your home system (Protoss) there is an uncolonized class 8.

I did a bad thing and assumed anything below class 10 was crap. So, I grabbed the class 10 in the middle and let the Altaran take the other 3 usable planets on the board, one right in the Protoss system. That would have been a mistake in a longer game, since my 'friend' the Altaran built TWO influence bases right next to my homeworld. I kept him at bay with embassies, but if this were a longer game we'd have had to have it out.

The Drengin was a wimp. Never put weapons on his ships, built a couple of starbases but didn't build them up until it was too late. Just as I gained transport technology, the Altaran, who had raced past me in every way due to his having double the planets I had, invaded the Drengin outpost and we won the game.

I feel, however, that this was something of an empty victory. I'd like to do this over and take more of the planets for myself and especially keep the Altaran out of hte Protoss system. I'd also like the Drengin to back up his big mouth and build some ships that can fight.

Was wondering if anyone else has tried the campaign, and what experience did you have with this first mission?

Overall I think the game is great. Super job SD!

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ScottTykoski

Join Date 03/2001

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Keep in mind that the first few scerios are more about easing new players into the gameplay as they are about presenting a formitable challenge.

In a few missions your victories won't feel so empty

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Try it in "normal", I'm a beginner to but I like chalenge... I made the mistake to go full diplomacy and trade for other tech. I gave up after they destroyed most of my station and fleet. Will give it another try tonight (and crushed them, no diplo this time!)

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My experience... I played it on normal.

I immediately colonized the nother Protoss planet, and rather soon after had Colony ships underway to those two nice planets in the middle, but my allies got there first and took both of them. I figured with them as a sort of buffer between me and the enemy i would focus mostly on research and not build any military starships yet.

I did build two influence starbases to make sure my allies wouldn't swallow me. And i also built an economy starbase for production bonus that covered both my protoss planets.

All went well for a while, 0 military but highest technology. Then the enemy quickly conquered both of those planets in the middle. That was my wakeup call so i quickly put together some ship designs and started producing combat ships.

Just in time cause the enemy started showing up now with his fleets. I managed to hold the status quo for a while, and kept researching. Finally I went on the offensive and captured both those planets. By then i was the strongest power for sure and i held off for a while because i wanted to research large ships. I finally did and built one "Imperator" class vessel hehe. It was really big, i put it together with 4 or 5 fighters, it really dwarfed them, with that i attacked the last world and they surrendered to me and i won.

o... not the greatest of screenshots but this is how my Imperator dwarfed my fighters:

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that is one funny lookin ship. I love it.

I also played the first mission on beginner, and went through it with no problems. I teched up my logistics, then camped a couple fleets outside the Drengin planets to destroy his ships as he built them, until I got troop transports researched.
I'm going to go back tonight and start again on a harder difficulty level. I've been waiting a long time for a good campaign mode that I could sink my teeth into, so I definitely don't want to go through this one without pulling a few hairs out along the way.

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I LOVE your Imperator! My ships look stupid. One has a wing on backward because it wouldn't flip no matter what I tried. It's 'upgrade' design has beams for wings and big knobby thing like a tumor on one side. I think it's supposed to be a sensor array or something. What's that big block under the Imperator do? It looks like it has holes or missile tubes in the front of it. A big missile launcher, very big? Or maybe a drop-ship for a surgical strike team? Or maybe it's just a big solid block used as a make-shift mass driver? Cool.

I'm going to have to restart the campaign in normal mode. I generally played GC I in normal or higher, but was skeerd by all the hype about the new improved AI.

Starbases are much more important in the early game here than in GC I, maybe because they are less expensive (or so it seems). Also, being able to build more than one improvement of each type (2 manufacturing centers, for example) is a shift in paradigm. Going to have to adapt.

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I started the first map, but I'm probally going to end up restarting. I left it on normal difficulty since I've read the first few missions are supposed to very easy, but I didn't build colony ships fast enougth, and my ally took both of the worlds in the center. Although there's probally a good chance the drengin can be defeated, I feel like restarting so that I colonize the middle worlds.

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I read a really great strat for this first mission here on the forums, as my allies ALWAYS build an influence starbase between my two protoss worlds (My roommate and I both bought the game, so betweeen the two of us, we have three playthroughs of the 1st mission - two beginner, one normal). We never got more than two worlds, the allies always got the rest too fast to be dealt with.

But yeah, that influence starbase they build. Just put two or three fighters that can beat its defenses right next to it, then donate them to the drengin. . . the drengil will take on the starship, hopefully get injured by it, and your fleets can mop up the rest. You keep the allies out, but don't piss em off! brilliant!

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Okay, played it again on normal level and enjoyed it a lot more.

The Altarans still did the influence strategy, but I took the 2 worlds in the Protoss system and the better of the 2 worlds in the middle. This time the Altarans took the lesser world in the middle, and the Drengin took both worlds in their corner.

Altarans didn't do much. Their ships weren't good (they used light figther chassis). I kept them supplied with good weapons tech, though. Every so often they would send a patrol into the Drengin sector. Generally they would get smacked down.

On the other hand, I did pretty well. I actually designed a fighter that looked neat and kept it upgraded with the latest laser weapons. Right at the end I found the plasma weapon tech on a taken Drengin world, but didn't have time to use it. Niether did the Drengin.

One thing I noticed was you can't emass an invasion of the type you could in Galciv I because you can't group but so many transports together (due to fleet size limits). However, my troops did incredibly well against the Drengin worlds, even heavily outnumbered. It took 2 and a half waves of 2000 troops to take a planet with 10,000 Drengin. I don't think they were REAL Drengin. Going to have to have the scientists look into that.

Stardock I love you! You have done a fine job with the game overall and I have to say it is the best game I've bought in a few years.

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Wait until you get to "Siege," like the 3rd or 4th Campaign mission. H-A-R-D!

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No matter what I do, both the drengins and the altarans are shooting right past me in every area ( research, economy, population, manufacturing etc ) fairly quickly on normal difficulty on the first campaign mission. I tried buying lots of factories/markets etc with the starting money but it did not seem to make much difference so I am sort of lost as to what I am doing wrong.

Any suggestions ?

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Any suggestions ?

When restarting the game buy 2 Colony Ships at first 2 turns and send it in the "middle" star system.

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