Freaking DarkLords

Would you like some cheese with that wine?

I agree with pathfinder. You have no idea what makes a good game, if you do shove off and make one. Are you a multi million game and software developing company? No? didn't think so. It's "Dread Lords" actually, and if it literally takes you 47 hours to learn the mechanics, just leave. Now.

They're meant to be overpowered. Duh, that's the whole point. Go play sandbox until you know how to play the game.

It doesn't need to pick a path, just some paths are better than others. IE for siege, it's best to avoid the DL, but by using heavy soldiering and distraction, I can stand toe to toe with them, and send them home with their tails between their legs.

I've been playing games since I was about 5. I damn well know what is a good game, and this is the best I've seen in a very long time.

dreadlords are very very hard indeed. one tactic i was able to think off is to hold the fort as much as possible and develop your weapons (dont bother with defense), and try and destroy them in one to two hits. since they (thankfully) build thier ships slowly, you would be eventually slowly be gaining the advantage as you overwhelm them. Its very easy to invade them as well as they only have 20 people in the planet. just bring 2 transpo modules and your set.

here's an advice for what it's worth
boost the AI difficulty that way your allies (if you have some) are stronger
(don't know if you should have allies in that part of the campaign)

Wow... don't get TOO hot under the collar! THough I actually agree with you.
The strategies in this game are varied. Once or twice I tried "seiges" but that always led to the Dreadlords killing everyone including me. So I just went out there in a blitzkrieg, sacrificing Billions of troops to steal necessary technologies from them. It was bloody, yet effective. Choose a path and stick to it.

There's a difficulty slider for a reason, why not instead of bitching to Stardock you actually use the feature that THEY put in for people like YOU and play the game at a lower difficulty which will be challenging for people at YOUR level. There's even alternate misssions for the harder dreadlord levels so no excuses whatsoever.

For what it's worth I played through the whole campaign on normal before playing a single custom game and was able to beat all missions on the first or second try, I sure as hell didn't have any in depth knowledge of game mechanics - just a brain.

I played "sandbox" for about a month (never above "challenging") before finally giving the campaing a go (on normal). When I the Dread Lords showed up in Achilles Heel I became very happy I had played sandbox extensively. You have to know the game mechanics to be able to research, build your social infrastructure, trade, build ships.....without going bankrupt.

In Achilles, I took all of 1 planet, built two military starbases and maxed them out before building a couple economic starbases and kept two fighters available to respond either direction. This allowed me to research like crazy; selling the techs for cash and keeping my allies competive throughout. It worked. While I did steal all of two techs from the DL's, my allies expanded and applied pressure. By end game I launched 3 fleets of 3 fighters and a handful of constructors on a final mission. Once they had the DL's limited to a newly built ship in orbit, I launched my fast troop transports and finished them off.

My only complaint? As many techs as I traded my allies, they refused to trade any of the DL techs to me. Something's just wrong with that.

As many techs as I traded my allies, they refused to trade any of the DL techs to me.

DL techs are worth A LOT of money. Huge huge huge amounts. On DL parade (sandbox versus DL) I captured Adamantium 3 and got about 30k out of it from all the civs.

I also agree with the general theme of everyones posts....The thing i hate most about games is when you can run through the campaign in about...oh....30 minutes. This game does present a challenge, and I love the non-linear aspects of the campaign. Just because you cannot beat the game the first time through does not make it abad game, in fact in my humble opinion, it makes it a better game.

I agree with pathfinder. You have no idea what makes a good game, if you do shove off and make one. Are you a multi million game and software developing company? No? didn't think so.

Are you a multi-million dollar game and software developing company? No? Didn't think so. You can leave. Now.

Turnaround is fair play as they say ... just, in the future, please don't use this line angainst someone else ... it's just rude.

I've been playing games since I was about 5. I damn well know what is a good game, and this is the best I've seen in a very long time.

As have I ... but it gives neither you nor me a stick to wield against someone else. I tend to agree with the original post ... while I disagree that specific tactics must be used, I do find that the Dread Lords are insanely powerful and quickly estabilish themselves across the entire map.

Primarily I found that you had to race through the combat tree, increasing your soldiering capacity to resist the Dread Lord 10 vs 10000 victories. Trying to win an 'economic victory' against them was pointless ... letting your allies take planets only meant they'd lose them to the DLs ... the main fact that every mission in the campaign we lose the tech from the previous one (and each mission doesn't have a tech cap to it) bugged me ... because it made no sense. It's part of a campaign, and I would have hoped that we could see something more ... realistic ... than going back to the standard "well it's a different sector so you have to start from scratch ... again! Enjoy!"

Are you a multi-million dollar game and software developing company? No? Didn't think so. You can leave. Now. Turnaround is fair play as they say ... just, in the future, please don't use this line angainst someone else ... it's just rude.

I used that merely because he was saying he "Knows what makes a good game", implying stardock doesn't. I am not using it as a stick, I know what games people like, since I know a lot of people that play games.

I stand by my remark about 47 hours for the mechanics. 47 hours to beat the DL yes. The game mechanics? If you don't have a chance to learn them (and waste time flaming) then go play another game.

The DL aren't overpowered. I can, in DL on parade, beat them completely. I can out-tech, out-manufaacture, out-income, out-weapon and fit my ships so the DL can't touch them, even if they hit first. The campaign is harder as less planets are available, but if you wished to do so it would be possible to just kill them all.

Overpowered means they are, by normal means, ubeatable. Like if the pirates could colonise worlds and produce more of those hulking fleets of death.

yeah only thig i never agreed on is the way you go backward on technology .. geez..

I just started playing this game, although I love it, the AI is kicking my but badly. So, I set the difficulty down to Retarded.

At least that way I have time to learn the techs and get a handle on the game.

The normal mode is very very hard for newbies, it is alot more fun to learn the game and win more battles in the process.

Quick tip, as may have been mentioned above, is to build a military base and cover it and anything else you need to protect in its area of effect with a couple ships or more. Beef up one starbase, or have two or three bases with only some of the basic ship assists. After you have a stranglehold on your core planets, and with some economy bases to boost production, go for an overwhelming number of techs, not that it is at all necessary to research to the end of a tree. Plasma, warp, advanced logistics, and medium scale building was all I needed to defeat DL campaigne set to tough. Medium ships with lots of weapons and speed and mob the DL to death Also, giving allies tech for some of their cash allows for them to distract the DL. Enjoy...it's just a game, after all. I do however get immersed in the character of my custom race however, and do get rather personal in the sandboxes.

I have found two different paths to beating the dreadlords on the first dreadlord mission (and the others are really quite a bit easier to me). One involves simply doing what the mission calls for and rushing the drengin world asap. The other strategy involves simple retaking the worlds from the dreadlords and getting the tech to beat them, you only need a ok weapon tech to build fleets that can crush them and that isn't too hard to accomplish. Starbases are another possible route though it would be really slow.

-I destroyed the dreadlords, making the mission easy from there or
-I simply took the drengin world and won the campaign.

Starbases and a fleet to make your area hard core (well new patch to make everything expensive could present problems with that strategy) was also working fine for me. It took like 1000+ turns and was very boring though so I tried a different route.

That is at least three routes none of them require much in the way of "knowing all the game mechanics". Both require only one thing, a certain tech route that includes getting all of the planetary invasion techs asap. It doesn't hurt to trade techs to the drengin and yor as well. They are really just a minor annoyance and the extra B.C. may help.

The key to the second strategy, retaking the worlds, is taking them fast. Hover a transport close to the world nearest the dreadlords at all times. They will generally run for it. Keeping ships in orbit is quite helpful as well. You should be able to absorb the occasional invasion when your falling behind but honestly you should never be truely falling behind. One thing to remember is to spend that large sum of cash wisely, and gleen as much of the allies cash as you can. Purchasing ships outright is rarely wise in my opinion. Spend a few turns buying infrastructure and perhaps a couple colony ships. Your choice of abilites is also something to consider. Many will help you with the dreadlords but several should not be bothered with at all. That should be relatively easy for you to determine but if not you can't go wrong with economy buffing abilites, and just say no to influence.

The dreadlord campaign is easy, destroy every dreadlord transport u see, develope yr planets, tech however u want and eventually wipe the floor with the dreadlords. Only apocalypse on painful level is proving any real challenge to me but even here the dreadlords commit the fatal flaw of not escorting there troop transports. So eventually u win as the dreadlords cannot conquer any planets. I protect my planets, my teams planets and any neutrals. The Drengin and Yor can look after themselves. I can't wait for new campaigns to get my teeth into!

As Meglobob says, all the AI's have inherant weaknesses. The DL can't research, can't adapt, can't fleet, and don't escort their transports. How are they so invulnerable? Sheesh, an Altarian could take them on.
Bloody planet stealers.

Well, guys, thanks for the frank and inteliigent responses. I thought, just maybe, that I could start a debate on ways in which the game could be improved, or ways in which to find a reasonable way to begin to master the mechanics. Instead, all that happens is that I get roundly abused, ridiculed, and sneered at. First post. Way to go at building a community of interested players.

To summarise my initial comment:
"the game is a strategy game, but some of the campaign missions reduce the strategy to a puzzle only resolvable by hours and hours of mindless slogging, rather than a creative or imaginitve strategy"

To summarise the responses:

'suck it up n00b'
'i'm more l33t than you'
'go and play tic-tac-toe'

and a handful of reasonable suggestions and comments on the game. It's a good game. It's potentially a classic game. But I have to say, you mob have turned me right off having anything to do with the community. Congratulations.

Starbases and a fleet to make your area hard core (well new patch to make everything expensive could present problems with that strategy) was also working fine for me. It took like 1000+ turns and was very boring though so I tried a different route.

How expensive is everything going to get??

.

I can only assume you are trolling after that last post since your original post generated quite a lot of serious suggestions on how to approach the "darklords" campaign differently and also some discussion on peoples take on it.

Out of 18 replies you got maybe 2 bad responses and even one of those had some ideas at the end! Considering you finished your original post with "this game sucks and I know best" I reckon you had a good run there.

Personally I didnt like the lack of continuity in the campaign, not carrying techs forward etc. Perhaps they could have used tighter caps on the techs you can research each mission and then you can start the next level from where your tech left off. Maybe thats too hard to balance. I just think that the missions should represent a particular timeline in a story and in that entire timeline only x number of techs are going to be discovered.

I also didnt like the small number of planets that tend to be available especially to new players. Doesnt help you tech or learn to colonise or specialie a colony if you only get one. Sure, play it a few times and you know where to go straight off the bat. But that first game a few missions in with only your initial colony coz the Altarians took the rest will put you off when you know you need planetary invasion but it takes 50 turns...

If you are struggling with game mechanics then I suggest the video tutorials in-game followed by Draginols galciv2 beginner guide in the Journals forum. The tutorials themselves are not so useful but if you have played a bit then that guide will get you on your feet and running.

Anyway, thats just my take on it.

"the game is a strategy game, but some of the campaign missions reduce the strategy to a puzzle only resolvable by hours and hours of mindless slogging, rather than a creative or imaginitve strategy"

I found the opposite to be true to what you're saying here. Personally I beat the campaign by thinking up the best ships and tactics to take advantage of the dreadlords weaknesses (those weaknesses being single ships and relatively low hitpoints) and it worked perfectly. I knew nothing about the game mechanics, nor had I even played in sandbox mode once, let alone played for hours and hours of 'mindless slogging', I just used creative and imaginative strategy to win, funny that.

you mob have turned me right off having anything to do with the community. Congratulations.

I really don't think the community will view that as a bad thing.

It really was a piss poor decision to nerf keeping techs from one mission to another. I'm stuck on a mission now, and what's strange is the DL tactica changes every game. In one game within a couple turns I had lost. They ignored everyone else and came after me. One game I did okay trading techs, they ignored pretty much everybody, one game they left me alone so I could advance a pretty decent amount and after a savegame they turned all their forces to me.

As Meglobob says, all the AI's have inherant weaknesses. The DL can't research, can't adapt, can't fleet, and don't escort their transports. How are they so invulnerable? Sheesh, an Altarian could take them on. Bloody planet stealers.

Oh yes, if they somehow get the logistics tech (they could conquer a planet owned by a race that has it), they can use it. I'm now on Apocalypse, against Dread Lords with logistics 10, typical fleet sizes of 3 and 4 ships. Painful (but still possible to defeat, see https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=346&AID=113263 ). And sometimes, they do escort their transports, and even combine escorts and transports in fleets (very annoying, fortunately they don't do it often, so my one hitpoint, 43 speed laser cargo's can keep hitting them without much risk).

It really was a piss poor decision to nerf keeping techs from one mission to another.

I presume it was a question of balance. It would disadvantage people who finished a mission quickly, because they'd be stuck with lower level techs. If somebody just spent ages on the first mission and teched up to the max, the rest of the campaign would be a cakewalk.

This could potentially be solved by having the other races keep their techs as well, but this is still open to exploitation, as you could just lock the Drengi in the corner in the early missions and tech up much faster than they could dream of.

The only tech I really, REALLY wished I could keep was Planetary Invasion. I feel like I must have spent more time researching that than all the other techs combined!

Oh, and the Dread Lords are the best part of the campaign. Especially in Appocalypse. But not so much in the final mission. Am I the only person who found that ridiculously easy, not to mention a massive anticlimax?