Help for DA campaign "Achilles Heel"

So I just got defeated in the campaign mission. It's the one where you have to get a technological victory, and you've got 3 allies: Alterians, Torians, and Arceans. There is one Dread Lord planet at the top of the map.

So I started as usual; I colonized 3 other worlds in addition to my starting planets. Then, the dread lords start coming and wiping everything out. One planet is taken over relatively quickly. You can't have any ships or starbases or trade routes whatsoever, because they're destroyed by the fast and powerful dread lord fleets. I tried just going for it, maxing out research and going up the technology tree, but it was really expensive and I probably had 300-400 more turns to go by the end.

The same thing was happening to a lesser extent in the previous mission; to pass it, I made combat transports that could travel 13 spaces a week; since the planets I needed to conquer were relatively undefended by the time I arrived (thanks to the dread lords) I passed by just making 3 of those really fast ships (and nothing else).

But in this mission, you have to spend a lot of time researching. So how do you defend yourself from the Dread Lords? I can think of some strategies right now, but they'd take so long just to "test out." One is to try to conquer the dread lords planet immediately. Is that even possible? Or, am I really supposed to research ship and combat technologies to try to take the dread lords on, while at the same time researching the tech victory tree?

Thanks for any advice.
4,072 views 2 replies
Reply #1 Top
I swear doing this mission properly is impossible.

What I did (on DL 1.5, not sure if this will work on DA) was keep my first two planets and let my allies colonize the rest. Make one of your planets an eco planet and the other a production planet.

Don't bother building any ships or starbases. As you said, they will just get shot down.

Keep buying and trading techs with your allies. For some reason, the dread lords won't really bother invading you and when they do, it's just a case of taking the planet back asap. (don't use mass drivers though)

This will take hundreds and hundreds of turns. If you're lucky, your allies will lose and then regain a planet, and will steal a mega tech from the dread lords. Be sure to buy that mega tech from them and give it to all your allies. This should change the balance of power.

I don't think this method is 100% foolproof, but it got me through achillies heel and the mission after it.

Reply #2 Top
Tech rushing is the key. Colonize what you can and maximize the research you can do wile still making plenty of money. Focus on hull size, weapons, engines, and miniaturization. The goal is to be able to produce one or two ships that have more firepower than the Dread Lords. Yes, doing this will pretty well wreck your empire - but you only need that one ship to win. Once you can kill Dread Lord ships without losing any of your own ships, then worry about invading.