Dread Lords Campaign Questions

from GalCiv2 Forums

I am playing the Dread Lords Campaign, on normal difficulty and am on the 4th game and have a few questions/things annoying me:

Allies suck. They are twice as strong and so far ahead in tech that they pretty much do everything leaving me to just watch. Rather go it alone. Is this only for the first few games or is it throughout?

Also why are my allies ships like 3x as fast as mine? I am trying to grab open planets at the begiining and they start with piles of colony ships and blow by my ships like I am going backwards. Is the AI letting them do everything 3x as fast? Would explain why they are ahead in everything. 

What are some basic strategies for social improvements? Build them as fast as you can until the planet is full? Factories first, etc? What about spending levels? 

Is there any way to colonize Level 0 planets with tech improvements, etc? Can squares that say unbuildable on planets ever be improved?

Thanks.

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It really sounds like you need to put more resources in research. If your allies are ahead in technology they have likely researched faster propulsion for their ships.

Your allies also know how to use money to get many colony ships fast. Join them, you should buy many colony ships in the first turns of the game. Your survey ships should bring in enough cash to do so.

For social improvements, my start planet often has a mix of everything (manufacturing, economy, research), I specialize further planets, so I have a manufacturing planet, a research planet, a money-making planet.

Level 0 planets cannot be colonized in Dread Lords. In Dark Avatar, you can research additional colonization technologies so you can colonize in Master of Orion style.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Thanks.

I am talking about turn 2. I have tried saving the game and scouted out the planets, then returning and going for the planets on round 1. I buy colony ships instantly and upgrade constructors to colony, taking less than a turn since they can do it in flight. Still I am running into 3-4 ally transports all flying rings around my ships and taking most of the planets. And this is still turn 2 and 3 mind you! Does their research carry over from game to game? I have totally focused on research allocating points to research bonus and using technologist party and find they are still way ahead of me in just a few turns. It's quite frustrating. It seems like the AI isn't playing fair? In a earlier game I was getting a research rating around 200 on the report. This one it says I am very low?

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hmmm... I finished the campaign at the "though" level, at least it should be doable at the "normal" level. But I can remember one mission where I indeed could not get planets colonized fast enough, it might be this mission. I solved it by allocating more ability points to ship speed. That did help a lot.

The AI should play perfectly fair at normal difficulty and some its intelligence is disabled at that level. Research from one mission is not carried over to the next.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Made a little progress. Found that if I made a new Colony Ship with better engines right away and bought that I had a chance to get there.

It sure looks like some of your tech level carries over from mission to mission in the campaign? If so, that would explain the problem I am having now. I probably need to go back and replay the first couple and jack up my tech level there. In my current game it looks like my weapons are where I stopped in the last game. Think I will try going back and advancing them just to see if it changes in the current game.

Darn Dread lords are using a handfull of fighters that can do like a million damage and kill anything in a single shot. They kill everything I have and land troops in the same turn before I can buy a replacement. I need big fleets of tiny fighters to stop them, but they can crank out too many ships for me to keep up and I go broke or get invaded. They land 10 and wipe out 8000+ with no losses.

Wonder if the game is using my quad-core against me? he he

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I believe you just get different starting technologies in each mission. The Dread Lords are though guys that shoot anything in one shot. The only way to defeat them is to build ships faster than they can destroy. Because they shoot your ship in one shot, don't bother with ship defences, spend all available space on weapons. Attack in large fleets and make sure you are the attacker and not them (the attacker shoots first, this gives you an extra shot).

Their transports are best dealt with by placing intervention fleets at strategic places, transports are usually weakly defended or have no escort at all. Researching invasion technologies helps a bit, but the Dread Lords remain though guests to have walking on your planets.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

That's how the Dread Lords are.

Well, if memory serves, the AI (and you, actually) start with one colony ship in most if not all of the missions, so you're bound to see that plus a ship per turn in the early game (first 3-5 turns) per allied AI.

Really the best thing you can do against the Dread Lords is play the DL campaign from DA and spam your planets full of fertility clinics.  And it doesn't hurt to copy the AI's idea of putting an empty tiny hull in orbit every turn so that the Dread Lords have to actually destroy something before they invade.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Actually, the Dread Lords don't colonise.  So make sure they don't get any planets by invasion, especially well developed ones.  Destroy all the improvements or the colony if you are going to lose it soon.  Dread Lord ships are very expensive, with no shipbuilding base, they can't generate ships fast enough to overwhelm you.