Dread Lord Campaign is Not Fun

Race

Join Date 03/2006

Dread Lord Campaign is Not Fun

Unless you are a master of the rush assault (which I am not) and have the missions (in which the DL are present) locked up in 10 turns or so, you're going to struggle - and most likely fail - to overcome them. The sad part about it is, you will spend many, many, many, many turns fighting off invasions and carefully balancing your budget only to look up and find that the DL's now have literally dozens of FLEETS patrolling the galaxy, stopping by any planets that have produced a ship to destroy it.

And that sinking feeling you get upon discovering that: 1) you're going to lose or 2) you're going to spend many hours holding them off until you can catch up, if it is truly possible to do so - that is supposed to your reward?

For a game that prides itself on its open-endedness, it seems wrong that there exists only one way to defeat the DL's. They are unassailable culturally, already have all the best technology and cannot be bargained with (although the Drengin didn't have any problems making Peace with them).

The Dread Lords are way too overpowered to be balanced and competitive. I got almost all the ship building tech researched in the final mission and was nowhere close to having the same tiny/small Scout-class ships with 100+ Attack, 11 moves per turn, and even (later on) 50-90 defense to the high level weapons you've been working your butt off to research.

And this all occured on the Simple to Normal game settings.

I am fairly new to this genre, Civ III being my first experience with it. My pity and my sympathy go to any who are experiencing 4x strategy gaming for the first time at the hands of the Dread Lords.

I have two suggestions to submit:

1) Allow the "good guys" some access to the Dread Lord's old foes - either in person as allies, or discovering tech. The best I got was a stupid side mission (when I failed the mission after Seige) that helped me discover . . . wait for it . . . Missile Weapon Theory! This was going to be the key to defeating the Dread Lords!? C'mon, guys. That was a joke, right?

2) Once the Dread Lords have appeared, all tech that has been researched should CARRY OVER to the next mission (provided you win). Otherwise, there is no way you can research all the way up the tech tree and be competitive against them (at least before the afore mentioned DL fleet infestation occurs).

I may be inexperienced, but I am not so unintelligent (power-gaming genre specialists: please keep the heckling to yourselves) as to realize that I am being herded into a certain style of "play." I would much rather have a close, hard-fought victory than an all-out rout of or loss to my foe(s). Unfortunately, those seem to be the only choices available against the Dread Lords.

I just wish I hadn't wasted so much time trying to have fun before I learned that sad lesson.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

The thing that annoys me with the DL missions is that it's just to random.

For example, in my last Achilees Heel game, just when I thoughs that I got the right way (have build several fleets of tiny 2moves ships with 2 plasma cannons each), then DL came with their ships with 50points in shields.

That, in Achilees feet is a death sentence, since you still have access to just beam weapons in this mission. Basiclly it's game over regardless I played best I could.

If it was like attempt before that, when they had 16 points in missle defense, it would've been beatable.

And saying research Solidering and gifting it to allies is not solution. Some of the planets in Achilees Heel are class4, which means it's impossible to defend them.

Successfully updated karma reason!

P.S.
Anyway, I'm toying with new strategy so I'm asking to see will it work.
-I'll have medium speed sensor ships with good sensor range.
-very fast 1 laser interceptor ships to take out undefended transports
-and very slow but hevily armed tiny ships, which I'll position in such way that they always attack first (sensor ships will help here)

Could this work?

I reckon u stand a excellent chance

@ meglobob - you've got to try the campaign in v1.1- It'll blow your mind. the DL are on fire! And so are the drengin and Yor.

I will, probably alot harder now, just lost my 1st game, sandbox ,1.1, suicidal, just me vs the Yor (I was Altarians), no tech trading. They got an influence victory but never flipped one of my 20 planets! Yor only achieved 2.55 x my influence at 1 of my planets maxium, others all lower. The 55 planets the Yor owned must have took him to 75% influence ownership of the galaxy. Seems a bit unfair, as I was just about to go on a crusade against the Yor. Oh well.........

So it took Stardock 2 months to improve the AI with cheating to level where it can beat me. By 1.6 version, I should be back down to playing on tough

Stardock

What is minimal military tech level you need before militarizing against DL?
What weapons, what hulls, what engine speed, what solidering?

Perhaps my tactics r a bit out of date with 1.1 but I used high speed sensor ships (cargo hull) to keep an eye out on the dreadlords. Developed the fastest fighter I could with just 1 attack, this ducked and dived like a mad thing taking out any troop transports. This was early on just after colonising as much as possible. I used the ships to help my allies out rather then myself really. I had 2-3 sensor ships plus 6'ish independent fighters, they got blasted out of space every now and again by the escorts but heh its war and we r outgunned, what do expect. They were cheap to build so no biggy replacing them. As u get better tech keep improving those so they r better at there job. Yr aim is to slow the dreadlords down to give yourself and allies time to develop.

Get soldiering, get Tir Quan. Trade/give your allies any and all techs. Keep yr pop. high on all yr worlds. Logistics 16, say then have medium(4), then 6(tiny) ships in fleet, get 1st strike in, u may lose a couple of tinys but yr medium ship will gain experience fight after fight, keep replacing the tinys. Keep to same tactics when u get bigger ship designs. Eventually the tide will, turn and u will kick dreadlord butt

Successfully updated karma reason!

Whew...
I finally won Achilles Heel.
Using tactic like I described.
Fast interceptor, sensor and slow but deadly heavily armed tiny ships.
Plus some starbases, where I parked all my fleets (losing one of my ships per one of the enemy is reallty not an issue).

But I almost lost at the end, when DL got shields on their ships, 45 or somthing. Almosy though to quit the game.
And guess what saved me?
Torians! They somehow managed to bring invasion taskforce and conqer final planet (and I guess defenses there haven't yet updated to shield technology).

Interesting to note that while in my older attempts allies where more or less useless, in this case, initial quantity of DL ships got beat up on my starbases, so it made some room for AIs to develop, especially torians that prefered small ships without defense, perfect against DL.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Whew...
I finally won Achilles Heel.

Well done, wait to u get a load of apocalypse!

Successfully updated karma reason!

At last, at Apocalipse, there is access to all 3 types of weapons...
No wonder they wanted to get Teth so badly...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Yup! well done p22, satisfying aint it?

how about you gmjapan?

Dread Lords campaign IS Fun!

nuff said

Successfully updated karma reason!

What makes DL add defenses to their ships?
In my last Apolcalypse attempt (at Painful), they got shields fairly early. I only defeated around 2 of their ships without shields (they even haven't yet took any of the worlds).

Then they got 34 defense in shields, making most of my ships useless. Even while I upgraded all my ships to missile and had some starbase support (+1 missle and mass driver attack), it wasn't enough to do any damage with my fleet of tiny ships (it's still effective 5 defense against other weapons).

Also what defenses DL prefer?
Is it random?
Does it depend from your actions (adaptive?) or something else?

For example, in attempt before this, when I haven't played seriouslly (holding only one world doing research), when map was full with swarms of DL, in 5 years of campaign, they still haven't had any shields.
But in last game, they got them very early.

This kind of random DL play is what does make campaign unfun, it least DL missions.
Should I play 5-6 times, until I get lucky and DL don't put defenses on their ships?

Regardless what other say, repeating single mission over and over is not fun thing to do.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think the trouble with the DL campaign is that it *is* so unforgiving... there's really not much help from the game itself as to how you might go about beating the DL ships.

Most of the time they just tend to destroy me, maybe because I haven't learnt all the nuances of managing planets and resources yet... I feel that I'm being punished rather than instructed. Coupled with the semi-random nature of missions where sometimes the DL are protected against your weapons and sometimes they're protected against a tech that is not in the mission... very frustrating.

I might play the DL campaign again at some later date, but it's really too hard for me at the moment... there's no reward incentive for doing well other than "you get a slightly harder mission". I don't really feel that I'm doing anything worthwhile... it's just like beating any normal evil race, only their stats are multiplied by ten roughly.

Successfully updated karma reason!

there's no reward incentive for doing well other than "you get a slightly harder mission".

The mission after apocalypse is lovely, very enjoyable, especially if u like money.

The missions after apocalypse r a lot easier, not hard at all.

Successfully updated karma reason!

@Frookie I am now on Deception (the Earth one) which is about mission 8 (?). In the missions inbetween I must admit I have had some "fun" and I have also had some "non-fun" too. I dont think I will play this one out as it is gigantic and I only have 2 planets and there are none to take. I also cant reach anyone for ages all around.

In one mission I did nothing, absolutley nothing but take 3 planets and tech. Never saw a single Dread ship. Never built a single battleship before I had past hyperwarp and 34 logistics. Never even felt threatened - and you know what? I still managed to have fun! I only had about four planets but one had 3 research bonus tiles so I pumped research and sold it / gave it too my allies who kicked the Dreads a$$ all over the galaxy. At the end the Korx surrendered 2 planets to me that were next to the Dread planets which gave me the range to twat them. It was kinda sweet for some reason.

@p22 I seem to have found a solution to the shield problem on my last mission!! Sort of. I think it is what the allies do and how they continue to kill Dreads regardless. Normally I watch all battles and score a 0 or 1 total damage when the 28 shielded ships appear. But I got fed up of seeing zeroes and hit skip / end to the animated fight. Lo and behold the 42hp Dread was now at 9hp. Hurrah! If I watch the fight it goes "0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, dead". If I skip the fight it goes down. Way down. It might work for you too (if you dont already skip the fights).

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hey guys this is not really relevant to this post, but in Sandbox mode it can be a great asset. Overlapped economy starbases give a huge boost to production and research! But you can only fit 4 starbases per sector. The Bonuses stack!

@P22 you are right that sometimes even if you do everything right something happens to mess you up in the campaigns, hey they're a reflection of life generally!

@gmjapan Try using lapfrogging starbases next time, you end up using a lot of constructors, but its the only way to get around the galaxy on that level. Well some hardcore researching on the support might also help...

later peeps

Successfully updated karma reason!

Heh...where to begin

While your allies can fight the read lords they are mostly useless... Firstly, they havea tendency of colonozing every available planet in the vicinity, forming a ring around you at the very begining of the mission nad preventing your expansion...Researching tech takes A FRIGGIN LOT when you only have 2 planets to work with...not to mention that your allies, to whom you graciously give tech and money to keep them alive, never give you any tech back.

The dread lords are terribly powerfull and once you research the tech high enough you CAN counter them. Observe thier ships and makea counter. They have a ship with heavy shielding and beam cannons? Build a heavily shielded mass driver warship. ...
Build starbases with assist modules...they give each of your ship in range offensive and defensive bonuses. It's nice to havea fleet with +5 to Energy, MAss and missile defense and +5 to Energy, Mass and missile damage.
No Dread Lord ship is defended against everytihng

Just guard those starbases.. a Dread Lord fleet will bring them down fast.

But getting their is a pain.

EVERY mission you start from scratch, having to research everything again! WTF?!?!

Successfully updated karma reason!

EVERY mission you start from scratch, having to research everything again! WTF?!?!

I agree with this sentiment, almost completely...But then the Campaign would become too easy and the only way to compensate would be to make the dread lords even more powerfull. Where does it stop?

To ease your mind: By assuming that we know the tech is attainable, how about thinking of researching not as a way to gain tech, but as a way of creating the infrastructure to produce advanced machinery, buildings, weapons and hulls. Just a thought.

Successfully updated karma reason!