Newbie needs tips on dreadlords - Wow they are well named

Hi Im new to galactic civ 2 , very new to this kind of game. It is turning out Im really enjoying the game though the more I play. Anyway I started out playing the dreadlords campaign on normal and the first 3 or 4 missions I won, the last one of that I was a bit hesitant in getting my military up and it nearly cost me. Anyway I preceeded to play roughly the 5th mission, thats the one where they say to keep away from the dreadlords, anyway I started out and by default had 3 construtors, 1 survey vessel , one colonizing ship and a couple of low lvl fighters. I quickly go hunting with my colony ships for planets , but maybe 5th or 6th turn(If that) everythings colonised , so I think ok make do with what Ive got, so theres 3 factions I know of 2 are friendly towards me with huge influence, on the opposite side of the map these mad looking dreadlords ships, after hardly any time they dont touch the other civs and start wiping my eco and influence finds then they attack a planet and like 5 of there men take out 3 to 5k of mine lol

Yup they are well named thats for sure, Im just wandering where Im going wrong? how am I supposed to compete with that , I tried to avoid them but they seeked me out really fast, Its usually a while up the research tree before I can have any semi useful ships and even at that Im doubtfull they will handl;e dreadlords.

Any tactics for this mission are greatly appreciated, by the way I am enjoying the game but I got my but handed to me so much and in such a short time I figured I must be doing some fundementals very very wrong#

Cheers!
David

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Wow, a lot of people have complained about the Dread Lords recently.

By nature, the Dread Lords are ridiculously powerful: They're a Precursor race. One of their ships can destroy a fleet of normal ships without a problem. One of their troops can kill several thousand of yours.

The solution is to research weapons, higher level engines, and high-end sensors to build high speed far-seeing combat ships using the readily available Cargo Hull. Once you've got these ships, don't fight the Dread Lord combat vessels at all: Go for their transports and use your speed to outrun their frigates. That way, they can't invade your planets and your tax economy is safe. Then go on researching and researching while building up your treasury until you can build fleets of ships that can kill the Dread Lords ships at the cost of 3-4 of themselves. Then, attack. Don't forget to use the cargo fighters to protect allied worlds as well: It would be useful to have them around, obviously.

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

The Dreadlord's weakness is their ships have low hit points (they are about the same as any normal ship of equal size) and no defenses (usually). Being DL version, the combat system doesn't allow ships to fire at more than 1 target per round, so a large fleet of tiny hulled attack ships would be your best bet for combating them. If you spread your firepower amoungst 10 or so tiny hulled ships, it would take the Dreadlords 10 rounds (assuming just the single ship) win, while you would have 10 rounds to blow up a ship whose defenses were no better than anything you could build.

I can ussually beat using this information.

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Thanks, yeah I am going to try that mission again today, I asked this in another thread but never really got an answer:: basically the ai colonizes fast as hell and I was wandering whether people keep the grey fog on or untick it in the options so they can see all the planets from day one?

Thanks for the help, I aint moaning about the dreadlords but they are tough

, well im guesssing if you let them get the first attack in. I will try those tactics, TY

David

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I had the same question. I am a long time Metaverse player, but decided to try out the dreadlord campaign for something new. Damn they are tough. The small ship idea might work against the home world in "achillies heel" but they have fighters with 46 shield factor. I am attempting to lure the fighters away, but I can not figure out their speed. It says 1 parsec per turn but they move way faster than that. The idea is to get them to chase a fast moving non-combat ship away from my planets, but it is meeting with mixed success.

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...The small ship idea might work against the home world in "achilles heel" but they have fighters with 46 shield factor.

As quickly as possible, try to figure out what kind of defenses they are using and use a different kind of attack. 46 in shields will result in a defense of almost 7 to the other types of attack, so that's something you can still overcome, for example with a fleet of small ships with say at least 12-15 attack each.

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The only way I managed to survive the Dreadlords is by realizing they're stupid. Until you can research hugely powerful, whopping great ships with a lot of Logistical ability, just run away. Keep a picket line of ships so you can see them coming. If they're just sending a Transport, kill it (they never put them into protected Fleets). If they're sending anything else, send all your ships somewhere else. They might follow your ships, but you can usually lead them into someone else's territory (maybe they'll kill each other). When Dreadlords are around, I never even bother with Stations of any kind. The DLs will destroy every one no matter how powerful.

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