Campaign Issues

from GalCiv2 Forums
While I never played the first GalCiv, I have played MOO, and other 4X style games. That being said, I am currently sucking hard core on normal difficulty on only mission 4 of the campaign. I'm aware there are two 'victory' conditions for this scenario, one of which is losing all your planets. I've played the scenario at least 5 times now and have always come close to 'winning' in this fashion before restarting the mission. I've never come *close* to the winning scenario of taking the Drengin planet in the west sector.

I've tried going about this mission in multiple ways and all of them have the same end result - the Dread Lords come sweeping in with insane ships and blow up anything that isn't a planet, even if it is nowhere *near* them or a threat to them. Next they come in with their troop transports with 10 troops that get some crazy 500 to 1 odds and can take most planets in one attempt. Let me detail the various methods I've tried to win this mission and see if someone can give me a tip on how to do better.

1. Expand like mad - I just buy buy buy colony ships given the huge amounts of credits I start with and build up the two smaller planets in my starting sector into tech planets so I can start down the path to troop transports. I can take every single planet that wasn't claimed at the start of the game (with the exception of the one right beside the Yor) with this method. Actually, I may retry this method with a slightly different focus. The first time I tried this method I took the closest planets first instead of the furthest one and that's why I didn't end up with the one by the Yor.

2. Go west, young man! I take my original colony ship, send it to the furthest planet it can hit, immediately buy a starport there and then a colony ship. I can take the planet right by the Yor with this method and have actually gotten to troop transports in the tech tree by turning my two smaller planets into tech planets as described in method 1. However, by the time I *get* troop transports I still have very little in the way of offensive ships and the Yor have some crazy fleets of 18/3 or something that blow up my troop transports before I think about getting near them or the Drengin. About this time I set about trying to get offensive tech, only to lose my starting sector to Dread Lord invasion.

I've tried setting up starbases to distract the dread lords, they still have enough ships left over to blow the bejesus out of anything I build in any sector, at the same time. I constantly check in with my allies and trade tech for tech or buy their tech if I don't have anything they want. I find that I can't make fleets of smaller ships to harass the Yor/Drengin as the Dread Lords like to come in with their 389432890 move a turn ships with offense of 40 and blow me up before I even realized they were there. If I research sensors far enough to see them coming, I'm just that much further from getting a decent weapon ship to fight the Yor with.

Suggestions?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Bumpity.

I tried to put this in 'game talk' and the forums with their lovely 'feature' of 'dump it all in one pit' appears to have put it in the general forums. I've edited it for game talk and let's see if it sticks this time.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you're talking about Siege, here's my strategy:

Spending to 100%, taxes to 0%. You don't actually need taxes at 0%, just however low you need to get morale up to 100%. Mass expand with purchased colony ships. You can take the costs because you have so much money to start, and the Arceans and Altarians start off with huge cash reserves that you can drain with your future tech. You shouldn't run out of money unless you start purchasing achievements.

Rush down to planetary invasion as soon as you can and build a couple transports on your home planet and Iversonia. Two troop modules, max engines. The DLs will come and take Primus eventually, and perhaps one of the Markuses or a planet in your home system. Let them, and immediately reconquer with your own transports. Do this enough, and you'll eventually pick up a weapon tech of some sort - for me last time, it was Quantum Drivers. Then you can start outfitting your ships with this cool new weapon tech and start blowing the DLs out of the sky.

But the key, for me anyways, was to leave my planets ungarrisoned, so that the DLs will come with their transports alone - the escorts will not stick around to fight.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Interesting idea, I may give it a shot. I have found that if I put even a troop transport in orbit of a planet, that the DL seem to smell it and come blow it out of the sky. :/
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm still on this mission and I've managed to keep the 3 staring planets and the Markuses. I maxed out Industry Cap and I purchased just about every building each planet will construct. This seems to get my MP and RPs up to a level of pumping out techs. I went straight for Toop techs so at least I can fend off any invasions. So far my strategy is working. I've gotten Warp Drives, Plasma Beams, and Durantium to out fit my ships. These techs obviously won't defete any Dread Lords but I have a planet that can pump out an attack ship every turn to keep the DL busy. I'll see how much farther I can get.

The disapering cursor problem seems to slow me down.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This mission is ridiculous and it is called siege. I've tried to have the 'war of attrition' but the DL's just have too much firepower and range of vessels to start with. Not to mention that no matter where my ships are they WILL find them. No matter how far they are away or that allie ships are nearby it's MY ships who are the target. The only way I beat it was to rush to troop transports and buy a small fleet while rushing to the target planet. With some luck, lots of speed and daring, I get there fast enough to take the planet. Then it's victory time.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The disapering cursor problem seems to slow me down.


I had issues with that, as well. Are you running a GeForce 6x00 series card? I've got a 6800GT and turned on 'hardware mouse' or whatever the option with the mouse was in the options menu. Since then my problem has not repeated.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tried the strategy hippofant mentioned and it worked like a charm! I only expanded to the markuses though. I've been slowplaying it and stealing techs, they don't seem to make any real effort at taking my homeworlds. The ships that do appear are easy to destroy with some of the minor weapon-techs that can be stolen. My main concern was their numbers and that they are all over the place in the middle of the map so I tried taking the route just on the bottom->left edges of the map. Saw a DL ship on distance once only, and it didn't touch me. The ships were fitted with lots of speed to be able to outrun the DLs just in case. I found the Drengin planet to have little or no defense even late in the game.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There are definitely a number of ways to beat this.

On Normal, I found that I could just take my initial colony ship and constructors and "head west" - I didnt take an intermediary planet, just b-lined straight for the planet by the Yor. This planet became my Manu Capital. Then I researched up a bit of lasers, planetary invasion, got 2 fleets of small ships and 3 transports and headed for the Drengin - there really is no need to drive right through Yor space - head around their borders (build a starbase if you need to!) and attack the planet... end game.

The other way I have played and won was through extreme diplomacy and attrition and did this on Tough. This involved teching every round - making sure all allies and neutrals had all techs. This kept the DL's off their back for quite a while and gave me some cash. Eventually the Drath lost a planet, I bought their tech and sold it on. This happened a few times and eventually we had the top level weapons in each category and some nice defensive ones. At this point, the DL's days are numbered but you have to help out now. The AI can't seem to keep a planet so he keeps losing it back to the DL's after capturing it. Slash and burn tactics work here. Use the harshest invasion methods at your disposal - lower that PQ, then decommision all the buildings (unnecessary but fun!) then abandon the colony. This should bring the world down to a maximum of 5pq and even if someone colonises it and the DL's capture it - it's pretty worthless by now. This is a surefire way to beat this level - I've done it twice now and I'm sure I could pull it off everytime.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Though economy-wise I taxed the hell out of my people. Built Multimediacenters to motivate them. I still have 5k gc left as a buffer.

Troop-transports with 8 moves works great.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like keeping the three main planets and then mass driver attack DL planets in the center (use really fast transports). After I take them I give them to the Dreign until DL gets em back. They are quickly like class two planets that you can capture easily and pick up techs each time.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't know if it is the 1.1 BETA I'm running, but the mission seems broken.

I tried a few times on challenging and here is what happens...

After around 20 turns the dreadlords start attacking and capture a planet. They immeadiatly buy a 35a beam/13d shield ship at the conquered planet and keep it there for defense. This way I can't capture techs and by the time I've researched enough to have a slight chance of destroying that they've conquered most of the map.

The planet I need to take is too far to rush with low techs. (If I try to get a base nearby it is destroyed or captured if it was a planet).

I restarted a few times but each try I'm being pushed of out of the sector in a systematic way. I don't see a way to win it other than cheating or setting the difficulty extremely low.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No, its not broken. Its damn hard though. You need soldiering like hell, dont let them conquer you, or take them back. They have very powerful sensors, and it's easy to miss those tiny scout ships.

I don't know why everyone says "cower in fear, the redships are coming!" Damn, thats not the attitude! good logistics, a DL weapon (or if you must, plasma) and medium hulls, four of these things, and it's cilit, BANG! and the dread lords are gone. Look how it got this planet! good as annhiliated!
But seriously, you need some fleets just for kicking bugship behind.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
check post #9 of https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=347&AID=104963
also you can do a search of the forums for siege to find other suggested tactics. It's one of the most popular campaign missions
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Much like the above, just wildly purchase colony ships and pick up the planets. Tech up to either Invasion or good Engines. Toss on a single laser and your best engines on a Cargo Ship and soar around taking out transports this way. They literally cannot do anything to you. If you get the chance, let them take a planet then take it back for tech.

The important thing is that you simply do not need weapon tech. You get that from Dreadlords. A rank 1 Laser works just as well as everything else at killing a transport.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The dreadlord missions are really easy if you build your ships right.

Basically the dreadlord ships can 1 hit anything so you need to get the jump on them with fleets packing enough firepower to blow away their relatively low hitpoints before they can take out more than one or two of your ships.

Focus on many tiny or small ships with only engines and lasers, I think all of the dreadlord missions start you with a decent laser so you only really need to train up logistics and engines early on. Later you'll want to improve lasers as well as getting sensor and miniturisation techs.

I'd completely ignore the defensive and hull size upgrade trees, they're not worth it vs the DLs.

Don't be afraid to trade techs or give techs to your allies also becuase they'll never turn on you or use them against you in the campaign. I never bothered with it, but it is possible to steal techs from the DLs as well, as was mentioned above.

I think most people get owned by this mission the first time, I certainly did, so don't feel bad. Just remember, if you see them coming, always make sure you get the first attack in - good engines are a must.

Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It can actually get pretty annoying. There you are, sitting around teching happily. Except, instead of teching without incident, the AI sends an unescorted transport every third turn for you to shoot down. This slows the process up quite a bit, but even on Apocalypse mission, with over 1000 attack power worth of battleships floating around, they still couldn't do anything.

Interestingly, it wasn't until I started building Disruptor armed Tiny Ships (stolen from Dreadlords) that the AI put the Transports into fleets with escorts.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Guys if u find siege bad, wait till u see apocalypse which i am currently playing on painful level ouch.......
Completed siege 1st time on tough lvl. Never lost a planet, only got invaded twice and 4 billion humans defeated, just 10 million dread lords. The trick is avoid dread lord battleships, escorts etc like mad, early on, build 2-3 early warning ships spd 4 max sensors and 2-3 very fast spd 6+ attack fighters att 1. Then concentrate on shooting down every dread lord troop carrier u see. Alot of the time your fighters can zoom in, blow troop carrier to bits, then run like mad before the nasties turn up. Still expect to take heavy ship losses, at one stage i was losing 10 ships for every dread lord ship destroyed, but u got loads of cash to buy more and u will have 7'ish colonies military production to the dread lords 1 .... right? U play this dance of death as until u advance your planets and tech to the level where u can get your revenge......

R there any other campaigns yet for GC 2?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am currently trying to play Siege on cakewalk level and I am still getting pounded into paste.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am currently trying to play Siege on cakewalk level and I am still getting pounded into paste.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow i played on normal and beat this the first time. I feel special . Basically I colonized a few planets and then went to planetary invasion pretty quickly as well as a few weaopon techs. At the same time i built two or three cargo ships with max engines and a laser to take out everything that the drengins and yor try to colonize and resource w/. Then once you get planetary invasion build a small fleet of cargo transports with lots of engines and a troop module. Then just rush them straight down the south of the map in allied territory which mostly keeps the dreadlords away, then you can hopefully have a few warships to clear out the drengin defenses if they have many and then boom game over. If you have supply/distance problems just build a starbase around the furthest resource point and hope to god the dreadlords don't find it. Worked for me, however don't expect to keep all of your intitially colonized planets.