Getting creamed in Pandemonium

from Sins Forums

I'm fairly new at the game, and I've been going through all the pre-made maps in order in single player.  I'm at a complete halt with Pandemonium played as a 4-player free-for-all with 3 Normal AI's.  This is the map where all four players start adjacent to a central hub asteriod, and the starts come in pairs where you can reach one of the other positions through an asteroid.  All the other neutral planets attached to the star, and only reachable through the central hub asteroid.

The central hub is dead, so I've been wary of trying to take it.  Among other things, it means all 3 other players are going to send their entire fleets through there.  What I've done instead is take my adjacent asteroid - 2 metal and 2 crystal - and then wipe out the attached neighbor.  That's easy enough to do.  But then the other two players start relentlessly attacking me, and eventually they wear me down.

So what do you do on this map as free-for-all, rather than 2 vs. 2?

 - Gus

strategy
2,828 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Hey Gus,

I have no idea if this would work, but it sounds like you are getting nailed by the 2 AI's because you have set yourself up as the strongest player by killing the first AI. It might be worth trying to hold off on that until the AIs have gotten a bit of a hate-on for each other... then start the heavy hitting.

Cheers
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I've since beaten the map, after reading some of the general strategy tips here.

* I could kill my neighbor earlier if I scrapped my capital shipyard for materials after getting my free capital ship.
* Going directly for LRM's and ignoring all other tech made the kill more efficient.
* I had sufficient force to take the hub immediately afterward, again thanks to LRMs.
* Going for two repair docks in the hub made it a lot cheaper to hold it.

Once I had the hub, two homeworlds, and the asteroid, the game was pretty much over. I could grab the rest of the planets at my leisure, and the two other players were pretty much bottled up.

- Gus
Galactic Civilizations III