Cheers!
One of the best things about Infested Planet is the way it generates the battle maps. There are usually multiple ways to proceed, with choke points and areas that are more heavily populated with hives. This stood out a lot since I was just coming from playing Gal Civ 3, where the maps were wide open and fairly featureless when in came to combat.
Another plus in IP is the use of crates. Sometimes there are ammo crates that really dangle a carrot in front of you to be aggressive and take some chances. Those crates can let you make a sustained offensive push at times where you might not otherwise be able to do so. Build point crates can also offer big rewards to wade in, grab the crate and get the heck back out to cash it in. Those 3 build points may be the difference to being able to build one of those glorious turrets.
IP is naturally broken down into small chunks. The battles can be over within 5-10 minutes and it’s probably rare they last 20-30 minutes. At least it never really felt they got that long. This is perfect for those who can’t devote hours to a game.
About the only mission I can think of that could reasonably get to 20 minutes long is the final story campaign mission. In just about any other scenario, it will always be both possible and desirable to finish the mission before it gets to that point barring any mistakes on the player’s part (and everyone will make them from time to time).
Even if you mess up, it’s possible to bounce back from just about anything as long as you’re willing to sacrifice some territory, since the game doesn’t deprive you of the build points you earned up to that point even though you’re hemorrhaging the same territory you earned those points for taking in the first place. Consolidate on a rear line, rebuild your forces, upgrades and ammo stockpile and then push right back again. The campaign map mode punishes you for this with its morale mechanic, but the story campaign and skirmishes do not.
Yeah, I said “probably rare” just because I didn’t want to overreach if I had forgotten something ;-)
I didn’t know about the higher difficulties since I played the entire story mode on normal, and then only played a handful of them on hard after that. My dynamic campaign was only on normal too.
Yea, regrouping is very doable, and for those who don’t like to replay things from the beginning (like me), it’s a good characteristic. The campaign mode is a good contracts to this, due to the morale you mention. You can still regroup within a particular battle, but it will have the morale consequences. It does add some tension to the player’s decisions and battle performance that is missing in story mode and a nice option for a way to approach Infested Planet.
The bumping of this thread and the dynamic campaign DLC finally got me to finish story mode. That’s a humdinger of a final mission. I didn’t do a lot of pausing/orders/changing soldier types: on the prior mission, I had 300-some build points and recycled 100, issuing 500 commands. In the final mission, I had about the same number of build points, but I recycled about 400 and issued 1100 commands.
Gah, despite posting in this thread Discourse decided not to watch or track it for me so I had no idea a gauntlet had been thrown down! @robc04, you’re on.
OK @geggis I nudged ahead of you on the horde mode :-)
I also played a game at the Bronze level too just for some variety. I’m not sure I’ll play anymore Infested Planet this week so if you top me the victory is probably yours!
Ahh, I had to abandon that game early but, to be fair, I was getting my ass handed to me by that point anyway. In fact, I actually started laughing out loud because the situation was so dire. Enraged Guards with Impact, Carapace, Assassins and Toxic Clouds are just a whole world of pain. Going to give it another run tonight though; got a few ideas in mind ;-)
We should totally do more of this, would be a shame not to! I need to give the Brogue challenge a go as well. Looks fun.
Sorry to jump into your battle with geggis, but just beat you on Bronze. Will give hoard mode a go later on as well.
Everyone’s welcome Wo1verine!
I think I’m in slightly ahead of @geggis, at #107, 17 points below @robc04.
Infested Planet has got to be the best coffee break game I can remember.
You must be Dave Varley on the Infested Planet boards, right? I just beat your Bronze score by 1 measly point :-)
Yep, that’s me. 1 point or 10,000 points, you still beat it. I think I beat your hoard mode score as well. Shit’s gettin real. :)
Wow, that’s an awesome score geggis. Pretty sure that is safe from me!
The idea I had earlier which obviously did the trick was deploying the shield emitter near hives so I could muscle in without taking massive damage from the enraged guards. I was also very careful to make sure I had a captain to give my dudes a burst of extra power after taking down a hive to hopefully clear the mess and move on quickly. I tried to make sure I was stacking orders for the odd rifleman to collect BP crates too and return them to an outpost. Obviously that gets harder and harder to do as the map gets infested. One thing I forgot to get was a life support structure, I always forget about those. Teleporters are really handy to sustain the pressure if it’s looking like your squad are about to wipe - teleported minigunners are great! I didn’t use helicopter strikes either, just cluster bombs, rockets and the odd teleport and shield to keep folks alive.
Damn that’s some score!
I’m late to the party due to too much real-life. Finally got and played the DLC and am really clicking with this game now. I love the length! It’s just the right amount of build-up and satisfaction for a 1-2 hour sit-down. I’ve only played one campaign on Normal, but am excited to see the new features that get added at Hard. Man, I forgot how damn fun this game is. It’s great to be reminded of it.
Addictive game. Supposed to go out to dinner tonight, but game!
It is indeed! You playing the story or planetary campaign?