Thanks guys.
I tried a 5-player free for all on Hard, this time as the Tyranids. They took a lot of restarts to understand how they work and hunt for a basic build order. They have real struggles against tanks, but melt infantry - you’re pretty much thinking all the time about how to position your tank crackers (mostly your Tyranid Alpha in the early game) and buffer with your disposable fodder infantry.
The real star of the horror show is the second hero, the Tervignon. This thing can heal (that’s neat) but its main role is to spawn free Termagaunts. This is pretty amazing, functioning as a second city and filling he map with fodder. Your Termagaunts are also the perfect thing to feed back into your cities for more production, allowing you to really boost your development. Influence is a really critical resource - you can almost never have too much.
The game I took to the conclusion was a very close run midgame battle against the Necrons. The AI handled that well. After that, most of the AIs I encountered seem to have really struggled - I think occasionally they get stuck on the terrain wildlife or fighting other factions. Despite that, very much enjoying this game.
When I last played Tyranids they really struggled with armored enemies. Once you ran into packs of Russes or such you were in deep trouble. That plus the early (maybe now) AI didn’t know how to handle synapse positioning. Those two things together really messed up the AI difficulty when Tyranids were first released which was a bummer because before their release the AI was in a great shape after a modder had worked on it with the devs blessing. I have not played too much lately, but my game the other weekend had a pretty good show of the AI in a co-op, allied multiplayer comp stomp.
It’s absolutely still their weakness. Many of their attacks get huge bonuses for multiple enemies in the same unit; they devastate infantry but really struggle against single big units like thanks and heroes. Lictors, weirdly, are fantastic at dealing with both but are melee range and rather squishy. Zoanthropes also pack a really powerful close range anti-tank punch early on.
I’ts probably more of an issue against higher-difficulty AI, as the AI fields unusually large numbers of tanks far earlier than any human could hope to. Late game, the Tyrannofex seems to solve all tank related woes at range.
I’m playinh on medium as the imperial guard against the Orcs, the Necrons and the Space Marines. I’m somehow managing to hold off on 2.5 fronts at the same time. The Necrons and the Marines are attacking from the same area at center map more or less, and the Orcs are at the bottom of the map. I figured I’ll hold off the center and concentrate on obliterating the Orcs. This seems to be working more or less, when the 5th quest triggered and the map was swarmed with enslavers who immediately proceeded to wreck havoc in my forces.
Do you guys play with quests on or off?
I play with them off.
I’ve only played 2 or 3 games. I play wit the events on for the first time with a faction. After I think I’ll leave them off. I don’t like the insta spawn in the events.
I play with the quests and the big chaos thing off. Both can really shift the power of a game unpredictably.
The Lord of Skulls can easily wipe out several units each turn. So, unless you have a lot of late game gear lying around, its quite annoying.
The quests, I agree, are interesting the first time and then are an annoyance, with the insta-creation of a lot of new grey guys, usually pretty close to one or more of your cities.
The Astra Militarum end quest can be solved ( a 4 hex radius of Kastellans around a single Tech priest) by having a lot of Chimeras acting as taxis for lots and lots of Heavy Weapons squads.
The Tau mission I got bored trying to defeat. You have to kill off every new unit that drops, including any left over from last turn, in one turn. Or more spawn. Playing as I was on a huge map that means I went through 30 turns of missing one or two units somewhere in a dark corner…
That being said, once you realize that Loyalty is Key, you can have a ton of fun with this game. I am currently trying to get the Who Guards the Guard badge, and its tough. I dont want to win by just doing the quest line and then ‘winning’, without even having to engage the Guard, so I dont even know if I have a chance. This badge is where you have a normal, no bonus given faction, on a huge map, against a single IG/AM faction, set to impossible. The Steam forums say that you get overrun by a huge wave of tanks and aircraft fairly early. I tried to mitigate that a bit by setting the wildlife to High, which practically litters every other hex with some type of grey unit. Its fun!
Like so many here, I am really surprised by how good this game is! Finally a strategy game with an AI that actually knows how to play! So refreshing! :-)
One thing I am wondering though: does the AI know how to use all units and skills in the game? Or is there stuff it never researches / uses? Anyone know? Either way, the extent I have seen so far is quite impressive!
My game history so far (all single player):
(1) played Orks in 2vs2 on normal. Exclusively used orc boys and heroes, researched all the infantry upgrades. The Waaaghboss seemed freakishly strong towards the end, more or less single handedly destroying entire enemy cities. I did buy some purple items for him but I was still pretty surprised by his strength.
(2) after the win on my first try, I played 2vs2vs2vs1 with all opponents one above normal and the single player team two steps above normal. Guess what happened!? My poor Necrons spawned next to the single player team, also Necrons, and the AI completely dismantled me. This felt satisfying, because there is no point in playing strategy games when the AI does not know how to win. In Gladius, it sure does…
(3)rd game as Tau in a 2vs2vs2 on one above normal. I more or less exclusively used heroes and tanks, Devilfish transports and the Hammerheads in particular. This was a bad choice, because the heroes’ buffs had no one to buff (as most don’t apply to tanks, the Commander’s metastrategies being the notable exception). The buff’s aside, I wasn’t that impressed with the Tau heroes, with the Commander being the superb exception. Towards the end, I briefly got to use Riptides and Stormesurges, which was fun. I also set a marker halfway across the map for my allied AI and was pleasantly surprised that it immediately sent lots of troops to that marker and even established a city there. This was a great bridgehead for the fight that ensued. It was so nice to see the AI react this way!
(4)the game is ongoing as Space Marines in another 2vs2vs2 one step above normal. Just got my first few Terminator units, which seem really boring so far. I guess that’s in line with the tabletop: Terminators are really strong, but somewhat unremarkably so, hardly having any special gimmicks. What I really like is how base building as Space Marines is completely different from what I had as Tau. This really helps in differentiating the factions and in keeping the game fresh.
Overall, big thumbs up from me! Bought all the DLCs after the first game, with Chaos being the single exception. That will soon follow, though…
I think all the DLC is worth it. The game is really solid and each DLC adds a new way to play.
It took me a few times to get the Tau. Their hero units are very support oriented which makes them feel useless, but they do a lot to make the army better. In general the Tau really are “for the greater good” as each unit tends to be weak but have lots of way to layer upon each other to have significantly better effect. I really enjoy playing the Tau now and still build each of the heroes.
I just finished a fairly long game of this, played over the last 3 evenings, and it was quite epic.
I’ve noticed some folks trying the game finding the challenge variable, which is a function of the typical free for all map setup: if you are playing AIs free for all on a typical random map, then whether or not the AI ganks you unceremoniously early or rolls over sadly b/c they got ganked themselves by closer aggressors is extremely dependent on the random map. And, the neutral enemies on the map can be bestial in difficulty as well. So I’ve come up with a fairly reliable way to increase the odds of a challenging game without being ridiculously whomped: use custom teams. I typically make myself a team of 1, and then pair the AIs off as I see fit. With the AIs in pairs, I can leave difficulty at normal and yet have a solid challenge, and by reducing the number of enemy teams from a wild free for all to 2 or 3 opposing teams, it makes the game less wildly swing-y.
In this game I played the Imperial Guard on a Large map versus 3 teams of Space Marines + Tau, Orks + Tyranids, and Chaos Marines + Necrons. I started off in a decent position with a knowledge booster resource and got my tech going decently, and started rolling out Sentinels. I scouted out 2 likely expansion slots, and had just got production underway on a couple of Techpriests (to build colonies) and a Tank Commander Hero, when the Space Marines + Tau rolled up on me. I immediately gathered all my Sentinels and managed to crank my Tank Commander out and then, man, it was basically Stalingrad.
The AI in this game can be fierce and the Space Marines and the Tau brought it. Tactical & Assault Marines can be dealt with but Space Marine Heroes are bastards and Devastator Marines, they chew gum and kill stuff. And the Tau, goddamn, SO MANY DRONES. And hovertanks. At least their infantry and heroes are wimps individually. But I had a moderately developed city, with space to retreat and heal, enough Sentinels to harass the attackers and a Tank Commander to basically tank the attack. And I used my Tech Priests for repairing and eventually founding two colonies behind the lines. Things were touch and go while I built up the influence to found the 2 colonies (I had blown my influence on the Tank Commander, but he was worth it.)
I had to rotate my defenders into repair areas in the city and use Tech Priest repair like crazy, but my line held, and my two colonies came online and got my economy and research going. I started adding Leman Russ Battle Tanks to the line, and then eventually got some T-Bolts in the air, and then, the baby Jesus wept. With Leman Russ to lead the charge and T-Bolts to crack hardened opposition we pushed the attackers back, right into what turned out to be their nearby home cities (which is why they bum-rushed me so bad) and flattened those cities.
As I was crushing the last of the Tau+Space Marines, a big red horde of Orks Waaughed on up but by then I was rolling. My Tank Commander had survived the veritable fires of Gehenna and was level 10. I killed 2 nasty Ork Warbosses with “Roll Over Them!” (DIE ORKS UNDER MY TANK TREADS!) and just generally smashed the Orkses.
It turns out that while I was fighting the Tau+Space Marines, the Orks+Tyranids had been facing off with the Chaos Marines + Necrons and when I trashed the Orks, that let Chaos and the Necrons stomp out the Tyranids. (I never actually saw any Tyranids in the game, just their sad former-city-wastelands). That left me with a fully cranked out Imperial Guard Army against the combo Chaos/Necron forces.
They brought some decent heat but clearly had suffered some attrition from the Orks/Tyranids as I didn’t see any really super-high end units. They did hit me with a ton of mid-level stuff but by then I had Leman Russ and T-Bolts all over the place. After a fairly massive but one sided “big battle” I rolled into their cities and crushed them, with a win on a Large map by turn 150 or so.
The real crisis of the game was turns 40 to 80, the “Stalingrad” battle against the Tau+Space Marines and it was as good of a battle as I’ve had in a PC wargame or 4X in years.
Good stuff.
Nice! I have been trying to figure out how to play Chaos - it feels really difficult to balance their resources. Very hard difficulty usually results in a slow, drawn out loss of attrition, so I’m trying to improve the economic development of the faction.
I finally fired this up yesterday and, despite having a fast SSD and really good GPU and a decent (IE older) CPU… the tutorial wasn’t really playable. Any map/mouse movements were super slow. Very strange.
So I played with Max Focused FPS and Max Unfocused FPS and it seems better. One of them was (strangely) set at 2 & I’m guessing that was the culprit.
Hmm. Can’t say I’ve seen this sort of thing. Glad you got it fixed at least sort of. Even my surface pro 6 can play this Although with some slowness obviously.
I think that “2 Frames Per Second” setting (which is ludicrous) was doing it. Totally weird that was the default setting the game/my PC picked.
I was similarly frustrated with my breakfast smoothie this morning. Not sure why my blender has a 1 Rotation Per Minute setting.
That’s for blending nitroglycerin.
Lol. I figured I was misreading or not totally understanding what setting you were talking about. The idea that the setting was actually ‘2 frames per second’ never crossed my mind.