Last mission difficulty

Someone had this problem a few days back on the Steam forums, some of the advice may or may not be useful to you.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/228880/discussions/1/350542683186272928/

Thanks for the link.

Well, the OP says he finally won after more than 6 hours. Is this expected ?

My guess is that while Stardock/Oxide made modifications to the game (read: units), they overlooked the campaign.

I had like to have feedback from people playing this mission on the latest patch.

While I agree with some difficulty for the latest mission for such a game, this is maybe a bit too much, isn't it ?

Imarion

After that thread on steam i literally have played through all the campaign on hardest just to get to this mission.. :P 

i would rather have too hard / impossible than a campaign that is a push over haha.   will have a crack tonight and let you know.

Good luck

The guy did take 6 hours but I don't think that is typical. People's levels vary considerably so I wouldn't take one or two examples as a confirmed common pattern. I confess I haven't played the mission myself so I'll have to give it a go now too...I'll stick with normal though

I played on whatever the hardest difficulty is.

I actually found one of the middle levels more difficult. I wasn't very good at the game then though. I can't even remember the last mission.

I just got a new video card, so i might jump on tonight and have a go to test it out. Will let you know.

Edit: Just googled a video of the last mission. I remember it now.

- Hold high ground in middle uppish region, which from memory is to the leftish of the passage to your ally?
- Kill bottom left. He is tottally and utterly useless. Does nothing. So you can push right up to his base at the start.
- Mild support for your ally so he isn't overrun. A few defensive buildings is normally enough.
- Once you get a force you kill top right.
- Then push on to top left.
- Just hold the high ground.
- Its a slow slog of boredom after a bit and just becomes a massive dreadnaught battle.

As with all games in this. Lots of quanta. Lots.

yeah i got my arse handed to me haha.... will have another go tonight but yeah after a bit it just slings constant dreads / nukes at you.  its basicaly about getting enough infrastucture inplace in those 2 key points to hold out long enough to eventually spam dreads and  slowly edge forward with nulifiers.

Just finished it on the 'much harder' option.

- skip all intros/conversations as fast as possible. i seem to remember time doesn't stop when they play.... stupid.... lets give the enemy 1 minute head start...
- take first 2 nodes fast, leave 1 unit there, send your other units to capture next nodes (they wont quite make it by 1min, but you get them super fast after first spawn)
- keep leap frogging other bases.
- ignore them when they say 'this plateau is the only point to the next area'. take the next one along, which is the true entrance.
- get bonus upgrades for the 4 minerals quick. get the power upgrade whatever it is for it. and start massing bonus things on it too
- you should have hit logistic cap around 8 min mark.
- hit 2nd logistics cap 12 min
- 16 min mark i was underneath green. (well two nodes away just on the right side of the hill). I had both passages (to left, and to mid up) safe. i was sending support to my ally.
- build 2 level 2s bottom left. (to kill green) started athena and long range guys so i could kill nexus. (after i kill green i used this base to help defend passage north - which i lost at one point and had to retake
- killed green at 23 mins. Was now 2v2.
- enemy was spamming annoying units everywhere with mana at this point
- i'd almost let my ally die at this point. forgot to watch him... got my first dread out and sent it over to save him.

- 23 min mark barely saved my ally. 

- lost my ally at 32 min mark
- 46 min mark i realized i had about 10k qanta and spent on upgrades. i had been pushed off my plateau back to my first one. My left hand side of mapwas pushing forwards though.
- they were going much more air than i remembered first time. i dont thinki let my ally die in the first game though.
- 1 hour mark, i'd retaken the 2nd high ground. I'd pushed almost to top left. was struggling to gain ground at this point as its just masses of dreadnaughts.
- i used the forward point to just level my dreadnaughts. and sent groups of them to re-take my dead allys base and push around.
- had built forward dreadnaught facilities top left to start killing halee. wasn't really killing her, it was more just containing the dreads that she sends.
- had to keep building orbital nullifiers everywhere. as they kept nuking everything.
- 70min mark, i'd retane my allys base. was psuhing around the right. and holding my ally's high ground. SO i was now attack on two fronts (the 2 sides) and holding on 2 fronts (the two middle areas) i was on 3k/4k supply. Building from 6 dreadnaught facts. i'd upgraded everything to about level 8 (radar - great for killing top left) and building strength
- didn't realize i had about 20 dreads sitting there. attacked with them.
- won at 83:24

In hindsight, i should have gone dreads faster. And i should have watched my ally more to keep him safe. Its not really about attacking after a certain point, its just defending a spot and reinforcing with dreads until you can push out a bit along a path while still defending its original rally high ground spot.

Congratulations ! And thanks for the detailed report.

I can't even do that on the "easier" difficulty, despite having won all missions on normal.

Imarion.

Just tried easier. Finished it, in just under 30 mins. I think i could probably get that down to 20-25. I realized that only halee is actually protected by any anti-spells. So you can probably kill the other two with magic only. I didn't do that in this run though.

- Basically the same strat. But my start was faster.

- The two starting armies just went their diff ways. One to the left, one to the right. I then built 2 adv facts to the left a bit.

- FYI. a single factory with, 1 Brute, 3 archers, 1 healer. Is enough to just keep steam rolling every single node.

- Most of my quanta was just spent increasing metal/gas output on nodes. I think at the 25 min mark i was needing 610 for the next upgrade.

- Comps did almost nothing for the entire game.

6 min mark view. You can see how much i've spread.

15:40 mark. I'd just killed green. This was my main base.

25 Mins

Just within 30 mins

Let us know how you go on your next attempt

Thanks,

I think I understand my mistake.

I was expanding west towards the green, in order to get rid of him asap.

But seeing the picture I understand I should expand north/north east towards Mac to connect to his economy and then push.

I will try that this week end.

Imarion

Expand both ways! At the start of the game you have two very small army groups.

- One should go left and up.

- One should go right, which will then force them to circle around and when they reconnect, they can head towards green - with support of new factories/units.

Yes that's what I meant.

In my first attempts I was taking the circle close to the base and then going towards west exclusively.

Here I will try to go north/north east as well.

Imarion

I made it

On easier difficulty and I needed 75min.

Could have been faster but after having destroyed green and yellow I wanted to go at a slower pace.

Connecting to Mac's economy was the key.

Thanks again for your help

Imarion

Congrats

No worries.

Edited on 18th/Oct: Was sick today, so tried the last one again on much harder. Did it in 42 mins. Rushing the middle and building dreadnaughts there and pushing towards orange while holding the path halee takes was way better. Once i had my 2nd dread, i killed Orange. While my 2nd level facts had produced enough to kill green at the same time. This was only at about the 15 min mark. The rest of the time was just making enough dreads to push halee.