[X] My Assistant

[Thanee]

I'm currently re-playing on hard difficulty, trying to get achievements. I'm very much stuck on Tosh's second mission, the one with the purple gas; the protoss are fielding mid-game units (the giant walkers and warp rays) and all I have are marines, maruaders, medics, and goliaths. It's nowhere near enough to survive, much less beat the level, mush less prevent them from closing off any gas dealies. Very frustrating.

I played this mission yesterday (on normal still).

I have chosen a very different path apparantly, as it was my 14th mission, so I already had self-repairing Thors, which made this mission kinda easy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But a dozen or so Goliaths and a bunch of SCVs to accompany them for repairs (just make them move with a Goliath as the target, and they follow it around and repair anything in its vincinity, like its buddy Goliaths in combat; very useful, esp. with the 2x repair speed upgrade) certainly did the job as well.

I guess, if you play the missions on brutal, it is a good idea to chose the order wisely, so you have the right units for the tougher missions.

Bye
Thanee

[Mäx]

Yeah the order in what you do the missions has a big impact, for example i had ghosts with perma invisibility on that mission where the colony is infected by the zergs and you supposed to destroy the building during day and hold out against the raging horde during night.
As the zerg have very few detectors in that mission and none with those waves that attack you a 3-4 invis ghosts per entry way pretty much hold the hordes at bay and what few got throught where pounded to ground by the mercenary tanks i had on the high ground. Also a bigger group of ghost was destroying the buildings during the day (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Karoline]

Yeah the order in what you do the missions has a big impact, for example i had ghosts with perma invisibility on that mission where the colony is infected by the zergs and you supposed to destroy the building during day and hold out against the raging horde during night.
As the zerg have very few detectors in that mission and none with those waves that attack you a 3-4 invis ghosts per entry way pretty much hold the hordes at bay and what few got throught where pounded to ground by the mercenary tanks i had on the high ground. Also a bigger group of ghost was destroying the buildings during the day (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Gezz, that was like my second picked mission. I just stuck marines and a couple of firebats in bunkers and ran out with hellions during the day. Think it was 6 days on hard.

Sounds like you are having fun with the game (even though it is not exactly your type of game in general). smile.gif

Oh, and a slightly delayed Happy Birthday! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

Thanks! And yeah, I tend to enjoy the campaign in particular because you don't tend to have to micro quite as much to beat the computer as you do to beat another player.

I really like that you aren't limited to how many people you have selected at a time any more.

P.S. Someone said something about a unit cap? Only one I've hit so far is 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Voran]

Finally finished the campaign. Yeah that last level was fun. I had to purposefully slow the game down to its slowest speed to micromanage things. WHich probably means I'd be eaten alive in multiplayer.

I do have to say that the Queen of Blades has an entirely cheap set of bossmoves. Its like 'instakill' for any of my guys, even the fully upgraded thors and battlecruisers.

I'm going to play it again though with a change in approach. I also picked 'nuke airsupport' so I had worms in that final mission, which really seemed to be the most disruptive elements, I'd like to see how a wall of fully upgraded anti-air missile towers fares against aerial assault.

I originally posted about a level cap, tho I may have been mistaken. It _seemed_ like earlier levels capped me at 59 terran support, but I can't be sure without going back, but it could be that they stealth increase the cap as the campaign goes on.

Still, that last level was fun.

Basically I did a minor ring of anti-air around the perimeter, to kill transports, augmented the primary entrances with pop up flame turrets (lots) tried to station at 1 thor and 3 cruisers along with ground troops (upgraded bunkers with attached cannons and 6 man capacity), siege tanks on high ground (though they had to be replaced from time to time), had to put defenses like flame turrets and patrolling banshees within the center of my base to protect vs worms. Oh and I had those anti-zerg thumpers, that slowed their attack and move speed.

My defenses lasted pretty well, up until the last 2 minutes. I guess because I didn't sortie out to take care of worms that weren't in my 'nova bomb' range they started throwing flaming zerg at me, that plus Queen of Blades coming in and wiping out a whole section of thors and battlecruisers before she could be taken down left me with soemthing of a hole in one of my defenses, so when the countdown reached 0 it was actually kinda close.

I did like the Protoss last stand map too, but I got the sense the AI started cheating at the end by instead of just sending more numbers, it almost seemed like my damage was being reduced. I do love those death-beam walkers tho. Wish I had those for the terran campaign.

[BobChuck]

The Protoss Death-Beam walkers are great against infantry, and insanely good agaisnt zerg, but they are crap vs end-game terran. The walkers do very well agaisnt hordes of weak ground units, but they have no air attack yet can be targeted by air attacks.

And on the purple gas level - I forgot about the reapers... I had been ignoring them, thinking they weren't going to help much. But you are right, they throw grenades that do more damage against structures, so using them to take out the nearby base early would take the pressure off. The hard part is preventing the Protoss from sealing off any gas.

[Thanee]

That should be pretty easy with Reapers, too. Just send a couple with an attack directly against the probe. The units guarding the probe are irrelevant as long as the probe dies. And losing a few Reapers... well... sacrifices have to be made. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

And yeah, Colossi are fun. It looks pretty cool, when you have a dozen or so stomping an enemy base backed up by as many Void Rays. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Voran]

The Protoss Death-Beam walkers are great against infantry, and insanely good agaisnt zerg, but they are crap vs end-game terran. The walkers do very well agaisnt hordes of weak ground units, but they have no air attack yet can be targeted by air attacks.

And on the purple gas level - I forgot about the reapers... I had been ignoring them, thinking they weren't going to help much. But you are right, they throw grenades that do more damage against structures, so using them to take out the nearby base early would take the pressure off. The hard part is preventing the Protoss from sealing off any gas.

That was a fun level. My approach was to completely ignore the main objective of 'harvest the gas' and focused entirely on building up a base so I could sortie and prevent gas capping. If you move early, instead of trying to respond to cap-notifications, you can clear the lower field pretty well and keep the Protoss stuck in their upper base. Though MAN that upper base is hard to clear, its got higher ground and scads of mechs. Still, it was amazingly satisfying to nuke that final base, get the 'mission complete' by making the Protoss run away.

[Voran]

Also, man, I wish they just redid the original starcraft game with updated SC2 graphics. I tried to play the original (have the collectors edition, so had that pre-loaded USB) but quickly realized I became too used to modern graphics and mouse interfaces (like...map scrolling), plus vista made the graphics all funky.

[Karoline]

Also, man, I wish they just redid the original starcraft game with updated SC2 graphics. I tried to play the original (have the collectors edition, so had that pre-loaded USB) but quickly realized I became too used to modern graphics and mouse interfaces (like...map scrolling), plus vista made the graphics all funky.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing after a few missions in SC2 "It'd be nice if I could go back and play through the original ones without having to deal with the sometimes poor interface and such.

[TommyTwoToes]

I played during the beta, and the user created multiplayer maps were pretty awesome (or completely horrible, no middle of the road). I am a big fan or Tower Defense types RTS's and there were quite a few built.

[StealthSigma]

Partly because I don't like that they've split up the campaign into three separate games (Last I heard anyway) and I don't feel like buying three games so I can get one game's worth of content.

The "campaign" went from around 30 missions that all felt vaguely similar (in Starcraft) to 30 missions initially in Starcraft 2 to 29 unique feeling missions for Terran with likely another 58 missions in the next two expansions. Say what you want about split up the campaign but in reality what you're asking for is them shoving Starcraft, Brood War, and a non-existent second Starcraft expansion into a single game.

--

It took four tries for me to beat it. It's the only level on normal difficulty that I had to play more than once (except for the ones where I did something stupid). It's hard. I chose to take out the air (you'll understand). I ended up having to field lots and lots of siege tanks (bunkers and the marnies inside die too quickly, and are too difficult to get into place after the second or third wave), along with a fair number of missile launchers (no attacking air units, but overlords that can drop zerg were still fair game), a set of 8 banshees to deal with nidas worms (cloak ftw), and all the units I could spare defending the two entrances: 3 battleships plus any vehicles i could squeeze out while not making seige tanks on the left, and 2 battleships plus what my barracks was spewing on the right.

I attempted it 6 times while going for the Hard difficulty achievement and didn't come close, then it took me 3 tries on Hard without going for the achievement. Have fun on Hard. My piece of advice, attempting the Hard achievements on hard is typically harder than playing the map on Brutal. As it stands, this is the only mission specific achievement I don't have.

--

I'm stuck on this level as well (on hard). Funnily enough I did the best my first time around. I was sitting at 6 recovered and 6 sealed, and had a good sized force left after finally clearing out that base right next to mine, and then they started sealing the last alter, so I rushed my troops over to them and went strait after the probe because it was already almost done by the time I got there. It literally went "Probe finishes, probe turns around to move away, probe dies".

My biggest problem is actually with those stupid lazer ships, they keep tearing my goliaths and bunkers apart. Maybe I just need to field more infantry because they don't seem to be fielding anything particularly effective against them. My grenade guys and marines are just tearing stuff up with 3 or so medics behind them to keep them healthy. That marine shield really helps with survivability.

I found that a healthy infantry army ratio of 1 Marine to 1 Medic works miracles. Also, target Void Rays first.

--

Gezz, that was like my second picked mission. I just stuck marines and a couple of firebats in bunkers and ran out with hellions during the day. Think it was 6 days on hard.

I cleared it a couple nights ago on Brutal. It took me 1:21:21. When the map ended I had 3 SCVs, 1 Command Center, 1 Barracks, 1 Factory, and 4 Hellions.

I really like that you aren't limited to how many people you have selected at a time any more.

P.S. Someone said something about a unit cap? Only one I've hit so far is 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Actually, there is a limit on how many units you can select at once. I believe I had 150 supply worth of Zerglings on a custom map once... I was able to select about 80% of them at once....

--

Finally finished the campaign. Yeah that last level was fun. I had to purposefully slow the game down to its slowest speed to micromanage things. WHich probably means I'd be eaten alive in multiplayer.

I do have to say that the Queen of Blades has an entirely cheap set of bossmoves. Its like 'instakill' for any of my guys, even the fully upgraded thors and battlecruisers.

It's just an instant kill for mech units. She does massive damage against other units and has a psi-storm like ability for infantry.

I'm going to play it again though with a change in approach. I also picked 'nuke airsupport' so I had worms in that final mission, which really seemed to be the most disruptive elements, I'd like to see how a wall of fully upgraded anti-air missile towers fares against aerial assault.

Blowing up the worms is the easier strategic option.... having the air support on Hard made my life very, very difficult with the upgrades I had chosen.

[Thanee]

Also, man, I wish they just redid the original starcraft game with updated SC2 graphics. I tried to play the original (have the collectors edition, so had that pre-loaded USB) but quickly realized I became too used to modern graphics and mouse interfaces (like...map scrolling), plus vista made the graphics all funky.

I think it's quite playable still; gfx are dated, of course, but not that bad... not sure what you mean with the mouse, doesn't it work the same in SC1 and SC2? I havn't really noticed a difference... but then again, I always scroll with keys, since using the mouse for that is too slow. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I also have gfx irritations with Vista, but only in the menus. The game is totally fine. A 4:3 (i.e. non-wide) screen is really helpful, though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Voran]

Yknow, I just noticed hard difficulty forces you to play as 'fast' speed. For some reason I find that incredibly annoying. Like, forgive me if I want to yknow, ENJOY the fricken game I bought instead of having to rush my way through it. I don't even care about the achievements, but the complete LACK of an option to slow the hard difficulty game down to at least 'normal' speed makes me want to punch someone from Bliz.

Edit...wait a minute, does that mean I really HAVE 15 minutes when it says 'beat mission in under 15 minutes on hard' or is it like 10 minutes but with speeded up display? Cause that'd be cheap.

[Hocus Pocus]

If you like RTS games, the answer is a definite yes.

If you only want to play the Singleplayer Campaign, I'm not sure, it is worth it, even though I think the campaign is really good. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

i like thos games and single game campaigns as well. i assume its 50 bucks, if so i guess i'll wait till it goes down to 20 or so. too rich for my blood.

[Thanee]

I do have to say that the Queen of Blades has an entirely cheap set of bossmoves. Its like 'instakill' for any of my guys, even the fully upgraded thors and battlecruisers.

Yep, she is quite mean, but still manageable, if you throw enough units at her and have some fully upgraded siege tanks behind to blast her. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Once I tried a group of cloaked banshees, but that didn't quite work out. Battlecruisers going all-out Yamato deal with her pretty quickly, though, still losing one or two against her meany attacks, however.

I'm going to play it again though with a change in approach. I also picked 'nuke airsupport' so I had worms in that final mission, which really seemed to be the most disruptive elements, I'd like to see how a wall of fully upgraded anti-air missile towers fares against aerial assault.

That's what I did (because I already had the upgraded towers, and because I figured, that the flyers have to come from outside, while the worms will spew units all over the place; so against flyers, defending seemed easier to me).

Bunch of missile towers and goliaths (all fully upgraded) plus some SCVs for repairs near the artifact and more turrets around the base, plus some bunkers and siege tanks and whatnot.

I also had a group of 16 or so vikings (fully upgraded, of course), some of them mercs, around to deal with flying threats. Those were golden.

Only used the artifact once in the end (and that wasn't even necessary, as it was on 99.9% already at that point and most of my base was still standing). Would have used it a few more times, if I had known about the achievement. Gotta have to play it again, I guess. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I researched the mind control tower, to try it out mostly, but that thing is completely worthless (as expected), since you have to trigger it manually, and Zerg simply are a horde army with few big guys worth mind controlling. It also does not have nearly enough range. I guess both of those defense towers are not really that useful. The slowdown tower is probably a better choice, however (at least near the bunkered chokepoints it will do some good).

Bye
Thanee

[StealthSigma]

I researched the mind control tower, to try it out mostly, but that thing is completely worthless (as expected), since you have to trigger it manually, and Zerg simply are a horde army with few big guys worth mind controlling. It also does not have nearly enough range. I guess both of those defense towers are not really that useful. The slowdown tower is probably a better choice, however (at least near the bunkered chokepoints it will do some good).

The mind control is better. A lot of people overlook why it's better.....

#1 - You're not limited to one tower (this is the major one that people miss).
#2 - It costs 50 energy to mind control (towers can have 200 energy).

[Dr.Rockso]

Been playing since launch and...well, it's exactly as I expected(and hoped). I find the length of the campaign to be similar to the entire length of SC1's campaign(without broodwar, natch) and more engaging. I'm hoping that if they decide to charge a similar amount for the expansions as they did for WOL that they will deliver at least as much content(and by that I mean additional features, not just story) Disclaimer: Haven't beaten this badboy yet. Bout' to start the char missions. Very much enjoyed the secret mission, even though it was short.

Now, what I don't like: If you start with the campaign, you will likely feel cheated when you get to multiplayer. You'll want your spectres,firebats and wraiths. You'll miss your medics. You'll be on your knees begging for that sweet sweet tech reactor and the extended range on the bunkers. I understand it's all for balance, which is paramount in multiplayer. But you have to live without alot of those neat things they've been showing since the tech demo a couple years back. Also, as expected, single player still doesn't prepare you for multiplayer. Those challenges they added do, however. The opening gambit and rush defense ones were great practice for example.

I'm currently re-playing on hard difficulty, trying to get achievements. I'm very much stuck on Tosh's second mission, the one with the purple gas; the protoss are fielding mid-game units (the giant walkers and warp rays) and all I have are marines, maruaders, medics, and goliaths. It's nowhere near enough to survive, much less beat the level, mush less prevent them from closing off any gas dealies. Very frustrating.

I hear you, I had a lot of trouble with that mission. I had to restart 4 or 5 times at least. I realized that Missle Turrets can target those giant Colossi, which helped a bit. If your willing to lose a couple of units, have a group of marines and medics run in and just take out the probe. The rest of the attack squad will usually stop chasing after awhile.

Also, happy belated birthday Karoline

[Dr.Rockso]

Yknow, I just noticed hard difficulty forces you to play as 'fast' speed. For some reason I find that incredibly annoying. Like, forgive me if I want to yknow, ENJOY the fricken game I bought instead of having to rush my way through it. I don't even care about the achievements, but the complete LACK of an option to slow the hard difficulty game down to at least 'normal' speed makes me want to punch someone from Bliz.

Edit...wait a minute, does that mean I really HAVE 15 minutes when it says 'beat mission in under 15 minutes on hard' or is it like 10 minutes but with speeded up display? Cause that'd be cheap.

I find normal speed a bit slow, honestly. But I started on Hard, so that's likely why. Hard lives up to it's namesake: It can be tough as nails, at times. If they say you have 15 mins, you have 15 mins. But to compensate the enemy plays better, with more forces at their disposal. It will feel like less because they are pummelling you so much more.

[StealthSigma]

I hear you, I had a lot of trouble with that mission. I had to restart 4 or 5 times at least. I realized that Missle Turrets can target those giant Colossi, which helped a bit. If your willing to lose a couple of units, have a group of marines and medics run in and just take out the probe. The rest of the attack squad will usually stop chasing after awhile.

Colossus are well countered by Vikings, if you have them.

It's important to note that the major differences between difficulty lies in frequency and amount of units sent and the health of the AI's units. As far as I can tell, their damage hasn't been altered at all. A colossus on Brutal is just as deadly as a colossus on Casual. The difference would be that in casual the AI rarely uses Colossus, while the Brutal AI will almost always use colossus. A 1:1 Marine:Medic ball can easily take out colossus on Brutal with enough in the ball. There's only a few units that badly hurt this tactic, mostly the siege tank in siege mode or multiple high templars. There's also some missions where this tactic is less useful because of time constraints preventing you from massing enough (Supernova) or the mission dictates you must use something else to succeed (The Great Train Robbery/Maw of the Void).

[Dr.Rockso]

Colossus are well countered by Vikings, if you have them.

It's important to note that the major differences between difficulty lies in frequency and amount of units sent and the health of the AI's units. As far as I can tell, their damage hasn't been altered at all. A colossus on Brutal is just as deadly as a colossus on Casual. The difference would be that in casual the AI rarely uses Colossus, while the Brutal AI will almost always use colossus. A 1:1 Marine:Medic ball can easily take out colossus on Brutal with enough in the ball. There's only a few units that badly hurt this tactic, mostly the siege tank in siege mode or multiple high templars. There's also some missions where this tactic is less useful because of time constraints preventing you from massing enough (Supernova) or the mission dictates you must use something else to succeed (The Great Train Robbery/Maw of the Void).

Oh I know, Collossi aren't that tough with the right counters. It's that when most people get to this mission you are outclassed. You don't have any air support at all. Goliaths turn out to be kind of overrated(and expensive) and you have to fight off them sealing geysers AND defend against attack waves.

[StealthSigma]

Oh I know, Collossi aren't that tough with the right counters. It's that when most people get to this mission you are outclassed. You don't have any air support at all. Goliaths turn out to be kind of overrated(and expensive) and you have to fight off them sealing geysers AND defend against attack waves.

It all depends on how you play the game. Each arc is -mostly- independent of each other. The only exception is that Mara Sara missions must be beaten first, The Dig from the Artifact arc must be beaten to unlock the Prophecy arc, and you have to complete the Artifact arc to get access to the Char arc. Otherwise, any problem you have with not continuing an arc is a matter of not completing enough missions.

You have the three Mar Sara missions, the Artifact arc, the Prophecy arc, the Covert arc, the Colonist arc, the Rebellion arc, and the Char arc. The order which you do the missions dictates what upgrades/units are available to you. Once you've completed a mission it's locked to those units/upgrades that you had in that time.

For example, I believe it to be possible to construct Battlecruisers for that mission as long as you beat Maw of the Void prior. You can most certainly get Vikings for that mission if you do the Colonist arc and complete Safe Haven or Haven's Fall.

[Thanee]

But I started on Hard, so that's likely why. Hard lives up to it's namesake: It can be tough as nails, at times.

Played Normal first, now playing Brutal.

Trust me, Hard is just a walk in the park. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Some missions on Brutal are just crazy. You really have to play fast and do everything right, otherwise you get thrashed. Badly!

For example, when I played the third mission (after you got the first piece of the artifact and have to protect it until you get extracted), I ended with my whole base being overrun by Zerg and two of my buildings flying around somewhere in different directions away from the main battle (I lifted them early to get distance between the attackers and my buidlings), both under attack and only seconds away from being destroyed. Clooooose call! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

But I think my defenses could have been better there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Likewise the one where you protect the colonist transports while they depart to the spaceport. You really have to build a huge force there quickly, otherwise no chance against the masses of Zerg rushing in. And if you do not exactly know where to look for them, just forget about secondary targets... there is no time for searching the map. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[DocTaotsu]

Did someone mention Homeworld?!
*Starts twitching uncontrollably with nerd joy*

Yeah... i really wish Relic would get back on the horse and make a worthy successor. Homeworld is easily one of the greatest all around games I've ever played and Cataclysm told one of the best stories in gaming history.

[Voran]

I did find it useful to run through all of Zeratul's mission chain when i had access to it, the accumulation of +protoss and +zerg research makes a huge difference, just make sure you do the normal round of 'check on npc talk options' aboard the hyperion every time you finish a crystal mission.

Obviously crystal missions won't give you credits for armory upgrades or mercs, but i think you can get what...half of each research tree by doing the missions?

[Karoline]

I did find it useful to run through all of Zeratul's mission chain when i had access to it, the accumulation of +protoss and +zerg research makes a huge difference, just make sure you do the normal round of 'check on npc talk options' aboard the hyperion every time you finish a crystal mission.

Obviously crystal missions won't give you credits for armory upgrades or mercs, but i think you can get what...half of each research tree by doing the missions?

More or less half. Think you end up with slightly over for Protoss and slightly under for Zerg.

That (last?) mission where you have to kill 3k enemies or whatever kicked my butt when I tried it the first time, then I just moved back into the main missions, and then my sound went out, so I haven't played since it is hard to keep up without the notifications that your base is being attacked and stuff like that. (And you don't get to hear all the great voice acting)

Also, hard is faster than the other modes? Huh, didn't know that since that's the only mode I've played so far.