Broken Star

last night i tried on two levels above noble and got one city from rebels and then moved to take another and by the time i got 4-5 mech infantry and mobile guns, they had amassed about 10 mech infantry. every time i killed one 2 more appeared the next turn. the AI's were exploring the board but i didn't see any capture a city. after loosing my whole stack to the rebels i had a good idea to where that game was going and restarted at one level above noble. i am currently at turn 40 in that game and i have captured 4 cities. thus far only two of the AI's have more than one city but it am pretty sure they were built by settlers not conquered because i think you get a message in between turns if a city changes hands. my strategy for that game was to be the north Caucious district (the red dudes in the lower left corner). i think they have one of the best starting positions because they can get oil fairly quickly by taking the city to the right of it. (i think it was <10 turns before i got oil) there are two other rebel cities to the south west that i conquered to give me only one front to defend. i used the same starting strategy both times. The first was unsuccessful, and the second...well so far so good. the rebs have not got any nukes yet (probably only a matter of time though). ill keep you posted
 
I've been trying my totally new strategy, and it may actually be doable with some tweaking. I started by purchasing an air unit right off the bat, to leapfrog to all the other non-Reb cities, and get open borders. Then, as I'm able to purchase more, I place air units in all those cities so I can keep an eye on the Rebs (and, in the meantime, bomb the heck out of all their resources and improvements.) Back in my own territory I spam out mech infantry. Then, as soon as the Rebs get a nuke, I do recon with my air units around the map to find out which one they got, and send my mech infantry over there to take the nuke back (here I have to rely on the AI stupidity, because even though it can take up to the entire arming period to get my guys over there, they usually leave the nuke guarded by only 1 or 2 weak units which I easily destroy after the long journey). This is also one of those maddening points, because it'd be nice if one of the other non-Rebs would go ahead and take some of those nukes back instead of making me do *everything*-- in some cases they could leave their capitol, retake the nuke, and go back home practically all in one turn. But nooooo... I have to spend 15 turns going all the way there myself.... Anyway. Once I have the nuke, I *destroy* it. This is simply to avoid having to waste units defending it, and the fewer nukes left on the playing board, the better.

Unfortunately, I still got to the point where I could see I was going to lose anyway, because suddenly the Rebs took 4 more nukes within just a few turns, and there was no way I could go take them all back on my own. Again, because I'm forced to go all over the map to do so, I suffer huge casualties on the way as I have to cross the Reb territory.

2 possible solutions?... 1) Use vassalage to allow airdrops of my units directly into other non-Reb cities, thereby avoiding long and dangerous travel times to the nukes. 2) Give up on this defensive strategy altogether and, still using vassalage to airdrop past the Rebels, gradually build up 4 armies across the map and then simultaneously take, or take back from the Rebs, 4 nukes, and then attempt to hold them for 20 turns to get an Arsenal Victory. Hmm. Could work. I feel the timing would have to be pretty sophisticated, though-- have to be quick enough to beat the Rebs out on the nukes, but not so quick that my armies aren't big enough to defend the nukes once taken.

Remember, it's FUN! :crazyeye:
 
I am still convinced that something got mucked up with the AI aggression possible due to the patch. I put out a post asking for the leaderheadinfo.xml from pre 3.13. i don't know much about modding but if the preference for war values for the post 3.13 are different from the pre, then we know there is a problem. I figure this is a more proactive way then just posting it as a bug and hoping for a fix. based on the responses here i don't think many people play this mod, so might have to take things into our own hands.
 
I think I may have "figured it out"... or at least found one possible solution... I'm playing as the Red guys (you're right, Graves-- it's a good starting position). As before, bought an air unit right away and used it to leapfrog across the map and make friends with everyone & open borders. Continued to buy air units and place them across the map. But then, instead of defending the nukes or building up an attack force right away, I put almost everything into air units, and used them to completely destroy the Rebels' infrastructure. This seems to have intimidated them and they did not go for any nukes until the 70-somethingth turn, at which point I now have a nice handful of their cities and have even had a chance to build up my own cities & a good ground force. Things are going well. I vassalized everyone who would agree to it, if only to avoid fighting them at the same time, since the others were starting to get annoyed at my increasing territory.

It's interesting how the destruction of the Rebs' infrastructure turned off whatever cue causes them to go for the nukes right away. From what I can see, they still had plenty of troops to do so and if they had done so earlier, they would have caused me quite a headache.

Still playing on Noble. Will let you know how it turns out. Right now I'm feeling pretty optimistic that I could take it. In fact it's been pretty easy and boring up to this point.
 
emilie,
Interesting strategy. i hope it works. did you buy the plane after you got oil? (i assume you took over the city to the right to start.) otherwise it cost something like 640 for one bomber. i wonder if the rebels rely on modern armor or bomber to attack the nukes and that is why they leave them alone without oil. I would suspect when the computer sees the 2 x 45 strength tanks guarding the missiles vs rebel mech infantry it does some calculation that says "bad idea to attack".
 
Yeah, I got oil first... I usually spend the money right away on a couple of mobile artillery to help with taking out the first city or two.

I think this strategy (the air assault) is doable... it is a looooong game though. I finally got bogged down with about 90 turns to go and I'm quitting because the Rebs are finally starting to whittle me away with superior troop numbers. I could probably still win a time victory with some careful planning, but it's getting pretty tedious and I don't want to waste several more hours only to possibly lose. I got a bit cocky midgame and started building up my cities instead of just focusing on troops. I think if I just went for troops in all my cities, pausing only to build happiness buildings when absolutely necessary, this could be a win. I may replay and see how that comes out.

Still a couple of oddities (bugs?) with this one though... for one thing, one of the nukes I took back disappeared right after I took it. Another strange thing I noticed-- the percentage of land territory required for the domination victory seems to fluctuate throughout the game. Is that a bug, or does it change based on how much land the Rebs have?
 
I noticed both of your oddities too. i wasn't sure if it was just me, but it looks like you confirmed it as well.
 
Well, I finally won.... that was one loooooong game. But using that strategy (air destruction/vassalage/takeover of Rebel cities) it was actually pretty easy, albeit somewhat tedious. Once I solidified my position on the western side of the map, I was able to build up 3 really solid armies made up entirely of mobile artillery and modern armor, and I just ate up the Rebel cities from 3 directions-- west, south central, and southeast. (Funny, the southeastern coalition never bothered to take that little city to their southeast, even though that's easy pickings on their very first turn. Idiots.)

Not long after taking the Rebs' last city, I got a Domination Victory.

No doubt one could also get an Arsenal Victory using this strategy to begin with, and probably much more quickly too.
 
I haven't posted in the longest time but would like to thank the posters on this thread for their good advice on this battle.
 
Glad to see someone is talking about this issue. I just bought BTS and this is the first scenario I am putting through its paces. So far it has very little in common with its description. The Rebel forces are supposed to be independent city states that fight mostly amongst themselves, rarely attack the principal players, and definately do not make a concerted, intelligent, effort to wipe them out.
What I have found is that even on Warlord Difficulty the Rebels act as a single massive enemy that uses every capability at its disposal to wipe out the "real" civilizations as quickly as possible. Within a few turns the "Rebels" dropped 4 nukes on my cities and systematically distroyed all others with overwhelming numbers of troops far beyond the technology of the "real" civs. They attacked with air units, followed by siege units, followed by massive armor stacks on the same turn. It was a perfect and concerted effort.
Since none of the real civs ever do anything other than to act as speed bumps for the rebels, this mod has a very lonely feel. It is basically the human player versus a massive and much larger rebel player where nothing matters accept how fast military units can be pumped out. So far I must say I am extremely disappointed in this mod. If it played anywhere close to its description it would be one heck of a fun game.
 
Just played another game of broken star this time on "Settler" difficulty to see if it was even winnable post patch. The result was the same, this scenario is completely broken.
 
I was playing this mod/scenario and found that i ended up getting nuked by the rebels no matter what my strategy was.
I read this forum for some ideas...and then it struck me - no, this mod isn't broken - it just requires a little thinking out of the box.

Basically, the philosophy of the Broken Star scenario is this:

Your reasearch and to a lesser degree production is screwed.
But in this mod you can purchase units AND promotions.
That is the KEY...

So focus on aquiring $$$$.

As for victory:
Conquest is out of the question as it will be impossible to take out the Rebels
Time may also be problematic as by the end the Rebels may be too strong to hold out against...
So that leaves with you going for an ARSENAL VICTORY.

I'm playing Oksana <Aggr, Imp> at Diety/Marathon (which slows production of the rebels and the othe generals as well as yours).

Basically plunder your way to victory!
(As an aside, this was what the Nazis did in WWII, they plundered their way through europe and used the aquired gold to finance their war machine...)

Macromanagement.
1. Choose civics to boost finances: <State Prop, Vasselage, Police State>
2. I found that getting a Great Merchant gives you $2700. This can buy you a whole stack of units and promotions.
So i chose <Caste System, Pacifism> to boost great person production and set all my cities to produce <$$$, gr8 ppl>.
3. Don't build any buildings...as you cities may get nuked.
7. Turn off reasearch....so 100% $$$.
8. Don't bother with settlers...in the marathon game it takes 43 turns to produce a settler...while a mech takes 7.
9. Manage health and happiness with civics and use workers to produce a forrest reserve for a :)
10. Build mechs/artilary/SAM in my HQ. Spies in other cities.

Military Strategy:
Focus on creating a highly promoted, compact, elite fighting force!

1. Purchase your units: Gunship (to pillage), Armor (city attacker), Stealth bomber (to destroy crucial resources).
2. Focus espionage on the rebels. Use Great Spies against rebel for espionage boost. Use spies to make contact with the rest of the non-rebel A.Is. Then...
3. Use spies and stealth bombers to take out cruicial Rebel resources. You really need to stay on top of this!
(FYI: If you have enough spies and bombers, you'll be aware of when the rebels secure nukes. In this game, 20 turns is enough to go take them out).
4. Attach Warlords to a medic to give you super medic (i.e medic III) for a battle stack, and to gunships for +1 movement (morale) to pillage and clear.
5. When securing nukes, use your guships to create a perimiter of 2 sq. (destroy roads); leave a stack of units (mech, medic, gunship, SAM, artillary) to guard it.
6. If one of your cities gets nukes, move on...
7. Remember to use $$$ to promote your units.
8. Ally with the non rebel A.I where possible. Turn them into vassels when possible.
9. Pillage, pillage, pillage! (Those groups of town are waiting to be pillaged...allowing you to buy new units).
10. ENGAGE THE REBELS: keep the rebels week. You need to find a secure location (hill + forrest) near a rebel town to take out its units. This will also give your units promotions. Which you may augment with purchased promotions.

Have fun...

FYI: NOTES ON GAMEPLAY:
I took out the coastal city of Vladivostock in the first couple of turns, then Amur to the north soon after.

I got a great spy (my first gr8 person) which i used against Rebels. My next was a Great Merchant which i used to buy stealth bomber, and a stack of units to take out the 3rd city (which i gave to white guy) and my first nuke.

The Rebels nuked my HQ...but no problem, i keep on...
As my neighbour (orange guy) turned on me, i took two of his cities and turned him into a single city vassel.
One of those cities became my new mech producing city...and the game continued.

Acquired another vassel (white guy).

Now i'm taking out Rebel units one-by-one next to a 4th city i'm after. Then onto my second nuke...
 
That's odd, I always found the Rebels to be borked because they're in constant strike with colonial costs and a lack of a capital city. Ouch.
 
Well I may retry it on Diety level sometime. I played far east and got creamed both times, will be curious how your game eventually ends. Anyway I played the Charlamagne scenario last night and had a lot more fun with that one. Its not so one dimensional.
 
I said i will post what happens...well actually the game turned to . .. .. .. . shortly afterwards so i had to go back and finesse the strategy.
I've updated my previous post to reflect that.

I work, so sadly i've gotta wait until the weekend to play :)
 
rmendis:
what version of bts are you using? also are the other AI players attacking the rebels? from your last post it sounds like they are. the reason i think this scenario was bugged was i have never seen the other AI attack the rebels. the description of the game makes the rebels sound like a minor player and their role is to be gobbled up by the human and other AI before going after each other. Is this your experience or are you only facing rebels? you strategy sounds like it might work. keep us posted
 
rmendis:
what version of bts are you using? also are the other AI players attacking the rebels? from your last post it sounds like they are. the reason i think this scenario was bugged was i have never seen the other AI attack the rebels. the description of the game makes the rebels sound like a minor player and their role is to be gobbled up by the human and other AI before going after each other. Is this your experience or are you only facing rebels? you strategy sounds like it might work. keep us posted
graves_09, yes, the Rebels have been at war with the other AI...in fact destroying a couple of them...however, i've noticed that the Rebels only nuked me :)
 
That was not exactly his question. He asked if the other major players have attacked the rebels, not whether the rebels attack them. Post patch the other major powers do not attack the rebels. They are guaranteed to all be destroyed by the rebs if you last that long.
 
Hi everyone!

It could be that the discussion is way past this, but comparing my experience in playing this scenario before and after the latest patch, I'd offer that there's something in the patch that changed the nature of the rebels. Pre-patch, the other AI-controlled playable civs attacked the rebels vigorously, and the rebels themselves acted less in concert than they do post-patch.

In between bouts of trying to figure out how best to approach this new development, I saw a game where the rebels actually took out one of the non-rebel factions, which shocked me...
 
Yes, others have confirmed that the patch seems to have broken the mod. Post patch the Rebs not only attack they "Real" powers, the rebs systematically and intelligently destroy every single one of them, and then the human player.
 
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