Broken Star

Really? I just wanted to stop playing and finally turn to "Colonization", because I did get nuked although I blew up all endangered silos with a crowd of spies :) . I wonder why I didn´t get nuked in my first game, maybe I was regarded too unimportant.
But grinding works, the AI sends masses of Units to help out its sieged city and, IV or not IV, they can all be wiped out easily every turn with some bombers, arty and City-attacking tanks. But that´s "emperor", "deity" may bring about even more replacements.
As to the planes, the only little research I do is on airforce. I think a reasonable interception brigade is indeed a good investment.
So maybe it´s still a combination of all the tricks posted here, that will turn the red tide best. Maybe when I´m back from the new World I´ll have another go myself.
 
I also tried this scenario first with "classic" tactics. I had only got my advance going when 3 of my cities were nuked on the same turn. :mad:

So I read this thread and tried again, this time on emperor. I got a surprisingly easy nuke victory. All of the regular civs became my vassals (did not fight any of them) :eek:

Here's what I did:

* Started in the lower left corner and started by securing the oil
* Civics: police state, state prop, theocr, vassalage
* In all cities, I only built theaters, granaries, factories & barracks, then units. Mostly armors & mobile artillery, but later on also some SAM units. In my HQ, and later in another city, I built air units.
* I managed to get two great merchants. 2x1100 gold managed to get a lot of bombers. Later I mostly got engineers, which are quite useless in this scenario. At least the first can start a golden age.
* I used my money to buy air units. I placed these all over the place and bombed the hell out of the rebel's improvements. I also had a big armada of bombers softening the cities I was about to attack.
* I put all espionage on the rebels, and used spies to poison water and inflict unhappiness in their cities. One of my cities cranked out spies.
* I spread christianity to all cities.

The rebels never managed to put up a good fight, and they only managed to capture one or two of the other AI's minor cities. Even the AI's managed to capture a few of the rebels cities after they got hold of oil. The rebels were not able to activate even one nuke before I won.
 
I also tried this scenario first with "classic" tactics. I had only got my advance going when 3 of my cities were nuked on the same turn. :mad:

So I read this thread and tried again, this time on emperor. I got a surprisingly easy nuke victory. All of the regular civs became my vassals (did not fight any of them) :eek:

Here's what I did:

* Started in the lower left corner and started by securing the oil
* Civics: police state, state prop, theocr, vassalage
* In all cities, I only built theaters, granaries, factories & barracks, then units. Mostly armors & mobile artillery, but later on also some SAM units. In my HQ, and later in another city, I built air units.
* I managed to get two great merchants. 2x1100 gold managed to get a lot of bombers. Later I mostly got engineers, which are quite useless in this scenario. At least the first can start a golden age.
* I used my money to buy air units. I placed these all over the place and bombed the hell out of the rebel's improvements. I also had a big armada of bombers softening the cities I was about to attack.
* I put all espionage on the rebels, and used spies to poison water and inflict unhappiness in their cities. One of my cities cranked out spies.
* I spread christianity to all my cities.
* With the GG's I built military academies.

The rebels never managed to put up a good fight, and they only managed to capture one or two of the other AI's minor cities. Even the AI's managed to capture a few of the rebels cities after they got hold of oil. The rebels were not able to activate even one nuke before I won.
 
Alright, yes I´m afraid airforce and bombing needs be. I hoped it would go without, cause I don´t like to see those bombers doing their flight all the time. Did you buy workers and turn all your tiles into workshops? And are you going to try on "deity" too? By the way, I also wanted to start in the left corner when I maybe tackle this scenario again some time.
 
No, I didn't find the scenario interesting enough for another go. I didn't buy any workers - I managed to capture some from the AI, and also built one or two. And yes, I put down workshops more or less everywhere.
 
Also on noble. Something is weird - I'm facing ungodly large stacks in rebel cities - I'm talking 30+ units. I think they using the airfields to transport their entire collective army into the city I'm attacking, which is ridiculously broken.
 
Also, Air is clearly the best of the 4 tech paths, at least up until Air IV. It nets you +25 evade chance for your bombers each step.
 
This scenario is somewhat broken now but it does provide a new challenge, just requires a different tactical approach.

The Rebel leader has a massive advantage in pumping out troops but he will also be less aggressive if you cut him off from aluminum, this will prevent him from getting air units and most importantly tanks.

He only has access to 3 nodes of this resource and a possible 4th one if he builds a new city near it(in my last game he built one right on it but luckily my main stack of 12 mechs and 10 mobile artillery was near by).The other two are next to AI citys and area easily bombed/pillaged. Now the last one is somewhat isolated, between two of his cites but not in production range. His workers are "automated" and will never try to secure a resource if there is a hostile unit near by. So just place a level 4-5 mech with woodsmen promotion next to it. My mech got attacked once by a gunship in about 50 turns. If you place a unit on the resource he will consider it as a bigger threat and bash you out.

As a bonus you can also neglect him of oil,to prevent gunship production. But duo to a far east offshore platform this is somewhat harder, you need a ship(stealth destroyer was my choice) or capture one of the highly fortified cites on east cost(to get bomber range).

Now why all this? How does it make him less aggressive?

Its because *dumb* AI considers all infantry troops as defense units, he still sometimes attacks but in very weak and small stacks.He also won't be able to eliminate an AI and attempts to get nukes will come very late(by the time you should have a reasonable force)

As others have stated, don't tech in early game. Spend all your gold on promotions and some units.

Build workshops, even tho they give no $$, its more important to pimp unit production to 1 each turn.

Make friends, all other AIs can be turned into vassals peacefully.This way you can guard the nukes.

When you get few cities up and running you can consider teching to air III.
Try to get around ~20 bombers before, get *Ace* promotion(req combat III) for all of them. When you reach air III you can upgrade them all to 100% avoidance superbombers and you basicly won.(note that Ace promotion is disabled once you reach air III tech to avoid this)

This thing with bombers is not needed, but it does make the end easier(less casualtys). You can't do this in early game as you will be bashed by rebel leader if you don't harass him.

Few more notes:
- attack in big stacks, fast and effective or he may bash your offense with artillery, once you reach a city make sure you can take it one turn or kill off most of the defenders(this is more important in early game as you production is limited and troops are expensive)

-his cities that bored with other AI have massive amounts of troops,avoid em at start

-remember if he can produce air units and tanks, its game over, you lost

-if rebel leader does get a nuke, he will leave only one unit defending it, if all is good you should have vassals by then and you can just drop a unit or two to get it and destroy it(if you are unable to defend it).There is also a bug that prevents rebel leader from recapturing the nuke, so its automatically destroyed if you fail to defend it
 
Sounds like you have this scenario figured out--I think I tried it once right after I got the game. I'll have to give it another go.
 
This was on monarch and normal speed, but a relatively easy domination victory by 120th turn.

I might try deity later and different speed if needed but the basic tactic of denying him aluminium should be the key(you also don't need any anti air this way)
 
I tried the strategy suggested by Malis with no luck on Noble using the most recent patch as both the Urals and Far Easterners.

the biggest problem, is that the other AI's won't vassalize until it's too late. They've either lost their capital and have been reduced to a useless secondary city, or they hold out too long and get eliminated by the rebels. So I can't position bombers near some of the farthest aluminum sources. I can see how this should work, but can't pull it off. The rebels eventually get an aluminum resource long enough to plow over one of the other AI's (giving them yet another aluminum source perpetuating their conquest) or they grab a couple of the far nukes that I can't get anywhere near.

Perhaps I don't know how to get a civ to vassalize properly.
 
Before reading this post I tried Broken Star and set difficulty level to Monarch.

Played Far East, got oil and aluminium, took a rebel city early and built another.

I had a stack of 6 modern armour, 3 mobile artillery, 4 helis, 4 mech inf, 8 marines, 4 stealth bombers. Attacked a rebel city but by the time my troops were in range its 4 defenders had increased to around 12. The following turn there were 30+ units there.

Approx 50 turns into the game all but one of the AIs had been destroyed by rebels and he nuked my capital. It gave me a warning too that another nuke was ready.

Might try on deity as the posts suggest it's easier on higher difficulty but for now I just consider this mod broken!
 
Tried it on Emperor, I was doing decently, having conquered about 1/4 of the map.
Then he nuked my capital... (academy, great instructor, military academy)

It was getting harder and harder to defend against Modern Armors and Mobile Artilleries. I also had two more nuclear warnings. So I took my elite stack and sent them far into rebel territory to remove the nukes. I jumped from forest to forest with Woodsman upgraded Mechs and managed to take the nukes. Then I deleted them and when home, lol.

Took me a while to realize all I had to do to gain a sizable advantage was bomb his bloody oil resources. Since he can't make any more fighters it also means the airforce was getting more powerful, and eventually I started bombarding all his resources (happiness especially) and city tiles.

He was also running Caste System and State Property... very productive, so I send a large stack of spies and shifted his into Environmentalism. All his workshop cities started losing population like crazy.

So yeah... aerial dominance and resource denial. By the end of the game I had generated 16 great generals... One 40% healer Sam Infantry and a lot of city raider 3 + morale + leadership Modern Armors. I hardly lost any troops due to aerial and ground collateral damage. Also standing next to a city for a few turns and letting the Rebels fly in all their extra units before taking the city was a good idea.

I got a Conquest victory... just holding onto 4 nukes would have been a lot easier.
 
I'm making a mod for Broken Star.

Mostly just Graphical Changes. But I'll also put in a trait called Rebel Leader(Given to the titular leader) that makes research much slower for them.
 
IDK what happened, but the first and only time I played this, the Rebels had all level 4 units at the beginning of the game and destroyed everyone.
 
I've probably found out why the enemy keeps on having units, by changeing the "playable" thing for rebels from 0 to 1, in the map. on turn 16, 9 random units (SAM, mech inf,, inf) spawned on every city. plus, every few turns, one unit spawns on every city as well.
As the "rebels", by turn 25, i've killed every MP and those "UN" forces, and finished each techs by 3~6 turns.
 
I've been tinkering a little bit with this scenario. If you want to get it back to how it played originally, all you have to do is to open the "Broken Star" world builder file with a text editor and replace all entries "unitowner=8" with "unitowner=18" plus all entries "cityowner=8" with "citowner=18". This turns the overpowered Rebel Leader faction into plain and simple standard barbarians. Which seems to be back to what they were before the 3.13 patch.
One minor detail could still be improved: barbarians start with no tech, while in the original file the Rebel Leader has almost everything there is to have. So the barbarians will build some warriors and spearmen at the beginning but will catch up pretty soon. If anyone knows how to trick the World Builder into saving barbarian starting techs I'd be grateful for a hint.
The curious thing about this scenario: stuff like the Rebel Leader always nuking the player or the massiv spawning of Rebel troops seems to be deliberately coded in the events file. So it's likely the hard way it plays now is how it was intended.
 
Thanks for this thread.
After being crushed at Monarch, and even Prince, I went through this thread and cooked a recipe with all the ingredients. I am now in 2014, possess haf of the map and have 3 nukes.
It is just a walkover. One rebel city taken every two rounds.

Details: with a fighter I destroyed a nuke silo, so he cannot launch his nuke, can he? Next turn the silo was not there, but I am not sure that this works. I also doubt that nuking a nuke works.
Also: I strongly suspect that the AI arms nukes that he does not have. My fighters checked all the map and all nukes were still safe in Coalition hands, but the Rebel started having a nuke nonetheless.

Rare points where I disagree:
- Having Theocracy. What is the point of having 2 more xp. when you have enough already (Vassalage) and can build a grocer or a bank quickly, with Organized religion, what offers you more money?
- Spies: what to do with them, except the first one?
- Set your capital city at producing that, the other cities at producing this. It depends on the cities. My capital city is not the best producer.

Otherwise:
- Yes, red player SW is the best, because you access oil immediately without needing a settler. I had played first the Moscovite who seemed ideally located: well, he has foes on each side and the Eastern one is out of reach for quite some time.
- I first bought two Mech infantries and improved the one I had, what allowed me to take a second city rapidly . I sacrificed my two infantries and SAMs in combat. It is true, he does not invade quickly.
- Yes, I have not even found any science yet in mid-2014, but who cares?
- Yes, GP are not worth much more than having a golden age.
- Yes, it is all about buying units. I now have 850 GP and have even forgotten about it.
- Yes, before accepting vassals, think twice. I refused Player Yellow and it was fortunate. He set a city on the NW nuke I had just taken, and his capital was still weak. Better take him down (in one round) than have him as a parter. Two more cities and one more safe nuke.
- Yes, consider the enemy as an AI, not a barbarian.
- Yes, yes, yes. Send a spy early just to meet everybody, open borders and set jets in friendly capitals. After some rounds only, Rebel did not have a single resource left (no alu, no well, no coal, no plantation, no mine, nothing).
- Acquire bombers quickly. Buy them if needed. 20% less in city defence for each hit. When you are through you can work on your next target.
- Yes. Do not make setters. Unless you have several cities and one can afford it, but not at an early stage. It is why the Moscovite is so difficult: you need a settler to have oil, then you need settlers in preparation for the nukes that will annihilate your cities. Meanwhile, you do not produce anything useful.
- For what I have seen, Rebel goes from level I army to level IV straight away.
- Promotions. I sticked to Medical III, though I got the point of the other posters. I have three generals with +1 move. This allowed me twice to finish off a city in a single round (like btw in casual games).
- Yes, the external Rebel cities are not well protected (like Murmansk), so it is worth taking them because: it is one foe less in your back; you can fall back to these cities if the situation gets bad (like suddenly he sends 60 units against you).
- The coalition trying to retake a nuke is a joke. It is an xp offer, not a threat.
 
Top Bottom