Broken Star is HARD!

[samthedagger]

I have tried this scenario multiple times on Noble and the end result seems to always be that the "Rebels" end up out-teching the civs, capturing the nukes, and obliterating everyone on the board. None of the civs start with oil IIRC, meaning you can't get tanks unless you buy them for the very unreasonable cost of 540 gold. My most recent game, I started as Rostov and went straight for Astrakhan, hoping to get it's oil resource. I captured it early with a purchased artillery for support and then started planning to head south for Krasnodar and Grozny. I now have Krasnodar and by moving the culture slider managed to get a hold of Astrakhan's oil well. So now I can build tanks and planes and may have a shot at this.

Still, I really have an issue with the fact that the other civs don't seem to realize the "rebel threat." If each one of them took just one rebel city at the outset, which they all have the beginning army to do, then this might be "russian factions fighting for control of Russia" mod that it is meant to be, since the rebels would be largely neutralized. But as is, it seems the main challenge of this mod is fighting the rebels. The other factions might as well not even exist, except as buffer zones.

One fix is to make each city represented by a faction and just do away with the rebels completely. But there still needs to be some way to get the AI civs to be a little more aggressive. Just sitting around waiting for the rebels to out-tech and conquer them is pretty lame. Then I'm left to conquer Russia myself! Has anyone worked with this mod? It has a lot of promise, but needs some work.

 

[samthedagger]

Ok, after one more game of Broken Star, this time making it to a miraculous 104 turns, I have decided Broken Star is indeed "broken." This scenario is simply unwinable. The "rebels" are just too overpowering. They roll level IV stacks at me while I have just barely researched level II techs. They capture all the nukes and use them to obliterate the "real" civs' cities, including my own. I had a pretty decent run going with 5 cities until the rebs started nuking the hell out of me. Because of the way nukes destroy cities in this mod, there is just no way to come back. Eventually I was the last civ standing and with only two cities left and four rebel SoDs headed my way, I called in the towel.

Have any attempts been made to fix this mod? I have some ideas.

1) There is a bug in which if the rebels capture a nuke, the coalition forces do nothing to take it back. If a civ captures a nuke, the coalition sends two rangers and a heavy tank every other turn or so to try to get it back. This needs to be fixed, but I'm not sure how myself.
2) Don't let the rebels tech beyond level I units. This alone will help make them easier to deal with. For that matter, maybe they shouldn't even get the advanced units like modern armor, mobile sam, or mechanized infantry. Especially not stealth bombers.
3) All civs should get a bonus for fighting the rebel forces like you normally get a bonus for fighting barbarians. +25% or +10% I think. This represents the fact that the rebels are disorganized. I haven't seen it in the combat odds though so I am assuming it got taken out.
4) The "Rebel Leader" changes civics. WTH! The rebels are supposed to be a bunch of disorganized warlords who can't agree on anything. They should be stuck with the basic civics (tribalism, paganism, etc.).
5) The AI needs to be more aggressive. As I mentioned previously, if the AI civs all took one rebel city at the very beginning of the game, I think the problem would be seriously ameliorated. As is, I have yet to see the AI take even one rebel city.

 

[Inky]

Ok, after one more game of Broken Star, this time making it to a miraculous 104 turns, I have decided Broken Star is indeed "broken." This scenario is simply unwinable. The "rebels" are just too overpowering. They roll level IV stacks at me while I have just barely researched level II techs. They capture all the nukes and use them to obliterate the "real" civs' cities, including my own. I had a pretty decent run going with 5 cities until the rebs started nuking the hell out of me. Because of the way nukes destroy cities in this mod, there is just no way to come back. Eventually I was the last civ standing and with only two cities left and four rebel SoDs headed my way, I called in the towel.

The patches improved AI performance, but the rebels get the most benefit because of their size and thus the scenario becomes unbalanced. There are two basic strategies to try, neither of which can be guaranteed.

First, resource denial. Buy bombers, locate the rebel aluminum (it is scarce), and wipe it out. That doesn't completely cure the problem, but it greatly eliminates the rebel attack power.

Second, grab the nukes all at once, not one at a time. Let the others hammer the defenders, and have your own strike force in position to capture enough to win. Of course, you still have to control them, but this gives you a shot at it.

Obvious zeroeth requirement: grab oil. Some of the civs are much better off for getting and keeping oil. You can't win without it. Buy units at the start to let you take oil, first thing.


The other player's AI's are not capable of actively fighting the rebels or capturing nukes on their own. As you can power, they'll offer to vassalize. While that isn't bad, in terms of defense, there still isn't much you can do to stop the rebels from taking them out.

Have any attempts been made to fix this mod? I have some ideas.

1) There is a bug in which if the rebels capture a nuke, the coalition forces do nothing to take it back. If a civ captures a nuke, the coalition sends two rangers and a heavy tank every other turn or so to try to get it back. This needs to be fixed, but I'm not sure how myself.
2) Don't let the rebels tech beyond level I units. This alone will help make them easier to deal with. For that matter, maybe they shouldn't even get the advanced units like modern armor, mobile sam, or mechanized infantry. Especially not stealth bombers.
3) All civs should get a bonus for fighting the rebel forces like you normally get a bonus for fighting barbarians. +25% or +10% I think. This represents the fact that the rebels are disorganized. I haven't seen it in the combat odds though so I am assuming it got taken out.
4) The "Rebel Leader" changes civics. WTH! The rebels are supposed to be a bunch of disorganized warlords who can't agree on anything. They should be stuck with the basic civics (tribalism, paganism, etc.).
5) The AI needs to be more aggressive. As I mentioned previously, if the AI civs all took one rebel city at the very beginning of the game, I think the problem would be seriously ameliorated. As is, I have yet to see the AI take even one rebel city.

The rebels gain too much advantage from being a civ rather than a barbarian. The ability to relocate units freely among any of their cities lets them build up too powerful a force over time, too hard to stop. Because they are just another civ, they don't suffer from the disorganization that the scenario suggests. Modding the scenario to make them more barbarian-like might help, but maybe, they simply need to be broken up into many smaller, allied civs. The fact that a few resource will let all of them operate at full capability makes it harder to stop them, much harder than any of the competing civs.

 

[Agent327]

Broken Star hard? True, I've only played it once, but I found it rather boring. (I found it less challenging than, say, the Charlemagne scenario.) So, some improvement might definitely be in order.

 

[fdgsgds]

I think it's too hard because the rebels tech extremely fast and they keep attacking me. Attached is a file I made that disables the Rebels from getting the techs Armor III, Armor IV, Infantry III, Infantry IV, Navy III, Navy IV, Air III, and Air IV.

Enjoy.

EDIT: I forgot to put in the art and sound files, sorry. I'll add them when I get the chance.
Also, The maker of this mod really has to make it so that Rebels can't launch nukes. They don't target the AI players and they always go for the player capitals. If you lose your capital you automatically lose basically, even if you have other cities.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

My impression is it's absolutely doable on Noble. I played on Monarch I think and quickly got quite strong. The only problem was, that I couldn't find the nuke the rebels had captured and thus lost my capital. Haven't finished it yet but I'll try some day.
I recommend to not only capture citys but also found some in the beginning. Because as you did point out correctly at the beginning your recources are very limited and some " for free" founded citys help.

 

[00konichiwa00]

Broken Star is borring and too difficult. I don't see the fun in it. Challenge is fun, but if it' like almost impossible then it become borring

 

[Agent327]

Boring yes, difficult no.

 

[Pacifist46]

Can't say I agree with you JEELEN.
I've beaten the Broken Star scenario with two different leaders on Monarch, but it was pretty close each time. I found the games to be characterised by some exciting multiple wars with other factions and skirmishes on all fronts!
On the other hand, the Charlemagne scenario is possibly the easiest in the BtS expansion in my opinion. Just take over a couple of the other states, build Christian Monasteries, Temples, donate gold to Rome, declare war on Saladin and . . . What, I've won already? Not to say that it isn't quite cool - I like the design a lot - but it really is easier than Broken Star.
Try playing as Saladin on the Charlemagne scenario though. Now THERE'S a challenge!

 

[Antilogic]

I was doing fine on Monarch, fending off the Rebel stacks, until Rebel nukes started hitting my cities. The strength of the nukes is the killer--nearly 60% of my units and my meager airforce were taken out in a single blow. Didn't stand a chance after that point.

I might have been unlucky.

 

[fdgsgds]

Can't say I agree with you JEELEN.
I've beaten the Broken Star scenario with two different leaders on Monarch, but it was pretty close each time. I found the games to be characterised by some exciting multiple wars with other factions and skirmishes on all fronts!
On the other hand, the Charlemagne scenario is possibly the easiest in the BtS expansion in my opinion. Just take over a couple of the other states, build Christian Monasteries, Temples, donate gold to Rome, declare war on Saladin and . . . What, I've won already? Not to say that it isn't quite cool - I like the design a lot - but it really is easier than Broken Star.
Try playing as Saladin on the Charlemagne scenario though. Now THERE'S a challenge!

Yes, Charlemagne is too easy. It's too easy to become HRE, but I think you can edit how much points you need for that to happen. By the way, do you know how it would be possible to play as Saladin?

@ Antilogic ... When they launched a nuke at my city it completely disappeared...

 

[Pacifist46]

Yes, Charlemagne is too easy. It's too easy to become HRE, but I think you can edit how much points you need for that to happen. By the way, do you know how it would be possible to play as Saladin?

@ Antilogic ... When they launched a nuke at my city it completely disappeared...

Just open up the scenario file in Notepad and change the PlayableCiv category under Leader_Saladin from 0 to 1. I've done it so I can play as any civ in the scenario!

 

[Antilogic]

@ Antilogic ... When they launched a nuke at my city it completely disappeared...

Same here. They increased the strength of nukes to completely obliterate cities and every unit in them. This, coupled with the barbarians getting nukes and having no qualms or diplomatic penalties for using them, makes it a very tough scenario unless you blitz for the nukes yourself.

 

[pi-r8]

The trick is to buy bombers at the beginning, and ally with all the other factions. Turn your research to 0 to, and pillage any towns you can. Then you can put bombers in all of the other factions' cities, and slow down the rebels by bombing all of their resources (you probably won't be able to take out all of their oil sources, though). I find this scenario very fun, difficult yes but still winnable.

 

[jst666]

Hmmm, I just tried it for the first time on Noble, as far east. I took one rebel city, found a new one with settler to get some oil, and then pretty much steamrolled the whole Russia with modern armor and bombers. Now I control most of the land-mass, but still it doesn't award me domination victory, even thou the conditions have been met...

 

[Chiyochan]

yes, this game is utter garbage, by the time you get anywhere near being able to build a respectable army, youve already been nuked. game is terrible, shouldnt even be included.

 

[deanej]

I think it was fine until some AI changes in BtS happened that benefited the rebels but not the other factions.