Defence scenario review & strategies

[ShredZ]

I kinda makes me laugh to see most everyone here get their hate on for this scenario, and how I kinda like it. Dont leave after reading that, I had some fun last night I gotta share first!

I had to put the kids to bed, and afterwards I installed BtS, looked at the clock and thought 'well im not going to have enough time to get into a full game, lets just play a short scenario'. Thats what brought me to Defence, it was more a time issue. Fast forward 4 hours and after a quick first game that ended violently on level 2, I made it to level 12 ( I think thats the level where the raiders attack ).

Quick dislikes: theres only 1 map, and the only change on it is the growth of forests/jungles which only change bottlenecks on the map slightly.

Quick likes: if you stack 2 6 units together, they both become 5.

Ok Ive only played this for a bit, but my initial thoughts are:

-have fewer, more powerful units. the timer keeps you from using them all later in the game.
-dont stack units deeper than 2-3
-keep a couple trebs in the back, but in the middle of the map, from there they can almost reach anything that tries to get to yer cities
-scouts are powerful, especially in the beginning when animals are everywhere, and their movement is high to pop huts
-the enemy will find a spot, even if its 1 tile wide, to slips passed you in you fog of war (evil bastards)
-archers/cats etc. can bombard OR attack (at first I though they could only bombard) duh.

Bugs:

I wondering if the scouts bonus of 100% against animals is working, when you mouse over a wolf of the exact same it says you have a 50% chance to win/lose ... ummm riiiight.

The animation of a troop DEFENDING an attack is VERY choppy, like messed up, and even the attacking animation is a lil wierd as they stand there and stare eachother down for a second or 2 before they fight.

Also, (see screenshots).

So I started my second game determined to live a bit longer than level 2. I made it thru level 11 by the skin of my teeth, stopping a spider from taking my last city 2 tiles away from it, but of course that set the stage for level 12 and after a valient attempt, my troops were overrun. The time limit per turn prolly had something to do with it, but thats ok, it was still fun as hell. Believe it or not.

Now for some screenshots, this was at the end of level 10 I believe, my wiked forest warrior went absolutely crazy, I put him on the best tile (for defence) in the game and watched him go... for about 15 minutes! He wasnt even fortified and was able to slay 60 zombies... SIXTY! six zero! Like I said, when you stack units together, all units are weakened, and the AI is usually really good about not stacking anything passed 2-4 units, but this was like a final wave of zombie, like a boss in other games. So what are zombies when you stack 50 of them together (10 in a second stack)? are they 0 or 1 I dunno, but my FW killed em all, claiming 60xp all for himself.

TADA!

This ends todays presentation, hope you enjoyed the show. Perhaps you dont hate this scenario as much as you did, or maybe you hate it even more, either way, Ive got at least a lil bragging rights for killing 60 troops by one guy... right?


"Have you killed 60 zombies yet today?"

 

[Indibil]

I lasted til round 12, but those pesky suicide bombers did the trick for my highly promoted units.

 

[HiroHito]

when will we get DOTA civ ?

 

[ShredZ]

I lasted til round 12, but those pesky suicide bombers did the trick for my highly promoted units.

Are you being serious, I never saw anything like that... sounds like yer just Fin with me

 

[Infantry#14]

I am now at round 15, fighting against the samurai, grenadiers and the elephants.

There are 2 ways you fight grenadiers:
1st) use range bombardment and kill them. You need to use 4 bombardments to kill 1 grenadier. Not useful fighting them stacks.
2n) build some scouts and when you see them, suicide into them (suicide works in attack and defense). Note that scout cost the least gold (starts at 10 gold, then following 5 gold increment).

 

[ShredZ]

I am now at round 15, fighting against the samurai, grenadiers and the elephants.

How many cities did you have? I didnt really find a good balance last night, I started slowly, had 1 for a couple levels, then by level 5 I had 5 cities, but lost a couple a couple levels later, but I rebuilt back up to 5 again only to lose them on level 10.

Also, how much tech do you have by level 15?

I find that if you start too slowly you dont tech fast enuf, but obviously if you expand too fast you have fewer units to protect it, thats why in my OP I thought it was good to have fewer, stronger units.

Ill experiment tonight, maybe building 1 city every 2 levels.


So how does this suicide scout strategy go? Do grens blowup if they take a hit or something? Maybe thats what Indibil was trying to say... ah ha, so I have to look out for these grens eh~

 

[ShredZ]

Aight, played again last night, still quite fun all you nay-sayers!

I think Ive hit a really good balance building 1 city each round until finally I have 6 cities = 1200gp/turn + huts.

Im even more sure that scout dont get their 100% bonus vs. animals so ignore that, it must just be left over in their description from the original game.

March is a very good promotion in this game, theres never any time to just sit around and heal for 10 turns, youre always needed somewhere else - if not to kill things, to find huts.

I dont know about all this talk that the AI just goes for the initial city, Ive seen them take my cities made afterwards first, it depends where the fog of war is, I think they do a good job of staying in it.

Who ever said 'dont bother getting huts' is crazy, if you find all five huts thats at least ~300gp, more than a cities income - Ive had huts pop 100gp but Id say on average you get 75gp. I always have my scouts searching the map in the initial 2-3 rounds of a level (when there are no nmes), then they fortify so the dont get killed.

In the description of the game (intro screen) it says that units in a stack get -10% for each unit in the stack to a maximum of -90% - but I think they mean -1 per unit in a stack to a minimum of 1.

I think Im on level 8-9 after 2 failed attempts losing cities to WOLVES !@$^!@ - got a really strong start now, might be able to go all the way.

Reference thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233614


Zombie slayer signing off~

 

[Infantry#14]

you just spam city from round 1, all you need are 2 defenders since the ai only goes for your outermost city. By round 10, make sure have maceman to defend the samurai. Note that the samurai has a nasty attack that can do an area attack on your troops (when your defender defends, all your other units that are 1 tile adjacent to the defender take damage). I notice this on my first game since I have units die without losing a battle.

By round 12, suicide grenadiers come in to play. Just get some scout and suicide into them.

PS: you need to get 10 cities. A single piece of artillery costs 2500 gold.

 

[ShredZ]

Wow, thanks for the heads up, 10 cities... I was getting content with 6.

Interersting about samuris, never seen their uber attack yet.

I never defend my cities, Im always out defending from the trees or hills, just make sure theres no FoW from top to bottom~

 

[sigmakan]

So am I the only one that got pretty much owned by the panthers? At that time I had only 1 scout so I didnt even see them coming.

 

[eldar]

I've got to Level 11, but I've another couple of things I'm not sure about:
1) How can I pause it? Maybe "Mod the Mod" so the timer stops when I bring up the Esc menu?
2) I think if you save a game and reload the tech tree goes wrong and you can't buy more techs. I'm stuck with first-tier techs (luckily I can build trebs/cats...)!

 

[Infantry#14]

I've got to Level 11, but I've another couple of things I'm not sure about:
1) How can I pause it? Maybe "Mod the Mod" so the timer stops when I bring up the Esc menu?
2) I think if you save a game and reload the tech tree goes wrong and you can't buy more techs. I'm stuck with first-tier techs (luckily I can build trebs/cats...)!

Answer 1: Use the pause button to manually pause the game.

Answer2: Try reload again, or save, quit then load.

So far I'm at level 20. The battle becomes so tedius because it's neverlasting (I have to kill 280+ enemy)

 

[ShredZ]

I made it to level 17.

From level 15 on, the enemies dont stop, they stay on the map and just keep coming, once they got tanks, they drove all over me, no contest.

So I started a new game, this time with better city placement so I can build more. Then, at around level 10, some invisible unit killed my treb, I had units all around that area and moved them all over the place trying to find this inivisible unit to no avail, I followed the predicted direction of such unit only to watch it take my cities one by one, even though I would move into the square the invisible uit must be in, I couldnt attack it.

If this is a bug, Im not playing Defence until its fixed.

If this is actually a special unit, someone tell me how to kill it.


One last thing, I notice at the far end of the tech tree, units sound strong by name, but their stats look to be crap - anti-tank unit, the one that sounds like it should be used against a tank is like 8 but the AI have tanks at 24 (Doom Rollers?) !!! Please gimme the heads up on this disparity. TIA~

 

[Infantry#14]

I made it to level 17.

From level 15 on, the enemies dont stop, they stay on the map and just keep coming, once they got tanks, they drove all over me, no contest.

So I started a new game, this time with better city placement so I can build more. Then, at around level 10, some invisible unit killed my treb, I had units all around that area and moved them all over the place trying to find this inivisible unit to no avail, I followed the predicted direction of such unit only to watch it take my cities one by one, even though I would move into the square the invisible uit must be in, I couldnt attack it.

If this is a bug, Im not playing Defence until its fixed.

If this is actually a special unit, someone tell me how to kill it.


One last thing, I notice at the far end of the tech tree, units sound strong by name, but their stats look to be crap - anti-tank unit, the one that sounds like it should be used against a tank is like 8 but the AI have tanks at 24 (Doom Rollers?) !!! Please gimme the heads up on this disparity. TIA~

you need a scout, he can detect invisibility. Also, it's a good against suicide grenadier

Anti-Tank can do range attack. They can take about 70% off any opponent's hp (less in stack attack)

 

[ShredZ]

REALLY?! So who is this invisible unit? A panther? I dont get it... ... the panther level is called 'sneaky sneaky' or something, so theyre the only ones I can think of that might be invisible to everything except scouts? I usually have at least 5-8 scouts at all times, I find it hard to believe that this unit remained hidden... Im gonna hafta play it again tonight then.

So basically you end up doing most of your dmg at the end of the game via ranged attacks of the anti-tank, artillery, rocketman units? Thats wierd. I was expecting a heavy duty unit, but it looks like the macemen is the strongest at 20

 

[Rayss523]

Am I the only one that thought it was boringly easy and gave up at lvl 10?

 

[ShredZ]

Haha, thats like reading half a book and saying you could pretty much just guess the ending.

Defence gets super hard in the upper levels.

 

[GVBN]

Defense FAQ

Q. How do I beat rounds 12-20?
A. Build ranged units

Q. Help I can't beat rounds 12-20!
A. You aren't using enough ranged units

So I started a new game, this time with better city placement so I can build more. Then, at around level 10, some invisible unit killed my treb, I had units all around that area and moved them all over the place trying to find this inivisible unit to no avail, I followed the predicted direction of such unit only to watch it take my cities one by one, even though I would move into the square the invisible uit must be in, I couldnt attack it.

There are no invisible units. The reason your units "disappear" is Psycho Samurai's attack which does damage to adjacent tiles

One last thing, I notice at the far end of the tech tree, units sound strong by name, but their stats look to be crap - anti-tank unit, the one that sounds like it should be used against a tank is like 8 but the AI have tanks at 24 (Doom Rollers?) !!! Please gimme the heads up on this disparity. TIA~

You are supposed to weaken them with ranged units

 

[ShredZ]

There are no invisible units. The reason your units "disappear" is Psycho Samurai's attack which does damage to adjacent tiles

I wasnt even at the samurai level yet PLUS, if you read what I said youdve noticed this invisible unit was destroying all my cities even though I had units completely filling every square in the area... Ill try to post a save mmkay?


PS: you got all those archers (and more)with only 6 cities? thats wow.

 

[GVBN]

Yeah I was wrong: Panthers are indeed stealth units and can be seen by scouts and spies. I have never had problems with them because the AI is too stupid to attack those undefended cities

I only used 6 cities to get those 23 bowmen (cost about 5500). I don't see the point of exploring the map. Spy seems to be the only unit that can explore without getting killed by enemy units and they are very expensive