I've been asking around for nearly a year for help, playing everyday trying to beat it, the ToA campaign mission called "Achilles Heel", noone ever gave me a response, can I at least get some help? Tried every way I can, if I have to research certain techs, what do I research first and last, tell me, anything, i've been trying everyday for a year. I almost threw the game away 7 times getting fustrated, need help. And I done the alternative mission, nothing diffrent, not the name, nothing. I got the ULTIMATE EDITION. MODS WOULD HELP, and I got other questions, just ask if you want to answer. Read the replys on every page before you make your comment, you'll just start brainstorming instead of helping.
I've once heard of someone finishing that campaign by rushing the Dread Lords' planet with cheap fighters (I imagine this was to lure away their ships so the planet becomes undefended) and many, many transports. However that was only on Tough difficulty.The thing is very few people have played the campaigns, even less after ToA came out since it made some of those campaigns nearly impossibly hard.
But for trying, i'll give you a karma. And I know about the dreadlord lure stuff, stupid dreadlords, I thought they were powerful cause their powerful techs?
The thing is that if you look closely on their ships, they almost never put defensive modules (shields, PD, armor, etc.) on their ships.
Therefore, if you attack them with ships that are quite heavy on the weapons and maybe a few defense points of your choice, then you can beat them if you keep on chucking out ships like no tomorrow.
With Achilles Heel you can just lose and do the alternate mission instead.
Unfortunately there's a later, similar mission ("Apocalypse") where that's not an option. :/
Achilles Heel is part of the original Dread Lords campaign and some gameplay changes introduced in ToA (or maybe DA) make it harder than it was ever intended to be. Specifically "tie rule #1: if in last round of combat surviving ship(s) destroy each other, the strongest ship still survives".
Yes, you read that right. No matter how many weaker ships you throw at a stronger one, theirs will still survive. And given that the DL's schtick is starting off with far more powerful ships than anyone else... yeah.
I tested this by throwing literally about a hundred weaker ships at one of their frigates, both singly and in fleets. They slowly beat it down to 1hp then it just sat there as they exploded one by one against it.
I ended up researching to the point of constant near-bankruptcy until I could put the most powerful weapons on the biggest hull. There was a lot of luck involved though - for some reason the DLs seemed particularly apathetic about invading my worlds that game. Maybe they were too busy with the other races?
That gave me a vessel actually capable of beating a Dread Lord one. (You could pull off the same thing with a powerful fleet too - I dunno which is better). It's unintuitive and cheesy but that ship is literally invulnerable to the weaker DL ships. I had it wandering around with only 1hp left schooling Dread lord ships one after the other. And you have to take the initiative before they realise they need to develop defences.
Taking their planets is actually pretty easy once you've wiped out the defending ships. A single troop transport will usually do it...
P.S. See also this thread: https://forums.galciv2.com/372960
Hey guess what!
I got up to that mission too!
I'll play it tomorrow and see how difficult it is!
Update: Hmm... A Lot tougher than I first thought.
I mainly got by using luck mostly.
I have my civilization get itself some creativity and hope that it would kick in at a great moment.
That moment is when it instantly completed the Large Scale Building tech, enabling me to build Battleships.
And it also kicked in when I'm researching Advanced Logistics, so I was able to pound the Dread Lords into the ground.
I knew I was somewhat cheating using the Creativity but I was thoroughly annoyed by the DLs by the end.
OOOOOOOOHHH!!!!! Now I get why you guys keep saying dreadlords campaign, dang it, gonna have to change the name, i'm on the Proving Grounds mission, sorry bout that. And my abilities are the following:
Can only play as Terran Allaince
Bonuses,: Creativity (+25%)
Diplomacy (+30%) [Can not be removed]
Economics (+30%)
Morale (+20%)
Research (+10%)
Speed (+10 or +10%) [Can not be removed]
Trade Routes (+1) [Can not be removed]
Logistics (+6) [Can not be removed]
Political Party: Technoligists: Research (+20%) and Sensors (+1 or +1%)
Weaknesses: Military Production (-10%) [The Terran Allaince set back]
Is there anything wrong here? I have to have Economics and Morale, I have enough problems without them. I can't change Diplomacy, Speed, Trade Routes, nor Logistics. MISSION: PROVING GROUNDS, for TOA campaign.
You want help on completing the mission?
Well I have not played that mission (yet). But cracking open the map and senario files I can give you a general plan:
So, you start out in area 1 with a standard force of ships (survey, miner, colony, scout) and one special ship, the Anorian Battle Cruiser (going to be referred as the ABC). I assume it is a very powerful ship (It should be anyway). This is good because the Yor start out with a rather large amount of ships in areas 2-6. Closer inspections on the name suggest all of them have missiles and PD. Keep that in mind as you research your weapons and defenses of choice.
Starting off you have a basic load-out of technology except one thing crucial: Planetary Invasion. You are obviously going to need that in order to beat the Yor. In your first turn, start researching Xeno Economics. On your home planet, rush buy a recruitment center and start building only two factories. In your starport, rush build a Radar Station. If you do not have such a design, I suggest you to go to the ship yard and design one. It is basically a cargo hull with alot of sensors attached to it. This ship will help provide advance warning should the Yor attack. Once you get to the main space screen, set your survey and miner ships to auto and send your colony ship to the nearest planet next to your starting planet. Develop this planet by rush building a recruitment center and building at most two factories as well as a starport. Keep your ABC close since even though it is powerful, it is possible you could lose it and it will hurt your mission gravely.
In the next turn, your Radar Station should be done. Move the ABC and the Radar Station towards the location marked by the yellow X. Set the Radar Station to Guard mode once it arrives. That way, if it sees enemies, the screen will center onto the station and it should show you enemies. Keep your ABC close by to attack the enemies. Then, rush buy the starport on your second planet and also rush by a Small Hull Ship with weapons of your choice. After it is completed, send it to the ABC and form a fleet with the two of them.
Develop your planets and patiently wait until you build up a sizable attack force consisting of your ABC and more fighters. Send a few fleets to attack area 2 and eliminate all ships in the area. Assuming the Yor did not snatch up the planets there, send in a colony ship or two to claim and develop them. Station your fleets next to the Yor planet in area 2 and make sure no ship gets built there. Blow up the Yor Mining starbase in area 2 (if there is one) and also destroy the asteroid mining bases if the Yor has them.
Once you obtain Planetary Invasion, build a transport and send it to the Yor planet in area 2. they should fall. After that, keep on playing and you will eventually win. I made a suggested route for you to take when attacking but the way you go about the mission is up to you.
On the note on abilities, I suggest you max out economics mainly so you can develop your economy easier. Everything else if up to you but I would invest in better weapons ability to enhance the performance of the ABC.
Hope this helps!
Ok, it will help a bit, but when I research the transport, they have way too many people on the planet with too many defences. I'll just go try that, sorry for the wait, I lost my cable. But I do think the Area #2 is thougher than Area #3, due to the Yor colonizing them.
[EDIT]
I only read the map and whats above, I just read the rest, 2 questions, whats rush, and whats better to attack first, Area #2 or Area #3, no matter where you attack first, they still send attack/transport ships your way, and when you do get that new planet, they have a small population, should I send the ABC there, or keep it home, when I send it to the new planet, they attack home, and it only takes one transport to take over my homeworld, due to needing economics, cause the citizens will be unhappy.
I just figured out, when the Yor attacks my planet, my approval grows greatly, how is this done without losing the planet?
Oh, oops, all sectors have 2 planet, making the Area #2 a bit better due to the planet quality bonus. Sorry for all these edits.
Rush buying is buying a ship or building in 1 week rather than waiting for construction to finish. For buildings, you need to select it in your building queue and click the "buy" button at the bottom of the screen, see for example this screenshot:
Similar for ships, when you click the "build ship" button in the top-right, you'll get a new screen that includes a button "purchase".
Approval on a certain planet is influenced by 3 main factors: size of the population, level of taxes and any morale buildings. On top of that you have galactic wonders and technologies that give a boost to morale. If you're being invaded, get that recruitment center that dnzrx mentioned, maybe add a farm once you reach your population limit and add a few morale buildings or alternatively lower taxes so that approval is rising.
Can't you use the ABC to intercept enemy transports? If you need it for other purposes, make sure to have a few cheap ships on each of your planets: enemy transports without attacking ships will not be able to invade (and can be destroyed by your cheap ships), in case of attacking ships it buys you some time until your ABC can join the fight.
To invade planets with high population, 2 ways work best: use the option mass drivers during invasion or use the bottom option that will convince part of the population to fight with you (this is only effective if the planet has low morale)
Ok thank you, but i'm low on economics, I need something else rather than buying them, maybe change the abilitys? And thats the quickest response I ever gotten. You get karma.
I got a question for dnzrx, how do you play the custom maps? And I do have a certain build order on planets, i'll post that as well.
Of course the capital city place.
Starport.
Entertainment center.
2 Factories.
2 Research centers.
Entertainment Center.
If any more tiles, 2 Market Place.
Anything wrong here? Also, do I talk alot?
I got some map ideas, but when I load them, it says something like invalid, help! I want to show you my great map, took 16 weeks all day every day to make. I am not giving that work up! HELP!
First of all, calm down.
Second of all, can you post the error message you are getting here? I can not determine the cause of the problem without the error message.
I'm okay now, and it says app crash, I don't feel like posting a photo, i'll tell you what its from and what it says.
Galciv2 Map Editor - C:\users\aarons\Documents\Eighth Wonder.GC2 Map
[Pop up] "Could not reset the Direct 3D device. This application will now exit.
Then it leaves the map editor.
Hmm, I do not know.
Maybe it is a hardware problem?
I do not know the solution. Go ask someone who might know.
Sorry.
Thx though, I only know that the blue phenoix dude can help, i'm not sure what his name is, all I can think of is something like Kira for some reason, and I know it ain't Kira.
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