23 replies to this topic

[Zulgaines]

It was actually easier when the Necron owned the peaks level.

[ThetaOrion]

Victory with the Hyperion Peaks Forward Base depends in large part on when you go after it.

If it is like your third or fourth province in the campaign, when its strength is 6 or 7, then it's quite doable, even if the Orks hold it.

But, when I was the Tau, at only the measly Normal setting, I went to the Hyperion Peaks Forward Base last in the Tau campaign, and the Orks had held it for the whole game. By that time, they had it fully reenforced with all the extra troops and buildings that they could put down on it -- all of the pregame bonuses had been bought by the Orks, and the strength of the province was 10.

I tried literally a dozen times to win that game at strength 10 as the Tau, saving and trying other ideas. I even played it using the Pause and plan and Pause and play feature, micromanaging everything for an hour, and I could never win.

The best I could do when Hyperion Peaks was 10 and the orks held it, while I was the attacking Tau, was to take down two of the three bases, but by then, all my troops were gone, and the Orks were rebuilding faster than I could take anything out. Whether I rushed and played everything in real time and got super lucky, or whether I micromanaged it for over an hour, the result was the same -- the best I could do was two of the three bases, before I was gone and they had more buildings than they had started with.

So, the next time that I played the campaign, I went to Hyperior Peaks early and went as the Necrons, and the Orks were soon gone, and I held the province ever since, and got to buy and drop down buildings and power generators onto the map before every game I played from then on. The campaign was a cakewalk and real easy after getting Hyperion Peaks, and the key was going to the Hyperion Peaks Forward Base and taking it at the earliest possible convenience right after capturing the Spaceport.

If Hyperion Peaks is always your last mission, I feel fairly confident that you are always going to lose it -- except maybe if you go in as the Necrons with their two teleporting Restored Monoliths and a full honor guard. But, Necrons are actually very very weak against fully tiered and fully capped Orks, so who knows how it would turn out? I don't know, because I went early to Hyperion Peaks as the Necrons instead of going to Hyperion Peaks last. I just know that if you go in early, Hyperion Peaks is yours. And the "Forward Base" ability that it gives you and allows you to place buildings pre-game is probably the greatest reward you can get from capturing a province during the game -- though many would argue that capturing the spaceport has more value to you strategically than capturing the Forward Base ability. So, spaceport first, and then Hyperion Peaks immediately thereafter.

That's the way to play it, if you want to take and own Hyperion Peaks.

--

Whether in the AI skirmish Mod, or the DC campaign, the IG and the Chaos are always the first factions eliminated from the field or the easiest factions to defeat. The IG and Chaos in Dark Crusade are unfinished and really quite pathetic -- they don't tier up and even an hour later seem to be fielding Tier 1 troops if you allow them to stay around that long.

It will be a completely different game when Thud and Arkhan give the IG and Chaos an AI that actually moves its way through the various tiers of the game.

[dctrjons]

Chaos I've seen tier. Oddly is was a 6 man FFA on testing grounds2 I was SM vs 5 Chaos. One of the chaos teams chewed through the others as fast as I was...in 20 min I was tossing squads of missle bearing SM's, predators and LRaidr at demons and obliterators (never once horrors...oddly enough). All the while dropping in dreads.

IG I've NEVER seen tier to anything beyond Hellhounds.
And Eldar I seem to rarely see survive.

So I played 3 on 3 Eldar(us) vs 3 IG.

I was the bitch boy being closest to the frontline and soon found myself overrun by troops. PS I don't play eldar. Either I suck at them cuz I don't like them or vice versa...hard to tell .

Well my only defence was to shroud and port my main base. After doing so and licking my wounds my two allies did diddly for building gens (big surprise). Meanwhile the enemy made more and more guardsmen and the occasional Hellhound. They all went to where my base 'was'. Soon by the time I could get vehicles out under stealth there were about 6 fully enforced squads behind me, and about 5 others fighting my also non-tiered allies. Well AI essentially got stuck with 4/5th it's force in my territory which I had abandoned (they never used their main base decloak ability on me...found that odd) And my allies were able ot make holes I could fit vehicles into to wipe thier bases.

The IG AI's guardsmen just despawned where they stood, never finding my base or moving on to an ally's or bothering to defending their own.

[ThetaOrion]

In Relic's Dark Crusade Skirmish Mode, it's all very hit and miss.

I finally got a DC Skirmish Game on Testing Grounds, where the Chaos were tiering. They had Bezerkers and Defilers. It surprised the crap out of me. Usually, on all the Kasyr Lutien Games, the Chaos are always gone or eliminated about a minute or two after all the IG are gone or eliminated.

I know that some of it has to do with the map you play. But, there's other weird stuff going on there too.

One time, the Eldar actually were producing WraithLord walker tanks in the Skirmish Mode, one game out of dozens, and this was on a completely different map, one of the new ones. It surprised me, and the Eldar were the last enemy faction eliminated.

I'm noticing that the Eldar AI can now cloak its base, and that seems to keep them alive a minute or two longer until the Orks or Necrons arrive.

The Tier 1 Tau units are expensive and worthless -- even the Tau Commander is no good. He can easily get surrounded and pinned by just one squad of Ork Stormboyz, and the Tau Commander is gone in a matter of seconds.

One time, on Mountain Trails, the Space Marines were putting out Dreadnoughts and LandSpeeders, and I lost against them even though I was playing as the Necrons. Once again, it surprised the heck out of me.

I did see a hellhound one time, in Skirmish Mode -- usually it's nothing but commissars and guardsmen, even if you can find a way to keep your IG alive for an hour, still nothing but commissars and guardsmen.

On Testing Grounds, I had the Orks as the enemy in the center, and they got fully capped and fully tiered, and then they just mowed over the top of my Tau and my Necron AI ally as if we weren't even there, as if we weren't fully tiered ourselves. A full cap of Orks has a Restored Monolith and a Tau Base gone in seconds.

It's a whole other game when these other factions Tier up.

In order to be right or to play right in Skirmish Mode, I'm afraid that DC is still going to need lots of balance work even after Thud and Arkhan give it an AI. But, giving it a real AI is definitely the first step in the right direction, imho. It will be a completely different game once it has a real AI. And then DC will be a completely different game once again when somebody finally gets around to giving it a proper balance too.

As I have said before, I have never been so disappointed in one of Relic's Plain Vanilla Skirmish Mode Games as I have with Dark Crusade.

I was satisfied with DoW Plain Vanilla for a year.
I was satisfied with WA Plain Vanilla Skirmish Mode for two months.
I got frustrated with DC Plain Vanilla after two days of play, quit, and moved over to the campaign.