|
|
Post by melisgl on Aug 14, 2019 14:54:44 GMT -5
I've been playing on ironman, got as far as Prime: Drop Zone when the sole engineer was killed on turn 2 by brood lancers that I mistook for broodmothers ...
Anyway, I'm enjoying the optimization challenge. One thing that's particularly difficult is to keep the squad at a reasonable level. Even with a squad of only 7, two templars are always being dragged along at recruit level as they see little deployment. It has occurred to me that focusing on turn and kill bonuses when I already have too much RP and there are undeployed templars (with higher than recruit level) has been the wrong thing to do as it widens the experience gap between them and the captain. The obvious alternative is to minimize the bonuses in such cases. After the initial gold rush for RP, the bonuses don't seem to matter much (?) as enemy levels scale with the captain's.
How do you deal with this problem? Do you keep a smaller squad?
|
|
|
|
Post by fallen on Aug 14, 2019 15:26:20 GMT -5
As difficulty rises, the width of "viable playstyle" often shrinks. In this case, I would agree that "viable squad size" also shrinks. I still find having some specialists to swap in and out very helpful by level (speed, fire, neptune) but you need to make sure they are all busy. Being aware of the drag would help you minimize it in another Ironman playthru. Sorry to hear about the loss at Drop Zone  |
|
|
|
Post by melisgl on Aug 30, 2019 8:37:07 GMT -5
Finally won ironman with a focus on levelling a sentry turret + heat sink engineer, plus Dalan, a neptune, and a scout. Tried to minimize losses, finished with 2 (one getting careless on the last level just before winning). The score is 10.2M, I don't if that's good or not. Probably not very good as I turtled all the later levels to maximize safety and number of templars deployed.
|
|
|
|
Post by drspendlove on Aug 30, 2019 13:37:31 GMT -5
Victory at all there is amazing. Congrats!!
|
|
|
|
Post by melisgl on Sept 10, 2019 15:45:55 GMT -5
I'm now at the beginning of the righteous fallen missions in another ironman run, this time trying maximize the score. Tried to go for the turn bonuses at the cost of bringing out more templars. Unfortunately I lost an engineer on Deck 14: Power Relay Grid (in the tutorial :-)), but no casualties since. I now have 9 veterans and this 1 dead guy. Would my score improve if I recruited another knight?
|
|
|
|
Post by melisgl on Sept 16, 2019 9:09:28 GMT -5
Based on the description on the wiki, I recruited another knight, but I can't be sure it was a good move as the score is only updated after missions. Ended up with 11.6M after Stratos. Felt pretty good about it, but it's only good for 2nd place on the google play games ironman leaderboard as Bobeth8 has 23M. I missed lots of secondary objectives, but completed most levels pretty fast. My feeling is that 12M can be done, but no idea how to reach 23M.
- Ironman Hell scores are that much higher and they are included in the Ironman leaderboard?
- The single casualty made a huge difference.
- Sticking to just the bare minimum of units (Captain, Engineer, 2 Soldiers, 2 Scouts) is the trick.
|
|
|
|
Post by fallen on Sept 16, 2019 13:37:47 GMT -5
melisgl - the score continues to update through one (and only one) New Game+, I am sure that is how 23M was achieved. So, if you're at 12M, another flawless playthru with higher level enemies could hit 24M.
|
|
|
|
Post by melisgl on Sept 16, 2019 14:13:05 GMT -5
Ah, I see. Then I might have made a mistake by choosing Ironman Hell instead of another Ironman NG+ run.
|
|
|
|
Post by fallen on Sept 16, 2019 18:55:36 GMT -5
Hahah well you'll get the *most* points that way I think? If you can survive it.
|
|
