Impossible difficulty -> strategy, thoughts, screenshots
Aug 21, 2014 19:05:19 GMT -5
Cory Trese, lixxx235, and 1 more like this
Post by jayte on Aug 21, 2014 19:05:19 GMT -5
Hello !
I previously posted a well received 'crazy difficulty completed' thread chronicling my trek into this game. Now that impossible has been dusted, I would love to share some more knowledge I have gained:
The game was played on "The Rim, 32x64 (31 worlds)"
This is the lovely map I decided to make my home!
Starting positions are fixed on this map. You start on the lower right, and the Xeno start on the top. The beginning things are similar to any other difficulty: find a decent starting spot, scout the anomalies and planets with your little starting ships, uncover as much of the map as you can.
However, impossible quickly throws together several subtle things that will bury you if you're not ready for them:
1) Research is PAINFUL
Or "Science is hard", as the game puts it. Things like the Palace (1 research) and building 2 spice dens instead of upgrading the first one if I had quality to spare are proof of how hard it is. This slowing down of the game impacts every aspect of your empire, from completing the initial first ships to defend against the first xeno invasion, to forcing you to forego somewhat useful upgrades (in my case, the entire first political tree, and the colonization tree until deep into the game) to get to the ones that are critical, namely palace 2, hab 3, factory 2, and mine 2.
2) Planets seem to be lower quality overall.
This one kind of took me by surprise. Quality of my planets is 14,18,14,13,14,10,17,10,18,18,10,7,8,12,5,12,11,12,16,8,7,9,12,11,10,12,10,4,9,7,13
Many times, I was forced to make a choice between having a factory and a mine (I chose factory over mine), and then I would have to start destroying the factories. Brutal.
3) Partially as a result of 1) and 2) above, money is far scarcer.
The game notes impossible as having a stringent economy, and it's very true. I lost several times and had to restart simply from overextending my economy to defend from the FIRST xeno wave! Spy wars seem to last forever in this mode, and if you're running syndicates, you can't stop them until so late into the game that they aren't as relevant. Regardless, the economy as a whole is tighter. At the END OF THE GAME, with all colonies taken over and most of my fleet destroyed, I was only making 5.2k / turn. My maintenance rate was 82%.
As a result of everything above, your timing windows are far shorter, you have many many many more opportunities to screw up, and said screw ups will hurt you much more.
Anyone who has played a strategy game is familiar with timing windows - points when you're ahead of the difficulty curve and can push an advantage. In this difficulty, your timing windows must be fully exploited. If you successfully fend off a xeno wave in the early game, and they retreat, you should likely destroy all your ships (probably not the starting ships - they have unusually low maint cost and can be good scouts) to rake in additional cash. If xeno activity ends a trade embargo, or some other nasty thing, don't be lazy - cancel the trade sanctions treaty you're building and start a spice treaty immediately. If you just finished mine 4 research, don't bother upgrading your mines from 1 to 2, upgrade directly from 1 to 4. Things like this will net you lots of time throughout the game and save you tons of cash. On the same topic, be smart with your upgrades. Just because you CAN research mine 5 doesn't mean you SHOULD - it's very expensive and only marginal improvement over mine 4 and really should be researched only when you have lots of planets nearing quality cap. It's a late game toy, folks.
So how do we get around all of this? We play smarter, more efficient, and we don't make mistakes.
The number 1 tip I can give you is to love your fighters. In terms of efficiency, the fighter cannot be beat. Early game, simply getting a better weapon on them will allow you to defend against the first two xeno waves with your initial torpedo ships. I don't even build torpedo ships until I've researched essential foundations of mine 3, factory 2, hab 3, palace 2.
The fighter will always be your core unit because they are repairable. Take a look at the following screenshot:
This is a midgame screenshot where the xeno had a great timing on their assault. I had destroyed much of my fleet, as I was upgrading the fighters at the time. The xeno were coming hard with high rank ships and I was extremely outnumbered; however, due to great positioning of the fighters, rotating them in and out, and repairs, I defended from all of these xeno plus their reinforcements while only losing three fighters in the process. Three easily replaceable fighters that pop back up in three turns. Not bad!
Screenshot from the same fight, note the positions of the fighters carefully placed to absorb the hits. Additionally, the fleet as a whole has pulled back a bit, allowing me to use green square regen, as well as making the Xeno lose some attacks by having to move to me.
Late game example of the same thing. A couple of things to point out. The fight has been obviously going on a bit, as you can see by the world destroyer near the planet on the bottom of the picture. Once AGAIN, I had been attacked as my fleet was being upgraded: A battlecruiser is en route, but it's not quite there yet. The standard cruisers pack a huge punch in this picture, though. Fully upgraded with squid torpedos, they tear through anything that comes close.
I only have four fighters in this picture, but I once again won without losing a single cruiser or better ship. Fighters died, but them's the digs
Note again that my fleet is positioned so that the xeno will not continuously fire upon any singular ship and have to split their power across several fighters.
The last thing about this screenshot I want you to look at is the profit. At late game, a +618 profit is nothing, but at least it's not negative. I babied my economy all game and nurtured it carefully, and this STILL happened. The crazy thing is that on the final push, as I colonized another Xeno cluster, the economy dropped ~again~ to negative 2k a turn. I ended the game with about 50k in the bank. This would be due to impatience on my part not letting my new colonies mature, but I was pretty confident in my ability to end the game.
Bonus picture of my endgame fleet. At this point, my fighters were still a super essential part of my fleet, but they were pretty much tanks: I put on heavy armor and shielding, lowered the guns and upgraded evasion and pilot. They were able to tank hits so that my upgraded carriers and cruisers could slaughter everything. The funny thing is that in this picture, the xeno were actually scared and conceded these planets to me. I had to hunt them down like the dogs they were!
A few turns after the game ended, I figured I should screencap this. 1207 turns. Impossible is slooooowwwww.
All being said, I think impossible is more work than fun. I'm glad it's in the game, and I'm glad that I completed it, but I think I'll be sticking to crazy from now on
What are your guys thoughts on this difficulty? Anything big I missed?
I previously posted a well received 'crazy difficulty completed' thread chronicling my trek into this game. Now that impossible has been dusted, I would love to share some more knowledge I have gained:
The game was played on "The Rim, 32x64 (31 worlds)"
This is the lovely map I decided to make my home!
Starting positions are fixed on this map. You start on the lower right, and the Xeno start on the top. The beginning things are similar to any other difficulty: find a decent starting spot, scout the anomalies and planets with your little starting ships, uncover as much of the map as you can.
However, impossible quickly throws together several subtle things that will bury you if you're not ready for them:
1) Research is PAINFUL
Or "Science is hard", as the game puts it. Things like the Palace (1 research) and building 2 spice dens instead of upgrading the first one if I had quality to spare are proof of how hard it is. This slowing down of the game impacts every aspect of your empire, from completing the initial first ships to defend against the first xeno invasion, to forcing you to forego somewhat useful upgrades (in my case, the entire first political tree, and the colonization tree until deep into the game) to get to the ones that are critical, namely palace 2, hab 3, factory 2, and mine 2.
2) Planets seem to be lower quality overall.
This one kind of took me by surprise. Quality of my planets is 14,18,14,13,14,10,17,10,18,18,10,7,8,12,5,12,11,12,16,8,7,9,12,11,10,12,10,4,9,7,13
Many times, I was forced to make a choice between having a factory and a mine (I chose factory over mine), and then I would have to start destroying the factories. Brutal.
3) Partially as a result of 1) and 2) above, money is far scarcer.
The game notes impossible as having a stringent economy, and it's very true. I lost several times and had to restart simply from overextending my economy to defend from the FIRST xeno wave! Spy wars seem to last forever in this mode, and if you're running syndicates, you can't stop them until so late into the game that they aren't as relevant. Regardless, the economy as a whole is tighter. At the END OF THE GAME, with all colonies taken over and most of my fleet destroyed, I was only making 5.2k / turn. My maintenance rate was 82%.
As a result of everything above, your timing windows are far shorter, you have many many many more opportunities to screw up, and said screw ups will hurt you much more.
Anyone who has played a strategy game is familiar with timing windows - points when you're ahead of the difficulty curve and can push an advantage. In this difficulty, your timing windows must be fully exploited. If you successfully fend off a xeno wave in the early game, and they retreat, you should likely destroy all your ships (probably not the starting ships - they have unusually low maint cost and can be good scouts) to rake in additional cash. If xeno activity ends a trade embargo, or some other nasty thing, don't be lazy - cancel the trade sanctions treaty you're building and start a spice treaty immediately. If you just finished mine 4 research, don't bother upgrading your mines from 1 to 2, upgrade directly from 1 to 4. Things like this will net you lots of time throughout the game and save you tons of cash. On the same topic, be smart with your upgrades. Just because you CAN research mine 5 doesn't mean you SHOULD - it's very expensive and only marginal improvement over mine 4 and really should be researched only when you have lots of planets nearing quality cap. It's a late game toy, folks.
So how do we get around all of this? We play smarter, more efficient, and we don't make mistakes.
The number 1 tip I can give you is to love your fighters. In terms of efficiency, the fighter cannot be beat. Early game, simply getting a better weapon on them will allow you to defend against the first two xeno waves with your initial torpedo ships. I don't even build torpedo ships until I've researched essential foundations of mine 3, factory 2, hab 3, palace 2.
The fighter will always be your core unit because they are repairable. Take a look at the following screenshot:
This is a midgame screenshot where the xeno had a great timing on their assault. I had destroyed much of my fleet, as I was upgrading the fighters at the time. The xeno were coming hard with high rank ships and I was extremely outnumbered; however, due to great positioning of the fighters, rotating them in and out, and repairs, I defended from all of these xeno plus their reinforcements while only losing three fighters in the process. Three easily replaceable fighters that pop back up in three turns. Not bad!
Screenshot from the same fight, note the positions of the fighters carefully placed to absorb the hits. Additionally, the fleet as a whole has pulled back a bit, allowing me to use green square regen, as well as making the Xeno lose some attacks by having to move to me.
Late game example of the same thing. A couple of things to point out. The fight has been obviously going on a bit, as you can see by the world destroyer near the planet on the bottom of the picture. Once AGAIN, I had been attacked as my fleet was being upgraded: A battlecruiser is en route, but it's not quite there yet. The standard cruisers pack a huge punch in this picture, though. Fully upgraded with squid torpedos, they tear through anything that comes close.
I only have four fighters in this picture, but I once again won without losing a single cruiser or better ship. Fighters died, but them's the digs
Note again that my fleet is positioned so that the xeno will not continuously fire upon any singular ship and have to split their power across several fighters.The last thing about this screenshot I want you to look at is the profit. At late game, a +618 profit is nothing, but at least it's not negative. I babied my economy all game and nurtured it carefully, and this STILL happened. The crazy thing is that on the final push, as I colonized another Xeno cluster, the economy dropped ~again~ to negative 2k a turn. I ended the game with about 50k in the bank. This would be due to impatience on my part not letting my new colonies mature, but I was pretty confident in my ability to end the game.
Bonus picture of my endgame fleet. At this point, my fighters were still a super essential part of my fleet, but they were pretty much tanks: I put on heavy armor and shielding, lowered the guns and upgraded evasion and pilot. They were able to tank hits so that my upgraded carriers and cruisers could slaughter everything. The funny thing is that in this picture, the xeno were actually scared and conceded these planets to me. I had to hunt them down like the dogs they were!
A few turns after the game ended, I figured I should screencap this. 1207 turns. Impossible is slooooowwwww.
All being said, I think impossible is more work than fun. I'm glad it's in the game, and I'm glad that I completed it, but I think I'll be sticking to crazy from now on
What are your guys thoughts on this difficulty? Anything big I missed?
