Temple of Joy mission kicking my ass.

[SkywardSoul117]

I'm pretty experienced with RTS games. I'm by no means amazing, but I'd certainly consider myself competent. I've played a few of this kind of game and done decently.
So I felt I was doing pretty well with this mission. I'd just beaten a very hard wave which decimated my melee army and walls. I had 2 levels to go on the main temple. Economy was doing pretty well and I was getting into infinite stone / iron resources at last. I'd been balancing between building defences, the temple and economy decently well I think.
So imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I just have a wave thrown at me very soon after from every direction at once. Half of my walls still need replacing from prior attacks with not enough resources on the map to replace them. This is just an automatic loss state.

This is the easiest difficulty. I should not have to be Starcraft 2 min-maxing my actions per minute and using spreadsheets to find the optimum build order. I use pause regularly to plan and make use of the game's upgrades and optimise my building placements, defences etc. I have a decent number of hours in this game so I know how to progress at a decent rate. I preserve my units well. Why is this so punishing? You put 4-5 hours into a match for it to just tell you you've just wasted your time entirely at the end, go back to square one.

I suppose this is a critique of the game's balance as well as a request for any tips / exploits for this mission. The whole point of the easiest difficulty is you don't have to do that, but here we are. Actually helpful advice welcome, cheers.

[MattK147]

yea, im curious what strat people are using for this one. I managed to win on the highest difficulty but I had to reload a save because one of the nightmare generals just randomly started attacking me and I realized too late. So I still feel like I haven't properly conquered it yet.

I have done a good chunk of the campaign but this mission just stands out in difficulty. It is exhausting to go through it. I have to click on the battle icon multiple times and cycle through all the fights that are taking place. Making sure everything is going well constantly. The ai will literally breeze past your nearest soldiers if they are a few tiles away. And once they start attacking your buildings, they will wipe out entire sections very quickly.

You have to be constantly watching everything thats going on the field and pausing as much as you can.

[proAkdag]

The lection you learn in this level is, turtling is bad. You gotta attack and destroy as many spawn locations as you can as fast as you can.

If you do it well, you are awarded with resources and fewer places to defend.
Once you cleared a side completely (preferably not on the same side as the waves) you gotta expand like crazy in that safe space.

[MattK147]

Yeah, looking back I realize what my mistake was. I treated the map like I did Rothgen. I didn’t bother wasting resources building the temple because I figured it would be the last thing I could do. Instead use the resources to boost the economy and then have it be the last thing I built.

I waited way too long before even upgrading the first temple wall and I didn’t even know that they rewarded you with pretty decent troops. Now knowing this, if I had to redo this mission, even on the highest difficulty, it would be much easier

[SkywardSoul117]

Originally posted by proAkdag:

The lection you learn in this level is, turtling is bad. You gotta attack and destroy as many spawn locations as you can as fast as you can.

If you do it well, you are awarded with resources and fewer places to defend.
Once you cleared a side completely (preferably not on the same side as the waves) you gotta expand like crazy in that safe space.

Yeah, I'd been clearing out the enemy camps at a decent pace I thought, but not aggressively enough it seems, so you're quite right.
I went hard into 30 or so horsemen as soon as I could, and wiped a good portion of the map within 10 days. Made things a lot simpler.

[GronkJuice]

Currently working on the Loyalty path (since I haven't played this mission on the other two I assume its in that path) I have found that you can do one of two things to clear spawners.

1) have okish defense on the sides you are not clearing, and focus on one part of the map to clear and sweep along the map to move defenses to support spawner defense as you sweep. allowing your main force to fall back and help with wave defense when waved.

2) wait for spawners to push by watch towering as much of the map as possible. once you see the side/ corner they come from send your main army to take them out before they get too big. working on a larger and larger army/defense during the wait.

[Disco Wieszcz]

I had a good first try, but failed at the end. Then i have been restarting quite a lot. RNG kicking my ass with resources being scare or not close. My first try was awesome. 3 infinite stones close by. 2 infinite iron deposites and a large space to build farms. But one thing is true, being super aggresive and clearing camps quickly is the way to go. Just need a good resource rng

[AMekhov]

Originally posted by Disco Wieszcz:

Just need a good resource rng

why do you even need infinite resources on that scenario
there is a lot of place for outposts after map clearing
first two waves even on nightmare are one-direction only, so you can easily clear some directions and use them for resource outpost without any cover

[GronkJuice]

Originally posted by AMekhov:

Originally posted by Disco Wieszcz:

Just need a good resource rng

why do you even need infinite resources on that scenario
there is a lot of place for outposts after map clearing
first two waves even on nightmare are one-direction only, so you can easily clear some directions and use them for resource outpost without any cover

Only think I used infinite resource one in all my campaigns so far. That was when I went for all research since I used up most of my iron and used stone to sell.

[Foard]

Strategy after Several Attempts
1: Use starting cavalry units to eliminate as many weak enemy buildings as possible by circling the map. Leave two cavalry units and two mounted archers in "patrol" mode along the edges of construction areas to mark future wooden wall boundaries and fend off small enemy waves early in the game.

2: Upgrade to level 2 as quickly as possible and build multiple lumber camps, farms, and houses. Plan for large spaces in the colonized areas of the map.

3: Do not upgrade the main building to level 3, as it's a needless expense of resources and gold, given that the map is rich in resources. Opt for stone walls for inner defenses and wooden walls for outer defenses, after researching upgrades to improve wall and building durability.

4: Create defense zones with catapults, crossbowmen, and ground defenders to tackle increasingly large and powerful enemy waves.

5: Once a good portion of the map is colonized and enemy buildings are destroyed, maximize resource usage and use the market to construct the six stages of the temple.

Tip: Expand as much as possible in cleared enemy areas to reduce monster waves (enemy buildings spawn monsters). Suicide attacks on large buildings that spawn stronger monsters can prevent the need to rebuild walls and reduce future losses.

Temple of Joy: Prioritize building the "WINGS" of the Temple of Joy, as they are cheaper and will provide stone soldiers, ideal for defense and attack.

BOSS and Towers: Avoid engaging BOSS units and enemy towers during suicide operations, as only enemy buildings are important to destroy in these missions.

Tip: Axe-wielding units are very useful for tanking and dealing damage against undead enemies.

[Bulletproof Face]

I think the game gives you a hint by placing one of the observation towers in a random spot and giving you horse archers and horse swordsmen at the start. I beat this mission by building a ton of towers then pausing any time I saw red dots coming to me. Also, the first level of the temple wings gives you like 20 units for 40 iron and 40 steel. You can use those to help expand. You need to destroy as many buildings of the enemies as fast as you can. Use the horse people to scout and destroy and run away when you see the upgraded waves. Early on try to put your troops on patrol and have them defend your buildings by patrolling right next to your buildings instead of forming a parameter.