Struggling with Earth 2160

[G-Void]

I keep trying to play skirmishes on medium difficulty having played on easy and won previously. I keep being overrun early in the game, as LC I find my Apollo can't cope against Dubna's and as ED when the LC get there electric Apollo's I can do nothing. I really need some help with setting up my base and units early in the game and what research is good to start on. Any help would be appreciated.

[OutsidR]

Haven't played for a while but this may be of help. Use the Superstorm option (which is really a cheat) and use the monetary option of 'no limit' which will allow you to not have to build matal/water plants and concentrate on your base building. Place several platforms ahead of where you plan to build your base as the enemy will attack them first and allow you more time to build. I'd say place about six platforms. The two platforms available at the rear of the others, do an electric on each one of them, then a troop compartment on top of each and finally command centers 2 each on top of both of them. Once they are complete, start spamming your basic Apollos, which are anti air and ground units to protect your main base. From there you can continue building up the rest of your base. Try to build six seperate platforms with an electric gen and troop compound and on them build the unit upgrade facilities. That way you can be upgrading six units at a time. Like you, I always play LC because it's possible to drop platforms anywhere on the map to confuse the AI, lol They will attack them mostly and leave you alone to build up your base. I do hope this will help playing the game. Really, once you get a good handle on building your base, it is really a very good game.

[Brave Sir Robin]

IIRC the AI gets extra resources on medium dificulty, so i usually build at least 2 defense towers as early as possible. The AI dont use siege weapons early in the game, so the towers can stop them for quite some time. Meanwhile, you should build lots of mining unit (UCS/ED) or the mining building (LC), and expand to other resource spot if possible. Soon you'll reach the point where you can keep researching new tech and building new units non-stop.

For the LC, I recommend researching the lightning gun as the first tech. It's very OP once you finish all its upgrades. But even without the upgrades it can destroy your enemies easily. After lighting gun, you can go either the air units or the tanks. If you go for tanks, remeber to research twin-tower for the beam weapon, and dont forget shield. Game should be easier from now on.

For the ED, I usually go straight for tanks. The ED dont have OP weapons like the lightning gun or Xray gun, but the chemical weapon is nice. After/before researching the tanks, I usually go for either chemical weapon or laser tech depending on the situation. If the enemies are keep coming and I can't stop them, I go for laser first so I can build heavy laser towers/upgrade existing towers to heavy laser. If the situation is under control, I go chemical first to get the chemical cannon on my tanks. If you have enough mining units at this time, you should be able to push back from now on. If I have enough resources, I usually like to drop a base on enemy's attack route, and build towers around it.

As for the UCS, spam Xray gun on their fighters or reaserch double production tech to build a swarm of mechs. Or both.

Some other tips:

• No matter what faction I play, I usually ignore armor tech until mid game, unless I'm facing chemical weapons. I just use shield to stop energy weapons, and blast my enemies before they use their cannon/missile.
  
• The fast engine tech is nice when you go on offensive and I never go for strong engine.
  
• Getting enough resources is very important, so build as many miner as possible and build another base around resource spot if possible.
  
• Dont forget AA! Especially if you're facing the LC. Their flying artillery is insanely powerful. I usually have some planes around my base to shoot down LC artillery plane.
  
• I usually dont build infantries other than the ED rocket inf or the UCS plasma inf. A group of these can be really fun to play.
  
• I'm not sure if SuperStorm mod comes with the steam version or not. If you dont have it, you can get it from here[homepage.ntlworld.com]. I usually use it to team up with AIs and set resources to 4x.
  
• The game is not very balanced, to be honest. IEO balancing mod (I think it is included in every version) is much better IMO.

[G-Void]

Thanks both of you these sound like brilliant ideas I will give them a go and see how I get on. Hopefully then I can get to really enjoy the game!

[OutsidR]

What Zollac said are all very good tips. Superstorm, developed by one 'Spacetug' which I believe was a mate of yours, is included with the game. Just select it from the menu at top center of the screen. Yes, i am that old, that I did some beta testing for him. There is alao another mod made for the game, which is not included with the game which was called ADP Siege which we worked on. It just used only troops though to capture and fight. Maps, I have many more than what comes with the game from steam, all made by the community and many also by myself, Including some maps made only for the ADP Siege mod. I also worked to beta test the IEO rebal. But I must say, although it made the game better, there still are querks that needed to be worked on. Maybe some day Steam will allow me to upload them to the site for all to use. Maybe...

Oh, and stay away from the Aliens, they were the hardest faction to mod and play.

[G-Void]

Cheers for that I will look into it and see what is going on the workshop

[Taoist Ascendant]

Originally posted by OutsidR:

What Zollac said are all very good tips. Superstorm, developed by one 'Spacetug' which I believe was a mate of yours, is included with the game. Just select it from the menu at top center of the screen. Yes, i am that old, that I did some beta testing for him. There is alao another mod made for the game, which is not included with the game which was called ADP Siege which we worked on. It just used only troops though to capture and fight. Maps, I have many more than what comes with the game from steam, all made by the community and many also by myself, Including some maps made only for the ADP Siege mod. I also worked to beta test the IEO rebal. But I must say, although it made the game better, there still are querks that needed to be worked on. Maybe some day Steam will allow me to upload them to the site for all to use. Maybe...

Oh, and stay away from the Aliens, they were the hardest faction to mod and play.

But aliens is pretty easy for me
butr i agree thought when u starting out they are like wtf is this? WTF IS THAT?