Krogoth Encounter...

[SevenUp / TCA7]

The first time I played that mission years ago took me weeks to play the mission at 8+ hours a day to beat the mission.

Haven't played that mission in a very long time.

The thing that helped me a lot was building the dragon's teeth around my main base to keep the Krogoths out while building up Air and Land defenses.

Let's hear your experiences with this hard but very fun mission!

:D

[Zhikaka]

The problem with the mission is unit limit.. 250 is simply ridiculous. Otherwise it is easy to spam the krogs with Flash and put up some BBs and Advanced Air. A cowardly approach is to Dragonteeth oneself in so nothing can pass. Otherwise just have to slug it out. Remember the AI always attacks the closest unit unless it is scripted to do otherwise. It is easy to distract the AI to chase your ♥♥♥♥ that has a waypoint to the ends of the earth.

As krogs dangerousness is really their nuclear blast and radar targetting, it makes enemy radars the primary targets.

[SevenUp / TCA7]

Use of Dragon's teeth does not mean that someone completely fenced themselves in.

It is not cowardly to use the tools in the game as part of your defense.

I did not cheat or hack the game.

Agree that 250 unit limit is a bit too low but that was another part of the game.

Happy hunting!

[Chuckonator]

Did the mission on hard, and died more than a few times. Finally I decided to throw dragons teeth down around the base and hike up to the mountains to th left of where you start. Built AA for the constant air attacks, and built nukes and air of my own. After a couple of rough hours that did the trick.

[SevenUp / TCA7]

Nicely done.

I had to build a lot of defense to guard against Air and Land Attacks.

Dragon's teeth solid around the lower edge of my base up to the top right side of the base. Then Dragon's teeth up top with a Dragon's teeth width apart along the top.

Eventually was able to build an additional set of Dragon's teeth to prevent the Krogoths from coming down the first alley into my base.

Built a lot of long range stuff as well as a lot of every kind of bot in the arsenal.

Was a hard battle but worth the effort which ended in a WIN!

Thankfully did the save which allowed me to restore at crucial points in the mission.

[Rookie (ZOE)]

It's unlikely, but in case anyone else who stumbles upon this topic is wondering just where the hell the annoying-as-♥♥♥♥ Intimidator cannon that devastates your base right at the start of the mission with its deadly plasma fire, know there it can be found here, note the location is also indicated precisely on the mini-map seen at the top-left of the screen of course: https://i.imgur.com/bR7H7GU.jpg (I had to use my starting Brawlers in a suicide fly-by just to spot where the accursed thing is, and the reason why the Intimidator cannon looks larger than it normally is because i'm using an "Absolute Annihilation"-variant mod called "Twilight" that adds very nice amount of units and even includes them for the original/CC missions, but sadly not the BT missions unfortunately, ah well. Regardless, the AA-variation mod can be found here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/total-annihilation-twilight/downloads/total-annihilation-twilight-v17-full )

With luck, it should be possible to eliminate said Intimidator cannon with your starting four Brawler gunships, so make sure to get that done, otherwise the damn thing will pelt your base with its aforementioned deadly plasma fire endlessly. As such, using your starting four Brawlers on a near-suicide run to take it down helps IMMENSELY, especially if you have new tech to work with as both Absolute Annihilation and the Twilight mod variation of AA allows.

[mltnschroeder]

I think the first time I beat it iirc, I turtled the whole SW corner behind dragons teeth, then spammed nukes.

But now I like to rush Adv Vehicles and start spamming spiders, so that when the Kroggies start showing up, I swarm them w/ spiders and capture w/ the commander. Keep my new Krogs safe till I have 3 or 4, then send them out en-masse to maul the Core facilities. You have to do all this in low dead ground to keep in the shadows from the Timmy barrage. Also, stunned Krogs don't stop walking till they are boxed in... so you literally need a mob of expendable T1s (set to hold fire) to swarm the Krog so it can't move while stunned.

Once you get the technique down, you can wait for the Kroggies to show, or you can go out hunting them with a small mobile army instead (keep the commander safe in your base till the Krog is pacified, then fly him in for the capture). Once you've decided on a capture-strategy, it is pure aesthetics to of course capture the Intimidators and shell the Core base w/ their own artillery.

Then there was the time I went pure air, quickly gained air-superiority, took out the tower defenses on the central island, then air-lifted the commander to capture the Krog gantry and build my own....

[Rookie (ZOE)]

Do you know where all the Intimidators are? I'm asking since it'd be really nice to know where they are so that I can take them down so they will stop harrassing my base in the early stages after all. I know where one is already, but there's obviously more than one and as such i'd like to know how many there are and where to find them.

[mltnschroeder]

*SPOILER ALERT*

It's been a while since I played that map, but iirc one is in the SW corner of the island, and another is over on the eastern edge SE corner of the central lake. However, the AI builds like a madman, so there might soon be more.

EDITED after consulting map

[Rookie (ZOE)]

Ah, I see. I was hoping that those two would be the only Intimidators to worry about, damn.

[mltnschroeder]

The AI initially builds mostly in the SE corner around the lake. But it will build them on the central island too if it has nowhere else to expand.

[SevenUp / TCA7]

Built the (i forgot the name of the unit) mega energy generators and big bertha guns in the lower left in my base so that when I had radar to see what was in the island where the Krogoth bot generators were that It helped a lot. Built nuclear launchers too to help out.

Both were way after I had the air and land defenses built way up.

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by 184x184:

The problem with the mission is unit limit.. 250 is simply ridiculous.

Originally posted by SevenUp / TCA7:

Agree that 250 unit limit is a bit too low but that was another part of the game.

You get 400 units for the Krogoth encounter, which is slightly better, but still an issue if you're used to running an economy purely on Tech 1 structures (Metal Extractors + Solars). There's a Geothermal vent that can fit 4 Plants on the upper level, and you start with an Advanced Con Kbot, which allows for a transition into a Fusion Reactor/Moho Mine economy fairly early on.

The OG Total Annihilation late-game competitive strategy of 'spam Aircraft Plants & Hawks then snipe everything whilst flying back and forth' works quite well (this strat doesn't work in Escalation as they removed the ability for Hawks & AA units to fire at ground units).

Here's a speedrun video of the mission that uses the 'spam Hawks' strat, with the aid of high level economy structures (Geothermal/Mohos/Fusions). The video quality is a bit scuffed from time to time, but it still illustrates the strat very nicely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYFODuFnkCs


I remember when I attempted this mission for the first time (20+ years ago now, how time flies, lol), I built Nuke Silo's on the top ridge, and was at one point forced to nuke a part of my lower base to kill an incoming Krogoth that had punched through my other defenses. That was fun....

[Peter Griffin]

I remember doing this mission, the trick when deploying DTs is that you can space them half a DT apart because no unit is small enough to fit between them, and if you put them in the gaps between the existing metal hills it halves how many you need to secure your base, and you use the construction aircraft to build a DT row to secure the top edge of your base.

While getting metal and energy up and running, building anti-air units such as Jethro and Samson is the key to destroying Core air raids while building your own air force- Core air bases are located on the left, right and top edges of the map. Brawlers are good for destroying Pulverizers and factories, Phoenixes can be called on to destroy fusion power plants.

Core has an anti-nuke structure in the centre of the map, approaching it from directly above is the best way to reach it, a dozen brawlers will make short work of it and open the door for your nuclear missiles.

[Silenoz]

I remember completing this mission back in the day when Core contingency was released, the strategy I used was different to most I have read here.
What I did was build many spider bots and scout the Krogoths as they were coming towards my base, when they got close I set all units to not attack except the spider bots which I would surround the Krogoth with and their paralyze would prevent the Korgoth attacking, once he was right inside my base and no longer moving my Commander would capture him.
After a while I would have 4 or 5 of my own Korgoths to attack with.
Still took many hours to complete though very hard mission !

[Peter Griffin]

The small core base east of your starting position is worth taking care of, with your cloaked commander you can spot core defences for your aircraft to destroy. Then capture at least one of the factories giving you access to core tech and enabling you to bring at least one construction vehicle back to your base so you can construct a Krogoth gantry of your own. Just make sure you have a lot of advanced construction aircraft assisting, ground-based builders struggle to get close enough to contribute. Last time I did this mission I had about a hundred of my own Krogoths 😁