Campaign GOLDBERG HARD MODE

[Avion]

OMG why.
I love this game but the Hard mode is just simply cheating its way through. I think the cooldown times for snipers and canons are reduced for the pc. Anyhow, after more then 20 rounds of hard mode GOLDBERG (the one where the enemy has a twin reactor and you are suposed to light the fuse with laser... ) is out of my league. I seem to be unable to wind the enemy down.

I tried rushing him with mortars and get quickly shot down by snipes, canons, and rockets. When i go for a snipe wall and snipe down every move he is making, he will build rockets and overwhelm me with canons. When i try to rush for laser or canon he is just faster?! or and or winds me down with mortars during that attempt.

How did you achieve success? This can't be so hard hard .; )

I am very grateful for any tipps by now.

Thanks in advance, your insight is greatly appreciated.

[[DEV] BeeMan]

Keep at it! There's a strategy guide which might help.

The only way the AI cheats is by seeing hidden weapons. It's something I would like to fix but haven't had time.

[razfaz]

Hihihi- wining against bots.
Try harder or go to PvP instead!

[Romerolagus]

When people have trouble in the campaign it's usually because they get carried away with their building. Either building too much base at the start before they have enough mines/turbines, or the exact opposite, building too many mines/turbines and not getting technology and weapons in time. Sometimes you have to take a step back and challenge your assumptions (I always build X first on every mission) in order to tailor a build order for a specific map.

Some general tips though.

Two doors will stop an AP sniper.

Place mortars behind walls. They can arc their shells over the wall, but enemy snipers have to shoot through it.

Same with machine guns vs mortars, you can place them behind a wall so they can still shoot up, but won't be exposed to snipers.

If you're rushing a laser on that level, it shouldn't take much longer than 5 minutes. And that's without any advanced shenanigans like selling off your workshop for resources as soon as you place your factory. If it's taking you longer than 5 minutes, you've got a spending problem to fix.

[Avion]

Thanks you two for the reply. I got six mortars up and firing but the base is just repairing so fast. ;D i think i probably need to be faster, less build intense. I'll give it a few go's later. Thanks a lot

[Avion]

ok ok, seriously. i played a bunch of online now, but this one level ^^. Goldberg. Did you change a bit of the bot timings? no matter how fast i go, i can rush him to the mortars, i can setup even two salvos, 3 each in time and keep his sniper out of sight, run salvos all the time. He will still repair his base fast enough so that i can not run him down. Any tips? I must be slow on some point or neglegting tactical things. I seem to be stuck there ;)

[Avion]

Originally posted by DEV BeeMan:

Keep at it! There's a strategy guide which might help.

The only way the AI cheats is by seeing hidden weapons. It's something I would like to fix but haven't had time.

I even tried with your exact build ;D

[Romerolagus]

There have been some balance changes over the last few years that may have an effect? Or he may have been somewhat lucky in the video with timing, exploding the enemy mortar causing more damage, and his mortar salvos preventing the extinguishing.

Have you tried getting an upgrade centre and upgrading to heavy mortars?

[MSN-100]

I do agree goldberg ""hard"" should be rebalanced. spend over 3 hr to win a round drive me crazy.
Player's resource is too tight due to heavy fire by enemy.
For now, 3 mortars almost impossible to burn button core, Hard AI fix building so quick.
6 mortars is possible, but really need luck and have a good defense stuff for fire under enemy's missile & snipe.
Enemy's turbines are so high that you spend too much resource to increase height of building and build defense stuff.

[Romerolagus]

3 hours is pretty extreme, but, I should point out that the mission briefing says, "Our only chance of taking them out is igniting this Fuse with a Laser. You can absolutely win with mortars or a cannon or missiles or however you like. But it's going to be a little more challenging on a mission that's designed around using a laser.

I tried it just now, I started out by building a mine, turbine and Workshop (24 seconds) then the batteries and metal store for the Factory (1:30). After that I made a couple of machine guns behind a wall (so they can shoot up at mortars but still be safe from snipers) and another battery for the laser (2:50) which then finished at 4:50. In between I added some extra machine guns with doors to defend against the swarm missiles the AI was building. They only had time to fire their missiles once before the laser was ready. You can end the level right then by hitting the fuse, or shoot up at the turbines a couple of times to get the achievement.

If you prefer mortars then 3 heavy mortars can take out the bottom base in 3 salvos, as along as you snipe the lone machine gun. It has a sandbag in front, but if you build up a little to place your sniper can you aim down over the sandbag. If you'd rather stick with incendiary, then you'll want to fire them in sequence rather than all together so the AI can't ever finish extinguishing the fires.

[Tweet]

Originally posted by Romerolagus:

3 hours is pretty extreme, but, I should point out that the mission briefing says, "Our only chance of taking them out is igniting this Fuse with a Laser. You can absolutely win with mortars or a cannon or missiles or however you like. But it's going to be a little more challenging on a mission that's designed around using a laser.

I tried it just now, I started out by building a mine, turbine and Workshop (24 seconds) then the batteries and metal store for the Factory (1:30). After that I made a couple of machine guns behind a wall (so they can shoot up at mortars but still be safe from snipers) and another battery for the laser (2:50) which then finished at 4:50. In between I added some extra machine guns with doors to defend against the swarm missiles the AI was building. They only had time to fire their missiles once before the laser was ready. You can end the level right then by hitting the fuse, or shoot up at the turbines a couple of times to get the achievement.

If you prefer mortars then 3 heavy mortars can take out the bottom base in 3 salvos, as along as you snipe the lone machine gun. It has a sandbag in front, but if you build up a little to place your sniper can you aim down over the sandbag. If you'd rather stick with incendiary, then you'll want to fire them in sequence rather than all together so the AI can't ever finish extinguishing the fires.

Ive spent about 4 hours on the level now and I honestly wish I could refund the game, thats how much this level has made me hate this game. In About 3 hours I managed to get the 12min goal finally but I just cant get the turbine goal now, im just sick of this level and how poorly balanced it is on hard mode.

The ai has 2 cannons before I can even get 1 down. No idea how the guy above claims to of done this level in 4:50 when it takes nearly 8-10min to get 1 cannon built, im just so done with this dumb level, was really enjoying the game until Ive come to this level, did every other one in about 2-3 attempts, this one im on about 20.

[[DEV] BeeMan]

You don't need to make a cannon. I just had a go on hard and the minimum is a sniper and a laser (as the mission description says). Use the sniper to suppress their sniper, the mortar, and the machine gun while you wait for the laser to build. You can even destroy their missile silos easily. This will slow them down. I got the laser out in 5:34 without trying hard. There's plenty of time to fire at the turbines, and then the fuse once the turbine objective is taken care of.

[[DEV] BeeMan]

The 4:50 time mentioned by Romerolagus is just when his laser was complete, not when the mission was beaten.

[Romerolagus]

Hi, I tried repeating the steps in my earlier post and everything looks ok. If you're struggling with the time limit it usually means you're spending a lot on building early on. Structure costs aren't that high but they add up quickly when you make a large Fort.

This is the order that I built things and the timing when it occurred. Pressing F8 will bring up a game clock in addition to the countdown timer

0:00 Start of the level. Zoomed in, built a mine and turbine. That's it, nothing else.
0:24 Placed Workshop.
0:30 Placed battery.
0:37 Placed 2nd battery.
0:47 Placed Metal Store.
1:30 Placed Factory.
1:45 Built structure to place 2nd Metal Store.
1:52 Built structure to place protected machine gun.
1:59 Hit by mortar because machine gun was late, should've been before 2nd Metal Store.
2:07 Machine gun comes online, phew.
2:43 Built structure for laser above turbine. Held down ctrl to prevent material conversion.
2:50 From this point on, just adding machine guns, turbines, and doors.
4:44 Laser completes, 7 minutes left to shoot at the turbines and then the fuse.

This build order might look a little weird if you're used to filling out all your mine spots and getting a bunch of turbines and building a large base before getting your weapons out. There's only 1 extra mine, 1 turbine for the first 3 minutes, and no structure built until 1:45. But with nothing shooting at you yet you can afford to be greedy. You've got plenty of resources to rush your laser as long as you're not spending them somewhere else.

[Tweet]

Ok so I had another attempt and I literally did it on my 2nd go with the help above, your plan worked for me up till 1:30, had to build machine guns after this as mortars were destroying my turbines on my first go. I ended up needing a cannon in the end to hit the turbines after using the lazer to blow up the bottom base to stop some fire coming at me. I think I may of not built the lazer high enough to hit the turbines but I got all the goals for the mission now.

Thanks for the help, I was getting a bit tilted with this mission lol

[Romerolagus]

Glad we could help! If you could use some tips for any other levels please let us know. There are also videos on YT and Speedrun where you can see some crazy strategies people have pulled off.