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Attacking a factions HQ tends to be a little easier since it's more of a structured mission like in the old game...
Also get rid of the Necrons ASAP, they can be incredibly difficult to fight since they resurrect and their bases move around and pack a hell of a punch.
But yeh, I got a love/hate relationship with this game, the AI fights dirty. It shouldn't instantly know where your base is.
How do we avoid fighting an AI with too many honor guards?
And I'll be sure to focus on Necrons first.
To be fair, in the lore necrons are pretty unstoppable... but there is a point where balance has to come into effect.
I will say that I liked the more structured missions of the past two games better. I'm not a hard core RTS player, and I really don't like fast paced clickfests.
In the previous games I could take the missions at my own pace for the most part. Now I have to rush everything just to survive.
I appreciate the sandbox aspect, but the cheating AI and fast paced nature of the game isn't doing it for me.
First, try to initially attack regions with a strength of 1 to 3 if at all possible.
Second, avoid any area that enemy leaders are currently located at or are adjacent to. If the enemy leadear is not present, neither is their honor guard, which makes bum-rushing difficult for them to pull off, which buys the player more time to prepare.
Third, plan a route to try and grab one or two of the "pivotal" locations. Those locations include bonuses that simplify future maneuvers quite effectinvely. Those include the Pavonis Space Port which lets you instantly attack any location (enemy fortresses exhempted), and Eres Badlands which lets you attack twice per turn. Yes, you heard me correctly. You get two moves for every one move of your opponents. The Eres Badlands tends to be easier to grab early because it simply requires the player to kill a specific number of units. Just hunker down and wait for the bodies to pile up. The Space Port requires the player to run around the map finding 6 special Space Marine Servitors. There are 10 and you need to have the majority (meaning 6) to win. It's better to use fast units that can spread out and search rather than playing defense on that one.
Some of the other bonuses are useful, but not as overwhelming. They include things like increasing the amount of requisition the player starts with, starting a battle off with a nearly complete base, and increased unit capacity (both infantry and vehicle).
Also, for your first play through Dark Crusade, it may be more beneficial to choose one of the more balanced races like the Tau or Necrons, instead of one of the more challenging ones like Eldar or Imperial Guard. After you are confortable with the planetary interface, the AI behavior, and remebering to build static defenses, then you may be less frustrated with playing one of the other races.
One other thing of note. Always recruit an Honor Guard when it is available. It follows the leader for as long as the honor guard lives, so you only have to pay for a replacement if it dies. Honor Guard units alone can win games, and will repel any rush attacks.
The AI cheats as well. Look no farther than units with the ability to use jumppacks being able to surround a certain unit(with no prior LOS).
The Imperial Guard always manages to capture your stealthed units in their scan, even if they have not had a LOS on that unit.
The Tau cheats by being able to build listening posts on non-listening post areas(This seems to be a preset thing, as they seem to be in the positions of where turrets are supposed to be if another race owns the land).
Also, if you think it would be fun for the enemy to attack your stronghold land, don't. You don't get any access to the fun things, like the Titan Engine for the Imperial Guards, or Death Towers for the Chaos. What do you get? You get: Your HQ and a builder unit, nothing else. This usually ends with the enemy just walking up to your base and destroying you.
I usually play on Normal, as anything higher than that is just plain unfun. The Eldar, a race intended to be stealthy, instead opts to do standard warfare, and due to the HP difference, usually wins if you don't just bumrush them.
A couple things to keep in mind about the AI in Dark Crusade's campaign skirmishes (because for the most part, most territories are just skirmishes with variable starting conditions).
1) Expect the AI to have pinpoint precision with abilities, even if they're using them through fog of war. This is standard RTS AI stuff and should come as no surprise.
2) The longer you take to kill them, the stronger the forces they'll throw at you. Unless you're prepared to fight high-end units, take them out FAST. Even low-difficulty territories will build up to the high-end stuff if left alone to tech up for long enough. If you can't, or aren't willing to take them out early, take a page from their book and make sure you tech up to the big toys quick so you can stand up to theirs.
3) Enemies will always start in the same location on each map, so once you know where the enemy base(s) start, you can setup your fortifications for future defenses accordingly, not to mention know where to send your initial forces to attack, or intercept initial enemy attacks. This means them knowing where YOUR base is... is rather excusable. After all, it's not like starting positions are randomized.
4) The game will tell you this, but remember: If the territory is of strength 6 or higher, there will be TWO enemy bases to deal with, each treated as a separate player with their own squad caps, and their own commanders. Deal with one of them quickly at all costs, or you *will* be buried under raw, unsurmountable numbers.
Though I'll admit, getting swarmed with jump infantry as Imperial Guard definitely sucks, as ol' Lukas is their only dedicated melee unit until TIER THREE. Ouch. Only thing you can really do there is get to vehicles fast, or simply have more squads than they do so they can't tie up ALL your guns.
Imp Guard are all about armor and tanks. They are super weak early but get extremely powerful in later stages. When using the guardsmen, always equip them with grenade launchers. Most enemies get thrown by the grenade explosion and enough will never let them get up and they'll die super easy. After watching some AI units wreck a few of my squads, i copied the tactic and it works extremely well in this game. Get like around 3 squads with nothing but the launchers and it works extremely well during the early stages.