New Player, Kastelans are destroying me.

[PyreStarite]

I've tried playing two games so far apart from the tutorial.

The first one was Militarum 2v1v1. I'm new and discovering the tutorial was incredibly shallow, let me have my advantages. I quit that game after finally sieging down the ork player with heavy weapon teams because I didn't get any basilisks out because I let my loyalty get really really out of hand. After going thru the missions and finally wiping out the spawned Enslavers wreaking havok in my back line, I had a bunch of Kastelans dropped right behind my main force, which was double what I had.

Whatever, I had the entire afternoon to cool off and tried a new game. First start was nothing but choking dense forests anyways. Second run was the same settings and this time I know a little more about how to start building. I get like 7 or so guardsmen pumped out and a sentinel and the thing separating me from my ally is non other than 3 Kastelans, rogue tech priests, and an Enslaver. Of course I don't realize this at first because I have to peek in thru a wall of forest to see the mess before me. Some tactical retreating later, my force is decimated with 4 guardsmen units left all half health or lower and the Sentinel and the Kastelans are popping out of the woods to chase me BECAUSE THEY FEEL LIKE IT. Yes, I did get Krak grenades.

Also I haven't mentioned the fact yet that my ally has been completely unproductive because he's been ramming his face against a bastion that spawned not far from his base.

I know the game is not supposed to be this garbage, it's rated too highly, unless some nonsense is going on. Am I just having really Emperor damn it bad luck with these starts and spawns or am I doing something vehemently wrong?

Sorry for the long post.

[BNTYHNTR98]

I feal your pain, The Kastelans if your unlucky enough to have 3 of them together with engineers by your starting location for your base its basicly , pray, hope they go the other direction, or if you engage or have them come at your starting point in the first 10 turns well, guess thats a start over, Least its what i do , or i go the other direction and try to avoid them till i have 3 rocket launchers or artilary.

[Zake]

If you ran through the forest with a squad and then saw the robots, the rest of the troops shouldn't have followed. Sure, you might lose one squad then, but not three.

At any rate, the neutrals in this game are more dangerous than in many other 4X games, and something like the Kastelans are one of the toughest. You really want proper anti-vehicle to actually kill them, I don't think krak grenades will be enough. Missile dudes chunk them well enough from what I remember, and they're three range. Obv depends on where the robots are tho, and even then, I don't think one missile dude is enough either.

Guard also have a 'Hard' start, so they might not be the best choice for the initial phase of learning the game. It'll be tougher at any rate (since the starting unit is weaker compared to those of some other factions).

Running away quickly enough and being mindful of how you progress through the fog of war will help mitigate losses to neutrals. I'm not certain, but I think the tough mobs will rarely block the only path, so just ignoring them till you can clear them tends to work for me. Might depend on map settings/size tho.

Enslavers can also be annoying, but they tend to not aggro if you don't attack them / get too close to their relic (from what I recall). I find it best to attack them when I have enough troops to kill them in two turns (or one), so that they can't enslave, then run away, which is annoying, lol.

Quests can also spawn enemies, which might mess you up if you're not prepared for it, aha. I know it did for me.

Haven't really played with AI teammates yet, so can't comment on that, but it is unfortunate when they behave... poorly.

[PyreStarite]

I would also like to note that there were a few ambulls in the mix, but that doesn't mean much in comparison. I have also found 4-6 more Kastelans divided amongst the other 2 directions I have to go. (I am on a sort of y shaped plateau) What is up with this map? Luckily, the orks and necrons don't seem to be far and are helping krump them.

[Jey]

Originally posted by PyreStarite:

the Kastelans are popping out of the woods to chase me BECAUSE THEY FEEL LIKE IT.

You didn't shoot them or their techpriest, whether actively or through overwatch?
If you don't hit a pack of wildlife, they will usually not pursue you.

Since you had a sentinel, you should have used its scout ability to see through the forest.

Without seeing the game directly, I can't say if you're unlucky or if you play it poorly. Just keep in mind that wildlife is not a joke, and you need to be careful in your exploration.

[The Doctor]

Kastelans are the nastiest of all the enemies and should be avoided until you have at least 2-3 heavy weapons teams. Especially if there are more than one of them. They are very well armoured so you don't really have much of a chance of inflicting much damage against them until the mid-game.

AM are the weakest of all the factions in the early game. Space Marines have really tough armour and can survive contact, not take on, kastelans maybe even with two of them, and live to tell the tale but you have to run away asap and not tough it out.

They are usually found near an important relic and are often accompanied by an Enslaver. Ambulls as well means there's something really worth guarding nearby so stay away from that sector and push elsewhere.

If you really need to go there though, use a HERO. They are usually quite tanky and can do quite a bit of damage on 1 Kastelan. But not the AM Hero though.

Necrons are actually one of the easiest factions to learn the game with. I would recommend playing with them until you learn the ropes rather than the AM. The AM are weak for quite a while but become a monster mid-game and unstoppable late game. The Necrons start comparatively strong and just get stronger. They have a really tough Lord and you canm heal him up with Influence which gives him real staying power. The SM Lord is the tankiest of them all. The Ork warboss really dishes it out too but isn;t as tanky.

Stick with it. If anyone had told me that I would still be loving this game after 300+ hours, I would have laughed. I have really enjoyed my time with this game. Experiment with other factions, don't run the Quests, turn wildlife down to Low, whatever until you get a set up you enjoy.

[SumatranRatMonkey]

^Yeah just to emphasize, turn wildlife to the lowest setting until you know what you're doing. It's a bit unfortunate the game doesn't start with that as the default on a new installation, as experiences like these seems to be one of the key reasons people rage and give up on what is an excellent game early.

As AM, don't bother with Kastelans until you've reached critical mass (and don't be afraid to spam HWT as GM can't solve most of your problems). If they do follow you, you can take them down with the help of your city weapons, and if necessary sneak repair the city from other side.

[Smashing]

With AM remember guardsmen are pretty accurately represented, they have very little staying power and dish out very little damage. You have no hope of taking on Kastelans until you get units that pack a bit more punch and have some staying power. Kastelans have high armour, regenerate 2 hp per turn and reflect some of your damage back to you. If you are pipping away the odd 5hp here or there a turn after the heal then you don't stand a chance.

I know in games it's natural to want to keep battering away at a problem until you beat it but in this case it would be a waste. For early games I'd recommend Necrons. On normal difficulty and with a bit of careful positioning, Cryptek heal etc, 4 warriors, 1 immortal a lord and a cryptek were able to take down 5 Kastelans in succession with no squad losses. Necrons are one of the best factions to learn the game with as they are extremely forgiving.

[Bizzo]

Its silly they put clusters of 3 or even 5 robots together. Then the robots have healers on top of it. How about making some of the other neutrals tougher, or give some weaker ones healers instead, not the one that is the strongest already. They also give the Robots an ability that if you shoot them, even unintentionally on overwatch, they chase you down to your city and can ravage it early game. None of this makes any design sense to me given how the other neutrals have been designed. At least they adjusted their xp recently so its worth fighting them to level characters.

[PyreStarite]

Ultimately I went back to the oldest auto-save I had and went from there, still had lost some units but carried on.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133363514
I don't have any better screenshots, and I guess it wasn't a thin veil of trees after all, this is the last turn of this game I loaded and I'm in this area chasing down an Enslaver that had been a massive thorn in my side from turn 20 or so and I learn more and more about what isn't, isn't, isn't, and isn't sacred.

Had a pack of 3 guardsmen squads exploring thru some dense woods, Enslaver comes out of nowhere, steals a squad and faks off. That squad would then proceed to randomly harass me for the entire game by re capturing random outposts and attacking HWTs.

Sent a Sentinel after the Enslaver as they hadn't stolen one yet so I figured they were above the threshold. After 5 turns of chasing down the Enslaver and shooting it in the back side with the Sentinel it gets stolen. THEN THE SENTINEL STARTS HARRASING ME.

I chase off the Sentinel with a scion and see the Enslaver again. SURELY SCIONS ARE ABOVE THE THRESHOLD, RIGHT? It said it only steals weak minded units! After 5 turns of chasing down the Enslaver and shooting it in the back side, it gets stolen.

That's it. Marked for death. Send a death platoon.
I don't know if this is the Enslaver I'm looking for tho, I'm certain there are two remaining...

[Jey]

Originally posted by PyreStarite:

It said it only steals weak minded units!

You need to have over 6.5 morale to not be enslaved.
Keep in mind that when the enslaver starts his turn, he reduces by 2 the morale of all adjacent units.

[Smashing]

Originally posted by PyreStarite:

Had a pack of 3 guardsmen squads exploring thru some dense woods, Enslaver comes out of nowhere, steals a squad and faks off. That squad would then proceed to randomly harass me for the entire game by re capturing random outposts and attacking HWTs.

Sent a Sentinel after the Enslaver as they hadn't stolen one yet so I figured they were above the threshold. After 5 turns of chasing down the Enslaver and shooting it in the back side with the Sentinel it gets stolen. THEN THE SENTINEL STARTS HARRASING ME.

Why are you going after an enslaver with 1 or 2 units as guard? In fact why are your units not blobbed up as guard? They are too weak to go around alone until late game.

[PyreStarite]

I had yet to see an Enslaver make off with a Sentinel so I assumed they might be immune to being stolen and it was what was available and nearby.

[The Doctor]

Well, you seem to be determined to stick with this so let's talk a little bit about the AM to help you to do a bit better with them.

First up, your guardsmen are ♥♥♥♥. They have a decent weapon but they have low morale and everything is a threat to them, everything. Standing alone, kroots will rip you to pieces. They need to be massed together to be effective. So build more and move them together so that they can support each other.

You need to get a Commissar to work with a good group of them. He will boost their morale and provide bonuses when attacking armoured targets.

Guards get more effective when you get the grenades. One of them will pretty much take out a kroot and his buddy can finish it off with his rifle. They also get more staying power when you give them med packs.

So, now you have a good sized team kitted out with grenades and med packs and a Commissar to spur them on. But does that mean that you can send a whole team of them off happily singing battle hymns and cutting through the wildlife shouting 'Where those Kastellan Robots at?' No, because you will die, all of them. There's nothing you can do against them with guardsmen, even when they're massed up with all the kit because they're ♥♥♥♥.

Unlike many other games, the wildlife in Gladius is LETHAL and they will be your main opponent for much of the early game and not another faction. But they're not all equal. Kastelan robots are a Tier 1 threat. There's nothing you can do against them until mid game when you have heavy weapons squads and more powerful units. And once you have a tank and some artillery, the fun really starts. But Kasties are going to be too dangerous until then.

Enslavers are also a Tier 1 enemy, ESPECIALLY to the AM because their morale is so low. You can take them out with grenades if you stick together but they are still terrifying so best avoid them for a while, at least until you have grenades.

AM become a powerhouse mid game but until then, they are arguably the weakest faction in the game because their guradsmen are ♥♥♥♥. I keep repeating that because it's true, they are. They have nothing that can go up against a Kastelan robot until mid game so stay away from them.

I get your love for the AM. I prefer to play as Space Marines myself but I found both the Necrons and the Orks to be more fun to play. Necrons are actually pretty tough even at the start. Get a hero and they can take on ONE Kastelan robot. They are also highly resistant to Enslavers and they're not really scary to the Necrons. Other wildlife is not really an issue for Necrons as long as you team them up. You have the option to use Influence to heal your units so they can stay in a fight.

Orks are really good at fytin' and do a lot of damage in melee. march a warboss next to a Kastelan and hit it and you might think 'Woo hoo! This is more like it!' because they can really dish out the damage. But they can't take it back so a Kastie is still too much. And an Enslaver will take over your boyz at the drop of a hat so take care with them too. But Orks will chop up the rest of the wildlife fairly effectively as long as you keep them together.

Space Marines are tanks and their Lord is the boss of all tanks. Working together, they can take out a Kastelan if you take some care but it will take a few rounds of fire and you will get hurt unless the robot targets your lord in which case, he should be able to take quite a bit of it. They can take on an Enslaver too but watch your morale because he can get one of your teams if their morale drops, and it will if you stay near an Enslaver. Other wildlife is fairly trivial for the SP becuse they have very high armour.

So, while all of the other base game factions can manage most of the wildlife in the early game, ALL wildlife is a threat to the AM for the whole of the early game and some well into the mid game too.

AM is a lot of fun to play with but you need to play a very cautious game with them early on because the guardsmen are ♥♥♥♥. You get payback once the good stuff starts showing up in the mid game but you have to msurvive to get there and to have a good economy to build the new kit as well.

Stick with it

[PyreStarite]

I think I'm doing alright for myself now. I have finished that Militarum campaign, then a solo Necron, and now I'm working on this proper Space Marine with Militarum help campaign. Thank you all for the words of wisdom.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133869653