Zombie Runners in Apocalypse Difficulty

[Captain Australia]

Hey There - I'm a newbie labouring with apocalypse mode and I think I'm doing ..... okay. I was hoping to throw it out there looking for tips specifically in relation to early mission runners.

That first week / fortnight when I'm struggling to set up economy, it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll get a mini-horde of runners charging my camp.

I wanted to understand the logic of this - because it won't happen immediately after I build or expand (my assumption was it's noise that triggers them), it just seems to happen at some random lightly defended flank.

Is it just off-map roamers and an increased zombie awareness / hostility / communication ?

One roamer gets psycho, charges and it attracts any nearby buddies ?

It can be a bit tough to deal with, I find that without having a ranger kite some of these early mini-hordes around, I can get wiped out VERY easily.

Would just seek any comment or tips on this early gameplay, if any expert out there has a time and wants to look wise and learned ?

[snuggleform]

It just depends on the map, they usually come around late day 6 or early day 7.

Ways to deal with them

- put up some walls along your perimeter and hide ranger behind it (can be scary since the mere act of zombies hitting the walls actually creates noise, on apoc this can chain react if you don't kill them very quickly)

- pay close attention to rangers and run one around (far enough from base so they don't chase your buildings instead) while other ranges kill them

- take the ballista research (highly recommended) for a cheap, silent defense against these dudes

- build early barracks and pump out lots of stuff (soldiers/rangers), works better if you have some train transportation especially up to stone/iron

[Captain Australia]

Thank you, mate, appreciate you sharing your strategies. Without having time/resource to put up walls on all flanks, I find myself churning out rangers and kiting like a mad bastard, and even then it can really get touch & go. Maybe I need to be thinking walls at the expense of tents/cottages/food. Thing is even with a layer of walls and 8-10 archers, I still find them a bit tricky (and sometimes expansion is required before you can get iron).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1796554430

[Captain Australia]

Just as a quick side-bar for other new folks who may not know it - with those early game mini-hordes, if you're lucky with your timing, the train can come along and wipe out a good dozen (or more) zombies.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1796559029

[snuggleform]

I usually don't get a "proper" wall, I just build like 1-3 sections of wall at certain perimeters where the ranger can hide behind it. Tech plays a big role, without tech like ballista/iron transportation the early game can be a real mess.

I remember those painful days; what I used to do was late day 6 I would zoom out and press the "tab" button to show health bars and I would constantly scan everywhere to catch the zombie runner hordes before they had a chance to come too close, then I could reassign all my rangers to that direction quickly and dispatch them.

I can't stress it enough - get ballista tech, get train transportation tech to smooth out the early game. Early game apoc is no joke.

[HeathenSW]

Yeah, they are usually coming between 6-8 day. On one particular map they come in staggering numbers, or it seemed like that to me - narrow pass is the map. On some maps using train for clearing is pretty good - lowlands for instance have train tracks pretty conviniently placed, so you can lure a ton of walkers on them safely.

Another thing is that when you have a ton of them scratching on your walls you can still bait a lot of them away - they value ranger meat more then walls. Just run close to them and they will notice. That way you can alleviate some pressure and noise from your walls, give more time for your inside army to kill those that are still chewing on walls, and kite part of the swarm away.

Also whatever the situation is don't let them infect even one of your buildings on Apoc difficulty. The noise from a building succumbing to the infection is enough to aggro a ton of runners, and on some maps - half the map. I've lost a couple of maps due to a single hunting cottage being infected.

And another thing. Try to space out your rangers - 2-3 cells should be enough. That way you won't generate that much noise during clearing.

And be cautious with using soldiers, due to the same old noise. You shouldn't probably go out with anything less then 10-12 soldiers, preferably 20. I found out that 20 soldiers can manage almost anything that comes at them during clearing. 20 rangers is a good alternative, but you'll need to run away more times then with 20 soldiers.

Originally posted by wsc150:

I can't stress it enough - get ballista tech, get train transportation tech to smooth out the early game. Early game apoc is no joke.

I second that actually. With them and some walls you can almost forget about the path they are guarding and clear elsewere. I tried to play without them, but it's a cruel way to play if you are not a micro god.

[Captain Australia]

Thanks for the tips - I completely bypassed Ballista so I could get shock towers as soon as possible, my plan was to combine stone defenses with shock towers, banking and gold-per-kill - I'll have to reconsider, I didn't factor noise and early base defense.

Really appreciate the insights, thank you again.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Captain Australia:

Thanks for the tips - I completely bypassed Ballista so I could get shock towers as soon as possible, my plan was to combine stone defenses with shock towers, banking and gold-per-kill - I'll have to reconsider, I didn't factor noise and early base defense.

Really appreciate the insights, thank you again.

You really don't need stone walls until rank 4 missions; shock towers can hold anything rank 3 and below with wood walls easily. Banking, gold per kill...those are low priority.

Shock tower/soldier/ballista/train transportation are super high priority because they can carry you way harder than something like banking/gpk will.

[Captain Australia]

Don't need stone walls until Rank 4 missions ?

Well, I tell you buddy - I'm definitely doing something very wrong then.

That mission where they come in via the northern bridge - on that sucker I had two rows of double stone walls, 4 shock towers each wall, 2 stone turrets between each shock tower, front row lined with elite soldiers (targeting highest level not nearest) as well as about 50 or so soldiers packed behind the walls and retreating as the walls got shredded ..

And got completely DOMINATED by the horde.

I must be doing something very wrong with wall design or something - I thought it was not having snipers, but you didn't mention them as essential, and describe that mission (rank 2 I think - maybe maybe 3?) as completable with just wooden walls ..

Heh, well, I won it on NIGHTMARE and am about to re-try on Apocalypse - I'll factor all the advice and learnings and let you know if I manage to survive the relentless zombie horde.

[Evilsod]

Aren't walls in the early game a very bad idea outside of actually defending against the first wave?
Zombies get close, start hitting the walls and generate noise, your units stand still to attack them and start generating more noise. Before you know it, you're agroing runners and it can VERY quickly escalate before you really have the forces to deal with it.

Captain, Cape Storm is unique. It's the only map where the horde comes from not only a single direction but one narrow pathway and because of that it is MASSIVE. There are a lot of strategies to beat it. Even on Apocalypse it can be done with only soldiers (check out One Man Army's thread from last week) but you need to go the top route really to gather up more research points first.

Early runners are easily dealt with so long as you don't discover they're there when they overrun a building. By the time runners start appearing you should have a Soldiers Centre pumping out a few Rangers to help with the early clearing before Soldiers (not a hard and fast rule, could be you just went hard into soldiers) and your original Rangers will probably be veteran by this point. You should make sure SOMETHING is patrolling every avenue into your base at a safe distance from any building.
That way the moment you hear 'a unit is under attack' you slam pause and go check it out. If its a runner mob, move some other defenders to help while the first one runs around in a circle to keep them occupied, once its dead, return to patrolling all entrances.

[Krick]

Originally posted by Captain Australia:

Don't need stone walls until Rank 4 missions ?

Well, I tell you buddy - I'm definitely doing something very wrong then.

That mission where they come in via the northern bridge - on that sucker I had two rows of double stone walls, 4 shock towers each wall, 2 stone turrets between each shock tower, front row lined with elite soldiers (targeting highest level not nearest) as well as about 50 or so soldiers packed behind the walls and retreating as the walls got shredded ..

And got completely DOMINATED by the horde.

I must be doing something very wrong with wall design or something - I thought it was not having snipers, but you didn't mention them as essential, and describe that mission (rank 2 I think - maybe maybe 3?) as completable with just wooden walls ..

Heh, well, I won it on NIGHTMARE and am about to re-try on Apocalypse - I'll factor all the advice and learnings and let you know if I manage to survive the relentless zombie horde.

do you have the range increase on soilders and 1 of the damgede boost for soilders im, guessing your talking about cape storm? did you also pick the first range increase on shock towers?

maybe it would help with going north on the map doing harpys nest oasis, and such and get some more tech points before attempting cape storm

also I dont agree on balistas being essential I rather take Artillery transport, then again havent tried it, but i feel like free wasps makes balista tech a waste of points

[intenselygoodtime]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

And another thing. Try to space out your rangers - 2-3 cells should be enough. That way you won't generate that much noise during clearing.

IMPORTANT:
I want to call particular attention to THIS comment -- even 2-3 rangers too tightly grouped will generate enough noise per second that they will "pull" runners to you.

Use the grid to space them out in a "one per tile" firing line, and SLOWLY attack-move them forward. As you get more rangers, you can create a 2-tile staggered line on every side. ...and hopefully you're expanding toward iron.

Lastly, BEWARE the desert maps. Sound carries farther.

[HeathenSW]

Originally posted by Krick:

also I dont agree on balistas being essential I rather take Artillery transport, then again havent tried it, but i feel like free wasps makes balista tech a waste of points

I got artillery transport before ballistas. It's cool but it doesn't work for me nearly as good for the early game securing paths. With wasps firing on Apoc you'll pull more and more shamblers into range, making it fire even more untill runners come and then noise becomes enough to pull a lot of zombies to that wasp. Ballista fires slower and quiter, has slight aoe to deminish needed amounts of firing to clear a zone, so it won't pull nearly as much.
Artillery transport is great for the mid-late game and for easier difficulties (even nighmare is perfectly fine with it), or creating a desperate firing line when you know they will break through, but then again you'll replace ballistas with shocks and probably have a ton of iron to just make said firing line. On Apoc though you'll need 6+ wasps at the same time to be sure that nothing comes from a side, not to mention that they can generate enough noise to pull zombies from another side. I was overwhelmed with 4 wasps per approach (1 firing most of the times, 3 as a backup) enough times to just tech into ballista and be done with it.
I actually regret now that I teched into Artillery transport (I'm somewhere around 70% completion of Apoc campaign), since I tend to see it as a liablity due to the whole noise shtick. I use bonus wasps only as a defence strenghtening mechanism. They sure are better for this then ballistas, but on Apoc they can't fill a role of guarding an approach in the early game by themselves for me.

[One Man Army]

Get the train tech up to Iron Transportation and you will be able to boost your early game drastically. It allows you to get Farms researched and Soldier Center so much faster without relying on clearing the way to the stone and iron minerals. Also +2gold per kill will also help a lot if you focus on playing with a lot of units to push the map early on.

I'm playing on Apoc difficulty and I have to say that the game gets really easy once you get early game tech, regardless of the map. I end up always having so many troops even before the first wave. It needs some kiting due to the size, but after that the map is practically won.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by One Man Army:

Get the train tech up to Iron Transportation and you will be able to boost your early game drastically. It allows you to get Farms researched and Soldier Center so much faster without relying on clearing the way to the stone and iron minerals. Also +2gold per kill will also help a lot if you focus on playing with a lot of units to push the map early on.

I'm playing on Apoc difficulty and I have to say that the game gets really easy once you get early game tech, regardless of the map. I end up always having so many troops even before the first wave. It needs some kiting due to the size, but after that the map is practically won.

Yeah I'm finding that is largely the case even on Apoc.

I'll push out with units but not expand too far because I want the clearance to cut down on noise transmission from my frontline depending on where the horde came from. It's even easier with Stone/Iron Transportation as you don't need to overextend.. Moment the first wave dies the turtle is over and I'll start clearing house aggressively and trying to push out. Then its really just not dropping the ball till the final wave.

[Krick]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

Originally posted by Krick:

also I dont agree on balistas being essential I rather take Artillery transport, then again havent tried it, but i feel like free wasps makes balista tech a waste of points

their work fine for me on apocolypse but I guess everyone is playing differently so many people are recommending different techs