Soldiers vs snipers in campaign (Apocalyptic difficulty)

[HiawataUK]

So, I'm nearly done with the campaign on Apocalyptic difficulty - I've got The Highlands and The Goddess of Destiny left to finish. I took the route of fully upgrading my soldiers, as there seems to be an almost unanimous consensus that they are absolute beasts in the campaign, but now towards the end I am wondering whether this was the right choice or whether I should have gone with snipers instead.

Basically, soldiers with all the upgrades are, indeed, beasts, but I'm pretty sure I could have easily finished most, if not all missions, with snipers as well. They wouldn't be so fast at clearing the map, but there wasn't a single map where I felt any actual time pressure. So, clearing the map more slowly with snipers would not really have been a problem.

In the few missions that I did where you need actual firepower for the final wave defense, and where only shocking towers and a few ballistas won't do (Noxious Swamp, Forbidden Forest, Wasteland of the Giants), snipers would have been better than soldiers.

So, if you go with snipers, on the negative side, you get slower map clearing, but that doesn't really matter, at least in my experience. On the positive side, however, you get a better unit for some later missions, and you don't spend research points on fully upgrading soldiers.

I can see a few potential downsides to going with snipers. First, in most missions, I tended to defend the first wave with four ballistas, some soldiers, and kiting. I'm not sure I how this would have looked with (non-veteran) snipers. Second, snipers are a bit more expensive than soldiers, plus they need to be researched. Third, snipers need to be veterans to truly shine, whereas non-veteran soldiers are pretty damn good, even without upgrades, let alone with them. (However, I am not sure this is such a big problem - in early missions, clearing the map isn't a problem, nor do you struggle with dps with defending waves, so non-veteran snipers would have been fine. In the later more difficult missions, you can get The Academy of Immortals, and that solves the problem for you.) Fourth, you can do most swarm missions with soldiers, but I suspect snipers would have fared really badly, because they're not very good when they're not veterans.

I am not sure I want to do the campaign again, just to try it out with snipers, but I am curious what your thoughts are? Are snipers perhaps a better choice for Apocalyptic difficulty after all?

[Andrewbh2003]

the thing is fully upgraded soldiers perform almost on par with snipers in killing specials while still retaining all the other benefits "and there cheaper"

yes towards the end of the campaign and certain missions like the swamp snipers arguibly are at least on par with soldiers but thats not why there such beasts in campaign

i would go in to a greater breakdown but my TLDR thoughts is "No" on the highest difficulties of campaign soldiers are still better than snipers simply cause they get so many more upgrades than snipers available are cheaper and have better perks in campaign for the sake of the missions

[QWEEDDY2]

Cleating the map is important too. Especially for campaign because on maximum difficulty you have way less time than in survival - 48 days for mission (some missions).

For last mission... Well for any mission best way is combine all available troops. And my opinion better spent research points not to any upgrades at all (only part of some path). Every tech, units and builrings. Including traps and mines. My opinion player in campaign must combine every possible defense.

And every possible attacks.

And it cost you double almost every available points. I choose also all train path and +1 gold per kill (only first of two). And maybe one free Ballista. Last one. Some points at "change" and sgme points for last mission make available some more - but only for replay missions fun.

Maybe devs should add some more points at beginning, 50 at start and 10050 before last mission is not enough. Im personally also want at least +1 ranger +1 sniper (to +1 soldier from early tech tree where also buildings defense upgrade)(it be 7 units and 3 free workers at start, another +1 soldier by 80 points make only 2 workers available)

Only next if we have points - another +1 gold and then some upgrades. And still im not sure about soldiers. They already do theirs job. Maybe better upgrade Shock Tower first. Than +20 armor. Attack less important - cause you anyway should have someone as buckup. Or something - traps and mines.

In campaign when yku research tech at global campaign map you also must research it in every missions as normal way in survival. Wonders buildings not require this. So my chose - every tech/buildings mean all Wonders as well. But i think Beholder and Academy more importants than resources ones.

(btw two buildings defense upgrades - aka actual HP yellow bar - also increase Outpost Tower hp and i choose upgrade later this Tower that increase hp even more - just for only two-tree Horde missions with most danger enemies ; HP upgrades also lead or give somethings else, upgrade for Outpost give 200 Empire points for buying units)

[Liro Raériyo]

As someone who DID just this, let me highlight what happens



First off, lets look at what you are actually going to be skipping if you forego soldiers

The actual upgrade to unlock them directly is 120 points, in skipping this we cant take Military Training or Hunting weapons.

Long Range Rifle upgrade costs 100, and only hides the silent beholder behind it, considering missions are static maps the silent beholder has next to no value in the campaign as maps can be learned well enough and you have to unlock lookout towers to get snipers so just spotters for hordes are accessible enough anyway, we can skip this easily.

Obviously we are skipping reinforced armor which is another 100 points.

Now we hit Chemistry for 120 holding 5 upgrades behind it, Wasps are pretty useful when paired with kiting rangers as they cannot draw aggro onto themselves directly while they can see anything else thats got nummy chewy meats on them, insulating materials helps keep energy costs down for housing which can help greatly, and climate control gives us the crystal palace, probably the most generally useful wonder to have access to, 800 food is hard to pass up as some maps are very stingy with food. Even if we skip soldiers, many would find it very hard to skip chemistry for at least one of these upgrades.

And last we have Advanced Ammunition at a cost of 180, if you dont care about titans (ive never built one to date since owning this game 2019) you can skip over this easily, otherwise it does lock the 25% damage increase for titans.

Thats a total of 620 research points just for soldiers and their upgrades, a few techs are sequestered behind these upgrades but most can be done without with little consequence, though Chemistry is the tricky one, we can get wasps via train delivery so Automated Weapons are not actually essential, you wont really need as many of the wasps as train delivery gives anyway so its ignorable, the real tricky ones are Insulating Materials and Climate Control, since we rely on shock towers which are big energy hogs we absolutely want insulating materials, and some maps are very stingy with food so the crystal palace being an option is always good.

Realistically, skipping soldiers only saves us 500 research points, which is not a whole lot considering we have 10,050 to work with. Id say overall i used those 500 points on Reinforced Projectiles for better ranger damage and Artillery Transport for free wasps.



Your start is just a shift in priorities, instead of ballistae you go shock tower, so long as you arent dealing with special zombies shock towers will clear any wave the game would try to throw at you, and ontop of that the shock towers will draw in and slaughter a large amount of the maps roaming forces, just have some rangers set to highest priority targeting to mop up executives and you are golden.

without soldiers though, you are basically forced to rely on lucifiers to clear any horde blocking your path, that said lucifers and snipers once you unlock them work together incredibly well and those two units alone can beat every horde encounter on the map, lucifers have incredible mass control as well as raw tanking power to absorb damage from anything including giants with some decent micromanagement while snipers just rip into everything with an actual health bar

because of how OP shock towers are without specials getting involved, you will end up clearing nearly every 1-3 star missions with mostly just rangers and shock towers, even then most 4-5 star missions still have plenty of attack waves that are just runners and executives, making them great at tossing in the direction of the next major horde while your mass of snipers clears the map before the final wave.

Your core strategy in mission will be rushing shock tower research, you effectively need about 4000 gold, 100 wood and 70 stone alone in research buildings and research itself to build your first shock tower, but some maps are undefendable without placing multiple shock towers down at once, as their noise draws too much aggro causing pull on the opposite side of your colony, but once shock towers are in place we swarm the map with snipers and establish entire rows of shock towers that are cushioned by snipers in towers to pick off specials and executives for the final wave, assuming we have one.

Fully upgraded vet snipers are able to deal 119 damage to venoms and harpys, which is just 1 damage point shy of a kill, so we will be making use of stakes to not only slow but damage just enough to let vet snipers ravage special hordes into oblivion, though if iron is available enough wire traps are used instead.

Because of the inevitable noise we will generate with snipers, some luficers will be used with snipers for map clearing, they both move at similar speeds, but their attack ranges are so vastly different that you wont have to worry about lucifers accidentally roasting your snipers, lucifers will handle the bulk while snipers pick off harpys and fattys as noise draws them all in, with sufficient positioning masses of runners cant overwhelm you, but too many specials can still run you into the ground if you dont already have the kind of sniper force that essentially renders lucifers redundant.

[HiawataUK]

Thanks everyone for the answers and thoughts on this!

@Liro Raériyo

Thanks for the extensive comment! I ended up trying the campaign with snipers, and you are basically spot on in how I'm approaching it. Exactly as you say, unless there are lots of specials, you can actually clear the map with rangers, so I've delayed getting snipers for now, and focused on shock towers, lucifers for swarms, train deliveries, gold for killing infected (black market + corpse recycling), and various economic techs. I'm mostly done with the level 3 missions, and it's going well for now, but I'll see how it goes from here.

[Liro Raériyo]

I actually skipped shock towers early in my first run, wasn't until i was clearing 3 and 4 star levels that i actually gave them a try, worked far better then i had anticipated, and after looking at the numbers realized i could get them much earlier without making hordes blocking my path any more difficult to deal with, and honestly delaying snipers until 3-4 star missions worked better that way, they didnt offer any real advantage early on compared to shock towers since iron is usually too scant to make massive a large force feasible in 800%

Glad your making it work in having fun though, keep me posted cause id like to hear more.

[Ramonkey]

Originally posted by Maximus *Gaming*:

maybe it will be interesting, this is my collection of different variations of the campaign and it is truly beautiful)))
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgDX3OQ8cWEND2_RQ-S4bznZJKoGS3GHt

Don’t think we didn’t notice that animation canceling exploit :p

[QWEEDDY2]

Originally posted by Maximus *Gaming*:

maybe it will be interesting, this is my collection of different variations of the campaign and it is truly beautiful)))
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgDX3OQ8cWEND2_RQ-S4bznZJKoGS3GHt

*differ variation challenges - all on 800% from first to last missions

(actually I'm personally don't like "challenges"* in strategy games for campaigns. Maybe only some for skirmish(/survival in TAB) - and maybe only for achievements. I mean those which Maximus do - only soldiers, no *** Towers. For some RPG games against weak AI I probably choose less OP units in my party, if there is some very OP combinations (eg Disciples series))

Maximus
Again 1 video is blocked. And now YT just exclude it from playlist (so I can't find which one blocked). Last time video mention some other YTber rights - that be mistake. You can do something with it. Usually YT fix his mistakes, I guess (but not 100%, yeah)

[QWEEDDY2]

I mentioned (mmm in other thread I guess) some noobs or trolls who give advise use snipers and skip soldiers. I'm forgot something.

Some ppl prefer some units just for visual style and VO. Soldiers and Mutants less... mmm... Pretty, than others. But of course this is not excuse for serious advise skip most important unit in serious threads.