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Vanguard have the better flying unit imo, unless you like ramming into things... worth comparing because flyers have better movement which make pure flyer armies strong strategically.
I also like the engineer and the PuG a lot more than the foreman. Foreman isn't bad, since you can buff the moral of one of your Bulwarks to mow down more enemies. But it's just cool to drop a turret with an engineer, then reset the turret skill with the PuG. The PuG is also nice to obscure your Hero or some other tough unit to distract the enemies.
Bulwark is really strong, and the trencher and trooper come in about even in awesomeness.
Can't really compare secret techs since I've only really put promethean to use. Promethean gets a super rocket launcher for a mod that all your low tier infantry can equip. It's called phoenix bombs or something.
Although, one thing that needs to be mentioned about Psionic attacks: it's not as good as it seems.
It's supposed to get through armor, and thus be better at piercing damage, the issue is that Mechanical units are resistant to it. By 4 points.
And there are so many mechanical units in the game, that the promess of piercing damage is often false imo.
Also, the damage output of psionic is often lesser than other damage channels, possibly because it's suppose to be piercing. Thus, your psionic units will often have crappy damage output against mechanical units.
I am unsure about cyborgs, but there are also quite a few units inherently resistent to psy.
Which is also why I was a bit sad about the performance of the Kirk'o sniper. Its native damage being 16 (instead of the usual 20 for snipers of other channels).
Also, regarding the Kir'Ko sniper, you can change the damage type and also give it various buffs/debuffs since it still counts as psionic. I use them as a support dps as their damage is pretty good, their overwatch is great, and what you can do with innate shroud is pretty cool.
Its first tech gives a tac op that deals 20 damage and staggers a unit. It only costs 1 op point and 25 energy. So it goes from heavily swinging your early battles for a reasonable cost to a spammable cheap op that helps out later on.
Not far in they get a strat op that summons an invisible scout with a repeating ranged attack that does a morale debuff. Its also etheral so its quite survivable. It only costs 60 energy to summon and does not take up any production time on a city. Early on this is a big advantage. They serve well to hit the flanks of enemy forces and get some debuff stacks in before coming in with your main stack.
The tier 2 offensive mod consuming gaze gives any unit a single action, 5 range, 12 damage attack that heals the user for 20 health and ignores line of sight and cover. This mod is amazing. The attack isn't once per battle either but a 2 turn cooldown. If you are frustrated by the limitations of healing, Psyn blasts those limitations away and gives you offensive power on top of it.
The end game mod it gives makes all the attacks the unit does have a chance at straight up hard CCing the enemy. It rolls this even on repeatable attacks. When the CC fails you get an automatic unresistable morale debuff instead.
Now about morale debuffs. When you have low morale you get a chance to fumble attacks. This gets down to 50% chance to fumble. A fumbled attack never hits the target you aim at and it most definitely can hit your own units. The Psyn units all deal morale debuffs with everything they do.
Makes you appreciate the Foreman a bit eh? Also the Foreman's morale buff is equal to a 10% crit chance buff when at base morale. Morale caps at 15% crit bonus so he can still help if you have some morale already too. Now note that Psyn gives your hero the option to learn an ability that gives the Foreman buff plus some resists to every friendly unit on the battlefield. The tier 4 Psyn unit has this ability as well.
The indentured unit itself is a bit weaker than its equivalents. I grant that. However they aren't that far behind. Give them the accuracy boosting mod on the first Syndicate faction tech. Boom they instantly become hugely effective (the sniper can really use this as well). Their special shot staggers an enemy AND knocks them back. Push units out of cover then punish. Yes, the Vanguard grenade is better, but Troopers don't get Indentured buffs. Well...ok they can if you are Syndicate and get some troopers. *insert evil cackling here*
Which brings me to the high value of finding settlements. It doesn't really matter what kind of settlement you get. Every race brings you units that help flesh out your strategy without having to research any of their techs. Amazons? Indentured Lancers are amazingly helpful to the Syndicate. I already mentioned indentured Troopers. Indentured Trenchers, oh my yes please. Note that you can indenture tier 2 units so...indentured Assembly or Kir'ko snipers. I know you weren't impressed with them but snipers work out quite nicely once they get some accuracy boosts and indentured snipers can be made to shoot two times in a single turn.
Also how would you rank factions?
I take it that Psynumbra is your favorite secret tech?
Regarding the Kir'Ko snipers, to get into more specifics, their Shrouded Step ability also counts as a psionic buff, so any mods that grant a buff on psionic buff use will trigger and grant themselves and allies the effect. This makes the Mantra of Clarity very useful on them as their psionic shots trigger the 20% easier to hit debuff on enemies when shot by their main weapon. Then Shrouded Step will grant an additional 20% hard to hit effect on them and allies (60% total). If your units are also behind cover, forget about them even getting hit with an enemy ranged unit for two turns.
Then theres Mantra of life, which would give the same Shrouded Step ability a 15 point AoE heal every three turns, effectively turning them into mobile healing turrets.
I've had T4's on the board by turn 35 and T3's in the 20's. I've drowned enemies in waves of units who cost me almost nothing to build. I've had an amazing economy based on the fact that I can easily afford to not build a lot of units and still have a lot of units.
I'm probably going to have to write a guide about how to Syndie effectively, because if you're simply assuming you can play them like the Vanguard, you're in for a painful experience. You're playing a completely different game, and let me tell you right now, when you show up to someone's capital just after turn 40 with stacks of T3 and T4 units, heroes, and a veritable swarm of indentured, people are going to be asking what the hell kind of early game you had. Only it was a crap early game and you didn't get lucky.
Syndicate is absolutely bonkers if played right.
Also, Indentured are the best T1 in the game. While that sounds odd, it's due to how cost-effective they are. 20 energy/2 upkeep for a unit that has a 55% Crit Chance and 9 Range is incredibly affordable relative to its power.
The basic syndicate support unit has an ability that can be used on any indentured unit to give them a big buff and an extra turn. In auto-resolve this will kill your unit almost every time, in manual battle it can be mildly effective if you find a good indentured unit to buff.
1st Amazon: Easy buff debuff (blind poison ect...) lots of healing giving a superb early and very good late game unit thus they never realy drop, they get lots of bonuses that stack easily in war and economi. every secret tech work well with them.
Commander get healing and buff for animals thus can be super strong with some neutral faction and neutral reward.
2nd Vanguard: extremely balanced there is no big weakness to exploit in this army. Maybe struggling vs vehicules could be considered a problem but laser tech can help a lot. No unit is/feel useless. every secret tech work okay to fine with them.
Commander can go jack of all trade and still be good or specialise, very hard to go wrong
3rd Dvar: very good pikeman,bulwark is good but auto battle suicide them. But they mostly do explosiv and kinetic thus are easy to build against. Some of their units a a bit lackluster or harder to use, foreman and their tank for exemple( the foreman is pure support with very meh combat power nor good tanking) they tend to be one shot per turn unit (event heir base defences) thus can be extremely crippled by accuracy debuff. their army doesn't sinergise well with secret tech, xenoplague/celestian/psynumbra/voidtech are melee short range oriented and move fast, prometean is fire anti cover and defense which dvar already have synthesis units don't complement dvar very well but can help their mecanical units.
Commander= damage and tankiness resist stuff. very straightforward but very predictable.
4th Kir'ko syndicat and assembly. they all are good but a bit behind the three first guys:
Kir'ko: Supposed to move as a death stack to get swarm shield, because without it they die very fast but then you get hit by missed shots becaus eof that taking more damages then supposed. they hit hard tank decently but their over reliance on melee make them easy to funnel thus map can break you hard...and taking early losses is common and slow you down. they combo well with melee oriented secret tech xenoplague/celestian/psynumbra/voidtech, but promethean and synthesis give them long range option and mean to counter mecanical or heavy cover useage.
Commander tend to be here to go full melee berserker buff pole or bring guns to compensate for Kir'ko lakc of guns.
Syndicat: fast high damages excellent skill to save/not lose units. Don't like some unit design like their ugly anti grav war gallion or kingpin in chair(final units mostly), they have psy and arc damages so they don't suffer vs anything as a whole but you really need to hit the right target since psy suchvs mechanical and arc kind of suck vs biological. They don't combine so well with secret tech except void tech and synthesis that goes int he same direction as their basic gear but the 4 other can work its just that everythign won't probably be used. strong but not flexible, strong economi
Commander: cloak and dagger flanker sniper melee... whatever you do you hit hard and die hard usually
Assembly: I want to like them but they are ugly as sin and their arc+kinetic combo mean they rape mecanical but suffer vs biological out of melee, but they are kind of frail early on...so getting in melee is dangerous, very interesting tactical power synergise well with most secret tech since they give the assembly melee regen to melee unit thus xenoplague/celestian/psynumbra/voidtech are good, promethean help to counter your lack of defensiv option early on and give the aegis to anchor you army around, synthesis is easy because is work on cyborg and mechanical and youa re all cyborg mecanical, problem si that they give ark damage AGAIN and thus your just raping mechanical harder...
Commander: support medic raise undead double tap wizardry. make you army play harder faster and brign dead units back to life thus mitigating your army frailness, unfortunately it mean you may need to get mostly assembly heroes. Can be also played as a melee undying monster.
for Secret techs: I woudl say it depend when you want to rely on it and the passiv commander buff ans tactical/strategical stuff you get
Xenophage give self healing extra hp and almost free limitless army when you kill stuff but fall off late game(damage rank up quite a lot thus you get more units killed in a turn), decent commander stuff
Voidtech: super fast super usefull and quite strong but costly/very costly To use and first few tech are a bit meh, very good commander stuff, can ignore defence/positions/ranged fire.
Promethean, burn all annoy cover user resist debuff and tank ranged attacks, very good items(purging field being a free heal that doesn't end turn, meh commander buff. can be a pain to fight becasue of burnign groudn spam.
Celestial/psynumbra strong but work mostly on being hit/buffing moral or hitting other/debuffing their moral, very snowbally but if their effects are resisted early ijn battle they will struggle the rest of the battle. gimmick centered commander stuff.
Synthesis: Very good early items(+25% dodging+1armor is super good) Army wide buff and powerfull anti mechanical tactics and stratagem but meh vs biological, its a counter choice since later you get immunity to psy effect(good by psynumbra/celestail) or bio/physical effect(GG promethean/xenoplague), thus can counter the debuff that annoy you the most.
very specific commander bonuses...
For me they all have their use itsd more abotu wanting to counter play or be aggressiv?
@SyzygyAhah, no, it's just that I didn't play with them and as such I didn't feel like I could comment on them, it's written in op
The square formation is pretty epic against cavalry.
Would agree, but they do hold the best Promethean units thanks to their +20% damage 'plasma' tech.
Also another benefit of being Syndicate. Everybody focuses on the indentured discount. I get it, that is a strong doctrine. However I don't take it as my first doctrine. Noble Diplomats is stronger as your first doctrine if you play it friendly with the natives. The energy gain is more for your first at peace NPC faction and you get some influence income. Both keep going up as you improve your relations.