Invasion Mission 2 Hard Tips?

[morthorst]

Has anyone completed the second mission of the invasion campaign on the hardest difficulty? Maybe someone can give me hints or tips? The first mission was possible on the hardest diffculty with a bit of knowledge about the quests that come. However since I went full stealth my heros are now kind of underleveled.

Considering the second mission the problem really is that you get completely overwhelmed. The chancellor will call you to war against the kirko on turn 8-10 which you cannot refuse since you loose the game otherwise. This reslults in constant attacks (every 4 rounds or so) with army stacks consisting of about 18 to 22 units. So now I can actually manage the kirko, usually I can push out 3 colonies and hold them effectively.

The big problem is that then eventually the stupid amazon declares war on me too which completely overwhelmes me. Since she did not loose units until that point she completely overruns you. It seems completely impossible to hold out against her while at the same time dealing with the kirko.

I think a tremendous problem is that the chancelor is not using his military resources to push the enemy. He just keeps expanding and building new colonies not using his stacks of Tier 4 units to pressure the kirko. Has someone tried to use war coordination to get him to attack? One funny thing is that if you call him to war against the amazon he just breaks the alliance resulting in you loosing as well.

I really cannot think of a way out :(

[snuggleform]

I too am struggling with this mission anyone have tips?

[aclyte]

Well, just've been beaten in this mission on hardest too.

It's max-stars difficulty mission. So, maybe, it's near impossible to complete on hardest (maybe possible with some kind of exploits i d't know).
I've fight quite a long war - almost beated kir'ko, but then amazon and dvar players join war on me (i've joined dvar war cause of this stupid cancellor forces me, and amazon just joins the war) - so they just reck me from 2 sides.

I can see only the points:
1. Never force 2-front war - Hitler'll agree with this also.
2. Try to complete quests to get tank / T4 sono ship.
3. MAYBE fast quest completion for syndicate is useful (as i undterstand, after this quests voidwalkers drops in middle of enemy cities which may drain some of their forces).

But, in general, it's realy hard mission.

[morthorst]

Interessting you had a Dvar opponent, for me it was Kirko, amazon and vanguard. I wonder if that is randomised or something. Did the chancellor at least fight the enemies for you guys? In my game he just keept expanding with his stacks of sonokarns :(.

Edit: I forgot to say that I completed the mission on the medium difficulty now and it was actually quite easy. Bummer! However since I know the mission structure now I can maybe think about a way to win on hardest.

[Der Mentat]

I could finish the mission on hard difficulty but it was very close, it's indeed a difficult map.

The good thing is that you don't actually have to defeat the ELOP confederation, you just need to found some colonies and defend them until the story continues, afterwards it's much easier.

(BTW I'm not sure if my strategy is actually a good way to beat the mission or if I just was lucky.)

Almost immediately at the beginning (around turn 5) I attacked the closest AI (in my case the KirKo) - because one of the objectives indicated an aggressive playstyle. Most of the enemy troops are unmoded at this stage of the game, so it's possible to eliminate huge amounts of enemy armies. It's basically a lot about efficient tactical combat. I wasn't actually able to raze 5 sectors to get the T4 because I had to retreat periodically and replace losses, but it resulted in the KirKo player not being a threat for a while. Thus later, when the Amazons attacked, I could concentrate all my forces on them...

On the opposite border towards the Syndicate AI was a rather safe area, where I founded 3 additional colonies, I think I had 2 until turn 20. That's not much but modding units should really have priority at the beginning. On the other hand it's important to get new cosmite sources through colonies.

After turn 20 I played quite defensively and just tried to build up a strong economy, and I guess between turn 40 and turn 50 the situation changed completely anyway (due to the story).

[snuggleform]

How high/modded were the heroes you imported from mission 1? I may have to redo it (ugh) because I lost the second hero early on and I got to level 4 lol with the main hero.

[Beldr]

RNG is a big big factor in this map, you can be in 2 wars by turn 15 or 1 war by turn 20

The first time I played it the chancellor declared war on kir'ko and dvar at the same time, on turn 11. That was unplayable.

[aclyte]

Originally posted by Beldr:

RNG is a big big factor in this map, you can be in 2 wars by turn 15 or 1 war by turn 20

The first time I played it the chancellor declared war on kir'ko and dvar at the same time, on turn 11. That was unplayable.

woah! same for me - after that he demands to join his war ("join or alliance is broken") so i join and dvar rek me from behind while main forces fights with kirko.

... and tthen amazons joined and wiped out my capital. I'll try to defend my last colony and, maybe, reconquer capital today, but chances are quite low - you just can't defend colonies just with 1 stack of troops and without colonies u can't even handle 2-3 stacks army upkeep.

And allied cancelor fights kirko at first (and captured 2 colonies) but after that starts to be too passive mostly defending vs dvar and clearing quests (started to move to kirko again only after 10 turns of passivness).

[aclyte]

Originally posted by morthorst:

Interessting you had a Dvar opponent, for me it was Kirko, amazon and vanguard. I wonder if that is randomised or something. Did the chancellor at least fight the enemies for you guys? In my game he just keept expanding with his stacks of sonokarns :(.

Edit: I forgot to say that I completed the mission on the medium difficulty now and it was actually quite easy. Bummer! However since I know the mission structure now I can maybe think about a way to win on hardest.

yes, maps is always randomized - devs'e saidd it helps with replayability and balancing (campaign maps are just typical FFA scenario maps but with special POI and quests on it.

[Der Mentat]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

How high/modded were the heroes you imported from mission 1? I may have to redo it (ugh) because I lost the second hero early on and I got to level 4 lol with the main hero.

It definitely helped a lot that I had three heroes at the start of the second mission: The human that your leader captures in the first mission joins you in the second if you spare him and then accept his help.

Besides, my leader and the other hero got a lot of experience during the first mission because I destroyed the last two reactors by force. Both had at least access to the fourth mod slot (so maybe level 8 or 9). They didn't have high level mods though and still the weapons from the start.

[morthorst]

Originally posted by Der Mentat:

After turn 20 I played quite defensively and just tried to build up a strong economy, and I guess between turn 40 and turn 50 the situation changed completely anyway (due to the story).

Can you tell me what choices you made regarding voidbringers? Maybe it is easier to force an early voidbringer invasion by completing the syndicates quest and ally with them afterwards.

[Der Mentat]

I decided not to join the voidbringers and that's probably the easier option as you get a defensive pact with all three ELOP factions. The sharkan chancellor was too far away to be a threat and the Syndicate AI was most of the time busy with fighting the Vanguard and the Amazons. Also, I ignored the syndicate quest entirely. But if it reduces the time until you can switch sides it might be a good idea to complete it early...

[lordcrekit]

Can you constantly praise the other factions? Sometimes that will prevent them from declaring war on you, if it's not scripted. Just make sure you check every turn.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by morthorst:

Originally posted by Der Mentat:

After turn 20 I played quite defensively and just tried to build up a strong economy, and I guess between turn 40 and turn 50 the situation changed completely anyway (due to the story).

Can you tell me what choices you made regarding voidbringers? Maybe it is easier to force an early voidbringer invasion by completing the syndicates quest and ally with them afterwards.

One trigger for the voidbringers is to eliminate an ELOP commander (the chancellor can do this as well). There might be some other trigger I don't know about.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by lordcrekit:

Can you constantly praise the other factions? Sometimes that will prevent them from declaring war on you, if it's not scripted. Just make sure you check every turn.

I dont think it helps because they have -2000 in modifiers (capped at -800), so even if you praised them 10 turns in a row (which is the max sustainable until the compliment wears out) they'd still be at -800.

edit: the voidbringers also seem to invade around turn 50 even if you haven't killed any ELOP commanders, so playing defensively seems to be the way to go?

[Caustic]

Personally, I managed to complete the first mission without blowing my cover, too, but I've always considered it a must to maximize your heroes' level and equipment before proceeding to the next mission in AOW. After all, when you reach a certain stage in the first mission your opponents get too busy, the cover counter stops and you can get to maximizing your heroes' level and acquiring the best mods available.
The therian apex mutation is certainly overpowered, your heroes may almost single-handedly kill full stacks of opponents' troops with just the right amount of extra healing and support and careful manual combat planning, sometimes in one-two turns due to the apex's lurch, followed by the multiple targets attack, and preceeded by the shakarn holochromatic engines mod 's free powerfull attack. Remember that your infiltrators can turn into therian sharpshooters, amazon biomancers or kir'ko transcendents to provide you with healers so necessary in the earlier game for totally no loss combat victories up until you are ready to switch to the self-regenerating (with the help of the autonom mod) armored troops or tacticians and propagators.
Two overpowered heroes massacring NPC's and invasion forces have won me enough time and resources and after I switched to armored troops the rest of the mission could be won almost totally in autocombat mode, even the AI could not fail with autoregenerating armored troops consisting of refractors, sonokarns and refractor-driving heroes (I switched my commanders from the apex mutation to refractor vehicles in the late game).

Economy-wise, micromanaging the food production and food-sharing between cities for the rapid growth of your newly founded cities helps a lot. And you can easily wage war on the therians (if you don't need the apexes and squirrels any more) and the growth in the second mission for some extra resources with the shakarn dwelling intimidation doctrine on.

Hope it helps.