Lest we forget: SPORE
J. M. Pescado:
Quote from: Faizah on 2008 September 15, 00:51:23
If there's a way to get to the center without ignoring your whiny colonies, I certainly haven't found it. (Ungrateful bastards. Do I have to do everything around here? Let the damned ecology collapse, I can repopulate it later. Spice raid? Let 'em have it, I won't be back before the storage space runs out, so I won't miss it.)
The ecology collapses seem to be prevented entirely if you install the bioprotectors on them. Pirate raids are basically irrelevant because pirates don't destroy anything and besides, if you have the uberturrets on maxed out colonies, the only thing you'd see if you went there is bits of destroyed pirate raining from the sky as you arrive anyway.
Word on the street is that the center of the galaxy reward is really, really lame. You have been warned. If you thought discovering the Precursors had turned into cows was lame, this is both DESPERATELY LAME and EXTREMELY UNFUNNY.
Zazazu:
Yeah. So.
Don't go to the center just because you think it's super-neat that a wormhole deposited you right outside of Grox territory. They killed me. Then they followed my ass home and killed me more, and wouldn't leave my homeworlds be for a moment. It was bloody, and horribly sad. I did hit 5 mil, though, just by buying up spice whenever I saw it priced under 3k and selling whenever I saw it above 10k.
Gus Smedstad:
I've been to the center of the galaxy. That's what I did with my Normal game after I'd "won" by getting the top title. I'm glad I did it, because I now have the 42 achievement and I've seen the video, but no way would I do that again. It's a huge hassle, particularly since there are dead ends that aren't really apparent. Running from Grox over and over again in order to build resupply colonies just isn't fun.
The reward video is meant to be funny, but it's not. It's not quite as bad as the end of Starflight 2, but it's just really weak writing. The end reward is sort-of powerful, but by the time you get it, you don't care. It doesn't do anything you can't do normally, it just does it with a little less effort.
I managed to figure out what I was doing wrong in Hard / Creature.
- Before you advance, it's actually pretty easy to kill stuff.
- You need flunkies in order to deal with combat once you advance.
- You can recruit flunkies from your own race. I didnt' know that.
- When recruiting, any nearby creatures of the same species contribute to the opposing progress bar, just like your flunkies do. So it's really important to recruit critters, either of your race or another, well away from the crowd.
- Since they rarely oblige, you can shove them until they're isolated.
- If you have 2-3 flunkies, you can tackle stuff that's hard, even small groups. You'd think I'd know that from Normal, but it was pretty easy to breeze through on Normal.
On Normal, you can be completely half-assed about recruiting and succeed. On Hard, you actually have to put some effort into it, which is while I failed so miserably the first time I tried Hard / Creature. The other thing I did this time was say "screw trying push through the second nest." The stuff around the first nest is a lot easier, and being able to evolve isn't that big an advantage. I had a couple of nests of 60 HP always-hostiles between me and the second nest, and I was OK dying against them as long as I took one of them down. It meant I was making progress. By the time I managed to get to the second nest, I'd actually completed the stage entirely, and I had something like 700 unspent DNA.
One odd thing is that if you eat a lot of meat as a cell, and you pick up the Omnivore proboscis, you can be an omnivore as long as you don't throw away the proboscis. The upgrade mouths are all carnivores, but surprisingly it was OK relying on stuff like Charge and Strike instead of the usual Bite. I'm not sure what would have happened if I'd equipped two different mouths.
IMHO in the Civ stage, Economic attack > Military > Religious, now that I've done all of them. Religion gives you the city with no damage, but the vehicles are really weak. I do like the holographic preachers, though.
- Gus
J. M. Pescado:
Quote from: Gus Smedstad on 2008 September 14, 19:47:10
That being the case, have you played as a carnivore? If so, how did you manage it? Seriously, I'd love to see some tips.
Yes. I pretty much always finish creature as a Predator. First, the perk is better. "Prime Specimen" is USEFUL as it makes your entire military force in the space stage (namely, YOU and YOU ALONE) about 25% more powerful. So are the bombs in the Tribal and Civ stages. It is much better than, say, the Green perks. as it is trivially easy to improve neighbor relations in Tribal and the "reduces likelyhood of colony revolt" in the space stage...well, let's just say I have NEVER, EVER, even HEARD of a colony revolt. Reducing a 0% chance event does not mean anything!
As for tips, it's simple. Kill it and eat it! FOR THE HORDE! It's easy to charm the first few creatures when you start since you can just sing at them and they don't try to be buttwipes and do things you can't, but pretty soon they start being really annoying about it.
Quote from: Gus Smedstad on 2008 September 14, 19:47:10
I did finish Creature as a predator. No choice really, because no matter what parts I equipped, I never managed more than 25% on the charm bar. Or is that 50%, since half way is success? In any case, even with perfect mimcry and +5 socials they weren't impressed.
Numbers improve things. Having more creatures in your pack and less in theirs helps. Babies are more easily impressed than adult and Alphas. They are also very tasty. Mmm. Babies.
Quote from: Gus Smedstad on 2008 September 14, 19:47:10
Tribal and Civ weren't difficult. Tribal was dead easy, though I discovered that if you're deep in the red zone, getting alliances with 4 out of 5 villages will still make you Industrious instead of Friendly. Turns out that killing enemy raiders counts against you being friendly, hah.
If you want to switch to friendly while deep in the red zone, giving gifts (Regardless of final outcome) makes you friendlier. Allying a tribe does the same. To jump up your friendly meter, attack a tribe that you just gave a gift to. Then when they get mad at you again, give them another one. Rinse, repeat.
Quote from: Gus Smedstad on 2008 September 14, 19:47:10
Civ was mildly challenging, since I had to pay off my neighbors repeatdly before I could buy a military city. I really wanted to buy a religious city to try that out, but they all got wiped out before I could buy one.
As an economic civ, it is crucial that your first vehicle emphasize SPEED ABOVE ALL ELSE. Forget entirely about armor (you don't have weapons anyway, so who cares?), and go for SPEED, so you can raid those remaining tribal villages and claim the spice before they can. This will choke their expansion and allow you to buy out a military or religious civ, and thus have some means of defending yourself.
Quote from: Gus Smedstad on 2008 September 14, 19:47:10
Anyway, I'd like to see some definite ideas on how to really be a predator in Tribal / Hard. I do wonder if part of the problem is that so many creatures were built in the editor, rather than with the much more limited DNA budget of an evolved creature.
Predator is easy! Just look at Fwoggie. I exterminated literally every other creature I could find on the map and solo'ed an epic with Fwoggie (all the packmembers died instantly without doing any real damage, due to their poor tactics). Points to keep in mind: The parts you tend to get when you loot Alphas and Bones are dependent on what parts you have installed: The game tends to favor unlocking better versions of your existing parts as an apparent nod to the evolution thing.
Anyway, Hard is the ONLY way to play. Accept no Kewian-based substitutes! Your problem is that you were spoiled by playing anything other than Hard. When *I* first started playing, I picked Hard out of the gate, so I'm used to this.
Gus Smedstad:
I appreciate the detailed reply, even if I did figure out a good bit on my own.
I totally agree about "Prime Specimen." I feel the same way about Power Monger, which the game current says increases weapon damage, rather than energy capacity. The Green and Blue perks are discounts, but I can always get money.
I'm curious about soloing an epic, even with level 5 attacks in all four categories. The advice I've read is to kite it, since they tend to kill just about everything with one hit. That might not be true if you're post-end phase, and have 100+ HP, but I have my doubts about spending any time toe-to-toe with one.
I agree about Hard. Now that I've run through 4 of the 5 stages on Hard a couple of times, I can't see doing it again on Normal, ever.
- Gus
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