5 replies to this topic

[Celsia9ss]

Hey guys,I recently got this game on steam and been enjoying it with a friend of mine,he played as Hierarchy while I chose Novus,we play on world conquest mode,but after trying a ton of different things I cant beat him,out of 20 something battles we had I only managed to defeat him once,so I figure I ask few questions and improve my game ^^

  Okay first off im not new to rts and I played everything from Supreme commander to starcraft 2 i love rts and usually win most of the games i play,but this game I get pretty owned

  Okay so my friend doesn't change his strategy its pretty simple,he researches 2 first tech to allow him to make the Hierarchy hero Orlok the Eternal while maxing out the amount of harvester drones and at that point he builds 3 Assembly walkers outfits them with variety of weapons from 4 assault branch researches once his done he send the walkers at me while spamming saucers as much as the cap allows him,he scouts my base and sends them on a path to walk and stomp on all my structures while fighting my army,so far it works for him just fine.

  I as Novus start by building my economy by expending and placing my recycling centers the closest to best resource locations around the area while researching the first 2 things from the branch that allows me to build Mirabel hero and when my recyclers are complete I build 2 war-factories and make the ambush little tanks and harass the Hierarchy economy by killing off as many harvester drones i can find,I usually take out good 5 or 6 before his hero takes out my guys,and i see that walkers are built,with Mirabel i go back and forward sniping off unprotected parts of the walkers armor while constantly building my base up,money never seems to be an issue I always got more then I can spend,issue is i got nothing to spend it on,cap is 90,and i build super-weapons very quickly all tho games usually end way before i can fire the second one off,my main research tree is hacking,all tho i find it kinda useless,even the viral cascade turns off enemy walkers only for several seconds,emp lasting just a little longer,I would have 2 war-factories once I see the walkers were build i would que up wave amplifiers,and the airplane guys with the 2 air factories i got,once im caped out i usually end up with a decent air-force and land protection,so at this point 3 walkers are nearing my base,im almost always able to destroy 2 out of 3 walkers while my ambush forces always destroyed the enemy spawn location so he cant rebuild,but at a harsh cost I usually loose my entire base wit the exception of few buildings,and my forces are also devastated,last walker with a horde of saucers finishes me off before i could rebuild with the help of the hero Orlok the Eternal who uses his special to deal with any remaining forces i got left.

   Orlok the Eternal is actually worse then the walkers,he easily destroys the airplanes i use,while hiding behind the walkers and if i send my forces to deal with him directly goes into armor mode and runs around while walkers deal with anything I sent at it.His special while predictable has a huge range and completely devastates any land units,If someone can suggest an effective way of defeating him that would most likely be the difference between loosing and winning.

  I do use special ability of the airplanes I got that lightning storm they do wipes out an emped or disabled walker very quickly and they are fairly effective vs saucers as well,but between arc upgrades on walkers legs,hero shooting at them and saucers as well i end up loosing more then i can rebuild in time,Im also aware of the special ability of the blade trooper that stops walkers in one spot for few seconds,sometimes enough to deal some serous damage to walkers with amplifiers.

  Ah,and last I was wondering if there is a build que way-point mode in this game,similar to supreme commander were i can have an engineer bot que up several buildings he would build in a row one after another,because between fighting and constantly moving my units around with battles against walkers,I often don't have enough time to have 3 engineer bots construct things individually 1 by one so i could place defense towers all over my base to prevent things like saucers selectively taking out flow generators and such.

  So between the hierarchy incredible income that allows them to build everything super quickly there 3 insanely tough walkers and another 90 unit cap to fill with,almost no need to multitask or micro since everything is automated seems a bit unfair unless I missed something major lol
  

  Okay thank you everyone for reading this and any suggestions on what I could do to win are welcome,so don't be too harsh if my questions seem noobish ^^

[Strategist]

First, it sounds like you may be playing on a Hierarchy favored map (one with a lot of cows or other such things) or you have the resource settings on high, as everything you listed is extremely expensive (Assembly Walkers kitted out with 4 arc turrets, 2 Mass Drivers, and a Beam Cannon for instance cost around 9100 RM each, tech to unlock such add an extra 7000). I suggest first play on medium resources and avoid maps like Midwest or Brittish Isles, as both have a large amount of Hierarchy friendly resource deposits.


Anyway, early aggression is one of the Hierarchy's biggest weaknesses, as they are designed to be the ones on the offense and tend to not do as well if put on the defense. In the early game, you could try using a mass Ohm robot strategy to deal with Assembly Walkers + Saucers, using a Blade Trooper or two to hunt Reaper Drones and Orlock (via black out and clones, I think he can crush them if I remember right). As soon as possible, you will probably want to transition into mass Field Inverters with a couple Amplifiers to taste, as they will completely shut down any activities with an Assembly Walker (they have a bonus against vehicle units and can shoot air, they aren't shabby against the walker itself either). If you do use mass Ohms early game though, be warned that a couple Defilers (the small tripods) could make things tricky if you don't take them out ASAP.

Regarding your research, you will probably want to focus on Nanotech and Flow research given what you describe you are using. Computing is mostly there to enhance  Corrupters and Hackers (both of which are high micro units), it won't really help you if you need brute force.

Also as a side note regarding the bit at the bottom, the Hierarchy's Reaper/Detection drones use up 3 population each, so a full 7 Reapers + 1 Detection Drone is 24 out of 90 population. The ability for a walker to produce 3 units at once is due to their purchase cost (2000 for Habitat, 2400 for Assembly) combined with the limit of 3. Basically put, early game they can out produce opponets, but later on they fall behind as they are limited to 9 units at a time max compared to 5 infantry, 5 vehicles, and 5 aircraft other faction's have.  

Anyway, hope this is of any use. I'll try to help with more specific things if you have any more questions.

[Celsia9ss]

Hey thanks alot for the reply,I implemented some of the things you suggested and changed my gameplan around now I seem to win just about every match and we had a good 20 or so I only lost once or twice.

   Seems my main flaw was to allow the enemy build up it seems if left untended hierarchy is just about impossible to defeat,so instead I do an early rush with Blade troopers those are just about the best units ever I never actually used em in combat before reading the last post,they surprised me alot,they are cloaked,able to make a bunch of clones of them selves and super quick!plus there other ability stops things from being manually controlled,I was able to easily take out the heroes and just 5 of them can harass the enemy resources to no end!anyways great unit,and early rushes with them were extremely effective!And even later game they can take out walker legs and hinder enemy advances.
   The flow research is way better as well,cloaking for blade troopers and being able to teleport tanks and airplanes as well as infantry around battlefield is great,plus the improvement to amplifiers to shoot multiple targets of same type is extremely helpful!I put the other 2 points into nano,it gives the awesome 25% income boost patch,makes the blade troopers ability last 60% longer and the hero is just worth it!
   Played around with field inverters as well,shield mode that cloaks inside units and buildings is very useful considering if put 2-3 engineers to repair it makes it extremely hard to kill other then with beam weapons,and enemy cant really target or see things inside shield.Would be pretty awesome if there air damage was better,takes 4-5 shots to kill each saucer and those guys can wipe out an army with limited anti air support pretty quickly,mass ohm robots seem alot more effective vs them and they kinda match the dervishes airplanes kill for kill unless i constantly fly in and fly out to remove there attack orbs.

   Anyways,if any of you guys want to play a match or two,send me a message on forums ill give ya my info and we can find a good time for a game,since its pretty hard to find anyone online these days

[Strategist]

Glad to be of help. If you would like to play I'd be more than happy to give things a go sometime this weekened.

Do you have Steam or Skype perhaps?

[Celsia9ss]

Sure,i added ya on live few days back,my steam is Skeleton999 feel free to add.

[vOdToasT]

Hierarchy might be easier for beginners than Novus, which is probably why they seem unfair, but if you know how to use Novus' strenghts and Hierarchy's weaknesses, it will be hard for your Hierarchy opponent to keep up (It'll be hard for you too, though).

There are many ways to play the game, since you have all the different tech combinations you can choose. However, a good starting point is to go fast computing 2 and get a quick Vertigo out. Get one extra constructor and get two recycling centers next to the biggest nearby pile of resources. Crawl there with flow conduits if you need to, it's worth it in the long run.

After you get Vertigo out, start harassing and scouting with him. Keep adding more recycling centers and quickly get a robotics facility (the infantry producing structure) and a quick air tower. Mass ohm robots, get some corruptors to spread viruses, and tech to nano technology level 2 to get Mirabel, and the great patches that it unlocks. You now have a pretty strong army of mass ohm robots, corruptors that infect everything with viruses (which also spread thanks for your computing tech), letting you shut down his army at any time with that great computing level 2 patch. You DON'T want to just mass anti matter tanks and try to headbutt him. You want to use ohm robots to suicide on walkers and reaper drones, heroes to harass everywhere and to kill walkers (Vertigo and Mirabel), and your corruptors to inject viruses everywhere. He really can't counter the viruses, he just has to take it. Be aggressive. Try to kill reaper drones, and if you can trade ohm robots for a walker, it's always worth it.

Obviously you will have to add more robotic facilities and adapt to what he is doing, but it's still a pretty robust all around opening that lets you adapt to anything, and even if you don't adapt it can beat a lot of things, especially walker based builds. It does fine vs lots of things.

Basically, you get:

Lots of Ohm robots that are cheap, fast, and great vs walkers and reaper drones, and Hierarchy in general.
Fast Vertigo followed by fast Mirabel to own walkers, units in general, and harass the economy. (Remember that Vertigo can pick up Mirabel, effectively making them one unit. So yeah, Mirabel is stealth too)
Early corruptors with spreading viruses which will slow everything he has down, and also letting you shut his ENTIRE army down for emergencies. Use viral shut down, then swarm in with the ohm robots for some serious walker ownage.

For late game, I recommend transitioning into overclocked field inverters because they're the most all round and easy to use unit. They're good against all types of walkers except for science walkers with machine magnets (they take over your units). But countering machine magnets is another issue.