Making Messari Tougher

[Rossthegreat]

If I enter Pandora -> Data -> World -> Operations

Then I saw five xml notes in there saying Portal 0-4...

If I copy paste them and increase the numbers by making Portal5.xml, Portal6.xml until I have like twenty of them then there will be twenty portals to squash?

Because after the initial surprise they became too easy with most of my tactics when i'm underpowered.. It revolve around excessive number of snipers and blasting the messari transports before they make landfall if they spawn off my slice of land xD Well its just that five portals is too astoundingly few for an 86x86 XD

Originally I had it set to 106x106 but wait time for bugs movement phase became annoying.

Edit: Oh hey i'm a bunker now, fear my gatling machine gun nest. >.>

[void]

Heya,

The portals are just configurations but don't increase the overall invasion strength. Even giving them more units will mean there drop less portals since it's adjusting to the factions' strength.

However, one can control the invasion strength via the Alien Aggression and I'll add a setting to the World/Invasion.xml so people can adjust it to their liking.

[Rossthegreat]

Oh.... I see thank you!

As it stands, it seems like medium AI human factions will get facerolled by messari on average.

But Hard AI human factions will faceroll the messari.

It was kinda funny to watch that popup signaling the end of messari invasion saying that it has inflicted basically killed off 90% of human race on the world but I haven't even lost a single city due to well timed sniper spam. I managed to get 30+ of them out before they started to roll into my territory.

And alright thank you again, gonna delete those extra portal xmls in my folder then.

[stiefelss]

Why not increase the stats of their weapons and armor?

[Igorputski]

anyone can cheat an use an "exploit" that the ai can't handle like sniper "spam" (you even admitted to it in a round about way, pretty proud of yourself that you can exploit the ai in such a way) why don't you try going head to head with the ai and then see how well you can handle the onslaught? Of course I very well expect you to just turtle then till you are so strong nothing by the ai could stop you.

[stiefelss]

If you play archipelago then you can just keep aircraft or ships at a perimeter around your island. By the time you get to the middle of the mechanized era, you should be able to colonize other islands where messari are found given you defend the new settlements with top-notch artillery and rocket-armed infantry. I suppose if you're playing on pangaea or continents, then you can put infantry and artillery at key points on the map guarded by forts while your excess forces colonize and conquer.

[Rossthegreat]

anyone can cheat an use an "exploit" that the ai can't handle like sniper "spam" (you even admitted to it in a round about way, pretty proud of yourself that you can exploit the ai in such a way) why don't you try going head to head with the ai and then see how well you can handle the onslaught? Of course I very well expect you to just turtle then till you are so strong nothing by the ai could stop you.

Wait, according to you being smart enough to take a colonial trooper with assault tweaker and giving them SWS Headhunter rifles is a "Exploit"?

What's next? Avenger hulls with Long Toms equipped, (Artillery in case u didn't know) is also an exploit?

Nukes, bombers is also a exploit and mortars.. Oh and grenades!

Are you seriously angry about weapons being used as they are designed for?

Anyways, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military

And if you want honorable combat, both parties must agree to it.
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/17-gen ... ombat.html

And if you're that hard up on smashing the messari frontally while ignoring any counters I would recommend a Goliath Mech + Pulse Lasers and assault tactics tweaker plus gauss armor if you can. They will pretty much flatten anything down on a 1v1 as long as you can keep it healed.


If not sws headhunters or long tom then I would simply switch to colonial troopers with assault tweakers and lance rifles then give them gauss armor if my production can crank them out 1 a turn and hurdle them to their deaths by millions Imperial Guard style. Otherwise that gauss armor will be replaced with whatever weaker but as strong as possible armor enough to permit one trooper a turn production. If a city grow strong enough then that lance will be replaced with gauss rifle/armor and maintain the lance troopers from weaker cities.

That imperial guard tactic is very very inefficient use of resources and turns but is viable fallback plan when you're screwed as long as you have enough turns between messaris to crank up hordes of them.

Catching yourself Galeths and Devourers is very good way to prepare for the Messari invasion considering that Avenger tanks is ridiculously weak these days while only good at dispatching xenomorphs til until they're near lvl 20. How do i catch galeths/devourers as early as first 50 turns? You see that charging galeth for your city? Let it assault, the trooper will die but if you have good fortune, its sufficently weakened enough for a colonial hunter to tame it with like 1.9 str at like lvl 1 xD

I'm serious, Galeths/Devourers now do the job previously once reserved for avenger tanks. <_< I found myself neglecting the avenger hulls because it's just not worth it these days. I think their strength got cut in half and is restored at level 20. Is no good because you never know when there's an galeth/devourer in hiding and that avenger gets caught out while you're trying to lvl it only to have it smacked More hard work is required but I went the easy route of catching galeths/devourers due to appearance of Messaris.

A lvl 20 Galeth is a monster. He kicks around Messari infantry very easily but will need help to recover to fight other infantry.

And if you leveled up and protected your strike aircrafts while they're still using lances they will serve you greatly when messari arrives and you upgrade them to Gauss stuff. Most I ever had was five by the time Messari hit the planet. And that was helluva hard work to get that many out so fast. Much more realistic to have like two by then instead of five.

Archipelago tactics of popping messari transports as they attempt to land onto your island is obvious one so I won't bother with this one however I will say one thing at least.
I don't play archipelago because that's where the map scripts is at their ugliest in Pandora first contact. They're basically goddamn circles. So I stick to continents at most because at least it vaguely look like a world somewhat.

The tipping midpoint is where you acquire Demolisher tanks and it's ilk in mechanization era and the assorted upgrades will permit you to go on the offense but I've gone on the offense earlier than that however that is always dependent on portal's locations and the strength of xenomorphs attacking you. And geography. Lots of variable factors. But having lots of sniper rifles around is the earliest you can start to consider.

[stiefelss]

Things like artillery and snipers are pretty much exploits since the AI never uses them.

[mrowka]

Rossthegreat your a damn pro to get to 2nt tier tanks before messari are wiped out Oo.

[Rossthegreat]

Well its extremely dependent on how much of a resistance xenomorphs give me and the geography of lands that allow me to have 1-2 science cities or not.

I gotta say that Pandora construction tech is very awesome. I managed to delay my citizen's riots with suburbs long enough to get wendo apartments and recyclers built. I actually had one game where I didn't even get overcrowding / pollution and rioting popup even once xD