Greetings, /vst/I have just won what might be one of, if not the most autistic battle I have had in any video game, strategy or otherwise. Let me share with you my wartale:Enter Mission 24 of Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. You're tasked with eliminating the enemy to the last unit as part of the Zhon tribe, rather simple and by the numbers. The gimmick here, if you want to call it that, is that the enemy has a lot more units than you do, your faction doesn't have buildings and has to make every single new unit via beast lords on the move, and if you alert the enemy, they will rape your asshole until you die.How do you deal with such a disadvantage? Well, once I capture the the lodestones to get a good amount of mana(the only resource in this game), the enemy is already on my ass. I have been spotted and we're not halfway thru to their base. My area of the map, at the bottom, is the forest. There is the sea, which the enemy rules with an iron fist, a long beach and a cliff where the enemy's bases are. Behind the cliff is where their sea bases are, where they can make more units even in the water. To say I would be screwed in a straight up battle is an understatement, while Zhon forces can make units quickly, their basic melee ground units suck compared to every other faction, and my sea units aren't doing much better. I would have to get creative in order to accomplish much of anything here.Well, not all hope is lost: A few missions ago, Zhon was introduced to one of the few buildings the faction has: Death Totem, a powerful tower that shoots lightning bolts at the enemy. Quickly thinking on how I can counter the invading and soon to be invading Verunian forces, I set up a whole bunch of totems near my lodestones, while I wait for reinforcements from my main camp. Once the invaders are repelled, I make a whole bunch of totems in the area that separates the forest and the beach, a border gate of sorts. You can see where I am going with this, don't you?(cont)
The enemy was quick to rush in with a force large enough to wipe out my troops. Unfortunately for them, Death Totems are pretty damn good at keeping anything they have to throw at us at bay...with the exception of catapults, which the enemy soon started spamming like no tomorrow. For a while, these were my only worry: The enemy would throw their troops into the meat grinder, once they were dead I would move in and destroy the catapults while I repaired any destroyed totems or build new ones, rinse and repeat while I build up an invading force. There is no other way thru to our forest other than the "border gate" at the beach I have build, other than the sea. For now, the battle was at my mercy. One of Zhon's unique units, "Harpies", can actually capture other enemy units, including shamans and engineers that are capable of building barracks or towers. With the abundance of catapults coming my way, I managed to snag quite a few to my side, thanks to the harpies. Now, not only did I have a wall of turrets, I had artillery to kill invading Verunians even faster. My only problem was the fog of war, however keeping a few flying scout units around clears it up, making sure my catapults fire as soon as they see the enemy. This stalemate went on for quite a while, that is until the enemy send in their sea units. I really couldn't handle them with anything at my disposal, there is only one sea unit Zhon has at this point and it's inferior to all Verunian ships, not to mention there was no space to train them. My only hope was overwhelming them with air forces, however I didn't have the manpower to do that and keep the endless sea of catapults at bay from destroying my turrets. Something had to give, and fast. Once I had enough Drakes, I swarmed the seaside to destroy what had to be dozens of ships parked there, and I still had turrets to spare. The ships did come back and the catapults never stopped coming. I was at an impasse, one that lasted for many real time hours.
This stalemate continued over several days, which turned to several weeks. No matter what I did, I couldn't push thru, either because of the sea blockade or the land forces on the beach. I was too stubborn to restart the mission, but I was given time to experiment since I was never going to run low on resources or men. Another unique unit that Zhon has at it's disposal are Basilisks, tank like land units that insta-kill anything they hit with their projectile. The catch here is that they fire slowly and don't have that much health themselves, the stone statues also stay as actual part of the environment itself. This gave me a devilish idea: I was already recreating fantasy D-Day with endless turrets slaughtering enemy troops in what must have been hundreds by this point, why not create my own primitive form of barbed wire? I started spamming nothing but Drakes to protect myself from ships and Basilisks to take care of enemy units, with a few Harpies here or there to continue capturing Catapults. I ended up creating a labyrinth of stone statues, a wall of corpses that every single Verunian had to wade thru in order to wait their own turn to die. Unknowingly, I had not only created an enemy meatgrinder, but also started engaging in psychological warfare. At that point, I started using a few other units I had never used, and experimenting with every single possible viable combination as the slaughter continued on the front lines. Nobody was making any headway, but my totems were easier and faster to rebuild than it was for the enemy to train their units. I have no clue how long this all took place, must have been close to 18-24 hours before I actually started making progress along my battlefield. First, I ordered a mass of Drakes to clear the way, leaving my Beast Tamers free to build totems even further along the beach. Inch by inch, I started advancing toward Verunian base, but the closer I got, the harder it was to keep catapults from destroying my totems.
My salvation came when the ships stopped coming. I have no clue why, might have been a brainfart on the AI's part or they were re-focusing their resources elsewhere, either way that gave me time to finally bring the Drakes over to the enemy base instead of keeping them near the beachside. Turns out that Verunians don't really have much they can do against flying units. Raid after raid, I started destroying everything on the enemy's cliffside while keeping my frontline up and operational. We took turns assaulting one another: Verunians were still sending every single catapult they could muster along with a sea of men they were hoping could brute force my army once the totems were destroyed, as I spammed air units and occasional land squads to assault the cliffs. We were at this for several more hours, at one point the enemy nearly wiped out my entire original frontline and started sending in ships to cement the deal. I thought my hour long autistic battle was at an end, but I managed to destroy enough sea and land units to give myself time to rebuild the totems, later to rebuild my army, and later still to build up a massive invading force. You see, in their latest raids, the enemy finally started coming short on men, and my endless raids on their compounds with my air units devastated all but their furthest bases. This gave me an idea: I took several Beast Lords, Shamans and Stone Golems while under escort by my Drakes. We went straight into the cliffs and established a "base" there, as much as one can make with Zhon anyways. With no buildings to speak of, all we could do was build a lodestone at one of the ruined Verunian bases while my Beast Lords started making a garrison of troops. My drakes kept them covered, and believe me they enemy threw everything it had left to kill them, both with ground troops and catapults. It wasn't enough, and we finally, after over 24 hours of real time, established a foothold within the enemy territory. It was now time for cleanup.
Yep kino campaign I remember besieging the undead taros fortress in the final mission for several hours. This game has a very atmospheric campaign with many twists and turns.
Wtf this is actually good
The only real problem at this point was the beachhead in the back of the cliffs, where the enemy also had their seaforts, the very same ones that had been sending ships this entire time to harass me the entire way thru. Mind you, this is where I picked up the game today, 34 hours in. Land attacks were useless, as the enemy had stationed Bastions and Mortars, both of which devastate ground units. Drakes and Stone Golems were enough to take care of them, but it was a slow grind. Same goes for the enemy bases at their beachhead, as they were protected by the nearby ships which were more than capable of firing on my units. Lastly, there was one more pathetic enemy holdout on the cliffs themselves, which was harassing my small camps the entire way thru. Thankfully, I build up enough troops to be able to shoo them off when they got too annoying. Eventually, I build up enough flying units to devastate the Sea Forts, after their land Citadels and Enclaves were destroyed. I destroyed the Verunian navy, which they are most famous for among all the other factions, that I send them running over to my side of the sea...which was closed off from the main ocean, leaving them huddling some random beach side with no way out. I put them out of their misery and finally won the campaign, after 35 long hours. Looking back, if I started spamming Drakes quicker, I might have won in this in only a few hours, not to mention that what I did was probably extremely insufficient and there was a certain way you were supposed to finish the mission. Honestly? I don't care, creating my own fantasy D-Day was fun enough, and so was creating this elaborate stone statue labyrinth and picking off Verunian outposts one by one with my army of dragons. The mission is called "Vengeance", and in the intro, a smug Verunian commander claims that strategy is not needed when you fight beasts. Cannons and steel will suffice, so why bother with anything more? I like to think I proved him wrong today.
Here is my savefiles for the mission if you want to go thru the battle yourself. All 280+ saves I kept making are there, I didn't expect it to take so long or for there to be so many savefiles, but I also didn't want to screw myself over if something didn't go my way. https://files.catbox.moe/ahhsio.7zHere are the stats for Mission 34(not 24 as I mistakenly typed in the OP). As you can see, even with staggering losses on my side, there were many more on theirs. I think leading 15000 men to their doom within a foggy beach labyrinth made of their own comrades is "Vengeance" enough, and Verunian cattle will think twice about coming over here again. Anyways, this is a fantastic game and I am surprised just how much fun I am having with it. I definitely have to try the first Total Annihilation once I'm done here.
Funny because your efforts were wasted bro, at the end of the day Zhon are one of the losers of Kingdoms story
>>1918101>14293 killsholy shit. you weren't kidding. nice work Mike
>>1918218Even if that's eventually the case, 15K dead V*runians is it's own reward. If the thought back home is that Zhon's armies are little more than wild animals dying by the thousands to their superior cannons and well trained Crusaders, just think what this humiliating battle did for their morale.
>>1918477>to their superior cannonsThe cannons and gunpowder aren't even theirs. It was bought by the Verunians from Creon Empire, and the lack of one of the payments was the cause of Casus Belli and the invasion in the Kingdoms add-on. Ok I'll admit you're right, a great victory but i don't remember having a bigger problem with this mission though, maybe your strategy wasn't good.
>>1918078You're supposed to use the swamp beasts to destroy their navy
>>1918078i remember this game.i was the only one (or one of the few) trying to create single-player missions using the level editor that they had released at the time.good times. would so badly buy it on steam if available. unfairly hated by gamers at the time.
>>1918777Swamp Beasts were not available during this mission, or at least I never got to see them. You must be thinking of another mission. >>1918801Why did people hate it at the time? Seems alright to me, if a little janky. Also, since you seem to be in the know, what are some good mods or usermaps for the game? Thinking of playing it a little more after I'm done with the main story and the expansion pack.
>>1918218I just got to that part in the story. I think it's bullshit, the golden dragon is a powerful unit but it's still no match for a platoon of Drakes. One big dragon helping out Aramon fend off Taros is one thing, but swooping in and destroying armies of Zhon, especially the ones I build up? Nonsense plot armor, I am not happy about this. I think I am near the end, I'm at the mission where I have both Kirrena and Elson at my command. Looks fun but I still say the game peaked when I was slaughtering Verunians by the thousands. Hopefully I get a big free roam mission like that again before the end. Just fucking about and building massive armies is the most fun part of the game, there is way too many missions that end in several minutes where you have to play exactly the way the game wants you to.
Man I remember playing this before patches.. Back when the Sea Faction actually had cracked out ground units because they didn't want them to be pigeonholed to "Good at Water Only" and instead they became busted as fuck at everything.
Kino read.TA Kingdoms is a gem.
>>1919444i haven't been in the scene in many years.people hated it because chris taylor wasn't involved with it and it wasn't total annihilation 2. everyone wanted TA2 but got this instead and everyone lost their shit over it.i remember when cavedog would release new units from their website. that was pretty based.this game got such a bad rap but all it was was a slimmed down RTS where everyone else was making theirs more complicated. this game was also an inadvertent predecessor of tower defense given how some of the maps were laid out.not to go grandpa on anyone but, damn, i miss the old internet at times.
>>1923047How do you install these units so they can be used in campaign missions? Any actual good mods you would recommend? I don't really get the hate, the game is great. I can understand shunning it when they expected a sequel, but failing to support Cavedog out of spite just killed the company, and any hope in seeing the sequel in the first place. Real shame.
>>1918101holy shit what the heck was the other guy doing.
