Part 25: Special Ops: Classic Earth
Let's see just how much 'fun' this really is ...Special Ops: Classic Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL2...eature=youtu.be
Doom Timer: 8:15
There is some time here. Not a ton, but some. The main problem is not getting over-run immediately, but rather carving out enough room to get a decent network and economy going. Overall the terrain's pretty rough, and while the Rockies/Andes mountain ranges are a good defensive barrier, that works both ways.
There are also no upgrades available here, which doesn't help matters.
This is about the extent of what I'm able to do initially. Two energy/second isn't much. I would term the primary challenge of this map to be figuring out a way to defend and take out the two 'American' emitters with a limited starting area like this.
The Rockies do provide a spot to build on, which makes the North American Emitter an obvious target. So far things are going well, and I'm thinking this is going to be pretty easy. It is, after all, the first SpecOps mission. I've got a few blasters, a few speed enhancers up, and a bit more territory now to expand the network.
I decide to go visit South America before even finishing the new collectors. Soon enough I've got that emitter capped as well. However, I run out of ammunition long before I can support them, and have to retreat. I wasn't really ready.
I next try to build a collector in the Gulf of Mexico to support a new attack, but I can't really find a good place to connect it. I retreat again. Then I try to move into the North Atlantic Basin -- and get a blaster destroyed, as I'm not really ready for that either.
Then I try this, building a relay in South America. But I don't have nearly enough time before the blaster there runs out of ammunition. The next time, I send over a second blaster to support. Just as it's about to land, the first blaster runs out again ... the half-built relay is destroyed ... and once more I am foiled. This kind of thing repeats itself for a while as I almost, but not quite, get a permanent foothold in that hemisphere.
I build more blasters to rotate more in there, but am not fast enough with moving them, or with placing the relay, or I try to bring them in from too far away ... something always seems to be amiss with my attempts. I can't just throw a bunch of them on there because they will fire at the creeper at the ocean as well, so they will still run out of ammo without support.
I'm still futzing about with this when the level of creeper in the ocean grows deep enough for it it overflow past Cape Horn, taking out a collector and forcing me to allocate a blaster to keep it at bay. I respond by building a mortar to send on bombing runs to Asia.
From here I can blast both the Indian and Pacific Oceans ... barely. Just enough range to accomplish that. Of course, this doesn't solve the main problem, it just helps me keep things as they are. Shortly afterwards I once again almost get the relay up and protected -- but not quite, waiting too long for reinforcement blasters. Argh!
It ultimately takes almost 17 minutes for me to get the 'not-THAT-complicated' maneuver correct: a couple blasters in at first, then the relay, then constantly rotating blasters out quickly. This doesn't gain that much territory. What it does do is knock out one of the two remaining operational emitters, which means even a minimal amount of firepower should be sufficient to take on the final one.
The new continent allowed a few more collectors, ultimately boosting the energy intake from 2.7 to 3.1. Not a huge bump, but I'll take it.
First the Atlantic was taken over by blasters and collectors, and then we started moving into Africa and Europe. An incorrectly-moved blaster doomed another one and the first attempt at doing that failed, but at this point it was just a matter of time and advancing in a reasonable manner. One emitter, even a fairly strong one, wasn't going to hold us off.
More 'two steps forward, one step back' action ensued, but eventually we conquered the Asian Emitter. Now it was just a matter of wearing down the creeper so we could get to that final Totem in Australia. Including screwing up one more time and letting that emitter lose for a bit. After just a few more minutes of waiting for a trail of collectors to get built, we had won.
South America proved the most difficult part of this, and I made it substantially more complicated than it needed to be. An interesting level though, and it does provide a challenge with the amount of energy-pressure at the beginning.