Part 42: Special Ops: KC
Special Ops: KCThe grand finale of the official bonus content is here. KC ... Kansas City?
https://youtu.be/oPcVYcAEXtE
I must now defeat the official logo of Knuckle Cracker, which comes with a trio of strong, constantly-pulsing emitters and little contiguous ground for building an expansive network.
Doom Timer: 12:49
The narrow gaps around the two sections of the 'logo' provide for chokepoints which slow the enemy's expansion. It's one of those where it will occupy a majority of the terrain to a significant depth quite quickly, but takes a lot longer to swamp everything. Part of this is that it is a gap of three elevation 'levels' from the surrounding terrain to the logo itself. It's a 'deep' map, which adds to the time allowed.
So survival isn't difficult, but it is non-trivial to become strong enough to conquer the enemy all the same.
Doesn't take long for it to become clear that the west end in the map will be safest, longest. And that reactors will be needed to deal with this volume of Creeper efficiently. I build a couple while the relays are connecting things up to the southern section. Gotta use the energy for something and this is better than building weapons I don't want firing yet.
The final words from 'Platius'. I'll be leaving Double-Down mode quite well enough alone, thank you very much. Of course I could play all 55 maps that way ... but I'm not going to. But hey, if anyone else hasn't had enough Creeper World yet, by all means knock yourselves out.
There is more ground around the letters in 'Cracker' than there is in 'Knuckle' to use for collection, so I expand the network further down there. Drone bases also; I've learned that bombing emitters themselves when they are particularly strong ones can be quite effective, and I just basically like the drone's ability to strike wherever creeper is deepest, as opposed to needing to find a secure spot for a Mortar. After almost four minutes, it's time to start fighting back a bit.
Storage and speed buildings aren't necessary for Drone operations, but they really help. In this way a reserve can be quickly used to rearm and get them back out there. Add more than a few speed structures though, and CW likes to hitch and stutter. So I find a balance, or attempt to.
With some minor energy issues the only hiccup, the first quartet of blasters make their way to the central emitter and quiet it down. So far it's going well.
The next push doesn't go so hot. I underestimate how much energy the blasters will need and get a number of them(and collectors) destroyed trying to get the east end of the lower landmass pacified. A big part of this is that there's really no good spots here where they won't fire a lot of their ammo at the lower areas. I've also got more weapons than energy to power them, which is why I'm building more reactors here.
After several more minutes of steady drone pounding lowers the amount of total creeper on the map, and expanding to 14 total reactors, I do eventually prevail.
I round off my display of adequate-but-not-great gameplay by futzing up the crossing to the final emitter in the northeast a bit, but eventually sorting things out. The when, not if, stage was reached when the second emitter was capped.
For completing all of the content, I am awarded with a couple of bonus achievements along with the basic one for the level itself. "Supreme Victory" just about spells it out -- Creeper World 1(Anniversary Edition) has been conquered.
I thank and congratulate all of you who have stuck through this entire journey with me. The introduction is now complete. One game down, four in the series to go.
The vote results were as follows:
** Sequel(10)
** Additional content in some form(5)
So a pretty clear choice; we're done with this one and moving on. I'll have an announcement about how all that is going to work sometime in the next couple of days, and then CW2 will commence.