Nevermind - I was thankfully given the somewhat redundant directions to Naxl, a planet I could already reach, in the hanger. This enabled me to access its other asteroids, which I couldn't before.
I am told to pick up a gun which appears to be the Gauss X1 - Level III at asteroid NA-1 (which I can only assume to be the second asteroid around planet Naxl), but no such asteroid exists on my map. I have discovered all the planets and beaten the game, and this is the last mission I have left (aside from the ongoing on for beating random bandits). I don't really need the gun, but...well, it would be nice to complete everything.
Where is asteroid NA-1?
An option to go back after a selection would be nice. It's kind of annoying to accidentally click on "New Game" instead of "Special Game" (or vice versa) and then have to lose a quick game so I can select the right game mode.
I'm not entirely sure it's possible to win Very Hard. Thus far, my best strategy has been to play as the French and rush for People Preach. If I can do that, holding out until year 25 is easy, as my armies survive every battle with only a couple causalties (easy to replenish) and I accumulate peasants and therefore gold without needing to invest any. However, I find that it's nearly impossible to defeat the 2 minotaurs and 2 hyrdas that appear at year 25 without either the belief which halves their health (impossible to get if I rush People Preach) or my own minotaurs (which costs 10000 before I have a ghost of a chance). It's pretty ridiculous, imo.
Level 30 is just plain lazy. Every level up to that was a puzzle, where you had to work out through multiple deaths the optimal way to complete the level and then build up the skill to do it. Even 29, while kind of crazy, was solvable in 10-20 lives. But 30? Level 30 is ENTIRELY luck. I can tell you precisely where to jump and when on that level, but it'll work maybe 1% of the time because you need the bat and every saw to be positioned absolutely perfectly before you start - and even then, a single slip-up is enough to cost you everything half an inch from the door.
I entered that level with 176 total deaths. I'm currently on 456, and the closest I've gotten thus far is smacking into the bat when it was impossible to run under it or jump over it...once.
I give up.
This game is all-around good, but I especially like the challenges in each level forcing me to think things through very carefully in order to win - A single upgrade build doesn't work for everything. For example, because you need to target the shamans first on the first challenge, the archers (whose attacks you can direct) are the obvious choice to funnel all your points into. However, two challenges later you need to protect a mass of soldiers and that means targeting one enemy at a time won't cut it: you have to respec and make your soldiers beefy enough to survive. This ends up enriching the rest of the game; by forcing me to redistribute points constantly in one part of the game, you keep me on the lookout for better and more efficient strategies in other parts, which makes everything so much more enjoyable. Overall, I'm impressed with how much thought you put into turning the most frustrating part of other games into something useful and interesting in yours. Kudos and congrats.
The trick to winning on impossible is to win on really easy. Then, because the helicopter lets you transfer 5 people to a new game, train 5 people up to 10 in every stat and equip them with your best weapons (get the 2 rocket launchers for this). Fly them to a small, impossible city. There, your superteam can:
- finish all construction jobs in 1-2 days
- solo scavenging, recruiting and some extermination missions
- research the early techs in about a week
- raise town happiness by 1 point per day while preaching
- keep danger levels at a very low minimum when not on duty
In a small town, expanding to the edges is a good idea, because you want to minimize surface area and maximize volume to keep danger as low as possible. Expanding to an edge will cover up one side of your town, which is great for this. Just keep plodding along and expanding until you get a chance to win. You can do this however you want, but I recommend the Last Judgment, Helicopter, or Constitution methods.
The terminator mission is impossible because the last kill isn't registering. It seems like 204 is the score required to get three stars, and at around 41 points a kill, getting all 5 kills is obviously the easy way to win. However, I usually score around the 160 range, and the endgame screen says I only have 4 kills - even though nobody else on my team has killed the terminator.
If you're angry about the whole pausing thing preventing salary gain, you should know that the game pausing doesn't actually stop the countdown. You'll notice if you go AFK for a while with the game paused that you'll come back to much more money.
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 "50 years (graphical)"){kind=icon}
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Thanks!