/facedesk

I completely forgot he wanted to know people who were able to beat Elite... *sigh*

Anyway, nice job on beating it! I've run into similar problems as you've described. I had a hell of a time in some instances based on RNG dictating what I start with. After trying to do a Campaign where I couldn't get Medics or Medipod ... I just ragequit and started re-rolling until Medic or Medipod was an option lol. The Damage Toxin/Poison Spitter Towers do is just stupid! Marines die in like 5 seconds, even if you focus the towers down, which ends up dropping Morale very quickly.

Personally I don't understand how anyone could do a "No Retreat" run. It's next to impossible to do Missions with 5+ Hives in a single run and not have your Army's Morale flatline. Doing "Hit 'n Run" guerilla type tactics seems to be the only reliable strategy to win... take out a couple of Hives, then Retreat, then attack same place again since now it's easier.

When I get sufficient free-time to do a Campaign again, I'll try doing another Elite run and posting my recent results. Again, great job at beating it! It sure is a major PITA lol. I'm impressed it only took you 29 Turns to complete it. Last I remember it took me ~40 lol.

Wow! Awesome job. I haven't beat Elite yet, myself. :)

Thank you for answering. Elite is indeed not the easiest mode to win.

I can share a bit of my experience since it seemed challenging to me, but not crushing per see.

Originally posted by Setzway:

After trying to do a Campaign where I couldn't get Medics or Medipod ... I just ragequit and started re-rolling until Medic or Medipod was an option lol.

I personally started with engineering and used turrets. Moral-wise it's a good option early-on as when turrets die, you do not lose moral if you have engineering.
Life support is also a great option for healing. I will say that in the beginning of each campaign, my priority always is to find a healing source first, then a way to deal with barriers.

Originally posted by Setzway:

The Damage Toxin/Poison Spitter Towers do is just stupid! Marines die in like 5 seconds, even if you focus the towers down, which ends up dropping Morale very quickly.

One thing is that poison is a DOT that stacks, alien turrets do not otherwise inflict damage unless with specific mutations (that's why they don't attack turrets normally.)
There are a few counters. Life support limit the maximum damage a marine can take per second (hence the 27 minimum survival time) so it's great against poison. Shields, while I do not fully understand them, blocks most of the damage. Steel curtains can provide shield, the shield building is quick to build and very very useful, getting guardsman or minigunner can also work.

On that note alien turrets tend to focus on marines such as flamethrowers and turrets will swap to kill grenadiers first. You can swap roles around your marines so aliens swap targets, this can greatly boost the life expectancy of your marines once their shield get overwhelmed. This is especially important with steel curtains, so as to maximise its effect.
Teleporter and reinforcement also helps, reducing moral loss by 50%, with the teleporter being much more useful to keep the pressure on a hive.

A final and underconsidered counter from my last elite run was stasis, being able to shut down four alien turrets behind an hive, or just down half the turrets plus the hive, for thirty seconds is really strong. It lets me kill half the turrets and regenerate, then deal with the rest once stasis wear off. It's also a great way to shut down those three-hives fortress that are stacked against each others in alien strongholds.

Originally posted by Setzway:

Personally I don't understand how anyone could do a "No Retreat" run. It's next to impossible to do Missions with 5+ Hives in a single run and not have your Army's Morale flatline. Doing "Hit 'n Run" guerilla type tactics seems to be the only reliable strategy to win... take out a couple of Hives, then Retreat, then attack same place again since now it's easier.

That isn't really how I play though. What I do is leave some territory undefended, as when the aliens move in on the strategical map, they split their hives between the attacking territory and the attacked one.
This let me fight the aliens almost exclusively on one-to-three hives missions, with a few five-to-six.
Losing territory isn't much of an issue since you can surround territory and steal 13-16 territories at once. It's a common occurence for me when I take the second alien stronghold, I swat entire clusters the aliens in one go.

The important thing that let me do is avoid reinforcing territory a lot of the time, this lets me economize on morale and effectively buy tactics by not needing resupply too frequently.

Originally posted by Setzway:

When I get sufficient free-time to do a Campaign again, I'll try doing another Elite run and posting my recent results. Again, great job at beating it! It sure is a major PITA lol. I'm impressed it only took you 29 Turns to complete it. Last I remember it took me ~40 lol.

I believe most of the difference comes from being able to hoard tactic powers, I also never attack invaders prefering to let them attack on their turn on retreat if needed. This way I don't spend my turn on the invader and can attack for another tactic power, and hopefully get a second one from battling the invader.

Originally posted by RocketBear:

Wow! Awesome job. I haven't beat Elite yet, myself. :)

I'm curious about your own experience at playing elite. As the developper you should be experimenting it differently than we do. Might I ask what stuck with you when playing Elite?

Also thanks for your work, and for putting the after-victory text specifically as I was the one who requested it.

I will now try to tackle an elite huge campaign. I will keep you informed how it goes if that interest you.

Originally posted by arnaud_defrance:

One thing is that poison is a DOT that stacks, alien turrets do not otherwise inflict damage unless with specific mutations (that's why they don't attack turrets normally.) [....] A final and underconsidered counter from my last elite run was stasis.

Aww man, I didn't realize it stacks. No wonder I was having an issue with them. I thought the DoT simply lasted really long; which made it next to impossible to get back to a Bunker to heal before dying. As for Stasis, yeah definately! I used to pass on Stasis for basically everything ... until I hit Veteran/Elite. That helps out tremendously.

Originally posted by arnaud_defrance:

What I do is leave some territory undefended, as when the aliens move in on the strategical map, they split their hives between the attacking territory and the attacked one.

That's a great idea. I'm so accustomed to "Never Surrender, Never Lose Ground" type of playstyle in Wargames that I fight tooth and nail to keep my Territory; even if it's suicidal and extremely difficult. Which is probably why I get so frustrated playing Infested Planet since the various Mutation Combinations and map Layouts get to be extremely difficult to win effectively.

Anyway, I managed to get an hour to start up a new Elite Run. I decided to do a Large map instead of Huge because I still don't have a lot of time to afford on Infested Planet lol. Here's what my Map and Research looks like ... I took a couple of turns before making a Screenshot since I wasn't sure if I was going to roll with it or not lol.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=801511105

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=801511088

When I win, I'll post my Victory Stats as well. Though I suspect it'll take a few days.

Aww man, I didn't realize it stacks. No wonder I was having an issue with them. I thought the DoT simply lasted really long; which made it next to impossible to get back to a Bunker to heal before dying. As for Stasis, yeah definately! I used to pass on Stasis for basically everything ... until I hit Veteran/Elite. That helps out tremendously.

It doesn't stack in the sense that more poison does damage faster. It increases the DoT duration though. You can see how much of the marine HP is poisoned by looking at the green part of the hp bar.

I beat that Elite Huge campaign.

I'm going to answer others posts later as that campaign got immensely tedious by the end.

But first here are the victory stats :
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=801674211
At first glance the results are astounding, I lost less soldiers and structures than in my last run, structures losses notably fell from 332 to 206 so 50% reduction. Time went up somewhat if not that much. I finished within 30 turns which isn't too bad since I lost three turns against the last stronghold, also since I fought 44 battles rather than the 36 of my last elite medium.

Tactics used is where the stats are throw out of the window. With over 600%increase in tactics used, from 20 to 123, I essentially broke the tactics mechanism along with the aliens.


Now a bit on feedback on how this went, because it wasn't obvious how it would go early on.

I started in an awful map that was essentially an enormous bottleneck. It was bad because it was very difficult to cede territory and let alien army split without getting my armies cut from supplies.
My tech tree didn't seem too bad, until it turned I couldn't access mines despite it showing up on tactical map. I didn't have sniper either, leading to many losses of morale subduing hives. Pile in aliens getting assassins all the time and morale was pretty difficult to balance.

Trying to forge my way to the two first alien stronghold I got fed up. Aliens had assassins and burrowing hive, I had over twenty tactics point. At first I used it clumsily, when battles looked like I couldn't win and thus used a missile barrage to take out all but one hive before retreating.

A bit later I tackled alien stronghold and nine-hive strongs territory and treated them to nine-missile opening barrage:
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/243587272527852716/CDC3BE7E5A1C37C248F3FC0E772219E0B3D140BB/

I was a bit fed up at that point and after reducing the two first alien stronghold to one hive, finishing them two turns later as army recuperated, I tackled the third stronghold while an invader was there, starting a sixteen hive battle with thirty-three tactics points on my side.
This went as bloody, silly and laggy as one might expect. I actually had to retreat with thirteen hives killed because a burrowing hive was threatening to undo all my work and I was out of tatics.
Then I came back two turns later to finish three lonely hives.

Moving onward I had a very hard time pushing to the last stronghold, needing two army and multiple retreat to deal with 9 hives strong territory and invader. I remain still impressed how much a fight the aliens can put when faced with 40 tactics worth of missiles and special ops.
The last alien stronghold I went all out clearing out all hives with missile, cleaning all turret, and launching a nine-points simultaneous takeover... and found out if you do that the victory condition doesn't trigger. Missile striking one of my own point and capturing it back from the aliens didn't work either, so I was forced to retreat.
I came with a second army close enough to arrive in the same turn, and unleashed ten special ops upon the single remaining hive. That one battle ended pretty fast.

A damn good win, but one I am definitively not looking forward to repeat.

I tried Elite, and couldnt do a thing vs. the hardened shells. I kept restarting campaigns to get a medic/healing and kept running into the same unstoppable mutations....just didnt have enough BP.
My conclusion: It's not fun.
The veteran mode is more fun, and is a great challenge depending on the RNG options you have.

Today i beat Elite on huge map.
At start it was always hard to me (always take ~m 3 restarts), because i got no medic or medipod in the entire game.

Map: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=803892806
Research: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=803892849
Victory: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=803892917
Stats: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=803892960

I recognize that i cant beat the game with my lack of firepower.
So i decided to use Airdrop, Airstrike and Mines (sometimes a Flak) to beat every single hive.
The missions took longer but in the end it was safer for my soldiers.

I reduce to only 2 Soldiers wich defend my homebase.
Build Ammodepot and Airstrike.
The 1 Airstrike weakens the hive, 2x AirDrop (8 Soldiers) attacks the hive, sometime it takes 2-3 "rounds" before the hive is destroyed.
If possible, i take a scout and freezes the hive itself or the towers/enemies, so the airdrop soldiers can focusing her firepower. Clone Soldiers are easy if you have scout.
On maps with clustered hives (many hives on each other) i build 1-2 Flaks and all stops to get dangerous. Only waiting to get AirDrop and AirStike ready to take on hive after the other.

Mines are veeeery useful to "block" enemys paths or assassins/towerspawner and the best thing: if u put ~4 Mines arround a hive, they cant recover. The rebuilded towers/spawners get destroyed and also all enemys that get out of it. The hive itself also get hurt, so your soldiers or Airdrop soldiers have a easy game with it.

In the mid-game i uses the option to create tacticalpowers. But i tried NOT to use them.
They help u if u really get stucked on freaky missions.

The last Stronghold was the easiest and fastest one. I nuked everything and rushed the map with 4 SpecOps teams :)

I never wont play a game without mines and scouts! :)

Originally posted by BmS_ReadyMan:

I tried Elite, and couldnt do a thing vs. the hardened shells. I kept restarting campaigns to get a medic/healing and kept running into the same unstoppable mutations....just didnt have enough BP.
My conclusion: It's not fun.
The veteran mode is more fun, and is a great challenge depending on the RNG options you have.

If you enjoy Veteran, then that's the mode for you.

There's no "proper way" to play the game - I always saw elite to be a slightly ridiculous challenge for people who managed to beat everything else.

I agree. But I understand the need for the "elite" option, for the massochists among us.
You designed it well, and I'm not knocking you or IP, Elite is just not my version of fun.
I've beaten Veteran on huge maps a few times now, and I keep thinking about elite, heh.
We'll see. It's definitely a long term option to play on a huge elite map, as it'll take quite a while to get the right settings to even start the map.
Well done RocketBear!
I hope you add more content :-)

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806462661

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806459502

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806462646

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806459486

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806466059

Took a lot more turns than others, with a lot more losses. Very rough. Guessing this wasn't some of your first times beating it on elite, based on your stats.

Brutes were nasty. Didn't have flamethrower unless I used specops. When burning hives, cluster bomb didn't seem to speed things up since brutes respawned so fast. About 2 minutes per hive. Grenades kind of helped when I got them, but they functioned as more of a defensive weapon against the brutes.

1-3s seemed as hard or harder than 5-6s, since I found myself fighting so many structures: dual poison artillary, dual guardian nest, etc. Everything was spread out more for the bigger maps and you'd more often find a single solitary hive so you didn't have to rush a pair of hives with your starting squad.

Tried to follow Arnaud's example to not fortify at parts, to draw enemies to split. Did that for 2nd stronghold (top), where it worked, and for the last (right), where it failed. I guess the last stronghold has a 100% chance to send attackers if you don't attack. My last image shows four attackers on me.

Arnaud, how did you get 123 tactics in 30 turns? Is that a glitch, or did you use tactics and then retreat a lot?

Hi, XcuteX and congratulation on beating elite.

Originally posted by XcuteX:

Took a lot more turns than others, with a lot more losses. Very rough. Guessing this wasn't some of your first times beating it on elite, based on your stats.

That number of turns just scare me, 54 turns is mind-bogging to me.

My two results were my first elite without rerolling for tech or anything. Straight off my first experience with elite in both case. Don't feel bad though, I have been playing various strategical and tactical games at high difficulties setting so I am nowhere near a "normal" player. (Not that people who beat elite are normal anyway.)

Your difficulties compared to mine are pretty obvious from a look at the stat screen. 58 battles over 54 turns implies you didn't retreat at all, as retreating let you use another army in the same turn (and thus made me have 50% more battles fought than turns.)
Morale issues must have been horrendous from you from that alone, combined with your extreme losses of soldiers to structures losses. It visibly cut down on tactics you could use due to needing resupply all the time.

Part of that can be explained due to an odd tech tree. Starting with turrets and medic was nice, but you lacked ammo supply or engineering, both mines and life support were here but at the end of the tech tree. It must not have been an easy game.

Originally posted by XcuteX:

Brutes were nasty. Didn't have flamethrower unless I used specops. When burning hives, cluster bomb didn't seem to speed things up since brutes respawned so fast. About 2 minutes per hive. Grenades kind of helped when I got them, but they functioned as more of a defensive weapon against the brutes.

Cluster bomb is indeed useless against brutes, they spam too quickly from hives for it to be useful.

You didn't have flame, which your use of verb seem to imply, however you possessed grenadiers which I assume you didn't use. Combining grenadier with steel curtain would have let you slaughter structures a lot more easily.

Originally posted by XcuteX:

1-3s seemed as hard or harder than 5-6s, since I found myself fighting so many structures: dual poison artillary, dual guardian nest, etc. Everything was spread out more for the bigger maps and you'd more often find a single solitary hive so you didn't have to rush a pair of hives with your starting squad.

Going after a single hive is indeed better. For me the trick was to consider the use of a missile, it's a lot easier to keep morale up on smaller maps, and if your morale keep up you can buy tactics rather than use resupply.

Originally posted by XcuteX:

Tried to follow Arnaud's example to not fortify at parts, to draw enemies to split. Did that for 2nd stronghold (top), where it worked, and for the last (right), where it failed. I guess the last stronghold has a 100% chance to send attackers if you don't attack. My last image shows four attackers on me.

Splitting only affects regular hives, not invaders hives. Your "error" was likely more waiting till you took down all others stronghold before making your way to the last one. This forced aliens to boost their territories rather than taking yours as a release valve, hence turning it into an horrendous chokepoint for your armies.

Originally posted by XcuteX:

Arnaud, how did you get 123 tactics in 30 turns? Is that a glitch, or did you use tactics and then retreat a lot?

That shows me that you didn't use retreat more than anything else, as I explained the strategy above.

Essentially when you retreat your morale loss is limited to -1 (which is important) and you regain all tactics power spent during the battle.
This means once you consider an engagement not worth winning, you can throw all your tactics points into wiping out the aliens opposition, take as much points as possible except the last one, then you retreat with all your power back while many hives are destroyed.

Good luck on your playthroughs!

Originally posted by arnaud_defrance:

Essentially when you retreat your morale loss is limited to -1 (which is important) and you regain all tactics power spent during the battle.
This means once you consider an engagement not worth winning, you can throw all your tactics points into wiping out the aliens opposition, take as much points as possible except the last one, then you retreat with all your power back while many hives are destroyed.

Good luck on your playthroughs!

Whaaaat?! That seems like a Bug to me ... if it is indeed an intended mechanic; that's Hax lol.

No wonder you "breezed" through Elite in ~30 Turns by Retreating. This whole time I would never use Tactics unless I knew I was going to win that battle since I didn't want to waste Tactics on a spot I was just going to retreat from.

Man! I guess I should pay attention more...

Originally posted by Setzway:

Whaaaat?! That seems like a Bug to me ... if it is indeed an intended mechanic; that's Hax lol.

No wonder you "breezed" through Elite in ~30 Turns by Retreating. This whole time I would never use Tactics unless I knew I was going to win that battle since I didn't want to waste Tactics on a spot I was just going to retreat from.

Man! I guess I should pay attention more...

It's a (mostly) intended mechanic as the retreat tooltip tells you that it refunds power. I say 'mostly' because I doubt RocketBear considered the mechanic could be used to such extremes.

The biggest downside is that your army is unable to act for two turns. Otherwise it's highly likely a huge campaign can be finished under 30 turns as I experimented with the strategy during the campaign, thus it's possible to go faster.

Originally posted by arnaud_defrance:

The biggest downside is that your army is unable to act for two turns. Otherwise it's highly likely a huge campaign can be finished under 30 turns as I experimented with the strategy during the campaign, thus it's possible to go faster.

Yeah I'd imagine so. Still that's pretty crazy you could do that lol. Well I know what to try now; totally didn't think of using Retreat in such a way.