Ascendancy Wars: Calethaon mission help

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

I need help with the Ascendancy Wars campaign Calethaon mission because it is rather frustrating.

 

You defend the mountaintop Turinium generator until you get enough victory points.  Here is how I failed the mission:

 

First attempt: I did not expand beyond the moutaintop and I built a lot of smart turrets.  When the Turinium generator got about half full the enemy sent a massive force and overwhelmed the turrets even though I built a repair bay.

 

Second attempt: I expanded beyond the moutnaintop but found I could not hold the territory and my large army with lots of artillery I earned with all those extra metal and radioactives died when the turinium generator was half full and the enemy sent a massive force.

 

What I plan to do next is: Build lots of Brutes to eat up my extra metal income, build Zeus to eat up my extra radioactives income.  Hold the southern metals site and the eastern radioactives site with this army.  When the aircraft show up and bomb the north of my base stop all production and build lots of Apollo.  When the turinium generator is half full and they send a massive force, fall back to the mountain and use my army to hold off the enemy while I build smart turrets and a repair bay.

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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

To me it seems that the waves spawn way too fast. They appear on the map before they're even announced.

At the same time, new things (Anti-Air, Repair Bay etcetera) is unlocked way too slowly. The constant pop-ups telling us to build them are in the way as well.

 

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

When I did this I took all the expansions asap. Then had three separate forces for holding the eastern, southern and western expansions (I took the top one and they left it alone all game), try not to have just one army running around all over the place. I did struggle to hold the East side and that side did buckle at the end and then everything followed after so they got up the hill so it was a darn close thing in the end. That was on an earlier Founders build so dunno if that was easier or harder than current build. First time players must find it very hard though. I enjoyed it though as the previous missions were so easy.

Don't waste any resources, I had engineers assisting my factories to pump guys out asap. I did build smarties on the hill first to defend the expansion just south of the hill and then some to the sides to hit anything getting through. Drone bays can be effective too but don't leave them on their own, gotta have troops infront of them as they are not super tough. I did have a repair bay at the southern expansion. I had less of a grip on the side expansions so don't think i put one up on those, perhaps one drone bay. Try and have 2 engineers assisting each other to build anything on the front lines, otherwise it can take too long.

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Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Two tips:

(1) Capture and hold that first region to the south of you. Build Smarties (and at least 1 flak cannon) around it.

(2) Build Artemsis's and put them up on the ridges to the south west and south east.

Those two things will help a lot.

Also, remember, fixed defenses > units often times.

Reply #4 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 3

Two tips:

(1) Capture and hold that first region to the south of you. Build Smarties (and at least 1 flak cannon) around it.

(2) Build Artemsis's and put them up on the ridges to the south west and south east.

Those two things will help a lot.

Also, remember, fixed defenses > units often times.

 

Thanks it sounds like putting the Artemis on those ridges where they will not be attacked will be a lot better than putting them in an army like I did in my second attempt.

 

What's the easy way to kill all those aircraft assaulting my Nexus?  Lots of Apollo?  Can Smarties kill aircraft?  I can't build AA turrets while the aircraft attack because they bomb my engineers.

Reply #7 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

That guy has a video of him beating the level. I didn't watch it all so don't know the specifics but at the end there was no dreadnought, he won on points before it came in.

Reply #8 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I see now, the Smarties can't fight on their own they need the artillery units to back them up.  The enemy brutes just tank the damage of the smarties otherwise because there are so many brutes.  Only drone bays can fight on their own and they need to be behind the lines because I think that they have low HP.

 

Also I noticed that there is such a thing as too many Brutes.  I thought I could just sink my extra minerals into them but once there are so many in an army that the Brutes are not all on the front line the others are wasted.  Based on the video above I need to learn how big armies need to be: not too big not too small, then I can defend more than the South and I can win.  I also noticed that Ashes of the Singularity is big on combined arms, so Archers might be important even though I am buildng Artemis.

 

I am doing better, I am getting to about 3/4 instead of 1/2.  Once the substrate units arrive my massive army of Zeus is less effective but I built some Drone bays and that fixed that.  I was just slow building the anti-air and got bombed out by bombers from the south.  One anti air turret is definitely not enough.