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[update 1/7: finished on Hard, yay!]
Hi,
after the entertaining "NUR" and "NUR no marines" threads, I decided to start playing the single player campaign under another constraint:
Win the game without producing any units!
That's right, you can't even produce SCVs! The only thing you can use are the units you get for free, and you can hire mercenaries. You can also do research and get upgrades. (edit: the idea came from undyinglight's post in the NUR marines only thread: see http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=7254923)
I find this an interesting challenge, because it changes strategy in all kinds of strange ways. For example, which upgrades and research are useful changes dramatically, see below. I'm playing the campaign on hard difficulty (I originally played under normal difficulty, but that turned out to be too easy, so I've updated this post). I expected lots of problems (for example in the prophecy missions, where you can't get mercenaries), but so far it has been doable (and really easy on normal difficulty).
I've completed the game on Hard difficulty. Below are the strategies I used for each mission, and a discussion of upgrades and research.
Missions
Liberation Day: unchanged
Whispers of Doom: unchanged
Ghost of a chance: unchanged
Breakout: unchanged
Piercing the Shroud: unchanged
The Outlaws: you get some additional marines when you free the western base, but you will have to be extremely careful with your units and use scvs in your attacks to win.
Zero Hour: this is not so bad since you get additional marines every now and then. You can hide in your bunkers until you rescued everyone you want to, then retreat to the high ground and wall off the ramp with three bunkers. It gets hard to hold the line by the end but even if your wall falls you will probably hold out long enough to be rescued.
The Evacuation: you get two firebats, two marines and four or five scvs in this mission. This is not enough to win, even on normal difficulty. Since your first mission choice is between this and Smash and Grab, do that mission first. That will give you access to the War Pigs and Hammer Securities, which makes this mission doable. Perhaps building bunkers can be helpful but I ended up just building a bunch of turrets for those pesky creep spreading overlords.
Outbreak: play this methodically and carefully, only attack during the daytime but be efficient when you attack. Build bunkers at the bottom of your base in time.
Safe Haven: I immediately started upgrades, and used my initial three vikings to kill the closest nexus. I dealt with all terror fleets very easily, by building two or three turrets in the targeted villages (thanks MikTeX). Once I accumulated some units, I killed the final two nexus then waited for the purifier in the middle of a clump of turrets in the last village. As you can guess, turret upgrades should help somewhat in this mission, but it's not required.
Smash and Grab: this mission is an exercise in micro. You don't have too many units, but by engaging carefully and letting your units heal in between battles it can be done. I had to reload quite a lot and only got the easiest two of the relics, although it is possible to get all four (see posts further down in the thread). I made bunkers to fall back to when the zerg attacked; I also lured Toss units into the bunker fire. You should probably upgrade combat shields before starting this mission, and perhaps get a bunker upgrade. You have to move out soon after you get the marauders, and ditch your base after you get both upgrades and approximately 700-1000 minerals for bunkers and repairs. Just save your scvs and transition into losing your whole fucking base, and float your cc (possibly with some scvs inside) and barracks after your units. The buildings are useful for providing vision on ramps later on. You are attacked by sentries with supporting hallucinations at some point; be sure to kill the sentries first. Also be careful with your medic's energy: once it reaches zero, you will have to slow down significantly, so try to let the bunker take the hits. Also use bunkers to kill the golems.
The Dig: I did this with only marine, marauder and firebat mercs and the units you start out with. Build a sufficient number of turrets for the aerial attacks. You get only two tanks, but that's sufficient. The hardest part is judging when to send scvs to your ramps to repair your bunkers, because if you leave them there the whole time you will be too low on income.
Concussive shells for the marauders was very helpful. Put them in the bunker or on the high ground near the tank to slow down everything that approaches. It is quite easy to get the relics by the time you have all your mercs; simply walk one or two units there and use the drill to kill any defense.
The Devil's Playground: as usual, you can earn most of your money with the reapers you collect. I nevertheless got some mercs to protect my two nexus, kill the brutalisk and help protect the reapers inside the zerg base.
Welcome to the Jungle: I delayed this mission a little bit, so I had lots of mercenaries available. I found the vikings, banshees, goliaths and siege tanks all very useful so you may want to get at least a few of those (and upgrade them). As usual, get the first terrazine immediately. Then focus on the terrazine sources on the left hand side of the map. Initially, when you don't have many forces yet, it is a bit tricky to prevent the protoss from sealing terrazine sources. I used goliaths with scv support and my initial marines. I then pushed north and eventually back east to eradicate the protoss base north of your base. Three out of four artifacts are easily accessible. For the hardest one, I used a squad of vikings and banshees.
A Sinister Turn: this is quite tough as you hardly have any units. I quickly got the armor and shield upgrades and built some cannons in my main. Then get the DTs, first luring the zealot to the cannons, and the immortal. I then used the DTs to kill all stalkers on the path to the bridge. After building as many cannons as I could I collected all my units, including probes, near the bridge. When the hybrid crosses the bridge to attack your base, sneak past him and kamikaze your units straight through the protoss base. I managed to get my two DTs near the preservers alive. One preserver is partially covered by a cannon, so you can only attack that one from the right direction. Lower the health of each preserver before you take them down, because the hybrid reappears when you kill your first preserver. I'm not sure if this strategy will work on brutal though.
Echoes of the Future: this can be completed by using Zeratul's blink and void prison cleverly, simply hopping between the tendrils and ignoring all else. Look on youtube for speed runs of this mission to see how it's done. I liked to also power the pylons for the research it grants and the extra units; I used the units to help Zeratul reach his second tendril (he can reach the first immediately after powering the gateways).
In Utter Darkness: this is easy on normal but quite hard on hard. You get a lot of units, but you have to be super careful with them. I got two extra forges and an extra cybernetics core to get all upgrades as fast as possible, since there is not much else to spend resources on. Make sure that you get your probes off gas when you don't need it for upgrades; two probes per geyser is sufficient initially and later you can get more guys off gas. You'll want as many minerals as possible for cannons. I wanted to protect the archives so I first built a lot of cannons around that, then on the high ground. I found that my ground army slowly melted away, but you can't let any air units die - reload when that happens. You have to be very careful in attacks involving hydras and/or mutalisks. As usual, use the phoenix to lift the hybrid, especially the ranged ones. Set the carriers to rebuild interceptors automatically. After retreating to the high ground, I built lots of cannons there, but lacking a ground army I still got overwhelmed pretty quickly - all my buildings died, but it takes a while before much anti air enters the battle; in the mean time I could easily get more than 2000 kills with my remaining air units.
The Moebius Factor: again, you get lots of units for free in this mission. Together with the mercs, you have more than enough units... trouble is you have only two medivacs to ferry them around in. It is helpful to unlock the viking and/or banshee mercenaries before this mission; I had the vikings and they helped quite a lot with mutas and as meat shields for my medivacs.
Supernova: I walled off my entrance with rax, factory and starport and got engineering bay and armory as far to the right as possible. You can clear the path to the three closest artifacts with the banshees and collect with your initial forces, but be careful to be back at your base when it's attacked. Also make sure to preserve your barracks as you may need to build another mercenary compound. After you get some units and the fire is drawing closer, carefully demolish the protoss base (use siege tanks) and move in. Once you get all available mercs, kill a second protoss base to get to the fourth southeast artifact, then push north to your objective.
The Great Train Robbery: on hard, doing this took some work for me. You have to be careful with your units or you will have too few by the end. Make sure you get all diamondbacks asap. I built bunkers on the tracks to extend the lifespan of my units. I also patrolled around to kill any enemy fortifications that were in the way. I managed to take out the clump of marauders without losing too many units by building two (upgraded) bunkers with scv support.
Cutthroat: Start all upgrades, lift rax and factory and build a bunker to protect the base. In the mean time collect some resources with your marines. When you get vultures, mine up the southern entrance, get the relic, then proceed with vultures and marines to kill the northern base. Then send your marines back to the bunker, and send an scv to repair your vultures while you go around with them collecting artifacts and minerals. By the time you have a substantial number of mercenaries, kill Orlan's other two bases. You get a couple of medics when you get Mira's base, who can heal your infantry. After that, you can simply collect all your units, walk to the wall just below Orlan's CC, and kill it with your siege tanks, provided you have vision, so float a couple of buildings there.
Engine of Destruction: this was not so difficult. Just get all units you can, prioritising air units, and obviously upgrade everything. When the odin moves, protect him with your army and make sure to take out siege tanks quickly with banshees. When he takes a break, move everything back into your base to protect it. Don't forget your mules as you'll need a lot of minerals. I also repaired the odin with mules, preferrably during his downtime. I easily got all artifacts and a well-spread combination of wraiths and vikings killed the Loki just before Tychus attacked the last base.
Media Blitz: I hit the north and western bases with the Odin, including the CC at the mineral spot to the northwest of your base. I then started massing mercs, mostly the mechanical ones. I got a double armory as well. After repairing the Odin I had him attack the third base without support. He easily killed everything on his path until I reached the first broadcasting tower. I there sent Vikings to support him and called down a MULE for repairs, and started broadcasting. This can be a bit tricky so you might want to send some banshees there too, and be sure to use the barrage ability if that should be helpful. I then unlocked the secret mission, and sent all mercs (except one siege tank and some marines in a bunker) to attack the next base. As long as you do it carefully, you won't run into too much trouble with the remainder.
Maw of the Void: as expected, this was somewhat demanding as you basically don't get enough battlecruisers. However, if you are careful with your initial three (and upgrade them fully), it turns out you can actually just kill everything with those.The DTs help soften things up inside the ripfields, and I got Vikings and Banshees to deal with anything that showed itself outside of a ripfield. I also got marauders and marines to protect my initial base (because of the armory, merc compound and supply depots). I got crazy amounts of resources in the end; the trick is just to not get your battlecruisers killed. After destroying the mothership and freeing all prisoners I kamikazed into the vault with three ripfields still active. I found it's usually better to use Yamato on carriers and void rays than to use it on the ripfield generators. Regenerative bio-steel is a must for this mission; the viking range upgrade is somewhat useful for killing the mothership.
Gates of Hell: I overdid it a bit on this mission. I rescued almost everyone, and captured a couple of mutalisk with hive mind emulators as well. I upgraded everything with two armories and an engineering bay, and got all mercenaries. This gave me supply in the 150s range - I could pretty much attack move my way to Warfield. Not the hardest mission.
Shatter the Sky: it may be possible to make better use of the hive mind emulator than I did, I only got about 6 mind controlled mutas. Nevertheless, if you just get all your mercs and all your upgrades this is not too bad. Just carefully kill all bases one by one. Use banshees and vikings for the northwestern base, and siege tanks for all other bases. For the Leviathan I used two Yamatos, 6 merc vikings and my full ground army including merc goliaths, so he went down quickly enough.
All In: I did all-in ground, since MiKTeX already completed all-in air and I wanted the additional challenge. It was pretty hard, mostly because it requires a LOT of multitasking. If you look at your screen for only a few seconds, you're already dead. I had a cycle "Am I still upgrading? Can I call down mercs or mules? Are my bunkers repaired? Are my banshees decloaked? Should I build more stuff?" and whenever I did not know the best thing to do I paused the game and went through the cycle. You have to be extremely careful not to lose any units, so I used bunkers with perdition turrets in front, to protect them. That worked quite well, but I'm sure that planetary fortresses would have been fine too. I tried to mind control all attacking ultras and some hydras and roaches. That helped, but it's hard to get a huge ground army that way. I did also capture the wave of overlords, that's an easy source of units. Whenever Kerrigan attacked, I unsieged my tanks and moved away my BCs to avoid her one hit kill ability. By 95% I started to get overwhelmed so I hit the artifact one last time, moved all my remaining stuff to the artifact and built about 20 perdition turrets. That allowed me to survive to the end.
Preferred upgrades
First thing to note is that you will mostly want to upgrade the units that you can actually hire as mercenaries, so there is no reason to upgrade hellions or reapers. Second, I actually delayed getting stim for a long time, as you will not have a lot of medics, if any.
All building and SCV upgrades are good. In particular, GET ORBITAL COMMAND as soon as it becomes available because you really need those mules!
Preferred research
Ultra-Capacitors / Vanadium Plating:
still a tough call
Orbital Depots / Micro-Filtering:
micro filtering was already the better choice, but now more so: you will have so few scvs that having them spend less time in the refinery is crucial, and you can't afford to waste research on a convenience.
Automated Refinery / Command Center Reactor:
the command center reactor is completely useless, so the choice is clear
Raven / Science Vessel:
Tech Reactor / Orbital Strike:
Predator / Hercules:
you can't use either, so doesn't matter
Shrike Turret / Fortified Bunker:
the fortified bunker used to be the clear winner, and it might still be, but now you'll generally have fewer units so that any extra firepower is relatively more important. The fortified bunker is probably still the best choice. I got it on hard difficulty.
Planetary Fortress / Perdition Turret:
This is a tough call. Since you will have a lot fewer resources than normally, planetary fortresses are relatively expensive, except in missions where you get a lot of scvs. So if your concern is all-in, you might want the planetary fortress, but for the other missions the perdition turret may be better.
Cellular Reactor / Regenerative Bio-Steel:
I got the regenerative bio-steel because I won't be able to get science vessels and am low on resources. Cellular reactor is less useful because (as bobucles points out below) there are not many specialist mercs (only the battlecruiser and the banshees). Because of regenerative bio-steel I ended up preferring mech over infantry on missions where I don't have medics or medivacs.
Hive Mind Emulator / Psi Disrupter:
this time around you'll probably want the hive mind emulator because it provides an additional source of units! I expect that a clever use of this device can become an important part of strategy for gates of hell, shatter the sky, and all-in, especially on higher difficulties. I also expect that, contrary to common wisdom, the hive mind emulator is more useful on all-in ground now, because you will be severely lacking in units.
So, let me know if you think this sounds like fun, and I'd be interested to learn if someone is gonna do this on brutal :-)
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Hahah this sounds pretty kool lol, any chance you have the replays available to look over?
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United States10155 Posts
how, every hardcore man. Great job, keep up the good work. I expect for you to win all of them. and if you don't, well, it's just a challenge. Keep it up, hope you beat it!
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Wow that sounds pretty insane, I am not a too big fan of playing the campaign;) would have like to get all the achievments but the last mission on hard with only one use of the artifact made me resign on that;).
Crazy stuff if you really can get all of it done like that;)
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Given the rules, i wouldnt expect anyone to try this in casual, doing it on normals pretty pro
good luck and post us some reps :D
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good luck with maw of the void,
Even with 20 battlecruisers on normal this mission was a pain.\
Also how is hive mind emulator going to help you in belly of the beast? 
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Don't mercenaries automatically have upgrades regardless of whether you have purchased them for regular units? You should instead focus on getting all the building upgrades, and then the units that you tend to be given at the start of the game (MMM).
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On December 22 2010 09:04 BuuGhost wrote:good luck with maw of the void, Even with 20 battlecruisers on normal this mission was a pain.\ Also how is hive mind emulator going to help you in belly of the beast?
Dark Templar do not take damage unless their shields are gone, so unless you want to risk banshee and viking mercs you can try ninja killing the ground first
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MAW OF THE VOID It's okay, bro. You do it like this:
![[image loading]](http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6073/mawofthevoid.jpg)
Damage control Planetary Fortress with MULE repair drops. Never fails. Tuck the SCVs inside for bonus points!
Even with mercs, repair SCVs are your most critical resource, unless you allow MULEs.
Edit: Energy boost isn't that good when only battlecruisers can use it. Get the living metal, it'll help your mech survive inside the ripfield better. And as always, bunker hop your warpigs to keep them safe.
you can't really expect to be able to afford planetary fortresses Get automatic refineries to take care of resources. Planetary fortresses are a billion times better than perdition turrets, and they automatically pay off half their cost on the first MULE.
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@Bobucles
You sure are clever, But i think he already has gotten perdition turrets. And if not PF still takes quite some time to build, Still a worthy tactic :o
@Dimagus Ah right forgot about that
@pirsq I believe they do, They also get boosted Hp and damage by like 20%
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I'm not going to say whether it's possible or not on normal, cause I honestly don't know. I'm leaning towards "no", though - but then again, perhaps with some unorthodox turret use, some missions will be doable. Plus you've already done quite a few missions, so I may be wrong. No training SCV's is a bitch though. It means you can't just mass repair the mech mercs you get.
Brutal'd be impossible. You can try it, of course, but I think normal (and perhaps hard ... I don't really see hard happening though) is hard enough.
Best of luck on the remaining missions! I think Maw of the Void will be quite doable with some careful BC/Dusk Wing/DT use. The lack of money will be a bitch though ...
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Thanks for all the support!
@bobucles, I must say you sound convincing about the PFs, but I already got the perdition turrets. This playthrough was also intended to try out some of the upgrades I didn't get in my usual playthroughs. Are you sure you can get mules from PFs in single player? I didn't know that.
@buughost: I meant gates of hell, not belly of the beast :-) thanks. I'm correcting the OP.
@pirsq: Upgrades are very useful for any units you get for free in the missions, regardless of whether mercenaries benefit. However mercs also appear to benefit both from upgrades from swan and from upgrades in the engineering bay / armory.
@all: I think most of you overestimate the difficulty of playing like this. For example, in the NUR marine only thread Maw of the Void was completed on Brutal difficulty, without any upgrades. Up until now, everything should be easily doable on Hard at least.
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On December 22 2010 22:25 shoop wrote:
Are you sure you can get mules from PFs in single player? I didn't know that.
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Nah, you can't, I'm pretty sure he was referring to the initial MULE you get before you morph the OC into a PF.
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you don't need scvs to mine minerals, you can get yourself 3-4 OCs and keep calling MULEs down.
i am now trying this on normal and it has been really fun. It adds realism to the 'Outlaw' kind of gameplay that the setting suggests.
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On December 24 2010 07:22 kunstderfugue wrote:
you don't need scvs to mine minerals, you can get yourself 3-4 OCs and keep calling MULEs down.
i am now trying this on normal and it has been really fun. It adds realism to the 'Outlaw' kind of gameplay that the setting suggests.
Yeah, I find it a lot of fun, but once you get through a couple of tough missions at the start, this is a lot easier than you'd think. I think Hard is a better difficulty level to play this at, normal is simply too forgiving. There are hardly any missions where I experience either a lack of units, or a lack of resources. I'm about ready to go to Char now.
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On December 24 2010 07:22 kunstderfugue wrote:
you don't need scvs to mine minerals, you can get yourself 3-4 OCs and keep calling MULEs down.
i am now trying this on normal and it has been really fun. It adds realism to the 'Outlaw' kind of gameplay that the setting suggests. I was using the starting one to call down mules. Besides, it isn't too difficult to keep a few OC's on the field when you're building nothing but mercs.
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Brutal NUR Marine already sounded crazy.
Brutal Merc only? I actually don't think that can be done.
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I think for a brutal merc only playthrough there are a couple of bottleneck missions that will make it very tough (mostly the outlaws and a sinister turn, but perhaps on brutal other missions suddenly turn out difficult too). But once you get through those it should be a lot easier than brutal NUR marine only.
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On December 24 2010 16:12 shoop wrote:
I think for a brutal merc only playthrough there are a couple of bottleneck missions that will make it very tough (mostly the outlaws and a sinister turn, but perhaps on brutal other missions suddenly turn out difficult too). But once you get through those it should be a lot easier than brutal NUR marine only.
I dont think all in is finishable on brutal with marine only tho. >.>
Yeah i saw the thread.
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I seriously doubt mercenaries only can beat All In on brutal. Kerrigan simply kills too many units for you to replenish with mercs, and that's not even counting the normal unit waves.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
@Phael: it MIGHT be possible. You'd be spamming Shrike Bunkers and Perdition Turrets, and using War Pigs in a bunker that's 1 building in from the periphery, hopping them back a bunker every time the one in front of them gets gibbed by Kerrigan, basically substituting bunkers for the units you can't build. This would let you preserve your mercs.
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On December 25 2010 11:16 Phael wrote:
I seriously doubt mercenaries only can beat All In on brutal. Kerrigan simply kills too many units for you to replenish with mercs, and that's not even counting the normal unit waves.
You guys are forgetting the hive mind emulator. Cheesy, I know. But All-in is not going to be the hardest mission.
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just done it in normal, was pretty easy, a lot more than i initialy tought.
gotta try hard one day, brutal seem definitly impossible.
nice chalenge, got me do the campaign once more  thanks
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I am currently doing this on hard. I believe the hardest mission was smash and grab before you got mercenaries (and the outlaws was pretty hard but doable), but clever bunker placement and baiting with units got it done. the final battle against the stone zealots is pretty easy if you build a few bunkers
the dig was surprisingly easy. planetary fortresses are quite good on this mission. with the help of the drill, you can actually beat this one with only the two starting tanks and the infantry mercs
welcome to the jungle is both a furiously hard and pretty easy mission. I avoided this one until I got orbital commands (I tried it earlier and you just do not get enough money for units, bunkers, and turrets fast enough), where I just made 4 orbitals in the beginning and built planetaries and missile turrets everywhere in addition to my merc army
a sinister turn was kind of a nail biter, but doable. I spent almost all of my money on cannons. at the beginning you can bait the zealot guarding the dark shrine into one of the cannons in your base. after that I used them to get the immortal. after I got the shield and armor upgrade, I snuck them around the top/right edge of the protoss base and rambo'd passed the last cannon guarding the three preservers. one DT died but the other survived, allowing me to complete the mission. btw, I did get the templar archives research. at the end I saved up as much minerals as I could and semi cannon rushed the (south and poorly defended side) base on the right and ran my probes by while they were distracted with the cannons and spent the rest of my money on pylons next to the archives before I finished off the last preserver and ended the mission
right now I am up to the last missions on char. I don't think the ground all in is possible, so I'm going to do it on air with hive control. the other two missions should be pretty easy. as for doing this on brutal, I don't think the whole game is possible on brutal, but a lot of the missions are definitely doable with mercs/starting units (especially after you get orbitals, lol)
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Not a lot of time to play these days, but I'll update again as soon as I can.
@MiKTeX:
Great to see other people try this! I may end up using your trick for a sinister turn, thanks.
It's interesting that smash and grab is not particularly hard on normal difficulty, but becomes very tricky on higher difficulties. Based on your experience, I'll also be sure to delay Welcome to the Jungle a little bit.
I think that ground all-in should be doable on Hard (perhaps not Brutal) with the hive mind emulator and good artifact usage: although the hive mind emulator clearly works better with air (because of brood lords), it should be possible to kill the nydus worms and build up a useful Zerg army with Mercs and mind controlled Zerg.
Since you are going to try air, I think I may go for all-in ground, just for the hell of it!
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rofl you guys are going to fail big time :D then again can you go over 200 supply with the hivemindemulator?
anyhow if you manage to beat the nydus rampage without building a single unit you are my personal heroes 2011.
gg gl hf
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damn this smash and grab in hard is a hell ^^
i don't lost units thanks to bunkers, but i'm not fast enough to destriy the golems before the zergs.
zerg behind my base keep me behind and i loose too much time
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On December 29 2010 04:57 zeross wrote:
damn this smash and grab in hard is a hell ^^
i don't lost units thanks to bunkers, but i'm not fast enough to destriy the golems before the zergs.
zerg behind my base keep me behind and i loose too much time
I agree its fucking hard, but if you managed to reach the golems without losing units, you should be able to do this in time. Since this is possibly the hardest mission of all, I've updated the OP with more specific strategy. Good luck!
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i did it again but i bought both bunkers upgrades before at the armory (range and capacity) and it became realy easy
you can shot the cannon/pillon from a good range and set better traps. with floating barracks and there you go
i managed to take all artefact and finish without loosing a single unit and still have a good amount of time left upgrade ftw !
edit : for the zerg attacking your base, i came back the first time to save the base. the second time i already had both upgrades so i just loaded scv in the cc, floated it to grab the left reliqs with scv drop, then floated it to my army. the zerg destroyed my base then came after me.
and here is the beautiful thing : i was diging in the toss base by the left side and the zerg attacked me but got hit by the protoss. then it was a zerg v protoss fight where zerg killed me 3 stalker and lured me a cannon allowing me to go trought the base pretty easly. i floated the cc to the last reliqs to scv drop it then puted the cc on the bridge to the golem arena. build 6 bunkers and killed the golmes easly
edit 2 :
well the evacuation, devil's playground and great train robbery was pretty easy as always.
outbreak was long but easy. defended with planetary frotresses during the night with bunkered units to suport and repairing scv, was a piece of cake to survive (gotta love 400+ kills PF =D)
toke me like 6 days to wipe all structures cuz i was slow and carefull
for the moment i did all the secondary objectives and got all researchs (but did not do the achievements objectives because wel... too hard :p)
i'll continue tomorow, wanna beat it
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just finished all in - the last 3 missions were pretty easy, especially if you have several pages of mutalisks on all in, lol
@op after reading your remark about doing the ground all in using hive control (as opposed to psi disruptor as most people get), i change my mind and i think its probably quite doable if you can grab enough ultralisks/roaches/etc
very fun playthrough and very rewarding once you finally complete a really tricky mission. i found out some really cool tricks that i am definitely going to use in future playthroughs
smash and grab: building bunkers vs. the stone zealots
the great train robbery: building bunkers/planetary fortresses in the path of the train (planetaries vs. the last train is ooolllololol)
a sinister turn: sneaking DTs by the cannons (not sure about this but i bet you could probably do this mission REALLY fast with this strategy)
safe haven: building missile turrets vs. the terror fleets (they dont attack the turrets until they reach their destination so they are really powerful)
welcome to the jungle: building bunkers/turrets before getting terrazine
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You should post replays or videos of your playthrough as doing campaign without producing anything is an amazing idea, many people make a big deal of doing campaign using only marines but this is wayyy hardcore than that.
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I don't think you can record replays of 1p missions, and sorry but I'm not going to bother recording videos, if only because I reload quite a bit. Just take my word for it - it's fun, and not as hard as you may think. Campaign with only marines and no upgrades is way harder than this, especially if you do it on brutal :-8
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Is it possible to do this for All In on Hard? That would be amazing. If it is possible on Brutal it would be even more amazing.
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All i can say is GL in "All in"
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MiKTeX already did All-in air on hard, according to him all-in air is certainly quite doable. We'll see about all-in ground...
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all in
hire some devil dogs mercs and shove them in the bunkers, have scvs set to auto repair next to them, have the fully upgraded siege tank mercs on the cliff, and the hive mind emulator getting you extra units.
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On January 07 2011 10:01 Alekh47 wrote:
all in
hire some devil dogs mercs and shove them in the bunkers, have scvs set to auto repair next to them, have the fully upgraded siege tank mercs on the cliff, and the hive mind emulator getting you extra units.
The way you put it, it sounds like a walk in the park :-) problem is, by the later stages your scvs will begin to die and you can't really replenish them; if a bunker falls and you don't save the marines they can't be replaced since hydralisks can't be put in bunkers. Also Kerrigan will use her one-shot kill ability on your irreplacable tanks and BCs. I just completed all-in ground, and it was by no means easy.
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That's an insane challenge... kudos for actually being able to do that, and on Hard!
I'm assuming this doesn't count the protoss mission where you fend off the dark voice forever and ever
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Just spent a few hours doing it all the way through on normal. Much easier than it sounds, I was playing in bed with pretty much one hand. I'd wager it probably possible to do it on Brutal.
The hardest aspect of the entire process is the inability to build SCVs. Many missions, particularly early on, only give you 4 scvs, which means you have to pick and choose which mercs to go for.
Once you have unlocked most of the mercs, there's little real difference between this and a normal run aside from the SCVs. With so few SCVs, you're using up all your money on mercs... which are in general more cost efficent than normal units, so the ability to build mercs is actually something of an advantage. You wouldn't be able to build units, even if you could.
Contrary to what you might initially think, the challenge gets much easier as you go on. Once you have orbital command, automated refineries and the upgrade that increases the rate of gas collection, your SCV problem is greatly diminished. The hive mind emulator makes char a cakewalk, on Normal. Especially all-in: For the first time in the entire campaign, you have a butt tonne of money, and nothing to spend it on but planetary fortresses and hive mind emulator. Kerrigan dies real quick to 15 control groups of mutas. Its probably harder, but still eminently doable, on the ground version.
I'm not entirely sure why people consider Maw of the Void to be a nightmare: the three BCs at the beginning are plenty enough to get the first rip generator and the southmost rip generator. The initial group of DTs are enough to take out the 2nd rip generator. Thats all you need to do : vikings and turrets kill the mothership and cloaked banshees are then pretty much free to blast apart the vault.
Supernova and Welcome to the Jungle were probably the hardest missions. The former because the time limit restricts the number of mercs you can pump out, the latter because its early in the game and it only gives you 4 or 5 scvs. Which is really irritating when you need to send one of them out to get the gas canisters.
If I were to try it on brutal, planning out mission order would be critical: You need to get to 15 protoss research ASAP for the refinery upgrades. I suspect the hardest part of the entire run, aside from Supernova, will be the first 2 missions you choose after Mar Sara.
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@aimlessamoeba: in the protoss missions, I built no units at all. This means I had to beat "a sinister turn" with only an immortal, two DTs, and some probes. But you can just run through the enemy base and keep one or both DTs alive; among the preservers the protoss have no detection.
@BlueSorc: I completely agree, but I found that the difficulty ramps up dramatically from normal to hard. It's still quite doable on hard, but much more challenging. I think some of the early missions are going to be extremely hard on brutal, mostly The Outlaws and Smash and Grab. You might also have to drop A Sinister Turn and In Utter Darkness. Since MiKTeX also said he had a hard time with Welcome to the Jungle I delayed it a bit, so I had more mercs and more research/upgrades. That way it was not that hard at all. So it is crucial to do missions in order from easy to hard.
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After running through this challenge on Nomal, I'm attempting this on Brutal. Thus far, I am getting absolutely brutalized on The Outlaws. It's basically 10 Marines and 3 Medics versus waves of 1-1 Marines, Warpigs, Medics and 2-2 Hellions (which basically obliberate SCV meatshields). I floated my CC with an SCV to rescue the rebels (and more importantly, the medics), then ran them back to my base. Now I'm VEEEEEEERY slowly gaining ground with a lot of barracks, using them to create artifical chokepoints and death traps. I've gotten back to where the rebel base was, but I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to assault the Dominion base.
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Just had a bash Outlaws on Brutal myself. Clever use of barracks chokepoints allow you to take on the hellions and waves of M&M. If you land a barracks next to the siege tank, it will unsiege, so I assume its possible to find a way to deal with it.
The thing I can't find a way to deal with is the bunker. I slowly wore it down, darting in and out, 5 HP at a time... unfortunately the AI is smart enough to send SCVs to repair, eventually. Needs a clever idea to get past or 1000 useful apm to correctly juggle marines. in and out of range.
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Land a good amount of Barracks behind the bunker. That prevents the SCVs from reaching the bunker and gives you time to retreat to your previous barracks wall when the other units come to reinforce.
EDIT: So a wave of Hellions + M&M attack right as you "pass" the bunker. I recommend saccing a barracks over the bunker to provoke the units, dealing with the ball at your previous chokepoint, then going after the bunker.
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It would be great if you guys got past this... although I'm afraid Smash and Grab on brutal will be even more impossible. It took quite a lot of effort on Hard. After that, it may even be doable, especially if you drop sinister turn and further protoss missions.
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i imagine the train mission on brutal would be really hard as well (the fast trains are protected by blue flame hellions)
i can see a lot of missions getting done on brutal, but some of them i really just dont see how you can do it (like smash and grab)
if someone proves me wrong and can do it on brutal then i am seriously impressed
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What's NUR Marine stand for?
Also, this sounds like fun
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Anyone managed to do havens fall with only mercianeries
Edit: I can just prevent the things being taken but just dont have enough units to attack the bases, felt like i got a little close, built up enough to protect a settlement and then had a few tanks and tank/ bunker hopped up to the top zerg base, managed to take it out but then a settlement at the bottom got taken over and with so few units got overwhelmed.
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Didn't do haven's fall, may be more difficult than saving it. In haven's fall it's crucial that you attack bases quickly once they're threatened, so if you can't get units out fast enough it may be very difficult compared to safe haven, although there you're also under time pressure.
One tip may be to delay this mission until you have all relevant upgrades and armory research. The OC, planetary fortress and regenerative bio-steel come to mind, as well as bunker upgrades, and firebat and marine upgrades. All together it really makes a huge difference. Perhaps you can preserve your units by building PFs and turrets near the villages and then drawing enemy units into the PF fire. Use MULEs if you have to do repairs.
I'm just guessing here though, let me know if you manage to beat this!
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EPT
