On April 08 2011 04:46 KoalaZerg wrote: Tried the 6 tanks then mass hydra strategy vs the insane, and it worked rather well. Thanks for the advice It seems as though you need to get a tad lucky in the beginning so that you can quickly get 6 tanks, and then just mass hydras. Seemed to snowball from there once I could get the 6 tanks out early.
This worked for me too, but i needed 50 tries. This is very luck dependent, with the combos and enemy counters (Energy was 8000me/9000AI).
I just finished it (finally!) and I totally agree with this. I would get absolutely crushed 30 times in a row. It wasn't even close. But then I randomly got an awesome run right off the bat and rolled over the computer.
oO Yesterday I was stomped about 30 times, today it worked after the 2nd game. Never gonna touch the map ever again now :D
Tip: You really need to quickly put the gems together - that means the next one must have been done before the animation for the first has completed - fully concentrate on this and try to get better. Otherwise the AI will just roflstomp your handful of marines with his 9001 marines. You'll probably win as soon as you get lucky in that process and score a few random "excellent" and "hardcore" etc.
Tanks are the obvious choice, since they outrange canons and of course everything else - when you got 6-8 tanks on the field which killed everything of the initial AI force while being protected by your own canons and the stream of marines they'll start marching and be unstoppable, as long as your marines keep coming (put them gems together!) plus some reinforcements in form of hydras (any unit type actually is fine, but they have good dps, block well enough and demolish air).
i didn't have as much luck (highest chain was a 5 compared to your 7) but i managed to do it by massing tanks, then supporting them with hydras to deal with banshees and using lockdown on colossi. my numbers: game time: 3:13 gems cleared: 371 longest chain: 5 total energy: 5760 -AI total energy: 7590 units summoned: 34 spells cast: 3
Tip: You really need to quickly put the gems together - that means the next one must have been done before the animation for the first has completed - fully concentrate on this and try to get better. Otherwise the AI will just roflstomp your handful of marines with his 9001 marines. You'll probably win as soon as you get lucky in that process and score a few random "excellent" and "hardcore" etc.
this is also very good advice. i like trying to open with with 2 horizontal clears on the bottom rows near the middle. then i just play bottom to top, focusing on horizontal clears. if you can get 900 energy to build 3 tanks, and immediately get some lucky chains to build 3 more tanks, you're in great shape.
After almost 90 attempts I finally got the win against the Insane AI. I saw a link to a youtube video (I think it was another thread here?) that shows you just how to do it. linky
My game played out just like the video... you definitely have to get lucky early, hit a critical mass of tanks, and then hope the jewels don't screw you by falling in a pattern with no matches.
The AI actually doesn't make all that many special units, it's really the huge swarm of marines that is the problem. My biggest mistake for the first 60 tries was assuming that the colossus is the "ultimate anti-light fighter" as its description says. It simply doesn't kill fast enough, plus tank/colo leaves you vulnerable to air.
I had tried mutas but you get too few and they die too fast... hydras work ok and you can probably win with them. But the key for me was switching to ghosts. I think if you could actually click on units and see all of their stats and abilities it would be a lot more obvious as to what to use. Ghosts seem to have significantly more hp than hydras, they do more damage than hydras vs light units, and they spam snipe constantly and I mean constantly. Much like in the real game, hydras aren't worth using.
On April 08 2011 03:37 Tschis wrote: Aff I tried playing starjeweled today, and I got owned by AI Hard.
I'm not even that bad at Bejeweled, it's just that I don't really know how it works I guess. My maximum mana is 1k? Always? I think I'm so focused on spending the mana as soon as I can that I sometimes let go of the jewels. I also don't know which units to make, sometimes I just have to waste my mana on Storms to kill the enemy marines, so I don't even have any mana left for summons.
Yeah, it takes a little practice to learn how to spend your energy correctly. Yes your maximum is always 1000. Being good at the puzzle part of the game is much, much more important than being good at the combat part of the game... in fact that's just like real SC2, where getting a strong economy and spending your money is more important than micro.
Just build up a lot of energy and occasionally look for the best way to spend it. Opponent just dumped all his money into several banshees? Psi storm them. Opponent saved up and sent two ultras at you? Switch to air units and kill them for free, or use warpcell to freeze them. Playing 2v2 and your teammate just sent out two ultras? Save up some energy and use healing wave to keep them alive as long as possible.
But mostly important, just kick ass at the puzzle part and get that energy spent, that's 90% of the game. 10% of it is whether you spent your energy wisely or not.
First save up energy to get 3 tanks at ones so they don't get ahead of the cannons and get "wasted" then spam R (tank) till you have about 7, then spam S (ghost) and concentrate 100% about matching
I just managed this today - Honestly I just got a decent board. My energy was 4800 compared to the insane computers 9800 at the end but I rocked him. I wont lie, it took me like 30-40 tries but when I did it it was easy. You just need the momentum at the start from 3-4 tanks (good early board is a must) and from there just a good constant stream of matches to support tank smashing with marines.
1- Just smash R (for tanks) 2- get a good consistent stream of matches on the board 3- win
My longest streak was only 3. =)
Like everyone else says though I think early tanks are a big backbone to this but I bet you could get by spamming just about anything as long as you keep your matching going and just spam a good ranged unit.
Mass Mutas is also a very good way to win fast if you can almost keep up with the insane AI. I've already posted this in the other thread but here is a replay of winning in 4 minutes with only mutas.
I just beat it on insane after about 20 or so tries. I did the same strat as the others: Tanks and ghosts. The common denominator I see here among all of us who won, is to get a lucky start. My game and all of the others, we had 3 tanks by the 30 sec mark, and 6 tanks by the 1 min mark. Once you get to that point, just spam ghosts and replace any tanks you lose. I never used a single spell!
/edit: I've uploaded the replay here: [url blocked]
Anyone struggling with Hard mode and wondering "how the fuck am I ever gonna beat insane".. well, I can tell you it WILL happen if you keep practicing.
I must of had about 20 tries just to beat it in Medium.. From then on, it took me about 20 tries to beat Hard, another 20 tries to beat Very Hard, then at least 50 times to beat Insane.. but I FINALLY did it!
To be insane, it definitely takes a really lucky starting board, and some good luck in unit positioning/puzzle solving.. But the more you try, the faster you get (near the end I was actually doing half decent) and just keep trying..
So all in all, about 4-5 hours probably til I got it, but its insane how I struggled so bad just to beat Medium, to beating Insane, a task I thought would literally be impossible after seeing how bad I was doing vs medium.
On April 09 2011 07:52 Geomorph wrote: I just beat it on insane after about 20 or so tries. I did the same strat as the others: Tanks and ghosts. The common denominator I see here among all of us who won, is to get a lucky start. My game and all of the others, we had 3 tanks by the 30 sec mark, and 6 tanks by the 1 min mark. Once you get to that point, just spam ghosts and replace any tanks you lose. I never used a single spell!
/edit: I've uploaded the replay here: [url blocked]
knock yourself out!
Dunno... If you're fast enough you could pretty much mass ANY unit and beat it.
Massed Tanks and use warp cell to stop collys before critical mass of tanks and stormed a few times when they made roaches before i had enough tanks keep trying to play it. imo its 90 percent luck.
any technique for getting faster @ matching or just practice til you're blue in the face? I'm total dogshit @ these types of games so this one might take me a while : ()
EPT
It seems as though you need to get a tad lucky in the beginning so that you can quickly get 6 tanks, and then just mass hydras. Seemed to snowball from there once I could get the 6 tanks out early.
