StarJeweled Insane Mode

On April 06 2011 08:18 IamaGrapeMan wrote:
^ i don't think you've played insane ai and are just bullshitting

i've played it a lot and matched jewels at really fast speed
my conclusion is that you gotta be really lucky, or that it's impossible

On April 06 2011 07:36 leungwk01 wrote:
It's quite simple if you can match quickly at the game because the AI just spam units and doesn't use any spells.
Only spell you really need to use is storm and warp cell.
Building tanks + hydras/ghost and storming like crazy usually does the trick.

On April 06 2011 14:27 stevetorious wrote:
Did you two just strictly use tanks/hydra/ghosts without the use of storm?

On April 07 2011 01:27 ReketSomething wrote:
Darn it im finding it extremely fun to 1v2 people and have them call me a cheater...

=/

its all about mass tanks!

On April 07 2011 01:27 ReketSomething wrote:
Darn it im finding it extremely fun to 1v2 people and have them call me a cheater...

=/

its all about mass tanks!

On April 06 2011 09:43 leungwk01 wrote:

Can you elaborate on the bs part?
Just kinda curious.

Edit: Just tried it again and seems relatively easy if you can match quickly like I said. Not sure what you think is wrong...

On April 07 2011 12:51 Cofo wrote:
Maybe I just suck really bad at bejeweled, but I can't beat this for the life of me. Not even on Very Hard.

On April 07 2011 20:34 LaiShin wrote:
Ignore the medium AI and add another. They're there as some sort of fodder or to execute some commands.

On April 07 2011 22:18 Sanguinarius wrote:
My problem is I just cant make the matches fast enough. I work at the speed of a medium AI :-(

On April 07 2011 22:29 Canola wrote:


Don't worry about matching the AI for energy (well, maybe med/hard you should beat in that), idk if it's bloody possible to match very hard/insane in terms of energy you just have to count on them spamming units and not using skills.

That being said, if you spam your jewels hard enough you can start a move before the previous move is done. It can mess with your combos but it'll allow you to get matches fast. Don't watch the jewels do their animation, as pretty as it is, start looking for the next move as soon as you're done clicking.

Also don't spam too hard make sure it's an actual move because clicking a wrong move slows you down a lot.

It's all about APM still!

On April 08 2011 01:40 TehForce wrote:
insane is pretty easy once you are so good that you generate the same amount of marines as the AI. then just build the right counter units to his and you are good to go.

On April 08 2011 03:16 Cofo wrote:
Question: If you beat insane, do you also get the achievements for everything below it?

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.

On April 08 2011 07:56 Dis(ease) wrote:


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).

On April 08 2011 11:10 Zeon0 wrote:
i just did it again (no i have a 2/4 record vs insane AI^^): http://666kb.com/i/bsgaukse23xnic5jc.jpg

i did only match gems and spam R for tanks. No spells or other units: http://666kb.com/i/bsgavm3f6bov6szk8.jpg


so, get faster and stomp the AI^^

On April 08 2011 17:51 FeiLing wrote:

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.

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.

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!

On April 11 2011 01:32 Sanguinarius wrote:
So frustrating, I will get 6-8 tank and then just a massive dry spell and the comp pushes back, its so frustrating.

Pretty much what I feel is that i just need to get a lucky string after the first 3 tanks to get to 6 tanks and some hydras. Its just all luck.

On April 11 2011 01:08 WellDuh wrote:
This is bullshit. Absolute total fucking bullshit. Played like 50 games. Tried spamming all kinds of units. Tried with all kinds of combos. Tried countering every unit the AI sends. Failed all the time. Even when I was hard countering him like fuck. This brainless piece of shit that Blizzard call "AI" played whole game long roaches vs my mutas and still won. WTF?!?! I understand that someone at Blizzard is too friggin clueless about creating an AI that can actually PLAY THE MOTHAFUCKING GAME, but still, I'm done wasting my time on this piece of broken shit. You have to be unbelievably lucky to win, and that by my book is NOT an achievement but a total waste of time.

On April 11 2011 08:26 Omnipresent wrote:


Just imagine if it was smart, in addition to being fast. It sounds like your complaint is that the computer is too good. If you can't beat it based on skill alone, it must be broken...

I'm absolutely terrible at Starjeweled. I've played it with random people, and I'm usually the lowest scoring player out of the 4 (sometimes by a large margin). In most attempts, my score was much less than half the AI's score. Hell, I struggled with the medium AI (without this tank strategy). Beating the insane AI is doable even for me. There is an element of luck in this game no matter whether you're playing against the AI or a real person. My largest combo in my winning game was 4. There isn't all that much luck involved.


The people here are right. You need a really good starting board and 6-8 tanks very quickly. Even in games where I reached that number (and timed it well with my cannons), I sometimes found myself losing to a group of really fast banshees or mutas. On at least one occasion, I pushed the AI all the way back to it's cannons and then hit a dry spell for a good 30 seconds (using several boards). If you're struggling with this achievement, don't get discouraged.

As a side note, I had much better luck with ghosts than hydras. The AI sends out so many bio units. It's nice to have the ghosts take them out quickly so your marines don't die. Your marines can then help with any incoming air. In other words, ghosts help you keep your units up so you have a larger buffer and more anti-air overall.

On April 11 2011 14:19 hassook wrote:
the only achievement i am missing now is the 6 streak (heart of the swarm) or what ever..i dont know if this is an achievable achievement lol

good luck everyone.

On April 13 2011 07:27 RahTL wrote:
44 Attempts and I finally got it... very much based on luck hah

On April 13 2011 16:37 HaXXspetten wrote:


...or just make tanks...

Wonder if that'll work for too long though. It's quite clear that they are REALLY overpowered here...

On April 13 2011 19:19 Koshi wrote:

Abusable against AI maybe. Doesn't work at all against human players.

On April 16 2011 03:14 Firkraag8 wrote:
I've done like 50 starjeweled vs insane now back to back with the 8 tanks then ghosts strategy but i lose every damn time, and it's starting to piss me off. Am I just unlucky, or too old and slow for these kinda games? :/

On April 07 2011 09:28 random user wrote:
I did pure tanks with storm and maybe a warp cell.

I'm not that good but I found the variance quite high. I would often get demolished within a couple minutes, but the time I beat it I crushed.

So I guess I'm saying is sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, and sometimes the board just loves you.

On April 17 2011 03:36 Vi)Chris wrote:
Is anyone having a problem where they can't change the AI difficulty from medium? I can't remove them from the game either. I can add AI to the game but one on each team is always stuck their and on medium...

On April 16 2011 19:43 lifecanwait wrote:
1. Always try to assemble three jewels AT THE BOTTOM of the screen, because as a consequence the proximity that three other ones will simultanously come together by chance at the top will slightly increase as well.
In contast: Assume that you match three jewels at the top row only. Then probably not much will change, i.e. only at the top row there will be any change at all, and three same coloured, falling jewels next to each other are very rare.

On April 17 2011 07:58 Bobo_XIII wrote:
Going to have to disagree with you on that. You rely too much on random chance when you can train yourself in just a few games to string together combos and minimize delay in between matches.

The best approach is to work from the top down, because if you do it from the bottom up and don't end up with a random string of combos, you have an entire new section of the board that you have to rescan.

Alternately, if you work from top to bottom, you can match three together and immediately scan for another. You eventually get good enough after enough games (and it takes a lot to beat insane) to where you match one and immediately can match another in a split second.

Attaining that certain level of speed is a quicker way than to rely on chance to get you this achievement

On April 16 2011 03:14 Firkraag8 wrote:
I've done like 50 starjeweled vs insane now back to back with the 8 tanks then ghosts strategy but i lose every damn time, and it's starting to piss me off. Am I just unlucky, or too old and slow for these kinda games? :/

On April 19 2011 02:37 Defilie wrote:
Gee, i can't get it... i'm dying with like 3600 comparing to ai's 7100. Am i that bad or what? Cause i did like 10 tries and it is all the same.

Already not looking at the fight and concentrating hardly but still there are holes in my performance where I look at the board for like 5 seconds and not finding anything.

still there are holes in my performance where I look at the board for like 5 seconds

Am i that bad or what?

try not to feel like you suck.

On April 18 2011 09:02 ThorIsHere wrote:
I registered an account here just to let you guys know how I beat this, because I too found it incredibly frustrating losing 25 games in a row and could only ever get 50% of the Insane AI's energy.

1) Turn off your sound! This was night and day to me. Hearing all the combos and the sound of the battle raises my blood pressure and causes me to lose focus on matching. So just turn it off, it's not necessary.
2) Start by saving up nearly 1000 energy, wait for the AI to get fairly close to your front cannons or start attacking them, then create 3 tanks.
3) Concentrate on matching. Never look away. Never look at the battle. Hit R every once in awhile to maybe create a tank, whether you have the energy saved up or not, because glancing at your actual energy level is not worth the distraction from matching.
4) Jump back and forth between the left side of the jewel grid and the right side to find matches faster.
5) Always prefer to make horizontal matches, they have much better chances of making combos.
6) Prefer matches near the bottom of the grid, but don't be afraid to glance at the top of the grid.
7) If you don't find any matches in 3 seconds, press Z (reset the board), it's not the end of the world and new boards often have big combos lined up.
8) Occasionally (very rarely) look at your tank line. If you see 8, time to switch to ghosts (S key). Just hit the S key instead of R from now on.
9) If you ever see that one of your tanks has died, quit and start a new game. Momentum is not in your favor, there is no point trying to recover. Since this is based so much on luck, it's faster and better for your mental health to just accept the loss, quit, and start fresh.
10) I repeat, DO NOT WATCH THE BATTLE, and do not cast spells, it is just not worth the distraction from matching! Each marine you pump out from a match is more important than any tactical choice you might make or spell you might cast when looking at the battle.

That's it. I won decisively in 3:13 after getting utterly steamrolled 25 times. It's really just a matter of matching quickly and getting lucky enough with enemy unit compositions and positions to not lose your tanks. You do NOT need to use ANY spells, I certainly did not and I steamrolled the AI on my 2nd try with the sound off. Like I said, I would always get 50% energy of what the AI got, but in the game I won, I had 5460 energy to the AI's 7380, which was a very good ratio for me, and turning off the sound really helped boost my matching productivity.

I won without any high combo, I just had a steady stream of matches, so don't feel like you HAVE to get "for the swarm" to win (though it certainly won't hurt).

On April 23 2011 08:32 Vei wrote:
god this shit is so fucking hard
ultras spawn and my tanks focus marines

On April 23 2011 09:13 Gorvin wrote:


Cast a Warp Cell (the stun spell) on the Ultralisks just before they get within melee range and they will get focused down without doing any damage to you.

On April 23 2011 07:44 Shado. wrote:
I think they just updated this game and it feels like it's super easy on insane now?

On April 24 2011 10:53 forgotten0ne wrote:
Since there's no better thread to post this, I guess I'll post it here.




18 combo :DDD

On April 25 2011 06:39 Bunnypanda wrote:
Oh and also, the most important thing i changed in my game play, i did horizontal first and only vertical once they were gone (unless it was super obvious or 4+). Before i used to do whatever came up first, but after i started to really hunt out horizontals my combos improved so much, the ease of thinking a few steps ahead became more natural etc. Best advice i took from this, Thanks Thor!

On April 26 2011 01:49 forgotten0ne wrote:


Not only this, but start from the bottom.

If you guys want to become bejeweled experts by default, and develop a really unique "pattern recognition" skill, find a book that prepares you for a Mechanical Aptitutde Test. There's a section on hidden shapes in a "picture" that's just a clusterfuck of lines. These are used to test military navigators and such, but with some practice on these, Bejeweled becomes CAKE.

On April 24 2011 13:32 kazalfarah wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqPDfUw4U60

8 minute game of me vs insane, using mostly mutas

On April 24 2011 23:50 Swampsteel wrote:
Rayven, make sure you're creating a game in multiplayer and then adding AI

10 tries to beat insane, last try new strategy

i made one ultra and a bunch of hydras at 1000 energy. Then I healed the ultra all the way to the end.

It works!!!

On April 29 2011 01:42 maraxus wrote:
What I found out and that people in the thread have already mentioned:

Keeping matching is very important.
Combos really help.
Paying attention to battle micro messes with matching.

So based on that I needed a strat that let me focus on the board and let the micro handle itself. I modified the roach/hydra spam strat from this thread to automatically deal with crowd control. I found that marines would always overwhelm me and storming would totally break my concentration from the board. So I added collos at the beginning and so far it has worked twice once for me and once for my friend, in about 5 tries.

So in essence:

-While focusing 100% on matching.
-Save 1000, build two collos(hotkey: T).
-Immediately and alternately(press A, W, A, W, A, W, etc, etc) spam roach/hydra.

Never look at the battle or get distracted with the micro of the battle, do not even scroll up, focus 100% on the board, the roaches are acting as meatshields, the collos are dealing with crowd control and hydras are dealing with air, you have to keep reinforcing the front lines to protect your collos. If you wanna see if you are making progress watch the AI's base health bar, if it is not reducing after a while your collos might be dead, you might wanna try making a few more/try again/try another strat.

GL

And here are 2 replays:


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27591480/sc2/StarJeweled Insane colo hydra roach.rar

On April 29 2011 01:42 maraxus wrote:
What I found out and that people in the thread have already mentioned:

Keeping matching is very important.
Combos really help.
Paying attention to battle micro messes with matching.

So based on that I needed a strat that let me focus on the board and let the micro handle itself. I modified the roach/hydra spam strat from this thread to automatically deal with crowd control. I found that marines would always overwhelm me and storming would totally break my concentration from the board. So I added collos at the beginning and so far it has worked twice once for me and once for my friend, in about 5 tries.

So in essence:

-While focusing 100% on matching.
-Save 1000, build two collos(hotkey: T).
-Immediately and alternately(press A, W, A, W, A, W, etc, etc) spam roach/hydra.

Never look at the battle or get distracted with the micro of the battle, do not even scroll up, focus 100% on the board, the roaches are acting as meatshields, the collos are dealing with crowd control and hydras are dealing with air, you have to keep reinforcing the front lines to protect your collos. If you wanna see if you are making progress watch the AI's base health bar, if it is not reducing after a while your collos might be dead, you might wanna try making a few more/try again/try another strat.

GL

And here are 2 replays:


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27591480/sc2/StarJeweled Insane colo hydra roach.rar

On April 29 2011 01:42 maraxus wrote:
What I found out and that people in the thread have already mentioned:

Keeping matching is very important.
Combos really help.
Paying attention to battle micro messes with matching.

So based on that I needed a strat that let me focus on the board and let the micro handle itself. I modified the roach/hydra spam strat from this thread to automatically deal with crowd control. I found that marines would always overwhelm me and storming would totally break my concentration from the board. So I added collos at the beginning and so far it has worked twice once for me and once for my friend, in about 5 tries.

So in essence:

-While focusing 100% on matching.
-Save 1000, build two collos(hotkey: T).
-Immediately and alternately(press A, W, A, W, A, W, etc, etc) spam roach/hydra.

Never look at the battle or get distracted with the micro of the battle, do not even scroll up, focus 100% on the board, the roaches are acting as meatshields, the collos are dealing with crowd control and hydras are dealing with air, you have to keep reinforcing the front lines to protect your collos. If you wanna see if you are making progress watch the AI's base health bar, if it is not reducing after a while your collos might be dead, you might wanna try making a few more/try again/try another strat.

GL

And here are 2 replays:


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27591480/sc2/StarJeweled Insane colo hydra roach.rar

On May 11 2011 09:55 aseq wrote:
This was frustrating to me, as I thought I was decent at Bejeweled but couldn't get this. Turns out a lot of it is 'luck'. Your cannons buffering is huge, but so are his random spawns. The first time, and probably easiest time, I beat this was with muta only. Tank/hydra was the second.

Muta are only countered by 2 AI spawns: hydra and ghost. As long as you manage to storm both of those consistently, your mutas should be able to take out the rest. So save 250 energy for those waves. Enemy muta only come in small numbers.Took a while, at the end I had 36k and he had 40k but at least the build was not so random as with the others. GL!

On May 16 2011 09:12 IamaGrapeMan wrote:


they aren't random spawns, they are produced to some degree according to what best counters what units your producing. and the luck involved in starjeweled isn't significant here, as i know someone who can beat insane ai 9/10 times and i can beat it 50% of the time; and i'm just now on a streak of beating it 4 out of 5 times.

On April 06 2011 08:18 IamaGrapeMan wrote:
^ i don't think you've played insane ai and are just bullshitting

i've played it a lot and matched jewels at really fast speed
my conclusion is that you gotta be really lucky, or that it's impossible

On May 17 2011 03:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:


I'm calling BS on this post lol... 90% and 50%? No way, this is so hugely dependent on luck it's not even funny. I don't care how good you are at this game, if you don't score some lucky combos or if the computer doesn't spam the right composition, you are done.

It's funny you are saying it's so easy since your first post in the thread was this:





Anyways, I finally beat insane today using tank/ghost after about 10 tries lol... I got lucky with a "for the swarm" and a few other combos. You gotta focus on the bottom for matching, and switch from left to right so you don't have to wait for blocks to drop. Others have said this as well.

On May 17 2011 03:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:
I'm calling BS on this post lol... 90% and 50%? No way, this is so hugely dependent on luck it's not even funny. I don't care how good you are at this game, if you don't score some lucky combos or if the computer doesn't spam the right composition, you are done.

On May 17 2011 06:49 Khenra wrote:
One little tip for those who haven't yet managed to get this achievement (myself included): if for a moment you don't see any moves, you can pause the game and study the board. Might help out a bit in crisis situations!

Currently, I can't even beat the Very Hard AI. I just play a few games every day, hoping to improve my skill in Bejeweled and maybe get lucky.

On May 17 2011 03:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:


I'm calling BS on this post lol... 90% and 50%? No way, this is so hugely dependent on luck it's not even funny. I don't care how good you are at this game, if you don't score some lucky combos or if the computer doesn't spam the right composition, you are done.

It's funny you are saying it's so easy since your first post in the thread was this:





Anyways, I finally beat insane today using tank/ghost after about 10 tries lol... I got lucky with a "for the swarm" and a few other combos. You gotta focus on the bottom for matching, and switch from left to right so you don't have to wait for blocks to drop. Others have said this as well.

okay wow didn't notice they released a new version of it yesterday
the beta version's insane comp was impossible to beat
just played the new version's insane and i agree with u; it's really easy.

On May 18 2011 00:29 DerZerfetzer wrote:
I was actually amazed that i had 3 ultralisks instead of 2 when i pressed it it was in a combo!

On May 18 2011 19:38 reapsen wrote:
Thanks for the nice hints LordK, but you can't compare playing humans with playing the insane AI. Because the AI never uses any spells at all. So you don't need to worry about getting your colossus/ultra neutralized and non of your tanks will get stormed.

So what would you do against AI that uses no spells?

On May 20 2011 23:58 DarkCount wrote:
how does u guys have such a fast matching ? to me it takes some time to fiind who with who match in what mode. i want only the achivement.