Deadlock

Deadlock

Hints,  Cheats  and  Tips Submitted by: kumayl  hassan  E-mail:
goldiman2002@yahoo.com

Contents
---------
1. Introduction
2. How you start the game is critical
3. Developing Resources and Technologies - Time is of
   the Essence
4. My favorite Attack Strategy - so far this has
   worked every time
5. When all else fails, Cheat!

1. Introduction
I am an avid WarCraft and Command and Conquer player.
I  have  never  played Sim City, Civilization or  other  empire
Building games. I really like Deadlock. I have been playing it
for  about  a  week now and thought I would share some  of  the
things  that  I  have learned. It is pretty easy  to  beat  the
computer, though each game takes a long time, just by  using  a
few techniques. Iam sure there are others and if you have some,
please  feel free to share them with me. Who knows?  There  may
even be some cheat codes or something that Accolade hasn't told
us about yet.
I  should  tell  you  that my approach to winning  Deadlock  is
always  to  destroy all of the enemy forces.  You  can  win  by
building the most City Centers first, but I am a war gamer  and
I play Deadlock to win by destroying the enemy, one by one. The
strategies presented herein are employed with this in mind.
In  the  beginning  I lost most of my games  because  I  wasn't
familiar with the paths to upgrading my technologies. I  wasn't
even familiar with what the technologies could do, and honestly
I  have been playing as a human mostly and am not familiar with
the  special  abilities of all the races. Once I  was  familiar
with the technology pathways, I learned that it is  fairly easy
to win if I just got off on the right foot.

2.  How  you  start the game is critical First and foremost  is
where I start building my first settlement.
In  a game against 2 or more computer opponents, it is going to
be  a  lot harder to win if I have to take them both on at  the
same  time. I have learned that if I situate myself so  that  I
only  have to deal with one of them at a time, it increases  my
chances of winning greatly. I usually pick a corner of the  map
where there will only be one computer opponent to deal with  at
first. Once I have defeated him, I can move on to the next one.
The  other   advantage of this technique is that sometimes  the
other  or  more computer opponents will get into fighting  each
other and leave me virtually alone while I build up my forces.
Having  some  time  at  the beginning is  important  since  the
computer opponents start out with more guys than we do.  I  try
to leave some distance between me and my enemy's settlements so
that  I  can  prepare a defense before they  attack.  The  more
spaces between you and them, the more time you have before they
are close enough to attack you.
The  AI  seems to know if I have a weak defense and  will  come
into my settlement and attack early in the game if that is  the
case.
Remember  that before you build a factory, Colonizers  are  the
best  defensive unit you have. I try to have a couple  of  them
patroling  critical settlements until I can build  other  units
and defensive weapons.

3.  Developing  Resources and Technologies -  Time  is  of  the
Essence  Once I have started a game in the right way  and  have
some  time to develop resource I make it a priority  to  get  a
good supply of the basics right away. I don't do much offensive
planning until later. You really need higher technologies and a
lot  of  resources  to wage war.  I usually  go  for  Synthetic
Fertilizer then Molecular Bonding and Nuclear Fusion  first.  I
inspect  each  square  before I build a Farm,  Power  Plant  or
Surface  Mine  to  make sure I get the most resources  possible
from that square or group of squares. I will sometimes colonize
an area that is several sectors away from me just so I can take
advantage of better sources of Food, Wood, Iron, etc. Before  I
colonize  any area, I inspect as many areas as I can  to  check
their  resources  and  to look for Shrines  that  contain  free
technologies.  Even if they may be several (as  many  as  five)
areas  away, I will usually opt to go for an area  that  has  a
Shrine.
Getting  a  free technology right in the beginning, along  with
the  ability  to immediate begin researching other technologies
is  a  real boon early on in the game and well worth the  risks
involved in creating a settlement somewhat distant to your City
Center.

4. My favorite Attack Strategy - so far this has worked every
time  As  the enemy begins to move closer to my City Center,  I
also  build new colonies closer to him, trying to end  up  with
one  colony that is two areas distant to him. This colony  will
be  my  offensive/defensive front. Hopefully, I can engage  the
enemy from that colony and he will not attack me anywhere else.
Here  I build a strong defense with Laser Defense at first  and
my First research for weapons is Rocketry. Once I have Rocketry
I build for silos for lauching rockets. I also build four more
silos on an adjacent colony so that I can launch 8 missles at
once if I choose. Each colony can launch a maximum of 4 rockets
at once. Each Scatterpack missle costs $100 and 25 tons of iron
so  you  have to have a good income of both money and  iron  to
employ   this.  But I love this strategy because  it  basically
incapacitates the enemy until you go in and take him out.
I  start with 4 missles each turn, targeting the nearest colony
ofthe enemy and build up to 8 missles each turn, hammering away
at the same colony over and over. This keeps him busy repairing
his  colony which costs him resources and usually consumes  all
of  his  attention. Usually he will not attack back, unless  he
too  gets missles, in which case I speed up my attack strategy.
I  hate  missles coming at me. By this point in  the  game  the
opponent   usually   has  Energy  Deflectors   and   AntiMatter
Deflectors.  However, the missles still do damage  that  drains
his  resources and keeps him off of my back while I prepare for
his  downfall.  The continual missle volleys alone  will  often
debilitate his colony to the point that you can just  waltz  in
and  take  it  over  with a small army. I have  destroyed  City
Centers with the missles alone. I then begin developing a small
army of SAM Troopers and Fusion Cannons. Once I have about 6  -
10  troopers ( or Battle/Assault Troopers ), and four  or  more
Fusion  Cannons, I am ready to take out that colony of his  for
good. I hammer him with 8 Scatterpacks while attacking with the
troopers  and Cannons. That usually does the job  -  an  entire
colony of 5,000 enemy taken out in one turn.
As  a  human  it is important to give each trooper  the  Bezerk
command for attack. The human047.sav game that is included with
this  text file demonstates this stategy beautifully.  You  can
see  the battle on Purple Plains being won while I am hammering
away on Delta Swamp, softening it up for the eventual kill that
will  come later. In this game I was up against three  computer
opponents. Check out the resource production levels, the number
of missle sites, etc. and you will see how this works.

5. When all else fails, Cheat!
Here  is  a  cheat that I found in the program that  will  work
wonders  most  of the time in battle situations. Heres  how  it
works:
Each time at the end of your turn when you press the End Turn
button,   the  computer  saves  the  game  in  a  file   called
Autosave.sav.  If  there is a battle to be fought,  the  battle
will  be  the  first event to occur after the  game  is  saved.
Therefore,  you  can fight a battle and if you don't  like  the
results, Load the Autosave.sav game back in and replay it. Each
time  the  battle  is  played out, there will  be  a  different
result, probably because of the random factors programmed  into
the  AI.  I  have played some battles as many as  8  times  and
watched the outcomes.
In  many cases, I will win or lose the battle depending on  the
random factors. There are MANY RANDOM FACTORS that you may  not
be  aware  of. If you try this a couple of times, you will  see
what  I mean. You may not always be able to win a battle  using
this method, but you will get your choice of the most favorable
outcome  available. There is more I could  talk  about,  but  I
think this is enough for now. There is still so much that I  do
not know about this game. There are alot of things that I would
do  to improve it too. I get tired of all of the micro managing
of  resources,  probably because I am impatient.  At  least  we
don't have to micromanage each unit during battles. If you like
this  game  and  have anything to share about  it,  emailme  at
goldiman2002@yahoo.com

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