Drop pods

[Barbariandude]

After something like 10-15 games, I've finally figured out how to play Noxium economic style, and won a game on medium, but that's besides the point of this topic.

Crucial to that win were transcendance-tier infantry drop-podding all over the enemy territory during the war that won me the game, forcing the AI to nuke his own territory to kill 1-2 guys each time, destroying his own economy in the process. The limitation of needing to see the LZ to drop on it didn't matter due to scanner sweeps whenever I wanted to infiltrate. The icing on the cake was when I cleared out the enemy capital with 3 guys right in the middle of hostile territory, with the front-line half the map away, and no troop left to capture. So, just to find out if it's possible, I drop-podded an infantryman directly ontop of the empty city. It worked, it got captured, and insta-won me the game (I was on 96% economic victory at that point).

TL;DR: Space marines + scanner sweeps are awesome. I strongly encourage anyone doing an economic or militaristic run to try them out and experience the win )

EDIT: Would anyone be interested in an AAR with a medium economic playthrough? I had a bash finally winning once I'd figured it out, but those 10 losses in a row were painful as I was learning how to play Noxium right. Maybe I can spare people some pain

[fortydayweekend]

I love AARs, if you've got the time I'd definitely be interested! I haven't played as Noxium yet, looks like you'd do a lot of rush building with a higher tax rate? And maybe expand a little quicker (or beeline habitat techs) to offset the habitat penalty?

[Barbariandude]

I love AARs, if you've got the time I'd definitely be interested! I haven't played as Noxium yet, looks like you'd do a lot of rush building with a higher tax rate? And maybe expand a little quicker (or beeline habitat techs) to offset the habitat penalty?

What I discovered is going about it half-hearted in any way gets you killed. Noxium seems to rely on rapid changes in playstyle inbetween extremely aggressive and war-mongering, and extremely passive and economical.

What I do is go crazy expand up to 4-5 cities immediately, then go full-throttle on military until I've killed my neighbour and sanitized the area (that's every single alien lifeform on your island/side of the continent). Abusing the cheaper purchasing of troops is key here.Then I expand (that's about 10-15 cities on a large map) + build infrastructure only until I'm the main competitor for economic victory, then switch back to full-throttle military and attack my main competitor until he's either lost his infrastructure or just died. The extra building costs from his cities + his production gets you the win.

Probably needs some ironing out here and there, but that's the general gist of it.

My main problem that I needed to get through my head the first 5 or so playthroughs was that even though it says "economic" victory, your bank account has very little to do with it. You need to pretty much ignore that bank account and use it liberally, and have that money instead in sunk costs. Tanks, infantry, ships, buildings. Once you have all that production capacity, if you're using it to produce wealth, you're guaranteed to lose. Most economically sound investment you can make, from what I've seen, is retrofitting troops to keep up with your tech. It's pretty much never a bad idea.

EDIT: If just 1 more person says they want my relative noobishness doing a Noxium AAR, it shall be done.

[fortydayweekend]

I love AARs, if you've got the time I'd definitely be interested! I haven't played as Noxium yet, looks like you'd do a lot of rush building with a higher tax rate? And maybe expand a little quicker (or beeline habitat techs) to offset the habitat penalty?

What I discovered is going about it half-hearted in any way gets you killed. Noxium seems to rely on rapid changes in playstyle inbetween extremely aggressive and war-mongering, and extremely passive and economical.

What I do is go crazy expand up to 4-5 cities immediately, then go full-throttle on military until I've killed my neighbour and sanitized the area (that's every single alien lifeform on your island/side of the continent). Abusing the cheaper purchasing of troops is key here.Then I expand (that's about 10-15 cities on a large map) + build infrastructure only until I'm the main competitor for economic victory, then switch back to full-throttle military and attack my main competitor until he's either lost his infrastructure or just died. The extra building costs from his cities + his production gets you the win.

Probably needs some ironing out here and there, but that's the general gist of it.

My main problem that I needed to get through my head the first 5 or so playthroughs was that even though it says "economic" victory, your bank account has very little to do with it. You need to pretty much ignore that bank account and use it liberally, and have that money instead in sunk costs. Tanks, infantry, ships, buildings. Once you have all that production capacity, if you're using it to produce wealth, you're guaranteed to lose. Most economically sound investment you can make, from what I've seen, is retrofitting troops to keep up with your tech. It's pretty much never a bad idea.

EDIT: If just 1 more person says they want my relative noobishness doing a Noxium AAR, it shall be done.

That sounds about the right plan for any faction Clearing hives at the beginning is very rewarding, so capturing a devourer or 2 is usually my first goal, then using them to help clear hives.

In terms of economic victory I've found it pays to get to a reasonably strong position (slightly behind the other factions in economy/research is ok), build a military strong enough to deter invasion, get the mech era production/minerals buildings everywhere and switch to wealth, preferably before anyone hostile has nukes. That works on small landmass on Hard at any rate.