The Titans switched their anti-air missiles, the chambers rotating to load the high impact payload armor-piercing Punisher missiles instead of the flak Javelin rockets. As the Goldorks approached, they let loose a volley of missiles that punched through the shimmering shields and detonated against the sleek superstructure.
The first Goldork listed, but continued onward despite the smoke billowing from its edges. Despite its immense power, one of the weaknesses of the Goldork was the very short range of its air to ground weapon. It had to hover directly above its target to unleash its colossal gravitational beam to wreck everything in the vicinity.
Another barrage of Punisher missiles caused fires and the Goldork visibly dipped before a third volley blew it out of the sky. Crashing into several of the escorting Illuminators, the titanic flying saucer exploded against the ground.
However, the other two Goldorks had reached the remaining Titans and obliterated two of them with its gravitational singularity cannon. Hovering right above the squadron of Titans, they unleashed colossal pillars of black, crackling beams of gravity. The Titan underneath each Goldork buckled, their armor being compacted and crushed under the intense gravitational forces. The pilot inside screamed as his very human body was ruptured, his armored cockpit closing around him and turning into an enclosed tomb.
The rest of the Titans continued to shell the hovering Goldorks with their Punisher missiles, punching through the shields, but despite their concerted fire they failed to bring down the second Goldork. The powerful missiles left sparking cracks and flaming components on the superstructure of the rapidly declining Goldork, but it maintained its bearings to bombard a third Titan with its gravitational cannon, causing the enormous armored walker to implode and flatten. The remaining Goldork also moved on to a fresh target, still completely unscathed because I had targeted its comrade instead of spreading my fire.
At this rate, all my Titans would be wiped out before I could…
I smiled. From the opposite direction, a fresh squad of eight Titans, escorted by a sizeable column of Salamander battle armor and a full squadron of Raiders, had arrived. The air superiority fighters let loose their missiles the moment they got within range, and the hovering Illuminators streaked off to meet them.
The skies became a chaotic mess of dogfighting as aircraft banked and swerved to avoid each other's fire while releasing their deadly payloads. Missiles streaked from the wings of the Raiders and raced toward the dodging Illuminators, but the flying saucers made use of their superior agility to dodge and avoid getting hit by the deadly missiles. They dove and closed in on the orderly formation of my Raiders, unleashing their short-ranged lasers. I wasn't sure how to describe it, but they were essentially getting in knife fighting range where the Raider's missiles were less effective, and slicing the conventional fighter jets apart.
Despite their superior firepower, the Raiders just couldn't match the Illuminators in mobility, and in a minute I had lost a third of my squadron.
However, the Psidorks had taken calamitous losses as well. While the Illuminators closed in on my Raiders, my Titans had not been idle. Their anti-air missile chambers unloaded dozens of countless Javelin rockets upward, the flak missiles detonating amidst the tightly packed clusters of Illuminators. Dozens of flying saucers were caught in the explosion, the deadly shrapnel slicing through them and causing them to crash. Several collided against each other whereas others met a fiery death on the ground…assuming the alien pilots survived when their aircraft was hit.
With much of the Illuminator screen gone, I directed my Raiders to fire a coordinated volley of missiles at the gigantic Goldorks ahead. However, I could only watch grimly as the devastating barrage of air-to-air missiles detonated harmlessly against their shimmering shields, rendered ineffective by the Goldorks' defenses. The explosions did weaken the shields considerably, but not enough. The point defense turrets arrayed along the circumference of the Goldorks unleashed ruby lasers with pinpoint precision, scything down huge numbers of my Raiders and forcing them to retreat.
"Phew…"
I exhaled, my right hand aching from desperately controlling the movements of my Raiders with my mouse. As I said, micro was not my thing. I preferred not to micro at all, if possible. Instead, I decided to maximize my advantage with positioning and unit abilities.
My left hand flew across the keyboard, typing commands while unceasingly issuing build orders to my Factories and Airport. With the hit of a button, I had my current squadron of Raiders transform from their air superiority mode to ground assault mode, much of the damaged fighters transforming in midair into bipedal robotic walkers. Their chainguns raked the area ahead of them, where Disciples and Dragoons came to meet them in combat, and they marched alongside my second unit of Titans toward the Goldorks.
By now the first unit of Titans were down to three, but they had obliterated a second Goldork, causing it to crash atop the crushed remains of their comrades. The remaining Goldork, still totally unscathed, moved to destroy the remaining Titans, who were firing ineffectively against it before they could get crushed by its gravitational cannon.
Meanwhile, my Raiders and Titans continued their implacable march, firing their missiles upward to decimate the few Illuminators that survived the Javelin rocket barrage. The twin missile launchers atop the Raiders opened up and launched Hellfire missiles upward, the same missiles that were mounted atop their wings. The Illuminators, while domineering in the air, possessed little defense against ground units and were shredded apart by the powerful missiles. Of course, they were fast enough to dodge the single-shot Hellfire missiles, but the Titans' Javelin rockets continued to scatter shrapnel around their tightly packed formations, rendering their evasive maneuvers useless. In order to improve their agility and speed, the Illuminators had their armor stripped back and they ended up being very fragile.
Clearly they couldn't withstand the punishing splash damage from the Titans' Javelin rockets and they were consequently getting wiped out.
The Raiders marched forward, forming the vanguard along with the handful of Salamanders. As Hellfire missiles streamed toward the third and last Goldork, they exploded almost uselessly against its shields. Fortunately, given the relentless onslaught, the shields were weakening by the minute.
With the last of the Illuminators spiraling away to their fiery deaths, the Titans paused for a moment to switch their anti-air ammunition, their back-mounted missile launchers whirring and switching. The servos whined for a few seconds as they moved and rearranged components, and the Titans aimed their Punisher missiles at the third and final Goldork. The powerful anti-armor missiles punched through the fading shields and slammed into the ethereal hull.
The third and last Goldork rocked from the brutal impact. With the shields completely shorted out, the Hellfire missiles leaped from the twin rocket racks of the marching Raiders and drilled their way through the golden carapace before detonating inside the Goldork's advanced but fragile circuitry. The burning Goldork, despite boasting a sophisticated array of anti-air point defense turrets that would decimate any fleet of superiority air fighters that approached it, was vulnerable to surface to air missiles – the current weaponry that my Titans and Raiders possessed in bulk.
With one last volley from my marching robots, the final Goldork exploded and crashed over the remains of the base. Then I ordered my Titans, Salamanders and Raiders to continue onward toward the primary base of the Psidorks.
The Psidork army had been annihilated, both its air fleet and ground forces. The Stargates that remained in the main base were busily scrambling out Aurora gunships in a last-ditch effort to stave off the inevitable, but despite their heavy laser cannons, they were still no match for the immense firepower of the Titans, who blew them out of the air. The only counter to the Titans – Loyalists, escorted by waves of Disciples – had been destroyed, and I crippled their production when I crushed the robotics facilities at their secondary base. All they had left were their Stargates.
The Aurora gunships were just not enough.
To add insult to injury, I transformed my Raiders back to their aerial superiority fighter mode and had them streak across the base, making use of their greater speed to evade the Aurora gunships' lasers and take them out with coordinated volleys of Hellfire missiles. If the Raiders had been on their own, their ground-based assault mode would have been utterly overwhelmed by the Aurora gunships. On the other hand, all it took to counter the Auroras was to transform my Raiders back to their fighter mode and I would utterly crush them, even without Titan support. That was why Aurora gunships were normally accompanied by Illuminator escorts and a single Goldork, but I had wiped out the Golden Armada earlier. The Stargates weren't warping in fighter craft fast enough to counter my approaching army, and even if they could, my Titans would just blow the poor Illuminators out of the sky.
The lone Titan from the almost destroyed first unit that I had sent ahead finally trudged to meet and join up with my second, relatively fresh squadron of Titans. Without any hesitation, I had them direct their charged particle cannons on the enemy structures, pummeling the alien buildings into atoms.
Realizing that it had no way out of this, the AI surrendered. Sighing in relief, I clicked on accept and leaned back as the screen dissolved, before being replaced by the scoreboard.
"That took a while," I remarked wearily. Not that I was surprised. By the very nature of my playstyle, I was used to long games. Since I was focused on macro – building up a solid economy and a strong infrastructure to support nonstop production of technologically advanced combat units with full upgrades – I was used to playing the long game. I was aware of "cheeses" – where the opponent threw down an unorthodox strategy, such as building turrets that were normally meant for defensive purposes in my base, or building a Factory or production structure right outside my base so that they could pump out units that would cross the map and assault my base in the shortest time possible.
Such strategies were risky – if I scouted out their cheese and countered them, they would most definitely lose because they had given up on a solid economy to pull that unconventional build off. Their infrastructure would be exposed, since it was built outside their base, and once I destroyed them they would be behind me in terms of resources and army count. The purpose of cheese strategies was to end the game as quickly as possible, to finish off your opponent before he could build up his economy and infrastructure. Some people liked it, most players hated it – especially if they were on the receiving end.
In any event, I realized something that I had almost overlooked after nearly two years of non-professional gaming.
"Damn…I need to build up my stamina all over again."
If I wanted to go with my long-term strategies where I built massive armies to crush my opponent with overwhelming fire and superior technology and upgrades, then I needed to be able to endure long, punishing periods of gaming. I couldn't tire before my opponent. I needed to be able to outlast him.
"But the new mechanics and economy mean that the modern Spacecraft scene is much faster-paced than before." Not only that, I noticed that the resources in my primary base mined out a lot more quickly, and I had to expand more to keep up my production.
This was certainly implemented to discourage "turtling" – which was a strategy I tended to favor. Hunkering down defensively in my base, building a lot of point defense turrets and anti-air turrets, while having a good amount of tanks anchored and sieged up to rain down death upon any invading enemies. It tended to frustrate many other players who could only helplessly wait for the inevitable as I amassed an invincible "death ball" of an army that crushed whatever they could throw at me. It made for slow, long drawn out games like the one I just played.
Personally, that was what I thought Real Time Strategy games should be about. Shouldn't the game be about amassing massive armies and throwing them against each other? If I wanted to play a skirmish or squad-based game where everything ends in five minutes, I would go play Cry over Duty or some other shooter game.
"Well…other than stamina, I guess the next step is to start playing against human opponents and climbing up the ladder."
Making my next plan, I took a deep breath and relaxed in my chair before I moved my mouse to click on Search for Game.
Now this was going to pose a challenge of its own…