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Zero-K

I picked this game up last year and had some fun with it. My Mistake was trying to head deep into enemy territory - bypassing other planets without leveling up first. I ran into a planet with a no-win scenario because I didn’t have the right combat bots to win the planet. But Oh , I tried again and again to the point where I was left all frustrated - I had to get up out of my seat and walk it off for a few minutes - and then sit back down for another round. In the end I had let it go. Here we are a year later and I picked it back up and have been playing it again. Going back to conquer all those planets I passed up the first time around. Now I’m picking up sever other combat bots that will come in handy later on in the game , and have been having some fun with this one again. I actually like it better then Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander because the game strategy is more clever and will not just give you Giant Robots to defeat the enemy held positions. It’s mostly a cake walk in the beginning , but it takes some time to get the knack for it. The enemy always has more advanced weapons and better tech , therefore patience is a virtue.

Zero-K is now Free on Steam
And will cost you Zero dollars

Planet Harsar Lief

This is the planet I left off on last year – but this time I was ready for it , or at least I thought I was. If it wasn’t for the Auto save feature I would have never taken the planet. I failed miserably a few times – and then came back to readjust my strategy. Those enemy bots were relentless with their never ending attacks ,and They Cheat! After playing for an hour or two a day - several days later I was finally able break out and took the fight to their side of the map. The trick was to keep them occupied on several fronts and try to get behind their lines- that was the only way to get them to back off long enough, allowing me to push forward and set up more repair bases for the front line units. .

In the beginning of every map - mostly the trick is to build several radar bots and have them patrolling the perimeter. This will keep the enemy bots away long enough to build up your forces and get a foot hold. But that won’t last long before they start sending in the heavy units - so build fast.’ Then the energy gets zapped away , so you’ll have to stop building units – and start building energy platforms. Once you get enough of those - your base should be in good shape. Aldo build repair caretakers around your base to help keep it , and your bots up and running. Put a few next to the factory as well , to build bots faster. ..and even though you build several energy platforms , your powers levels are always in the red because those caretakers structures use a ton of energy. I took a few snapshots to show what I’m talking about - you’ll see I have several energy plants and fusion plants - but my energy levels are always in the red - all the time - that’s just the way it is.

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With only a few planets left to go I thought I would post up the Map. The few planets I left behind in the middle of the map, are for multi player only. I played this one guy online and just when My Commander finished building the third metal extractor , he was already sending over a fleet of Navy Ship to blow them up. I knew he had to have been cheating , so I left the game before giving him the satisfaction of blowing my Command Unit. Other than that I actually had a-lot fun playing this game over the last few months, more so when I’m winning of course but over all I enjoyed it once I got the knack of it. .

My Favorite Strider Mechs: The Dante - was kick ass when it was first introduced into the game . It may move slow , but it works great for short range combat. One flaw in the Mechs design was the flamethrower as it would flame ever unit that was near it. So I had to group it with heavy tanks that could take the heat and stay in the battle. . It becomes available to the player shortly after passing the middle of the planet map. - The Ultimatum - is the next best thing that becomes available towards the end of the planet map. It cost almost three times more to build but it’s well worth it. This Mech can take a pounding and dish it out in a short or long ranch shooting engagement. It works great for taking out Large enemy truants.

Other Strider Units: I didn’t find the Scorpion very useful to me , it shoots an electric charge that will stop any combat unit for about 3 seconds – and that’s all it does. It may come in handy if the player groups it with other units, but it gets killed more often and I didn’t think it was worth the expense when there are better combat units to build.

The Detriment - was introduced near the end of the planet map. It’s nothing more than a Giant Killing Maching that will shred everything in its path and leave lots of carnage all over the battle field , and Oh, it can jump! The only way I was able to defeat it was with several Grizzily’s that have hard armor and lots of fire power. The downside to Grizzly is that is they move so slow to a crawl and I had to have them already in position when the next Giant Detriment showed up.

There are other Zero- K maps out there , however I did not see them on Steam and the only other place to check would be the Zreo-K website @ ( http://zero-k.info ) From what I gather it looks like mostly Multi-player maps. I was hoping there would be teams playing other teams which should be fun, but I’m really not sure.

And that’s about it for now.. I seen lots of eye candy for what’s ahead if I stay in the game and keep playing but this game actually takes up a lot of time, and leaves me with so little time to play anything else. I may move on and look for something else to do.