Impossible Creatures Battle Report (#1)
Introduction
I’ve always said that flying bat monkeys were something to be feared (ok, maybe that was Pax, but I can take the credit if I want to).. and I decided to prove it. How you may ask? Well, I recently got the chance to sit down and play a recent build of Impossible Creatures. And guess what the first creature I created was…yup. A vampire bat/baboon cross, can life get any better then that?
But I digress. Onto the battle report I go. First, let me give you the setting. A pristine little green tropical island with a small elevated lake toward the centre. With coal as well as thermal vents scattered around the island in several key points. Oh, did I mention it was a 2 player map?
The map
The game
This was the first time that I had played the game in quite a while (last time had been at Fanstock 2001, and the game has changed quite a bit since then)… So I’m pretty sure that I neither had the right build order down, nor did I have any idea what I was doing at the time. I started out the game by sending out the two henchman that I had been provided with to mine some coal. For those of you, “not in the know”, coal is IC’s version of a non-renewable resource, it’s something akin to the asteroids in Homeworld. Henchman, on the other hand are the backbone of your economy, they build, repair buildings, gather resources and have a few other special abilities. I immediately started to crank out some more henchman (5 to be exact, as that was all the resources that I was provided at the start of the game allowed for).
As the backbone of my economy started popping out I sent them to mine more coal. Soon, the black rock was pouring in. I built two more henchman and designated them for construction duty. First thing they build was a lightning rod. After all I wouldn’t be able to do much without electricity (the other resource in IC). With that built, I was able head out and find one of these thermal vents, that would give me more of this precious resource. I found one close by and built an electrical generator on top of it. This really started the electricity coming in. I wanted to see the creatures I designed in my army in action, so I then constructed a creature chamber.
I created a few wolf/chameleons (which I had hoped to use as scouts due to their “cloaking” ability) and sent them out scouting the island. I soon discovered the enemy, thinking myself clever I backed away a bit just outside the AI’s base perimeter. I left my scouts there and figured they’d be undetected (since they were camouflaged) at least for a while anyway. I figured they would alert me if the enemy tried to make a move. Of course, I soon found out that the enemy did make a move. On my scouts, to be precise! You see it turns out the enemy units had keen sense (one of the possible counters to camouflage) and were able to see right through the “chameleon” cloak. Bummer! There goes my scout idea…
The wolf/chamelon combo
In the mean time I had managed to upgrade to research level 2 and then to level 3, which allowed me to build both an aviary and water chamber, as well as a few of my higher research level creatures. I popped out a few gorrila-eels along with a few ant/archerfish (both amphibian units) and finally some flying vampire monkeys (aha!). I then got my a few of my henchman, who had been busy setting up lightning rods, along with said army and moved them toward one of the small outlying islands which contained a bit of coal and a geothermal vent off in the water. Of course, it turns out that the AI had already built there, so I proceeded to order the “henchman escort” to attack the AI’s mining operations. Turns out, that the AI had other plans in mind. As soon as my units started ripping through the enemy henchman a large contingency of enemy units, what looked mostly to be hyenas crossed with wolves, showed up, I was outnumbered two to one. As my units fell my final decision was to initiate, what I shall from now on call, the “electric eel suicide manoeuvre”. Basically, I took all my gorilla-eels, and used the electric burst ability as the enemy army closed in on them. Say bye bye to the enemy, and say bye bye to my units. For those of you that have seen the game, and some screenshots, you’ll know that the electrical burst is just that, a huge electrical burst that does major damage to anything in its radius including your own units… So unfortunately this meant I ended up loosing all my units, along with my henchman. Still I had felt like I had struck a significant blow at the enemy as I had killed a large portion of his army…
Attacking the AI henchman
Gorilla-eels taking on the enemy
I went back to my base and updated to research level 4, then 5… I built another army, 20 creatures strong, this time compromising mainly of high level units, though I did use some of the mid level creatures that had proved efficient in the previous encounter. A few of those gorilla-eels, along with a few scorpio-turtles, which I hoped would prove efficient due to their high armour and powerful pincer attack (not to mention their poison attack). I sent my army off to finally destroy the enemy (after all, all I had seen from the AI turned out to be only lower level research units. I was certain that my gorilla-eels with their long distance attack, scorpio-turtles with their powerful armour and attacks and flying chimpanzee-owls would kick some AI ass)… Boy was I wrong. I did manage to clear through the level 1 units with a few casualties (I was down to 15 units), and I did manage to bring down one of the enemy defensive towers, but it turns out the AI did have some high level units up his sleeve, to be precise he had some weird ass armadillo/elephant combo. It also turns out that without units with “horns”, which I did not have, the armadillo armour made the armadillo/elephants creature damn hard to kill. The electrical attacks from my gorilla-eels didn’t do enough damage; neither did the attacks from my shark/lion combo. On the other hand the elephant/armadillo creature did manage to rip through my units due to its powerful attacks. And so, my units died a quick and painful death. As my last unit was dying, I suddenly heard that my base was under attack. From that point on, I knew it was over… There was nothing I could do. I tried cranking out a few more units to defend my base, but to no avail, they did not have what it took. I watched and waited as my henchman were slaughtered and as my base was overrun with enemy units…
Attempting to defend my base from those damned elephant/armadillos
Analysis
What would I have done differently you may ask? First, I would have build some more defences, while I did have a few defence towers scattered around my base, they turned out to do little damage to the oncoming enemy units. Second of all, if I ever play versus somebody using armour, I’ll be sure to include some kind of creature that is able to pierce that armour. That mistake I will not make again. Finally, while I liked the monkey/vampire bat combo (it looked damn cool)… It turned out to be pretty inefficient. Actually another combo I had created using a snowy owl and a chimpanzee turned out to work much. much better… Ah well… Live and learn I guess… I’m off to try again, this time I’m going to build an army that will lay waste to the enemy. Hmm… So many choices…
A final note: I played against an AI that, at the time was being tweaked heavily. And so my experience is atypical, in that I would not have advanced in levels as quickly as I did. Nor would I have had my ass kicked so hard (I hope…)… The next battle report will be one versus a real human enemy.
Last updated by Pike on 03.15.2002