Conquered Brutal!

I have beaten Brutal! It was a two-player game with a knowledgeable player named JohnnySF, who had beaten Brutal once before.

It was surprisingly easy once we got the ball rolling. And we didn't even take the easy-way-out survival ending! But Teslas are still looking too good. If anyone wants to see the replay, post or PM me your email.

You mean pure Telsa Restorer Spam?
I'm not sure which ending you chose, since the latest version also adds in protoss enemies.

Otherwise, you would've used mind control and got heaps of units in brutal to kill the protoss...

The lag is still unbearable at the late game point, I can't play at that point since the game would slow down to 15 frames or less.

Oh and it's like Fusion is vital to survive anyways, otherwise you need cannons.

Because I keep thinking about how we did it myself, I'll do a play-by-play.

TL;DR - We stayed at the ship early and defended with peridition turrets, barricades and tesla coils. He moved out first to the west, and I later went to the south-east. He mined tons of minerals, I got a bunch of gas and some minerals. We later regrouped at his base, which was right at the bottom of the ramp to the western mesa. He threw up an early rescue beacon on the mesa. We built up on the mesa added more rescue beacons early, and found a fusion core just to the north of the mesa's northern entrance, which we surrounded with minigun-turrets. We soon had four rescue beacons and four big berthas, as well as some missile turrets and siege tanks. We mined the large plains to the north and some areas to the south for money after that. He had a probe briefly but lost it to spine crawlers. The rescue countdown came after the ultralisk wave, and we won. Both the ship base and my outpost to the south-east stayed alive the whole game.

The early waves were spent exploring, getting an early factory and science facility, and gathering mineral chunks and gas pods. We throughly fortified the ship with a ring of barricades using four peridition turrets as doors, and a half-dozen auto-turrets plus a dozen tesla coils. I spent the first few nights in the center, but after the first two/three JohnnySF headed west and set himself up with several siege tanks, a pack of mules, etc. at the bottom of the ramp leading to the western mesa. I left the center base the next day or so and went south-east and set up with half a dozen weaponized bunkers, half a dozen tesla coils, two restorers, and a missile turret. This is around the Queen wave, because there were only two players. We didn't savage the ship base when I left, an by now he had more siege tanks and some missile turrets at his outpost. His outpost relied almost solely on firepower to kill the zerg before they reached him, and mine used weaponized bunkers to take a few hits while the teslas zapped stuff. The center base was overkill without a survivor there to draw more zerg. I focused on mining gas, and he focused almost solely on minerals. After the queen wave, I head just to the south of his base. Again, I opt not to salvage my base. He has cleared out the western mesa and builds a rescue beacon RIGHT at the top of the ramp, so his tanks can cover it I suppose. It can't be salvaged, so oh well. More weaponized bunkers and restorers go up, and with his battery of missile turrets we breeze through the mutalisk wave. We find a fusion core JUST to the north of the northern entrance to the mesa. JohnnySF builds a raven and throws up a ring of minigun-turrets around it. JohnnySF gets two more rescue beacons. We each throw up a big bertha on the high ground, plus some Restorers. I try to barricade the entrances, but the south one is blocked off partly already by two of the rescue beacons, and if we lose all the defenses at the bottom of the ramp we have would have lost a large portion of our firepower anyway. Barricading the northern entrance is somewhat pointless because just to the north is our fusion core and the ring of turrets. JohnnySF has found a probe to the south of us and uses it to mine out some of the large plain to our north. Roaches come and are stopped cold by our big berthas and siege tanks. He throws up another rescue beacon, bringing us up to four, and goes to mine to the south. He loses his probe to some spine crawlers, and had never built cannons with it. We both throw up another big bertha, bringing out total up to four. I am not close to my supply limit. I build some tesla coils around overlooking the edges of the base, and build a battery of restorers to heal everything. The ultralisks start coming, but the timer is down to about six minutes. We are pretty much in the clear, the bosses so far haven't given us much trouble. I still have some minerals and buy a raven and set up clusters of minigun turrets wherever. The night ends, then the leviathan comes. It attacks JohnnySF's siege tanks and base at the bottom of the ramp. Two of our big berthas can reach it, and I spawn a bunch of minigun-turrets beneath it to kill it. The "massive zerg attack wave" comes, and our existing defenses hold it off. JohnnySF doesn't even move the rescue soldiers. We actually lost the fusion core, and I kept yelling at him to save it, but he didn't realize until it was too late. Whatever. Both our main base, the ship, and my old outpost stayed alive and intercepted zerg throughout the whole match. Victory!

...I can't believe I just wrote all that. I really am crazy!
Adding a summary for sane people. A Too Long; Didn't Read

You call that hard? Try making it to the full survival ending with the protoss purifier...

Lol, didn't I say that it seemed "surprisingly easy once we got the ball rolling?"

And the survival ending has been consistently too easy on normal. I have seen players beat it with ONLY a fleet of a dozen Ravens, no normal turrets. And I have played games where all four players throw up separate bases that easily withstand it. Admittedly, I have not reached it on Brutal, so I will reserve judgement. But I don't see how it would drastically change things.

Once 6~8 void rays starts appearing and focusing fire on you, then you will know...

dra6o0n wrote:Once 6~8 void rays starts appearing and focusing fire on you, then you will know...

The Protoss have a massive damage bonus against Biological units (they are a specialized "anti-zerg" fleet). If they catch your survivor alone, you're in for a world of hurt...