Devolution Challenge

[Gus Smedstad]

Inspired by Paperbladder, I went for the whole limbless, eyeless, mustachoid slug on Hard thing.  And managed it.  I did add some lumps to my slug to make it more visually interesting that a simple green pill, which was my initial shape on exiting the water.



If we consider fresh out of the water level 1, and each brain stage (and pack bonus) a level, recruiting level 1 creatures was easy.  Once I hit level 2, it wasn't too difficult recruiting level 2 creatures if I isolated them.  I couldn't manage level 3 creatures until I had 3 lackeys, and it Siren Song, every time, because they'd always choose 1-2 socials that I didn't have.

Killing level 1-2 creatures wasn't hard with one lackey.  Killing level 3-4 creatures required 3 hirelings, at least one of which had to be a level 3 creature.  The level 1-2 creatures just didn't have the kind of attacks the level 3 creatures did.

I conclude that social bonus levels aren't that important - just having the option at all and backup is enough.

Tribal was a little slow, but not hard.  Since my slugs had no combat abilities and no mercenaries (unlike Creature stage), I just kept everyone bribed until I had the time to dance for them.

The Orange tribe had a litte, um, extra incentive to be my friends.



 - Gus

[jsalemi]

Is that spaceship firing on the village?  I've seen them come and abduct one of the creatures, but never actually attack them.

[Gus Smedstad]

No, it's not really attacking.  I just thought it was highly amusing that as I was setting up to do the final tribe conversion, the D7 started buzzing the village.  And like all Klingon ships, it looks really, really hostile.

 - Gus

[jsalemi]

Oh, ok -- the alignment of the two redish planets (I guess they are) between the D7 and the hut makes it look like they're shooting photon torpedoes at them.

[Zazazu]

In my straight red run, I had an epic kill half a tribe while my tribe sat and waited.

[jsalemi]

I actually got an epic to chase some of my tribe members during my first game.  They were lurking in the woods to pick off solo members of the other tribe as they went for food when the epic blundered along.  Since I was having problems with the game at the time, I figured what the hell, had my tribe attack it, and then sprint straight into the enemy camp.  The epic followed, and the enemy was too busy fighting it to notice my tribe hacking down their hut.

[J. M. Pescado]

I had an Epic Mudkip eat an entire enemy tribe.

[Insanity Prelude]

That is fucking awesome.

As for the challenge... How do they hold the instruments?

[Gus Smedstad]

In their mustaches.  Apparently the mouth parts can hold things if you don't have hands.  Everything is held sideways with the filter mouth.  I was halfway expecting that with no Graspers ability, they wouldn't use tools in the Tribal stage, but apparently Graspers only gives you the trivial ability to throw rocks and sticks in Creature stage.  Which does no damage to speak of, but which is useful for pulling a single target out of a group.

Most of the mouths look like they could be used to hold things, but I really wonder about the Cell stage Omnivore proboscis.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

Woah. You can throw rocks and sticks? I've never used it to throw anything, but it will also let you reach up and pull down fruits that you ordinarily wouldn't be able to reach. Of course, having a giraffe-neck appears to do the same task.

[jsalemi]

Yup, and like Gus said, throwing a stick or rock is a good way to get one of your targets to come at you so you can take it out without having to take on the whole nest at once.

[Surelyfunke]

I've had other species throw sticks at my pack members when we approach their nest. The one who got the stick usually screeches and pops up a speech bubble, cursing.

[Zazazu]

My creatures last night (Kamon, I think) don't have arms. They were carnivores and caught fish in their mouth. The chief used his staff, which he held in his mouth.

[J. M. Pescado]

I have now beaten this at the hardest difficulty: Limbless blind slug, all the way to space, without using any mercenaries in the creature stage. Just my fellow slugs! (Many died). I actually killed enough enemies to achieve a blue finish to the ceature stage. Prime Specimen is a better perk than I thought! It's actually 50%, apparently, as my normal Prime spaceship has 450 HP, but the slugs only had 300 HP.

[Zazazu]

I hate this challenge. I hate it hard.

Fuzzy Pumpkin struggled horribly in cell stage. Hard cell stage is hard. I'll have pics up when I'm back at home, but I spent most of my time getting killed and hoping that I'd respawn by a bit of plant matter so that I could at least inch a bit further towards landfall. It took forever. I think I died upwards of 20 times. Reduced sight is a major issue in cell.

I'm in creature now. I don't mind the pumpkin's hoppity-hop or slowness, although it can be an issue when socializing tribes that aren't immediately bordered by food. I starved to death once. Reduced sight isn't much of an issue as I don't need to pick up fossils and if an epic starts to tail me, I'm dead no matter what. I was trying to do it with only my own creatures as tribe members, going predator from level 2 on and carefully isolating one opponent at a time. It's not working. I'll be getting another creature with a little more pizazz in place of my fellow pumpkin.

Can we add some decorative parts at tribal evolution, or is that out of the question? Are tribal outfits allowed?

[J. M. Pescado]

Tribal outfits are allowed. The entire point of making it that far is that you can use technolergies. Besides, Tribal outfit effects are minimal and mostly cosmetic. The main threat in the Tribal phase is starving to death, as the slugs move painfully slow. Being raided is somewhat of a problem as well, as your attacks are as worthless as ever, but this can be alleviated when you get axes and spears. I suggest getting everyone up to friendly ASAP and NOT actually allying outright, as if you ally outright, you will need moe instruments to impress rival tribes, whereas if you don't have any instruments, they only ask for that one instrument.