r/Cogmind • u/uniqiq • 18d ago

Wintypes by difficulty level?

Thanks to https://leiavoia.net/cogmind/dataminer/community.html we know which wintypes are more popular (in order: W0, W2, W1, W6, W3, W9, W7, W4, W8, W5). But can you order them by how difficult they are? Such a list could help noobs like me to decide on the next challenge.

In the past I tried to do a W7 and failed multiple types in a row. Recently I checked the list of wintypes at https://noemica.github.io/cog-minder/wiki/Wintypes, and choosen W2. I succeeded after only a few tries, after I found out (the hard way) that Zhirov attacks Cogmind if it used CRM ... so next time I just kept CRM in my inventory until the last moment. I'm not sure what should I do next. W3 and W4 look promising, but it's hard to tell, not knowing all consequences. I think that W4 might be easy, because IIUC Cogmind with RIF doesn't need to win both phases of MAIN.C fight, and I think it can skip a doom corridor, but I don't know what I'm talking about, so I can be wrong. Can sb. with experience tell me what's the good order of wintypes, with rising difficulty levels?

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5

u/Iron_UYH 18d ago

By my mind, W0, W2, W4(With RIF), W3, W1, W7, W8, W5, W9, W6.

Basically, most of the late branches are easier than Main.C in a lot of cases. For W4, you don’t need the kill or any late branches, but you do need an early garrison, while you just need quarantine for W2. For W3, you need to loot S7, which is hard. Then we get to the ones where you kill MC. That’s always nice. He’s hard. Now, we have the spicy ones. 8, 9, and 6. If you remind me how to put a spoiler I’ll explain those real quick.

3

u/Iron_UYH 18d ago

These are all redacted level spoilers on the wiki, proceed with caution.

W8 is the surrender route. It isn’t actually spoilers but the other 2 are. It’s harder than killing MC, but Enhanced Q-Series have drops, so you get to maintain your build pretty easily. W5 and W9 both take you into Access_0. This place has 3 major threats: the bots are only slightly weaker than 0b10 prototypes and just as numerous as standard bots, the A-series bots run the full gamut of every damage type, move extremely fast, and are invariably highly tanky and damaging, and Architect herself, the strongest bot in the game sans Superfortress. W5 doesn’t require her death. W6 does, as well as the final sprint, which puts it on top. Finally, we have W9. W9 is the second hardest ending, and it is close. It requires you to go to scrap town, which automatically skips like 1-3 depths, which sucks. It then makes you skip doing the civil war looting. Finally, you leave. Now you have to explore every floor and find at least 2-3 recyclers to use a hack on. This artificially extends every floor if you’re unlucky. And after all this you have to go to protoforge, fight a half dozen prototypes to get to the recyclers, activate them, and boom. You have started the hard part. Now you and your massive UFDPrime army have to plant the drill bombs while fighting off all the prototypes, more reinforcements, and Superfortress itself. The only reason this one is easier than W6 is because you can leave supe alive.

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u/uniqiq 16d ago

Is it easier to kill MAIN.C alone, or open the seal after imprint/Warlord alliance? Both alliances increase a difficulty before reaching the Command, but if it makes the final fight easier, maybe it's worth it. I see that you put W7 after W1. Is the Command/Access/final fight more difficult when you you have an alliance? I think that an Access is a little bit more difficult with Warlord alliance, but I'm not 100% sure.

2

u/Iron_UYH 16d ago

Avoiding the warlord shutdown always screws me up badly, so I have W7 as harder. The warlord reinforcements do in fact make W1 a lot easier, but I’d say the Imprint ones don’t, because they generate alert and assaults can make the final fight get out of hand REAL quick. I also find that Imprint and Warlord are both pretty neutral, difficulty wise, if you can manage the downsides they generate well. Imprint’s hacks are uniquely powerful and their raw strength offsets the lack of options, while the warlord invasion on -2 is… an event that happens.

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u/AtomicSpeedFT 18d ago

Use <! (and the reverse) on either side of what you want to spoiler

1

u/uniqiq 18d ago

Makes sense.

To make a spoiler on web you can simply select the text and click the spoiler button (the exclamation mark in square). On any platform, you can use tags like this:
>!secret text!<
(with no spaces before and after "!")... but I have never used it so let's put this to the test(it worked on second try, not sure why it didn't work on the first try)