Spore Creature Phase: Hints, Tips, Tricks, Strategies and Secrets

[HystericalParoxysm]

Just crawled onto land, but confused and lost? Post your hints, tips and gameplay strategies for the creature phase here! I'll update this first post with the most helpful ones.

My hints:

Watch for rogue creatures. They're large, generally friendly, have tons of health, and can be -really- useful as your pack members. A team of 3 rogue creatures plus you can be extremely vicious and capable of taking on all but the epic creatures.

Watch out for epic creatures! They're hard to miss - huge, nasty, stompy, loud, and mean! Run away and give them a -wide- berth.

When trying to ally/befriend creatures, the level of your interaction matters. For example - if a creature dances at you, it's not just enough to dance back. You need to do it at the same level or higher to get a decent increase to your score. So if they have level 5 dance and you have level 1, it's really not going to help you much to dance. Either upgrade your creature, or instead, try doing a different, level 5 interaction on them instead. The increase you get is less than if you'd copied them exactly, but it's usually better than if you did your piddly little level 1 interaction instead.

When trying to ally/befriend creatures, if you're having trouble, try befriending babies instead of adults or alphas. Babies are the easiest to impress.

[ElPresidente]

Just an addendum to that last point that probably goes without saying but babies do have less health than adults who in turn have less health than alphas.

[dawnmist_SC]

If you're doing the carnivore route

Charge dazes creatures when it hits. This means that they don't get to attack back for a few seconds. It also gets you into combat range really fast.
Target Alpha creatures by preference - killing these will give DNA parts.
Sometimes the last few creatures of a species have run away and vanished while you're fighting the others (particularly if you - or your allies - used the carnivore roar), and can't be found. If you leave the area of the nest and come back, they'll regenerate so you can get the last few.
Killing the last creature needed for the 'kill X of species' quest will result in that species becoming extinct. All other creatures of the species will vanish in a twirl - even if they were attacking you or you/your allies were attacking them at the time.
The game advises you to return to the nest to heal - don't bother with this. Eating the creatures you kill heals you much faster, and allows you to range further from the nest. The only time you really need to return to the nest is to mate, or to find the new nest when your pack migrates.


Haven't tried spit - so no idea how it affects things.

Flying anywhere is faster than walking - and beside that, it's fun!

[ElPresidente]

Spit is just a ranged weapon though you can use it while engaged in melee combat too.

[coltraz]

Spit is just a ranged weapon though you can use it while engaged in melee combat too.

Though you need to run away or you'll get a "you're too close!" message... no?

[ElPresidente]

Charge is the only skill that requires distance between you and your opponent before it will activate. Spit can be fired off during hand to hand combat.

[Ryslin_SC]

There is a reward for killing the Epic creatures.
There is a reward for unlocking all the parts you can.

Advice I have is to pick your method of hurting things and stick with it, upgrading it often.

So if you are going to charge and bite, make sure those two are maxed. Course you are not required to have any attack or for that matter you are not limited to having only two.
I prefer the poison spit, allows me to "pull" creatures away from their nests then surround them.

[miss_name_hater_SC]

Anyone have advice about dealing with the epic creatures? My game yesterday was over-run with them and I got so frustrated with constantly losing all my pack mates or dying that I stopped playing.

[HystericalParoxysm]

miss_name_hater - You can kill 'em! There's a few ways to do this. Best way is to have Spit. Higher level spit = more damage = faster kill.

Run backward, spitting at the Epic as soon as your spit recharges. Need fast speed to stay out of its way. Jump/glide is also helpful as (I find) I get stuck on the landscape a lot and making a quick getaway if you need to is necessary.
If you're an omnivore from Cell stage you'll have the "summon flock" ability. It has a VERY long recharge but it's extremely helpful for both distracting the Epic and for doing damage to it. A flock can knock the Epic down by about 200 health each time they're summoned, and the Epic will generally ignore you and go for the flock so you can spit constantly without having to run away.
Get it stuck in the trees. Epics are (of course) huge, so if you can run backward into a closely-spaced clump of trees while spitting, they'll probably get stuck and you can just stand there and spit away till they fall over.

[Delphy]

Regarding Epic Killing - it takes a long time to kill one. Probably in the region of 10 minutes or so. Be patient! :)

[SimJymm]

Hint:
--Hang around in creature phase even if you're ready to go tribal. You can continue gathering parts and you can use all the extra DNA you get to make your critter look like you want it to. Keep in mind that you can't look at your history so if you're going for the middle ground evolution path, balance your destroying and befriending. I got an additional 700 DNA once.

[miss_name_hater_SC]

miss_name_hater - You can kill 'em! There's a few ways to do this. Best way is to have Spit. Higher level spit = more damage = faster kill.

Thanks for the advice! I never even thought about taking them on with 1,000 hit points but I'll give the spitting a try :D

[AndaleTheGreat]

Though you need to run away or you'll get a "you're too close!" message... no?

I think its a glitch that you can sometimes fire it up close, though you should be able to i think.

[BeechWell2]

- Hit "T" to view the history of your creature at any time (even when your "evolution meter" is maxed out).
- When you want to pick a specific evolution path, note that the amount the path changes depends on the relative strength of the creature you interact with - it's proportional to the amount of DNA you get from interacting with it. So killing a small creature that doesn't give you any DNA any more, doesn't change your path at all, while killing a rogue creature shifts it a lot.
- Sneaking up to a creature makes it notice "something" and move towards you (keep your distance to avoid becoming visible). This is a great way to isolate single creatures from their pack. Can be a bit tricky to pull off sometimes, though.
- Charming other creatures is much easier when they don't call their friends to help. To avoid that, draw one creature away from its buddies - either by sneaking or by simply shoving it towards the desired direction (doesn't always work).

And one question: Is it possible the kill epics without using spit? Maybe by continuously charging in and out?

[Black_Barook!]

When you have an Empire declaring war and they don't seem too eager for peace don't waste your time destroying colony after colony. Here's what you could do:

Make sure that you have extra battiers, repair thingys, a few friends to help.
Make sure you have terraforming tools. You might want to buy some before hand.
Now when you enter the planet instead of trying to conquer one city after another trying screw with the ecosystem.
When it's down to T0 only one colony will be left.
Now take it out! >D

[HystericalParoxysm]

And one question: Is it possible the kill epics without using spit? Maybe by continuously charging in and out?

It'd be a very bad idea. They kill you in one hit no matter what your health is. Only way I can see doing it is if you have "call flock" and only charge in when the epic is busy killing the flock. But that would take even longer considering you can only call a flock once every 5 minutes or so.

[Delphy]

Black_Barook, those tips apply to space phase, not creature phase :)

[Black_Barook!]

Black_Barook, those tips apply to space phase, not creature phase :)

Oh sorry, I thought it for for general hints and tips.

[Thaissa]

And one question: Is it possible the kill epics without using spit? Maybe by continuously charging in and out?[/QUOTE]

The only way I have found to kill them this way is if the epic spawns practically (or you lead it over) to your nest. However, the downside is that your creature will die a lot.

If you can kite it around your nest with spit, your nest-mates will usually attack it as well, usually in melee range. That will really help get rid of it much faster.

[Black_Barook!]

The best way to kill is either in triable mode with everyone having spears, or in creature mode with a full pack and a few friends.

Also the cheat refillmotives helps a lot.

[sims J]

It's a pirates life for me! :beer:

[Tom Duhamel]

Epic creatures are very difficult to kill in Creature stage. I'm not even sure Maxis intended this to be doable. Personally I have never succeeded, and I'm not patient enough to try the "stay in your nest" trick (you can't get hurt when you are in your nest, so you can hit the Epic without getting hit -- however your pack usually get killed really fast as they don't get the protection) and bash for 20 minutes.

However, once you have a cute tribe formed, it's really easy to kill an Epic. Personally I always waited for when I have a tribe of 12 members, but I've seen my son do them routinely with a tribe of 9 members.

Once you reach Civilization stage, Epics aren't a challenge at all, of course. I only kill them when I grow tired of them destroying my vehicles, otherwise I keep them because I think they look entertaining. Too bad we can't make money by using them as tourist attraction :P

[Rabid]

I'm having the hardest time progressing in the creature stage- I keep picking up evolutionary parts, but I don't have enough DNA to purchase them. The parts on my creature aren't advanced enough to impress many tribes, and therefore I'm not earning any DNA to purchase more impressive parts. It's kind of a Catch-22. Any hints?

[Black_Barook!]

I'm having the hardest time progressing in the creature stage- I keep picking up evolutionary parts, but I don't have enough DNA to purchase them. The parts on my creature aren't advanced enough to impress many tribes, and therefore I'm not earning any DNA to purchase more impressive parts. It's kind of a Catch-22. Any hints?

Depends on who you're trying to impress. I go after the smaller creatures first and the carnies. The carnies because they tend to be weaker in the socializing area hence it's not that hard to impress them. You could also drop the more expensive arms, legs, eyes and things you don't need.

Killing an Epic in creature stage: Get Rouges in your group.