History DemonicSpiders / FourX

** Civ III Infantry. Located at the start of the Industrial tech tree, once fortified with defensive bonuses they're close to impossible to dislodge with Medieval units, and the primary Industrial offensive unit is the Tank, which doesn't appear until the end of the Industrial tech tree and thus isn't of any help for a long time. Pretty much forget about making any land-grabs until you get Tanks, unless you've got crushing military superiority, and even then expect a slow, frustrating grind.

** [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]] "M" interceptors in ''X3: Terran Conflict''. While they're poorly shielded, they come in huge swarms, and 90% of them will mount Pulsed Beam Emitters -- rapid-fire, lethally accurate lasers that do incredible damage to shields. A single M can strip down the shields of an M3 fighter very quickly on its own -- add in several dozen friends and you basically need a capital ship to kill them all without dying instantly in a hailstorm of (nearly) HitScan weapons.

** If you're in anything smaller than a corvette, Khaak Clusters. They're made by one M3 ship and a lot of M5s that travel as a single target, [[ActuallyFourMooks then separate and attack]] when an inviting target approaches. None of them are a threat by themselves, but if the cluster isn't distracted by other targets and chooses you, you and only you to give its attention to, then you'll be facing DeathOfAThousandCuts as 10+ ships concentrate HitScan weapons on your ass. If you're good enough of a pilot you can ''probably'' take the smaller Clusters in an M3, but one variety has ''26'' ships in it.

* The Dread Lords in ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations''. Any conflict involving them is going to be bloody, to the point where their ''constructors'' can go through mid-level ships like knives through butter. Also, ten Dread Lords infantry can conquer a planet. We recommend either swarm tactics of a sting-before-you-die suicide attack nature, or [[StarKilling blowing up their sun]].
** All these tactics are just delaying actions, as you, hopefully, race to research and build better, stronger ships. Eventually, you can even take them in a one-to-one fight, although it will be difficult getting there.
* The native lifeforms in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', especially since their attacks completely ignore your units' armor, and the only way to beat them is to have high morale or a special psi-shield (which doesn't do much against enemy units). The xenofungus itself is extremely annoying, as it constantly spreads, destroying your terrain improvements. Even removing it completely from an area doesn't guarantee that, in a few turns, a random scripted event won't create a highly-concentrated xenofungus area complete with boils of mind worms and a spore tower or two.
** Even the designers knew these things were irritating; notice how many of the construction quotes refer to the colonies's struggles with them.
* ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' continues the tradition. Native creature now use normal combat and stay passive unless threatened... but then there are [[SandWorm Siege Worms]]. These things have an ''endgame'' combat rating. A few are wandering the map on ''turn one''. New players are often advised to treat them as mobile disaster areas rather than an enemy unit and just focus on cleaning up after one blows through their settlement.

* The Dread Lords in ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations''. Any conflict involving them is going to be bloody, to the point where their ''constructors'' can go through mid-level ships like knives through butter. Also, ten Dread Lords infantry can conquer a planet. We recommend either swarm tactics of a sting-before-you-die suicide attack nature, or [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up their sun]].

* The native lifeforms in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', especially since their attacks completely ignore your units' armor, and the only way to beat them into have high morale or a special psi-shield (which doesn't do much against enemy units). The xenofungus itself is extremely annoying, as it constantly spreads, destroying your terrain improvements. Even removing it completely from an area doesn't guarantee that, in a few turns, a random scripted event won't create a highly-concentrated xenofungus area complete with boils of mind worms and a spore tower or two.

** Civ IV Axemen are easy to deal with in the Warlords & Beyond the Sword expansion packs, since chariots get a giant attack bonus against them. In vanilla Civ though there's really nothing you can do in the early game except take coinflip battles and hope they're stupid enough to attack units on defensive terrain. Not fun.

These will happily rain terror on your PlayerMooks for days on end.

* Barbarians in ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}''. They aren't much trouble early on, when they're animals (which won't enter your cultural borders) or Warriors (which are only dangerous to Settlers or Scouts). Then they discover bronzeworking. Barbarian Axemen will wreck your infrastructure like nobody's business, are a pain to take down in melee, and tend to come in packs - and they usually bring at least one Archer with them just to keep you guessing. The ''really'' irritating part is that, after about 800 BC on any difficulty harder than Settler on the expansion packs, these guys ''never stop coming''. Build the Great Wall as soon as you have access to it, or, barring that, keep Archers near your important tiles.

* [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]] "M" interceptors in ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]''. While they're poorly shielded, they come in huge swarms, and 90% of them will mount Pulsed Beam Emitters -- rapid-fire, lethally accurate lasers that do incredible damage to shields. A single M can strip down the shields of an M3 fighter very quickly on its own -- add in several dozen friends and you basically need a capital ship to kill them all without dying instantly in a hailstorm of (nearly) {{hitscan}} weapons.

** If you're in anything smaller than a corvette, Kha'ak clusters. They're made by one M3 ship and a lot of M5s. None of them are a threat singularily, but if the cluster isn't distracted by other targets and chooses you, you and only you to give its attention to, then you'll be facing DeathByAThousandCuts as 10+ ships concentrate hitscan weapons on your ass.
** Many of the randomly encountered Pirate M3 and M4 ships tend to equip the Plasma Burst Generator. VideoGameFlamethrowersSuck? Not here. A PBG-equipped Blastclaw can shred most anything smaller than a corvette once it gets into range, and is nearly impossible to escape from. Thankfully, once you get a good corvette like the [[MightyGlacier Vidar]] or the [[LightningBruiser Springblossom]], they lose a lot of their menace.
* The Dread Lords in ''GalacticCivilizations''. Any conflict involving them is going to be bloody, to the point where their ''constructors'' can go through mid-level ships like knives through butter. Also, ten Dread Lords infantry can conquer a planet. We recommend either swarm tactics of a sting-before-you-die suicide attack nature, or [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up their sun]].

* The native lifeforms in ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', especially since their attacks completely ignore your units' armor, and the only way to beat them into have high morale or a special psi-shield (which doesn't do much against enemy units). The xenofungus itself is extremely annoying, as it constantly spreads, destroying your terrain improvements. Even removing it completely from an area doesn't guarantee that, in a few turns, a random scripted event won't create a highly-concentrated xenofungus area complete with boils of mind worms and a spore tower or two.

** The Xenon "Q" frigate is a Demonic ''{{Giant|Spider}}'' [[GiantSpider Spider]]. On paper its stats are actually fairly mediocre for a frigate (though it typically mounts some pretty heavy weapons, including [[WaveMotionGun PPCs]] on the flank batteries), and the firing arcs for its turrets are totally bugged in in-sector combat. However, it is reviled for its ability to one-shot pretty much anything short of the Terran Osaka and ATF Tyr destroyers in out-of-sector combat. Technically every frigate can do that given a lucky break with the RNG, but as the Q is by far the most common enemy frigate it gets all the hate.

** Large Khaak clusters, too. They're made by one fairly powerful ship and rather a lot of weak ones. None of them are a threat singularily, but if the cluster isn't distracted by other targets and chooses you, you and only you to give its attention to, then you'll be facing DeathByAThousandCuts as 10+ ships concentrate hitscan weapons on your ass.

** All these tactics are just delaying actions, as you, hopefully, race to research and build better, stronger ships. Eventually, you can even take them in a one-to-one fight, although it will be difficult getting there.

* The Dread Lords in ''GalacticCivilizations''. Any conflict involving them is going to be bloody, to the point where their ''constructors'' can go through mid-level ships like knives through butter. Also, ten Dread Lords infantry can conquer a planet. We recommend either swarm tactics of a sting-before-you-die suicide attack nature, or [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up their sun]].

* [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]] "M" interceptors in ''VideoGame/{{X}}3: Terran Conflict''. While they're poorly shielded, they come in huge swarms, and 90% of them will mount Pulsed Beam Emitters -- rapid-fire, lethally accurate lasers that do incredible damage to shields. A single M can strip down the shields of an M3 fighter very quickly on its own -- add in several dozen friends and you basically need a capital ship to kill them all without dying instantly in a hailstorm of (nearly) {{hitscan}} weapons.

* Barbarians in ''{{Civilization}}''. They aren't much trouble early on, when they're animals (which won't enter your cultural borders) or Warriors (which are only dangerous to Settlers or Scouts). Then they discover bronzeworking. Barbarian Axemen will wreck your infrastructure like nobody's business, are a pain to take down in melee, and tend to come in packs - and they usually bring at least one Archer with them just to keep you guessing. The ''really'' irritating part is that, after about 800 BC on any difficulty harder than Settler on the expansion packs, these guys ''never stop coming''. Build the Great Wall as soon as you have access to it, or, barring that, keep Archers near your important tiles.

* [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]] "M" interceptors in ''X3TerranConflict''. While they're poorly shielded, they come in huge swarms, and 90% of them will mount Pulsed Beam Emitters -- rapid-fire, lethally accurate lasers that do incredible damage to shields. A single M can strip down the shields of an M3 fighter very quickly on its own -- add in several dozen friends and you basically need a capital ship to kill them all without dying instantly in a hailstorm of (nearly) {{hitscan}} weapons.

* [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]] "M" interceptors in ''X3TerranConflict''. While they're poorly shielded, they come in huge swarms, and 90% of them will mount Pulsed Beam Emitters -- rapid-fire, lethally accurate lasers that do incredible damage to shields. A single M can strip down the shields of an M3 fighter very quickly on its own -- add in several dozen friends and you basically need a capital ship to kill them all without dying instantly in a hailstorm of (nearly) {{hitscan}} weapons.