Strategy and counter-strategy debate thread.

[Iluvalar]

...Tokenring...

In that case, I had better look for better opponents when I play that map... haven't played garden so I don't know about that.

Regards, Searge

Usually the chosen approach is a mg tower rush. Due to the size of the chokepoints, the defence structures are a very good option. But is still a rush...

[Giani]

The distribution of oil. With ~50% of the oil straight in the centre. It cause the players to rush madly to the centre to a point were the building orders and research choices are screwed. The first player to get the control of the centre correctly is unbeatable. Generally it's around 5 minutes in the game.

From that point, unless the dominating player do a mistake, he is about sure to win. However, unlike some good rushing map, cockate offer a disturbing turtling position that forbid the winning player to attack on the front. He is forced to sit on his position and research another 20 minutes before giving the final assault. which is just a waste of time for everyone.

Ah, I forgot about the oil in the center...
But still it is a fun map

[zydonk]

The distribution of oil. With ~50% of the oil straight in the centre. It cause the players to rush madly to the centre to a point were the building orders and research choices are screwed. The first player to get the control of the centre correctly is unbeatable. Generally it's around 5 minutes in the game.

From that point, unless the dominating player do a mistake, he is about sure to win. However, unlike some good rushing map, cockate offer a disturbing turtling position that forbid the winning player to attack on the front. He is forced to sit on his position and research another 20 minutes before giving the final assault. which is just a waste of time for everyone.

I assume you are describing what actually happens. I expected that the seven (shared - though not common - interest in getting the oil for themselves) to one opposition to any occupier would be a sufficient counterbalance - as well as creating the "major" focus of conflict (the two to one back-doors struggle constituting a "minor" focus). I hadn't realised that oil advantage could be so determinative so early in a bout.

One of the reasons there is so much oil in each base is to make the struggle for the centre a play for advantage rather than survival. For me, gameplay is more important than simply winning - though this is hard to engineer in mp, when bouts are so short.

So, as a matter of curiosity, what is the breaker with squared (which doesn't allow this centre field advantage)?

ps I will check out tokenring, if I can find it...

[Giani]

So, as a matter of curiosity, what is the breaker with squared (which doesn't allow this centre field advantage)?

Because it is a fast win, even if there is no oil...
Who gets the middle earlier, usually wins. Because there isn't any other way to get to other bases without using VTOLs or transports.

[NoQ]

Yeah, it breaks the teamwork, allowing to kill the enemies 4x1 in team games.
In squared FFAs, it's clearly the opposite: nobody wants to come any close to the center, turtling is clearly a single best strategy.
2x2x2x2's count as team games, i think, but i didn't play many of those.

[Iluvalar]

For cockate : your assumption is wrong. If the oil was distributed otherwise, the player couldn't handle the pressure from 7 other players. But with nearly 3 time the oil of a normal player, the mass of unit from that player will be 6 time as strong as the others. This mean the 7 other players must strike as soon as that happen together with all they have. If any of them hesitate, is not ready because of the timing or decide to attack one of the other instead. The central player will win. Since, on top of having 3 time more units, he also obviously getting the lead in the research centres.


In Squared team, the team that meet in the centre can easily divides the opponents.

High oil games with more that 2 forces is obligatory broken. Both in storyline and game play, we fight in the sole purpose to get more power resource. If you already sit on 40 oil, there is 0 motivation to attack anybody else.

[Searge-Major]

Speaking of, what maps ARE ideal for foiling rushes?

hmmm.
Tokenring. most of the minis, garden

Sorry I must have misunderstood this.

Usually the chosen approach is a mg tower rush. Due to the size of the chokepoints, the defence structures are a very good option. But is still a rush...

That's exactly what I meant, every game I've played on that map was like that, with one exception where I reached a stale mate with another mg tower rusher after sweeping two of his opponents of the map, where I used grenadiers to great success...

Of course, the fact that I can't remember ever loosing on that map could just be a tribute to my fellow BDC members...

Searge

[zydonk]

For cockate : your assumption is wrong. If the oil was distributed otherwise, the player couldn't handle the pressure from 7 other players. But with nearly 3 time the oil of a normal player, the mass of unit from that player will be 6 time as strong as the others. This mean the 7 other players must strike as soon as that happen together with all they have. If any of them hesitate, is not ready because of the timing or decide to attack one of the other instead. The central player will win. Since, on top of having 3 time more units, he also obviously getting the lead in the research centres.


In Squared team, the team that meet in the centre can easily divides the opponents.

High oil games with more that 2 forces is obligatory broken. Both in storyline and game play, we fight in the sole purpose to get more power resource. If you already sit on 40 oil, there is 0 motivation to attack anybody else.

Let me qualify what follows by observing that I have no experience of mp, except what I have seen of videos of some bouts.

I have assumed FFA play in all cases. Teamplay magnifies resources to such an extent that special maps should be - and are - constructed for them. I have also assumed play with WZ vanilla (the only alternative mod being v1.10). The maps are not designed for mp quick bouts. Mp mods are too "weak" to provide good gameplay on these maps, which assume good defense strategies as well as attack strategies.

cockate: In FFA I would not expect one player to control all the oil outside his own base - it is too dispersed, most of it within range of opponents' bases. There can be a fluctuating research advantage, but this advantage serves direct attack (rush) play only. Players can use the ramparts fronting their bases to create simple but effective ranged defenses, and exploit the back entries to chip away at surrounding enemies. And no matter how powerful a player becomes, the defense of his base is limited by the limited space within it. The bases are deep, but they are vulnerable from the sides.

Squared: In FFA, no player could possibly control the centre, it is too big. Besides, the upper levels between bases are available for play and can perform the role of attack or defense platforms.

I might be wrong here in my assumptions. But if cockate, cockpit and Squared are so easily broken, how do you account for their continued popularity? Even Merro is still producing Squared lookalikes!

[Giani]

Even Mero is still producing Squared lookalikes!

Yeah, but in that maps you can atack from other places and in some ones you can go over the mountains whitout using transports.

[Iluvalar]

Mp mods are too "weak" to provide good gameplay on these maps.

Lie ! This is a lie ! .

cockate: In FFA I would not expect one player to control all the oil outside his own base - it is too dispersed, most of it within range of opponents' bases.

At the very beginning, but soon the dominating player will have more oil and more unit. And there will be no reason why he could not have both a good defence and still a dominating force in the centre with 3x the power.

Real players react differently from bots. If the dominating player come to learn that one of his neighbour lost his army, he will instantly launch a full scale attack from both side and centre on him in order to capture the undefended base. So the neighbours are in a stalemate; If they try any decent attack on the dominator, he will obviously know that they are weakened and they would lose instantly. Since they represent an extension of the dominator's base without any frontier increase...

I might be wrong here in my assumptions. But if cockate, cockpit and Squared are so easily broken, how do you account for their continued popularity? Even Merro is still producing Squared lookalikes!

Mero know he is making such map, he just like making map. Leave him alone !

1) Flawed maps are played less by the "pro" players that really understand how the flow is broken. This have the vicious effect to drastically improve the winning ratio of the decent player under them (they might like that). 2) Plus, cockate create a false feeling of being able to defend (that you demonstrated just now), but it's just caused by the dominating player that need to play with his food for longer than usual. Which lead me to point 3) Some players might just like to play with their food like that even if the game is already officiously won. 4) There is a magnified rock-paper-scissor effect in the centre of map like cockate. There is no guaranty the very first player in the centre will secure it, the final result will depend on the opening and research choice of everyone. Plenty of players are not aware as strong as I am of such map flow, they might believe they are good on that map while they are just lucky. 5) And lastly, not all players have the same maturity. Aware or not, some of them try to win at a meta-level (before the game start). Consciously or not, flawed map give them a head in advance vs players that don't know the flaw yet and so they win more often.

[zydonk]

Mp mods are too "weak" to provide good gameplay on these maps.

Lie ! This is a lie ! .

Can I focus on this quote to begin with. You have tampered with what you are quoting of me here. The full sentence reads:

"Mp mods are too "weak" to provide good gameplay on these maps, which assume good defense strategies as well as attack strategies."

Most mp mods seriously reduce the effectiveness of defense structures - and they hardly exist at all in your NRS. The reason for this is understandable as far as mp is concerned - it keeps gameplay open and fluid.

Once again I say, cockate and Squared are not mp maps as such, as both require developed defense as well as attack strategies. This, as I have argued, is not possible in mp (if only due to time and resource constraints).

As for the rest of your reply, Iluvalar, I will allow your arguments and I hope that the less than perfect mp players take your points to heart. Whether the maps I made are played or not is not that important - tho' obviously I'm flattered if they are - I get my ego satisfactions from other parts of my life...

Finally, I am not baiting Merro, just making a point. It would in any case be hard to avoid replicating the Squared layout in principle - it is after all the basic layout of the WZ map. Squared is simply that layout stripped of all refinements and candy.

[Iluvalar]

Most mp mods seriously reduce the effectiveness of defense structures - and they hardly exist at all in your NRS. The reason for this is understandable as far as mp is concerned - it keeps gameplay open and fluid.

I'm sorry but it still wrong. A structure focus in NRS is totally possible. I don't know how you tried it, but played correctly it's successful. I regularly played turtling games and rushing structures games in NRS during the development. Now I might boost or not the structures a bit in the future, I'm open to discussion, but saying that structures "hardly exist" just show that you didn't really tried correctly.

[zydonk]

Most mp mods seriously reduce the effectiveness of defense structures - and they hardly exist at all in your NRS. The reason for this is understandable as far as mp is concerned - it keeps gameplay open and fluid.

I'm sorry but it still wrong. A structure focus in NRS is totally possible. I don't know how you tried it, but played correctly it's successful. I regularly played turtling games and rushing structures games in NRS during the development. Now I might boost or not the structures a bit in the future, I'm open to discussion, but saying that structures "hardly exist" just show that you didn't really tried correctly.

It's not an issue, but from my experience playing NRS in sk all I got was a flamer bunker and a pulse hardpoint. Incidentally, tho I upgraded the base material the hardpoints still felt weak. The fact that the AI did little to upgrade its droids or weaponry served as a kind of rebalance, no doubt - but a pretty tedious one.

Just face it, Iluvalar, NRS might well be a brilliant mp mod but in sk it is a disappointment. But then you never intended it to be played in sk, did you?

[NoQ]

It's not an issue, but from my experience playing NRS in sk all I got was a flamer bunker and a pulse hardpoint.

You did something seriously wrong then. This shows that you criticize something you know nothing about; a mod you hardly ever played. Please stop posting this non-sense.

[Iluvalar]

It's not an issue, but from my experience playing NRS in sk all I got was a flamer bunker and a pulse hardpoint.

You did something seriously wrong then. This shows that you criticize something you know nothing about; a mod you hardly ever played. Please stop posting this non-sense.

Obviously !
But just to hammer the last nail in the coffin, here is a skirmish savegame of me in 8c-pill_NRSpV121 beating the crap out of the last AI survivors using pulse laser towers as ONLY weapon for the entire game.