Now before we get started let me say what I mean by complexity.
Complexity, adjective; The overall complexness of a player's strategy in MP, in order to most easily defeat another player.
This morning I spent a CONSIDERABLE time playing MP. I noticed several things:
1. most experienced players simply build 5 cyborg factories 2 reg factories and then storm you base with lots of troops.
2. with so many units the reasoning for using specialized weaponry to counter the opponents weapons of choice is little to none. Simply because one doesn't necessarily only build flamer cyborgs.
2. walls die VERY easily - too easily
IMHO these problems could be remedied by 1 or 2 things.
The wall models are different but its strength is still the same Macuser you would have to change its definition not its shape.
I think land mines are in a mod or were used in the game before.
As for either being a remedy for a rush attack I don't know.
I feel your stuck between the rock and the hard place with this balance issue as the attack can choose to flank your walls anyway.
A good counter for mass cyborg attack is make cyborgs to intercept them.
Orig was 1x1. the new one i'm adding will connect with fortresses just like walls connect with hardpoints. It will be 2x2 and it WILL have a new definition - it have as much HP as the fortress without the turret on top . I think most of the confusion stems from the fact I did not explain myself very well. I have made 4 new models.
1. a new wall model (will replace current wall)
2. a new hardpoint/corner wall model (will replace current hardpoint)
3. a Heavy wall (this is what i'm talking about here)
4. a new fortress/heavy corner wall (the heavy walls will connect with fortresses much like wall with hardpoints)
Also the land mine concept.... either the mines should NOT be visible OR they should not be destroy-able except by certain units (minesweepers or something).
macuser wrote:Now before we get started let me say what I mean by complexity.
Complexity, adjective; The overall complexness of a player's strategy in MP, in order to most easily defeat another player.
This morning I spent a CONSIDERABLE time playing MP. I noticed several things:
1. most experienced players simply build 5 cyborg factories 2 reg factories and then storm you base with lots of troops.
2. with so many units the reasoning for using specialized weaponry to counter the opponents weapons of choice is little to none. Simply because one doesn't necessarily only build flamer cyborgs.
2. walls die VERY easily - too easily
IMHO these problems could be remedied by 1 or 2 things.
To be honest, I find your observations about MP to be uninformed. Heavy bodies with armor upgrades can take a lot more hits than cyborg bodies with armor upgrades. The point is, if you're being stormed with troops, make troops to fight back. Defenses are marginal at best. Walls don't die too easily. If you're being hit by flamer cyborgs, make something like hover python assault gun and hit and run them, as you will be faster...
You said, "wall don't die too easily" Agreed. However not when about ten units or more come through - I have addressed that. Also I think thats a GOOD idea bout the python hover assault gun IF the only thing he threw was cyborgs. He did not. Pouring into my gates came minions of cyborgs, heavy MG python wheels, and several light cannon viper half tracks. Needless to say I was NOT going down without a fight. I had a good 20 bombard python tracks and about 50 heavy gunner cyborgs at my command in base. One minute I had them the other they were GONE. As he continued his rampage though my base the ominous sound of "power resource detected echoed through my speakers" he just walked his troops past my base and it all died. That fast. Not only that but this happened on several other occasions too. That Is why I see that these additions are necessary. Even if you do not think they are absolutely necessary, I hope you would agree that they would at least enhance game-play.
Flamers, machineguns and artillery are all very effective against any heap of cyborgs...
Mortars take them out while flamer and mg bunkers prevent them from coming close.
macuser wrote:You said, "wall don't die too easily" Agreed. However not when about ten units or more come through - I have addressed that. Also I think thats a GOOD idea bout the python hover assault gun IF the only thing he threw was cyborgs. He did not. Pouring into my gates came minions of cyborgs, heavy MG python wheels, and several light cannon viper half tracks. Needless to say I was NOT going down without a fight. I had a good 20 bombard python tracks and about 50 heavy gunner cyborgs at my command in base. One minute I had them the other they were GONE. As he continued his rampage though my base the ominous sound of "power resource detected echoed through my speakers" he just walked his troops past my base and it all died. That fast. Not only that but this happened on several other occasions too. That Is why I see that these additions are necessary. Even if you do not think they are absolutely necessary, I hope you would agree that they would at least enhance game-play.
-regards macuser
Defend yourself in a more dynamic and effective fashion. If you need gameplay tips, come on IRC and i'll tell you, but please, don't ask for better hardcrete...
In real-life war, all else being equal, the advantage usually goes to the aggressor. Ground is much easier to take than it is to hold. For example, Nazi Germany had a year or two to fortify conquered Europe, And yet the Allies established a beachhead in Normandy in just a few days of fighting. All those costly bunkers, anti landing boat mines, and artillery emplacements did little to stop the Allied spam attack. Add to this that the Allies were daylight bombing Germany's factories, while theirs remained unscathed and it's no wonder that Germany lost.
However all that said, Warzone is skewed entirely toward rush tactics, and is not at all realistic about defenses. (Even the Allies with all their military might took massive casualties while attacking fortified Europe.) Warzone is even moreso skewed toward rush tactics now that weapons like: Scourge, Ripple Rockets, and Archangels have been nerfed so badly that they are practically useless against their intended targets--the all powerful Heavy Cannon Heavy Body Tanks. They are now completely out-of-balance. Add to this that Hyper-Velocity Cannons is now a badass weapon available very early in the game, and they slice through lowly Hardcrete walls (and what ever is immediately behind those walls) like a hot knife through warm butter. Meanwhile, you can research a Mortars on defense--big deal. In real-world military research and development, you would have had Howizter and Cannon emplacements long before tanks, but Warzone's Technology Tree does not permit this--it has these technologies backasswards. (The tank came after artillery in real world history--like about 600 years after.)
Early in a T1 Warzone game, your opponent can produce an army of 135 combat units (the max possible while also having 15 trucks), in about the same time you can research the first meaningful hardpoint defensive structure. And even then, with only 15 trucks and limited power production, you simply cannot build enough defensive structures to adequately defend your base. But even if you could build defenses, they are only as strong as their weakest point, so all a rusher need do is breach the your defense in one spot and then spam his units through. Once inside your turtle shell, the soft underbelly of your factories, research facilities, power generators, and oil derricks fall easily like dominoes and it's game over for you...that is unless you have your own units inside that wall.
The best you can do with Warzone defenses, against rush tactics is to use them to route traffic to where your mobile units are waiting to counter-strike. But this, of course, requires you to produce mobile units.
In the Art of War, Sun Tsu wrote that one unit of an enemy's rice was worth 2 units of your own. The more modern expression is that an army travels on it's stomach. Both expressions speak about supply lines, which Warzone has no such aspect to the game. However, if you think about this with respect to where fighting takes place, you can use it. If you take the fight to your enemy, then the fight is not in your base, and not near your factories. Sure, you may lose a few units to his defenses, but you are more likely to have all of your factories producing units at full capacity. Meanwhile, if you knock out just one of your opponent's factories, the balance of power shifts in your favor, since you can now outproduce your opponent. Press your advantage and knock out another factory, and the balance tips in your favor even more. The same is true of attacking oils wells. In fact, oil wells are sometimes sweeter targets since they cannot be rebuilt while they are burning.
If you watch carefully, you will find that most rushers chose a particular weapon to attack you with their first wave. They focus their research on only the most critical technology required to quickly produce units with that weapon, then they use their power to produce an army. And while they produce their army, they focus their research on all the upgrade technology that makes that chosen weapon more effective. Get the weapon first, produce a lot of them second, upgrade them as power supplies allow. So by the time they attack you, their lowly machine gunner cyborgs are spitting out Tungsten Tipped bullets and Depleted Uranium ones not far behind in the research queue.
Your choice of units versus your opponents was poor. He went for cheap units with a high sustained rate of fire. Your weapons may have packed more punch, but they fire much more slowly and you had far too few of them.
Warfare is actually very simple, and two quotes are all the strategy required to win:
1. Get thar the fustest with the mostest.
2. Hit 'em where they ain'ts.
Can I offer this observation. I don't play MP, only Sk, but I assume that an AI like DyDo optimises AI assaults, esp in early stages. From experience, I have found bunkers a better defence than walls. If I am open to attack, I will block it with a line of mg bunkers built straight off at the start. Then research flamer and place flamer bunkers two by two behind the mg bunkers (this is so trucks can repair). Upgrade mg bullets and concrete, get the minirocket, then onto mortars.
The basic idea is that bunkers are resistant and they bite back. The flamers keep attack flamers at a distamce, while the mgs chew them up. Then the AI usually brings in cyborg mortars for range attack - the mini rocks do them in. When I get to mortars, I always group them so they tend to all fire on nearest - and so the same - target.
I'm no soldier, have no liking for warfare (I'm an historian), but my instinct has always been to group my forces, both in attack and defence. I leave isolated oil wells alone until I can hold them in strength. And when I attack my opponents, I take them apart completely one by one. Never fight on two fronts. (I avoided a beating once years ago by a group of guys by promising to really damage at least one of them.)
I allow that MP - because human players can vary their game - could be more complex, but history teaches that it is the weapon that wins the war, not the soldier. Not the most advanced weapon, but the most effective weapon. For instance, what was the most effective weapon of post Soviet warfare? The AK? The grenade launcher? IUD? Certainly not Cruise or m6 strikers.
Before I go into my post I would like to point out a few things:
1: If you play only against ai you have no say in the balance.
2: Land mines are a dumb idea.
3: Walls are cheap, they CAN die easily, but they can also be upgraded, and of course you can make more than one row of walls.
Ok with that out of the way...
You complain about most players simply doing all in rushes with masses of early T1 units, and this is true. But this doesn't mean the game is broken, it just means you don't know what to do.
To begin with if it gets to the point where you have 90 units knocking on your front door you have already lost. The trick is not letting it get to that point, you need to know what they are doing. Use the intel menu or even send a unit to their base if you really want to, you need to know what the enemy is up to. If you start seeing him make a lot of cannon borgs chances are he's doing an all in rush. In low power this of course means he's going to be far behind on research and once you fend it off he will have very little power and no army to stop you. On high power this means nothing because your opponent is a endless blackhole of infinite resources, so after you fend it off your best bet is to turtle and tech up to some more advanced units.
#1, on high oil maps, the defenses become Overpowered, the best way to win is to attack before such ridiculous defenses are built up, or slowly grind them down with artillery, or massed VTOL raids if they haven't been massing AA defenses too.
#2, Python track bombards.... really? that says something right there.
If you are going to make a tough, expensive unit, give it a high DPS weapon!.
If your intent is to turtle and have it sit behind a wall (hopefully multiple tiles deep), you might as well use a pit, or a bug wheels if you intend to push forward with fire support in a counter attack.
#3, What do you expect, to win with inferior forces? spending all your money on defenses that are spread out?
Defenses are tough for their cost, 1v1, a defense will easily take a tank, but mobile forces can be locally concentrated (likewise, disparate artillery can concentrate fire, making artillery also powerful), unless you have a single choke point, that can secure half the oil on the map, don't expect to be able to win without a mobile force capable of engaging another mobile force and surviving.
#4, No reason for building specialized weaponry? Well fine then, build only one type of weapon, watch as I build counters to it.
Your opponents forces were mixed, to cover deficiencies, thats why you didn't see any good single weapon to counter them.
I suspect he built his forces to counter your not very diverse forces.
Flamer borgs= good heavy gunner counter
Assault gun tracks= good heavy gunner counter
Assault gunner/assault gun hover/track = good flamer borg counter, but not a good assault gun tracks counter,
So he could easily vary his forces to counter your heavy gunners, while leaving you with no good counter to his units.
20 bombards.... not enough to affect a battle except on really low oil conditions.
Think of artillery as siege weapons, during an actual assault, they aren't much use, but if you can get close to the enemy, they will start to wear them down, and the enemy must come and fight, or flee.
The enemy intended to fight, so they weren't much use.
So basically, he only needed to make a cyborg counter force,
While cyborg counter weapons aren't much use against hardcrete, some cannons thrown in the mix will be sufficient, or BB rockets, those pwn defenses, just have them mixed in with other units, don't send them against defenses alone (especially if the enemy counter attacks with units)
. I think most of the confusion stems from the fact I did not explain myself very well. I have made 4 new models.
