I've played the campaign through a couple of times, but so far I have only a little bit of experience at skirmish. I won a couple of games (the easy "Back to Basics" challenge, and 1v1v1v1 in UrbanChaos. However, I was probably on my way to loss last night on "Hide Behind Me" challenge (3 vs 5 on MizaMaze). I think one of my biggest problems is power management - I think I tend to put too much power into research, meaning that building and producing units tends to lag. I also don't like to build up as much in fixed defenses - my personal bias is to rather have a mobile group defend - but that's not always practical depending on the maps.
Any recommendations on how to manage research so that it doesn't consume all available power would be appreciated. More generally, could anyone recommend a few maps that might play a bit differently from each other due to terrain, etc) as well as setups (in terms of teams/locations/etc) that might be an easier introduction to playing in skirmish mode?
Keith
Help me pick some skirmish maps/play modes
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kringled
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Mats
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Re: Help me pick some skirmish maps/play modes
Hide Behind Me challenge is pretty hard. You need to dominate power in order to win. Best seems to be either to rush the enemy base at the bottom corner with one truck (pink) and steal their resources (while also taking it down to 3 vs 4) or to rush the centre oil immediately and take 4-5 of them and keep them. Bunkers help a lot on this level 
As for skirmish in general, I would recommend playing against DyDo AI on any level that you win against the normal AI. If you're just playing vs the AI, building some bunkers near oil resources in earlier stages will delay them for a long time, long enough for defence groups to finish them. You shouldn't be having problems with doing too much research. Usually I have 4 research modules working round the clock for most levels. Your problem is more likely not being aggressive enough taking oil. Take it! Take all of it! Then stick some bunkers on it to defend it.
As for skirmish in general, I would recommend playing against DyDo AI on any level that you win against the normal AI. If you're just playing vs the AI, building some bunkers near oil resources in earlier stages will delay them for a long time, long enough for defence groups to finish them. You shouldn't be having problems with doing too much research. Usually I have 4 research modules working round the clock for most levels. Your problem is more likely not being aggressive enough taking oil. Take it! Take all of it! Then stick some bunkers on it to defend it.
Full of ideas - Most are probably useless. Feel free to ignore them 
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kringled
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Re: Help me pick some skirmish maps/play modes
Thanks for the advice.
I've been playing a few more skirmish games and am getting a bit more of a hang of it:
Startup, w/scavengers: won in ~ 20-25 minutes. The scavenger base can allow you to turtle to an extent, if so inclined.
UrbanChasm, w/scavengers: won in ~ 20-25 minutes. The scavengers here are brutal, as you are under mortar attack from early on and there's few resources available without them. Defeating the AI was almost easier than going through the scavenger base to get to the AI.
Rush, 1v1v1v1, w/scavengers: Scavengers don't have as much impact; I mostly ignored their structures and just killed the units that were harassing my force. I was able to partially truck/MG bunker rush one of the opponents; this effort wasn't enough to destroy them but it seriously impaired them while I went after my other nearest neighbor with a tank force. Won in ~ 25 minutes.
UrbanChaos, 1v1v1v1 - no scavengers placed on map. By being more aggressive, I was able to hold all the oil in my sector, and start taking the center oil. I was later there with my trucks, so I only got one at first, but I had a superior setup with bunkers and was soon able to hold all the central oil, and set up bunkers/towers on the exits to the other sectors. My battle group made two main incursions into each sector in turn, the first to blow through their mobile forces and grab the nearest-center oil and set up bunkers, and then a second incursion to kill all factories and trucks/combat engineers (the first incursion was minipods and machine guns, but I waited for cannons and mortars for the second, more structure oriented raid). Took about 45 minutes as some of the AIs had straggler cyborg units in random places that were hard to find.
Fishnets, 1v1v1v1, w/scavengers: Won in ~ 1 hour. Map is larger and plays more slowly, both because of a well-set up scavenger base, as well as a lot of narrow passages and elaborate paths slowing movement. I was able to move fast and harass the neighbor on my side of the river quickly, but the narrow passages slowed my ability to finish off his base. At one point, that AI actually was building a factory between my battle group and the units returning from repair, and all the units on the one side were lancers (and of course that's where it was being built by combat engineers, not trucks). After I was able to finish the one AI off, I had enough resources to be able to set up both VTOLs and long range artillery, and use both to attack the other two forces near simultaneously, with my ground force swinging back and forth to assist. A couple of strategically placed MG bunkers in the back of one AI's base took a real toll on his cyborg forces.
Some random things I've learned doing this:
Unlike in the campaign, flamers are actually quite useful. Before I played skirmish, I was always sort of dubious of the advice in the fora to use flamers to defend against X...but the fire rates of flamers in skirmish are about 5 times higher than in campaign, making them actually quite useful in certain situations. Which I've learned the hard way a few times as well.
I am getting better about seizing oil early; knowing where the resources are on a particular map really helps with that. Starting a map, using the god-mode cheat to study the map, and then quitting and restarting are helpful for the first time through. I'm sure I've got a ways to go here.
My current approach to not over-researching tends to be two things: one, be aware of how much research costs in power; and two, I have taken brief pauses from starting new research to allow criticlal building and unit production to complete. I'm no longer just reflexively researching something new when I hear "Major Research Complete" if I'm already pretty much at 0 power.
Once I think I have a bit of a better handle against the default AI, I'll give DyDo a try.
Is there any guidance as to what things the default AI will respond to when allied in skirmish? (I mean in terms of diplomacy chat).
Keith
I've been playing a few more skirmish games and am getting a bit more of a hang of it:
Startup, w/scavengers: won in ~ 20-25 minutes. The scavenger base can allow you to turtle to an extent, if so inclined.
UrbanChasm, w/scavengers: won in ~ 20-25 minutes. The scavengers here are brutal, as you are under mortar attack from early on and there's few resources available without them. Defeating the AI was almost easier than going through the scavenger base to get to the AI.
Rush, 1v1v1v1, w/scavengers: Scavengers don't have as much impact; I mostly ignored their structures and just killed the units that were harassing my force. I was able to partially truck/MG bunker rush one of the opponents; this effort wasn't enough to destroy them but it seriously impaired them while I went after my other nearest neighbor with a tank force. Won in ~ 25 minutes.
UrbanChaos, 1v1v1v1 - no scavengers placed on map. By being more aggressive, I was able to hold all the oil in my sector, and start taking the center oil. I was later there with my trucks, so I only got one at first, but I had a superior setup with bunkers and was soon able to hold all the central oil, and set up bunkers/towers on the exits to the other sectors. My battle group made two main incursions into each sector in turn, the first to blow through their mobile forces and grab the nearest-center oil and set up bunkers, and then a second incursion to kill all factories and trucks/combat engineers (the first incursion was minipods and machine guns, but I waited for cannons and mortars for the second, more structure oriented raid). Took about 45 minutes as some of the AIs had straggler cyborg units in random places that were hard to find.
Fishnets, 1v1v1v1, w/scavengers: Won in ~ 1 hour. Map is larger and plays more slowly, both because of a well-set up scavenger base, as well as a lot of narrow passages and elaborate paths slowing movement. I was able to move fast and harass the neighbor on my side of the river quickly, but the narrow passages slowed my ability to finish off his base. At one point, that AI actually was building a factory between my battle group and the units returning from repair, and all the units on the one side were lancers (and of course that's where it was being built by combat engineers, not trucks). After I was able to finish the one AI off, I had enough resources to be able to set up both VTOLs and long range artillery, and use both to attack the other two forces near simultaneously, with my ground force swinging back and forth to assist. A couple of strategically placed MG bunkers in the back of one AI's base took a real toll on his cyborg forces.
Some random things I've learned doing this:
Unlike in the campaign, flamers are actually quite useful. Before I played skirmish, I was always sort of dubious of the advice in the fora to use flamers to defend against X...but the fire rates of flamers in skirmish are about 5 times higher than in campaign, making them actually quite useful in certain situations. Which I've learned the hard way a few times as well.
I am getting better about seizing oil early; knowing where the resources are on a particular map really helps with that. Starting a map, using the god-mode cheat to study the map, and then quitting and restarting are helpful for the first time through. I'm sure I've got a ways to go here.
My current approach to not over-researching tends to be two things: one, be aware of how much research costs in power; and two, I have taken brief pauses from starting new research to allow criticlal building and unit production to complete. I'm no longer just reflexively researching something new when I hear "Major Research Complete" if I'm already pretty much at 0 power.
Once I think I have a bit of a better handle against the default AI, I'll give DyDo a try.
Is there any guidance as to what things the default AI will respond to when allied in skirmish? (I mean in terms of diplomacy chat).
Keith
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Mats
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Re: Help me pick some skirmish maps/play modes
Yeah, that's really annoying. Especially on challenges you want to win fast!Took about 45 minutes as some of the AIs had straggler cyborg units in random places that were hard to find.
I see you didn't put anything about losing any games? Does this mean you didn't lose any at all? If you're not losing any at all, definately try DyDo. It's a huge improvement on the normal AI. Huge.
UrbanChaos - You should be taking 4/4 of those central oils against the AI!
Maybe some of your research problems are coming from not upgrading power modules early enough and not seizing early oil? I always try to go down the line of sensor - sensor tower - command relay centre - research module - upgrades x3 - power module upgrades x3 with one research facility. It makes other research go faster and then you get a huge boost getting this power upgrade early. Oil has to be taken early to avoid running all your power down at the start of the game to 0.
Standard AI doesn't seem to respond to chat. DyDo will do quite a lot. Take a look at the thread on it or website.
Full of ideas - Most are probably useless. Feel free to ignore them
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kringled
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- Joined: 16 Jan 2010, 16:53
Re: Help me pick some skirmish maps/play modes
No losses. I'll be trying DyDo out soonish. It could easily be smarter than I am, though.Mats wrote:I see you didn't put anything about losing any games? Does this mean you didn't lose any at all? If you're not losing any at all, definately try DyDo. It's a huge improvement on the normal AI. Huge.
UrbanChaos - You should be taking 4/4 of those central oils against the AI!
Maybe some of your research problems are coming from not upgrading power modules early enough and not seizing early oil? I always try to go down the line of sensor - sensor tower - command relay centre - research module - upgrades x3 - power module upgrades x3 with one research facility. It makes other research go faster and then you get a huge boost getting this power upgrade early. Oil has to be taken early to avoid running all your power down at the start of the game to 0.
Standard AI doesn't seem to respond to chat. DyDo will do quite a lot. Take a look at the thread on it or website.
UrbanChaos: I didn't manage to get to those central oils first, but it wasn't long before I had and held all of them. I'm sure I can do still better than I did last time, still learning.
I do try to make sure that I get to power module upgrades quickly. As you said above, it's probably that I'm not aggressive enough about taking early oil; something else to learn. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to prioritize in my researching.
The one game of "Hide Behind Me" I had the one ai ally asking for help and the other saying either ok or nothing to give. I didn't know what to say (but helped by shifting my battle group that way). I'd seen the DyDo website of what it would respond to, which is why I asked.
Keith
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