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ah yes, very nice. nice little strategy piece! with that credit lead and positioning it's definitely a win!
yes, it's true that often a warp-in is most often a failure. I have been rather successful with it in the right situations, though.
I think the key to warp-ins that novices forget are really forecasting the response in terms of units and threats. For example, warping 4 mechas into mountains when 5 units can instantly retaliate makes the move pointless. And warping near Plasmas is instant sacrifice so only must be done to prevent a base steal prevention, block, etc.
I have used it in a high level match on Forest Walk T vs. T to immediately surround 2 early backfield walkers. It felt a little strange to spend those few turns pumping out mechas in the back while he sat and got two walkers out, but I thought it would work as long as he didn't build enough mechas to protect himself, which luckily he didn't. Although the match still went 44 rounds the warp-in definitely made the difference. (2400 rank opponent) The key was that there was enough forest to make retaliation difficult for the opponent, and soon I had a little army all active in the forest around him.
I see a lot of players warp into mountains thinking that will be great, not realizing that there are two turns of retaliation in addition to the fact that titans aren't built for pressuring and rushing. So once they are in the mountains, then what? haha
The only truly effective warp in I have seen is to almost completely surround walkers or to hit a base with backup from friendly walkers and heavies.
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Hmm, okay, being that I don't know what is in red's backfield (do you know?) I would not warp in. What makes this hard is that your front two walkers are in forests. it makes a walker tradeoff not favorable as well. So all that is left is minimizing damage.
I would kill 7 str red walker on far left with the two 10 mechas on west. Move base mecha into that now-empty mountain. Use 5 mecha to move to forest and attack 3 mecha in mountain (probably weaken to 1). Move assimilator down one space (into range of red walker, ugh!!). Then move lowest walker in forest left one space. Now move 10 mecha in forest down/left to forest where walker just was and attack 7 walker in mtn. Middle speeder move into forest and attack same red mecha, finish off and bump out one space to the right. Move upper walker in forest one space left where speeder was. Use remaining walker in middle to range attack 8 speeder near top. Have top 10 mecha move down/right into forest and finish off that speeder. Move speeder on base to the right and attack 10 str. mecha. Build a speeder in that base. Build a mecha in lower base.
One note, on the next turn red can easily blast away the mecha in the top forest and expose the walker to a hit there as well, so it might be worth warping in mecha (currently on base) somewhere near the red walkers to necessitate one red speeder to stay back, but it would only work if red backfield is totally empty. And even then, a good player would probably ignore it and charge ahead. It just looks like GG to me. Fun little challenge though.
What did you do and how did it turn out?
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it seems a mass retribution teleport invasion might be the answer, but let me look at this for a bit and think.
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I would probably teleport two Capital G's into the chat box.
Honestly, did you get out of this situation and keep the game going? Do you have a large credit advantage at this point? I will give this little situation some thought.
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Fool, thank you for sharing your opinions. The fact is that if a game is ranked, your playing score is affected. Thus, high-level players (any player really, but especially those who care about their scores) will not want to randomly be assigned to an unbalanced map and get an unfair disadvantage that could drastically affect their score.
Higher ranked players should be the ones with the most weight in voting for maps to become ranked because they truly understand ALL the units of EVERY race and how they interact with each other AND the map layouts. Being a lower-ranked player, you may not see all the things that are blatantly obvious to players ranked 2500+ (My score is only 2001 because I have stopped playing ranked games, but I assure you it would be well above 2500 if I still played ranked matches.)
This is not to demean you, but trust me, as you get higher in the ranks you will learn things and understand why nobody with high ranks will want to risk their scores to being randomly assigned to a terribly balanced map. As Sims points out, the voting system, once fixed, will still allow low-ranked players and everyone to rank for "fun" factor and in placement in the custom games lists, and that really is fair. But for balanced and ranked match voting, that should be left to those with a deep understanding of the game.
Now, to another matter. There are some highly ranked players at 2300+ that clearly do not play at that level or deserve that high of a ranking. I believe it must have been left over from the past when people could play bots and get points (before my time). So the ranking system, I believe, should be started afresh. Either that, or I am open to the idea of requiring a random map ranked match every month or something to that effect. But we must make sure the ranked maps are balanced first before doing that! haha
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Nice, how about this?
Who moves like a butterfly, but stings like a bee?
Muhammad Ali?
No, a swarmer.
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Also Tig and Waxoid, that is a good point regarding balance and open bases. In fact, it's one big reason the speeder movement was buffed because of certain maps like butterfly and peanut-something where titans really had a disadvantage at the beginning, especially to khrals. It may be worth putting that in the game notes that are accessed in game design. I will see if we can at least put some info on map design regarding that issue.
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Okay, so we are adding this text to the map editor info screen either in this update or the next update. It won't solve the voting issue, but at least it will help newbies be aware:
Neutral Bases and Game Balance
Keep in mind that designing neutral bases between opponents that players must rush to steal at the beginning of a match requires careful thought so as not to give the first player an unfair advantage, or a certain race an advantage. Main considerations include:
*remember, the first player moves first! So the second player should at least be able to provide resistance or have an adequate chance of preventing the first player from stealing a neutral base between them.
*the movement values of each race’s infantry are very different. The order from fastest to slowest is: underling, marine, mecha. Make sure to test your map to ensure that no race has an unfair advantage in merely reaching a base before another race can even try to prevent it. (for example, an underling can traverse over two plains to land on a base and try to steal it in just one turn, whereas marines and mechas could not)
*titans can warp to far away locations and control those areas quickly, so if there are neutral bases in those locations then khrals and sapien players should at least be able to protect those areas before a titan can steal a neutral base with no resistance
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In addition to poor maps being thumbs-upped, really good maps get thumbs-downed by crappy players who don't understand the game well. For example, Sims "Speed Arena" is really awesome in my opinion but has several thumbs downs. It is a map that requires real skill in the game and newbies will get destroyed on it, but a great map for advanced players.
We have also discussed several ideas with the devs regarding implementing a weighted system for votes being more valuable from high ranked players, so hopefully we will see these implementations soon. They will happen, we just don't know the exact timeline yet.
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I think it is fine as is. The fact that garudas are cheap and can heal +2 per turn lends to their strategy. The way a high level match will play out, helicopters will be killing the cheaper garudas but also be getting dented and damaged slowly, having a hard time to heal. Khrals often run a credit deficit for a little while, but can retreat and heal quickly. Saps have several almost-dead choppers out and the match gets tipped one way or the other depending on if the khrals can finish off a few choppers or rush in and control a base before enough new fresh choppers come out or old choppers can heal sufficiently with engineer support.
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All very good tips, from very good players.
Another thing you can do is track credits of your opponent. This takes some effort, but can be a big payoff and make a difference in a tight matchup. The way to do this is to calculate from the beginning how many credits your opponent starts with, each turn add the amount of turn credits to the total and deduct the value of his/her current/new units in the field as well as the value of those units of his/hers you have killed. (you can find some of these figures in the War Report screen). Sometimes you can't see all the enemy's units, but if you scout well and track everything you can often know exactly what build options your opponent has, which can affect your approach and build as well.
Keep in mind that blue and red often start with different amounts of credits. I have used this technique in ranked matches as well as tournaments to great effect. I don't bother with unranked matches however because it takes a lot of tracking haha.
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Actually it is possible to have that outcome! Plasma tanks can often do 4 damage to a Pinzer. The most unlucky part of that roll was you doing 1 damage, as it is only about a 2% chance or so for a full strength Pinzer to dole out only 1 damage to a Plasma tank. However, it is possible. Sorry!
Remember that a plasma tank attacking a pinzer is 11 attack to a 13 defense.
a pinzer attacking a plasma tank is 10 attack to a 14 defense.
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I agree that Titans need help. Eclipse speed buff to 12 would be nice, and even ground light to up to 11 attack would be nice to allow them more use as anti-infantry. I would even leave them at 12 anti-air.
The speeder thing, I dunno, I am open to play-testing that. I tell you, having retreat of 9 would be so fun and would definitely open up new strategies for Titans. I guess it should be play-tested.
Being that Titans are so low in ladders does say something, though. I actually like the idea of 5-6 turn cooldown for warping, except that titan vs. titan might potentially slog more in maps like hurtgen and forest walk. Playtesting would provide the answer to that.
That's why I am all for uber high credit units that move the match forward when endless-turtling happens.
In any event, I will talk with devs to at least get their opinions on all this titan balance.
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Ok, here is my idea for a new unit for the titans that would help out. Not sure how much it would cost, but it would add A LOT more strategies for Titans other than just turtling, and it would allow them to create offense at the expense of some defense to be fair.
My idea for the Titans is a flying support unit that greatly enhances the Titan's ability to do things. It has several energy-based abilities. (my idea is to have the unit possess a maximum of 7 energy points, and refill 1 energy per turn. Each special ability costs a certain amount of energy points. The current energy available is visible to all players and show up as a colored number directly on the unit.)
Abilities:
Force field - It can create temporary forcefields that block opponents (forcefields fill one empty tile and can be taken down with one hit from anything and only last for 1-2 turns).
Deep Scan - This targets a circle of 7 hexes and allows any unit that warps into one of these hexes to only have 1 turn of cooldown before they can attack and move again. Another little bonus of Deep Scan is it reveals buried units (important for large open spaces so titans can move into large open positions without chance of buried underlings coming into play)
Lock Down - This ability completely shuts down an enemy's base from being able to create units for one turn.
Explode - The unit can self destruct at-will for significant attack damage to any adjacent non-titan unit. When it is killed it will also explode automatically (if it possesses enough energy), hence, to kill it you want to use range if possible, otherwise you risk losing your attacker as well. The idea behind this is if you have the maximum of 7 energy, you may move in closer to dangerous enemy positions and perform deep scan or lock down and at least have some retribution if the enemy can get to you. If you are low on energy, say at 4 or 5, you may still move in and perform lock down or deep scan but you won't have explosive retribution if you are caught.
Again, these abilities all cost energy points though, so they will not be able to be used in rapid succession but will require time to replenish these abilities.
And with TWO of these support units, you could potentially deep scan an area around a base, lock it down, and warp in to have a serious assault! (it's not overpowered because you should be able to see this move coming from a mile away)
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I suppose if I get to test the speeder retreat buff I might grow to like it, but off the top of my head it sounds too powerful. I do like the idea of the assimilator movement increase and defensive buff. They don't seem to steal enough underlings these days.
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I think the recent speed buff to speeders is good enough. Increasing the speeder retreat range to 9 seems to be a bit too much, especially on small tactical maps where retreat to base cover would now be too easy. Even a helicopter must be adjacent to a base to retreat on top of it (to cover it), and I think that should be the same for a speeder. So even 7 would be too much for that, I think.
Eclipse seems like it needs something, but I can't figure out what yet.
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