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Hydronauts vs. Garuda
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waxoid

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waxoid

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Started playing a bit again, at least over the holiday break. (popped over 2K at the moment, woohoo...)

This thing about Titans being strong on water keeps coming up. E.g. a higher ranked player mentioning today that Titans destroy Khrals on Piriapolis (which I assume was based on water factor or I don't know what else it would be), nfong still advocates this I believe, it came up in the thread about iluvkim running a Montevideo Khral racket etc.

I still haven't played that many games total compared to many, but I really don't see this Titan advantage and would love to understand the claim better. It sure seems like for the Khral matchup in particular, Garuda trump Hydronauts. That's been my experience in a couple of games as Titans against Khral spam and in a couple of games as Khral against Titans (don't think I've ever lost playing that side of the matchup actually...)

Just experimentally, if you run a test of 2 Garuda (700 pts) vs. one Naut (800), it's easy slaughter for the Garuda. Correct? Even in larger battles with reduced gangup, e.g. 6 Garuda vs. 3 Hydronauts on Piriapolis (or 9 Garuda vs. 4 Nauts), whether you try 'eliminate' or 'weaken all' targeting, and always giving the Nauts first shot, they lose pretty decisively. Any terrain tends to play to Garuda benefit. What am I missing?

Curious to hear from experienced players even if it's a 'yup', 'nope' or 'dunno'...

Assuming this is true, in general it would mean maps with significant water just add a little to Khral advantage (or at worst are neutral), as Titan land units are more restricted and aerial units can be massed around them creating larger combinations of attack options including exposing ants etc. Which is basically the Montevideo story.

My belief at this point as far as Khral vs. Titans goes, is that Khrals probably win everywhere, with varying levels of difficulty, with a Titans best chance more likely on an open (plains-heavy) map such as Desolate for maximal Speeder and Eclipse mobility and defense strength (there may be some clear opening vulnerability to Khral on that particular map that I don't know about...)
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nfong

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nfong

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For titan vs krahl on naval maps (i.e. piriapolis) I wouldn't just all-out spam hydros xD
Keep a few eclipses near your ships, so if any garudas try to take a ship out, you can wipe 'em out with some eclipses.
If your opponent tries to take out your eclipses with buried ants, just make some mechas to help cover them, and buy as much time as possible. I think as long as you slowly continue to build up your eclipse/mecha/hydro combo, you shouldn't have too much of a problem on large naval maps.

When life gives you lemons...

"TAKE YOUR DAMN LEMONS BACK, LIFE. I DON'T WANT YOUR STINKIN' LEMONS."
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waxoid

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waxoid

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Well good, given that's what I thought and the path I'm on. Just not clear to me how much of an advantage really, as the hydro acts more like a walker huddled for safety on the coast, vs. Khral combined aerial and naval that is more free to move and surround you etc. Guess I'll find out.

For pure naval maps like Naval War (or whichever the one is with one hex strip of land around the ocean), doesn't seem like there's enough coast for this plan though...
Isolation

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Isolation

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Montevideo you just need garuda. Make garuda at front first turn and then see what comes out of titan bases and react accordinling xD. If you see hydronauts just mass up some garuda, if you see a single eclipse make a wyrm, if you see dual eclipse make a pinzer, if you see tank make a squid for def before you do anything else. The only part you have to worry about as khral vs titan on this map is to not let titan get too much of a foothold on the land so you need to make sure you've got flying units if they go for ground units (this will force them to make extra def for walkers and slow them down).

If you go for squids and the titan goes for fast walkers or something like that you'll probably find yourself in a bit of trouble.
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waxoid

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waxoid

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regarding hydro/eclipse/mecha combo above, let's say hypothetically you're at 2 eclipse + 1 hydro when Khral has 1 levi plus 3 garuda, seems easy for Khral to take out the hydro with 2 Garuda and 1 Levi and you can only eliminate one Garuda in response. So Khral banks material advantage, is in range of shutting down further hydro production etc.?
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nfong

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nfong

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  waxoid wrote: regarding hydro/eclipse/mecha combo above, let's say hypothetically you're at 2 eclipse + 1 hydro when Khral has 1 levi plus 3 garuda, seems easy for Khral to take out the hydro with 2 Garuda and 1 Levi and you can only eliminate one Garuda in response. So Khral banks material advantage, is in range of shutting down further hydro production etc.?


Hmm...That's a very good point...
I'll need to rethink my strategy, but from what you're saying krahls do have an advantage...

When life gives you lemons...

"TAKE YOUR DAMN LEMONS BACK, LIFE. I DON'T WANT YOUR STINKIN' LEMONS."
asdf

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asdf

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good luck getting close enough to the hydro before it strikes first. and eclipses kill garudas.
in my experience against good titans players, they play their range advantage perfectly and force you to take heavy losses should you try to advance. if you rush titans with garudas and levis, titans will get first strike unless the titans player wasn't paying attention and left his units in bad position.
floe

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floe

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If you are getting overwhelmed by garudas, then I don't think you are positioning your hydros right. Besides having the range advantage, which means you should be able to attack the garuda swarm before they attack you, if you position your hydros correctly, then the front line of your hyrdos will at most be hit by 2 garudas each, which aren't enough to kill the hydro. So you just move the damaged hydros behind the full strength hydros. If the garuda swarm keeps advancing, you are still getting first strike against them and moving the damaged hydros to safety at the same time. If the map is big enough so you can retreat and attack, the garuda swarm will eventually be out of position and will suffer higher losses than you.
Isolation

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Isolation

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To all you people saying how the hydros won't get overrun by garuda I'd like to ask them how many shots your hydronauts have? Mine have one per turn when I load the game up. It is possible to build 2.3 garuda for every hydro and you only need one hit from a garuda to nullify the hydro's effectiveness and it's easy to advance garuda so titan can only get first strike against one or two of them.

Once you have a few garuda and some sort of counter to eclipse then it's easy to put pressure on the titan bases which is a very difficult position for titan to play out of. I don't know what level of players you've been going up against asdf but I kind of doubt they're my level or the level of most other people posting here tbh xD.
asdf

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asdf

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lol. I've played against 2200+ players. Garuda swarm vs hydro swarm in in hydro favor if positioned correctly. Looks like you haven't played against good titans players.

1 hit from a garuda will take a hydro to 6 or 7. But then the hydro can retreat to safety, retaliate against a garuda, and heal behind other full strength hydros. You can only first strike against 1 or 2 garuda? lol. Then those titans players are crap. They aren't positioning correctly. Or you are using the situation where the titans players are advancing, which would be a stupid move by the titans players.

There's obviously more involved than just garuda vs. hydro. Depending on terrain and where it's placed, setting up other units as roadblocks for the garudas can be a total pain for krahls. For example, in montevideo, plasma tanks as blockers will completely stop garuda advance, so hydros will get free shots without retaliation. Krahls would neet to mix in other units to get past the tanks, so that means lowering the ratio of garuda to hydros goes lower than the 2.3 you mention. Of course that also means less hydros, but still, titans have the range advantage so advancing will be tough for krahls. We didn't even touch teleport tricks yet.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Dec 19, 2010 11:29

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waxoid

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waxoid

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My comments and tests above all assume Hydros getting first strike, just for sake of argument. (Though they will have to step forward to get it, which makes eclipse support vs. Garuda a sketchier proposition depending on map.)

Garuda still win. I think the question is whether as floe states there is some larger formation that helps hydros beat a Garuda swarm. (It's so hard to remember with birds... maybe it's a "flock", or like with crows a "murder of Garuda" sounds good. ) A long line of Hydros 2 deep clearly sounds better. I think Garuda should weaken all front line Hydros, vs. cripple every other one. In practice things fall apart really fast at the edges, Garuda will gnaw inward from there, and no map really allows huge unbroken lines of Hydros anyway – even Naval War is broken up by islands which screw up the formation. And being 2 deep means your line is shorter in practice – I don't see any reason for Khral to let you build a giant 2-deep line of hydros and be forced to attack with a 5 deep swarm of Garuda. They should move sooner.

On maps like Piriapolis it's moot anyway, you can't build a big formation of Hydros, and Garuda clearly win any likely head to head matchup. Not saying hydros are useless there (though I'm not sure ), but they do seem to need eclipse or maybe walker support which limits their usefulness.
asdf

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asdf

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Good titans players will not make just hydros. If you just make hydros, then I can see garudas taking you down.

Naval war completely favors titans over krahls. There a deep line of hydros will hold off garudas indefinitely. Plus the terrain in the middle can be used to teleport blockers, so the garudas will need to attack through those to get to the hydros. So each garuda attacking a teleporter is ripe to getting blasted by unmolested hydros. Also, advancing with a garuda swarm there will get you annihilated. The krals player will need to mix in levis to have a chance on naval war, but even then titans still have a huge advantage.
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nfong

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nfong

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  asdf wrote: Good titans players will not make just hydros. If you just make hydros, then I can see garudas taking you down.

Naval war completely favors titans over krahls. There a deep line of hydros will hold off garudas indefinitely. Plus the terrain in the middle can be used to teleport blockers, so the garudas will need to attack through those to get to the hydros. So each garuda attacking a teleporter is ripe to getting blasted by unmolested hydros. Also, advancing with a garuda swarm there will get you annihilated. The krals player will need to mix in levis to have a chance on naval war, but even then titans still have a huge advantage.


You have to remember that
1. For every hydro you have, your opponent has more than twice as many garudas
2. Garudas can move 5 hexes. That means a good Krahl player will always place his garudas 5 hexes away. This way, if the titan moves foward to attack with all his ships, he'll be completely annihilated by other garuda. If the titan stays put, the Krahl player can continue to mass up more and more and more and more and more garuda.

From personal experience against sh0wt1me, the longer you wait with titans, the less chance you're going to win. If you have 70 hydros, your opponent will have 160 garudas, and so on.
Teleporting mechas doesn't seem like a viable strategy; they can fend off 3 garuda attacks at most, which won't stop the swarm for that long.

When life gives you lemons...

"TAKE YOUR DAMN LEMONS BACK, LIFE. I DON'T WANT YOUR STINKIN' LEMONS."
asdf

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asdf

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Based on my experience against high ranked titans players, and just using naval war as an example, it doesn't matter that your garudas outnumber the hydros. The titans player will just build up hydros until you try to attack. By then the hydro line is several deep, meaning that when you advance with your garudas, they will first strike your garuda swarm 3 or even 4 deep. And that means your 1st line of full strength garudas is maybe 3 or 4 ranks from the front line. So you have 3 lines of damaged garudas that you must retreat or they are dead next turn. And if you decide to attack with your full strength garudas which are 3 or 4 hexes back, then they will only be able to hit the front line of hydros, and won't be able to kill any of them. So titans player will just retreat them, possibly with assimilators as support, to heal them while still having several lines deep of full strength hydros. And they all use teleporters to block the advance.

If you are able to beat a good titans player on naval war using mass garuda strategy, then props to you. I just don't see it happening. Advancing against deep hydros spells slaughter for garudas. Even with the numbers advantage.

About your 2nd point of positioning garudas 5 hexes away, of course that's what a good krahls player will do. But a good titans player isn't going to advance anyways. He'll just wait for you to advance into the slaughter.

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waxoid

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waxoid

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asdf your comment seems slightly contradictory – in paragraph 1 you cede that if you're only building hydros you can see getting beat by Garuda, but in the second paragraph you say hydros beat Garuda on Naval War. Are you saying you think teleport tricks on the islands are that decisive? Seems like the islands are pretty darn small, and a freshly-teleported mecha only impacts a Garuda's movement slightly (only blocks the actual hex it occupies, until it is out of freeze), so that's going to be hard to set up and unlikely to decide the outcome anyway. If it's about formation, how wide are these "deep" lines of hydros and aren't the Garuda wrapping around?
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