Malkor regarding Necrons: Well, I don't think it's the resources. How would that even effect them? They don't need requisition.
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You guys need to study the Necrons a bit more. There is an explanation!
The Necrons need to capture resource points or strategic points in order to increase their caps. They will lock up or cap-out low and do nothing if they don't capture resource points!!In fact, Necrons seem to do best in the plain vanilla AI if they create a second base, aka build a second Monolith around another set or strategic points and capture those points as well, then you can see the 24/20 caps that the Necrons are usually capable of.
If Necrons don't move out and capture strategic points or if there are no stategic points, they get stuck with 10/6 caps or 8/6 caps or some such, and then they just turtle, languish, and die. Those Necron scarabs can't fight, so they aren't all that agressive about contesting and fighting for the resource points that they need to cap up. They hide or retreat instead inside their base, turtle up, and build power generators under the protection of their soldiers and Monolith, languish, and eventually die.
There's a disjoint there. The Necron soldiers can't uncap and recap a strategic point, and the Necron scarabs can't fight. Combine that together, and sometime the Necrons just don't get the coordination necessary to capture enough resource point or strategic points so they can cap. It can really work against the Necrons! They need to capture and place listening posts to cap up, and sometimes they go into an allied base and capture half of their ally's listening posts just so they can cap up without having to fight for or defend the listening posts or strategic points. Necron's AI can't seem to coordinate soldiers protecting scarabs so that the scarabs can contest and take listening posts. The scarabs always retreat, and once an enemy listening post is place, and then you need the Wraith to take down the listening post and uncap it.
It usually requires the full coordination of three different Necron units to uncap and take an enemy listening post and recap it as a Necron post -- scarabs to recap, Wraith to uncap, and some soldiers there to keep the scarabs and the Wraith alive. That's an awful lot of coordination for the AI to get right. A human can coordinate it all and do a full concentrated capture of an enemy's listening post, but I'm pretty much sure that Relic never programmed any of that necessary coordination into the Necron AI, meaning that Necrons are totally opportunistic about capturing strategic points, and always retreat at the earliest sign of trouble -- all meaning that the Necrons can't fully cap and often go dead in the process if they don't get enough listening posts or strategic points just simply given to them at the beginning of the game.
I'm not sure that Arkhan or Thud are going to be able to program or do the three-part coordination necessary for the Necrons to take enemy listening posts. They need the Wraith and soldier to destroy the listening post, the Wraith to uncap while the scarabs hang back, and then the scarabs to come in, capture the post, and build while the Necron soldiers and wraith defend. And a lot of this his happening on the front line, where the Necron AI usually refuses to send scarabs, because the scarabs are designed to only retreat when they come under fire. A Catch-22 if ever there was one!
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To Malkor:
Well, if you are playing on the campaign, the same rules will apply. The Necrons will need to capture strategic points to cap up. But, if you are on a campaign and can reenforce, or build generators before starting the game, that will indeed guarantee a victory if you rush and take down the enemy base, but it won't guarantee you that the scarabs will capture strategic points so that the Necrons can fully cap up to 20/20 or 24/20. To get to 20/20 or 24/20, the Necrons need to capture and hold a certain number of strategic points and build listening posts on them. Study those Necrons a bit, especially if they are turtling or languishing or stop building. I think you'll find I'm right and that they have hit their caps. I have fully capped out as the Necrons many times and have had to go out and get more strategic points so that I can build more. And, there is something in there that unlocks the Necron's full potential that only comes after the Necrons have built a Second Monolith, but I haven't quite been able to put my finger on it. The Necrons need to build a Second Monolith, but if the scarabs don't have a safe open place to build it, then it doesn't happen, and again the Necrons can seem to bog down somehow.
It's not going to be easy for Arkhan to fix this, and it's going to require some of his usual thought, and cunning, and trickery! I do believe. Of course, sometimes Arkhan just reaches out and easily does the impossible, and other times, like with Stuck Ubers, the problem can hang on for months or years before a 'workaround' is found and adopted, or a solution is never found. That's the way it goes!
Edited by ThetaOrion, 15 November 2006 - 12:44 AM.
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