3 replies to this topic

[Pegasus99]

First, sorry for my English, I'm not very good at it lol.

Okay so, I'm far from a good player, only play skirmish with medium AI easily and Hard is pretty challenging (which means when I win occasionally I would be pretty happy )

When facing early attack from Hard AI (they really like it, don't they?), I always forced to spend a lot for both basic defense and infantry (like lots of pillboxes and dogs and GGI, etc.), and don't have enough money to progress tech buildings.

This is pretty sad to me because basic units seems to be just "throw and die" and hard to maintain as a solid force or use micro skills to achieve "small against large". And the low income in most maps means is hard to create advanced units when you finally got the tech but no money left.

Then I found I like the idea about a small early jewel mine near start base, with a small gold mine but more then 1 drill to maintain basic income, then most gold mine need to expand the base with either tech construct yard or build construct truck by self. This means building early force won't completely shut down all the tech progression, but with better tech you still need to gather bigger mines to expand the advanced force otherwise the low quantity army still can't give you victory.

Do you guys think most maps now are too "war of attrition" at early stage and low source for latter stages?

What maps do you think is best "income balanced"? Since the map editor is available now I'm looking forward to see some new maps coming! (But I myself is bad at editing :(

[mrvecz]

I wouldnt say its war of attrition against AI, since its simpleminded and will hunt down your miners you can turn it to your advantage.

Majority of the maps, you got some dosh inside of your base, but some maps are pain if all the good stuff is located in the middle, right in the battlefield, those maps are harder than they should against Hard AI (the difficulty i play against on normal basis)

 

Oil derricks should be present, capture those. Train spies and steal cash from AI refineries, since it has infinite money (Or let say it has around 227 000 credits by the time you get to siege its base) you can have infinite money too. While this depends on the enemy you are facing, i would say having Foehn enemy means infinite cash, only watch out for Duplicants and Roadrunners, these will hunt your spies and kill them, clayrs can stunlocks spies but dont kill them, meaning you can snipe those with support powers or suicidal aircraft.

 

Reversly, masses of Clairs as Foehn can bring you alot of money, If you make 40 Clairs, and three or four makes it to the refinery, you will get your money back.

 

Now, i always build this way

 

1) Barracks 2) Powerplant 3) Refinery 4) Factory (I build 3 additional miners there) 5) Rest. While producing anti tank and anti infantry defences.

 

Protecting your miners is essential, air units are very good as they are rarely directly attacked, something like Mirrage tank forest will instantly melt any tanks without any counterstrike from them.

[StolenTech]

Then I found I like the idea about a small early jewel mine near start base, with a small gold mine but more then 1 drill to maintain basic income, then most gold mine need to expand the base with either tech construct yard or build construct truck by self. This means building early force won't completely shut down all the tech progression, but with better tech you still need to gather bigger mines to expand the advanced force otherwise the low quantity army still can't give you victory.

most of the newer maps have started to add gems next to players for that reason, there is no real "formula" for RA2 or MO maps in general unlike some other RTS games, so it can be hard to make a map that balances income between too scarce or too much.

 

progressive gameplay that heavily favours expanding is something I always liked and try to enforce it in maps I make (although they end up being too big for that reason), so if you have ideas on how to achieve that you're welcome to suggest, it never hurts to experiment.

Edited by StolenTech, 19 April 2018 - 09:37 AM.

[PACER]

THIS ONLY APPLYS TO AI BATTLES

 

In PvP games someone will prioritize airfields for early harassment or refinery for economy, But against AI, the basic build order is almost fixed for each faction:

Allies: Barracks => Refinery => Power => Factory => Power => Airfield => T2 => Power => T3

Soviets: Barracks => Refinery => Power => Factory => Power => Bureau => NukePower => T3

*Chinese tech rush: Barracks => Refinery => Power => Factory => Power => Bureau => Power => T3 => NukePower

Epsilon: Barracks => Refinery (or Power first for defenses) => Power => Factory => Power => Spire (or Pandora first for early Yuri Clones) => Pandora => Power => T3

Foehn: Barracks => Refinery => Power => Factory => Piercer => Nanoloom => Cyberkernel (or Power fist if you build a lot of defenses) => Power => T3

Train 2-3 miners from the War Factory immediately, +1 in the case of Foehn. Don't forget to fill Bio-Reactors with Spooks.

 

The early-game defense strategy is always the same. Prioritize static anti-infantry defenses and build a small anti-unit rapid response squad to deal with tanks, early siege units and infiltrators.