I thought the original problem was that in the end game air normally becomes useless as an assault force? And not that it was too hard to bust a defensive line.
The two options I can think of are either leave AA as it is, or weaken anti air or strengthen air (ok 3 options, but you know what i mean...)
However if the balance of air to anti air power is shifted enough to make air viable as an assault force late game, the balance of AA would shift dramatically to air. Currently air is well worth building for its scouting ability, and its ability to raid early to mid game before suitable anti air defence is in place. I think with the shift in power air would start to be used as the primary unit, and no one would be building level 2 assault vehicles or kbots like bulldogs anymore. The choices would be build ground - owned by air, anti air - owned by ground, or air - competitive with anti air, owns ground.
I think if air was strengthened, anti air vs ground would have to be strengthened. AA would become XTA or OTA where anti air units can be effective against land units. I like this idea, but I'd say enough people like anti air the way it is. You would be taking AA and turning it into a different mod in a way.
So I think the choices are leave AA Air to Anti Air balance the way it is, or play XTA or make a new AA based mod with anti air able to hit land..
Another option is to build a swarm of Liches/Krows. Very expensive but most players will build enough anti air defence to chew up hoards of brawlers, and take out small numbers of the Liche/Krow. But an impenatrable anti air defence can look surprisingly flimsy if you get 20 liches to attack - at the bargain basement price of about 100k metal (not). I've done it once myself and seen it done by others maybe twice. The downside is that a shockingly small number of level 2 fighters will eat those Liches/Krows as a snack.
Absolute Annihilation Late Game: Like GD2 Groundwar?
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Dr.InfernO
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Machiosabre
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Machiosabre
- Posts: 1474
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Well krows aren'tEgarwaen wrote:It's already totally defenseless. And aren't Krows and Liches and Advanced Bombers still effective even with very heavy AA?Kixxe wrote:Make AA vurnebole to Ground forces even more then it is now?
, they're vulnerable to regular fire and AA, it'd be cool if light AA just wouldnt touch them because they're a fortress :)Of course air isnt effective if theres heavy aa, just like gollys arent effective if there are heavy ground defences like annis for example, air never becomes useless, brawlers are the best base defence around.
Just because you cant bash your way through 5 flakkers and 2 LR missile towers doesnt mean air should get a boost!
find another way into the base and/or take out the aa failing mass bb's or nuke the muppets and laugh at them when they burn in hell.
Stupid porcers.
Just because you cant bash your way through 5 flakkers and 2 LR missile towers doesnt mean air should get a boost!
find another way into the base and/or take out the aa failing mass bb's or nuke the muppets and laugh at them when they burn in hell.
Stupid porcers.
EDIT:: I'm not suggesting a return to OTA, and I love AA. Just think a few things need some tweaking.
I've been thinking about this issue a bit before this post came along, here's my two cents:
1) The general pace of the game goes as follows: level 1 units fight interesting, heavily micro'ed fights. With level 2 defenses coming online (HLT's and PC's) the fighting shifts to level 2 units with level 1 units in support.
2) In lue of a victory at this stage, one player (often the more defensive one) invests heavly in Annihilators & Adv. Missile Towers. At this point, most conventional AND well rounded forces have a difficult time cracking the egg. The extreme range/power of the adv missile towers means that you can't use planes to weaken ground defenses (like annihilators) and the range/power of annihilators means you can't use ground to break air defenses (like adv. missile towers). Another problem with the adv. missile tower range is that patrol routes with planes, or close air support often fails as the planes get blasted from half way across the map.
3) The level 3 units natually follow suit, and can generally win the game. However, if both players progress along nicely, their tier 3 units tend to neutralize each other. Where are your options?
Option a) NUKES - although with cloakable anti-nukes (soon not to be cloakable) and impenetrable air-defenses, finding and eliminating your opponent's anti-nuke(s) is very difficult.
Option b) BIRTHA's - these are your best bet, although with the huge jamming tower range their effectiveness is quickly limited. Coupled with the "deflector" shields to protect your birthas & fusions, the birtha war can stalemate as well.
Option c) CRUISE MISSILES - These are, in my opinion, the only end game strategy without a real counter, and I'm thankful for this.
In OTA, the "endgame" stratagies all worked well (nukes/birthas) but could be "undone" by a quick offenseive raid. Not any more.
The following are some problems / solutions that create this situation.
1) No offensive units outrange defensive units. There is no offensive unit that can effectively outrange annihilators, or planes that outrange adv. missile towers. Defending becomes too passive. Artillary vehicles SHOULD out range annhilators, requiring the defender to counter the artillary with units of their own, keeping the game on a conventional scale.
2) Adv. missile tower range is too big. You can't provide close air support for attacking ground units, let alone succeed in a pure air attack. Reduce the range!
3) Radar/Auto-targeting/Radar Jamming/Spotting. This has more serious implications than people think. In OTA, before you built a tageting facilitity (requiring lots of energy) your annihilator wouldn't blast everything in sight five screens away on its own. You needed front line units to "spot" and increase its effective range. This meant that fighting their front line units with your own long range units would draw the fighting out from bases, and the winner would be able to get closer to the opponents base and cause some damage.
meh, this is enough for now.
I've been thinking about this issue a bit before this post came along, here's my two cents:
1) The general pace of the game goes as follows: level 1 units fight interesting, heavily micro'ed fights. With level 2 defenses coming online (HLT's and PC's) the fighting shifts to level 2 units with level 1 units in support.
2) In lue of a victory at this stage, one player (often the more defensive one) invests heavly in Annihilators & Adv. Missile Towers. At this point, most conventional AND well rounded forces have a difficult time cracking the egg. The extreme range/power of the adv missile towers means that you can't use planes to weaken ground defenses (like annihilators) and the range/power of annihilators means you can't use ground to break air defenses (like adv. missile towers). Another problem with the adv. missile tower range is that patrol routes with planes, or close air support often fails as the planes get blasted from half way across the map.
3) The level 3 units natually follow suit, and can generally win the game. However, if both players progress along nicely, their tier 3 units tend to neutralize each other. Where are your options?
Option a) NUKES - although with cloakable anti-nukes (soon not to be cloakable) and impenetrable air-defenses, finding and eliminating your opponent's anti-nuke(s) is very difficult.
Option b) BIRTHA's - these are your best bet, although with the huge jamming tower range their effectiveness is quickly limited. Coupled with the "deflector" shields to protect your birthas & fusions, the birtha war can stalemate as well.
Option c) CRUISE MISSILES - These are, in my opinion, the only end game strategy without a real counter, and I'm thankful for this.
In OTA, the "endgame" stratagies all worked well (nukes/birthas) but could be "undone" by a quick offenseive raid. Not any more.
The following are some problems / solutions that create this situation.
1) No offensive units outrange defensive units. There is no offensive unit that can effectively outrange annihilators, or planes that outrange adv. missile towers. Defending becomes too passive. Artillary vehicles SHOULD out range annhilators, requiring the defender to counter the artillary with units of their own, keeping the game on a conventional scale.
2) Adv. missile tower range is too big. You can't provide close air support for attacking ground units, let alone succeed in a pure air attack. Reduce the range!
3) Radar/Auto-targeting/Radar Jamming/Spotting. This has more serious implications than people think. In OTA, before you built a tageting facilitity (requiring lots of energy) your annihilator wouldn't blast everything in sight five screens away on its own. You needed front line units to "spot" and increase its effective range. This meant that fighting their front line units with your own long range units would draw the fighting out from bases, and the winner would be able to get closer to the opponents base and cause some damage.
meh, this is enough for now.
I'd agree with this. While learning AA, working out how to assault Annihilators in the late-game was challenging. Three close to each other seem to chew through even light L3 units, and taking the time to build a heavier one gives your opponent time to do the same. The best solutions I've found are:Peekaboom wrote:1) No offensive units outrange defensive units. There is no offensive unit that can effectively outrange annihilators, or planes that outrange adv. missile towers. Defending becomes too passive. Artillary vehicles SHOULD out range annhilators, requiring the defender to counter the artillary with units of their own, keeping the game on a conventional scale.
- Mobile L3 artillery (not the Berthas, the other ones) screened by a swarm of assault units. If the enemy ignores either, he loses his Annihilators.
- Sharpshooters. They're stealthy, can cloak, and do absurd damage. If your enemy doesn't have spotters out, I believe these will kill Annihilators. Morties might work for this too, but their lack of stealthy works against them.
- Goliaths or Penetrators + Bulldogs.
It'd be nice if some non-Bertha artillery outranged Annihilators. Then you have an artillery counter for each direct-fire weapon. (LLTs: Rocko/Storms. HLTs: Shellshocker/Wolverine. BLoDs: Merl/Diplomat or Luger/Pillager)
This seems like it might need to be carefully balanced. Currently, they have a horrible refire rate. If the range is reduced, would that need to be increased?2) Adv. missile tower range is too big. You can't provide close air support for attacking ground units, let alone succeed in a pure air attack. Reduce the range!
I don't think this is a big issue. The way things work now means the mobile jammers are actually useful. You can also use stealthy/cloakable units.3) Radar/Auto-targeting/Radar Jamming/Spotting. This has more serious implications than people think. In OTA, before you built a tageting facilitity (requiring lots of energy) your annihilator wouldn't blast everything in sight five screens away on its own. You needed front line units to "spot" and increase its effective range. This meant that fighting their front line units with your own long range units would draw the fighting out from bases, and the winner would be able to get closer to the opponents base and cause some damage.
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Doomweaver
- Posts: 704
- Joined: 30 Oct 2004, 14:14
How about instead you remove adv. air defence, make the lv1 air defence cost 1.5x the metal, and make the lvl1 and lvl2 VToL factory a lot cheaper. Make air domination something you have to really fight for. If you don't control the air, you will be bombed!
The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. Planes are meant to end stalemates, and dogfights are cool and altogether too rare!
The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. Planes are meant to end stalemates, and dogfights are cool and altogether too rare!
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Machiosabre
- Posts: 1474
- Joined: 25 Dec 2005, 22:56
>_>
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>_<
99% of the time the reason there is a lategame stalemate is becasue you have two mediocre (or above average) players playing on some porc-happy map (Castles or The Pass) and neither side is trying to seriously to win or they just want to win casually with a very trite set of strategies... which the opponent will try as well.
In serious games between good players on a solid map (See: WarCs on Comet-style maps) such ridiculous stalemates simply do not happen.
Again, this is not a fault of the mod, its a relative inexperience of the TA Spring community and its players in regards to AA.
Caydr, the *best* thing you could do is just make one more, final version and *let it be*, and screw the criticism because otherwise the state of AA is never going to evolve, and people are only going to clamor for more changes instead of adapting, as we should be doing..
Cavedog released only what, 4 patches in all? :)
<_<
>_<
99% of the time the reason there is a lategame stalemate is becasue you have two mediocre (or above average) players playing on some porc-happy map (Castles or The Pass) and neither side is trying to seriously to win or they just want to win casually with a very trite set of strategies... which the opponent will try as well.
In serious games between good players on a solid map (See: WarCs on Comet-style maps) such ridiculous stalemates simply do not happen.
Again, this is not a fault of the mod, its a relative inexperience of the TA Spring community and its players in regards to AA.
Caydr, the *best* thing you could do is just make one more, final version and *let it be*, and screw the criticism because otherwise the state of AA is never going to evolve, and people are only going to clamor for more changes instead of adapting, as we should be doing..
Cavedog released only what, 4 patches in all? :)
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Deathblane
- Posts: 505
- Joined: 01 Feb 2006, 01:22
(with relation to countering annihilators)- Goliaths or Penetrators + Bulldogs.
It'd be nice if some non-Bertha artillery outranged Annihilators. Then you have an artillery counter for each direct-fire weapon. (LLTs: Rocko/Storms. HLTs: Shellshocker/Wolverine. BLoDs: Merl/Diplomat or Luger/Pillager)
so what were u smoking whilst posting this s**t???
oh yeah btw guys vamps PWN Anti Air liek old school!!1!111
O,o
that is equivalent to what u were saying.
annis counter tech 2 heavy single (ground) units
just like banishers counter tech 2 heavy single (air) units
anni is easily coutered by its worth in...well spread jeffies (lol its true if the anni has no backup ^.^) or flashes, or any tech 1 swarm, or bombers, or gunships...
seriously this is noobish ballshit. play more. watch replays. understand, posts like this seriously throw noobs off and can make modders make damn stupid decisions!
Thank you for the correction. Perhaps you'd consider contributing to the Wiki, so people don't post "noobish ballshit"? I've asked for contributions to the Units article several times, and I'm more than willing to edit broken English into something that's intelligible.Min3mat wrote:seriously this is noobish ballshit. play more. watch replays. understand, posts like this seriously throw noobs off and can make modders make damn stupid decisions!
Also, I think Caydr is more than capable of evaluating things for himself.
Though I'm not sure what you mean by "heavy (single)". Could you please express what you mean more clearly?
Last edited by Egarwaen on 05 Apr 2006, 05:47, edited 1 time in total.
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Archangel of Death
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The only place where I can see peekaboom's problem existing is maps with uber-excessive hyper-abundant metal. Rest assured that AA will not be balanced with such maps in mind, because they make one of the most important tools of balancing worthless: unit costs.
And if you are too attached to your metal maps, next time you hit huge lattice-works of annihilators and mercuries try using radar jamming, stealth units (evade radar until its too late?), cloakable units, swarms, cheap lvl 1 decoy units (a single jeffy can absorb an anni hit for your sumos, and a single peeper absorb all of the mercury/screamer shots for the next 15 seconds), simultaneous air and ground assaults, emp units (bladewings are spammable, Stilletos are stealth). If you can't crack a porc with anything but lvl 3 or nukes, your not abusing them for relying so heavily on long reload defenses enough. I should add though, 25 flashes, 15 bulldogs, an Avatar, 5 peepers, and 20 krows isn't enough to rightfully expect to get through 100 anni's and 50 mercuries.
And if you are too attached to your metal maps, next time you hit huge lattice-works of annihilators and mercuries try using radar jamming, stealth units (evade radar until its too late?), cloakable units, swarms, cheap lvl 1 decoy units (a single jeffy can absorb an anni hit for your sumos, and a single peeper absorb all of the mercury/screamer shots for the next 15 seconds), simultaneous air and ground assaults, emp units (bladewings are spammable, Stilletos are stealth). If you can't crack a porc with anything but lvl 3 or nukes, your not abusing them for relying so heavily on long reload defenses enough. I should add though, 25 flashes, 15 bulldogs, an Avatar, 5 peepers, and 20 krows isn't enough to rightfully expect to get through 100 anni's and 50 mercuries.
I've updated the Wiki based on what I could understand of Min3mat's reply. Would more experienced players please add any relevant tips, tricks, or strategies to the AA Units Page on the Wiki or correct the ones that are already there? Describing proper approaches for solving various tricky situations will, ideally, help prevent misunderstandings like this, and help find the places where there really are too few options and identify units that really are useless.
Jellyman added a bunch of stuff to the Big Bertha/Intimidator section a few days ago, which I'd like to thank him for. The paragraphs he added significantly improved that section.
Jellyman added a bunch of stuff to the Big Bertha/Intimidator section a few days ago, which I'd like to thank him for. The paragraphs he added significantly improved that section.
