Lame Tactics - a History and Analysis
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well the problem was that he then proceeded to break through the now open defense line and the team I was in lost in the process. I'm not saying he wouldn't have eventually broken through maybe, he was playing way better than I.. but still it could've taken a different course. I just never think about using the comm as a "free nuke"..
Well, no reason that you should've thought of it offhand, Cyber - it's a veteran's trick. It's yours now, too, if you figured out how it works. The key to successful Comm swapping, or bombing in that case, is to hit the right target and to be prepared to exploit it - 20 Flash Tanks in Altored Divide can end a game after 10 minutes given no Comms to oppose them.
Surprises can suck when you're on the receiving end, but you should only be on the receiving end once before you can use them, too. =)
Surprises can suck when you're on the receiving end, but you should only be on the receiving end once before you can use them, too. =)
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Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09
I think that anything that doesn't take advantage of pausing or sharing is a valid strategy.
The commander is a UNIT, and it is designed to be powerful. It is perfectly valid to dig in with it, and perfectly valid to raid/rush/attack/defend with it.
Personally, I play death=game end. I just thinks it leads to faster paced intense games. And I like trying to tie the game at the end by commander rampaging.
The commander is a UNIT, and it is designed to be powerful. It is perfectly valid to dig in with it, and perfectly valid to raid/rush/attack/defend with it.
Personally, I play death=game end. I just thinks it leads to faster paced intense games. And I like trying to tie the game at the end by commander rampaging.
After 5min of playing (and explanation that comm makes big explosion after it dies) in my first game, I asked my friend what will he do if I send his comm to his base and blow it. You don't need to be veteran to find this out.Tired wrote:Well, no reason that you should've thought of it offhand, Cyber - it's a veteran's trick.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Hmm... I remember the other night, I was comm bombed. Turned the entire game around.
Choc was in that game. I kept fighting to the end and made good on rebuilding, but at that point I was so far behind it was a certainty that I was gonna lose. However, If I'mma lose, I wanna go out fighting.
Anyway, I do not care for comm bombers and generally I make it a poing to have transports handy. The intruder is great for stopping comm rushes. Rarely ever get to use that trick.
I like mods like fang's mod, or gundam where the comm does not explode huge. Ahh well. I don't really think that taking the comm explosion away castrates ta. I think it's an improvement personally, but meh.
Choc was in that game. I kept fighting to the end and made good on rebuilding, but at that point I was so far behind it was a certainty that I was gonna lose. However, If I'mma lose, I wanna go out fighting.
Anyway, I do not care for comm bombers and generally I make it a poing to have transports handy. The intruder is great for stopping comm rushes. Rarely ever get to use that trick.
I like mods like fang's mod, or gundam where the comm does not explode huge. Ahh well. I don't really think that taking the comm explosion away castrates ta. I think it's an improvement personally, but meh.
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Ritz Grimarren
- Posts: 8
- Joined: 28 Feb 2006, 16:00
I see all the listed "lame tactics" as merely a list made by whiners. If the unit wasn't meant to be able to do something, then it wouldn't. You can never plan for everything, but every tactic used here is counterable by a knowledgeable and/or moderately intelligent player.
1) Scared of a flash/peewee/zipper rush? Take a moment to build LLTs at the beginning. They are cheap and only take a few seconds each.
2) Tired of being Brawler rushed? Then stop porcing and fast rush them from the beginning. Zippers are fast enough that a group can make it past most of an opponent's early defenses, allowing you to take out their aircraft plants. Keep the pressure on from there.
3) Hate being comm-napped? Build radar and anti-air. That should have been obvious after your first game. If you are to lazy to bother with a proper defense, then you can always remove transports from the build lists. It isn't that hard... I promise...
4) Hate comm-bombing? Tough. You have the same ability so stop whinning. Besides, losing a comm early in the game is detrimental to a player's economy. If you're really that worried about it, then play comm-death games.
5) Worried about comm-rushing? Stop whinning, simply put. Comms are weak against air so build a couple cheap fighters and send them in. Air defense? Send in a ground force first to take out the AA defenses. Standard RTS tactics...
6) Hate the dgun? Once again, you have the same ability. Spread out your units more and support your attack forces. Outdistance the comm with either artillery or missile units. He will fall easily enough.
If you want to play tic-tac-toe or checkers, you shouldn't have downloaded Spring. If you aren't intelligent enough to find counters for the various tactics used, then you really shouldn't be playing RTS games in general. EVERY unit and EVERY strategy I've encountered in both TA and Spring are counterable. It is just a matter of estimating what your opponent's intentions are before they can use it on you. This is why scouting very early into the game is so important. Some of the above listed "lame strategies" are easily identifiable by the structures and the layout of ones base.
The comm tactics are much harder to predict, hence they act as an ace card. I've only comm-bombed once, but it won the game as it opened a whole in my opponent's defense line (LLTs, HLTs, and dragon's teeth) that allowed my goliaths entry. The commander IS meant to be use for such tactics. If you don't believe me, then you need to read through the "Multiplayer Tactics" section of the Official OTA Strategy Guild. It encourages the tactic of using commander aggresively, although it also stated that using him for factory support has its strengths as well.
1) Scared of a flash/peewee/zipper rush? Take a moment to build LLTs at the beginning. They are cheap and only take a few seconds each.
2) Tired of being Brawler rushed? Then stop porcing and fast rush them from the beginning. Zippers are fast enough that a group can make it past most of an opponent's early defenses, allowing you to take out their aircraft plants. Keep the pressure on from there.
3) Hate being comm-napped? Build radar and anti-air. That should have been obvious after your first game. If you are to lazy to bother with a proper defense, then you can always remove transports from the build lists. It isn't that hard... I promise...
4) Hate comm-bombing? Tough. You have the same ability so stop whinning. Besides, losing a comm early in the game is detrimental to a player's economy. If you're really that worried about it, then play comm-death games.
5) Worried about comm-rushing? Stop whinning, simply put. Comms are weak against air so build a couple cheap fighters and send them in. Air defense? Send in a ground force first to take out the AA defenses. Standard RTS tactics...
6) Hate the dgun? Once again, you have the same ability. Spread out your units more and support your attack forces. Outdistance the comm with either artillery or missile units. He will fall easily enough.
If you want to play tic-tac-toe or checkers, you shouldn't have downloaded Spring. If you aren't intelligent enough to find counters for the various tactics used, then you really shouldn't be playing RTS games in general. EVERY unit and EVERY strategy I've encountered in both TA and Spring are counterable. It is just a matter of estimating what your opponent's intentions are before they can use it on you. This is why scouting very early into the game is so important. Some of the above listed "lame strategies" are easily identifiable by the structures and the layout of ones base.
The comm tactics are much harder to predict, hence they act as an ace card. I've only comm-bombed once, but it won the game as it opened a whole in my opponent's defense line (LLTs, HLTs, and dragon's teeth) that allowed my goliaths entry. The commander IS meant to be use for such tactics. If you don't believe me, then you need to read through the "Multiplayer Tactics" section of the Official OTA Strategy Guild. It encourages the tactic of using commander aggresively, although it also stated that using him for factory support has its strengths as well.
Last edited by Ritz Grimarren on 06 Mar 2006, 17:52, edited 1 time in total.
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Felix the Cat
- Posts: 2383
- Joined: 15 Jun 2005, 17:30
Okay, how many times have we gone through this? Three? Four?Tired wrote:To Felix, as you first threw a hissy fit at me over D-gunning your base after I killed your Comm in a failed rush of your own (thereby saving you the 40 minutes that I took to kill your allies), I will indeed say, "lol you are sore loser."^^/
You and I both know very damned well that I "threw a hissy fit", as you choose to call it, when you used a very crude and demeaning insult on me. You and I both know very damned well that my "hissy fit", as you choose to call it, had absolutely nothing to do with the game and everything to do with your crude and demeaning insult. If you choose to believe that your ridiculous, sophomoric behavior was not, in fact, the cause of my "hissy fit", as you choose to call it, then it is your prerogative to believe so. However, your belief doesn't make it any more real than a small child's belief in the Easter Bunny makes it real.
re the comm explosion. Would someone please explain, in simple terms, why the commander's explosions is necessary, how the commander's explosion improves gameplay, and how removing the commander's explosion would negatively effect gameplay.
Finally, I think my initial post was misunderstood slightly, by Argh and probably by others. I don't play for the "big epic battles"; I find the big epic battles to get boring pretty quickly. I do play for victory - but not for victory by using what I see to be exploits.
Ok...
1. The commander's explosion is necessary because, in the OTA universe, the Commander is powered by antimatter. Which is what provides it with the huge energy reserves necessary to craft Reality and build an army literally from scratch, using nanotechnological magic. Basically, that's the storyline.
2. The commander's explosion improves gameplay in several important ways, in OTA:
A. In commander-death = lose, it provides a showy climax for a battle- the "unifying force", symbolized by this unit, dies, and your forces die with it. Quite brilliant game-design, if you ask me, and one of the reasons why OTA was a classic. Almost no other RTSs that were played with any seriousness online had this feature of gameplay, and the way it was put in was a tour de force.
B. In commander-death <> lose, it really provides players with many, many options. Do I use my commander as a weapon? If so, as a weapon of close-in defense, rushing offense, with the D-Gun? Or as a bomb that can potentially turn a game around?
Providing this sort've option is why OTA is a classic game. Despite its many, many flaws, the Commander's implementation and basic rules are a deep part of what makes OTA good. Why?
Because when the Commander can be such a decisive tool, in the hands of an expert, it further pushes people away from simply buttoning up their bases and playing porcupine, against serious opponants on competition-grade maps.
Who cares about the Commander on a large map? If commdeath=lose, then the Commander had better stay fairly close to home, or get up enough of an Energy economy to stay cloaked, because when armies do start trading blows, you're already at midgame tech levels.
Where the Commander's powers actually matter, again, is on small, competition-grade maps, like Ashap Plateau. Newbies generally hate that map, because it's a map that doesn't reward staying in your sweet little base in OTA.
Do that and your opponant, who took all of the available metal spots you didn't bother with, will be so far ahead that within 5 minutes, he can reach Air... and in 8 minutes or less, he can have Bert or Tim finishing you off.
But... let's say two experienced players face off. Then things get interesting. Both sides know they have to get out on that lethal, spiky floor. Both know how vital those early mexes are. Both are building a rush force while pumping their economies dry... and it comes down to whether you've got your Com fronting, blowing away the enemy's mexxes, or have wimped out, making you the victim of same.
If both players tough it out, then things get really dicey. Both coms have radar. Both can be easily distinguised, due to their slow move rate. How long do you front? Do you search for the other com, or run away when you see him on radar? Do you bring your rush force to patrol around your com, or loop it around the other flank? Do you go for an early com-kill, or do you attempt to defend your economy?
If commdeath <> lose... then things get even more interesting. Instead of mutually-assured destruction, or having to chicken out with your com at the first sign of real trouble (i.e., more than a half-dozen level one units- you can D-gun fewer with ease).
Then you have other options. Do you build an Energy Storage facility or two in the background, cloak your com, and rush the enemy base? Do you play super-aggressively in the open zone, risking losing your best unit but possibly gaining the crucial resource advantage you need? Do you pull back and put him on factory-assistance, or build DTs where your Level One constructors have been queued for defensive weapons? The options become larger and larger, and there is no "perfect strat" that always ensures victory. In a competitive game on a competitive map, the Commander is your Ace. Used correctly, with good timing... you can turn a situation around during crucial early game. Used poorly, or not used at all on offense... you just plain lose.
Take out Commander explosions, and you lose a lot've the gameplay of OTA-based games, in my opinion. Simple as that. People who don't get that are obviously not used to serious games against serious players.
1. The commander's explosion is necessary because, in the OTA universe, the Commander is powered by antimatter. Which is what provides it with the huge energy reserves necessary to craft Reality and build an army literally from scratch, using nanotechnological magic. Basically, that's the storyline.
2. The commander's explosion improves gameplay in several important ways, in OTA:
A. In commander-death = lose, it provides a showy climax for a battle- the "unifying force", symbolized by this unit, dies, and your forces die with it. Quite brilliant game-design, if you ask me, and one of the reasons why OTA was a classic. Almost no other RTSs that were played with any seriousness online had this feature of gameplay, and the way it was put in was a tour de force.
B. In commander-death <> lose, it really provides players with many, many options. Do I use my commander as a weapon? If so, as a weapon of close-in defense, rushing offense, with the D-Gun? Or as a bomb that can potentially turn a game around?
Providing this sort've option is why OTA is a classic game. Despite its many, many flaws, the Commander's implementation and basic rules are a deep part of what makes OTA good. Why?
Because when the Commander can be such a decisive tool, in the hands of an expert, it further pushes people away from simply buttoning up their bases and playing porcupine, against serious opponants on competition-grade maps.
Who cares about the Commander on a large map? If commdeath=lose, then the Commander had better stay fairly close to home, or get up enough of an Energy economy to stay cloaked, because when armies do start trading blows, you're already at midgame tech levels.
Where the Commander's powers actually matter, again, is on small, competition-grade maps, like Ashap Plateau. Newbies generally hate that map, because it's a map that doesn't reward staying in your sweet little base in OTA.
Do that and your opponant, who took all of the available metal spots you didn't bother with, will be so far ahead that within 5 minutes, he can reach Air... and in 8 minutes or less, he can have Bert or Tim finishing you off.
But... let's say two experienced players face off. Then things get interesting. Both sides know they have to get out on that lethal, spiky floor. Both know how vital those early mexes are. Both are building a rush force while pumping their economies dry... and it comes down to whether you've got your Com fronting, blowing away the enemy's mexxes, or have wimped out, making you the victim of same.
If both players tough it out, then things get really dicey. Both coms have radar. Both can be easily distinguised, due to their slow move rate. How long do you front? Do you search for the other com, or run away when you see him on radar? Do you bring your rush force to patrol around your com, or loop it around the other flank? Do you go for an early com-kill, or do you attempt to defend your economy?
If commdeath <> lose... then things get even more interesting. Instead of mutually-assured destruction, or having to chicken out with your com at the first sign of real trouble (i.e., more than a half-dozen level one units- you can D-gun fewer with ease).
Then you have other options. Do you build an Energy Storage facility or two in the background, cloak your com, and rush the enemy base? Do you play super-aggressively in the open zone, risking losing your best unit but possibly gaining the crucial resource advantage you need? Do you pull back and put him on factory-assistance, or build DTs where your Level One constructors have been queued for defensive weapons? The options become larger and larger, and there is no "perfect strat" that always ensures victory. In a competitive game on a competitive map, the Commander is your Ace. Used correctly, with good timing... you can turn a situation around during crucial early game. Used poorly, or not used at all on offense... you just plain lose.
Take out Commander explosions, and you lose a lot've the gameplay of OTA-based games, in my opinion. Simple as that. People who don't get that are obviously not used to serious games against serious players.
One of the lame tactics (AA1.44) i found out was the "bear-rush". The idea is that you make hovercraft transports and load enemy comm/units in it.
The bear itself has 7k HP, so it can easily float past 2 gaats.
"of course you can D-gun it?"
Well, the Bear loading arm has huge range, that is almost the same or bigger than Dgun range.
So please caydr, NERF hovercrafts
The bear itself has 7k HP, so it can easily float past 2 gaats.
"of course you can D-gun it?"
Well, the Bear loading arm has huge range, that is almost the same or bigger than Dgun range.
So please caydr, NERF hovercrafts
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Machiosabre
- Posts: 1474
- Joined: 25 Dec 2005, 22:56
hehe I love this thread - the only lameness that comes to mind is players pausing to micro stuff just as they begin a large offensive and an early comm bomb as they arent really stoppable for the first 5 - 10 mins.
Apart from that I cant really think of anything lame and agree totally with tireds first post.
Having a comm dug in in a defensive line isnt lame, theres loads of ways to move him or you can go round him, its just another style of play, Id rather have him there than on factory duty - he can d gun bulldogs when they try to get through my line
I myself lost a 1v1 to 24k where he comm napped me blew up my base with my own comm and then brawlered me to death... my immediate reaction was to proclaim lameness and get mad... then I thought, hmmm 1 defender tower would have stopped that comm nap and a few scouts would have found him building l2 air which I most likely could have destroyed with a substantial rush before it was even built.
conclusion
- 24k = not lame-
- Steves poor tactics, lack of foresight and momentary whining = lame
scout ftw!
hehe
Ive never been comm napped since :) hehe
Apart from that I cant really think of anything lame and agree totally with tireds first post.
Having a comm dug in in a defensive line isnt lame, theres loads of ways to move him or you can go round him, its just another style of play, Id rather have him there than on factory duty - he can d gun bulldogs when they try to get through my line
I myself lost a 1v1 to 24k where he comm napped me blew up my base with my own comm and then brawlered me to death... my immediate reaction was to proclaim lameness and get mad... then I thought, hmmm 1 defender tower would have stopped that comm nap and a few scouts would have found him building l2 air which I most likely could have destroyed with a substantial rush before it was even built.
conclusion
- 24k = not lame-
- Steves poor tactics, lack of foresight and momentary whining = lame
scout ftw!
hehe
Ive never been comm napped since :) hehe
Last edited by BigSteve on 06 Mar 2006, 19:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Machiosabre
- Posts: 1474
- Joined: 25 Dec 2005, 22:56
I've thought of the king of all lame tactics.. I've never used this, never plan to use it; I wouldn't ever play with someone who would use it... The game is comm ends one player builds a aircraft plant and atlas and picks up his own comm. Then he gives away the comm to his opponent right before he comm bombs with it. This is pure evil. I hope no one will ever do this in game 
Oh yer with regards to my post above, when I got brawlered I had 2 defender towers... oops... seems I forgot to build aa.
Ive played afew games when Ive done the same to others with brawlers and they've had 0 aa, they then proceed to proclaim bralwers are lame and unbalanced and should be nerfed or removed from the game, lol
Ive played afew games when Ive done the same to others with brawlers and they've had 0 aa, they then proceed to proclaim bralwers are lame and unbalanced and should be nerfed or removed from the game, lol
ŝhrmph wrote:I've thought of the king of all lame tactics.. I've never used this, never plan to use it; I wouldn't ever play with someone who would use it... The game is comm ends one player builds a aircraft plant and atlas and picks up his own comm. Then he gives away the comm to his opponent right before he comm bombs with it. This is pure evil. I hope no one will ever do this in game
now THATS lame. Thats why i would like to play comm continues with this mod:
AA-NerfedCommander as i see it:
1. Comm explosion radius is halved and does 0 damage to other comm
2. Dgun does 0 damage to other comm
3. limit dgun to start pos