Can you explain this 'AA has a slow start' concept in more detail. I've never once thought that AA has a slow start.. Maybe you are playing less than skilled players who porc it up for a long time before attacking? Usually in a game between two skilled players they are raiding each other within 2 or 3 minutes and from there on the conflict doesn't slow down.
First I didnt just mean AA, i mean all games that have a starting similar to OTA. And i will compare it with Warcraft, not because AA or any other mod should be more like Warcraft, but because you asked for clarification. Lets hope nobody understands this as bashing.
In AA you start with one (fast) construction unit and no buildings. In Warcraft, you start with one building (main building, can only build workers and extract resources) and up to 5 workers depending on race. Those 5 workers will usually be divided between imediate construction tasks and gathering resources. That alone makes a huge difference. Then in AA, the first flea-peewee attack is, in my opinion, a matter of luck, as everything depends on positioning. In Warcraft, all bases have a form of natural defense, even if it is not a shooting turret, so a single unit can usually not do much. Also the buildings (except buildings that shoot) are much stronger than the units in Warcraft, and that focuses the fight to the units instead of the buildings. This mean that right at the start, you take a hero+mixed units army and you start attacking _something_ with your army, and new units are built and join you on the field. You are never measuring the range circle of your plasma cannon because all effective fighting is done with units. There is also a game mechanism that transports your army to your base, using an expensive item you had to buy before, called a Town Portal Scroll. This allows you to safelly harass all over the map with your full army and if the enemy is at your base or one of your expansions, you can fight him there. And you do this right at the start, non-stop till the end.
I hope it is clear now why one game works out faster than another. Even large team games in warcraft (max is 6v6) won't usually last more than 30 minutes. A 1v1 game wont usually go past 15 minutes and that includes a full tech up. 15 minutes may sound awfully short to those who never played it, but you have to understand its 15 minutes of exausting constant action and micro. You can see a warcraft game is good if nobody had time to enter a chat message. Is is true good players will raid pretty early in AA. I've played with and against many good players, so yeah, i know. But those are usually decided on luck, positioning and arent usually followed up with a consistent push that might end the game. Then a few llts are up and the raids end. Then the other side builds defense. Then you make better defense. Then you make long range defense when your defense starts meeting the enemy defense. Then you upgrade your well protected mexes. Then you upgrade your defenses again. Then the game took 1h.
