What i tried to say is that the walls are absurdly cheap AND Fast to build. You can wall out one side of the TCP in like 5-10 seconds. And reclaiming it wont work if the enemy has built defender towers/ has defending units nearby.
Or maybe i should just play better ;p
Expand & Exterminate .155 Released!
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Forboding Angel
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A quick note, defence towers aren't very effective vs lv 2 and are downright bad vs lv 3 unless the defence towers you are talking abut are the bunkers (and those can't shoot over walls).Sleksa wrote:What i tried to say is that the walls are absurdly cheap AND Fast to build. You can wall out one side of the TCP in like 5-10 seconds. And reclaiming it wont work if the enemy has built defender towers/ has defending units nearby.
Or maybe i should just play better ;p
If you happen to be on tonight I'll be happy to illistrate, but it doesn't seem as though you are that worried, oh and btw... Artillary ftw...
GD has nuke artillary, and urc has equilly nasty stuff. If you can't break through using that then you are going about it the wrong way.
I think the problem is your previous prespective is OTA/XTA/AA where no one builds dragons teeth. Why Fang you say thats just not my play style Im not defensive. Thats great I say really great Im glad youve realized that seizing the initiative is what wins battles, but unfortunately thats not the point here. The point is the walls or dragonsteeth in OTA/XTA/AA are rubbish they only block movement and amount basically to an afterthought in most peoples minds. They might as well not block anything and just be in the game for a visual effect to make defensive lines look cooler, because they honestly serve no other purpose. This is why they are never used. My thought is well thats retarded, Ill admit Im a defensive minded player and I often have trouble being agressive and expansionistic. So I thought, well not everyone is an aggressive player some people like to fortify their positions as they move, not so they will hold against all assault but so that a "raid" wont run right over it.
With this thought in mind I addressed what I thought was wrong with the walls in other mods. This consisted of three facts, one they are far to expensive to be built unless you have a decent economy considering how many need to be built, two they take far to long to be built to be built quickly or effeciently, and three they dont block anything but movement unless you block the big walls which intern cant be fired over by anything thus making they an impedement to defenses as well. So I decided that E&E's walls would build fast, cost next to nothing allowing them to be built even during a massive nano stall, and would take defensive structures into account with their height. So they block some weapons fire, mostly direct cannon/laser/plasma weapons fire but not rockets or artillery. Also several of the turrets cannot fire over them but others can and the turrets are set up so they can be layered to improve their effectiveness. Now will a dedicated defensive line stop raiding, the answer is yes, but then why shouldnt it. If raiding can bypass any and all defences then what is their point, nothing they have none.
Defences are supposed to be fixed units you can leave in place in an area to stop the enemy from easily breaking through and to buy time for you to get your main force, or a response force to the area to prevent an enemy attack since you cannot move your base only your units. Because your base is static you need to be able to have some way to delay enemy strikes to allow for your mobile defence/offence units to counter the enemy. If this doesnt exist then the game will be even more stalemate like than it currently is since attacking will become almost none existant until the very end where once enough forces have been built up that an attack on the enemy will not leave you defenceless and allow an enemy to easily just waltz into your base an annihilate it. So you would just see roving groups of units patrolling a no mans land for the entire game as an attack would just leave you vulnerable. So I designed the defences in such a fashion that if they are set up correctly they will stop a raid and a poorly executed assault in its tracks. They will however not stop a well executed assault nor can they function without mobile support. This means you need recon/line of sight/radar. This also means that the mod plays very poorly when your oppenent has only one area to defend.
On maps that have very limited ie two or less attack avenues such as the cold place this mod will degenerate into a defensive battle. Why because your making it easy for anyone to set up defences, youve already shown your opponent where you will attack by virtue of using that map. He doesnt need to scout he knows where your attack will come from so he can start off ready. This mod favors larger open maps with multiple attack avenues through multiple types of terrain that force you to scout to find out where your oppenent intends to attack and concentrate defences there, because if you try to defend your whole base you will spread yourself thin. Because in some other mods some units are clearly superior to other units this type of gameplay is stopped cold because these units are too effective at their given role. When units are not necessarily much superior to eachother a mixed group of them must be used and it is the composition of the group that defines its effectiveness not the individual units. This emphasizes the use of tactics and strategy more so than superior micromanagement of one sort of unit.
Im not claiming my mod does this perfectly or even close but this is what Im aiming for. My point is that you cannot thing from previous games how this should play you have to take it from its own thing, and yes it does not play well on certain maps, but maybe thats a demonstration that such maps are not balanced or decent in themselves from the concept up. If you look at history you will see that where you choose to fight is as important as how you fight the battle and in fact where you choose to fight usually determines how you choose to fight. In that case most military strategists would tell you that give the terrain setup and force composition they would not choose to fight on certain maps because the terrain is not good. Maps that dont offer multiple attack routes for each method of attacking, and I mean more than 2, are not good ideas to play on and the battles will always come out relatively the same given equal skill. A map that forces you to always assault your opponents single heavily defended spot will always end in a World War 1 style blood bath, because it was this kind of limited thinking that drove the fighting style of the commanders during World War 1. They didnt think there was any other way to prosecute the attack and so you ended up with the war as it was, every so often you need to step back and look at your thinking and wonder if you in fact have not become locked into a pattern of thinking that means you only use a certain manner of attack and favor only that style of attack, and assume that any other manner of attacking is inferior or indicative of lack of balance or some other method of logic.
I think Ive gone on long enough but Ive said my piece and I hope some people will actually read this and realize Im not trying to lecture from a soap box but that I think everyone, including myself needs to do this, and that we cant judge gameplay based on what may be inferior maps conceptually. To sum up my point, if you find the game is becoming two defensively set perhaps you should step back and see if its not just how you approach playing it but what sorts of maps you play it on that cause this gameplay style, you may surprise yourself with the realization you come to...
With this thought in mind I addressed what I thought was wrong with the walls in other mods. This consisted of three facts, one they are far to expensive to be built unless you have a decent economy considering how many need to be built, two they take far to long to be built to be built quickly or effeciently, and three they dont block anything but movement unless you block the big walls which intern cant be fired over by anything thus making they an impedement to defenses as well. So I decided that E&E's walls would build fast, cost next to nothing allowing them to be built even during a massive nano stall, and would take defensive structures into account with their height. So they block some weapons fire, mostly direct cannon/laser/plasma weapons fire but not rockets or artillery. Also several of the turrets cannot fire over them but others can and the turrets are set up so they can be layered to improve their effectiveness. Now will a dedicated defensive line stop raiding, the answer is yes, but then why shouldnt it. If raiding can bypass any and all defences then what is their point, nothing they have none.
Defences are supposed to be fixed units you can leave in place in an area to stop the enemy from easily breaking through and to buy time for you to get your main force, or a response force to the area to prevent an enemy attack since you cannot move your base only your units. Because your base is static you need to be able to have some way to delay enemy strikes to allow for your mobile defence/offence units to counter the enemy. If this doesnt exist then the game will be even more stalemate like than it currently is since attacking will become almost none existant until the very end where once enough forces have been built up that an attack on the enemy will not leave you defenceless and allow an enemy to easily just waltz into your base an annihilate it. So you would just see roving groups of units patrolling a no mans land for the entire game as an attack would just leave you vulnerable. So I designed the defences in such a fashion that if they are set up correctly they will stop a raid and a poorly executed assault in its tracks. They will however not stop a well executed assault nor can they function without mobile support. This means you need recon/line of sight/radar. This also means that the mod plays very poorly when your oppenent has only one area to defend.
On maps that have very limited ie two or less attack avenues such as the cold place this mod will degenerate into a defensive battle. Why because your making it easy for anyone to set up defences, youve already shown your opponent where you will attack by virtue of using that map. He doesnt need to scout he knows where your attack will come from so he can start off ready. This mod favors larger open maps with multiple attack avenues through multiple types of terrain that force you to scout to find out where your oppenent intends to attack and concentrate defences there, because if you try to defend your whole base you will spread yourself thin. Because in some other mods some units are clearly superior to other units this type of gameplay is stopped cold because these units are too effective at their given role. When units are not necessarily much superior to eachother a mixed group of them must be used and it is the composition of the group that defines its effectiveness not the individual units. This emphasizes the use of tactics and strategy more so than superior micromanagement of one sort of unit.
Im not claiming my mod does this perfectly or even close but this is what Im aiming for. My point is that you cannot thing from previous games how this should play you have to take it from its own thing, and yes it does not play well on certain maps, but maybe thats a demonstration that such maps are not balanced or decent in themselves from the concept up. If you look at history you will see that where you choose to fight is as important as how you fight the battle and in fact where you choose to fight usually determines how you choose to fight. In that case most military strategists would tell you that give the terrain setup and force composition they would not choose to fight on certain maps because the terrain is not good. Maps that dont offer multiple attack routes for each method of attacking, and I mean more than 2, are not good ideas to play on and the battles will always come out relatively the same given equal skill. A map that forces you to always assault your opponents single heavily defended spot will always end in a World War 1 style blood bath, because it was this kind of limited thinking that drove the fighting style of the commanders during World War 1. They didnt think there was any other way to prosecute the attack and so you ended up with the war as it was, every so often you need to step back and look at your thinking and wonder if you in fact have not become locked into a pattern of thinking that means you only use a certain manner of attack and favor only that style of attack, and assume that any other manner of attacking is inferior or indicative of lack of balance or some other method of logic.
I think Ive gone on long enough but Ive said my piece and I hope some people will actually read this and realize Im not trying to lecture from a soap box but that I think everyone, including myself needs to do this, and that we cant judge gameplay based on what may be inferior maps conceptually. To sum up my point, if you find the game is becoming two defensively set perhaps you should step back and see if its not just how you approach playing it but what sorts of maps you play it on that cause this gameplay style, you may surprise yourself with the realization you come to...
Last edited by Fanger on 19 Apr 2006, 02:41, edited 3 times in total.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
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- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Wow this mod is makeing me sooo exited. I turtle (not that i'm any good at it, but it DOSE look cool when you fight the enemy!) and its nice to finnaly have some good god damned walls.
One of my favoret games ever was Stronghold 2 (mmm castles) and the best things about those walls is it sounds like they are actually USEFULL! The only time i've ever used dragons teeth one too good effect in the last...year. I built them across the little land bridge in Lava Highground, and then was in a great position, as the game had no air craft.
Keep up the work...
One of my favoret games ever was Stronghold 2 (mmm castles) and the best things about those walls is it sounds like they are actually USEFULL! The only time i've ever used dragons teeth one too good effect in the last...year. I built them across the little land bridge in Lava Highground, and then was in a great position, as the game had no air craft.
Keep up the work...
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
You will find that porcing (BTW for those of you who don't know... The term porc came from the otiginal Cavedog team) won't get you very far, however, you will also find that expanding is also not difficult and you can fortify as you go if you like.Zoombie wrote:Wow this mod is makeing me sooo exited. I turtle (not that i'm any good at it, but it DOSE look cool when you fight the enemy!) and its nice to finnaly have some good god damned walls.
One of my favoret games ever was Stronghold 2 (mmm castles) and the best things about those walls is it sounds like they are actually USEFULL! The only time i've ever used dragons teeth one too good effect in the last...year. I built them across the little land bridge in Lava Highground, and then was in a great position, as the game had no air craft.
Keep up the work...
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
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- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Longer buildtime? Dude, seriously, You don't know enough about the game to be making statements like this. IF you are urc and the GD player has walled himself in, then build 5 scout bots and cloak them, the send them all to reclaim a section or 2 of the wall. URC scouts are stealth AND CAN CLOAK! Good god! If you can't put that to good use then it's your problem, not the mods.Min3mat wrote:fang there is a difference beween useful and overpowered.
DT in mods ARE useful, especially in AA as you can space them one apart so it is faster to constuct.
walls should be slightly longer buildtime though. they are quite easy to spam, maybe give em slightly more health or something too?
Besides, do you ahve any idea how much range mortors have? Geez dude. I might as well stop. You havn't even seen the stuff that is available yet so arguing with you about this is kinda like arguing with a toddler (Not intended to be taken offensively).
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Forboding Angel
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Leaderz0rz
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