Balanced Annihilation V5.8

[Evil4Zerggin]

Krows are just shit for the whole game when you consider the alternatives IMO. Rapiers after an early tech do just what the name would suggest, after which, bomber runs are so much more effective than krows it's not even worth thinking about them.

Agreed. A Krow costs as much as 11.16 Rapier or 8.61 Hurricane (using 1 metal = 66 energy and 1 energy = 2 build time), both of which I would rather have in nearly every situation. If you have a seaplane platform, that's 11.78 Cutlass (best gunship in the game for cost) or 13.37 Maelstrom (second-best bomber in the game for cost). The only situations in which I would even consider using a Krow are a) to show off and b) to cover a combomb. Even these are questionable.

I wish n00bs would learn not to tech to Krow/Liche/Bantha/Krogoth. Sure, they're individually powerful, but they just cost too damn much. For every game won by these units, there is usually a game that could have been won more easily otherwise (namely the same game), and there are at least ten games lost because someone decided to tech to these units and not provide their allies with a single unit for the first thirty minutes of the game.

[Argh]

When I first saw Tremor, I thought it was borderline op, but in reality it's pretty difficult to deploy offensively...it's expensive, cumbersome, if you have it "fire at will" it will often do as much damage to you as to your enemy...against T2 units, it needs to fire a long time to do signifant damage, and enemy can usually kill it easily before it happens. Compare it to only slightly more expensive Vanguard (which admittably is T3 unit), and Tremor comes across as poor value.

On maps with chokepoints, 3 Tremors set on Hold Position and firing at 3 close points will close that chokepoint, for cheaper than any other combination of ground forces, and beat the heck out've static defenses of the same costs.

If you're using it offensively to try to defeat bases directly, I think you're missing the point of the unit, tbh. It's basically a Guardian that can move, and fires mortar-style. You can fire it over a hill, and expect it to work just fine. And if you mask it from radar, it'll be hard to perform counterbattery against, because it could be almost anywhere- that's one of the hidden advantages of the inaccuracy.

People seem to think they're worthless, and I have yet to see anybody use one effectively in a replay... but I think that's because nobody has considered that when you get to 3, you're not talking about maybe 1 or 2 hits per unit in an attacking force, but 5-6- enough to kill a lot of things outright, or wound them enough that you can very cheaply snuff them with other stuff. Front with cheap, disposable AA in streams, and you're good against a wide variety of attacks, for a cost-over-time of practically zero, compared to the costs of dislodging them (do the math, figuring 5-6 hits per unit on an assault force, or the amount of air you'd require to kill three Tremors guarded by an endless stream of cheap AA Kbots... it's pretty funny).

Personally, I think that on bigger maps with the right terrain, it's one of the more frightening things in BA, because you can effectively tower-creep with it- just cover them against Air, and bring along a couple of units that can snipe any survivors. Just don't build one and expect it to work- like any saturation artillery, it requires that you get enough firepower that hits are certainties, not possibles. If you're playing on a small map, Tremors are right out, due to the speed at which contact and play will occur, if people are any good, but on larger maps, I think they're far more effective than any of the other mobile arty, for the task of area-denial. In FFA on some maps, you could pretty much hold a flank with them and AA, especially if you can mask them behind suitable terrain.

[MR.D]

Argh Plays BA?

[Sleksa]

Even a single tremor is a scary sight in metal heck

[DemO]

Three is overkill IMO. I think most of you are missing some of the elements of what makes the tremor so good. It's not entirely about unit stats all the time, you know. The tremor is definately a powerful psychological weapon in games and can encourage players to make moves they may not be ready to make or comfortable with.

Opponents become intimidated and feel the need to employ some kind of counter. This leaves them with two fundamentally basic options: Retreat out of range of the tremor fire or attempt to take the tremor out. Usually the latter is the chosen direction since the player will expect the tremor to continue to harass and "chase" his retreating defensive line until it is killed.

Either choice by the opponent will likely benefit the player using the tremor considerably, provided he accounts for either circumstance. If the opponent retreats, obviously you immediately benefit from gaining ground. If he attacks and you are prepared for this, he will likely lose units greatly exceeding in cost of the tremor, leaving wrecks at your feet to munch up and re-invest.

[Evil4Zerggin]

I think there are some very good points on both sides of the argument. However, I think the Tremor will remain my favorite artillery platform of this version. Granted, I haven't really seen any really amazing feats of artillery by either Tremor, Pillager, or any other mobile artillery unit. (In BA, anyway. EE on the other hand...)

General:
While a mass of Pillagers have more hit points than a Tremor, they are also more vulnerable to splash damage since there are more units.

If we're going to compare the Vanguard to the Tremor, we might as well compare the Shiva to the Goliath. The Shiva is better than the Goliath in almost every way (It has more speed, better slope tolerance, better turn rate, same weapon + Dominator rocket, more hit points, amphibious, lower cost; the only disadvantages are that it has a more damaging explosion on death and you need a Gantry to build it. It doesn't even have mech armor so it doesn't take extra damage from Sharpshooters and such). The problem is that going T3 is quite expensive; overall the Goliath is probably more useful. (Although overused right now... it's not a good frontliner. The Reaper makes a better frontliner until late late late game, in which case you might as well tech to Shiva. The Goliath is a overall better version of the Fatboy: excellent anti-swarm fire support, provided you point it in the right direction and have supporting mop-up units). Furthermore, the Vanguard itself is more than a little more expensive than the Tremor.

To my knowledge, there is no mobile plasma cannon for which there is a cost to fire.

Defensive:
I agree that a single Tremor is often not very useful against a late T1/early T2 attack, due to its inaccuracy. However, a couple factors mitigate this disadvantage vis-a-vis the Pillager. First, radar inaccuracy and jamming hurts the Pillager more than it does the Tremor; the Tremor is so inaccurate in the first place that the uncertainty introduced by these do not really decrease the Tremor's effectiveness, especially considering it has a greater splash radius than the Pillager (though, granted, lower edge effectiveness). Second, the Tremor has a longer range, allowing you to either get hits in earlier (important if the enemy spaem Penetrator, one of ARM's few T2 advantages; every bit of range over 950 counts, especially considering CORE does not have Annihilator), or keep the Tremor in a safer area. Third, the Tremor has a better arc, making it easier to place it behind a hill while still firing at enemies. Finally, as the number of Tremors and attacking units increases, pinpoint accuracy takes a backseat to simply blanketing the now-large attacking mass with as much damage as possible. The Tremor actually does more damage per time than the equivalent cost of Pillagers.

Offensive:
Again, the Tremor's longer range allows you to more easily place your front line in front of your artillery but out of range of enemy static defenses. It also allows it to outrange T1 MRPC, something the Pillager cannot do. (Granted, T1 MRPC are probably the most overused units in the game for their cost and time of deployment, but that's another story). More than two Tremor or so is probably overkill in this case (I agree with DemO); as long as you have one or two, you'll eventually destroy the enemy defenses unless they have Annihilator or something.

[Saktoth]

Pillager is good at stuff, Tremor is also good at stuff (though personally, i dont use it, i use banishers or pillagers for arty support). They are both good at different stuff.

especially considering CORE does not have Annihilator

Toaster costs about 40% less, has more HP (and pops down), and has similar range (65 less, which is nothing). Granted its DPS isnt nearly what the anni has (123 to 505), but it can still protect a core player from bombardment (though personally i prefer to use a closed DDM for this, which costs about the same).

[fulcrum]

Agreed. A Krow costs as much as 11.16 Rapier or 8.61 Hurricane (using 1 metal = 66 energy and 1 energy = 2 build time), both of which I would rather have in nearly every situation. If you have a seaplane platform, that's 11.78 Cutlass (best gunship in the game for cost) or 13.37 Maelstrom (second-best bomber in the game for cost). The only situations in which I would even consider using a Krow are a) to show off and b) to cover a combomb. Even these are questionable.

I can think very few situations where I'd rather have 10 Rapiers as opposed to 1 Krow, especially now when Rapiers wont hit anything even if they don't die. A Screamer missile will wipe out most if not all of those Rapiers in single blow, but it will only scratch the paint from Krow. Even if you're outside the range of enemy long-range SAMs, T2 mobile AA is so powerful that few will destroy any number of Rapiers. Krow at least has a fighting chance to survive to fight another day. Remember, if your air unit dies, it's gone forever, you can't reclaim the wreckage...

Now T2 bombers, I indeed agree they're usually better value for metal than Krow or in fact, any gunship.

[fulcrum]

People seem to think they're worthless, and I have yet to see anybody use one effectively in a replay... but I think that's because nobody has considered that when you get to 3, you're not talking about maybe 1 or 2 hits per unit in an attacking force, but 5-6- enough to kill a lot of things outright, or wound them enough that you can very cheaply snuff them with other stuff. Front with cheap, disposable AA in streams, and you're good against a wide variety of attacks, for a cost-over-time of practically zero, compared to the costs of dislodging them (do the math, figuring 5-6 hits per unit on an assault force, or the amount of air you'd require to kill three Tremors guarded by an endless stream of cheap AA Kbots... it's pretty funny).

I've personally found that Tremors are pretty easy to kill, even if you try to protect them, since they're so flimsy. Even Brawlers will often kill them unless you have really lots of AA. If the Tremor is defended only by AAA, then pretty much any enemy ground unit which flanks or gets through your protecting ground units will dispatch Tremor. Or if everything else fails, there's Liche (though Liche will cost slightly more than Tremor). In fact, Liche is overkill, few regular bombers will do assuming that Tremor's place is pinpointed, of course. Emerging point here is that to ensure that your Tremor won't get killed requires such an elaborate defence that it is seldom worth the bother. Totally another question is should it be any other way, since Tremor is a specialist unit and meant to be limited in utility.

Best use for Tremor I've found is to provoke enemy make a frontal assault with his ground forces, and hope that in ensuing battle, you gain upper hand. Dem0 is correct that psychological aspect of Tremor is important here (Catapult is another great unit from this perspective). This is especially valid if your Tremor is defended by Sumos, in which case hilarity ensues

[Saktoth]

I can think very few situations where I'd rather have 10 Rapiers as opposed to 1 Krow, especially now when Rapiers wont hit anything even if they don't die. A Screamer missile will wipe out most if not all of those Rapiers in single blow, but it will only scratch the paint from Krow. Even if you're outside the range of enemy long-range SAMs, T2 mobile AA is so powerful that few will destroy any number of Rapiers.

Hit the nail on the head- thats when you want 10 (or 5) rapiers. When he doesnt have Screamers, when he doesnt have Flak, when you've just teched air and he only has defenders. You can quickly wipe out his token AA then his economy. When its mid-late t2 and he has flak, then you might think about a krow.

They're also not bad in defense, if you teching air allowed them to bust your defenses, you can rush out some rapiers to pick them off. You just cant do that with a 5k krow.

Either way, always spread your gunships when facing the possibility of flak or screams. Dont let them bunch. A screamer shouldnt take out more than 1-3 rapiers if you're using them correctly (Or none if you make the screamer fire at a scout plane).

[Evil4Zerggin]

fulcrum:
Now that you mention the Rapier's inaccuracy, I'm going to have to agree with you on the Rapier side. Still, I'd rather take Brawler (x13.33), Sabre (x14.41), or Cutlass (x11.78) for the cost than the Krow. They may be more vulnerable to splash damage, but they do far more DPS for cost, and their greater speed makes them better as a quick-response force. The Krow, however, is far better than the Blade (x3.82), which has all the disadvantages of the Krow (high cost, low damage, slow speed) and the Rapier (inaccuracy) combined.

It's interesting that by far the major reason that gunships are remotely viable compared to bombers is that bomber AI is as dumb as bricks. A perfect Stiletto AI would be the scariest thing ever.

As for Tremors and air, it seems that Pillagers would be almost as vulnerable to gunships. Then again, if you space your Pillagers, it makes it harder to bomb them all versus the far smaller number of Tremor.

Saktoth:
I had forgotten about the Toaster. I'll have to experiment with it sometime.

You also mentioned Banisher. I've seen some people use it as a medium-range fire-support unit and impromptu anti-air (used to annoy the hell out of me as an air player); however, its relatively poor DPS per cost discourages me from using it myself. It does have great accuracy and decent splash; unfortunately, these two things aren't particularly complimentary in the way high DPS and HP go well together or high speed and range. How does it turn out in practice?

[Saktoth]

You also mentioned Banisher. I've seen some people use it as a medium-range fire-support unit and impromptu anti-air (used to annoy the hell out of me as an air player); however, its relatively poor DPS per cost discourages me from using it myself. It does have great accuracy and decent splash; unfortunately, these two things aren't particularly complimentary in the way high DPS and HP go well together or high speed and range. How does it turn out in practice?

Early on, when you've just teched and dont have a fully mature t2 economy yet, its better to use pillagers. The cheap cost and good range allows you to keep them behind your main force (Of, by that stage, either raiders, levelers or reapers) and start making headway again against the enemies t1 porc.

Once you hit mid t2, or even early-mid t2, Banishers really come into their own. They're 4x the cost, but with 4x the HP and 2x the DPS. Once t2 tanks are the mainstay, there is so much AoE being thrown around that pillager swarms dont last long, and their range doesnt count for as much vs the longer ranges at t2 (A goliath rips pillagers to shreds). Banishers also fire backwards, which combined with their accuracy and high damage per shot means they can run into range, get off a volley, then retreat firing (esp good vs gollies, which they move faster than). They dont have the range of a pillager, but they have enough range to out-range viper/pitbulls, which is really all you need from them. The fact they hit air means that 90% of the time you dont need to worry about bringing along flak, which saves you resources (and can save your butt, if you arent expecting air).

You should generally mix them with reapers, since the high rate of fire of reapers allows you to mop up what the banishers miss. Goliaths can be good using the range superiority of a gollie/banisher mix, but this can leave you more vulnerable to spam. My standard mid t2 buildque for vech is 1 repear 1 banisher repeat.

[ginekolog]

Banisher is rarely usefull in my expirience. Compared to goli and raiper id just does too little dps for big cost. Its also fragile and micro intendse. Imo golie does MUCH better job at most things.

Its funny how easy can it be to counter pure golie spam: spam weasel and drive them in golie group - golis kill themself with aoe... nice coutner.

As for krow - its nasty unit in my hand when defending. When I use some krow + some bombers + air pad its very hard to kill me with land force. Bombers kill flak, krows everyting else, reparir pad keep em in shape. Oh noe now u know my strat.

[MR.D]

Thats the best strat to use against an enemy spamming Levelers, or anything with massive AOE/impulse.

Just use fast units to ram right up next to them, and the splash makes those units kill themselves.

Banishers can be taken down with that same theory, but its even easier because of their long reload time.

When I play CORE though, Banishers along with at least a few Flak units makes pretty much the ultimate combination of ground/air support, and Banishers are particularly effective against the larger and more powerful Air units.

Banishers with flak can take down just about any air threat the enemy can send at you as well as providing some ground cover for your flaks, Arm however gets their asses kicked alot easier when its just FLAK tanks vs a couple Krow or lots of bombers, and what a surprise when your flak gets rushed by a few ground units.

[ginekolog]

I would never use banisher as AA because flak is 3 times better.

flak: 202 DPS, 1600HP (3200 aganst gunships), 600 cost
banish: 133 DPS, 2250HP, 1300 cost

so cost for cost flak has 3 times dps and 1.3 - 3 times more hp. So against gunships 3 times more effective unit.

Which does not bother me, banisher is niche unit and has its rare uses.

I played sea these days quite a lot. T1 balance is close to perfect. On T2 things are nice too but battleships lacks 30% of sth. I dont know their real damage (stats on modinfo are wrong because of script) but imo they deal 500 dps which is little compared to cruisers which deal combined 400 DPS . Battleships cost 3 times more than crusier and have only little more DPS, much more range and only good double HP and DONT have deeph charge. To me they are niche unit only for land bombardment, against ships they loose to crusers/subs etc. I would give them more hp or lower cost (20%)

[Saktoth]

3x better? Flak doesnt hit ground. Yeah its worse as AA than flak- but thats because its not just AA. Either way, its often all you need. Yes, of course its worse than reapers and bulldogs in a firefight- but it outranges both of them and pitbulls/vipers. Its a support unit, its artillery, a skirmisher (keep outta range, pummel him into the dirt) and anti-air. As a combination of things, it plugs a number of weaknesses of a pure tank army and does so well.

I played sea these days quite a lot. T1 balance is close to perfect. On T2 things are nice too but battleships lacks 30% of sth. I dont know their real damage (stats on modinfo are wrong because of script) but imo they deal 500 dps which is little compared to cruisers which deal combined 400 DPS . Battleships cost 3 times more than crusier and have only little more DPS, much more range and only good double HP and DONT have deeph charge. To me they are niche unit only for land bombardment, against ships they loose to crusers/subs etc. I would give them more hp or lower cost (20%)

T1 sea is tightly balanced, with a wide variety of facs, strats, and counters. Very fun to play. t2 sea is a horrible, abominable wreck. Cruisers are almost all you'll ever need, and they will walk over a t1 sea player as if he isnt even there.

[LordMatt]

T1 sea is tightly balanced, with a wide variety of facs, strats, and counters. Very fun to play. t2 sea is a horrible, abominable wreck. Cruisers are almost all you'll ever need, and they will walk over a t1 sea player as if he isnt even there.

+1 noize maek fix plx.

[ginekolog]

T1 sea is tightly balanced, with a wide variety of facs, strats, and counters. Very fun to play. t2 sea is a horrible, abominable wreck. Cruisers are almost all you'll ever need, and they will walk over a t1 sea player as if he isnt even there.

+1 noize maek fix plx.

i have to agree here, cruisers are so OP. For mere 1500 u get 420 DPS and 4500 HP + speed. But dont change HP or deepcharge much as they are ok balaned against L2 subs (L2 subs still win for cost, but barely)

[Saktoth]

The problem with the cruiser is mostly its versatility. It can hit underwater structures and units (mexes, amphib, subs), it has more than enough HP to survive the heaviest attack, it has enough range to act as artillery vs HLT's and below, and it has enough DPS to obliterate almost anything on the sea (In 3 different wildly varying weapons, meaning it has even fewer weaknesses). Its fast enough to deploy anywhere rapidly and chase any enemy, and its cheap enough to be spammed (compared to other ships).

Adv Subs barely counter it (t1 sub, forget it). Torpedo planes can, but only if he doesnt spam skeet (the cheapest ship in the game).

Compare this to t1 sea, which has very specific roles for units that are easily overcome by another unit type, meaning there is always a counter to the enemy (Spread across 3-6 facs, no less).

[[Krogoth86]]

Well I think the Cruiser's role is pretty much the same as that of the Destroyer. In fact the Cruiser is just a stronger destroyer with the deck laser added again. It doesn't have much more range and beside the new laser also not that much more dps when it comes to the plasma. What really borks the Cruiser imo is the laser and its too low costs. It really should cost about 2200 m - that would be a fair price when looking at all the other T2 ships which cost so much more and with that said it's strange that the Cruiser came up with such a low cost at all...