So I finally took the plunge and had a look at AA thinking that the rebalancing it provided would even things up, but unless I am missing something, it seems like the new units (that aren't in OTA) are all successively more powerful than the older ones, and static turrets are much more powerful than mobile (How it should be, but makes for a frustrating experience).
All the games I have played of AA, and to a lesser extent XTA, have resulted in a stalemate where we had massive land/sea/air battles, but couldn't crack the bases. I've read through the strategies, but I just feel that everything is too powerful or is a unit/counterunit pair, which seems to remove some of the subtlety of OTA.
As an example: Radar jammers have huge range making a base blackout trivial, not something that takes careful planning. (Same in reverse for XLR radar).
I've been enjoying the OTA/Shiny mod, even with the OTA imbalances, but it's tricky to find games when most are XTA/AA, which leads me to believe that I am missing out on something.
Game balance in mods (AA in particular)
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Biggles604
- Posts: 5
- Joined: 29 Aug 2006, 22:08
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/in ... wforum=746 - Pretty much any game rANDY, Bhall, NOiZE, DayWalker, or Hellspawn plays in will be good, though potentially one-sided. You might want to track down some replays of them versus a less skilled player, to see how they beat someone who plays a defense-heavy game.
In general, good use of rocket and plasma KBots early on, with light tanks and vehicle artillery if the map allows it, can make a big difference.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... 417#110417 - Pretty much the best "how to play AA" I can think of. Hellspawn and Jazz are both very good, and it's a very evenly-matched game.
Yes, they're 1v1s, but the techniques are applicable to team games.
Edit: Also note that Junos are apparently currently buggy. Your best bet against someone who loves jammer-spamming is Peeper spamming. You should be investing in an L1 air factory around the time you get your L2 plant (usually before, as L1 air is really cheap), and that'll let you spam Peepers, which will let you find out what's going on pretty much anywhere on the map.
In general, good use of rocket and plasma KBots early on, with light tanks and vehicle artillery if the map allows it, can make a big difference.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... 417#110417 - Pretty much the best "how to play AA" I can think of. Hellspawn and Jazz are both very good, and it's a very evenly-matched game.
Yes, they're 1v1s, but the techniques are applicable to team games.
Edit: Also note that Junos are apparently currently buggy. Your best bet against someone who loves jammer-spamming is Peeper spamming. You should be investing in an L1 air factory around the time you get your L2 plant (usually before, as L1 air is really cheap), and that'll let you spam Peepers, which will let you find out what's going on pretty much anywhere on the map.
AA is simple. The game is highly defensive, but there are so many avenues of attack that covering against every single one is effectively impossible. If your base is too large, it's too big to cover with such invincible defenses. If it's too small, it's too small to provide enough resources to keep up with your enemy.
If conventional attacks don't work, probe for a weak spot in the line and overwhelm it with a HUGE conventional attack. Or build artillery to bomb it. Or use mobile artillery and a mobile jammer. If his fighter fleet is too strong for an air attack, build a screamer nearby and start pickign off the fighters, or attack with L2 fighters. If he's got a single hardpoint you can't get by (or even close to) use tacnukes - they're undefendable. If he's got one or two huge defenses, rush him with hordes of tiny fast-attack units that can simply run right by his defenses and blow up his fusions (a popular XTA tactic). Or just build 3 nuke launchers... he probably doesn't have 3 antinukes in 1 spot. Or just use cloaked attack units.
AA's defenses are powerful, but they're not perfect. There are just too many avenues of attack to prepare for them all, and brute force _does_ work sometimes.
If conventional attacks don't work, probe for a weak spot in the line and overwhelm it with a HUGE conventional attack. Or build artillery to bomb it. Or use mobile artillery and a mobile jammer. If his fighter fleet is too strong for an air attack, build a screamer nearby and start pickign off the fighters, or attack with L2 fighters. If he's got a single hardpoint you can't get by (or even close to) use tacnukes - they're undefendable. If he's got one or two huge defenses, rush him with hordes of tiny fast-attack units that can simply run right by his defenses and blow up his fusions (a popular XTA tactic). Or just build 3 nuke launchers... he probably doesn't have 3 antinukes in 1 spot. Or just use cloaked attack units.
AA's defenses are powerful, but they're not perfect. There are just too many avenues of attack to prepare for them all, and brute force _does_ work sometimes.
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Biggles604
- Posts: 5
- Joined: 29 Aug 2006, 22:08
http://aa.planetannihilation.gamespy.com/forum.htm <-- AA forum.Biggles604 wrote:QFT. I started to read it but got so lost...P3374H wrote:I just had an idea, how about a subforum for each (major) mod? The AA thread is so huge it's difficult to sort through all the comments and such.Egarwaen wrote:1) Post stuff like this in the main AA thread, please.