Post by FFAxPostal on Oct 16, 2007 19:10:12 GMT -5
In an effort not to ruin the outcome of the gamein the review, I'm posting my critical comments of the game in here.
More recently, because the game of TA is very old, most demos that get uploaded are for the sake of entertainment, and not for the sake of strategies, critiques or anything along that lines. But here I am offering unsolicited critiques of this PD game, as well as some lessons that I've learned.
One of the main reasons for this is because at the conclusion of this PD game, Mike comments on how his allies "Had nothing" and that it seemed to him like he was carrying the weight of his team. He makes a similar comment to TriploS before succumbing to the hawks of his collective enemies.
PD used to be a staple of 3v3 play, and now whenever I manage to convince a host to change the map from GoW2 to PD, I hear the groans of "Oh no EMG fest" or "Plz no EMG?" or "I don't know how to play this map."
I'll adress each of the complaints before moving on to the critique.
1. "Oh no EMG fest."
I love playing PD 3v3. I think it is one of the more entertaining maps to do and I love playing it with no rules. So when people complain to me about EMG, I simply have to laugh it off. Being Core, I don't have the benefit of Flash tanks, yet I still enjoy playing with them. They don't lag as some people claim, and they not as overpowered as many would like to believe, especially in a 3v3 PD situation. Learning how to stop them either using flashes or without using flashes is a matter of finding the TADs that show it.
2. "Plz no EMG?"
The answer to that question whenever I'm the one being asked is always no. When people say no EMG, they're always referring to the Flash. No one cares about brawlers and peewees. The whole point of a No EMG game is to prevent that whole early rushing thing that can often cripple or eliminate the unprepared player. Same goes as the first complaint. In PD 3v3, it is not extremely difficult to stop the flash rush.
3. "I don't know how to play this map."
PD is a TA ground map. If you have no concept of how to play a TA ground map, then you've been playing too much GoW2. Expanding the horizions can be a painful, but very rewarding task.
To break things down to a simple level, PD 3v3 is played across, creating three "lanes" between each set of opposing players. If you divide the map into thirds in this way, the lanes are relatively narrow. With that in mind one of the banes of flashes is a choke point. Because the lanes of PD are narrow, a choke point is practically created because your opponet must hit you from the front, unless he wishes to battle your ally first.
One of the strongest units for any kind of choke point fights is the Slasher/Samson. In groups with radar, they rip up Flashes, and allow you to maintain the ground that you've gained (In turn the wreckage feilds.) Now the lanes are wider than, say the choke point in GD2, but they're still narrow enough to be covered by radar with ease.
Now on to the game:
The first player I'll adress is Mike, simply because its the easiest. His opponet is Corb, who (Because of a poor start, had little to do with Mike) has fallen very far behind. They're playing in the center lane, which has the hill. Unlike the flatter north and south lanes, the hill is difficult for Slashers to work with. Not that it mattered in this game, because niether Mike nor Corb bothered to take the hill. Mike is satisfied to use his flashes in a group and keep his area entirely safe. He goes advanced as well, and continues to porc up, entirely unhampered by Corb. The thing is, Mike neglected to push any advantage home, neither did he bother trying to get radar up further foward to see if Corb had anything that would allow him to press in easily. Had he done so he would have noticed right away that Corb was behind him.
Corb goes air, and in a build that I've never seen him try before, drops many factories and stalls for quite some time. Like other FFAx that frequented Boldok's games, Corb is usually very solid on PD. One thing that Corb did well was tech up and build. He tried (And failed) raiding Mike (As mike had so many MTS) So he turned his attention to TriploS, effectively making one of the best decisions of this game, and allowing Nutrients to come back into the game. After that he goes advanced at about the same time MIke did. Despite Mikes lead because of a better build, he ends up on the same footing as Corb, simply because he invested his Metal into Missile towers, Dragons teeth, and guardians rather than putting them into units which could have made the lives of his opponets significantly worse.
Nutrients knew what he was doing. he began strong by killing lots of TriploS cons. He falls behind Triplos, however, and is brought back into the picture once Triplos neglects to control any of the land he takes, and after Corbs attack causees him to draw his units back. Nutrients jumps right back into it and takes the majority of the map (including the neglected hill). There is little to say about his play other than it was pretty solid. He guards against the Flashkers using Flashkers (Without the greatest success) but notice that after several raids, it may seem easy for him to become demoralized at the loss of near everything he had, yet he felt fine with his position, realizing that the other player in his lane (Triplos) is in a similar situation.
TriploS raids well in this game, but does little else. He devotes a lot of his metal to Missile towers, but doesn't take any of the territory he could have taken from Nutirients. When you have your opponet backed up, take advantage of the time to get some radar more forward. The radar would have let him know that there was open land for the taking.
Boldok plays a bit lethargically to begin with. He defends against flash raids using a mix of samsons and flashes. Despite his rustiness, he still can stay ahead. Note how he keeps the pressure on Dude as he porcs. He doesn't let the guns go silent just because he can, but he continues to press the fight over the wreck fields as well as trying to gain territory while he porcs.
Dude does similarly, but instead of investing some of his extra metal into Fusions, he puts it into units. He was correct in saying that he was fighting the whole time, when Mike accused him of having nothing. Mike was correct when he said that Dude "had nothing," (compared to the opponet in his lane), and Dude was correct in saying that Mike "Did nothing."
This leads into a lesson that I learned while playing in a 3v3 PD which was FFAx vs n1. If I remember right it was Myself, Boldok and HexDump against Snoop, Rick and Pacer. I was up against Snoop and after deflecting (not in the grandest fashion) his initial flash raids I began to attack him using Radar targeting and slashers. I took my "extra" metal and built a contingent of storms. I then plowed them through Snoops northernmost defences (we were in the southernmost lane) and backed up the storms with my slashers. I moved in construction vehicles to claim the wrecks as my own so I could continue the onslaught.
It is good to notice at this point, Hex had a slight advantage on Pacer (I think...)(Northernmost lane) and Rick had a slight advantage on Boldok (middle lane). All four of them had begun to porc up. I hadn't started porcing instead I opted for the unit option.
In a 1v1 game, the unit option oftentimes wins over the porcing option. Tidals, Solars, Winds, whatever you choose to porc with have the inate characteristic of not being able to shoot. So, if your opponet puts his metal into units, while you put yours into things that make metal; If he attacks, you lose.
Anyway, As my storms went through I noticed that Snoop did not have any more than a few units of his own to stop the attack. I immediatly knew that he was porcing (building resources). Snoop was not the player to be down on units due to bad building. It meant that he was going advanced. So I continued to press, searching for the chance to find and kill his advanced or his resources, giving me the ultimate lead on him. Rick swooped down from the north however, utterly obliterating my attack force, and securing the wreckage for himself.
Having devoted my metal into the storms and the chance at getting the lead by killing resource, I was now left with nothing by my land and a handful of stalling factories. Snoop on the other hand was just completing his fusion, and a fresh wreckage field at his disposal. Needless to say I managed to porc up enough to survive his initial counter attack, but found myself helplessly behind in the building. 20-30 minutes later I succumbed to his onslaught.
The point of that story is basically in a 3v3 PD, all other things being equal, it is good keep the pressure on, yet at the same time you must porc. The lanes are narrow enough that another opponet can come down and protect thier ally before your ally can react. (unless all three of your team members have opted for the unit option, in which case, press on.)
Now this applies for the man on man situation that occurs within each lane. The players have "Thier guy" that they are responsible for keeping in check.
So what about doubles? When Corb attacked TriploS, it would be the responsiblility of Mike to keep Corb in check. There are three ways he could have reacted to keep things even: by covering against Corb's attack (This takes a bit of foreknowledge), attacking Nutrients, or attacking Corb.
It is difficult to know when a double is coming, and even with radar coverage it can be nearly impossible to react to. All things equal though, if your opponet in your lane attacks an ally of yours, then if you are keeping up with him you should be able to move in and do serious damage or at least take a lot of territory. Because he has devoted his forces to attacking someone other than you this puts you ahead of him, but puts your ally behind the opponet in his lane. You need to balance this out by gaining an advantage on the opponet on your lane, or by evening things out by attacking your allies opponet.
Basically, Mikes inaction cost them a lot. His accusations seem to lead you to believe that his allies are responsible for thier failure. Later in the game, Corb was running rampant over both of Mike's allies. Mike reacted to Corb's doubling by trying to block some of Corb's units, but by then the damage had been done. Even though Mike was producing more than both of his allies he did not use it to stop Corb from putting both of his allies behind thier opponets; a strategical blunder.
The final topic, I suppose, is useless attacks. If you attack someone with a solitary flash and they kill it without losing anything, than they have gained about 200 metal on you. (You spent 100 to build it, and they got 100 in wreckage). So if you send an army of Hammers against a swath of missile towers (As Corb did) You have accomplished nothing if you do not do any of the following: Kill resources(Con Vechs included), or Gain territory (Mexes and more importantly wreck fields.)
On a PD 3v3, it is a good idea to make sure you're getting the wrecks. The number of metal extractors on PD is limited per person, and it is difficult to porc, or gain any significant advantage on your opponets without a good income of metal.
That being said, a Guardian is not the best choice for claiming a wreck field. They represent a significant investment, (Almost as much as going advanced) and they do not move. The lane is wide enough that your opponet can simply use the other half of the lane to press the advantage he has gained because you built a guardian. (1500 metal=15 unmatched units). The same goes for an absurd amount of missile towers. They don't move and if your opponet isn't attacking you where the MTs are then they serve no purpose. Units, factories and resources should be the primary expenditure. They'll give you the greatest return.
...
I'm typing too much about a "dead" game.... But hell I'm having fun. At any rate, any disagreements or questions just post em here. And if I'm just dead wrong say so too.
More recently, because the game of TA is very old, most demos that get uploaded are for the sake of entertainment, and not for the sake of strategies, critiques or anything along that lines. But here I am offering unsolicited critiques of this PD game, as well as some lessons that I've learned.
One of the main reasons for this is because at the conclusion of this PD game, Mike comments on how his allies "Had nothing" and that it seemed to him like he was carrying the weight of his team. He makes a similar comment to TriploS before succumbing to the hawks of his collective enemies.
PD used to be a staple of 3v3 play, and now whenever I manage to convince a host to change the map from GoW2 to PD, I hear the groans of "Oh no EMG fest" or "Plz no EMG?" or "I don't know how to play this map."
I'll adress each of the complaints before moving on to the critique.
1. "Oh no EMG fest."
I love playing PD 3v3. I think it is one of the more entertaining maps to do and I love playing it with no rules. So when people complain to me about EMG, I simply have to laugh it off. Being Core, I don't have the benefit of Flash tanks, yet I still enjoy playing with them. They don't lag as some people claim, and they not as overpowered as many would like to believe, especially in a 3v3 PD situation. Learning how to stop them either using flashes or without using flashes is a matter of finding the TADs that show it.
2. "Plz no EMG?"
The answer to that question whenever I'm the one being asked is always no. When people say no EMG, they're always referring to the Flash. No one cares about brawlers and peewees. The whole point of a No EMG game is to prevent that whole early rushing thing that can often cripple or eliminate the unprepared player. Same goes as the first complaint. In PD 3v3, it is not extremely difficult to stop the flash rush.
3. "I don't know how to play this map."
PD is a TA ground map. If you have no concept of how to play a TA ground map, then you've been playing too much GoW2. Expanding the horizions can be a painful, but very rewarding task.
To break things down to a simple level, PD 3v3 is played across, creating three "lanes" between each set of opposing players. If you divide the map into thirds in this way, the lanes are relatively narrow. With that in mind one of the banes of flashes is a choke point. Because the lanes of PD are narrow, a choke point is practically created because your opponet must hit you from the front, unless he wishes to battle your ally first.
One of the strongest units for any kind of choke point fights is the Slasher/Samson. In groups with radar, they rip up Flashes, and allow you to maintain the ground that you've gained (In turn the wreckage feilds.) Now the lanes are wider than, say the choke point in GD2, but they're still narrow enough to be covered by radar with ease.
Now on to the game:
The first player I'll adress is Mike, simply because its the easiest. His opponet is Corb, who (Because of a poor start, had little to do with Mike) has fallen very far behind. They're playing in the center lane, which has the hill. Unlike the flatter north and south lanes, the hill is difficult for Slashers to work with. Not that it mattered in this game, because niether Mike nor Corb bothered to take the hill. Mike is satisfied to use his flashes in a group and keep his area entirely safe. He goes advanced as well, and continues to porc up, entirely unhampered by Corb. The thing is, Mike neglected to push any advantage home, neither did he bother trying to get radar up further foward to see if Corb had anything that would allow him to press in easily. Had he done so he would have noticed right away that Corb was behind him.
Corb goes air, and in a build that I've never seen him try before, drops many factories and stalls for quite some time. Like other FFAx that frequented Boldok's games, Corb is usually very solid on PD. One thing that Corb did well was tech up and build. He tried (And failed) raiding Mike (As mike had so many MTS) So he turned his attention to TriploS, effectively making one of the best decisions of this game, and allowing Nutrients to come back into the game. After that he goes advanced at about the same time MIke did. Despite Mikes lead because of a better build, he ends up on the same footing as Corb, simply because he invested his Metal into Missile towers, Dragons teeth, and guardians rather than putting them into units which could have made the lives of his opponets significantly worse.
Nutrients knew what he was doing. he began strong by killing lots of TriploS cons. He falls behind Triplos, however, and is brought back into the picture once Triplos neglects to control any of the land he takes, and after Corbs attack causees him to draw his units back. Nutrients jumps right back into it and takes the majority of the map (including the neglected hill). There is little to say about his play other than it was pretty solid. He guards against the Flashkers using Flashkers (Without the greatest success) but notice that after several raids, it may seem easy for him to become demoralized at the loss of near everything he had, yet he felt fine with his position, realizing that the other player in his lane (Triplos) is in a similar situation.
TriploS raids well in this game, but does little else. He devotes a lot of his metal to Missile towers, but doesn't take any of the territory he could have taken from Nutirients. When you have your opponet backed up, take advantage of the time to get some radar more forward. The radar would have let him know that there was open land for the taking.
Boldok plays a bit lethargically to begin with. He defends against flash raids using a mix of samsons and flashes. Despite his rustiness, he still can stay ahead. Note how he keeps the pressure on Dude as he porcs. He doesn't let the guns go silent just because he can, but he continues to press the fight over the wreck fields as well as trying to gain territory while he porcs.
Dude does similarly, but instead of investing some of his extra metal into Fusions, he puts it into units. He was correct in saying that he was fighting the whole time, when Mike accused him of having nothing. Mike was correct when he said that Dude "had nothing," (compared to the opponet in his lane), and Dude was correct in saying that Mike "Did nothing."
This leads into a lesson that I learned while playing in a 3v3 PD which was FFAx vs n1. If I remember right it was Myself, Boldok and HexDump against Snoop, Rick and Pacer. I was up against Snoop and after deflecting (not in the grandest fashion) his initial flash raids I began to attack him using Radar targeting and slashers. I took my "extra" metal and built a contingent of storms. I then plowed them through Snoops northernmost defences (we were in the southernmost lane) and backed up the storms with my slashers. I moved in construction vehicles to claim the wrecks as my own so I could continue the onslaught.
It is good to notice at this point, Hex had a slight advantage on Pacer (I think...)(Northernmost lane) and Rick had a slight advantage on Boldok (middle lane). All four of them had begun to porc up. I hadn't started porcing instead I opted for the unit option.
In a 1v1 game, the unit option oftentimes wins over the porcing option. Tidals, Solars, Winds, whatever you choose to porc with have the inate characteristic of not being able to shoot. So, if your opponet puts his metal into units, while you put yours into things that make metal; If he attacks, you lose.
Anyway, As my storms went through I noticed that Snoop did not have any more than a few units of his own to stop the attack. I immediatly knew that he was porcing (building resources). Snoop was not the player to be down on units due to bad building. It meant that he was going advanced. So I continued to press, searching for the chance to find and kill his advanced or his resources, giving me the ultimate lead on him. Rick swooped down from the north however, utterly obliterating my attack force, and securing the wreckage for himself.
Having devoted my metal into the storms and the chance at getting the lead by killing resource, I was now left with nothing by my land and a handful of stalling factories. Snoop on the other hand was just completing his fusion, and a fresh wreckage field at his disposal. Needless to say I managed to porc up enough to survive his initial counter attack, but found myself helplessly behind in the building. 20-30 minutes later I succumbed to his onslaught.
The point of that story is basically in a 3v3 PD, all other things being equal, it is good keep the pressure on, yet at the same time you must porc. The lanes are narrow enough that another opponet can come down and protect thier ally before your ally can react. (unless all three of your team members have opted for the unit option, in which case, press on.)
Now this applies for the man on man situation that occurs within each lane. The players have "Thier guy" that they are responsible for keeping in check.
So what about doubles? When Corb attacked TriploS, it would be the responsiblility of Mike to keep Corb in check. There are three ways he could have reacted to keep things even: by covering against Corb's attack (This takes a bit of foreknowledge), attacking Nutrients, or attacking Corb.
It is difficult to know when a double is coming, and even with radar coverage it can be nearly impossible to react to. All things equal though, if your opponet in your lane attacks an ally of yours, then if you are keeping up with him you should be able to move in and do serious damage or at least take a lot of territory. Because he has devoted his forces to attacking someone other than you this puts you ahead of him, but puts your ally behind the opponet in his lane. You need to balance this out by gaining an advantage on the opponet on your lane, or by evening things out by attacking your allies opponet.
Basically, Mikes inaction cost them a lot. His accusations seem to lead you to believe that his allies are responsible for thier failure. Later in the game, Corb was running rampant over both of Mike's allies. Mike reacted to Corb's doubling by trying to block some of Corb's units, but by then the damage had been done. Even though Mike was producing more than both of his allies he did not use it to stop Corb from putting both of his allies behind thier opponets; a strategical blunder.
The final topic, I suppose, is useless attacks. If you attack someone with a solitary flash and they kill it without losing anything, than they have gained about 200 metal on you. (You spent 100 to build it, and they got 100 in wreckage). So if you send an army of Hammers against a swath of missile towers (As Corb did) You have accomplished nothing if you do not do any of the following: Kill resources(Con Vechs included), or Gain territory (Mexes and more importantly wreck fields.)
On a PD 3v3, it is a good idea to make sure you're getting the wrecks. The number of metal extractors on PD is limited per person, and it is difficult to porc, or gain any significant advantage on your opponets without a good income of metal.
That being said, a Guardian is not the best choice for claiming a wreck field. They represent a significant investment, (Almost as much as going advanced) and they do not move. The lane is wide enough that your opponet can simply use the other half of the lane to press the advantage he has gained because you built a guardian. (1500 metal=15 unmatched units). The same goes for an absurd amount of missile towers. They don't move and if your opponet isn't attacking you where the MTs are then they serve no purpose. Units, factories and resources should be the primary expenditure. They'll give you the greatest return.
...
I'm typing too much about a "dead" game.... But hell I'm having fun. At any rate, any disagreements or questions just post em here. And if I'm just dead wrong say so too.
lawl.
hahahaha