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What does defensive play look like?

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5 years ago
What does defensive play look like in Zero-K?
+1 / -0

5 years ago
Is that a serious question?

The most common thing defensive play have are: not trying to go on the enemy half of the map and building porc.
+2 / -0

5 years ago
Isn't building a bunch of porc better described as suicidal than defensive?
+0 / -0

5 years ago
not a long as you build artilery to hide in that porc
+4 / -0
Firepluk
1. Make 30+ spider cons
2. Make 5-10 storages
3. Get an eraser
4. Push grid, mex, reclaim
...
5. Enemy moves in with a tasty shield ball, 30 weavers appear out of nowhere and make spire with a cherry on top(desolator) for ~3-5 seconds, shieldball explodes in colorful fashion
goto 4

optionally: while u are eating ur first dinner from Desolator invest in cerberus

after a while all territory u've covered is impassable porc creep filled with desolators, cerbs and other crap(DRP worthy)

p.s. clusterfuck mode only, use with caution
+3 / -0


5 years ago
Defensive play happens on many scales. Often, a good 1v1 is like the ocean, and has a tide of battle. This tide comprises of attacking forces, where they are attacking, and the availability of reclaim.

I would say that defensive play is luring attack into territory that you are at an advantage reclaiming within. It also includes very quickly introducing the correct counter for the attacking force.

The reason defensive play is often a problem is because if a standoff situation occurs, it is an arms race to bigger weapons. Eventually, there is no defensive play strong enough to prevent the superweapons, whoever got there first is most likely to win.
+3 / -0

5 years ago
Usually it looks like this:
+16 / -0
5 years ago
"Right out of the gate, the first AlphaStar agent TLO faced picked him apart in short order. The human player had put too much emphasis on gathering resources and building out his kingdom. When the AI agent came calling with imperialism on its mind, TLO’s defenses were meager, his armies overmatched, and his simulated society quickly overtaken. After five matches, TLO acknowledged what a superb job the AI developers had done. After the first game, the outcomes weren’t as lopsided, but TLO walked away without a single victory. "

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-intelligence/deepminds-ai-shows-itself-to-be-a-worldbeating-world-builder
+0 / -0
Firepluk
quote:
"Right out of the gate, the first AlphaStar agent TLO faced picked him apart in short order. The human player had put too much emphasis on gathering resources and building out his kingdom. When the AI agent came calling with imperialism on its mind, TLO’s defenses were meager, his armies overmatched, and his simulated society quickly overtaken. After five matches, TLO acknowledged what a superb job the AI developers had done. After the first game, the outcomes weren’t as lopsided, but TLO walked away without a single victory. "

DeepMind's AI is partly a scam... their APM limitation is not as true as they state
AI clicks are always perfect and AI peak APM performance is way higher than typical human's
i.e. AI's effective APM = real APM, while humans have tons of misclicks or empty clicks(so called warm-up clicks)

I'm not that much into starcraft but on one video I saw AI crushing TLO(or Mana) by units that weren't supposed to win vs his army. But AI took victory anyway because of far superior micro(perfect clicks, very high effective APM, managing several groups of units at once)

If effective APM of AI was throttled to human level or below we could see what his other sides (economy and macro) are. Probably not as good as we think.
+7 / -0

5 years ago
Given how often people are upset at others playing 'overly defensively' in team games, it would be interesting and perhaps even valuable to see some solid examples that a majority of people agree are: a) good / useful / helpful defensive play, as opposed to b) poor / unhelpful / excessive? defensive play.
+1 / -0
I generally recommend new players to play a defensive opening when the game starts, especially if they're near the front line : build a lotus and a stinger adjacent to the starting factory.

It's an easy and affordable way to shut down lots of rush and early harass options.

+1 / -0

5 years ago
Great thread.

I personally love defensive play, but, it has to be done right.

First off, do what raaar said. Lotus in base, always.

That's because there are some really good raiders in the game that will wreck your world if they get into an undefended base with a single scorcher or a couple of glaives. Don't be the doofus that was microing his units at the front, and who comes back to find not factory and dead energy.

Secondly, ZK is anti-porc.

While its true that defensive structures are more powerful pound for pound than offensive units, usually when players turtle up they give up map. Giving up map means giving up metal. All things being equal, the team with more metal will win.

So ...

So you have to build porc at around the halfway line, as Zenfur said. That way you have at least equal resources. And now its the enemy that has to charge into units that are better than theirs per cost. Of course, the obvious reply to porc is artillery. But, as Zenfur said, porc needs artillery of its own. I see porc as a launch pad and base for offensive action. The artillery in porc is protected by the defences, and probably shields as well. It will out-duel the artillery in the open. As a result proper, halfway-on-the-map porc doesn't just protect what's behind it, but it also contests the map a long way ahead of it, effectively denying the enemy resources.

As Sparkles said, "defensive play is luring attack into territory that you are at an advantage reclaiming within." I agree 100%. My porc is always incredibly heavy with caretakers. Once I've beaten an attack off, plenty of juicy wreckage exists in a zone that I control, for reclaim.

Mature porc is almost impossible to beat with conventional means. But what will happen is that you will attract nukes, silo, tremor and DRP like a high powered magnet. Porc alone cannot win a game. Porc gives you the time and resources to build nukes, DRP, bertha etc before the other guy does.

Finally, what Firepluk said is indeed a viable option. I've seen him pop up a line of Desolators in the teeth of a coming attack and simply rip it apart. But its not an option for noobs and unless you really have your timing and resources right, you can lose big time getting it wrong.
+6 / -0
Good defensive play is when:
- You have no other option (attacking is too risky for some reason)
- You are certain that the enemy will attack, and you are certain how they will attack, so you counter their attack precisely (otherwise you either should not be defending, but preparing a superweapon; or you get attacked in a way you're not prepared to counter, and die)
- Your defenses provide enough influence for you to stay economically competitive with your enemy (accounting for reclaim).

An ideal spherical-vacuum defensive play is thus using previously obtained information in defeating an enemy counterattack, all the while pressing on with your own attack.
+3 / -0

5 years ago
it looks like that

http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/674891 after ~ min 12
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/672993 after ~ min 9
+1 / -0

5 years ago
IMM this game Multiplayer B678593 2 on Gecko Isle 1.1 was an example of defensive play by me. I basically just sat back and eco'd and only make enough units to defend. First time I attacked past raider phase and a half-hearted rocko push was with a tech-switch into air, as I figured glaives would be too easy to stop, and rocko/warrior would be too much of a gamble(placeholder + jack = nice metal donation).
+1 / -0
if enemy dont make army and only porc pushing make 1 arty and 1 stinger,then rush nuke by the time he gets to your base nuke him.

On a serious note i guess you could say drone is the best defensive player,he porcs then ecoes and then arty you till resign.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Defensive play is a decent idea when you've got an economic advantage you want to nurse, or if you're behind and you're hoping the opponent screws up. Good defensive play is primarily reactive/anticipatory. You are more likely to win fights in your territory, but you can't afford to lose them.

Avoid over committal to specific defenses. You're making enough to survive until you can eek out a position from which you can retake the board (e.g. a stardusts job is not to make cost, it is to reduce opponent's viable avenues of attack).

My personal favourite defensive play is in the midgame (30m/s+) using moderate porc to force artillery/skirms response while I rush licho (or ravens if I don't have enough time). This often leads to a reversal where their offensive force is nullified, and further aggression is tempo'd out until they can build sufficient AA accompaniment, giving me back map control from behind.
+3 / -0

5 years ago
This is what defensive play of a large scale looks like ;)

http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/680759

I made quite a few mistakes, but if you want to see what mature porc does to assault units, check it out.

Notice that you need a mobile reserve even with the best defences. Once the enemy gets bogged down, you try to cross his T if possible.
+1 / -0

5 years ago
Re the article above on AI in SC2

"Only when DeepMind switched to an agent whose view of the landscape was strictly limited did MaNa manage to score one for humanity."

Strictly limited in which way?
+0 / -0


5 years ago
ZArankAstran: Regarding AUrankSalamander69's attacks (which were mostly not assault units): AUrankSalamander69 had his army spread out on a very wide front and it was substantially outmassed by your porc. If you'd built up an equivalent sized army...
An actual concentrated assault by assault units (particularly backed up by Shockleys) rather than dribs and drabs of mixed units could have broken through.
+0 / -0
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