I probably enough to play this game like, you cant do this you should to that.

Kelaze, lately you have been posting on this board a good deal and you provided examples that you think support your views.

I thought it would be only fair to not rely on my experiences coincidally playing the game when you're online and, rather, take a look games I wasn't in. So, I made myself some tea and started watching replays.

Player vs Inactive AI

Normally I would say a single player vs a single inactive AI is nothing worth discussing because obviously you're either testing something or just trying to have fun. I didn't realize the AI was inactive before starting the replay however, so I watched it anyway. The first thing you did was send a con to build mex all over map... which is good. While that was being carried out, you ordered your com to build a singu and I fell off my chair laughing. I thank you for that.

There's nothing meaningful to talk about here so let's juts move on. I just wanted to say it put a smile on my face.


FFA vs Brutal Kelaze
In this four way FFA on a very small map you start allied with a brutal AI vs teams of humans. You start by building a couple of mexes and a solar, which is very good. Then, in what I can only describe as a stroke of genius, you perform what is your most innovative move so far: you gift your only unit, your commander, to your brutal AI ally. At this point tea wasn't cutting it anymore. I walked back to the kitchen and got myself a beer.

Unfortunately the brutal AI could not play to it's greatest strength: map control. The map was too small, there is only one entry to each base and there aren't any spare mexes for the AI to take or relentlessly raid. It was a battle well fought, but eventually, bacon prevailed.


Next up... skipping a few player vs inactive AI...

Kelaze & Wet_Waffle vs _Shaman & chaplol

How is _Shaman's team going to win you ask? Let us find out.

Most players open with plop to mex to energy to a couple of units. Kelaze opens with newton into ramp into using said newton to slowly slide commander sideways off the ramp.

The first handful of scythes in the game surround kelaze's commander.

Wet_Waffle:
I think my ally is brand new
he is building a stairway to the sky

_Shaman:
nah
he's always like that

A disoriented Wet_Waffle attempts a raid with lightning tanks but gets blocked.

Game is over. It didn't even last long enough to cap all the mexes on the small map.


Kelaze & Moepmoep VS Shaman & chaplol

Kelaze plops tanks and caps mexes while making wind gens linking grid. The first unit? A minotaur. Not bad. Not bad. A bit expensive and overall ineffective as the first unit in a 2v2, but we are on the right track.

Moepmoep does not plop and upgrades his com as he builds a fusion in the corner, away from the eco.

What happens on the other side of the map? Both players plop and cap mexes. A picket is built to ward off raiders. An ogre is started in chaplol's tank factory. Again, a bit expensive, but not entirely unreasonable. A better first unit choice over a minotaur for sure. Finally, _Shaman plops jumpers, builds a couple of pyros and walks them towards the enemy base.

The fusion finishes as the pyros walk into the base but neither commander is in position to ward off the raiders and there are no static defenses. The pyros end up getting shot at, but are repositioned to use the tank factory as cover while they roast it.

Critical damage has been delt. The eco in the starting position is rebuilt but by that time, _Shaman and chaplol have captured the entire map. Moepmoep and Kelaze upgrade spam their commanders and ward off small units, but eventually an ultimatum is air dropped directly on the commanders and they both fall.

Let's call that one a learning experience. We've all been there... minus the upgrading commander while building a fusion before plopping. Only some of us have been there.

Speaking of which, the fusion plant survided to the end, but was never connected to the grid. One solar would have done the trick I think.


4v4 on small supreme battlefield dry

Overall a decent game. North managed to take southeast early on while northwest remained contested. Eventually south team's position was eroded.

Kelaze's contribution is actually not without merit. At start Kelaze plops planes, builts a caretaker and then reclaims trees. By the end of the game an air pad was added to that, but that's it. No contribution towards ecenomoy, expansion of grid or defenses of any kind.

If memory serves Kelaze lost the first swift vs swift battle, but a handful of critical likho strikes completely shut down enemy charges at flank and expensive units were randomly picked off by swifts (a lance and small pakcs of skirmishers roaming the map).

Aside from the absolute lack of contribution towards eco, I would actually not mind having one guy on my team playing like this. Acceptable air support was provided. Watching this feels encouraging.


7v6 on fields of isis

This was very similar to the previous game in many ways. Kelaze plopped planes and used napalm strikes against early pushes, which was fine.
In the end his team lost, due to a well coordinated tank push from the south. I don't think it would be fair to blame Kelazae for much here. There were no air to air battles and east had ground to air defense in the form of units at key locations, so it may not have been possible to do much more.

I will note however that this is another game in which Kelaze's buildings were comprised entirely of one caretaker, one plane fac and one air pad. Nothing else. Not a solar. Not a wind generator. Not a mex. Nothing. Just those 3 things.


7v6 on craterv01

This is an example of a game I quoted in my ealier post. The build was plop fac, build caretaker and start a singu. In this example the fac was not reclaimed, making the caretaker useless. The commander's build power was sufficient for the income. The caretaker only delayed the singu by its cost.

I am not a fan of rushing a 4000 metal eco building as soon as game starts. I understand some players like to do that. Rushing eco is a legit strat in many RTS and one player is just a portion of the income of the team, so it's equivalent to saying if I can dedicate 1/6th or 1/7th of my income to eco in a 1v1 while my opponent dedicates less or none at all, so long as I can survive the early game, I will eventually win by sheer mass production. I get how that can be a legit strategy. I am not a fan, but I get it. IMO a fusion followed by connecting the grid would be better.

Here is what's weird. Following up a singu with another singu. Then another singu. How many do you need?

At least Kelaze actually connected the grid in many places around the map (not just his corner). When a teammate asked to stop eco and start producing units (not in the nicest of ways I might add) Kelaze actually agreed and complied, showing some teamplay.

I'm not a fan of the strategy, but at least it wasn't counterproductive. Plus Kelaze put up terraforming walls when struck by berthas. We came close to big fireworks, but ultimately the singus prevailed.

I'll say this: I don't support this, but it wouldn't be fair to call this anti play. I think it's bad, but to be objective, it's legit.


7v8 llta complex v2

Not an interesting game in a team v team perspective but significant improvement as far as I can tell for Kelaze. Plop a spider fac followed by making a weaver, capping 4 mexes and linking grid with wind gens... while at some point in that starting a singu with com.
Again, not a fan of singu so early (or rather a player dedicating all of their resources into eco), but at least capping mexes and connecting grid led to eco ramping up much faster much earlier. When handled properly this game's eco snowballs and that's what we saw here.

Next.

5v6 moon quartet remake

Another game dedicated to planes. A small number of early swifts pick off raiders making it to the back of the base.
I was looking at the fac and noticed the likho build ETA go from 2 minutes to 10 minutes, to 20 minutes, to 10 minutes, to 2 minutes, to 10 minutes, to 20... This is what happens when you're energy starved. Another game in which the only building on the field is a factory. No solar. No mex. No eco of any kind. No defense. Just a fac and a commander supporting a fac, which is not useful because the build power of the fac by itself is sufficient for the early income after initial storage is spent. You can't spend more than 10m/s when your income is less than 10m/s.

6v7 fields of isis

Let's toss that one to experimenting. Kelaze started with a gunship fac and heavy trasport + gnats. At this point we know where this is going except I don't think it happned at all. Then a plane factory was built for 3 owls and then a rover factory for a single dom. Then a nuke. The first launch was questionable, but the opposite team could not respond with an anti before the second strike. I think the game was already won at that point, but if it wasn't crystal clear before it became completely undeniable.

Weird, very ineffective things were done early on, but the nuke switch saved it I guess.

6v7 tabula

Kelaze caps one mex, plops tanks and makes cons and minotaurs all game. Another game in which he has 0 energy income of his own, but otherwise we're doing some things right. Units are idle for a long time early in the game. At some point they are used to deflect an enemy push in the south and then we move on to center field, taking out static defense and even reclaiming stuff in the process.



At this point I've spent all the time I'm willing to spend on this for the time being and I've watched games that cover about the last two days. What I saw here is better than what I have seen before. I didn't see the field of aegis. I also didn't see the terraforming nonsense.

I'm no authority here, but I would say all I require at the end of the day is to see some sort of a will to learn. I need to see that some steps are being taken and some effort is put into trying to do something that helps the team, and that's what I saw in that sample.

Nobody likes to feel as if they're working damn hard trying to hold the line while a few bad apples are doing stupid things in the back. That's when legitimate criticism starts to appear, and it can get harsh.

Kelaze don't take this personally (I consider you a good player- far better than me, at the very least) but Galamesh's post is the most hilarious thing I've read in years. Top quality stuff.

I remember a time, it was a little while after I first started playing, maybe something like 3 months in... where I started to form a grudge against phantoms. They are some nasty fuckers. One time, I think is was a human team vs AI match, I comprised my units almost entirely of just phantoms. From my observations, the AI doesn't really know how to counter my little snipey wipeys (remember this wasn't solo vs AI- this was team coop), so all you really had to do was send them to attack-move across the other side of the map. I thought to myself, 'this "tactic" really works', so I tried it in teams.

Trying that in teams didn't go so well. I had a few successes and it can work when the planets align- but it was a bad strategy nonetheless; if you're just spamming phantoms, that's one less player devising strategies and countering the enemies' stratagies, and you're relying on your team-mates to protect you whilst you're not covering them or expanding. But more importantly, you don't learn how to raid better... how to counter better... how to micro... or good general strats. That set me back a good amount of skill relative to time played.

I humoured the idea again a few months back (I'll see if I can find the replay) and I was lucky enough to have both
1. an opponent who wasn't equipped (or maybe didn't know how) to counter them and
2. a competent team mate to cover my ass.

It was stupid. But above all, it was a rude thing to do. I had a little taste of what it's like myself when in one match a certain player (who, out of courtesy and respect, shaln't be named) just sat in the corner the entire time, making no units (unless you count constructors) and upon our inevitable defeat concluding the match with, 'my meat shields have failed.' Admittedly I wasn't the greatest player either but it didn't take long for us to see where the match was heading, and I suspect (feel free to retort me) it wasn't my fault there.

Point is, I've done (and still do) the very same disconventions and I know how it feels when people put you down for experimenting (which is, from what I can gather, what this is about). If I tell them, beforehand, "I'm going to focus on getting a couple phantoms here here and here..." then if there's no negative consensus I think it's acceptable. I can think of a few matches where I should've actually done that instead of shit talk or type expletives (I didn't do that towards players... but when I fuck up I blame the UI etc.)

If you pre-emptively inform on what you're doing when you decide to experiment like this a more intricate or focused strategy can evolve from the teamwork of multiple players. That always results in a fun game

Not really.

Like everyone else who plays games, I assume, I have thought of the possibility of making videos or streaming as a means of income. But let's be honest. That kind of gig is very risky, I have a carreer and I like switching between different games a lot.

Getting any attention at first is extremely difficult and streamers complain about losing many subs when they take a weekend off (let alone a vacation).

If it's not for income, the time I could spend editing videos and writing scrips so the content isn't pure crap, I would probably rather spend actually playing stuff.

Most of the time I assume my content would look like any of the <10 watchers streams where the person just plays without saying anything.

I appreciate that you liked my post, but let's be honest, if you show that to a random person who doesn't know Zero-K (even if they could become interested) and most importantly has never played with someone like Kelaze, then the whole thing means nothing at all. Anyone who isn't in the know would just think of it as petty drama in a meaningless game, which it sort of is.

I wrote the post because I wanted to show Kelaze what was wrong with what he was doing, and then I ended up seeing something very different from what I saw when I previously criticised him. I really meant to be fair and give him some props where deserved, which is why I took the time.

I honestly thought that if I looked at Kelaze's replays all I would see would have been terraforming building wrecks into the ground and fields of aegis with no energy income, and it wasn't the case. That is unless he started doing that again.