What should have I done ? Need advice.

I was the West ship.

First, I faced ships. I was helped by a teammate with gunships.
No problem here. Winning, losing... Against a ship fac, I think I know what to do. And again since I was helped, we took the sea pretty quickly.
Looking at the replay, I could have handled the cruisers better, since I know now how to autogroup them, but no real problem.

Second, hovers. Here, too, no real problem. Just fac against another fac, tactics, luck, teammates... As much as you can call invisible lances a "no real problem", but that's what cruisers are there for (or seawolves if the hover player forget the antisub units (daggers and claymore). Happens, we are cats.

But then came the amphs, helped from time to time by lykhos (boats have no AA. I'm not going to build a 400 Metal 1900 hp Zephyr that can only shoot at gunships).

My problem is ships are all one-card units with no real brawler, with anything you put in water having no obstacle between it and the ennemy, on three levels (two on land).

- Seawolves are overpriced against ducks (and have no use against land), their Slow is no use against swarm while any hit stop them in their track (why ?), and their speed is no way enough to escape since they don't have any range or life.

- Hunters are one-shoted by anything and shoot when they want at enemy units with enormous firepower, better rate of fire (you rarely miss a boat with even a buoy), particularly when you don't have any range (why deep charges have more range AND homing than ship torpedos ?).
When duck have to be attacked in hand-to-hand combat underwater, my hunters have 360 HP to oppose to... anything that can shoot them, wich is anything and their dog. Let's not speak of scallops or even archers (who add the insult to injury by having better AOE than Siren...).

The corsair is a joke for me, since it's basically a scallop that can go nor fight underwater or at underwater.

Siren... Too fragile (two lances instakill it, while you need three for a Minotaur). No range against underwater. Pitiful rate of fire. It's suposed to be the "big thing" from the ship fac... Even the shogun has only 800hp more than a Minau...
I use a few sirens (one or two) when I can force the amphs to use a path or two, like in the rivers.
But in the sea even, a mass of ducks take too much space for the very limited Siren AOE. And with their speed and the flat sea bottom, they are on what they want immediatly.
Of course, I could had put everything on Sirens, but then I can't really oppose ennemy other units, I think (Sirens without shield never pose me any problem).

That's basically the problem I can't solve :
- Amphs can be anywhere very quiclky, since underwater is generaly flat.
- All their units can shoot me, while only 3 units of mine can answer, and none more than at arm range.
- The static defenses are of very little use : The only two that can shoot them are the Gauss and the Urchins. Seen urchins are as good as dead, and Gauss will need terraform (with likhos and lances on theater...).
- Good use of cloacking by enemy. Didn't know where to fire at range, impossible to send small units to see (small ships are easily one-shoted), and massed ducks can litteraly appear under your feet.
- Duck are so cheap I didn't had the time to prepare anything. Even building a caretaker or an urchin take too much time.
- Even eating the wreckage was very hard. Seeing the replay, I probably didn't try enough about that, but I was focused on taking the sea, then about the unstopping duck waves (and the lances/lykhos sinking my ships).


I don't say my opponent was bad and won BECAUSE the amphs. He knew apparently what to do with his amphs. My problem is I still don't know what to do AGAINST his amphs.
And I don't hate water. I LOVE water and ships. I think I can fight any other fac with ships, even Air (if I can put static AA), and don't even think to come near the coast with your puny land units when I'm around with my boats.
That's just the Amphs I feel totally powerless. Should'a build a hover for some Claymores. Claymores are really cool).

I understand an invicible sea fac that could wreack havock also at land would be too much, but I would like having a fighting chance against amphs.


Hope some of you can advice me.

you can find BLaNKMiND's replay, they should contain most of the stuff i want to say.
(seawolf micro and when to make, siren envoy management, what unit to make in general. though he uses zephyrs, dont learn that :P)
here's a game with small size https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1568532
you can make owl and likho of your own too

dont use patrol, it blundered alot of your stuff. and you can have a repair station more front instead of at base.
you needed soemthing that can fight likho and lance, make amph or hover for aa, and envoy + iris/shield can fight lance(if you want to stick with ships).
in general envoy + siren spam would be way better then seawolf spam(what you did), most of the time seawolf is only useful when you enemy makes mistakes

quote: You mean looking at the replay of a map where BLaNKMiND play ships ?

yes, btw seawolf out range ducks, and ducks have a turret turn rate problem so if you would to group up youyr seawolfs(by this i dont mean clumping them) and stay ranged you should be able to beat ducks with seawolfs

If you are fighting pure underwater amphs, Siren should beat all of them comfortably for cost. If you are also fighting Buoy/Grizzly or surface stuff like Lance you will need to add other units.

If you have the freedom to switch to other factories, Claymore is indeed good; also Limpet will really ruin the day of a Duck blob.

I think that if you win sea on Folsom you should outright expect the opposition to send a wave of Ducks from the land at you at some point. Plan in advance for what you will do when this happens. (Don't overcommit to anti-Duck though, sometimes it is a ball of hovers instead.)

quote: deep ridges under the sea

I have considered that in the past, but the difficulty in seeing and understanding underwater terrain has always seemed like too large a price to pay.