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I should start by saying that I don't know how to play Banana Republic. The start boxes encompass the entire side of the map and there are many viable looking start positions. I have not played it enough to figure out the pregame RPS relationships of choosing each spot, or to identify good expansion patterns. For all I know @ATOSTIC just picked a better start position.
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I should start by saying that I don't know how to play Banana Republic. The start boxes encompass the entire side of the map and there are many viable looking start positions. I have not played it enough to figure out the pregame RPS relationships of choosing each spot, or to identify good expansion patterns. For all I know @ATOSTIC just picked a better start position.
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Anyway, assuming that Banana Republic is being played properly, I think @ATOSTIC is getting better at outplaying @Dregs. His raids always tie up the opposing army or do damage. He only ever defends where he needs to. I don't think he ever loses a mex and almost all of them are left undefended all game.
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Anyway, assuming that Banana Republic is being played properly, I think @ATOSTIC is getting better at outplaying @Dregs. His raids always tie up the opposing army or do damage. He only ever defends where he needs to. I don't think he ever loses a mex and almost all of them are left undefended all game.
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Looking at the stats limited to loser elo at least 2500, Rover has won this matchup seven times while Shield has won five. I had a look at a few of the Rover wins and the difference is that Shield made Rogue in response to Dominatrix. We've seen Felon in two games. It looks to me like if the Shieldbot player does something different then the Rover player had better do something different too.
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Looking at the stats limited to loser elo at least 2500, Rover has won this matchup seven times while Shield has won five. I had a look at a few of the Rover wins and the difference is that Shield made Rogue in response to Dominatrix. We've seen Felon in two games. It looks to me like if the Shieldbot player does something different then the Rover player had better do something different too.
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[quote]Tried a bit of fencering the ball, didn't manage to kill a single thug in early game. Just wasted time. Also opted not to try raiding because outlaws/bandits, especially in chokepoints on that map would easily have stopped me from doing so and I don't like donating metal where I can avoid doing so. Maybe my best option was to go mostly ravagers but even still, bandits, rogues, outlaws and snitches would have done me in. I decide to switch to recluse spam and ATOSTIC simply makes a good play with cloaked snitches, GG.[/quote]I've watched the other games and you do basically the same things there as you do here. The difference is that they don't work here. Also I don't know why you scout and raid in other games but barely do so here. Your first serious assault is six minutes into the game.
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[quote]Tried a bit of fencering the ball, didn't manage to kill a single thug in early game. Just wasted time. Also opted not to try raiding because outlaws/bandits, especially in chokepoints on that map would easily have stopped me from doing so and I don't like donating metal where I can avoid doing so. Maybe my best option was to go mostly ravagers but even still, bandits, rogues, outlaws and snitches would have done me in. I decide to switch to recluse spam and ATOSTIC simply makes a good play with cloaked snitches, GG.[/quote]I've watched the other games and you do basically the same things there as you do here. The difference is that they don't work here. Also I don't know why you scout and raid in other games but barely do so here. Your first serious assault is six minutes into the game.
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In other games I see you fight the same type of spread-out piecemeal battles. That works against Rogue but not against Felon. Sending units in piecemeal will just get them picked off by Felon and you will lose on attrition. A Felon is slow, expensive, and requires support. When your opponent has slow expensive armies you need to attack everywhere it is not, and only attack head on when you have an advantage. Rover mobility gives you greater choice over how battles start.
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In other games I see you fight the same type of spread-out piecemeal battles. That works against Rogue but not against Felon. Sending units in piecemeal will just get them picked off by Felon and you will lose on attrition. A Felon is slow, expensive, and requires support. When your opponent has slow expensive armies you need to attack everywhere it is not, and only attack head on when you have an advantage. Rover mobility gives you greater choice over how battles start.
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I think not raiding is a big mistake. As @ATOSTIC showed this game, a raid can be very useful even if it loses you more metal than you kill. Fencer is barely slower than Bandit, so what happens if you poke around the sides with pairs of Fencer and Bandit? I have seen you do this in other games. The shieldbot player has to spend more metal to push back this combination and it puts their units out of position.
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I think not raiding is a big mistake. As @ATOSTIC showed this game, a raid can be very useful even if it loses you more metal than you kill. Fencer is barely slower than Bandit, so what happens if you poke around the sides with pairs of Fencer and Bandit? I have seen you do this in other games. The shieldbot player has to spend more metal to push back this combination and it puts their units out of position.
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[quote]If playing SBs myself (or fencer spam or dagger spam on other maps) is the answer, then I lose appetite for ZK because I'm not really playing a game with options, I'm following a ruleset to the letter instead. Factory RPS and metas where certain factories are nearly mandatory are the most limiting things to gameplay here.[/quote]Nobody is saying that playing Shieldbots is the final answer, and that games will just be Shieldbot mirrors for all time. You are taking it to the extreme. It is the answer to the questions "how do I show that this is OP?", or "how do I learn how to beat this?".
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[quote]If playing SBs myself (or fencer spam or dagger spam on other maps) is the answer, then I lose appetite for ZK because I'm not really playing a game with options, I'm following a ruleset to the letter instead. Factory RPS and metas where certain factories are nearly mandatory are the most limiting things to gameplay here.[/quote]Nobody is saying that playing Shieldbots is the final answer, and that games will just be Shieldbot mirrors for all time. You are taking it to the extreme. It is the answer to the questions "how do I show that this is OP?", or "how do I learn how to beat this?".
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| 15 |
One
of
the
best
ways
to
learn
the
weaknesses
of
a
strategy
is
to
try
it
yourself.
What
@ATOSTIC
is
doing
to
make
enough
room
for
Felon
is
not
trivial.
Refusing
to
play
one
side
of
a
matchup
hampers
your
ability
to
learn
it.
You'll
have
to
put
in
more
work
to
get
the
same
out,
such
as
looking
at
a
replay
in
detail
like
I
have
done
these
two
times.
By
'work'
I
don't
mean
to
say
it
is
boring.
It
is
the
kind
of
work
to
extract
the
"learning
how
the
game
functions"-fun
out
of
playing
1v1.
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15 |
One
of
the
best
ways
to
learn
the
weaknesses
of
a
strategy
is
to
try
it
yourself.
What
@ATOSTIC
is
doing
to
make
enough
room
for
Felon
is
not
trivial.
Refusing
to
play
one
side
of
a
matchup
hampers
your
ability
to
learn
it.
You'll
have
to
put
in
more
work
to
get
the
same
out,
such
as
looking
at
a
replay
in
detail
like
I
have
done
these
two
times.
By
'work'
I
don't
mean
to
say
it
is
boring.
It
is
the
kind
of
work
to
extract
the
"learning
the
intricacies
of
matchups"-fun
out
of
playing
1v1.
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[quote]For clarification, my view on OPness/balance that Dregs is referring to is that I try not to complain about balance or something being OP, I much prefer to use what I believe is OP so I will either a) win a lot and others will start to see what I see, or b) I will be shown how to play against it or get ideas myself.[/quote]I agree, but not in all cases. I particularly advocate for playing what you think is OP because it is a good way to learn how a strategy works and gives people who disagree with you a chance to prove it.
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[quote]For clarification, my view on OPness/balance that Dregs is referring to is that I try not to complain about balance or something being OP, I much prefer to use what I believe is OP so I will either a) win a lot and others will start to see what I see, or b) I will be shown how to play against it or get ideas myself.[/quote]I agree, but not in all cases. I particularly advocate for playing what you think is OP because it is a good way to learn how a strategy works and gives people who disagree with you a chance to prove it.
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This approach fails when the meta decided upon a matchup and stops playing it. For example, if everyone played Shieldbots instead of Rover there would be no opportunity to explore Rover strategies or to gather data on whether there is a problem. We don't have the thousands of hardcore 1v1 players required to rely on someone like Bisu coming along and upending the meta with dedicated experimentation and testing. If we reach a point where a lot of people are playing Shielbots instead of Rovers then it is time to consider changes even in the absence of data. However, we currently have very little data and I expect people to keep playing Rovers, so I don't see that it is time to make a change.
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This approach fails when the meta decided upon a matchup and stops playing it. For example, if everyone played Shieldbots instead of Rover there would be no opportunity to explore Rover strategies or to gather data on whether there is a problem. We don't have the thousands of hardcore 1v1 players required to rely on someone like Bisu coming along and upending the meta with dedicated experimentation and testing. If we reach a point where a lot of people are playing Shielbots instead of Rovers then it is time to consider changes even in the absence of data. However, we currently have very little data and I expect people to keep playing Rovers, so I don't see that it is time to make a change.
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[quote]Postgame chat Randy says he doesn't agree with my perspective but I honestly can't see what options I have as rover here. The fact that so many people can argue against this for so long has frustrated me to the point where I'm honestly confounded. Really pissed off that I'm having to expend so much energy on something that to me, appears glaringly obvious. [/quote]@ATOSTIC has developed a strategy that beat @Dregs twice. Previously Rover was dominating Shieldbots with Dominatrix. This strategy beat Shieldbots more than twice. If I were to apply the onus of proof then I would have nerfed Dominatrix a week ago. It may well be the case that @ATOSTIC has developed something that demonstrates shieldbots being a little overtuned, but part of the fun is in figuring that out and then figuring out how to counter it. I'll be more interested when others repeat this strategy.
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[quote]Postgame chat Randy says he doesn't agree with my perspective but I honestly can't see what options I have as rover here. The fact that so many people can argue against this for so long has frustrated me to the point where I'm honestly confounded. Really pissed off that I'm having to expend so much energy on something that to me, appears glaringly obvious. [/quote]@ATOSTIC has developed a strategy that beat @Dregs twice. Previously Rover was dominating Shieldbots with Dominatrix. This strategy beat Shieldbots more than twice. If I were to apply the onus of proof then I would have nerfed Dominatrix a week ago. It may well be the case that @ATOSTIC has developed something that demonstrates shieldbots being a little overtuned, but part of the fun is in figuring that out and then figuring out how to counter it. I'll be more interested when others repeat this strategy.
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Looking at the very early data I'm expecting Rover to need a buff for the Hover and Tank matchups before shields need tweaking.
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Looking at the very early data I'm expecting Rover to need a buff for the Hover and Tank matchups before shields need tweaking.
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B862972 2 on Banana Republic v1.0.1 (Multiplayer)