What does defensive play look like?

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.

not a long as you build artilery to hide in that porc

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.

"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

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.

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.

it looks like that

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

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.

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.

Astran: Regarding Salamander69's attacks (which were mostly not assault units): Salamander69 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.