this is something for arty-threads again.

Apparently humans need a version of ai-resign.

we complain because even 3v3 on a relatively big map degenerates to porc-arty/ pure arty-spam.

I mean... East was suppressed at top by a Bandit/Vandal/Racketeer spam in a 2v1 situation. What was the thought process behind Zenfur going tanks after gunships? Blitz spam might break through, but even then there are more efficient choices. Cyclops is just straight up wasted metal against a ton of Racketeers from how I see it?

terve886 played very efficient trench warfare on the left side. Thing is, his side and back were completely open the entire time. Not a single time did west try to raid these areas; Sigero came once fairly late into the game, but had unfortunate timing and ran head first into a Jugglenaut.

If you stubbornly refuse to try and go around the porc, the game will obviously turn into porc/arty spam. Unless you play some stupidly small map like Icy Run, there'll never be a completely waterproof porc line in small teams, not even if you're playing against Kingstad whose control over that line is tighter than the goddamn White House security.

You just gotta find or create that opportunity.

If a game goes long and unit density increases, longer-range options inherently become better. This is a 50 minute long 3v3. I don't think artillery spam coming into play at some stage in this game is inherently bad.

That being said the Emissary spam does feel pretty oppressive.

Faraday is effective in protecting high-value targets like Antinuke/Singu from bombers but I don't think its existence as a unit makes bombers significantly less viable in general. One could debate its effectiveness against land units but I don't think it was used that much in that capacity this game.

@Highrule1
i am reluctant to spend a significant amount of metal into raiders when i have someone pushing into our base already and i need to spend all my ressources to prevent them from doing so. a nice raid is of no help if i let all those moderators shoot at our base. + there were gunships around and i was pretty sure juggle was coming.

Aquanim
it´s less the arty-spam itself, it is specifically tremor and emissary. i have absolutely no problem with range-escalation, as you see noone complains about things like sling or impaler being too good (more the contrary with sling). what i find more annoying is long-range + AoE. the moment tremor and emissary are out, it renders the rest of our armies useless. terve can just go back, and has 4 options:
1 wait for likho (and hope there are no faradays)
2 build tremor yourself
3 build merlin
4 use cloak to go around

(last option is clearly best, was taken)

if this game had just 1 player more per team, it is pretty likely that even option 4 wouldn´t have existed and @Radavvadra shuts the cloak-option down with fleas afterwards anyway.

because
1) harpys
2) pyro
3) moderators later

makes raids pretty likely to just die and feed.

i actually play cloakies because they have glaives and i love to raid. most fun-part of the game. just not really viable without radar-coverage. by the time i got that, there was already a bunch of moderators that needed to be dealt with.

katastrophe I have to disagree with radar coverage being a requirement for efficient raiding. ZK isn't particularly unique in terms of having to blindly rush/raid early on against an opponent that can somehow see what you're doing. It's like a game of unfair speed chess where you must think three steps ahead to outplay your opponent.

While not mandatory, not doing so means you're already not doing everything you can to win.

Zenfur Fair. I have to agree that the complete aerial shutdown from early on was pretty sad. Worse yet, Lynx was obviously outmatched on ground against Sigero. Former had to also had to play AA while the latter felt comparatively little pressure from your gunships.

I don't think there were any good options to switch to from gunships; tanks just were one of the worst.