looking for sea strategy.

sea battle diffrent in land battle. when i use amp on shore, they got decimated.
looking for other solution from amphi and hover alike.

scallop spam is my go-to sea method

nothing else is as straight forward and effective tbh

Amph as starter fac is solid. Ducks are good, and scallops are spammable all the way into late-game under most conditions.

Urchins are very good.

Tidal generator economies are good.

Fac switching to ships and spamming crusaders if they porc with urchins is good.

If you can protect them, reef offer impressive versatility in the very late game, but require strong urchin/scallop support to stop them getting killed by submerged units, and decent anti-air as they are a little frail for cost.

Vultures are good for providing sonar.

Ravens/gunships are good for controlling your opponent's rate of expansion on big maps.

Claymores are beast but require micro and know how.

Serpants can win porc wars from behind urchins.

Wyverns are good at slamming lynchpin ships.

When using ships.

Hunters seem weak, but that AoE adds up quickly as their numbers and enemy numbers grow. They are better able to retreat than most enemy units, and therefore benefit particularly much from repair. By using them as a powerful defensive force, you can really harass an amphib player (with crusader or serpent) then smash apart his attacking force.

One does need to keep in mind that the amphibious units they counter have auto-healing underwater. Reducing a bunch of ducks to half health doesn't really do anything in the long run, and the DPS of Hunters is pretty puny so the ducks often have time to retreat.

quote: I know comparing to land is fallacious, but they're better at their role than any land riot.

I think I'd prefer to have floating Outlaws, myself. I suppose the sense in which you mean this is that they outrun Scallop, whereas on land most riots are slower than skirmishers.

I remain unconvinced by Hunter, myself.

Maybe Hunter did get buffed between now and the last time I played interesting sea games. I'm not sure.

quote: Easy, just get some surfboards! most underrated unit

I thought about that, but building a shieldfac on a water map seems like overkill.

Fun fact about making a shield fac for sea games. You not only get the outlaw, but also the aspis for use against all of those evil sea units. If you really feel like trolling, use rackateers on the surfboard because super kiting disarm arty ftw.

It's complex, but basically, I find the most predictive factor in riot unit power not to be the efficiency with which it kills raiders once it's found them, but the reliability of the unit in achieving the riot vs. raider scenario.

Hunters are as fast as a leveler without the silly maneuvering.They can be where you need them to be.

Hunters have 390 sonar. They can find the otherwise stealthed ducks/snakes and wreck them.

Hunters have 1850 HP. While that's not amazing for cost, you're unlikely to lose the lynchpin riot in your force without first engaging. They're great for attrition stacking similar to reaper.

They've got good range for a riot, and great aoe with decent rate of fire, meaning that it's very difficult to micro around them.

While they don't really have much of a secondary role like other riots, they do excel at hastening the end of the raider game. Their damage is their only real limitation, and while that's important, you don't need that much damage vs. raiders.

Also, while it's true that ducks heal, they don't heal that fast. You're still tempoing any duck you damage, and raiders lose value as the gamestate progresses.

Unsupported math is bad. Levelers go down to their cost in bandits that way. I'm pretty sure that hunter would beat it's cost in ducks, but more importantly it is unlikely to die to ducks. They have good sonar, range, and aoe coupled with alright speed making them able to get pretty decent kite off. In tandem with ducks submerged range a player need to be making a big mistake to lose a hunter to ducks without making cost.

While I'll give you that sea maps have less chokes, that sort of supports the notion that you need a more mobile riot. Also, if the game is dominated by raiders, that increases the value of riots.

As to building hunters blindly? That's just bad. You have the best scout in the game -> skeeter (off the top of my admittedly fuzzy head). Also... aren't hunters particularly good vs. daggers, Which is what the early hover game looks like? Genuine question, in theory it sounds good but I don't often play ships or hovers as first fac.

Either way, I'm not really trying to prove that hunters are great, only that they're strongly underestimated by most. People don't see the upfront damage from the hunter that they do from other riots, and conclude it useless, which I think is a big mistake.