Arty in team games

you cant make only arty.. but i agree once your front-line has enough riots and assaults around to deal with enemy raids..

i think whats happening is the balls of assault units getting ready to push are going to feed enemy metal if they fail and are going to do very little lasting damage unless they break through into eco.. however arty damage builds up over time and denies reclaim and rebuilding and so feels allot more dangerous.

arty can loose you the game tho if assaults manage to mass and target a weak spot.. because you cant resist them with arty very well

Actually I remember a game where the one team was getting hammered the entire game and the one player *cough * sigero * cough* build up a force of 60 Reapers and wrecked house.

:p

... that aside, it's true that big games devolve into artillery spam. And why wouldnt they since arty is so effective? I myself like to get to the midpoint and porc up, and then support porc with artillery to counter-battery the enemy artillery. I enjoy the grind, but I can easily see why other players might not.

There are counters to arty spam but these counters involve some degree of scouting and cooperation.

First off, Silo. An arty ball can get wrecked by a couple of shockleys and inferno / eos. Yeah, I hear people say, Silo is in itself a form of artillery.

OK, then, what about Likho to point-destroy massed artillery?

Or, what I've seen happen before, 50 fleas swarm into a arty ball and wreck it.

Of course, these tactics can in themselves be countered fairly obviously.

So, what about a new sort of unit that is extremely effective against artillery but crap against other units? What I'd have in mind is basically some sort of big shield in front of a unit that can soak up ludicrous amounts of damage, from the frontal arc only. It it gets outflanked its toast, but it would give other units some sort of cover so that they can get close enough to assault without getting ripped to shreds.

This may or may not be feasible. I dunno how hard it would be to make.

quote: The problem might actually be that playing clusterfuck on tiny maps is shit.

No, the smaller\less metal maps actually give less metal and slower eco scaling -> creating more opportunities of decisive engagements.

quote: After a few minutes the arty gets serious enough to effectively render all assaults suicidal

This is sad, but not unexpected. Almost every ZK artilery unit's time is better spent shooting mobile targets than it is spent shooting porc. And as longest-range anti-mobile units, once density scales up, the lanchester's square law means arty wins.

In low densities, other units' higher individual anti-unit efficiency masks this. Like, Emissaries may be good against everything, but you're not countering Glaives with them until you have a legit bunch and some Kodachi. In high densities, the squared efficiency of overlaying Emissary ranges overcomes that.

Indulge me in going through ZK arty list, fac by fac, unit by unit.

Cloakbot
- Sling: honest-to-god anti-porc artillery. Still quite bad vs porc, but worse against units than against statics. Quite decent in killing Pickets or wearing down Stingers.
- Phantom: Two-three shots to kill a Stinger. Two-three shots to kill a Commander. One shot to kill a Lance. Guess which of those shots are more valuable?

Shieldbot
- Racketeer: perfectly accurate - even by radar - disable antiheavy with OKP. Again, you can disable a Stinger. Or you can disable a riot protecting a bunch of enemy artillery. Or you can with the same ease disable something heavy, so that your heavies have an easier time.

Rover
- Badger. Has so little range and so much turn radius that it often dies to Stinger, and so much accuracy that it often misses Pickets. And if it doesn't die to Stinger, it takes five mintues or so to actually kill it. But minefields often kill raiders, and it's accurate enough to kill Scalpels and other skirmishers (and waste their shots).
- Impaler. Actually legit sucks vs mobiles. So far we've counted two artilleries of this kind then, good against statics but not mobiles.

Hovercraft
- Lance. Oneshots low-tier commanders, oneshots 400m Stingers, oneshots 400m Maces, oneshots moving 1600m crabs. Three shots to kill a Gauss, three shots to kill a Cyclops. Perfect accuracy. Shooting Stingers with this is just a waste.

Heavy Tank
- Emissary. Enough accuracy to hit raiders moving in a straight line. Enough aoe to multikill Ronin or hit targets by radar. Enough damage to one or doubleshot Lance, Recluse, all other skirmishers, most other arty (except Merlin and Tremor lol). Outranges Lance. Almost as fast as Bandit. So you're gonna spend three of its shots to kill a Stinger? You may as well, it has the ROF. But it makes cost much faster against the fragile, expensive mobiles.

- Tremor. Can't hit the side of a barn, can't hit a Picket, can't hit a Glaive. But its accuracy against moving Glaives is exactly the same as its accuracy against static Pickets. It's exactly as bad against mobiles as it is against statics, a rare thing and an exception in our list. I won't count it as anti-unit but when you have enough, they will become anti-unit easy enough.

Jumpjet
- Firewalker. Riot artillery. Shotgun sidearm at point blank. One shot can ruin a whole skirmisher ball or a bunch of raiders. Sucks vs porc because of low dps and bad accuracy - takes minutes to cook a Stinger, often misses Pickets. One Aegis counters three Firewalkers.

Ship
- Envoy. Remember Emissary? This is an Emissary with more range, more health, more DPS, and it can shoot on the move. Now you know why you fear the sea.

Gunships
Not going to include this in the totals, but Nimbus outranges Stinger so is technically an arty.
HAHAHAHAHA

Strider
Again, i'm going to say these don't count, but i'll comment on them anyway.

- Merlin. Yeah it can kill a stinger, even oneshot it. Or you see those other things on the list? It can kill several of those at once, also one shot. Or a commander, always good. Three merlins can OHK a Paladin. Shooting a bunch of Lances is often instant cost made.
- Paladin. Has that tachy gun that outranges Stinger so its technically an artillery. But lol. I mean. Hahaha.
- Shogun. You thought Paladin was funny? Shogun. Remember Envoy? This is an envoy with Cerberus guns. Three of those. I mean, it's a strider, so it's okay, but ahaha.
- Scylla. Shit be expensive, but shit be true arty, and one of the best ways to kill superweapons. Pluksub best sub.

Totals (without striders and nimbus)
Anti-unit artillery units in this game: 7 (Phantom Racketeer Badger Lance Emissary Firewalker Envoy).
Anti-static artillery units in this game: 2 (Sling Impaler).
Tremors in this game: 1 (Tremor).

Arty dominance in super dense environments is a foregone conclusion. Resistance is futile. You will be artillerated

quote: The problem might actually be that playing clusterfuck on tiny maps is shit.

Too many words, man.

quote: So, what about a new sort of unit that is extremely effective against artillery but crap against other units? What I'd have in mind is basically some sort of big shield in front of a unit that can soak up ludicrous amounts of damage, from the frontal arc only. It it gets outflanked its toast, but it would give other units some sort of cover so that they can get close enough to assault without getting ripped to shreds.

This is pretty much what assault units should do. Frontal shield doesn't do much to arty though, many of this stuff is high-arc. Racketeer in particular will just disarm your battering ram from above. But it's an interesting idea.

You dont need eben bb or catas. Its enough with impaler spam to make game lost for enemy if teams in other aspects is playing even. And implaer spam dominate in small/medium maps easy.

quote: artillery's purpose was to out range tanks/bots and weaken/kill units

In ZK, that's skirmishers.

quote: anti static was the missile launchers job. The missiles delt a lot of damage, 0 aoe, double arty range, and had a unit to specifically counter it.

Sounds like Impaler.

I've just accepted that ZK balance is absolutely horrible(NO, balanced winrates do not mean the game is balanced and well designed) and nobody really wants to fix it because of stockholm syndrome or something like that.

-Bullshit like the killager gets unchanged.
-Firewalker still exists.
-Dominatrix exists. Breaks alot of matchups.
-Raiders are kinda un-blanaced.
-Spiders balanced for a map type that nobody ever plays because only spiders would be viable on it.
-TERRIBLE map consciousness. Many people think that because a map is popular it is good. Just because some mapmaker shits out a map doesn't mean it is good. Maps need to be designed to work well with ZK.
-Arty sucks at killing buildings. Radar wobble is just a massive stealth buff to all porc.
-Skirmishers don't really "pay" for their range advantage.
-Lack of scouting options.
-Too many unit interactions are incredibly one sided.
-Mistaking stalemates due to arty spam or other bullshit for good game play because long games = good.

I'm trying to figure out how the heck arti can take out assaults...
On paper (read: flat plain with arti on one side and assault units on the other) it seems impossible.
What combination works against a similar cost minotaur ball?
Even the new Cyclops seems able to break through arti+porc.

if yer arty is emissary or lance it can move away and also has high speeds. if yer arty is phantom it is invisible and can move away. if yer arty is sling it can't work for sh*t, don't build slings. if yer arty is flying and called a nimbus there's a problem why is there flying arty?

And why is the flying arty tanky? and why is the flying arty really good against vamps?

raised shields can stop bertha because if they miss the generator it doesnt impact the ground close enough to aoe damage the generator 50% of the time..

this with a few caretakers and a fair few raised shields and the bertha cant hit the things close behind it in the shaddow of the high shield wall allowing you to cost effectively defend..

far better then terraform or mass ground spam shields for cost..

just dont raise shields too high and you can protect your eco cheaply..

main draw backs are it takes time and micro to set them up .. compare it to terraform which doesnt die ~ while a shield gen can be destroyed.. but terra walls help the enemy bertha make cost fast because terra is just so expencive..