North team, which won the game, seems to mostly make use of Iris (for the bulk of the game) for Kitty's cloaked Snitches. The Iris does move around with Kitty's army sometimes, but most of that army is Thugs and Felons that can't be cloaked. Helwor uses a cloaker at some points also but it doesn't seem super impactful.

South builds more Irises but again they don't seem to be achieving all that much until some Snitches get built late in the game.

I think this game says more about cloaked Snitches than it says about 'tactical cloak'. At the very end of the game north team makes a big push under cloak but this seems like as much a 'strategic' usage as a 'tactical' one.

quote: North team, which won the game, seems to mostly make use of Iris (for the bulk of the game) for Kitty's cloaked Snitches. The Iris does move around with Kitty's army sometimes, but most of that army is Thugs and Felons that can't be cloaked. Helwor uses a cloaker at some points also but it doesn't seem super impactful.

Cloaked artillery, cloaked bomb defeating a mob, all guarded by a cloaked riot, all deployed tactical and morphed from static right there on the front. The combination defeats two players' worth of assets (imp kills the duck mob, then firewalker defeats recluses).

What could south have done here better? Well, even a small shield would stop the firewalker from doing any damage to Recluse, and upgrading Recluses to Lance spam would make it unable to kite, too.


Indeed


Lol, lmao. I guess no need to wait for firewalker to defeat the recluses. Also shield wouldn't help here, this needs an outlaw. Or flea screen.

quote: Helwor uses a cloaker at some points also but it doesn't seem super impactful.

This one is in fact owned by Helwor.


This is less than a minute later. I guess i'll have to take fewer screnshots, omg.


No comment


The cloak-equipped shield army is indeed only cloakable in its bomb component. The cloaked tank army uses the cloak for its artillery position, replacing the cloak that previously covered the firewalker.

Why not use more firewalkers? Well, because the factory making them got killed. With use of strategic (innate) cloak.


This is a cloaked amph mob flanked by a cloaked raider mob, running past a cloaked arty position. Idk, man. Also, two flavours of cloaked bomb just a bit away.

I think the optimal play from @hedkeaf here would be to also use cloaked bomb. Most of killed value done by North at this point is delivered either by cloaked bombs, or by sometimes cloaked raider mobs.

Alas, it's too late! Having to facswitch to obtain the bombs means you're going to be late to the party. North now has a 22k vs 15k army advantage. Commenters seem to agree:



("going 007" here refers to repeated factory kills with scythe and phantom, plus sporadic mex raiding with the same.)


Imp leads, then cloaked tank army cleans up.


Overall this is a good demonstration of what i mean by "feeling forced to make cloak snitch". Cloak snitch could counter the shieldball, but north deployed it earlier and beat the spider ball with it. The spider player opts to provide screen for their army, which downregulates the efficiency of snitch attacks, but does nothing against the shieldball. Meanwhile, giving up and submitting to use of cloak snitch, at this point (before North has any efficient screens) could defeat the shieldball.


How many percent of this frontline are actually not covered by cloak?


West flank deploys snitch vs shieldball, which also gets a few Licho hits - however, notice that this is not cloaked snitch, so its efficiency is quite garbage. Army sizes have evened out. Theoretically South could transition to raiders and push the eastern flank hard now, but it's not possible to know how much assets North actually has here because, well, see the previous image. There could always be who knows how many cloaked ogres there, and sussing them out requires sacrifice to the reclaim grid.


Submission to necessity


Balance of terror


You may not like it but this is what peak frontline looks like


Rover assault! Why is there a cloaker here? Because it's cloak rover assault.


Fact check: false! Structures cannot be cloaked. This is a disadvantage, and partially what enables the rover attack to happen - the measure of defenses is known, so it can be taken. What could south have done better here? Well, a bunch of imps scattered near the defenses, within its firing range, so that any sneaky attacker, like here, would trip on them but only after committing.

Generally what i'm learning from this replay is that 1) South needed to deploy bombs earlier 2) South needed to deploy bombs more, including Imp to foil operational sneaks like in above picture, but also Limpet to make amph mobs not assaultable by pesky Rovers.


Correct analysis from North and it's GG. Cerberus is not cloaked and can't move, so it's a known quantity. With Cerb and Desolator both, South's western flank is now 5k value locked and spotted. Additionally, western flank is weak because i'm trying to squeeze out a Dante, so the timing is as horrible as it gets. Army values are still comparable on paper, but 4k of South's value is in two Lichos, and the uncloaked Grizzlies will survive for at most 5 seconds against the cloaked mob.

What could help here? Well. An imp screen, as mentioned above, would spoil a lot of surprise, cloaked snitch would harm the push, and limpet would give Amph an ability to fight up close.

Additionally, Dyth's army is not cloaked here. While cloak wouldn't help two grizzlies not die to massive overmatch in two players' worth of army, the enemy doesn't have to know how much army he has. It's like showing your cards in this kind of a weird poker game.

Slowing this attack even by 40 seconds would have been enough to complete the Dante.

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