So, since my last competition was pretty much a discussion, I'll now close that and move over to this general colony discussion (the others are all specific)
TALK ABOUT ANYTHING RELATED TO COLONY (and beef burgers)
Here's the link: http://armorgames.com/play/4264/colony or http://armorgames.com/play/4264/colony
Sorry. They're both the same link. I thought 1 would be just a regular link and the other link would be a hyper link (a hyper link is a link you click on to go to that link).
I think I found the cause of the balance problems in Colony. It seems to be a combination of 4 factors: -Cost and stats of the Tier-1 units -Cost of certain Influence actions -Requirement issues -Tier-2 units are pretty a waste
I gathering a list a ideas to fix these balance problems and revive the game to it prime. I want some feedback of this issue from the Colony player base. Spread word, while I ponder.
Um... You're half wrong. Phantoms are useful sometimes and sakata Mk-lls are useful. They're both tier 2 units. We should have better snipers and more hp for groditz.
Well, if I have the time to upgrade the forge to tier 3 it means the game is a fail. And usually I'm a monarchy or fascist and I make special operations, so for the ground i'm covered quite well by prides S-marines and missiles, so my forge usually makes scouts and sometimes phantoms after some Romans at the beginning. But I'm not a master, my strategy might be stupid
As a general rule I don't post in forums because I find there's just so much nonsense, so I will just give my two cents and leave it at that.
With all due respect to people's opinions, a lot of the stuff posted here is just plain wrong. A lot of it is becuase people just don't know the ins and outs of colony strategy, which is fair enough as it takes a lot of experience to really understand. I would just like to address this "foxer" business first though, as I am astounded as to how many people jump on the bandwagon slating tdh's "foxer" build as a "super powerful build that takes no skill to do", as I understand what foxer is meant to imply.
First, tdh's cap build is probably the most complicated "build" to actually execute of any other build, by a very long way. I say "build" because it isn't really a build. It is a bank + outpost opener that varies from thereon depending on the opposition.
A large part of the reason that it is so successful is because he has tested it hundreds and hundreds of times. I have personally played hundreds of games with him, trying every combination of various governments against him in order to find out every single counter to anything the opposition can throw at him. It was probably an unfair thing to do because the # of counters and counter-counters that we go through when we play each other are so numerous that we probably go through around 10 different strategy adjustments by the end of the game, with some games lasting around 15 minutes whilst using units from all three tiers by endgame. Most people use about 2-3 adjustmen
Most people use about 2-3 strategy adjustments in their game, which is why you will get outplayed just about every single time when you play a top player, when they actually decide to play.
If you understand chess then you will know what I am talking about. This game is based on a rock-paper-scissors strategy style, which means in theory, at the very basic level, every unit is strong against some units and weak against others. The reality is of course more complicated, but the basic principle of countering strategies back and forth as a game progresses remains the same.
I will explain what I think Yos's main problem with colony as it is now in another thread.
Miami, you are correct about a most of the things you said. You are wrong about the skill it takes to pull it off. I lose about 90% of games when the other player uses the Foxer, while tdh wins about 97% of his games because he uses this strategy. Many players should be winning about 68% of their games. With the exception of the games where the Foxer is executed I win about 93% while rotating govs. To be honest, I have used the Foxer 4 times and completely overwhelmed my opponent. Even though they might not have been seasoned players, they weren't even close. This is not a balanced build.
Your right how you can counter and counter but in the end the Foxer will always have many more paths and units and resources.
Colony strategy has changed a lot over the last year. People probably think the biggest shake-up was the introduction of monarchy, but the truth is it is probably the combination of both the importance of influence units and the lack of base life that has caused a total overhaul of what are now considered to be the best strategies in colony.
I do not remember the exact stats and influence requirements of influence units over the whole life of this game, but as influence units stand at the moment they are now much more prominent than they have ever been before. This has caused "influence grabbing" to be much more important now, to the point where it is almost absolutely essential to do it in order to play at the top level. The result is that a much more aggressive style of play is required in order to win, which is particularly true in 1v1s. With 2v2s you can still win without influence units featuring that much, though of course they are still very useful.
In the old days, people had "builds" that were very powerful, but a build is no longer a useful term to use. For example, a very powerful build was the bank + armoury + post + gen + barracks + arsenal build. We call it a build because it is a series of initial building developments that you carry out every time you play, with how you play only varying after you carry out those developments. With this particular build, you would race for a black queen and get a couple hover tanks and then try and win from there.
The difference now is that you can't rely on "builds" as we used to know them. Successful pro builds almost always consist of two or three buildings max, and then the player changes his strategy depending on his opponent and how the game progresses. This is why I do not think it is right to use the term "build" anymore for pro strategies, only standard openers.
The basic pro "openers" are often very similar. I will list the main ones as follows:
Dogfight: -Forge first (fascist)
Earthquake: -post first (communist probably best, then cap a close second), then either upgrade to barracks or get hospital -hospital + post
Safe Skies/Cold War: -bank + forge (fascist) -forge first (fascist) -outpost first (communist) -bank + outpost (communist) -bank + outpost (capitalist) -bank + post/forge + spec ops (monarchy) -bank + spec ops (monarchy, in limited circumstances) -bank + post + forge + gen (fascist)
Normal:
-same as safe skies/cold war strategies listed above, except the first three strategies listed there will probably get owned by the others in normal mode in particular.
You will notice that the strategies now almost always require a unit-creating building as either the first or second building. In the old days, a unit-creating building could come as a 3rd or 4th building and still be successful. The reason we build the unit-creating buildings earlier now is because units help you gain influence, which is now essential. You can gain an extra 1, 2, or 3 influence points per 5 seconds depending on how much of the field you control (if you do not know this yet then find out, because understanding this is crucial to understanding how to play colony properly).
The "foxer" build:
I am assuming most of you are referring to the tdh build when using this term. I am addressing this build in particular because it has had so much critcism lately and a lot of it is actually very unfair. I am not going to go into how balanced or not this combination of government and build is because it would take a whole book to explain it. I will however tell you my opinion of how effective it is, and you can either take it or leave it. Below, "cap" obviously refers to the "foxer" cap build.
cap v monarchy -cap with excellent macro and good micro will probably win in a pro battle. There are around 3 monarchy "counters" that only just lose out, but monarchy still comes very close, especially if you have very good micro.
cap v fascist -this is very close at the moment, though still not tested very much so who knows. These battles can last through all three tiers and there is a lot of room for mistakes because the battles last so long. cap has an edge here, but only a very slight edge.
cap v communist -communist actually wins here, but only if you use communism as a surprise government here. I guess this means the bank + post communist strat will actually counter the cap strat, as long as you don't reveal your communist identity too early on. Otherwise, if you're known to be a communist, your actions become too predictable and you are easy to beat.
cap v cap -obviously evenly matched (doh!). These battles will usually come down to an initial tank + sniper battle to win the middle ground and the influence grab, with the game probably already decided after that point.
Basically, capitalist is probably the best government right now, but it is by no means the "super foxer uber elite unbeatable government". It only just edges out fascist/monarchy governments, and only beats communist governments if you know you are playing a commie opponent. In other words, you are only going to beat a pro with the "foxer" build if you are actually pro yourself, because it is both very difficult to execute and only has a slight edge over other governments.
I would actually go so far to say that any of the top 5 players in the game right now will probably beat the hell out of any other player using the "foxer" build with any of fascist/commi/monarchy governments hands-down and without too much trouble at all.
I only meant to write a couple sentences. I don't know what happened.
Yes, I have beaten the "foxer", even when TDH uses it. He beats me more than I beat him, but we have never really played each other to win, usually only to test things out. If it's actually a competition, and I can use random governments and mix strategies up, it would be a hell of a lot harder to execute a perfect "foxer" build against me.
I still think tdh would beat me more times, which is a credit to his concentration and read of the game, but I reckon I could give him a nightmare of a time trying to pin down the strategy used, as there are so many that work if they are "ghost" strategies.
And to everyone else using the foxer...you better be as good as tdh because if you so much get the wrong number of tanks and marines coming out of your outpost at the wrong time, you're pretty much dead.
Instead of complaining tdh is using an unfair super powerful build, please consider that he's actually a very good player.
