Personally, I'd rather just build backup raxes behind my line. It's an extra place to spawn, and it's easier for a rax versus an armory to block a ninja armory. It's only 125 resources more (literally less than the cost of two NF jeeps), but it's so much more difficult to kill, as well.
A coordinated counter is a bunch of people doing whatever and two grens cooperating to take down the vehicles. Turrets are universal for both population levels. Tickets in low-pop lose on value while resources become more precious, thus killspawning to save an area becomes less of a hindrance. Sure, diverting people from the frontline is a problem when there's less than a squad pushing said frontline, but if that is the case the APCs suffer even more as they don't have anyone to spawn in them, thus making it easier for the defenders. Infantry can get punished by UGL when they are too slow, but tanks don't care and have free rein on the attackers. So except from extreme (4v4~) cases, APC rushes lose on their effectiveness and only require a little bit of coordination to get denied. And if people refuse or can't adapt to your play, it is your call as a vet to slow down a little and maximize your efficiency. One random RPG is only enough to alert an enemy, but two simultaneous ones and a few turrets are almost instakills. Your average driver doesn't quite expect to lose all three plates in under a second when heavies are minutes away.
How so? I believe that doing a smidgeon of teamwork with just one person is more than doable. I, for one, can very much cooperate with even a moderately skilled player - all they need is to listen and react to the surroundings. It's not unreasonable to expect one person to do what they should. Unless we're not playing the same game...?
The original C&C from CaveDog took painstaking testing to assure that the game was balanced. I've been mostly playing BE since BE is a stronger team than NF. Scouts could shoot really long distances, but if you got close to them they died quickly and easily and could not go into disappear mode. They were a one shot kill type of unit that was rushed when spotted. They were designed to keep a distance between the front players - a dead zone. They could NOT kill the COM because the COM was not able to come out of the vehicle or top down view. Their ability to sabotage a base was based upon their ability to sneak into the base undetected - but not with some invisibility shield that allowed them to hide and crawl. They were complete shit on close range fighting and as I said - Died easily when discovered. I'm not sure if C&C had sab ability - that might have come with Red Alert. They had to run between buildings and trees, and sneak like a good scout would do undetected. Their detection range was smaller when they crawled - but never invisible or undetectable. The COM had a radar that could pick them up when close enough and based on what obstacles were between the COM and the Scout. Inability to detect required them to hide behind obstacles, not have some fucking hide ability and require some Enhanced Sense to detect. Empires Mod made it super simple for scouts by giving them ability to completely hide themselves and this fucks up the game. The guys who use these tactics of rush's at the beginning of a game know there is no counter and they have a 90% chance of winning, especially if they can get the team to listen and react to them, but with an empty victory. We have some fucking psychotic people playing this game that think the win - regardless of how dishonorable it is, is a win. Do you really push TWO Grens at the beginning of a game, when you have five people on your team ? I'd love to com against that team. We'd have all the refs quickly. Armories and Rax's are good only on maps with choke points. Big desert maps or other open maps that have bridges and shit do not keep anyone from getting into their base undetected. The shit heads who think they are playing well because they crawl for 10 minutes on their bellys are shit in my book and that is not how this game was originally designed to played. A COM who gets caught mid game with no defenses built is his own fault. But when you have twenty turrets at main base and someone can still crawl in undetected is complete shit. As I said the original SPY or scout had to run around obstacles and find his way in without this invisible ability. At 1 foot or 5 feet and not in a bush - any player should be clearly visible. I don't care if he's hiding with 4 walls around him. Normal Ninja Racks are part of this game and I don't have an issue with that. APC UGL - are my fav, because they are more powerful than mediums when used properly. But should they be ? They never overheat regardless of what engine you put on them. No matter how many people you have in them they can be very fast. Put a Scout with Speed and keep it moving and the best gren around will have a hard time taking it out on an open map. I was playing 1 vs 2 on Money and one guy who I have zero respect for decides to crawl into my base and sab everything on v2.0. 2.0 would drop buildings in very short order, not like the latest version. I say "So you know I have to be Engie to build. I'm kicking your asses so you resort to shit tactic?" There is no honor in this game. I spend more games in SPEC now when these players come online. What a waste of time. And you guys who think I'm whining about this do not COM. One guy was calling me an asshole for losing a game to these tactics when we had 90% of the map. I told him - "Give COM a try, these assholes will do the same thing to you on next map". He did and learned that there was nothing he could do to avoid the early game rush.
Also I am NOT complaining about stacking. Shit happens and counter stacks change games. What I am complaining about are the three guys who know how to win this game due to what I consider a failure in balancing the maps. A fast APC can run past twenty turrets and get to the COM. I've seen it and I know a scout with speed can outrun missiles. REALLY - a vehicle can outrun a missile ? Who decided that was a good idea ? The guy who designed the new MONEY map - knows what I mean. He put in wall turrets to slow down initial rush's - even if you did not get walls up, the wall turrets require the other team to focus on those turrets before they can get into your base. Early matches of original money had guys rushing a jeep into opponents main to build a base. That can't happen on the new money. Also one other version of money inhibited long distance arty. Arty can fuck up the game too - but it's at least balanced and does require some skill. Going Arty can lose you the game if you don't know how to counter. All fair and somewhat balanced. I know the designers have their opinions on different maps. I like ALL versions of Money. I think most of the maps are very nicely thought out and balanced without being mirror images. Kudos to the designers. Anyone think a Gren vs Tank - Gren wins ? If a gren has a wall to duck behind - I'd rather be a gren. Since when does any tank in the world have to focus fire his machine gun on a person for six seconds to kill him ? Don't you think they would have 50mm bullets that would completely rip any player he sees ? But also a gren would be a one shot kill - and not always guided missiles. There may be laser guided in some cases - but more expensive. At any rate the original C&C grens were not more powerful than tanks. They did have the ability to shoot really long distances though, which was the value and laying mines were their primary method of taking out tanks.
Guys the best fix is a fuel bar for vehicles. Running out of fuel should also lock your weapons because we've established with the heat bar that weapons and engines are the same thing.
Please tell me you're not serious. Because the only way I can think of giving vehicles fuel, would be to have armories and repair pads do that. Except they already do that for ammo, so it wouldn't add anything to the game except a bar that would fill when you're filling your ammo bar.
you shouldn't have to drop a camera next to your cv to see who's stickying you from comm view. nor should you have to have someone at your unattended NW base in order to see who's killing it.
FN - help me learn how to counter these tactics ? Or do you agree they are just unfair and unrealistic that a COM would be left so vulnerable? You know the objective of this game is KILL THE COM - better than most. I've heard you say it many times in a game. Head to head battles are not as good a tactic as is flanking and getting behind the forward pushing team. Strategy wins the game and separate vets from nubs. If you say that I just don't know how to counter the sneak attack tactic, tell me how you would counter ? You have to assume less than FIVE people will respawn on a 8 v 8 match. Normally I see 2 or 3 at most will respawn. And when an early APC with machine guns, scout sticky and five guys rush the COM, or spawn next to the COM - the only choice I know of is to run and hope you didn't get stickied - leaving the main base. Or that the other COM doesn't bump you and wall you in. Who decided that a COM is a primary attack vehicle ? That is absolutely not part of the original game. What to do ?
make a couple friends on the team. figure out who you can trust to trust your judgement. call them by name if they need to killspawn or if there is an issue. frankly, there isn't much you can do. just keep an eye on my location or have your team report whenever i'm killed, where i was killed etc. if im alive for a while and not getting kills you know what i'm doing; call on your buddy and have him find me thats a pro-active method, but it is also true that someone else could ninja you. anything is possible as long as you have 20 or so squad points. it's just a matter of execution, and stealth
Scouts should be more useful for this kind of thing. Like be able to setup hidden anti personnel mines and trip wires and shit, and their own cameras they can look through. And enhanced senses should be way better, like with some directional stuff in the HUD instead of on the minimap where there is no depth perception or elevation. Also it is actually pretty easy to sneak anywhere on most maps even if you are not a scout. Just try prone for an entire round and be totally surprised as riflemen walk over the top of you.
true. nowadays i scout sniper enhanced senses comm. when i'm not placing buildings or researching, i'm just gazing across the field from the first seat
I see you basically saying that the scout is fail. Well, there is an answer coming to that in the form of the refraction style timer-based hide that scouts will be getting in...#number of versions (i.e. "soonish"), so you don't really have to worry that people aren't considering it. As to the other stuff...I see Trickster said he'll probably tweak the heat so UGL is less spammable, which will help. And really the only thing left is the people factor. If someone is willing to camp in a base for a game, then they're not really playing, they're just lame. Someone in it for a false win. And typically people don't really see that as a win, unless they're getting steamrolled by a stacked team (or sometimes they're lame, and it's just if they're getting beaten badly). But really...a lot of people play Empires for the fight, and when something is going on that ends the game suddenly, they feel as cheated as you. I'm not sure about the comm vehicle being vulnerable. I feel it's supposed to be that way, so the most powerful person is actually the most dependent, too. Much like the King in chess, he's not really going anywhere, just the most crucial part of the game :p It would be cool if the CV had more mobility, though that raises its own problems over and over again. It would be good to have like a 10ft radar/camera around the cv, but again the comm is most likely going to be an engy anyway, and can (and should) do that himself. On a low population game, it's much more important the commander is a player as well as a comm, and they shouldn't be stuck in their ivory towers waiting for everyone else to do something... I feel like a lot of these problems are things that Empires will evolve to solve, if it keeps developing. Let's face it, the good fixes that could be suggested involve a lot of coding and/or modelling, and although development seems to be heading in a good direction, they still don't have those kinds of resources.
backup raxes cost way too much money and it's not usefull to have a rax at A5. An unbuilt armory will block spawns, so that one is way better.
Identfying threat: situational awareness - the hardest part of commanding for me anyway. Cameras and radars help but you still need to be ontop of everything. A great example of how to do it properly is Jephir's video when he was commanding the scrim on duststorm. He is franticly busy all round scanning for targets, checking himself and bringing up the fullscreen minimap. Once you get into those habbits it becomes easier but I find it kind of exhausting! Avoiding the threat: I'm terrible at this, I usually jump out of the CV and try and kill everything knowing full well I will probably die (SMG2 & shotty/Pistol 2 I find best as commander) Or I try and run everything over and get turreted or stunned! But the correct response is to move the CV to the opposite side of the barracks or a little distance & drop an armoury for cover near the CV, with any luck you'll draw some fire away from the base. Communicating the threat: At the start of the round identify the people you are going to need in a kill spawn situation and bind them to a control group, issue them with a move / attack order, tell them they need to killspawn in [coordinates] and follow their attack orders and then it is just up to them to do it. I prefer to have one or two people from each squad if possible so a kill spawn doesn't result in leaving the front line empty (and therefore allowing even more enemy reinforcements to arrive unhindered). If you do not get the kill spawn or you fail to defend immediately go on the counter offensive. Build a forward VF if you don't have one and rush the opposite side of the map. This is even harder to organise than a kill spawn! But if you drop the VF and can get everyone to spawn there it should work. Issue a move order to a location close to, but not in the enemy base. Try and impress upon people to move there quickly but not to go into the base single file and die one by one. Slowing the enemy attack: in open maps do not build your turret farm only in the base. Build lines/arcs of turrets out of the base or all throughout choke points. Opportunist scouts will give themselves away by sabbing them en-route and enemy armour will have to drive through them to get to an attacking posture. This will buy you a couple of minutes and thin the numbers that actually make it to your base as enemy Grens unload from APCs to destroy turrets. You will need a cooperative engineer in a LT or an AFV. Base building: A whole other thread but lots can be done with walls & building placement. ideally you will have a second rax far enough from the first that UGL can't hit both. Likewise another auxiliary rax overlooking your base with armories may allow you to nail that APC, mop up the infantry and rebuild - or the enemy may try to take that out quickly first, giving you another half minute or so to get shit together.
