[HINT] Rush vs Teching

[Darkweaver2]

I figured, I would try to figure out just how well you can do to defend yourself while teching, without sacrificing economy, assuming your opponent does a very strong rush.

The rush I decided to pick for this is the chaos cultist + chaos marine rush, which I think is generally accepted as being a good one. The build order for that rush, or my execution of it, anyway, is:

1. queue up heretic, and 3 cultists
2. make temple, heretic that gets made helps with temple
3. each cultist squad goes to cap an SP
4. as soon as temple is done, make chaos lord, then marines and marines again (DON'T queue them up right away)
5a. if you're going for pure rush power here, you will make 1 LP, and proceed to kill both your heretic to make squad cap room for the 2nd squad.
5b. if you're not, you can research the squad cap upgrade, and still have 200 in time to make the 2nd marine squad, you will however have less money for reinforcements - 150 cost for cap research, vs 50 cost of LP AND getting the extra +6 req.
6. when the 2nd chaos marine squad finishes, queue up several reinforcements for the marines, put all the squads on overwatch, and go attack the enemy, chaos lord leading the way.

In the tutorial on Fallen, this rush will just reach the enemy base at 3:50, regardless of whether you picked 5a or 5b, though 5a will give significantly more troops, but you won't have any heretics left. Note that this is about the fastest possible way to get 2 squads of CSM, CL, and 3 squads of cultists, as the temple is help-built continuously produces units.

So, the teching player has 3:50 to put up a defense that's good enough to hold this rush... and they'd better have a mobile force, and a good economy.

Here's what I settled on doing, again with Chaos:
1. queue up 2 cultists, heretic
2. heretic makes temple
3. cultists cap nearest SP's, when done, they proceed to the next nearest SP's
4. 2nd heretic makes power generator
5. whenever each heretic is done, make LP on the nearest captured SP's
6. make chaos lord
7. when first LP done, upgrade it and make 2nd generator
8. when 2nd LP is done (you get +50 req), CL should be done for a few seconds, and you'll be able to make marine squad.
9. upgrade 2nd LP
10. put up 1 minefield near each LP (NOT in front, rather off to the side and right next to it.
11. reinforce the marine squad.

At this point, you will have seen their attacking force (you have the cultists out in front, remember). You also have ~150/75 resources, just enough to start building a bolter turret on the side the enemy is attacking at, should you so desire (its not needed to hold, though). Oddly enough, the time when the last minefield you put down finishes is 3:47... which should be just before the enemy comes in.

So, what do you do? When your cultists spot the enemy, run them back to base. You have a Chaos Lord, a total of 10 cultists, maybe less if you lost a squad to the oncoming army, a full squad of marines, a minefield and an upgraded LP at each entrance, AND an economy good enough to overwatch every squad you have constantly. In the tests, the enemy rush gets torn up quite badly - the AOE mine damage to the cultists is quite effective, and their economy is far, far inferior - they don't even have ANY power income, and not enough requisition to constantly reinforce everything.

If the enemy microes the rush reasonably well, I suppose they could make a close battle out of it, but your superior income should put you over the top. If they choose to sit back and deny you more expansions, you can pump out an overwhelming force very quickly, again, due to your stronger economy. Whether you choose to tech to armory, defilers, PSM, or simply a mass of CSM, is up to you.

Of course, this is a contrived situation, as it does not address harassment. However, the defender isn't very vulnerable to harassment, due to having the upgraded LP's very early, and only relying for +12 of the income on other SPs. Also, if the attacker is doing the above chaos rush build, they will not have much time to harass at all. And the attacker can be harassed, too... I think this DOES address the question of whether, all things being equal, an all out rush can be defended against by a heavy tech build. At least in the Chaos vs Chaos scenario. Throw all the other races in there and it's going to get pretty... chaotic

Thank you for reading. Any thoughts, or constructive criticism, would be much appreciated.

[Jerry1978]

i would like to test this build with you today. when is a good time?

[Darkweaver2]

Now is good. Lemme know what your gamespy name is... we oughta meet in the Intermediate channel, it's pretty empty.

[Jerry1978]

LIKEtoFIGHT in Intermediate now (4:54 PM PST).

[Darkweaver2]

there now

[Jerry1978]

darkweaver and i played a game and some ideas came to mind:

1) melee damage against turrets (and buildings in general really) needs to be reduced.

2) the vehicle producing structure needs to cost less requisition and either make the structure cost more power or slightly increase the requisition cost for vehicles themselves.

we played chaos vs chaos. my initial attack didn't succeed vs his defense and he was able to get some power plants built, although he wasnt able to hold the strat points too well due to less numbers. after awhile he broke through but due to my superior req i was able to fight back and get possessed. i counter-attacked and he was able to get defilers by then but the defilers were too late - i already had a critical mass of infantry with rockets.

the trouble with melee killing structures is that it's impossible to hold a strat point unless you build a ton of troops. turrets are fine vs regular units but go down easy when a commander is unleashed on them.

the problem with the vehicle structure costing so much req is that all of that req must be funneled into req expensive infantry production and heavy weapon purchases. this creates a hefty barrier to machine production for such a long time that when vehicles come out they are already obsolete vs a horde of infantry.

if these two problems are fixed then i predict people would have a lot less problems with current reinforcement times. turrets wouldnt be such a terrible choice for LP defense since bolter fire cant kill a turret being repaired, and a hero or melee units cant bring a turret down so fast that it is a waste of money. strat points that aren't defended with turrets could still be fought over in tier 1, as could crit points, but when it comes to mounting a true assault players would need rockets and/or vehicle support like in 1.3.

as a result of these modifications most games would last slightly longer and into at least the early tier 2 phase, and with the option of obtaining vehicles a little earlier the game would not be completely lost for those players that lose in an early infantry battle.

[Darkweaver2]

I agree with pretty much all your points. I don't think I was that behind you in requisition though, if at all, in the early going since all my LP's were upgraded (I don't think yours were, right?) I feel that I lost simply to getting outplayed A large part of that included you going for infantry, and me going for vehicles... did you happen to look at the resource score to see if you outspent me by much? Either way, vehicles ought to cost less req, like you said.

[OGGleep]

Every version they seem to screw something up and throw the whole balance outta wack. Cultists are almost impossible to kill early in the game. They can take out a full unit of Tac marines by themselves. They just respawn too fast. Scouts are no match for them, and neither are marines if they go h2h. They can even tie up a force commander long enuff for the FC to be gunned down. Is it a good rush? Yes I suppose...a good rush by def is one that sweeps your opponent from the field.

But come on.....a tier 1....Command Center unit being able to sweep the field is booty.

[Darkweaver2]

Whoever moved this to [HINT]... get a clue.

[Vertigo]

the trouble with melee killing structures is that it's impossible to hold a strat point unless you build a ton of troops. turrets are fine vs regular units but go down easy when a commander is unleashed on them.

the problem with the vehicle structure costing so much req is that all of that req must be funneled into req expensive infantry production and heavy weapon purchases. this creates a hefty barrier to machine production for such a long time that when vehicles come out they are already obsolete vs a horde of infantry.

Both of these things are by design. This is the vision Relic seems to have for the game, based on what they have said in interviews.

It's supposed to be a mostly-infantry kind of game, with vehicles only in supporting roles.

It's also supposed to be an offensive game, where turtling does not work. That's why you can't drop a turret anywhere you want for free as in most RTSes, that's why static D is so weak. It's a battle of armies, not a battle of emplacements.

I also take issue with your idea that vehicle buildings cost too much. The vehicle buildings cost a bit, but there are other building cost that plenty more. Plus, they are built into your tech tree so you are going to buy them anyway if you want to tech to advanced infantry.

I also disagree that vehicles are obsolete. That's just crazy. Vehicles work just fine as support. They can't solo, but they are not supposed to. They require screening troops to fight with them, sure. They also have the advantage of being very cheap in terms of RP.

Also, why should the game be longer? Do you take issue with the pace of the game as it is now?

Actually, I guess I disagree with just about everything you said. Sorry.

[Bouchehog]

^^^
I agree. Actually, I'd go further and say that I'd prefer it if the initial tier lasted for longer and there were more infantry to vehicles.

[Raynor]

Every version they seem to screw something up and throw the whole balance outta wack. Cultists are almost impossible to kill early in the game. They can take out a full unit of Tac marines by themselves. They just respawn too fast. Scouts are no match for them, and neither are marines if they go h2h. They can even tie up a force commander long enuff for the FC to be gunned down. Is it a good rush? Yes I suppose...a good rush by def is one that sweeps your opponent from the field.

But come on.....a tier 1....Command Center unit being able to sweep the field is booty.

Give those Tactical Marines Heavy Bolters and you'll see how long those stupid cultists last... Or flamers even.