Turtle dreams
As someone who tries to play competitively every game, there are some strategies I don’t often get a chance to utilize. In 1v1 ranked games, for example, the name of the game is ultra-rapid expansion and building as many factories as your economy will allow. In these games, the “base” is very loosely defined, and in many cases will end up spread over half the map or even more. These sorts of bases do not lend themselves very well to the construction of thick defenses.
While these sorts of games are fun, I sometimes long for the opposite play style – that of the usually maligned turtle. There is something about swarms of units breaking on layer upon layer of fortified defense like ocean waves on the rocks that is just really cool. While I wouldn’t enjoy being forced to play like this (and thus have to endure multiple hour battles almost every match), having the option more readily available would be nice.
In principle, the option is already available. Maps that are very large, especially those containing large bodies of water, do indeed favor turtlers. However, the currently available maps of this type tend to be too large for practical play, and many people don’t have computers powerful enough to handle them. What I would like to see is some smaller maps, with fewer expansion resources. If players could grab lots of resources near their bases, but few farther away, we would not see so much expansion. This would in turn lead to better late game battles. Of course, late game battles require plenty of variety in tech 3 units, which both CydeWeys and myself have recently written about.
I am not suggesting any drastic changes to map balance, or any changes whatsoever to ranked games. However, the option of some more practical, turtle friendly maps could make for some very fun games. Couple this with the option of building huge, diverse, tech 3 armies, and we would have some truly magnificent battles on our hands.
March 28th, 2007 at 6:02 am
Careful what you wish for. If TA is anything to go by then you don’t really want to encourage a viable porcupine strategy. Great Divide 2 was one of the more popular maps on Zone and any of the good players got tired of it incredibly quickly. Long, siege games are good occasionally but you don’t want them to become standard practice.
TA Spring is even worse. The most popular mods and maps are all very defence centric. And people play more large team games than 1vs1 so the maps are always overcrowded. It gets incredibly repetitive.
If you’ve got two players being defensive then things pan out pretty much as you’d expect. They play sim city for a while, and whoever managed their economy best wins. But if you’ve got two people attacking you get more unpredictable gameplay. People have their plan disrupted and have to take another approach.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Well, yeah, I pretty much agree. I don’t want to play these kinds of games all the time. Some more options to do so when I want to, however, would be nice.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
A free for all ladder would grant your wishes without ruining gameplay. Free for all gameplay is usually defensive centric with powerful quick offensive strikes to knock out opponents, or 2v1 situations where an enemy simply can’t fight two people at once.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Deadlegion makes a good point there. Plus, it wouldn’t be as difficult to organise as with the 2vs2 ladder where you need a regular partner.