Top ranked players in an old fashioned duel
I have written about games played on Winters Duel, but it is always instructive to watch top ranked players go at it, so I just downloaded and watched an excellent match involving _hysteria_ and Cauldr0n, 2 players currently ranked #8 and #29 on the 1v1 ladder, respectively.
This is a match well worth watching for a number of reasons, not the least of which is learning how to maximize efficiency in the first few minutes of gameplay. The initial build order is virtually identical for both players: 2 power generators, 2 mass extractors, and then a land factory. Both players rush plenty of early engineers to assist their factories and help the commander in setting up extractors and power generators. Both players begin upgrading to tech 2 extractors very soon, with the first tech 2 extractor reaching completion before the 5:00 mark.
The fighting opens up with a little commander vs commander action, and Cauldr0n gains an early edge by building some t1 point defense in a position that prevents _hysteria_ from using some of the mass on his side. With an early lead, Cauldr0n reaches tech 2 slightly earlier than _hysteria_, and gets several tech 2 point defenses built right away, almost in range of _hysteria_’s base. _hysteria_ has a huge advantage in that department, however, since he is Aeon and Cauldr0n is Cybran. _hysteria_ is comfortably able to build some t2 point defense of his own, even while under fire from Cauldr0n, and pushes his opponent back a bit, with the aid of a couple siege bots. This little battle is interesting to watch, since it highlights just how much better siege bots are than the tech 2 tanks that Cauldr0n is using. It also shows how hard of a time Cybran direct fire units have hitting enemies in rough terrain.
A bit of a stalemate ensues, with both players massing a fair number of siege bots. Cauldr0n launches a couple of air transport insertions into the rear of _hysteria_’s base, the second of which is successful in taking out power generators and drawing _hysteria_’s siege bots away from the front line. With that, Cauldr0n launches an all out attack which results in a fairly protracted battle and ultimately _hysteria_’s defeat.
I couldn’t help but notice throughout this game how horribly underpowered the Cybran units are. Cauldr0n would have frankly won the game at tech 2 if he had played Aeon. The Cybran t2 point defense is terrible at killing buildings and siege bots, and the t3 mobile artillery and t2 stationary artillery do very little damage. With 3 t3 mobile artillery and 2 t2 stationary artillery, Cauldr0n is unable to get through a single Aeon t2 shield. He eventually needs to assault it with siege bots to take it down.
There are a couple of other things I also noticed. For one, both players seemed to be severely neglecting their radar coverage. Building a single t1 radar tower would have basically totally resolved this situation, but both players wait and use the t1 land scouts for radar coverage well into the tech 2 and even tech 3 phases of the game. This results in several instances where a lack of radar coverage prevents enemy units from being targeted. Also, Cauldr0n demonstrates fairly advanced micromanagement skills in his control of siege bots and his commander, deftly avoiding the shots of the Aeon t2 point defense towers. I am not sure this sort of extreme micromanagement is something that should be rewarded in a game like SupCom, but I really don’t see any way to change this, so I guess I will just have to accept it.
Overall, it is a very good game and well worth a watch. Download the replay of this match.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Is Cauldr0n a regular cybran player? Would be interesting to know how he got to #29.
April 4th, 2007 at 7:19 am
That was one hell of a match. Being very fast out of the blocks on that map is essentiel. But most of the good players are incredibly quick so it ends up being very even at lv1. So things tech up to lv3 even though they shouldn’t need to on such a small map.
I suppose it’s a good indication of the games balance that uneven matches are over nice and quickly while similarly matched players can often duke it out for ages.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:30 am
“I couldn’t help but notice throughout this game how horribly underpowered the Cybran units are. Cauldr0n would have frankly won the game at tech 2 if he had played Aeon. The Cybran t2 point defense is terrible’
Yeah that’s rubbish and I certainly hope the big patch addresses this and fixes Cybran inaccuracies. Until then I’ll keep avoiding playing Cybran or for offline play I’ll use the mod i linked to in a previous blogpost comments here that corercts the leading/targeting for all units.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Yay! My voice got heard! :) This was just what I wanted, and came at the best of times (stuck on a slow computer with a sub par internet connection at our cabin).
As for unit balance, it think it is fair to say that the game is pretty broken right now, however I have great hopes for the patch hopefully arriving in a couple of weeks.
The micromanagement issue is unavoidable on small 5×5 maps like Winter Duel I think, where engagements are small and numerous similar to most mainstream RTS games. I actually like this part, and especially in small skirmishes micro should be rewarded in my opinion. Now, if this will presist in larger confrontations when pathfinding gets fixed, reminds to be seen.
April 4th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Its not the fault of the Cybran units really in this case. Its the way Cauldr0n used them. While he played quite well overall, his use of Cybran units reminded me most of, to be honest, someone who normally plays Aeon!
My immediate thought after building a forward Cerberus would be to build a TML-4, even if it can only hit side targets because of defenses, it can still really mess up your opponent. Cauldr0n though just kept building Cerberus PDs. While the Cerberus PD is great defensively it does have problems when being used the way Cauldr0n tried to use it, and if he was experienced with Cybran units, he should have known that.
The other huge thing I saw that was really weird was his use of Rhinos. Rhinos are fine on a flat map, but outclassed by the viper, and Winter Duel is most definitely not a flat map. He had two or three rhinos shooting into the ground constantly for quite a while, whereas vipers would have been able to cause chaos even a TMD tried to stop them.
A few smaller things also irked me about his style, mostly things you caught in your review here. I’m honestly not sure why he started to build T3 mobile artillery. Cybran T3 mobile artillery is for taking down many small weak clustered targets, just like all Cybran artillery. Had he built Vipers instead he would have had many more, and with the overall lack of radar coverage in that game, they could easily have ripped _hysteria_’s base to pieces with Loyalist support. The Gunthers also irked me a bit, as I’d think he’d have been better off putting those resources into another factor, and then teching it up at least to T2. Actually, I think only having 2 land factories as a Cybran player is also a huge mistake, but I don’t want to critique him on that because I just don’t know his general build order and such.
The other smaller thing that irked me was his microing of Loyalists. It looked nice, and avoided fire well, but he would have been better off running the loyalists full on right into _hysteria_’s base. Had he done that the Loyalists EMP death blast would have shut down many harbringers every time a Loyalist died, and _hysteria_’s Oblivion Canons would have blown up his own T3 factory! The micro Cauldr0n did also caused the Loyalists to not fire and miss quite often, so I really don’t think he was rewarded at all for it! It seemed like he tried to use the Loyalists like Harbringers, which won’t really work in general.
Overall I wouldn’t use this replay to try to understand how Cybran units work, its just not a good example. Poita_’s replays often show how smart use of the various Cybran advantages can be quite powerful. Don’t knock us crazy cyborgs till ya try us. :P
Looking back at my comment I didn’t mean to critique Cauldr0n so negatively here >.