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 >.

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.

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.

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.