Map profile: Arctic Refuge
For today’s map profile, I will be taking a look at Arctic Refuge, one of the ranked 1v1 maps. Arctic Refuge is medium-sized for a ladder map, at 10×10 kilometers, and features fairly open terrain and a moderate amount of resources.
Player starting positions are marked A and B, below. C and D are additional starting positions, not used in 1v1 ladder games. At point E, there is a civilian installation guarded by point defense towers, which should be avoided at tech 1.
Resources
This is a fairly low resource map. The 4 initial mass positions are fairly spread out, so it is a good idea to queue up a couple power generators before your first mass extractor. A handy tip to save you a few seconds in the early game is as follows. If you order your commander to move to a position between 2 mass points, then queue up 2 extractors, he can build both quickly without having to move from where he is standing.
Beyond the initial 4 mass spots, there aren’t many other resources nearby. You should expand in all 3 directions from your initial starting spot - towards C, D, and E. Be wary of the 4 mass spots closest to the center of the map, however, as they are within range of the civilian point defense towers. There is no geothermal power on this map, so you will need plenty of T1 power generators. A good strategy is to build diagonal lines of power generators in areas close to the edges of the map, where they are unlikely to be found. Even if they are found, the diagonal arrangement minimizes collateral damage, yet takes no longer to lay out than a horizontal or vertical line.
Initial expansion
Of course, grabbing either point C or D (preferably both) is crucial to victory on this map. To help ensure this, you can send your commander to one of these locations. Because this map is fairly low in resources, your commander will probably not face any serious opposition for quite a few minutes. Be wary of the enemy commander rushing your base and overcharging your factories. You can spot an attempt at this well in advance if you have good radar coverage, but you will need several tech 1 radar installations to cover this map.
Although you may not want to actually comm-rush your opponent, it may be to your advantage to secure one of the hills near your enemy’s base early with point defense and factories. This is especially true if the enemy commander is off at either position C or D. With your commander so close to your opponent’s base, he may be tempted to run back home, and you may be able to set up an ambush.
This is a very open map, with many different routes of attack. As such, it makes more sense to try to defend the heavy resource positions, especially C and D, than to try to hold passages from place to place. Be sure you take advantage of this by attacking your enemy from behind, usually by sending troops around the map and through points C, D, or both. If you can get into your enemy’s main base and disrupt his power grid, he is unlikely to be able to keep up with you once you get started on teching up to t2.
Air power
This is a very good map to make use of air power. It is large and open, meaning the enemy is unlikely to be able to defend all their structures from air attack, so long as you maintain interceptor superiority. Note that you don’t necessarily need more than one air factory building interceptors, as long as it has several engineers on it.
You should consider getting an air factory to T2 shortly after you get a land factory at T3. If you get into some sort of siege bot stalemate, a dozen or so gunships can win the day for you quite quickly if they find the enemy commander without air defense. This is especially true if you have total air control with your interceptors. If the enemy builds a significant amount of air defense, you can still attack targets of opportunity with bombers and gunships, and you can also use gunships to harass any unescorted siege bots.
Teching up
Because of the distance between the bases and a lack of a clear front line (usually), T2 engineers typically play a smaller role on this map than others. You should definitely build a couple to start working on a T2 power generator and perhaps some radar, though. Also, if you have secured a position near the enemy base, you can try to send T2 engineers up and build T2 point defense in range of some of his structures. Of course, the attacker is at a disadvantage here due to the time it takes for T2 engineers to cross the map.
As always, try to get to T3 as quickly as possible. You will want a number of T2 and or T3 mass extractors surrounded by mass storage for this purpose, so start upgrades early. If you get siege bots before the enemy, you will probably want to attack from behind to gut his base without taking losses. If your enemy has siege bots, you should of course get yours to the front lines right away. Don’t be afraid to send your siege bots through position E to get to the enemy faster - they will walk through the civilian outpost almost unscathed.
That is it for this article; stay tuned for future updates. Also, be sure to check out this fast paced match involving two top ranked players.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I’ve always found this a bit of a tricky map to play on. Early harassing around the sides is vital, but more often than not, the fatal blow comes dead through the center just when you’re least expecting it. I remember marching a group of siege bots right through the center after harassing an opponent with tech 1 units on both sides from about three minutes into the game. He had built up lots of defenses on those sides, but absolutely nothing against the middle. It was a slaughter.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
To alleviate the time it takes engineers to cross the map just use t1 transports. This works especially well as Cybran since they have mobile stealth fields.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:07 am
That’s true Cyde. Few people defend the middle. Once I get my siege bots up and running I always throw them straight through the center of the map.
I always forget to build storage round my extractors. Is it really that helpful? I don’t see alot of other people do it either.
I never build gunships. Must start doing that. Easy to lose alot of expensive units quickly if you’re not careful though.
I’ve got very fond of rushing peoples power grid with bombers/tanks/comm. Once you fuck someone up with an energy stall you can usually rush to t3 alot faster than they can. It’s nice to think you can raid in this game much like in TA. Knocking out peoples economy was always my favourite part of that game and it’d be a pity if there wasn’t an opportunity to do it in this game. I think as time goes on and people get more accustomed to SupCom it’s going to become far more aggressive. Sitting in your corner teching up and building defence isn’t going to hack it.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:10 am
On a side note, there’s one thing that’s been annoying me recently. How the hell do you control bombers well? Or any attack unit for that matter. You can scout something and queue up a few juicy targets. Then once the unit goes out of LOS the units you asked to attack just stop and don’t go to where you told them to attack. The bomber just flies around aimlessly and bombs other stuff you didn’t tell it to bomb. And the tanks sit still and do feck all. You should be able to tell them what you want to do and then go off and tend to the 101 other things that you should be doing.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Yeah, targetting it pretty annoying. If they run outside of radar range (or if your power takes a dip and your radar does down temporarily), or if they run inside of a stealth field, radar acquisition is lost. Not much you can do about this other than maintain a visual at all times.
April 14th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
“I always forget to build storage round my extractors. Is it really that helpful? I don’t see alot of other people do it either.”
An extractor surrounded by four storage pieces gives +50% mass production to that extractor. At T1 you go from 2 to 3, T2 from 6 to 9, and T3 from 12 to 18. It’s not remotely worth it at T1, but it can help at T2 and higher. Doing this is less efficient than mass fabs, even at T3 (though that’s debatable if you have to build T3 power gens as well), but it’s certainly less volatile.
April 14th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
T2A`: Don’t forget the other part of the equation, that mass storages also increase the amount of mass you can store. This can be very useful, especially when you’re dealing with large-scale reclaiming of opponents’ experimental husks. I can see many situations, even in multiplayer, where I’d want to build mass storage just for the sake of having more storage; so building them alongside mass-producing buildings like T3 massfabs or mass extractors is just an added bonus.