A look at a critical ranked game on Arctic Refuge
This is my first article in what may or may not become a series on games I have played.
For those of you who didn’t catch my previous introduction since it was buried in a response to a post by Cyde Weys, I’ve decided that a good way to both contribute to the community and to improve myself is to post strategic commentary on games I’ve played. But first, let me tell you all a little bit about myself.
I’ve been playing strategy games for a solid 12 of my 21 years. I’ve played every Blizzard RTS since WC2, every variant of Civilization I could find since Civ 2, the C&C series through Tiberian Sun and a few others here and there although I somehow managed to miss TA. I also played WoW very seriously for quite a while which made me a much more competitive gamer and actually indirectly lead me to SupCom. After deciding that I was spending too much time on WoW I picked up SupCom at the suggestion of my roommate a few weeks after release. The best part is I can play for 20 hours per week and feel like I’m spending less time on video games both because it’s true and because SupCom is such an amazing game!
And now for the good stuff. For this first post I’ve chosen a game I played on Sunday. It’s a loss on Arctic Refuge to a player named Gladstone who is a nice and friendly guy. I was really too tired to play but I was ranked 103rd on the ladder at the time and I knew that winning this game would put me in the top 100. This is actually the second time I’ve been in this position. While most games I play are intense and competitive I have a more difficult time winning a game when I feel like something is on the line. I’m curious if anyone else takes mood into account before playing a game.
Before watching the replay here are a few things to watch for:
- Gladstone begins upgrading a mass extractor extremely early. How does this affect his economy?
- Do I succeed in adequately containing the early expansion he throws up with his commander?
- I somehow manage to mistake the T2 mass extractor at the north of his main base for a T2 PD (perhaps a bit too tired?). What could I have done differently if I hadn’t made this mistake?
Download the replay of this match (v3223).
One of the major stylistic differences between me and my opponent was factory positioning. I prefer to spread my factories out. This helps to defend outlying resources and allows better access to the entire map which I find especially important on maps like Arctic Refuge. Gladstone builds two groups of four factories. This makes it extremely difficult for me to take an individual factory but he isn’t able to respond well to threats across the map.
Gladstone also chooses to build exclusively auras. This does end up working for him because they are in such large groups and since my force isn’t particularly well composed either (again probably because I was tired).
The game breaker – and the reason I’m still troubled by this game – is the mistake I make when switching to air. I send my fighters in much, much too early, before my gunships are even built. I also fail to take out his T2 AA before it’s finished and then keep my fighters’ patrol too wide for them to take enough fire. I sent my units in early because I was paranoid that he somehow had more fighters than I saw and I didn’t want him to kill any of my gunships once they arrived. A better solution would have been to build about 3 gunships then send the fighters in to pull his away so my gunships would have had free reign over his base.
On the subject of gunships, I recommend that if you ever use them, prioritize fixed AA first. Then it’s possible to prevent a factory from producing by targeting it with one gunship; you don’t have to kill the factory. After the AA threat is more or less under control, quickly dispatch any engineers then go for the commander.
In general, my single biggest weakness is patience. I got my fill of long laggy teching games back when Roanoke was still in the rotation and I was ranked much lower. I used to regularly get my mass above 1000 before even thinking about attacking. In a sort of reactionary turn-around I now have a tendency to not pay enough attention to my economy.
I more than welcome all comments of any kind, especially suggestions and what you would have done in my position. Thanks for reading this.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Lefeu, I just watched the replay and I have two major feedbacks for you:
1. Had you teched up earlier, you would have won. I only saw siege bots appearing starting around 20 minutes into the game. Arctic Refuge is a mass-rich map. That means that you should be getting them within 15 minutes. If you had gotten them five minutes before your opponent did, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.
2. You wasted too many units on suicidal attacks. It’s not worth it to throw away a bunch of units in a suicide attack against a larger enemy force, especially when you don’t really even inflict any real damage. You wasted way too many tech 1 units and, later on, even your first few waves of siege bots, whereas if you had just held them back until you had an overwhelming force you could have easily taken out one of his bases.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Nice post, though can’t watch replay at work. I did want to comment on your one open question. The answer is “yes”, my mood greatly affects my play. I find that if I lose one and am a bit tired, I get frustrated, and try to win one back. I consistently drop from my mid-700s ranking to ~1200. Then I give up, come back a few days later and not worry about rank. Inevitably I end up winning a few in a row against lower ranks, and then win a good one against a 300 to 500 ranked person. Bang, right back to 750 or so. (Too casual to get above that). For me, the more laid back I come into the game, the better off I am. I need to concentrate and think, but to enjoy.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Cyde Weys: You make good points. While faster T3 does mean less T1 and potentially more mexes for the opponent, I clearly could have found a better balance. I had a some T1 units running around parts of the map that I controlled pretty well.
It’s also true that I suicided many T1 untis; however, in my oppinion not as many were wasted as it may have appeared. He had no PDs at his expansion base so the units I sent there served to contain the units he was producing from there. I also place a high strategic value on enemy mexes - perhaps too high?
Falcon: Glad to hear I’m not the only one :) I guess the thing to keep in mind is that out opponents are going through the same things as us.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Funny you mentioned Gladstone. I just beat him and his partner(well one of them) in 2v2 ranked (:. I will watch the replay later and probably comment again.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Wuped: This certainly wasn’t my best game or my best opponent (he was ranked around 300 at the time) but a lot of things happen in the game and it seemed like a good candidate for analysis to me. But congrats on your win and I look forward to your future comments :)
Which actually leads me to an idea: if anyone has a specific type of game or strategy they’d like me to comment on (spamming, turtling, ninja killing etc.) I’d be happy to consider for the future.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
When you scouted your ACU at his forward base and no pd in his base(I think you scouted that I can’t remember) I personally would of com rushed his base with my acu and army since at that time he had little or no defences although a risky move it has been paying off in alot of my recent ranked games especially on theta and arctic. Although he could always com rush back but you would have a little more time to prepare for it since you would expect it coming. And yes as Cyde said I would tech a bit earlier.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
lefeu: Do you play any 2 vs 2 ranked? I can’t recall seeing a 2 vs 2 ranked on this site, and it would be very interesting to see how 2 experienced players work together against 2 more. Maybe that’s just me, but the only 2 vs 2 games I can think of on this site had Cyde Weys and some guy who really didn’t do much. Then again, I haven’t gone through ALL the replays, but a good number of them. Just an idea.
Also, I think you did a really good job on that replay. The mistakes you made were probably due to lack of sleep. You controlled the majority of the map for a long time. I think if you had sent your first siege bots to his southern base, you could have taken that out pretty quick, then amassed your troops, as Cyde said, and take out his main base. You really had your first siege bot out 5 minutes before him (he was still in tech 2 at that point). Just my 2 cents. Either way, well played for sure.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
This is pretty simple. Lefeu had t3 at 17 minutes. Considering the emphasis he was putting on controlling the map with t1 this wasn’t very late. You was doing beautifully at this stage. You have t3 3 minutes before your opponent. The first 3 SABs you get out of the lab are the most important ones. You can send two of them off in different directions wiping out any outlying bases. You had gunships and interceptor superiority as well so you could have torn any SABs outside of his base to shreds. So many advantages. You just got greedy and concentrated waaay too much on taking out his comm.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Wuped: Overcharging a base is the first thing I consider when I notice a stray commander. And I noticed it early because of his score - and also when he killed my scout. However, my comm was still in my base at the time and would have taken too long to get to his. He would have had plenty of time to prepare his base. 3 T1 PD’s is enough to kill a comm with no support unless one is overcharged. Add all the auras he was producing to whatever PDs he would have built and it would have been a futile exercise. I should say I was still tempted to try it however.
Coridan: I usually use 2 vs 2 games for practice and my partner and I have been having problems connecting together. But if I ever get it working again and get a good game I’ll definitely consider writing about it.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Oop.. sorry for the doubble post.
Molloy: Yeah the two or three SABs I sent through the middle to their deaths didn’t help anything. I should point out that the only thing on my mind at that point in the game was how much better harbingers are than loyalists. But greedy seems like a good adjective for my actions at the end of the game.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
You did well, very well, but you didnt use your advantages. From my point of view you dominated the first third of the game. The second third was nearly a tie, and the final third is where you lost it. You had control of most of the map, you were teching up slightly faster, and had a better network of intelligence. You had all of these things going for you but it just didnt seem to come together. In the beginning, when you made lots of small tactical strikes against his mexes - that was great! He was really hurting because of that. You did a lot of good things, but around the time that you got to tier two your progression kinda froze. You knew where his bases were, kinda had a feeling for his strat and weaknesses, but you didn’t exploit it. As you mentioned air was an obvious opportunity. And so on…
I would have given you the victory. I think it was well played the most crucial part of the round, but after the critical first minutes you seemed to doze off (maybe literally too). Well played!
May 17th, 2007 at 12:56 am
“although I somehow managed to miss TA”
How?
May 17th, 2007 at 1:48 am
You had good intell outside of your base with scouts but you had no intel in your base with radar. I think this helped him and hurt you.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Sending those first 2 or 3 SABs through the middle was a real shame. Had you stockpiled them until you had maybe 6 or so you would have stood a good chance of overunning his base. A little bit more recon would’ve let you know he didn’t have any SABs to stop your attack, so victory would have been assured. When you got t2 gunships I thought you simply had to stockpile 4-5 before launching, as again you knew he had no AA. The micromanage problem with the interceptors was not as big a mistake as not stockpiling before attacking, imo, since he could throw up that AA. With 5 gunships hammering the comm and a few SABs coming in, he was taost. He was lucky to get those SABs out of his base and all the way to yours without you noticing.
Basically you did all the hard stuff; building up fast, teching up at the right time, harassing his mexes and outlying base structures in a really impressive division of attention, but just lacked a little in the easier final attack. Incidentally, piling resources into SABs instead of a gunship attack might also have helped, being a more secure strategy for when you don’t have complete recon.
I was impressed that you went for the kill instead of his secondary base, which you kept well contained until the end.
But saying all that I am not very experienced and going on assumptions of what works best :)
May 17th, 2007 at 9:13 am
“Had you teched up earlier, you would have won. ”
Yeah, I can’t wait for the patch so T2 is more useful and T3 is delayed. ;)