poll: Paper Units

I rather enjoyed the gameplay from TA where Goliaths took, what was it, 10? 12? shots to kill another Goliath.

*Vomits*

Of course, that was mitigated by Golitahs' massive aoe and range. You were really hitting 2-3 tanks at once, and in reality the TTK with medium-to-big blobs was only a second or two higher than a Flash mirror match.

I can't believe you wouldn't want longer engagements.

I can't believe you would.

We've been over this. Two goliaths going at it and taking a ton of shots to kill one another is, technically, a "longer engagement." But it is also a very boring engagement.

By contrast, armies of 50 units that individually die much more quickly but whose total HP adds up to be comparable to the goliath-vs-goliath situation also results in a longer engagement, but is a much more interesting fight. Primarily because it is possible to have slight numerical advantages, or other differences between multiple fights.

One goliath vs one goliath is always the same. But what if you replace one of the 50 units with a different unit? Or what if you have 60 units because a different group elsewhere on the planet is now ten units smaller? What if before the fight you call in an air strike and kill a couple of those units, thus reducing the group's damage output? What if you receive a few more units in reinforcements during the extended fight? You have to fear even small amounts of enemy firepower because it might cost you some units, while a unit with a lot of HP can just ignore it.

There are many more things you can do with a group of units than with just one goliath. We agree with you that longer engagements are good. But the way to make those longer engagements interesting is to have more decisions, more possible combat states, and more actual units on the board. A more continuous spectrum of possible combats is better than just having individual units that just take a long time to kill each other.

One goliath trading shots with one other goliath is a very boring fight. The upgrade to two goliaths against one is a very binary shift. The upgrade to 51 against 50 is much softer but equally concrete.

More units also makes engagements longer. And the result is superior to just having more HP.

I think there could be more health and longer fights. However, during fights things need to die. That way even when you win a fight, you have to replace a lot of units, which makes attacking worthwhile to turtling.

Which is why i voted 1. Sorry. When they add more units they will add marginally more health because units will have different dps. We don't need anywhere close to 2x more health on everything.

Last comment, is t2 Mex and such, needs less health or no increase in metal gain, one or the other. I'd rather it a mild health increase. T2 for damage soak is ok, but t2 having 10x more health and much higher metal is too much. I don't say they scale up t1 health a lot, i say they scale down t2 to be more fragile.

it's your loss our brains are limited, we have trouble taking multiple things into account which is why chess and quarto is hard for us but not for a computer. When you put thousands of units vs. each other the boring one v one disappears and gives you a fabulous tableau. whereas if they all die at the same time the thousands vs thousands army behaves the same as the short 1 v 1.

Generally, if they all die at once that means there is no unit damage variety.

That is bad, but losing 60% of your 200 units while fighting 150 enemy units in 30 seconds worth of fighting sounds reasonable, given that a good economy produced those units in mere minutes and can replace them just as fast.

It's the circle of life. Think of it that way. Units are like currency to be spent, not do things freely with no loss. That's why artillery has a cost to use while units have a cost to make. Because the unit itself is spent. You bring that cheap unit into the world in just a second of build time, and so too is it removed from the world in just a second or two.

The problem is time, it is against your argument. If we are talking units surviving 5 seconds of combat or less, fine. Any more than that and one could buy units faster than they die and not have enough unit border for all of them to fight at once. Then you would need to change build time or cost. Then it takes longer to produce those units. Then it takes longer to conclude a game. Games atm already are very quick or very slow. Its the too slow part one should worry about.

Units should take 1-5 seconds to kill each other. The variance between t2 and t1 should be less massive and more selective (as in not massively more health and either more health or stronger effect not both)

this ^^

Just in general I hate it when a forum gangs up on one person! Especially when they are just trying to generate discussion and hopefully help the game. And from what i've seen so far of the uber/PA forum that doesn't really happen here.
But I feel in this case you really have made it hard on your self and easy for those who wish to shot you down so much so that even I'm going to jump on the band wagon

NO! ... just no ... its is not obvious at all it is stupid and more importantly it is wrong and I suspect has resulted in a somewhat skewed poll with people who don't really "get it " seeing simulated projectiles in one and not the other voting to see simulated projectiles not to see more (or less) unit health

I've changed my mind on this... less paper. They die so easily.. mainly navy units.. way to easily do they die.

time to vote some more.

Still not a fan of increasing unit health.

Greater unit health promotes micro play. And as we've seen from the 5v5v5v5 on multiple planets, more micro is the last thing PA needs.

There will always be micro that you can do with your units.

Actually, it's the opposite. The presence/importance of micro is directly related to how efficient it is to spend time doing micro, or in other words, how much of an effect micro has. Lower HP units means each shot that hits has greater effect. When units die in 1 hit, a single click of micro can save a unit. When units have higher HP, a single click may only save 1 unit from taking some damage, so the time spent microing isn't as efficient, and is better spent elsewhere.

Voting isn't really helpful, it's not only a biased worded poll, but it's also self-selecting and not all-inclusive, making it meaningless (and this coming from someone who agrees with the current "favourite" according to the poll). I can't really remember seeing a useful poll on this forum. Except maybe this one .

I never said there wouldn't be micro. I said it'd be more micro. I talk about good micro in my casts. I just don't want this game to be micro oriented.

Eh. I'd disagree with you on this. The longer the units stick around, the more they can be microed, and the more effect the micro has.

You are right though, this is a very biased poll.

The only possibility of taking micro away completely is to take away control of individual units altogether- we surely don't want that.

Although I am in favor of squishier units, I do think that "micro" is being improperly invoked by both sides here.

The correct approach to micromanagement isn't to remove the possibility from units. Making units that cannot benefit from micromanagement basically limits you to very boring units.

Instead, to reduce the impact of micro, PA should adopt a sufficiently large scale that it no longer makes sense to micromanage individual units. Even if one unit might benefit immensely from micro, if you have multiple large confrontations and multiple planets to manage, the impact of that single unit is negligible even if its effectiveness would be VASTLY increased by manual control.

If anyone has the skills to actually micromanage units on such a large scale, I legitimately want to watch that player do it, and gain an advantage from having macro that is just as good as the opponent, and still being able to micromanage units in combat. However, large strategic concerns like constructing armies, deploying armies well, and having efficient economy management have such a large impact on the game as a whole, while an individual unit does not, that it makes no sense to sacrifice macro for the sake of micro.

But I see no reason to design the game to make combat micro impossible. If someone has the skills to do it in a game of such scale, not only do I say power to you, I also want to watch.

But it is Christmas