PA Stats 1v1 ladder map pool

The Zaphod System has a semi-viable lava spawn in some situations because you can get the two awful spawns on ice and have no choice. The reason it can work is because the ice player has to spend a couple minutes making bots and scouting just to be sure that you aren't there, while you can safely go for a pure eco game. It's not really about the ice player not "knowing what to do," instead it is a more fundamental situation where the lava player's superior intel from the start can permit an early build order better suited for the game to come.

I don't agree that orbital invasions are more interesting though. Teleporters cause invasion battles to begin at the location of the teleporter and follow the shortest path to the enemy base. Any time spent raiding metal gives the defending player a chance to build or position units for defense. Maybe if raiding was faster or unit production was slower this could be different, but as it is the defender finds more value in that extra time than the attacker does.

Dox spam is more of a medium sized planet issue. Once a world is small enough the speed of the Dox is irrelevant and you're better going all tanks. Even on other worlds it depends on metal distribution, if my main expansion is between my base and yours and clustered tight then I'm going tanks and will park my rally point on it.

The meta isn't quite the all-Dox-all-day it used to be. I kinda like how it changes depending on the map, something I consider a good sign.

If you think you can wipe the enemy out in one punch, you go straight for his base. If you're not pretty sure about this then raiding his metal is a better move in the long game. You're raiding his metal and he's obviously not raiding yours, since yours is on another planet. Sure, now he's "ready for you". He's also got less metal income and therefore is in a lot of trouble. He's really forced to counter-invade your planet once you invade him, if he wants to knock your income back.

I also think it's interesting that the player starting on ice has to choose between going balls-the-wall T1 unit spam on the thought that you must be there too, which may make him slow on the eco game if you're NOT there, or if he wants to hedge his bets a little bit (which may be risky if you ARE there).

I also played one game where we both chose to start on the lava world. I went full eco, didn't scout quick enough and ended up losing.

Just the uncertainty of multiple planets adds a little something to the decision making process.

1v1 land maps may be the most boring possible option available in this game. I honestly think people only go for that out of habit, because it's most like what they played in ever other game. In PA, though, I think it's a dumb way to go. It's like disabling the best parts of the game and then complaining that it's unbalanced and boring.

I guess maybe I'm just not doing it right, but most of my orbital games end up being 10 minute games with a single decisive battle.

zaphod system is stupid as hell. It's basically who rushes orbital first. Or who gets best spawn on ice planet.

scouting is easy sauce. There is only one spawn on ice planet you need to scout. And if you have both the good spawns, then why even bother scouting. It's obvious he will go lava

With that kind of mindset you are bound for surprises But yeah the maps are ... well they are maps but not more than that.

If you have both good spawns on ice planet, that means he has only 2 mex in his spawn.

There is not much surprise you can do with only 2 mex

That's true, but as a concept I do like this system. One good planet with four balanced spawn points and another slightly worse planet over all that you can pick if you want to do an eco/orbital build. The system itself if great, but the metal on those planets should be closer and the spawns on ice need to not be so imba.

Sounds like you're doing it right but your opponent isn't. Where was his army?

Although it is also true that with PA's current state of awful defenses, if you invade at a point where your army was larger than his, he's going to lose right there. Typically in an RTS game, static defenses are meant to bridge this gap, giving each player a sizable advantage when fighting in his own base but PA lacks that. Especially since the Great Commander Nerf, when our commanders became basically incapable of helping fight early rushes.

It's something else we need to fix.

But even so, your experience also demonstrates how few 1v1 players know how to deal with multi-planets. No doubt your opponent took way too long to realize you weren't on planet, then was too slow to eco up, then didn't have an army ready when you attacked. Proper defenses should help him cover this mistake but it was still his mistake to make.

His army was around, but there is an attacker advantage with teleporters because the defender never knows where the invasion will come from. I only played a few games like this so it's not really enough information to make any kind of comment on actual balance yet.

well yea, i remember playing zaphod system back in gamma/beta and it was pretty good. Should have clarified that I meant it's only really bad because of the metal patterning, which results in very predictable and boring games.