why do people rush all games?

Any reasonably "easy to understand" balance will always ask players to "rush", simply because in a scenario where either you are your opponent will end as a big explosion the best way to act is to get rid of your opponent asap.

Which leads to the conclusion that the best strategy will be to rush your opponent as fast as possible within the constraints of the game and unit balance. Currently, you can rush from minute two until oblivion - and it's boring. It's all about build orders and how fast you can get X units on the field and how well you micro them in a game not built for micro.

It bores me. Team games have some sanity to them, which is why I try to play them instead of 1v1s.

welcome to the genre known as RTS

That's RTT. RTS is where you actually think about what you are doing instead of memorizing it.

PA is probably the first game in the genre that can truly break free of the stereotype and become something completely off the wall - a game of STRATEGY.

This thread reminds me of a really funny experience I had back in Beta. I played versus a Russian guy who at spawn kept saying "no rush 20 min, orbital". I expanded around the whole planet and basically penned him in with every kind of unit 360 degrees around his base. He literally only had about 10% of the planet. I waited until he finished playing sim city and then exactly at 20 minutes insta-gibbed him. Take that russian space agency.

Expand or die.

Indeed.

Expand or die.

Why do people rush all games?

Cuz Its RTS baby.Any rush can be counter if you are good player.If not...Its your problem then.

Counter: If you know any possible game situation and the perfect move to do for it perfectly by memory you will always win.
The strategy you talk of is an illusion.

I wouldn't even call it rushing, people are just raiding while expanding their empire. IMO rushing is when you devote all of your resources to building your army as big as possible ASAP with little to no resources put towards expansion and then just throw your units at your opponent hoping to kill him or harm him enough that you can recuperate your losses. Pretty much like the zerg rush of SC2, can't remember the exact terminology, but I think it was a "6-pool" or something?

rushing ... spamming ... ... most vague terms in a rts game ...

Someone needs to set up a thread that defines all of these terms when applied to PA, and get a general consensus, then we can know what we're talking about!

Seriously though, that might be a good idea, would help improve balance and gameplay discussions significantly...

I think the problem is that the game has one game-mode where you win with snipes, and a balance that is tilted against turtles. Whenever everything is an all or nothing snipe to win it heavily encourages rushes. I think that once they get to the point of adding in some new victory conditions it might change the dynamics somewhat. Until then its really as people have said, you have to agree with the people you are playing with beforehand to have fun rather than just "win".

isn't chess build upon unitformations ... to me that would be similar to rushing compositions ...

Thing about PA, along with most strategy games, is that you need to remain on the offensive to have a success. therefore, people often rush and see if they can switch their opponent into a defensive mentality and destroy their enemy while having the freedom to expand. Rushing is a very important part of this game and one should refrain from ignoring it, as that gives your opponent the upper hand. Refusing to rush is handing your enemy free metal, structures, etc.

I agree totally. A true 'rush' is a type of cheese build (more terminology!) that severely gimps your eco and depends on essentially winning the game there, and only works if the opponent doesn't see it coming.

I don't even think that sort of thing is possible in PA, with how the economy works. Your ability to produce units increases so closely with your income that there is no real advantage gained in producing units later and putting that income towards eco.

That type of rush strat only really works where the production power/unit count lags behind the income curve, which isnt the case in PA.

A true rush build in PA is not that uncommon. It's quite common in team games for one player to rush one enemy comm to put the on the back foot, something like a boom bot rush, or pushing with the commander and walls (usually backed with infernos or boom bots) works fairly well and allows you to take out an opponent within 2-3 minutes if they're close by.

The more general strategy of raiding from the very beginning is simply logical play if metal is sparse. If you want to avoid it you need to spawn on separate planets or play on something like the CULT or PAG clanwars home systems which have insane metal density making turtling semi feasible because raiding is less important.

The guy who is rushing you will beat you anyway because he expands quicker then you. His army is bigger in the beginning and also in the end. But with multi enemy its better to kill your opponents as fast as you can because ffa 4 player takes 1 hour or more so why wait any longer then games take 2 or 3 hours. Some people dont have enough free time not everyone is a child. Some people have family and jobs.

That is unless the balance is strongly in the favour of defensive structures. Before the unit cannon you needed ~5-6x the eco of someone holding a single planet to get a decent invasion going if they had really put their mind to turtling. Anti-nukes were so much cheaper than nukes and getting a tele down and kept alive was nigh impossible. If turrets and artillery were cheaper and more powerful PA would be a very different game. I would disagree with anyone that said a better game, but certainly different.

Personally, i make it a rule to play only no rush 20 with as many planets in the system as possible. 15 or more planets is the minimum so that the game is slow enough to make truly strategic decisions. This, i think is the proper way to play the game like an educated and cultured individual, unlike all the unwashed no skill rushers. Herp derp this button called dox all i know. Press to W1N Skillz0r omgbbq.

If anyone breaks this rule and attacks my metal extractors before 20 minutes, i record his name on my arch-nemesis list, google his home address and post him a different cat fact each day.

I enjoy my daily facts