Artillery Defense

Warzone 2100 had a great way with dealing with artillery.

What you could do was build a structure, like a radar, that detected artillery fire within its range. So basically when an enemy arty shelled some of your units or structures/turrets that where within range of the tower, then the fog of war was removed from around the enemy artillery. You could also link a small number of your own artillery to the tower that would return fire if the the enemy arty was in range.

The caveat was that you could also build mobile versions of the tower and link your arty to it, and this what you could detect enemy arty installations...so it worked well for someone whit heavy base defense and also for someone that like to rush a lot

I thought it was great, because it gave you good arty defense without hamstringing the attacker, as the same attacker could use the defense against you to take out your own artillery.

I've worked combat mortars in real life, and liased with rocket and shell artillery units.

Real life artillery is "burst damage"-y, with targeting lag and inaccuracy issues, as well as being very expensive to field.

So, instead of arguing about turtling or arty defense, why not make it realistic?

If you want 1 bot dead, you need a missile. If you want a city flattened, call in lots and lots of artillery, and plan to spend a good bit of time reducing the target zone. If you want a wall knocked down prior to a surprise attack, call in a few guns to do it.

Artillery is the King, Infantry the Queen, and Armor is the Rook.

I'm pretty sure the counter to turtle style play involves an asteroid

The issue is threefold:

1. Heavily defensive plays cause very little player interaction.
2. If neither player can break the other's defence the game won't ever end.
3. Attack must be made stronger than defence to prevent defence-only plays being optimal.

So while it's a valid strategy and it's perfectly OK to like the turtle play-style, it's bad game design to make it more viable than interactive plays.

The point at which attack becomes stronger than defence is also important - making it happen late in the game with super units is not good because it means an hour of single player before you actually start interacting with your opponent.

Not sure i agree with the interaction assumption there.

Assuming 1v1 play for a moment:

If one player is a turtle and the other is not, there will be plenty of interaction, as the non turtle batters on the turtles defences and runs around the map doing things.

If both players are turtles, they are happy not interacting much until the end, because that's what makes them turtles.

It might be dull to watch, but the players are happy, it's their play style.

This is meant to be a game, not a spectator e-sport. that bit is a bonus, but not the entire point.

What we do need to avoid, is not: Must Turtle to Win
but Must XXXX to Win

I find that a game that encourages rushing to be as bad, if not worse than a game that encourages turtling, partly because the game is decided in minutes, but mainly because i hate being rushed.
As a life thing, as well as in-game.

Ditto with air or mobile warfare. it's nice if you want to play that way, but why is it good to encourage it?

Wanna do air? go nuts.
Wanna do mobile warfare with lots of movement and attack/counterattacks? cool.
Wanna dig in and make the perfect defence? Cool. i'll find a way to break it.

It's a 2 player+ game. if you don't want an hour of single player, don't play an hour of single player!

Just to be clear, i'm not particularly advocating Turtle style play, i'm advocating a game where turling is as good a strategy as any other.

I don't want the obvious strategy to be Rush, or Eagle (i think) or Turtle or mobile warfare (whatever it's called when there's stuff everywhere all going all over the place).

I want options.

So that [b]I[/b] can Turtle and you can batter yourself to death against my impenetrable defences.

Bwahahahahaha!

Actually i realized i didn't respond to clearly to sophismata, sorry.

I'll try and be a bit more logical, it's monday morning here. ugh.

I'll try point-by-point.

1. Heavily defensive plays cause very little player interaction.
How is that bad?
Remember, we're talking about players here, not spectators.
If i don't wanna interact, i don't gotta.
If i do, i go spy, or attack or something.

2. If neither player can break the other's defence the game won't ever end.
Only if they suck at seige breaking.
Same goes for nuke vs nuke, or air vs air or whatever. if you can't break his defence and vice-versa, the game will never end and you are evenly matched! well done you, you've met your match in skill and patience. remember that guy and play him again!

3. Attack must be made stronger than defence to prevent defence-only plays being optimal.
No! absolutely not!
It's not about attack stronger than defence, it's about getting the balance right.
If the defence is for the sake of argument TOO strong, then you need a feck-load of attackers to punch through, or a better strategy and tactical approach.
No stress, build an arse-load.
If he nukes you or bombs you while you are building said feck-load, than (assuming you don't just suck) it's the nukes that could be said to be too cheap.

There is no defence-only play, there is only defensive up to a point, then BANG!
If you're playing to win.

If you make the defences weak compared to the offences (Tanks, nukes, bomberers ) than all that happens is people use other defences.
Turrets weak? use tanks instead, or patrols of them.
AA no good? use fighter patrols.
Nukes deadly? Build 3 times as many antinukes as he's got nukes.
Big rock? be some place else.

So, no, attack does not need to be stronger, it needs to be right, whatever that turns out to be.
Static defences can be insanely tough and still beatable, because they don't move.

There, think that's better.

Let me know.

R

basically what azirahael is doing is taking what somebody said and then saying "no that's not the case" or "why is that bad?" he is either woefully unfamiliar with how these games play or not reading/comprehending the explanations.

Lemme add a little more to try and clarify:

3. Attack must be made stronger than defence to prevent defence-only plays being optimal.

You can't stop turtling that way, assuming that it needs to be stopped.

If turrets and walls an stuff are made pathetically weak in comparison to tanks and artillery (to go to extremes to provide illustration) all the turtle player will do instead of building turrets, is build tanks, and use them the same way.

They still won't interact or whatever, it just means their impenetrable defences are tank shaped, instead of turret shaped.

Yup, that should do it.
Bye now!

R

P.S: Yes, i do have too much free time and caffeine both.

@veta

Rather than tell me what i'm doing, tell me why i'm wrong.

With examples please.

it's a waste of time explaining the finer points to you, they're elaborated in 16 pages of thread.

Hi veta!

I've just read through the thread.

I like teradyn's (spelling?) explanation and find myself agreeing with him.

I also note that your contribution is tiny, not well thought out, and is a simple assertion that has no explanation or facts to back it up.

Either would be fine.

I have decided i don't like you, and i personally think that you are a giant poopy-head.

go away please.

there's a lot of threads on the subject of turtling (most of them to do with shields and mass fabs):
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35465
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35732
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=43945&start=10
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=44233&start=40

it's important you have a grasp on these concepts before you give your opinion or it will come off uninformed. the truth is nobody actually cares what you think, if you want to persuade anyone you need to back your assertions up:

That isn't going to cut it.

That's just bad game design. I would direct you to this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=46434

Nobody is suggesting that. And it's not necessary either, simply having an efficient counterplay is all that is needed e.g. mobile artillery.

If you want to make an assertion (however small or general) then you should understand what others are saying (and have said). there's also a difference between being succinct and posting without thinking, the former often precludes the latter.

Why would one player attack the turtles defense? The best thing is to just ignore the turtle, expand over the map and gain resource advantage to do whatever he wants.
So what can a turtle do better except defending that the expanding player can't do as well with a better economy?
How will the turtle be able to bite back?

The thing is if they aren't interacting they are basically blind to what their opponent is doing. What is the turtle actually trying to achieve by defending?
Rushing a nuke? Making bombers for a snipe? Getting better economy than the opponent by making cheap defense?
Reaching interstellar travel as fast as possible?

Scouting is interaction. If you scout the enemy and see that they are turtleing then you can get ahead of the enemy by cutting down on your defense so that you reach your goal before the enemy reach theirs.

I don't think that would be a problem. If some situations demand that you turtle I don't see that as bad thing. Mostly I think Turtleing is a tactic not a strategy. Turtleing as tactic is using minimal defense to stay safe so that you can reach your goal as fast possible without having to spend resources on offense whatever goal your are trying to achieve. How little defense you can get away with is mostly based on intel I'd say.
The cases where turtleing is to be called a strategy is when you can compare different gameplans and many of them are viable independant of your enemies action. You can then chose a turtleing strategy to reach a future goal.
Knowing how to apply the tactics of the turtle is vital in order to implement the strategy of the turtle. But nevertheless the goal of turtle is not to make defense but to make enough defense so that you safely reach an endgame situation where you have the advantage.

Mobile warfare requires interaction. If you don't have player interaction you don't have a strategy game. Mobile warfare is simply a way to force interactions.

If the defense is static. Then you have basically designed a puzzle. In order for the enemy to brake the defense the attacker must scout it and determine if he can viably brake it with the resources he have and the forces he expects to have in the future.
Lack of intel or bad judgement can very well mean that the turtle wins by defeating the attacking forces. But it is a passive strategy. It requires that the enemy actually makes that mistake unless there is something actually forcing the player to attack the defense in the first place.
If scouting the enemy is viable the turtle can by knowing the strength of defenses and knowing the size of the enemy forces determine how much defenses he needs to reach his goal without losing in the process. If the enemy is aware of the turtles goal it might force the attacker to commit to the attack before the turtle has reached his goal.

So do I. Map/planet design can surely promote Turtle strategies but knowing when to apply turtle tactics is the key. I will also be interested to see how the economy works and how viable it is to turtle and try to out-eco the enemy with a turtle strategy.
Anyway. Why sit in your base and make an impenetrable defense just in order to reach some endgame goal when you can start fighting right now? Isn't the point of the game that you should defeat the enemy?

This is the primary argument against allowing heavy turtling. The proper interaction with a turtle is not interacting with them.
Any interaction you have with a turtle is you throwing away resources. At best you need to occasionally send out a scout to see if he's up to funny business. More likely, you can just completely ignore him until you've captured all the resources in the game and then nuke him into oblivion without a fight.

Ignoring an opponent, like they don't exist, doesn't sound fun or awesome.


That's not to be confused with avoiding an opponent. The implication being that in order to avoid something, said thing needs to be looking for you. Turtles don't do that, or if they do; not often enough.

Stop designing games around bad players. It only makes for a bad game.

It is true that defending against arty defeats the besieging aspect of arty. But it does not eliminate the value of artillery entirely. Nuke players are well familiar that nuke defense has limited coverage and becomes very expensive on large maps very fast. However, the mitigating factor against throwing nukes everywhere is their extreme cost. You can't just nuke every extractor and undefended tank on the map, or you'll lose to bankrupting yourself for no gain. That is not true of artillery, where every shot is renewable and pretty much free.

Arty defense can not cover the map in an effective way, and any undefended point on the map becomes fair game for a large gun. While you may keep your base intact with arty defense, you may ultimately lose the war if the artillery gun is not quickly destroyed. It buys time, nothing more.

Heavy ordnance defense can also protect against other trouble makers such as bombers and smaller siege guns(battleships, arty, etc.). Bombers especially are very difficult to balance due to their high alpha strike damage and quick escape. A counter weapon negating some of that alpha strike helps to keep air play in check.

You just made a very convincing argument, why arty defense is bad and why its better that artillery gets balanced without arty defense at all.

Not sure if that was your intention... :mrgreen:

I think the best artillery defense would not be to have a counter unit (which always seem lame to me) but rather to limit artillery themselves. If there is no such thing as an unlimited range artillery then you can easily defend against them by having task forces ready to deal with them in your area. If your enemy is able to establish a base within range he deserves to be able to shell your base. That said, I like the idea of adding cost to the firing of artillery. They have too much potential for abuse otherwise.

Stationary artillery normally costs energy to fire.

It's an argument that goes both ways. Stronger artillery demands arty defense to protect bases. It is used to attack the field instead of going straight for the kill (but it can still wreak havoc if you destroy the defense). Weaker artillery does not require a defense. Instead, it is ineffective against most of the map and thus should be pelting a base (or Commander) to maximize its damage.

Arty defense can also be overloaded to deal with a wider array of threats from multiple angles. It doesn't have to be a pure 1:1 counter the way that nuke launchers/defense worked in TA/Supcom, so you don't need a braindead "he builds A, you build B" response. In addition, there can still be an arty defense breaker in the form of non-interceptable weapons like orbital death rays or rocks.

Either way a defender still has to respond to an artillery threat or they're in big trouble. The difference is how difficult it is for the attacker to win by sitting in his base, never going into orbit and launching some rocks.

The energy drain of arty is being smoothed out to behave like any other energy drain. It is easily assumed that an arty piece will require X generators to work without a hitch. Any time you build an arty, just build those generators and add them to the price.

Energy demand helps increase the footprint of artillery, and opens a weakness to shut them down.