So Veriasium talks about people crowding luggage retrieval terminals and trees that all grow large because any tree that grows shorter than that can't get enough sunlight and dies... but I couldn't help but think about how this applies to tiers in an RTS. It also gives us the thought experiment Derek talks about with the pact of friendship, in this case where people agree not to go past a certain tier or not use nukes/orbital. Why do tiers exist? They exist to create a point in the game where if you fall too far behind, you have lost decisively. And that's actually kinda interesting in and of itself. It does assume two things- that players have practiced enough to reach these tiers, if left uninterrupted, on their own at about the same time, and that the goal of the game eventually becomes to set one player back enough to cause their whole house of cards to fall over. Interestingly enough, people in PA have already decided that if house rules (like the pact of not using one type of tech) need to be implemented because of it constantly dominating top tier play, that there is a problem. And don't get me wrong, the "tall tree" problem has some interest to me as well, I've just never had any insight on it before now. As it stands, if you're not building a nuke as soon as you can, you're either building an antinuke or already making surgical strikes to make sure they don't get one. But no matter how you're dealing with it, you're dealing with it by 20 minutes or you're dying. similarly, if you currently decide to mass t1 stuff, you will be ultimately beaten by t2 attacks without question. And there's lots of opinions as to why. But ultimately... binary progression happens in nature, and while a game doesn't have to be based on reality, to me this is one of those things that might always be a reality. You might always have to decide to tech up or lose. I really don't mind that.
Eh, I don't get how teching up is still a necesity. In PTE, I feel like rushing it will open up more weaknesses than it will present strengths and the earlier you do it the more possible you lose. If someone has t2 for 10 more minutes than an enemy, of course they win, but the idea is if they get t2 they might get overran in 4 minutes, they sure don't have the economy to defend themselves after having thrown it into the empty hole called t2. I still think t1 can beat t2 in PTE. Not that t2 eco even can help t1 enough for a person with t2 eco and t1 production can kill someone with t1 eco and t1 production. The metal-dump for t2 eco establishment is too great for t1 off t2 economy to produce as much as t1 with t1 economy for the first 15 minutes of the game. 15 minutes is a lot of time to figure out how to break some enemy toys, and those include t2 fabbers, t2 eco structures, t2 factory, the original t1 ecofarms...
I think that part of the issue, is that if T1 doesn't fail to kill T2 before T2's econ starts snowballing, T1 is guaranteed to die... and it's still a pretty big "if"...
I think it at least approaches the situation where "t2 fights with one hand tied behind his back, and if he can still survive a beating from t1 using both his fists, then he wins at the end by default". Also, t1 can at any time choose to follow the same path of tying his hand behind his back, and if he has more territory he wins instead anyway, because the return for 60% the planet and late t2 is better than it is for 40% and early t2, considering the 60% can build his t2 up faster and gets more income after upgraded than his enemy.
True, but it still seems to me like an easier play to go for T2 then it does to try and spam T1 against someone who is going for T2.
A large T1 control over the planet sounds a lot like a tree growing outwards rather than upwards. So it's still a useful metaphor for what's going on, just a different way of ensuring domination. It's hard for me to see T1 snowball someone though due to the way tower defenses work right now.
The problem is they need to add both more T1 and T2 units in the game now that they are working on the balance between T1 & T2. I think the cost of the tier 2 factories is high enough above tier 1, now its the armor, firepower, speed of the units that needs to be adjusted. They need to add in more units to do that rather than wait till later to add in all the units after the balance is adjusted.
Id love more units, just to bugger things up for a few months, that should keep the community busy for a few weeks.
