The PAG debacle

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by icycalm, January 18, 2015.

?

BRN vs. PAG rematch with extra icy included?

  1. HELL YEAH!

    35 vote(s)
    56.5%
  2. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DON'T DOOOOOO THIIIIIIIIIS!

    27 vote(s)
    43.5%
  1. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    mered4, reptarking, proeleert and 3 others like this.
  2. eukanuba

    eukanuba Well-Known Member

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    Sounds reasonable.
    crizmess, stuart98 and icycalm like this.
  3. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    The dude was not even responding to my words. I said the same thing three times, over the course of 5 minutes. And only then did I blow up and delete the commanders. With PAG I'd keep the game plan simple and direct, so I wouldn't have to micromanage them. The only thing I'd say essentially is when to switch players between planets. With that dude I had to tell him to counter raids, protect fabbers and so on.

    And of course with PAG I'd be gentler at first. Only after I had become their unanimously acknowledged and absolutely respected supreme leader would I start showing my true colors. To get them accustomed to the concepts of war and leadership, for example, we would have weekly Nietzsche readings in the teamspeak, with each player quoting his favorite passages, and discussion following after that. Something like this, for example:

    "I do not wish to be mixed up and confused with these preachers of equality. Men are not equal. Nor shall they become equal!"

    would be mulled over carefully over the course of many weeks, and each PAG player in turn would be required to hand in his written understanding and interpretation of it. First elodea, then clopse, then neptunio (including their smurf versions), and all the rest. There would also be extensive readings of history, to help the PAG players understand that without strong leaders mankind would still be living in caves or be extinct, and so on. A few months later we would be a well-oiled unstoppable war machine that would be spoken of in hushed, reverent tones for generations.
    chevrage, cwarner7264, optimi and 3 others like this.
  4. Raevn

    Raevn Moderator Alumni

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    Commanders in the real world don't get to reset if their subordinates don't follow orders. You can't just tell the enemy to start again.

    As to the rest .... o_O
    icycalm and stuart98 like this.
  5. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    It's true. Thank god this is a videogame then and I get to choose and pick which aspects of real life I want to simulate. (Anyone care to make a court martial PA mod?)
    ingolfr likes this.
  6. nosebreaker

    nosebreaker Post Master General

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    @icycalm ...Interesting. You should definitely Not focus all your attention on PAG... allow them their hard earned dominance in the 1v1 scene. The Fact they are lacking in end game is obvious to all. Instead of instructing them to the point of pure unbeatable dominance!!!!
    You should instead Help BRN out some. We could sure use some of your ingenious Thinking out of the box approach to this game!
    The Nosebreaker suggest you Liaise with Elite...........
    Mish was on game vox really take in with the idea. His support is paramount
    The Readings sound particulary interesting!
    The Nosebreaker is desperate to break silver Rank and File..........
    Elite has offered plenty of advice But some of your almost Panache character would definately shake things up!!!
    Help Make BRN unbeatable!!!!! That is what the Nosebreaker thinks!!!

    The Nosebreaker likes this post
    Last edited: January 20, 2015
  7. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    lol I think BRN is doing fine on their own. And the strategic scope of PA at a 4v4 level with such small planets is still so small that all they'd need to do is try some of my strategies on their own. They already have the coordination and cooperation required to do it. I mean, I am almost out of tricks at this point. You've seen more or less pretty much all that could be done in terms of strategy at a 4v4 level. All you have to do is be a bit more creative with your spawning, and consider dividing players into roles (which again BRN is almost already doing, as seen with Pazoki's capture and development of the gas giant in the PAG game). But again, this would be MUCH more effective in a 5v5 format (which is why I am asking Exodus to adopt it for Clan Wars in the next season), and even more at 6v6 and beyond. Here is a post I made in my forum on August 9, a mere day after I had begun playing PA:



    "Okay, here's the basic plan of my strategic thinking so far. I'll talk about 5v5 strategy, which is the maximum the game will allow at this stage anyway, but the same basic plan, once understood, can be adapted up and down to fit any number of players, from 2v2 to the eventual 20v20 (or 10v10v10v10) and above.
    In a 5v5 game we need:

    An Economy guy
    This guy sets up and runs the economy and nothing else. Metal extractors, energy plants, storage facilities, etc.

    A Production guy
    This guy sets up the factories and churns out units, both fabricators and combat units, and nothing else.

    A Defense guy
    This guy goes around our base and spams anti-air, anti-orbital and anti-nuclear defenses, in the center of the base, and anti-ground defenses and walls around the edges of our base and nothing else. His job is to make sure that the base can withstand attack for long enough so that the production guy can create a large enough army for counter-attack, EVEN IF THERE ARE NO COMBAT UNITS AT ALL CURRENTLY ON THE BASE.

    And finally,

    Two General guys
    Whose job is to divide ground, naval, air and orbital units between them and to constantly harass the enemy, right from the get-go if possible, so that he will not have enough time to launch a proper counter-attack, and the work of the Defense guy will be superfluous (which he will do anyway just to be sure).

    This is for a 5v5 game. For a 4v4 we will simply have one General. For a 6v6 we will have three Generals. For 7v7 and above we'll just start dividing the extra players between the different categories (two Economy guys, two Production guys, and so on). There will also come a point, maybe at 10v10 and above, with 5- or 10-planet systems, where we will need a real Supreme Commander, who will just sit back, observe everything and coordinate tactics and strategies, but all this is months if not years in the future (and several hardware upgrades both for us and the companies Uber is renting servers from lol), so there's no point talking about it. As for games below 4v4 level, you start merging the roles. In 2v2 you have an Economy + Production guy, for example, and a Defense + General guy, and so on. And because we are always playing games of varying player numbers, we will all eventually have to become acquainted with every facet of the game. Still, our preferred game mode will be when everyone is in the team at the same time, so people will have to pick specialties too, and personally I choose the Production role. recoil is doing great in the Economy role so far (which I admit still stumps me, conceptually), and perhaps infernovia would like the Defense role? (which we haven't been fulfilling at all so far, which I believe is one of the reasons our bases get overrun so quickly). Which would leave Qpo and Masahiro to play the Generals.

    The basic point in all this is that the bedrock of success is a thriving economy, and, on the basis of this, a thriving production line, so that we can consistently outproduce our opponents AT EVERY STAGE OF THE GAME. That's why we have to make it so that the Economy guy doesn't have to think about anything else than spamming economy structures. Not even walls. Nothing except economy. And the same for me and the fabbers and factories. To that end we should be checking the post-game stats every time, to figure out the point at which the enemy outproduced us, in order to push that point further back with each succeeding game.
    Once we are consistently outproducing everyone, winning games will be "simple" matter of tactics, which the Generals will be able to figure out at their own pace, since they'll have enough hardware at their disposal to burn throughout each game."



    At 8v8 or 10v10 you either play roles or you lose the game -- as long as the system is small enough with few spawnable planets, of course, because if you do 10v10 on 10 spawnable planets you would of course need to spawn on most of them.

    So, the more cool strategies you want to see on the Exodus stream, the bigger the player numbers you want to bring in the game, and the fewer the number of spawnable planets, and even spawn points available. If you want to FORCE everyone to make megabases just have a single spawn point available per team on a single spawnable planet (which doesn't mean that the system has to have only a single planet...)

    Having said all that, if BRN wants to set up a friendly 5v5 with one of the other clans, and include me in their roster, I would love to play that game and work with them (on their forum preferably, if they have one) to come up with a cool strategy for it and see how it goes.
    Last edited: January 20, 2015
    optimi likes this.
  8. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    Also, I'd like a Cult vs BRN rematch on BRN's system, if that's acceptable. I have another strategy I'd like to try. The problem is that when the new balance is moved to stable it will render many strategies useless. Not sure if the super-expensive teleporters will help or hinder our play style, but the deeper tactical mechanics will surely hurt us because we are not very familiar with which units beat which and under which circumstances (nor are we quick enough to adapt to sudden changes in our opponents' unit mix). We are always a good month behind the latest tactical developments (which is partly why we kept using heavy bot builds a long time after bots were nerfed).
  9. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE ON HOW TO BEAT PAG IN MULTI-PLANET SYSTEMS WITH MORE THAN ONE SPAWNABLE PLANETS!

    [​IMG]

    1. Spawn your entire team on one planet (the most metal-rich one)

    2. Megabase and kick PAG off the planet in minutes. The idea is to take the game orbital as soon as possible. The moment you have your own planet, the game is orbital

    3. You have now given all the other spawnable planets to PAG, but it doesn't matter, since they have no idea how to lock them down and defend them from orbital invasions

    4. Lock down your own planet, which should be easy since PAG has no idea how to invade a planet, let alone a locked-down one

    5. Proceed to invade each PAG-"held" planet one by one

    6. If there's a gas giant don't even bother invading PAG's planets. Just take the gas giant and nuke them out of the system from your original planet

    7. Post video of match in PAG debacle thread so everyone can have a good laugh


    Love ya, PAG! <3
    Last edited: January 21, 2015
    Clopse likes this.
  10. lizard771

    lizard771 Well-Known Member

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    It kinda feels like icy is jealous.
  11. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    It kinda feels like you have the sense of humor of a tree.
  12. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Having tested the new balance thoroughly, the main change is down to economy (energy is easier to get so you can use more fabbers now).

    In terms of unit mechanics, nothings really changed for ground. The balance changes made 2 unused units slightly less bad (but they're still bad so still unused). Gates is a noticeable change, but once you get that mega base eco going it makes little difference so it's simply a case of being careful when to build a gate to avoid stalling your early game eco.

    The main change that may effect you is the t1 air transport. It allows for quick drops of things like infernos close to your base, though the transports are made of paper so a few fighters on patrol is enough to prevent it's a neat move if you can distract your opponent and sneak them in.]

    I've yet to evaluate the orbital changes, I guess you should look out for SXX lasers more now but then again the umbrella is much cheaper.
    mishtakashi and icycalm like this.
  13. reptarking

    reptarking Post Master General

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    Now if I didn't know any better I'd think your an a**h**e for that.
    nosebreaker likes this.
  14. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    I can't imagine anyone looking at that and seeing anything other than smart thinking and cool humor. Whoever is seeing hatred or jealousy, or any other negative feelings, is merely projecting his own feelings onto me, so please stop doing that.
    Last edited: January 20, 2015
    nosebreaker likes this.
  15. lizard771

    lizard771 Well-Known Member

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    Trees have a hard life. Don't hate.
  16. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Yeah! Otherwise @lizard771 might be forced to make like a tree and leave...

    Sorry, I couldn't resist, I'll see myself out :p
  17. icycalm

    icycalm Post Master General

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    I wonder if the players' comments will make Uber make more changes before the build goes live. If it's so obvious that the changes are not enough, why not make them more drastic?
  18. Raevn

    Raevn Moderator Alumni

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    It would hold back releasing the other changes in the build. As long as the balance isn't broken, it's not a problem to do it incrementally.
    cdrkf likes this.
  19. lizard771

    lizard771 Well-Known Member

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    I'm...rooted to this thread.
    boylobster and cdrkf like this.
  20. dom314

    dom314 Post Master General

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    We need to stay on topic here, it's beginning to branch out in all kinds of directions.
    lizard771, boylobster and cdrkf like this.

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