ZaphodX's PA videos - updated daily

I think my favourite moments are those thirty second transitions you go through:

We're floating, build more!

*team obeys*

OH MY GOD OUR ENERGY!

#135 POV 7v10v10v10 Scale 3

Wow, that Orbixx, what an ***.

Still haven't figured out what he did

Well apart from the fact that he appears to have been bitching in team chat, I believe he self-destructs the remaining white commanders after they lose three to RLM.

Anyway, let's analyse the reasons for the loss in this game because I felt a lot of excuses were getting thrown about for what could have been a perfectly winnable game I offer this with the complete benefit of hindsight and not having to focus on doing things in a hectic game.

1. Zaphod spends too long not spawning

2. SCOUTING! Black attacking with levellers (after Zaphod had called them all noobs no less) catching RLM with their pants down.

3. Poor expansion choice. RLM discuss how black and purple must have a truce, when what appears to have happened is that purple were at the North pole, black were at the South, and then RLM have expanded their base to act like some kind of DMZ between them. RLM invited getting attacked by both forces by standing in the way as you saw how purple and black attacked each other once they finally wrapped around the RLM base.

4. SCOUTING! RLM commit to attacking white without scouting what black are doing beyond their frontline. RLM turn their attention to black without scouting what purple are doing, leading to nuke surprise. You've got seven players, someone should be doing this.

5. Mobility. Pelter spam has traditionally been RLMs friend in these games, but it feels like this didn't scale well here, that more mobile units on a scale 3 would have been useful. RLM were constantly at the mercy of the mobile forces of their opponents who could attack from any point on a really large front, and showed they were more than capable of overwhelming, or simply avoiding, the static defensive line. More harrassment out in the field would have stopped that massive purple expansion into what, I presume, was white's old territory.

6. Spawning in one location. Done for defensive reasons and to allow for early aggressive comm play, but with the scale of the planet and the large empty areas between metal spots I think this ended up hurting RLM and made them a really easy target. It severely limited their economy and forced them into a series of bad engagements in an attempt to catch-up with opponents who had split up.

I put it down to 2 things, very poor spawns and purple went for turtle + nuke spam, which is very hard to counter in a 4 team game when outnumbered.

Perhaps in retrospect we should have attacked purple's very weak base to the north, getting some map control and potentially moving further in to the rest of the base.

Yeah the spawn locations sucked, but that's why I'd have split up. I realise why you guys don't want to, but I think it really screwed you early game, and you didn't gain much out of having that concentration of commanders.

Lesson of the day: If your spawn sucks, spawn in more than one spot.

I think you misunderstand me, the poor spawns were the fact they were on polar opposites of the planet against 3 teams with more players who are all gunning for you which makes it a big risky play to spawn apart. In retrospect we lost hard because we were so concentrated. Perhaps if we spawned apart we could have attacked teams on two sides and won more map control. Conversely we could have been attacked more easily by multiple teams while we were more spread out and weaker. Watching it back it seems we should have spawned apart and I'll try that next time, but often spawning that far apart can seal your demise even quicker.

One theory I have is that spawns nearer the poles are probably safer because people with pole lock on are probably less likely to cross the pole.

In hindsight, a decision is always easier than it at first seemed.

I think we should work on some sort of build for spawning apart, assuming that one of the bases is attacked and harassed from the outset. Might help ease the decision and make it easier to be sure of ourselves during matches.

I love how hyper Zaphod gets in these team games ;-)

Is the commander deletion a bug that will be removed, or will it remain in the full game? Because it sounds like an AWFUL idea for griefing.

#136 8v8 Realm match

Yes, it is a thing for griefers, but it is also useful for spectators atm.

If and when Uber implements a spectator mode, i assume it will be removed/restricted.

I admit, Zaphod, I wanted to punch whoever that was as well. Someone was clearly hitting C and CTRL-Z for the tanks. **** that guy.

Surprisingly one-sided considering some of the names on the white side.

Looking back I'm pretty sure it wasn't that, someone was specifically trying to control those units and was inexplicably giving attack commands on that commander. I expect people to nonstop fight over control of units even when they can see someone else trying to do something different but not in a Realm game.

The teams seemed mostly fair, the one-sidedness was due to communication, afterwards they told us they were fighting each other and not communicating well. Also they went t2 a little early and screwed their eco over before they could build it with t2. Targeting the base I did screwed them pretty hard too.

The only thing about this game that wasn't covered and I possibly wanted to say is that it would have been nice to see how it ended.

Thanks for your work anyway, I always cache a bunch of your streams when I go to do sound on boring events.

It should be obvious, purple had a huge advantage.

They did, but I still would have liked it. Thanks anyway.