Anybody else know about this?
Moderators: jelco, bert_the_turtle
elexis wrote:I dont really see the point of a speed boost for armor. Sure, sometimes you could use it to get to A to B, but it would provide an unfair advantage for the defenders at B.
First off, I don't see how it gives any advantage to the defenders of B if enemy armour is moving faster. Second off, play on the Bleak Mountains more often. If you load up an armour at your base (say, take 10 seconds to load), it takes about 50 seconds for that armour to cross the map to the enemy base. It then takes another few seconds to unload it. Now, if you have two armours on the map, then you don't get reinforcing armours. As armours are granted every 60 seconds, this means that you can't load your armour, get it across the map, then destroy it fast enough to get a new armour in the next reinforcement cycle. That means that there is going to be a 60 break before you can send another armour (as a point of clarification, it is just possible to get an armour across the map, unload it, and destroy it in time to get reinforcements, but that requires a great deal of micro, and doesn't get all of your troops to the correct drop location).
If you could speed up the armour, you could get troops dropped off faster, meaning that you could blow the armour sooner, meaning that you can get more reinforcements to the enemy base faster. All in all, quite useful.
There are other maps and situations where it would be equally useful. Pretty much any assault map, most of the blitz maps (especially those with spawn points), and probably RR maps as well. Hell, even on dom maps, the ability to get troops to a given location faster is a great boon. I just don't see any downside to faster armour.
xander
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First of all, I would like to thank you for introducing to the Bleak Mountains map. It was the first time I've played it and I enjoyed it a lot.
If you are using armour as the primary means to move the masses in this map then you have a problem. The main job for armour in this map is to quickly cap the flags, which are for the most part a lot closer to you. An average of 50 seconds travel time, like you said. During that time there is plenty that you can do, especially as things heat up. Like for example managing the second armour which is usually going somewhere different.
As for hauling the masses around, my tactic was to create a staging point at my base that slowly leaked Multiwinians (will add description later if necessary). The leaked Multiwinians were then mainly sent through the no-mans-land between the pre-placed turrets, after which they either tried to cap the flag near (but not in) the base or to harass the base via the spawn points. This tactic was particularly effective as it allowed me to control the flag in the enemy’s base before I had complete control of the other points. I also used Multiwinians from the spawn point near my base to defend flags from counterattack.
But back to the topic. Armour in general requires huge amounts of micromanaging compared to all other aspects of the game. If armour were to be able to go faster then the amount of micromanaging in a game would hugely increase. Each individual armour would get their jobs done quicker, meaning they would need more attention for assigning new jobs. And if the armour were to be any faster, it may become viable for a couple of armour to transport an entire continuous stream of Multiwinians across a map. This could have the implications of turning many maps into a matter of unit deployment rather than a broader combat experience. One of the greatest appeals of Multiwinia is the simplicity of lack of micromanaging. It gives people more time to focus of the more satisfying parts of the game, like obliterating your enemy of sitting back and watching the show.
In assault maps, increasing the speed of armour is possibly the worst thing that could be done. It would further increase the unfair advantage that attackers have in relevant maps. The most common armour tactic is, I’m sorry to say, to use them like a car-bomb; self-destructing them when they are on top of turrets to kill the occupants and/or the turret itself. The only real defence against this is multiple close together turrets and manually controlling turrets to take out the armour in before it reaches the turret. If the Armour is able to close the gap even quicker then there would be no defence at all. Increased speed would also help with more ‘noble’ tactics, like my preferred dump-on-the-fly technique (shown below) which relies on quickly dumping Multiwinians around the turret to confuse the AI. The faster the armour goes, the more turrets it’s able to take on before it’s destroyed. Dog Green Sector usually takes me about six minutes to win as attackers. With the ability to boost the speed of armour, I could probably do it in 4-5 minutes.
On an unrelated note, take a look at this screenshot, taken while in the post-reply page. Seem normal? Well try zooming in on the point approximately 20 pixels above the two yellow Multiwinians. Use an image viewer to do this, not an image editor.
What kind of kaleidoscopic hell is this!
If you are using armour as the primary means to move the masses in this map then you have a problem. The main job for armour in this map is to quickly cap the flags, which are for the most part a lot closer to you. An average of 50 seconds travel time, like you said. During that time there is plenty that you can do, especially as things heat up. Like for example managing the second armour which is usually going somewhere different.
As for hauling the masses around, my tactic was to create a staging point at my base that slowly leaked Multiwinians (will add description later if necessary). The leaked Multiwinians were then mainly sent through the no-mans-land between the pre-placed turrets, after which they either tried to cap the flag near (but not in) the base or to harass the base via the spawn points. This tactic was particularly effective as it allowed me to control the flag in the enemy’s base before I had complete control of the other points. I also used Multiwinians from the spawn point near my base to defend flags from counterattack.
But back to the topic. Armour in general requires huge amounts of micromanaging compared to all other aspects of the game. If armour were to be able to go faster then the amount of micromanaging in a game would hugely increase. Each individual armour would get their jobs done quicker, meaning they would need more attention for assigning new jobs. And if the armour were to be any faster, it may become viable for a couple of armour to transport an entire continuous stream of Multiwinians across a map. This could have the implications of turning many maps into a matter of unit deployment rather than a broader combat experience. One of the greatest appeals of Multiwinia is the simplicity of lack of micromanaging. It gives people more time to focus of the more satisfying parts of the game, like obliterating your enemy of sitting back and watching the show.
In assault maps, increasing the speed of armour is possibly the worst thing that could be done. It would further increase the unfair advantage that attackers have in relevant maps. The most common armour tactic is, I’m sorry to say, to use them like a car-bomb; self-destructing them when they are on top of turrets to kill the occupants and/or the turret itself. The only real defence against this is multiple close together turrets and manually controlling turrets to take out the armour in before it reaches the turret. If the Armour is able to close the gap even quicker then there would be no defence at all. Increased speed would also help with more ‘noble’ tactics, like my preferred dump-on-the-fly technique (shown below) which relies on quickly dumping Multiwinians around the turret to confuse the AI. The faster the armour goes, the more turrets it’s able to take on before it’s destroyed. Dog Green Sector usually takes me about six minutes to win as attackers. With the ability to boost the speed of armour, I could probably do it in 4-5 minutes.
On an unrelated note, take a look at this screenshot, taken while in the post-reply page. Seem normal? Well try zooming in on the point approximately 20 pixels above the two yellow Multiwinians. Use an image viewer to do this, not an image editor.
What kind of kaleidoscopic hell is this!
Last edited by elexis on Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
elexis wrote:On an unrelated note, take a look at this screenshot, taken while in the post-reply page. Seem normal? Well try zooming in on the point approximately 20 pixels above the two yellow Multiwinians. Use an image viewer to do this, not an image editor.
What kind of kaleidoscopic hell is this!
What am I suppose to see?
@xander: I accept your challenge, just as soon as I get home internet. (3 weeks max)
@Montyphy:
The following works for my image as well as the original. Download the image and open it in windows picture and fax viewer. Then try zooming in. QuickTime picture viewer also works. You should notice something ...strange... appear in the sky around the yellow multiwinians. It looks like the outline of some terrain if it was viewed underwater, if that makes any sense.
@Montyphy:
The following works for my image as well as the original. Download the image and open it in windows picture and fax viewer. Then try zooming in. QuickTime picture viewer also works. You should notice something ...strange... appear in the sky around the yellow multiwinians. It looks like the outline of some terrain if it was viewed underwater, if that makes any sense.
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