Special Unit Balance

[LortGob]

(09-07-2012 06:47 PM)awpertunity Wrote:  Try this one between me and vide0gamer. He pushes a gigantic army into my line of soldiers with a bombshell behind it (turn 40) and hides a scrambler behind this push. He is able to scramble my BS and win the game as P2 on sharkfood.

Thanks for this reply. I play a lot with Feedback and on this map it's a pretty effective strategy. The preconditions are simple:
- Try to boost your scrambler to 2 health if possible
- Make sure it is hidden from view until you strike
- Only use your scrambler when you have a lot of wits to follow up or create a breach with other units (vide0gamer had 14 hits on turn 40)
- Make sure you scramble something that will actually kill something

On a side note, in turn 43 you were still on the winning side, with vide0gamer down to only two units. It was not the brainwash that won this game for vide0gamer, but the push in turn 48.

[aaronINdayton]

Grats on hitting Super Titan OP! I disagree with just about your entire post but that's okay, I'm often wrong about these things, and you're clearly better than me.

[CombatEX]

One thing to note is that the scrambler has the longest attacking range in the game by far. Once you convert a unit you can move and attack with it. This opens up many tactical possibilities. Essentially a scrambler's "attack range" is anywhere from 6 - 9. In general you will lose some wits in an exchange (unless you manage to kill an opponent's special), but there are certainly some great applications for the scrambler. Not to mention the threat of a scrambler forces your opponent to waste wits arranging units in a suboptimal way and/or position units in a less favorable position to lessen the impact of a scrambler. In a sense, the fact that a Feedback player 'can' have a scrambler benefits the Feedback player even if the scrambler isn't made.

Some examples though there are undoubtedly many more:
- forcing your opponent to be cautious about heavy positioning.
- forcing your opponent to block snipers or specials behind 2 layers of units instead of one (if one of your own soldiers is capable of attacking your sniper without being 'blocked' by your own units your sniper is in danger. This is huge because having to completely wall all of your front line units from your specials or snipers is expensive and often impractical)
- being cautious about any of your own units within striking range of your own base (particularly on small maps, for example on SFI you can't try to protect your base with a heavy unless you have something behind it since a scrambler could just convert it and hit your base.

[Syvan]

(09-07-2012 07:49 AM)vivafringe Wrote:  But again, it is possible to protect yourself from this to a large extent, just by infinite walls of soldiers. There is nothing a Mobi can really do against 2 rows of soldiers, other than attack somewhere else. So as player skill increases, the amount of miracle Mobi base kills decreases sharply.

It's interesting to hear this from a Scallywags player. From the perspective of the Adorables, I have always feared that this was the logical conclusion of the metagame: Ultra-slow games decided by saving large numbers of soldiers, banked wits, and slow pushing the map, which completely negate the Mobi's strengths.

[wonderpug]

But fancy ninja strike moves are just one of the things Mobi can do. If you use him as nothing more than a mundane unit transport, he essentially becomes a new bonus wit space worth 1-3 (or more) wits, depending on how many unit jumps he saves you.

[awpertunity]

(09-08-2012 08:34 AM)wonderpug Wrote:  But fancy ninja strike moves are just one of the things Mobi can do. If you use him as nothing more than a mundane unit transport, he essentially becomes a new bonus wit space worth 1-3 (or more) wits, depending on how many unit jumps he saves you.

Don't forget the highly effective and useful move, strike, attack, and retreat maneuvers. Being able to get get scouting information AND strike a unit WITHOUT sacrificing it for only 3 wits is amazingly resourceful. Having this done to you a couple times will surely put you behind in the wit race.

[vivafringe]

Alvendor/awpertunity: would you like to play some games? Feel free to friend me, my nick is vivafringe.

Thanks for posting the replays. Here are my thoughts on them:

necrocat: F vs. F isn't really what I was looking for. Funny game though, the scrambler was indeed a huge kick in the nuts.

Alvendor: Cool game. When I play on Peekaboo, I always leave a Bombshell and some soldiers to cover my own witpoint. Then I use a second bombshell to deathpush theirs. That avoids the annoying shenanigans that Calmon did that game, but is definitely much slower.

Awpertunity: Don't worry, I am saving witpoints every turn. I am in ST after all . But it's a legitimate point that maybe my opponents aren't, which makes my siege tanks feel more invincible than they actually are. Anyway, as someone else mentioned, the Scrambler play actually wasn't that great. He sacrificed a bajillion soldiers + a scrambler to kill your Bombshell and do 1 damage to your base. The end result was you being ahead on material.

Also: yeah there are all kinds of fun gimmicks you can do with whale. From what I've seen they are not as powerful as the Bombshell's attack though. In all the wars of attrition I've played vs. Mobis, I've come out ahead. Maybe it's due to a lack of good players, though; I'm definitely open to that.

[Necrocat219]

Aaah, but you see the Mobi is actually overpowered in Sharkfood. You have to use the illusion of your opponents base being completely safe, when you can pop a sniper onto the very top hex, shoot for 3 damage over the water and soldier wall to victory!

I am vastly exaggerating this of course, but it really surprised me when I had a hitmarker on the back of the opponents base. I do use it to break a steal mate, as it forces them to remove the sniper and block the mobi, otherwise they lose.

[GoHeat 3]

Here is a match in which the scrambler won the game for me! If you just want to see the scrambler skip to turn 30 and watch the rest!
outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20YmrmjAQw

[Alvendor]

(09-08-2012 09:39 AM)vivafringe Wrote:  Alvendor: Cool game. When I play on Peekaboo, I always leave a Bombshell and some soldiers to cover my own witpoint. Then I use a second bombshell to deathpush theirs. That avoids the annoying shenanigans that Calmon did that game, but is definitely much slower.

Agreed, that game probably supports your argument more than mine =) But the fact that we have a hard time coming up with example games points to that the metagame is still evolving.

I've invited you to games on Peekaboo and Glitch. Shark Food is kind of a strange map and I don't think it is a good example if you want to measure the general strength between races. If you want you can create two other games with you as the first player.

I'm not saying I'm an expert Scrambler player as I have a lot more experience with Bombshells, but hopefully we get decent games to discuss!