Foundry Rush

[swimj]

So I think many of you are familiar with how nearly unstoppable foundry rushes can be. For example, here are 3 recent replays of me getting c(rushed) on Foundry as p2:

Rush 1

Rush 2

Rush 3

So I don't think I made any atrocious mistakes on defense, while there obviously could be improvements (specific pointers welcome and appreciated!). Given the circumstances, I played at my normal level, which is high masters/average ST (I've been up and down between the two leagues).

As many people have trouble with this rush, I was hoping there could be some discussion/advice of defense strategies and any replays of successful p2 defense.

Thanks in advance.

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Before anyone else, Syvan already wrote this on another thread:

(07-22-2012 08:04 AM)Syvan Wrote:  

(07-22-2012 06:58 AM)Fluffysox Wrote:  May I ask what this rush on foundry is?

This may be better discussed in its own thread, but I'll just describe it here. The Foundry rush, or at least the variant that works for me, is based on the way the spawn geometry is setup. On turn 5 you can deliver three soldiers (2 boosted), a heavy, and a sniper to the front door not including the wit space soldier.

On the first turn, use the soldier and runner to take wit spaces. This gives you good vision and is necessary for the heavy to move toward the base. Move the sniper up 1 hex toward the enemy base, move the medic next to the spawn closest the enemy base and boost the sniper.

Next turn, spawn 2 soldiers, boost the one near the medic and move the heavy and the soldier toward the enemy base, but stay on your side of the column.

Next turn, move your soldier up, spawn a new soldier, boost and move it up next the last soldier, move the sniper forward again, behind the soldiers, and move the soldier on the wit space.

Next turn, start attacking, but your overall goal should be to sneak a soldier into the little backdoor where you probably win almost all of your foundry games.

There are several ways I've tried defending this, the easiest is to spawn a runner and take out the wit space to remove P1's vision and send your own wit soldier to the backdoor. The rushing player needs to respond with a runner of his own to retake the wit space, which will necessarily modify the rush, and next turn if he sees the soldier moving into position, spawn a soldier of his own.

The best defense seems to be to move the medic to the base spawn, spawn a couple soldiers on turn 4, a heavy on turn 6, and hope for the best. Boost everything you can. I've tried using snipers for defense, but they seem to be quickly dispatched.

I think the real problem is the backdoor on foundry. The rush could be easily crushed, but once that soldier slips into position, it's gg.

So yeah, hopefully it can be now discussed in its own thread.

[mmorrison]

To be honest, when you start out as player two on foundry I don't think boosting the shark is the best idea. Not only does it take 2 wits, but it kind of takes the shark out of play for a turn or too, and this gives player 1 all the more reason to take that wit space and continue with the rush.

I would say as player two start out spawning a runner on the spawn next to your base to see if there is a rush coming and then you can adjust accordingly. The best defense for the rush is to try and take out any runners in the beginning, because this removes the chance of them getting your sniper or healer, and it buys you more time. They then have to spawn another runner to kill yours and this uses about half of their wits for their next turn.

Also, if you do this you can really see the whole map and what the rush is so by buying yourself more time then on the fourth turn you can prepare yourself according to their rush.

Sometimes there isn't much you can do but if you can survive the initial rush then it shouldn't be too hard to win.

[Syvan]

First, I think the ability to rush is a good thing overall. I have seen way too much undirected turtling in the last few days. The question is: How much information can we get and how efficiently can we respond to it. On turn 2, we need to identify that a rush is a possibility and begin responding to it. I think that a runner should take the wit space for maximum visibility. From there you can see what took P1s wit space. If they used a runner as well, you should expect some sort of rush utilizing the heavy.

Due to travel cost, we need to build the slower units at the base spawn. On turn 4, we should learn more, if they attack your wit space runner, I think you can prepare for a standard game, but if they leave it alive you should see a soldier and a heavy moving from their base. I prefer to build 2 soldiers on this turn and move the more distant one toward the base, but out of range of the heavy.

By turn 6, there should be several units at your base. At this point, you can build one more unit and prepare for defense. Once the battle begins, you should try to destroy the sniper asap. That seems to be what powers the offensive. You should also try to keep units toward the the backdoor because it is possible to build a little triangle of soldiers that can deliver one soldier to the backdoor and use the other units to protect it.

Aside from that, the game can play out several ways. You should try the rush and defense against yourself in pass and play. I have seen it predominantly play out in favor of the rusher, but I have successfully defended it. It is possible that the times I have successfully defended was due to a bad rush, but I'm sure there must be an optimal way to defend against it.

As for the rushes swimj saw, I think those are better defended by temporarily giving up vision and responding with a soldier where possible to better fortify and prevent simple trading. Next turn use a runner to gain information as early as possible in the turn and try to respond appropriately.
I think what you see in those games is that the soldier in the backdoor is what actually wins them. If it was either closed, or that wall opened, I think the games would be much more defendable. The problem is, I don't think that's really a good thing.

[Alvendor]

(07-22-2012 01:07 PM)swimj Wrote:  Rush 1

Rush 2

Rush 3

I've been playing around a bit with the rushes above. What do you guys think about these defenses?
All start with creating a soldier and move it to the wit space to get vision.

Rush 1 - just continue building defense. He is threatening your medic and sniper with the runners, but you don't care if he hits them. He needs to spend total of 4 wits to kill them and you need to spend 4 wits to kill runner + replace the medic/sniper. So nothing really to worry about.

Rush 2 - as you take the wit space with the soldier you see his heavy. You now know his backdoor is undefended. So take your other soldier, ignore your wit space, walk towards his base to attack it. If he defends your soldier you take control of middle. If he continue to pressure you win by killing his base first with the soldier + a runner.

Rush 3 - Take wit spaces with the soldiers + whatever on the first turn. On second turn, create a new runner and move out far enough so you see if he is advancing with the sniper. If so, take it out with the soldier and take it from there.

[GinoGinuzzi]

i really hate that map xD but i appreciate your replays

[Alvendor]

Here are two rushes (and defense to them) where Player 1 ignores one wit field for a faster rush.

Rush 4
Attack with heavy, soldier, runner

Rush 5
Attack with soldier, medic, runner. Notice how defending player ends up with a unit advantage but his base is down to 1 health.

I have another defense for rush 5 where the base only goes down to 3 health but the armies are more equal. If someone wants me to post it, add me (Alvendor) to game center and startup a game on Foundry and I'll post the replay here.

[Sakiehl]

That's a great counter-attack on the rush 4 game. On turn 4, if you had sent all your runners onwards their base instead of sending 1 and healing, do you think you would have been able to win on turn 5?

Especially sending the corner spawn unit runner all the way to the bottom of the map... I think that would have put it out of range of his units and still in range of the back door.

[Fluffysox]

The resolution: have a wall tile adjacent to the base for the back door side.

[Alvendor]

(07-23-2012 11:45 AM)Sakiehl Wrote:  That's a great counter-attack on the rush 4 game. On turn 4, if you had sent all your runners onwards their base instead of sending 1 and healing, do you think you would have been able to win on turn 5?

Especially sending the corner spawn unit runner all the way to the bottom of the map... I think that would have put it out of range of his units and still in range of the back door.

Ah, I knew I made a mistake in healing the runner instead of sending two. I never thought of sending all three, nice one. But I think all should go to the middle, sending one to the bottom makes it possible for him to delay another round. He can create a runner and put it next to my soldier and thereby block the path to the back door.

[Harti]

In Super-Titan play, the Foundry rush is only very rarely applied and doesn't lead to a favorable position either. One can still try it but if they countered it correctly one needs to abort it and prepare for counterattack measures.
(However, this doesn't neutralize the general FTA argument at all - FTA still exists and grants P1 the better position no matter what. They can usually always destroy a Sniper or a Medic)