I don't see any threads about people rushing to Novaliths in multiplayer. That is to say, it isn't nearly as good as RA. So while the point about superweapons is correct, it doesn't hold up well when one 'superweapon' is significantly better than all the others (to say the least).

Go ahead and pit an RA rusher vs. a Novalith rusher and see what happens to see what I mean.

Don't make the same mistake I did and waste your time replying to him. He has made no real arguments or points and hasn't added anything to this discussion. He's simply here to troll. Any observer or reader can clearly see that and I'm sure no one is fooled that "RA is balanced because Bubb rubb said so"

In case you don't know who Bubb Rubb is, you should look it up. The two share strikingly similar intellectual levels.

YES YES YES lets ALL make personal attacks now that we've run outa ammunition!

RA overpowered hell yeah. But simply complaining about it ain't gonna help unlest you find something to replace not nerf it.

And Keeping in track with the Advents and Tecs super weapons i would change Returning Armada With Advanced Tunneling. What this does it that it allows the Vasary player to open a phase tunnel to any planet that had been explored for 2-3 minutes. So basically the Vasary player to send his fleet to any enemy world or his likeing going around the enemy fleet. Of course thou it's a one-way trip.

That should fix it. It's powerfull, devastating, not unstoppable and fits into the Vasary spirit of being a highly mobile force.

Key problems with RA:

1. it's all labs, not tech. Insurgency, Novaliths, Deliverance Engines, Pervasive Economy etc are made non-rushable by both the number of labs required and the time taken to research the preceding techs. The Kostura and Mass Transcendence are much easier to rush towards because they only need labs, and not preceding techs, but the Kostura also has an enormous setup cost per gun and MT is not as immediately useful in the 30-45min period (to say nothing of being stuck with Disciples as cap backup). RA sits between the two extremes - it needs lots of labs, but only 3 preceding techs, and the first of those (phase gates) is immediately very useful and allows a player to mount a very effective defensive game, even if they only have one military lab (for assailants). This makes it very easy to rush to if you have any assistance from anyone else at all.

2 RA is very powerful even with just 3 low level planets - a terran homeworld, an asteroid and a volcanic planet will let you produce an immense number of vessels and provide enough logistical and tactical slots to tech all the way to RA and build an immense fleet with phase gates. You need build no refineries or trade ports and can easily get away with a single military lab, since RA will give you Enforcers (and only 2 more mil. labs will give you regeneration and health buffs, making them extremely powerful).

3 it removes almost all unit production micro. An Advent or TEC player has to switch between battles and production to keep their numbers up, Phase Gates produce a good mix of units (probably better than most of the newbie users would build themselves!) automatically with no effort - someone who just queues up fleet cap techs need never even look at unit production until they've stabilised enough to build more military labs and get subverters, other than to destroy the occasional Transporter. Which brings us to:

4 as well as being an incredibly powerful unit production tech (LOTS of free units for 0 production effort), and an automatic research level-up to 5th tier military units with Enforcers, the civil path that takes you to RA also gives you massive economic techs - access to Enslaved Labour and Improved Salvaging. Even cheaper phase gates, and a huge incentive to kill off less useful but expensive units (eg. transporters) for a lot of money, further shifting you away from having to build any economic structures. With enough phase gates and no need to micro unit production, you have something that is practically more effective than Pervasive Economy for pushing upkeep-free money into your coffers.


So, ideally:

1 RA would have a longer tech path, and/or a longer time period required for research,

2 Phase Gates would take more tactical slots to produce, limiting their spammability with just a small number of worlds / low tac slot availability

3 The units produced would be more of a monoculture, less predictable, and possibly only give access to units you have the required military labs or research for

4 RA units would either have their scuttle ability removed (they're Vasari, but they're not, strictly speaking, YOUR units), have their salvage refund reduced, or have a sharper refund dropoff with fleet upkeep.

Nope.

Imperial Research Labs by the numbers give you access to those research options, yes, but they are in two separate trees, with RA being in a third tree. You have to research them separately, for no progress on RA.

Just wanted to clear up that little misconception.

Boy, there sure are a lot of little misconceptions about the Vasari tech trees in these RA threads... It almost makes you stop and wonder if somehow most of the people crying about RA haven't actually played the Vasari for more than a day or two. But, golly-gee... surely no one would be so foolish as to base their opinion solely from one skewed point of view? That would be silly! I mean, wow, that would totally undermine the basis of their arguments!

PS: Yarlen posted on another thread saying that RA is being rebalanced. Go and get some rest, save your energy for screaming about 1.04. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. This topic needs a rest for now

What do you mean, 'tree'? Improved Salvage (all you need to use RA as an economy boost) is a tier one tech with one level! Enslaved Labour also sits all by itself with no prerequisite techs. If you're racing to 10 imperial labs then you can pick them at any time.

As far as I know, all we have confirmation on in terms of 'rebalancing' is that RA will no longer allow a player to exceed their cap through the gates. Have you seen mention of anything else from IC?

It would probably help if you would condescend to explain some of these 'misconceptions' rather than, you know, simply being condescending.

OK I've seen none of you know what your talking about which proves A. that you guys are newbies. Anyways.


at tech 5(5 labs) you get phase tunneling, tech 7(7 labs)enhanced tunneling, and finally tech 8 RA you actualy have to do MORE research and MORE structure building to make it effective than the other twos combined!!!!! STOP WHINING.


I know from experience that phase stabs can be very costly if the player has allot of systems hes going to be spending a ton and I mean a ton of resources building the phase stabs required. Its not OPed you guys are just playing against players who have perfected the rush to RA tech just like on StarCraft when people would rush with zerglings its not oped its just extremely effective at what its designed to do(IE RA is a gome ending tech therefore it is effective in its role while zerglings are an early attack unit designed for rushing).

I see A. but I don't see B.

I see Bubb9 but I don't see a person with IQ > 10.

But hey, I'm an open minded guy. Let play a 1v1 or 2v2 and post the replay up for all to see. If you beat me, I'm sure everyone will take your suggestions more seriously. But you won't beat me. You'll lose in some horribly epic manner, and everyone will laugh at you for the joke you are.

Of course, this open challenge is to any of the various morons in the thread. Have a beef? Think your theorycrafting is right? Play me a game. See what happens.

[quote/]
PS: Thank you, Vanechka, for capitalizing Pyrrhic .

I'm Danish and couldn't remember how the term is spelled in English (I'm a bit rusty). So, at the risk of seeming less smart if it was a genuine compliment (the smily leaves a bit of ambiguity), I must admit I that I looked it up on Wikipedia and Dictionary.com, where it's capitalized. Though I must admit that I couldn't figure out if it was for emphasis only. Is it normally capitalized? I'm curious.And finally, have you checked the other thread in which you ranted? I ranted back[/quote]

Actually, now we are almost postive you are smart. You had socialized education growing up. That's an advantage.

You aren't even reading anymore, you are just vaguely mashing that strange oblong board with clicky buttons in front of your monitor. You don't need 'allot' of systems to go RA, you need just your terran homeworld, an asteroid, and a volcanic world. In a team game you might as well leave terran/desert planets for your TEC teammate so they can feed you resources faster. As soon as RA is switched on you can equal, and occasionally leapfrog far ahead of players who have spent their time colonising, researching and building an economy.

Could you explain more clearly, I honestly don't understand what you're talking about. What other two? Persuasive Economy requires 1 tier 2, 3 tier 4, and 2 tier 6. Insurgency requires 1 tier 3, 2 tier 4 and 2 tier 6. That's each more than the research cost of Returning Armada which requires 1 tier 5 and 2 tier 7. And while both Persuasive Economy and Insurgency doesn't require structures to come into play, their preceding techs do. The minor advantage of not requiring structures doesn't even vaguely measure to how much more potential effect Returning Armada has. More on that below.



Bubb, you really need to consider that even though each phase gate might be expensive, the investment it represents pays off to a degree unrivalled by anything else in the game. And the investment can be repeated, again, and again, unlike say Persuasive Economy. Heck, going out on a limp, I'm fairly certain that the monetary value of just the first batch of ships brought forth (practically instantanously after completion) by the second level of Returning Armada exceeds or at the very least comes close to the price of the Phase Stabilizer itself. Add to that the enhanced mobility the Phase Stabilizer gives you, and you have something that indeed is very overpowered. It would seem that by the logic you are following, Returning Armada is the only tier 8 technology that's balanced. With the phobia you have against whining, wouldn't rather have us complain about one feature of the game, rather than many?

I did a quick test. I did some of the adding of the units on paper, so if anyone spots an error say so, so I can go back and recalculate. This is with the second level of Returning Armada researched.

A Phase Gate costs 1,500 Credits, 200 Metal, and 300 Crystal on your homeworld. One all other worlds you have to develop Tactical Slots once to have enough, so the effective cost is 1950 Credits, 350 Metal, 375 Crystal.

The first group of ships that came to my homeworld (3 Enforcers, 1 Sentinel, 1 Assailant) had a worth of 3,065 Credits, 630 Metal, and 460 Crystal if I were to build these ships myself. Double the Credits cost, three times the Metal cost, and almost twice the Crystal cost of the gate. Up to two more gates for the additional cost could be supported at this world.

The next group came to my Asteroid (1 Transporter, 3 Assailants, 1 Sentinel, 1 Enforcer). Their total cost to build would have been 2,715 Credits, 505 Metal, and 370 Crystal. This batch paid for development and just 5 Crystal shy of paying for the gate too (the 800 or so credits though could easily be converted into 200 or so Crystal and make it up that way, if you wanted). One more gate, for the additional cost, could be supported at this world.

Next was my Ice world (2 Enforcers, 1 Transporter, 1 Assailant). The cost to build this group would have been 2,140 Credits, 485 Metal, and 360 Crystal. The Credits and Metal could cover the development cost, but Crystal was 15 shy and there wasn't a ton of Credits. You would have to sell off 100 of the Metal, and then buy 100 Crystal to even things out. Two more gates for the additional cost could be supported here.

I had one more planet, so just did a gate there for one more sample (4 Transporters). Their worth was 1,960 Credits, 440 Metal, and 380 Crystal, enough to pay directly for the game and the development. Two more gates could be supported at this world as well, for the additional cost.

This gave an average of 2,470 Credits, 430 Metal, and 392 Crystal worth of ships per gate per wave (1,235 Credits, 215 Metal and 196 Crystal if you just scuttled the wave).

All of the battle groups summoned though would have paid for themselves, either directly, or by selling and buying from the market, and arrived around 3 minutes after the gate's completion (an additional 5 minutes has to be tacked on for each additional wave). If you only wanted to scuttle, it would take roughly twice as long (so around 7 or 8 minutes for the next batch of ships to arrive).

The total teching to Dark Armada costs a pretty penny, 8,200 Credits, 1,550 Metal, and 2,425 Crystal by my counter (this includes the Phase Tunneling, Advanced Tunneling, and both levels of Returning Armada). It would take these four gates by themselves their third wave (around 12 to 15 minutes after completion) to pay for the research. If you want to throw in the costs of the labs as well, you have to wait for another wave.

This is all going on the presumption that use only 4 gates. If these four worlds are fully developed (up to 11 gates that would be) and we use the average from the first run of each gate, each time the gates all let lose a wave, it would 27,000 credits, 4,730 Metal, and 4,317 Crystal worth of units if you actually built them.

If you scuttle them just for resources, that would still leave you enough to pay for all of the research, the labs needed to do the research, and some of the development and gates, depending on the condition of the market. Wait for the second wave and you're well in the black.

And there will be a new wave every 5 minutes. With each planet you take, more room for more gates.

It's expensive to tech to, sure. But an amazing source for ships and resources that is literally unending. If you only do it with a few gates it takes a little while to justify it's cost, but once you start piling on the gates, it gets pretty crazy.

I know this all number crunching and hypothetical you could probably adjust the averages by a good 25% up or down (maybe more 4 samples seemed like a decent sample that wouldn't take too long, but 10 or 20 might narrow it down more). But I think it still helps explain why in practice Returning Armada is as good as it is.

And this reply shows how subjective the word "quick" can be, I guess.

I would really something happen on this.
I liked most of limiting a RA to one per planet. It sounds like reducing the effect from exponential like to linear.
Do you loose the ability to build phase gates if you loose your tech buildings?
btw: what would happen if a gate is destroyed while ships are in transit? Are the lost in phase space?
Anyone know whats the critical mass to destroy a gate with bombers in one go?

Instead of nerfing i would like to see superweapon improvement on the other races. Taking over a planet with the "Lovecannon" would be a start and way stronger. 0.07 change per second max? that LOL. At least let it stack so blasting with 5 cannons takes out the planet in no time. So far this thing is easiely counterable. Or maybe phase jumps without loosing antimatter, hurray for the advent abilities.
Make the insurgency disable orbital structures for a while, like no repair bays and defense structures. Could that make it harder to counter? What with that stinking novlith. Two shoots to remove population on a defended planet. yawn. Make it blow the planet to bits, puff gone no recolonisation
Add more TEC ideas here ...


Everyone knows that vasari is late game op. Alone the tech to see all phasespace movements is a massive strategical advantage. So if you nerf RA... well maybe other things are comming up that are being demanded to be nerfed.

Id say give more to the other races. New features are yummi.

These are some nice numbers... RA pays of really quickly.
What about making the gates starting with 0 antimatter? That would give opponents more time to react.
Whats the total cost of all research and gates, id like know and see how far i can get with it to build up a "Rush" army. Hope you dont mind figuring that out, you have all the numbers allready.

Which leads me to something that i didnt like in one of Vanechkas arguments.
Something is OP if the counter is not to let the opponent get to it.. Well from some point of view this might be true. But that makes it kinda more like a oppinion not really a fact. Taking down a opponent is a acceptable counter in my opponion. If you cannot take down your opponent because the game would not support this strategy THEN its a fact in my eyes. But that is something i dont see proven yet.

I think you're simplifying my point a bit too much, but then again, I'm too tired to read through the thread once more, so I might have misspoke. To me, "something" is overpowered if the only way Player A can beat Player B is by preventing it to come into play*, and if player A doesn't have access to "something" of equal importance. i.e. the wonders of Age of Empires aren't unbalanced since they are accessible to all players. Whether or not you like that part of the game is debatable, but you can't argue against the fact that it's balanced, nor would I if the other tier 8 technologies were similarly powered, even though I admittedly don't like that idea. Some have argued that the Vasari player more or less deserve the incredible advantage Returning Armada provides, by being able to withstand TEC in the earlier phases of the game. I don't like the thought that one overpowered feature of the game warrants the existance of another. Unless, that is, as previously mentioned, that the game have been designed from the ground up with this theory in mind. I'm naturally not against that different races should have different strengths, anything else would be boring, but these strengths could be more subtle and far less pronounced (by that I mean decisive) than they are in Sins.

Even if I somehow was to concede that the term "overpowered" isn't apppliable in this specific case, I would still argue for changes to Returning Armada (and TEC trade). Fundamentally, I just think it makes for bad gameplay, that a single aspect of Player B's arsenal, dictates the overall strategy employed by player A (this train of thought naturally doesn't apply to the tactical level and unit counters). As it stands, a game between the Vasari and another race is too predictable in it's nature. Why not allow us to enjoy all the different facets of the game?



My English skills would be of a far lesser nature if I hadn't secluded myself from this socialized education and played a ton of English languaged games. Back in the good old days, I actually once wrote an essay for my English class using "u" instead of "you" throughout the entire essay... One of the reasons why I keep responding to this thread is to brush up on my English grammar, since I expect to begin studying a subject teached entirely in English. So if you've noticed any grammatical mistakes (or countless, I'm sure), please tell me.

*This assumes that player A and B are of equal skill.

Your english grammar is better than that of most of us in the United States. In fact, until you mentioned it, I had no idea English was not your first language.

I feel like a dick, since you're obviously a very intelligent and articulate individual, but:


"Teached" is one of those dirty exception to the rule things, this word does not actually exist. The appropriate verb is "taught."

Good luck in your class, and thanks for lending your brain to the thread!

I knew that! Well, apparently I didn't... Most Danes are actually pretty good at English since it's mandatory and taught (!) from the third grade. Then there's the fact that we don't synchronize the large amounts of English languaged TV shows (except kids' shows) to Danish but rather use subtitles. That simple fact actually gives us a pretty substantial advantage when it comes to English over, say, Germans. I'm just glad I'm not trying to brush up on my French, 6 years of it in school and I still can't ask for anything else than a beer... But enough off topic.

Err, sorry Vanechka, actually i figured that someone else made this statement.
It was actually JinxOfSin.
In any case, your answer sparked some thought. Equal skill? Its a kinda wishy washy term isnt it. Just like to say that i wouldnt use "equal still" like "player A can equalise player B actions and vice versa".
Well imagine this. if they are both making the best out of the planets (economy wise), one player goes into culture research and pushing to RA and the other player simply goes for war and masses a fleet. Id say the warlike player kills the other. It is just that way in believe. If one side put resources in non war machine and the other does and uses it he wins(we dont assume he sits back and let the other one build up). I think it is that simple.
Defense or not defense. A offensive player can tailor his fleet to beat a defensive player. I dont think you can put up a defense thats unbreakable by a anti defense fleet. Well all this depends on the situation again (1v1,teamVsteam, ability to rush on the map, race of opponent etc.)

This assumes a 1v1 and assuming this is a map that supports a offensive strat.
With less resources you cannot respont to a opponents fleet buildup properly. Example. The vasari builds a shiny assailant only fleet. Tell you i laught at him and build simply twice as much scouts(which i wouldnt but i still beat him with less resource cost ) or push to any other anti LRM unit. The point i am making here is that he cannot respond to your anti LRM because he doesnt have the resources while he is pushing up the tech tree. The math doesnt support it, nor does the imbalanced tech tree.

In a teamsetup this whole thing is so twisted cause of teamplay ability, individual player abilites etc. etc. etc. Which in the end does boil down to : if you can change the parameters of the environment freely you can overthrow any game balance, ( unless you had some uber AI that can recalculate the game rules realtime to balance em out depending on the enviroment , wuhaaa.


Finally to say, if you have the initiative you can beat a fleetsize wise inferior player.

Last thought. Making it more subtle ( like you said vanechka ) is probably less sensitive to changes in enviroment parameters. Anyone comment on that?

ups

Well, why don't they just limit the number of RA ships total someone can have fighting at one time. They would be replaced instantly, but they could only be so many ships (a balanced number). It seems that being able to fill up the entire supply is what makes it cheap. No one can build that fast.

Sure, it's a wishy washy term, but since I've been confronted by too many with the argument that since they've beat a Returning Armada-focused Vasari player, it isn't unbalanced, I thought I might take some kind of precaution against having to face it again. However theoretic that precaution, and everything else I'm going to say, might be



Most of what you're saying is pure logic. With regards to the settings of a particular game, they naturally affect the effect RA has implicitly. By nature, it gets easier to engage the enemy the smaller the map is, which is part of the reason why there's consensus that rushing RA isn't a viable strategy, but that's mainly due to the fact that people associate rushing RA with getting it up and running as soon as it's humanly possible.

However, an intelligent Vasari player, should realize that the best approach to winning isn't to attempt to get Returning Armada as quickly as possible, but rather to ensure his survival long enough that he can research and employ RA as the tiebreaker it is. It's all about striking a delicate balance between being able to fend off the enemy, while constantly setting resources aside with the aim of rushing to get RA up and running as soon as it's sensibly possible.

If we're looking at another wishy washy and ideal situation in which resources and skill level for both players are equal, a sensible defense is the best way to go for the Vasari player unless the map is relatively large. Troy wasn't inpenetrable nor are any Sins defense, but by utilizing repair platforms and other defensive structures, you can keep the kill ratio distinctively in your favor and thereby gain the economical breathing room required to go RA. Another advantage the defender holds is that his reinforcements by nature arrive far faster than the attacker's. But naturally, you still have to adjust your fleet composition, so it's as effective as possible against the enemy's. If you haven't gathered the intelligence to discover the incoming scout fleet while it was under construction and reacted accordingly, you don't deserve to win

Biasing it to the intelligent player, well thats still implies skill on that side and lack of skill on the other, basically a lack of brains somewhere.
Thus i dont think delicate balance is possible, its more a illusion created by the lack of skill of the other player. You have the room to survive cause the opponent cant take you down for whatever reason.
What i am thinking atm is the implication of RA coming into play if you go slowly towards it like you said. Isnt then the player that manages to get it superior to the opponent in the first place? Or, i say it again the player cant be hindered to get RA cause of a imbalance?
Given the first id say the player could win the game with or without RA. RA just finishes the opponent off.
Say the player is in advantage, although still in defense and is getting RA, he is going to win, he would have won anyway.
Say he is in peril and getting RA can he turn the game around? It think it might be worth looking at which point RA can take you out of a loosing situation. Its kinda a precondition of the RA's further effect on the game.

Wow, we're really getting finicky in our discussion, but it is interesting.

My point wasn't wasn't to limit sensible RA rushes to intelligent players, but rather to redefine what's an RA rush under the given circumstances. Nor was it my point at any time to indicated that I wasn't discussing equal skills in theoretical terms. The skill level of opposing players is something that will always dilute discussions on balance and that's why I've sought to make the discussion more theoretical in nature (it's probably getting too theoretical now...). So naturally, unless you, due to some unbelievable circumstances, are playing against someone with the exact same skill level as you, the delicate balance is an illusion. Maybe if I rearticulate and say that it's an ideal balance you should seek to maintain at all times as the Vasari, it becomes more edible? Thereby I'm not saying that you should draw out a game against an clearly inferior player until you have RA...

When you argue that the Vasari player should take to the offensive after gaining superiority by taking advantage of the benefits provided to the defensive fleet, it's important to remember that these benefits also apply the other way around. So if we're in that very, very theoretical situation that the two players are of equal skill (or even if their skill levels only approximate eachothers) the other player should most likely be able to beat back the assault by exploiting the same benifits. If he does, you've at least bought yourself some time. If not, isn't it noteworthy that even the subliminal presence of Returning Armada can be decisive by forcing the other races to attack on unfavourable terms?