Map Balance

download galaxy forge and make your own maps is ONE method

harpo

Use the in game map designer is another method.

I think most of the maps are well balanced as it is. The TEC may have an advantage in the very small 1v1s as they can Sova rush but that is about it. If for some reason you're not satisfied with them the previous suggestions are good to and they can greatly increase the replay value.

The maps aren't the problem, it's the inherently random nature of the game.  The number of extractors and militia are randomly generated for each planet at the start of the game, and slight variations in the map's layout can greatly affect the balance. 

This is most prevalent on Random Maps,hence the randomness. Other maps have certain aspects of them set, such as extractors and militia.

Okay yeah I agree about the militia part, I hate it when a planet near me has 3 HC and a bunch of other ships and the one near my opponent only has one of each. But that's all truly random, the only way you can have that advantage/disadvantage is sheer dump luck, so their isn't a lot you can do about it. (Well you could mod it out but that seems kind of over the top).

The extractors tend to even out on most maps of any size, though I guess it could be an issue in say point blank.

And Deceiver, I think he's talking about the premade maps, not the random maps.

Right but the OP is talking about all the maps, and so was I.

Oh, and yeah the militia thing does really suck. BUT I know an easy way around it, even if you've got 3 hcs and a bunch of other ships at a desert/terran 1 jump from your hw.

Send a scout ahead. All the militia will fruitlessly chase after it, as you just run it away. Send in your cap to kill off the siege frigates, then colonize* and build a couple of turrets. Viola, no fleet needed, no lost ships. Not the greatest way to do it, but hey outsmarting the AI is a piece of cake.

* This may be more difficult to do if you're using a colonizer frigate rather than a colonizer capital ship. But just be sure your frigate has plenty of AM before you jump it in so it can colonize and jump out without delay, as all the militia will target your colonizer frigate as soon as it enters the well. Luring the militia to the opposite side of the planet will give the frigate plenty of time.

Add "kill seige frigs & lrms if they're there". LRMS will take out the turrets and really it's just more sensible to take them out urself.

Neutrals are the big problem; a planet has 2-4 extractors, but a neutral well can have 0-3 extractors.  Combined with the fact that these are the most productive resource nodes by a considerable margin and also the rarest, the possibility of one side obtaining a significant advantage is quite large.

To illustrate this point, I'll presume the probability of each outcome (0,1,2, or 3 extractors) is equally likely, something I do not know for certain but only suspect.  Given that each player starts with one neutral gravity well near their home planet, there is a 40% chance that one player will have two or more neutral extractors than the other.  A difference of two neutral extractors in the early game is a game-winning advantage.  If two players were of approximately equal skill, I would consider it highly unlikely that the player who is down two neutrals will be able to win.

Actually you can build the turret, let it kill everything but the LRF, then come in with a few scouts to clean them up.  One or two LRF will take like ten minutes to actually kill a single turret. 

Right, or you can just wait til they start atacking one and build another right next to them. They aren't smart enough to move.

I my opinion this kind of map balance issues like Darvin3 describes will be neutralized by the law of large numbers. sure in one game your opponent has the advantage but in the next it's probably on your side. and over thousands of games it will just be spread evenly.

IC surely could try to make a perfectly balanced game, where all factions are equal and all maps are absolutely symmetric for all players. But that would lead to an extremely boring RTS where the fastest-clicking guy wins (like in most other RTS).

So a little randomness and a litte imbalance in SoaSE is (at least for me) the reason why this game is so much fun.

As analogy: imagine a Texas Hold em Poker game where each player gets the same pocket cards!

I'd have to disagree; having 300 games that favour you, 300 games that favour your opponent, and 400 even games is NOT good game balance.  The games that favour you don't "neutralize" the games that favour your opponent, since both cases are unfun for both parties involved.  It's no fun for me when my opponent is a disadvantaged punching bag or when I'm struggling just to survive. 

Within a single match, large numbers also don't apply.  The two big factors are neutrals and start locations.  The planets immediately surrounding your start location have a massive influence on your early game potential, which in turn has a massive influence on your late game potential.  The second issue, as I mentioned, are neutrals, which usually number no more than two gravity wells per player.

You don't need "perfect" balance, what you need is approximate balance.  The problem is, as I mentioned, it doesn't take a whole lot of extra militia or missing extractors to give one player a significant disadvantage.  A good example is cynosian rift; right next to your start location is an asteroid, an ice world, and a single random world.  If my opponent gets a terran with only 5 defenders and I get a desert with 15 or so, it's going to be nearly impossible for me to win, since he'll likely be colonizing it by the time I get a scout over there to know what's going on!

Secondly, the "fastest clicking guy" is largely a misconception.  I taught most of my friends how to play RTS, and none of them had any problem with speed.  In fact, for the most part they tried to click faster than me with disasterous results.  My first piece of advice to new RTS players is to slow down: learn to do things right, and then speed it up to a level at which you're comfortable.  Good technique will absolutely steamroll someone relying on sheer speed. The simple truth is that micromanagement is about executing tactics and strategy.  Quick execution is, of course, an advantage but it won't help you if your opponent has a superior strategy or set of tactics. 

In poker you play multiple hands; in Sins you basically get one hand and that's it.

Yes there used to be an option for resources in game options, low medium high and random. But they took it out patch after that and made all resources random.  I wish that was brought back, which shouldn't be too hard considering it was already in the game!  And add to it an option for low medium high and random militia.

The phase lanes need redoing. I'm tired of map0fucks where you are not connected to your starting roid.  It's really bad.

  It's no fun for me when my opponent is a disadvantaged punching bag or when I'm struggling just to survive. 

My position to all this balancing stuff may come from the fact that I don't play online, only onlan and I've of course played games where very different starting conditions had an effect on the early game but I've not detected a rule that this always leads to defeat.

 The planets immediately surrounding your start location have a massive influence on your early game potential, which in turn has a massive influence on your late game potential.  The second issue, as I mentioned, are neutrals, which usually number no more than two gravity wells per player.

I agree with you as long as we are talking about small maps. The larger the map the less the influence of early games struggles due to bad starting conditions in mid to late game because on larger map you simply have more options for expansion.

Secondly, the "fastest clicking guy" is largely a misconception.

Let me correct this phrase to the "fastest correct clicking guy" and I am still convinced it is valid for most (almost every RTS). I've been playing RTS for very many years and in the early game phase of most games you have to play an optimized build order as fast as you can. One wrong click or a few mph slower than your opponent gives you a big disadvantage in late game. Than in late game, consenting your opinion, it more depends on superior strategy and tactics, or very often a well used moment of suprise.

By the way how do you quote other posts in this forum? clicking the "quote" button below a post simply does nothing for me.

Try highlighting the text and then clicking quote, just like I did above. Or you can just copy and paste the text and put "quote" and "/quote" at the beginning and end surrounded by brackets.

Now the "quote" tag does the trick, my browser doesn't seem to like the "quote" button. Thanks, deceiver.

Of course skill differences between players can overcome map layout differences.  However, there comes a point where the player skill difference needs to be significant simply to overcome the map's inherent bias.  If, by some fluke, you do end up in a scenario where you're playing against an opponent of such significantly different skill and the map happens to arrange itself in a layout that neutralizes this skill difference, it might be somewhat interesting (the equivalent of a handicap).  However, this is a rarity.  More common is that someone has a disadvantaged start location and gets crushed as a result.

The AI is much more forgiving than an experienced player in multiplayer.  In fact, it's really not even comparable.  There is a certain evolutionary factor in multiplayer gaming, that players learn and acquire new techniques from superior opponents they encounter.  Those who fail to acquire these techniques successfully usually leave the online community because they simply cannot win against those who do acquire those techniques (mastery is another thing entirely...).  The result is that everyone who is left is quite solid and competent, usually being well rounded players and quite vicious.  There is still a wide range in skill, but the difference in skill is more subtle than you would expect, so even slight variations in game mechanics and balance have a massive reprocussion.

This is true to an extent, but significantly advantaged mid-game positions are quite rare.  Moreover, a strong early game position means you're able to expand faster and more effectively in the mid-game.  If the map is very large, then I can start to agree with you, but I'm not aware of any 1v1 map that's anywhere near that big.  Even on medium-sized maps it's hard to recover from a bad start, because the enemy will be one step ahead of you every step of the way.

Team games tend to even out, because the chances that everyone on a team is significantly disadvantaged or advantaged are slim.  That said, I've lost several allies in games where they begin isolated and easy prey to a two-pronged rush.  Sometimes you can't help these matters.

There are some games (Age of Empires series being a blatant example) where you do need to spend a lot of work getting the timing for your economy down pat in order to be competitive.  Sins isn't nearly on the same level as AoE in that regard, and furthermore it is actually quite lenient in terms of economic micromanagement.  It's not so much about getting things done fast as knowing how to spend your resources to balance economic growth and research. 

Thanks for the interesting disscusions. While I was busy lurking on the rest of the forum it was suggested that vasari have a huge advantage in maps with many neutrals, which makes sense. Do TEC and advent have any map conditions that favour then? Espesially 1v1?

As I said before, I think the TEC have an advantage where an enemy homeworld is adjacent to theirs. In this situation I will almost always Sova rush (make the Sova carrier your first carrier and give it the embargo ability) them and if done correctly, you will have crippled the enemy perhaps even before they colonize their first asteroid (assuming they rely on a colony cap that they would have to recall it to defend their home world). They advent on the other hand are most vulnerable in that same situation, as their LRM isn't unlocked until you have three military labs which you don't have time to build before you have to fight the enemy.

You could also say that maps with lots of terran and ice planets favor the TEC, planets with lots of deserts favor the advent, and planets with lots of volcanics favor the vasari based on their planet population upgraded techs, but I don't think its all that desisive. I also noticed that the advent tend to run out of crystal faster than the other two, so they would like maps with more crystal resources, but that could just be my play style with them.

And Darvin I know what you mean about the neutrals, on the mods I play at home I changed it so that each neutral always has at least one asteroid, but they do make a difference in multiplayer. And Astax I've never not been connected to my starting asteroid, are you sure the map maybe just didn't have starting asteroids?

YES PLEASE!!!1111

Not as strongly as the Vasari's dependence on neutrals.  As someone has already mentioned, the Sova rush becomes very powerful on small map scenarios, giving TEC a powerful economic lead over their opponents.  However, "point blank" style maps are unpopular, so we can effectively ignore them.  While short distances (~3 jumps) can occur in randomly generated scenarios, you've usually already built your first cap by the time scouts reveal this (at least on quick-start).

TEC is greatly favoured by maps with a moderately large (above average, but not massive) distance between players combined with long strings of easily accessible worlds.  This means 8-9 jumps between homeworlds, or lots of militia blocking the way, along with perfect grounds for starting a trading empire. When this combination of conditions is satisfied, TEC is actually able to reap the bonus of its 2-lab trade port (something that, IMO, is usually overrated).  These maps aren't so large as to allow Vasari or Advent time to absorb one or two extra labs to match you, but aren't small enough to enable them to rush you and punish that heavy economic investment.

Advent simply is unstoppable with about a 5-6 jump distance (few militia) with many chokes.  This is too far to stop them from reaching 3 military labs, but too close to absorb an illuminator push and little room to maneuver around their main fleet.  Illums will likely be heavily nerfed into the future and change this mechanic greatly, but as it is right now if I see an Advent player in that perfect distance (and I'm not Advent as well) my goal becomes to hole up and try to survive until an ally can help me.

It's not nearly decisive enough to make a difference.  The Vasari lack of a desert population upgrade and the TEC having a second terran population upgrade are advantages, but all the higher tier population techs cost too much and offer too little to be considered a significant advantage.

On my very first multiplayer 1v1 on a random map I was connected only to an ice planet.  It was three jumps to the nearest asteroid.