Sins Replays Part Deux

Thanks alot for these, Krath!

 

Gonna watch ASAP I have time.

Remarkable to say the least.  The nuances of 1v1 really don't translate well to bigger matchups, usually because you don't have the luxury of a semetrically balanced, or at least a semi-balanced with random maps, with your opposition on the other side to start.

 

omg i got rushed and died? impossible

 

 

THIS IS A LIE I CANNOT LOOSE!!!

 

KILL HIM FAST

 

HURRY NOW

 

DIE man die ... noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Slower speeds?  That's sacrilege!

 

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

 

and not to be an ass Klem, but the part in that replay where you go "I'm owning 3 caps, yay me" or something like that, and 3 seconds later we kill your cap, is in my top 5 moments of Sins irony, maybe top 2...who knows =P

Thanks for these- as I had asked for more 1v1 replays, I feel obliged to comment on these folie a deux, especially when they are TEC victories against Advent.

You use a two cap strategy for both of them- this seems to help greatly later when you have to siege planets.  However, in both games the Advent player throws his own caps away, and also fails to pursue yours to destroy them.  The only time Advent do pursue is against your third cap in one game, but when it is destroyed despite your repair it just raises the question why the Advent player hadn't chased your two caps earlier?  Both games are also against disciple/seeker players who only begin to use Illuminators much later and after your Kodiaks appear- which favours a two cap strategy.

The longer of the two games is against the Advent who decides against trade, this allows you a considerable credit advantage.  If you hadn't repeatedly colonised the desert only to lose a battle and have to retreat, there might have been a decisive advantage, but even as it is, along with the waste of 2 Advent caps to no useful purpose it allows you to recover from 3 straight losses in battles.  This might not be normal in 1v1..?  Having fought hard for the planet he then fails to claim it himself on two separate occasions, then abandons it to you to attack the other desert?  At the end, you've fought his fleet down to a position where you have an advantage, though no remaining eco advantage.  It's still close enough that the gg might not be automatic, though you have high level caps and he hasn't.

The second game might have been won when your aggressive use on the Akkan captured an ice on his side of the pirate base that he'd wanted to clear with a turret.  He failed to respond early enough and then lost his colony cap because of a reluctance to build repair bays, to involve his fleet in the battle.. or to use Shield Restore?  On the later 'bug' to your repair bays caused by the Disciples Steal Antimatter... the range boost to this in v1.04 from 3000 to 6000 would seem a considerable boost as its a Tier 3 tec while the TEC equivalent is Tier 4... Cobalts got only a 5000 to 6000 range boost?   If the colony cap had survived he might have been able to win the last battles, but as you were able to defeat him at his ice, it seems difficult to agree with your assessment that he might have won at your desert. 

I'm not sure that I agree that there were tiny micro logistic and tech choices that swayed both games..? Only below-average play with the loss of several Advent caps, and in one game the massive choice to be without trade coupled with the failure to follow up fleet victories, while in the other an early and very successful attack with your caps...but these are scarcely 'tiny' choices?

I cannot comment on the decisions of others players I will do my best to respond to the points your brought up.

Since the patch (the akkan colonize and carrier cap buffs) I have based the majority of my strategies around 2 caps for several reasons. The akkan colonize is the best in the game, however it sucks at killing neutrals, the sova is an extremely versatile ship early and mid game and also excels at killing neutrals. But most importantly, I hate the waste from losing your scouts or light frigs to militia whereas the caps are more of an investment that grow from clearing planets. It is a personal preference but I dont think any particular map, opponent, or matchup necessarily favors 2 caps, If i find that most of the stuff around me if light then I typically stick with one cap, but I am usually not that lucky =( And speaking directly in reference to those games, the sova really starts to lose usefulness as the game gets progresses, missile batteries are negligible, their are usually ample counters to fighters, and their is hardly anything worth embargoing. About the only things you get for late game is ionbolt.

I am confused when you say they "throw their caps away", chasing caps through jumps is a skill and sometimes despite your best efforts their is nothing you can do to save your cap. also, its easy to say he failed to get repair bays, but you must consider that they are T2 for advent so the marginal cost of 1 repairbay is pretty high especially at that point in the game, and also his goal was to pressure his opponent not to sit back and allow me to base. Really if he had gotten the repair bays and I never chased his cap with bombers you could for instance say "if he didnt get that repair bays he would have had 5 more ships which would have turned the tide" see how that works? also, if you pay close attention many of the caps I kill is due to ion bolt, its like a frog in a pot of boiling water, so I wouldnt necessarily call it poor play. What would the alternative be? never fight against an akkan unless your sure you will win decisively? if your opponents any good you wont have that option.

"losing" a battle is a pretty subjective matter in this game depending on your objective. I don't consider retreating a loss necessarily, losing a large amount of your fleet however is a different story. Also, Its good practice to not upgrade a contested planet. if you notice the 3 times we battled over that desert I lost only 1 planet upgrade, which was the first one i purchased. After I was forced to base up the volcano all my subsequent attacks were to prevent him from getting a base on my doorstep.

When I had said that "I thought I lost it" or something to that effect, I was talking about my akkan because my repair bays were being drained. I didn't think of drain antimatter at the time, as it is very underused.

In those games the trade was a deciding factor, but it is a 2 sided coin. Tradeports take on average 8-10 minutes to pay for themselves depending on length of tradeline. So if you spend half of all the money you made since the game started on tradeports and you will be essentially 10 minutes behind. Basically by the 10th minute you will be producing the first ship he produced after your first tradeport went up. under those circumstance if you are losing ground during the payback period then you've essentially thrown money away. That game pretty much exemplifies how to hit and run to bide time until your credit income is actually an advantage rather than a liability. for 90% of that game I was outnumbered 4:1. And the fact he deteriorated my credit advantage towards the end just gives creedence to the dichotomy between trade and military. He could have gotten Drone Hosts though, as the only thing I could build that was tough and effective enough to fight his armada were heavies *Shrug*.

BTW, whats your name in game DesConnor?

No. That's fun. Am I the only person who hates that Sins is getting faster?

No you are not.

I refused to play MP for the longest time simply because everyone wants to play it on maxed out speeds.  Alas, I had to bite the bullet and accept that if I were ever to have any human competition, I would have to play on the fastest settings.  I can never play my best game that way, but it's what people want to play.  It is what it is, I guess.

I just got out of a 3 and a half hour game, so I kinda don't see the argument in "Sins is getting faster".  Now, that initial rush phase of the game is one thing, but once you get past that it's a very slow-paced and strategic game.

I'll rephrase. It's quick start. I still don't like it. I still prefer no quick start, but good luck finding a game online where more than 2 people will actually play with it. People tend to think no quick start means hours added to the game. WRONG. Like maybe fifteen to 25 minutes tops.....a window during which Vasari actually plays out fairly balanced (this is a big part of why Vasari is so imbalanced now, it used to be Vasari players made up for weaker units with an early jump on neutrals, even if it was only a few neutrals. 

I like all fast. I'm not voicing slow the game down from that. I'm voicing that I don't like quick start and was surprised to see it added. It quickens the pace of early game play so much that you can ignore econ completely and just rush rush rush. I don't mind playing to this game, but it's not why I like sins.

Yeah, and it was pathetic; the way a long game dwindles down to a couple of players, and one side ultimately has a late game armada.  Ferdie kept plowing into your 2 level 7 Devestaor, Skirantra, and mass enforcer fleet only to have to rebuild his lone marauder fleet.  And I kept feeding him so I was unable to mass a descent fleet of my own.  Hate those kind of games, but in reality, we should have called it much sooner before phaseout dropped. When then it was just me and Ferdie against you his fleet was under-matched without the support of phaseouts.   You played awesome though Darvin but I think the game was more like 4 hours. 

Oh, so you were in the game too, Protoplazm?  I presume you were Ferdie's last remaining Advent ally... Cheesebrain was it?

I'd been avoiding Ferdie all game,  and I wasn't quite ready for him at the time of that big battle (hence why I lost so many caps), but as I'm sure you noticed when we next clashed I was much better prepared.  If you checked the end-game statistics, my eco was far more powerful than Ferdie's by this point and I was easily beating him in a battle of attrition.  I also had a Kostura coming online and I was intending to hit your homeworld directly.

I checked the end-game stats, by the way, the game was 3 hours 30 minutes, I can confirm.

 

By the way, the replay failed to save for me.  Do you have it?

Nope

Nope, mini'd. 

That's not all.  Vasari also got to pump assailants with just one lab, which allowed them to get the jump because TEC requires 2 and Advent 3.  But with quick start, plopping down 2 or 3 mil labs in the open takes nothing to do.  There goes the thing that balanced vasari early game

So now we are talking about rebalancing vasari around quick start, something that is an OPTION in the game, and a recently-added one at that.  This is just wrong, and it will most likely imbalance the game for "normal start" if it happens.

Normal start also requires a lot more strategy in my opinion than quick start does (but who cares about strategy?), and is a more dynamic opening to the game.  All in all, I hate quick start, but am forced to play it as you are.

 

This is off topic as hell, but: I'm sick of you bleeding vagina vasari complainers. Underpowered?....my ass! and fast speeds + no quick start would not be balancing, it would be clear favoritism for vasari. I would agree that vasari lacks a solid rush strategy that can be as difficult to defeat as TEC or advent against skilled plays (and I say SKILLED just because a SB rush is nothing more than nooby bait imo). But vasari is the only race that you can completely bumfuck yourself and still NOT lose, why is that? cuz you have the overall best colonize cap in the game (mostly due to its ability to work 100% effectively independent from your fleet, and cuz planet drain is better beyond words than the ults of the akkan or progen). But especially because you get a T2 starbase of which investing in is a crap-ton less risky than either of the other races.

I already know: someone is gonna complain that vasari is too centered around SBs, someone will also say that scouts are imba because vasari cant live without assailants, and finally someone yet will complain about vasaris lack of counters to illums.

I have answers but they'll wait for another post.

But COME ON, you really think you need several planets worth of nearly risk-free income in the form of neutrals, for that 10-15 minutes the game is slowed down, in order to actually win?...pitiful!

I am on break now so maybe I will take up vasari to show everyone whats up

....that is all.

ok Krath im just curious to your answers, How do vasari counter illums??

(I know fighters work but when the advent guy has 20 flack there isnt much that fighters can do.)

 

_|~Uber

 

ps. i do know some vasari counters to illums

Well i usualy go for a sb

 

you can go for a junsurak spam and then head on 5 carriers just to force him on flaks, once he has flaks switch on bombers

you can also go for a scoot spam with juns and some kanraks behind

 

 

i'd say the best vas can do is still enforcr

 

 

there is also the sb-overseer rush with a carrier cap

 

or you can just play sim city and choke all you can, build eco and rush

 

 

 

sry for the "they suck at this kind of rush :p"

 

i don't mean it literaly ^^ i mean my frig fact died almost last thats just weird

good idea, I will switch to TEC and you can go Vasari

_|~Uber

I like what Klem was saying. Conceptually, your goal is to force the advent to produce flak or even LFs (Sents and scouts its a good recipe for this), in either case you will be in a position to spam assailants, and repair cloud makes flak extremely in-effective against LRFs. TEC does the same thing but its even better for Vasari because if you have the carrier caps at lvl 3 your already doing what 10 hoshis can do for your fleet with no addition research. But the tradeoff is that Vas scouts are not as good as TEC scouts. Still its a tried and true counter.

i know flack works i took on and held off 2 advent illum spammers with flack and about 10 assiletns. i even manaeged to take out 2 caps.

Flack is probably the best solution but tbh i just dont like spamming flack. its fun when you get 3 skinantras but untill then you have to play defensive it is very hard to push with flack.

_|~Uber

when i go vas i usualy play like howthe when my sb rush fails, i go expand with cap (usualy a skirnantra) and spam kanrak/junsurak until i have a decent eco, then i go for subv first and enforcer if my eco is strong enough

 

sbing a choke with phase inhib is a good solution, if the other dude falls for it he'll try to find a way out of that inhib while you can eco and spam happyly