On February 16 2010 05:42 Chill wrote: Any chance of making every other unit switch? Or put in a randomizer than chances as the game progresses? Because last time I played there was the issue that units can only be created, never die.
Yeah, in bughouse you start with a chessboard each, and that's it. You can't add more units to the game like in BW. Was this a gameplay issue (game never ends, becomes too crowded, etc.) or an engine issue (engine bogs down)? Or a problem for another reason?
The closest thing I can come up with to a "solution" for this is to have more islands in the no-man's-land, with crystals/eggs/whatever. Every time you get a unit transferred to you, lose a thingy. No more thingies -> no more units. That would put a hard cap on transfers. None too elegant, however. You could get slightly more complex, where every time your opponent gets a transfer you get a crystal back (in effect, one of theirs becomes yours) which would allow transfers forever, but you could never have received more than X units more than your opponent. Not sure that's better.
On February 15 2010 02:06 Chef wrote: He uses 'give units to player' and an island in the middle of the map to transfer units I think. So if player 1 lost a marine with stim upgraded, a marine is created for player 1 on that island, then given control to player 3 (player 1's ally's opponent), then moved to the civilian.
Mmhmm correct
And yeah, some unit values are wrong
Haven't bothered to fix it yet but it's a simple fix
Do you have the latest version of your edition of the map? The one in this thread doesn't seem to have those triggers.
--oberon
LOL I don't have the newest version of the one that I made anymore
I think we need to be clear and analytical in our solution or else we end up making modifications that don't solve our problem.
First, let's agree on the problem. For me, it's that turtling players (mostly Terran) act as a black hole - all the units move around between players until they reach the turtle. In doing this he becomes ridiculously strong despite giving up substantial map control and resources to his opponent.
Also, we should consider that a turtle doesn't aid his partner; however, similarly, he doesn't hurt him since he isn't losing units. In trading armies, the turtle will come out ahead, benefitting him partner moreso than his partern's opponent.
So let's look at some solutions that favour an active player over a passive one. I'd say for now we can just throw out an many ideas as possible and then identify the imbalances afterwards.
#1 Invicible Civilian and Tandem Control (mikeymoo) - Don't automatically place units are the Civilian. Instead, have a beacon/switch that places all the waiting tandem units at the Civilian, allowing "recalls" of sorts, favouring an active army over a passive one.
#2 Control Points - Make areas of the map do something in relation to the tandem units. For example, one on each side and two in the middle. If you control (have a unit in) all 4, you get every tandem unit sent to you. If you control only 1, you would get every 4th unit sent to you. This punishese turtlers since their reinforcements come much slower.
#3 Money Control Points - Same as #3 but instead have some monetary bonus every second to simulate the resources you would get if you played a turtler in a real 1v1. Bonuses would have to change over time, so controlling the middle at 2:00 would give you 1/0 per second, whereas controlling the middle at 20:00 would give you 25/15 per second.
#4 Tandem lifespan - If you haven't shipped X value of units to your partner in Y amount of time, you lose units. Would have to continue to add up. I don't like this because if there's an epic long game with only 12 Zerglings and 2 Mutalisks left, then suddenly the 2 Mutas die because they aren't sending units and the game is over. Could be tweeked somehow.
I can do all of those without a problem. #4 will be tricky as fuck since I used hyper triggers and therefore can't use wait commands.
So what I'm getting from this is turtling is imbalanced and needs to be nerfed somehow.
For number 2 and 3, what if the T player turtles right at the control points and you're unable to break it? Then they get all the advantages like increase spawn rate and money rate. That will make it impossible to break the turtle no matter how good you are.
On February 17 2010 08:15 Chill wrote: I think we need to be clear and analytical in our solution or else we end up making modifications that don't solve our problem.
First, let's agree on the problem. For me, it's that turtling players (mostly Terran) act as a black hole - all the units move around between players until they reach the turtle. In doing this he becomes ridiculously strong despite giving up substantial map control and resources to his opponent.
Also, we should consider that a turtle doesn't aid his partner; however, similarly, he doesn't hurt him since he isn't losing units. In trading armies, the turtle will come out ahead, benefitting him partner moreso than his partern's opponent.
So let's look at some solutions that favour an active player over a passive one. I'd say for now we can just throw out an many ideas as possible and then identify the imbalances afterwards.
#1 Invicible Civilian and Tandem Control (mikeymoo) - Don't automatically place units are the Civilian. Instead, have a beacon/switch that places all the waiting tandem units at the Civilian, allowing "recalls" of sorts, favouring an active army over a passive one.
#2 Control Points - Make areas of the map do something in relation to the tandem units. For example, one on each side and two in the middle. If you control (have a unit in) all 4, you get every tandem unit sent to you. If you control only 1, you would get every 4th unit sent to you. This punishese turtlers since their reinforcements come much slower.
#3 Money Control Points - Same as #3 but instead have some monetary bonus every second to simulate the resources you would get if you played a turtler in a real 1v1. Bonuses would have to change over time, so controlling the middle at 2:00 would give you 1/0 per second, whereas controlling the middle at 20:00 would give you 25/15 per second.
#4 Tandem lifespan - If you haven't shipped X value of units to your partner in Y amount of time, you lose units. Would have to continue to add up. I don't like this because if there's an epic long game with only 12 Zerglings and 2 Mutalisks left, then suddenly the 2 Mutas die because they aren't sending units and the game is over. Could be tweeked somehow.
Okok, comment or add more solutions please!
What do you think of Tandem units ceasing to transfer when a player has 100+ supply? That means a turtle will quickly lose his advantage and map control becomes important again.
[18:31] Ed: I think stopping units from transfering after like 100 supply fixes chills problem completely [18:31] Michael: but then it's like war3. [18:32] Michael: and takes away from the spirit of the game [18:32] Michael: i think chill said [18:32] Michael: "but i don't like games with set phases" [18:32] Ed: oh [18:32] Ed: I don't understand how that's like war3, but I see the point [18:32] Michael: upkeep [18:32] Ed: yet sc is technically already a game of phases [18:33] Ed: oh [18:33] Ed: you mean like [18:33] Ed: it'd be lame if player purposely kept below 100 supply to take advantage of tandem? [18:33] Michael: yeah but the rules change [18:33] Michael: yes [18:33] Ed: that would reward aggressive play for sure [18:33] Ed: which I think is exactly what we kind of want though [18:33] Ed: lol [18:33] Ed: but you couldn't stay at that point [18:33] Ed: forever
On February 17 2010 08:15 Chill wrote: I think we need to be clear and analytical in our solution or else we end up making modifications that don't solve our problem.
First, let's agree on the problem. For me, it's that turtling players (mostly Terran) act as a black hole - all the units move around between players until they reach the turtle. In doing this he becomes ridiculously strong despite giving up substantial map control and resources to his opponent.
Also, we should consider that a turtle doesn't aid his partner; however, similarly, he doesn't hurt him since he isn't losing units. In trading armies, the turtle will come out ahead, benefitting him partner moreso than his partern's opponent.
So let's look at some solutions that favour an active player over a passive one. I'd say for now we can just throw out an many ideas as possible and then identify the imbalances afterwards.
#1 Invicible Civilian and Tandem Control (mikeymoo) - Don't automatically place units are the Civilian. Instead, have a beacon/switch that places all the waiting tandem units at the Civilian, allowing "recalls" of sorts, favouring an active army over a passive one.
#2 Control Points - Make areas of the map do something in relation to the tandem units. For example, one on each side and two in the middle. If you control (have a unit in) all 4, you get every tandem unit sent to you. If you control only 1, you would get every 4th unit sent to you. This punishese turtlers since their reinforcements come much slower.
#3 Money Control Points - Same as #3 but instead have some monetary bonus every second to simulate the resources you would get if you played a turtler in a real 1v1. Bonuses would have to change over time, so controlling the middle at 2:00 would give you 1/0 per second, whereas controlling the middle at 20:00 would give you 25/15 per second.
#4 Tandem lifespan - If you haven't shipped X value of units to your partner in Y amount of time, you lose units. Would have to continue to add up. I don't like this because if there's an epic long game with only 12 Zerglings and 2 Mutalisks left, then suddenly the 2 Mutas die because they aren't sending units and the game is over. Could be tweeked somehow.
Okok, comment or add more solutions please!
why don't you just make bases run dry quickly, and then scatter more across the map? this way it's harder to sit on one base doing nothing/be a black hole fatass.
There's no food calculator though. The best thing I can think of is use the built in unit score in BW and have a cap on that. Anything above and it will stop transfering.
That would actually help for static D too, but I'm afraid that it would make low econ strangely more viable. Not sure if that's a bad thing. At least score is ambiguous enough that it's hard to plan for so players will have a hard time getting abusive with it.
Making it transfer every other unit just about solves every one of our problems; the number of units in-game is no longer monotonically increasing, and it gets rid of luck-based complaints.
Well I guess drastically lowering the value of each expansion and making more of them is the only way to force players to keep moving and taking expos. I worry that this makes tandem very zerg favoured, but maybe because of unit transfer it won't really be so much (since zerg lose so many units anyway and end up helping their allies opponent a lot).
Loss of map control just needs to be made a big enough disadvantage that a player who turtles won't be able to make an army capable of defending.
I really don't like beacons though.. I think that takes too much of the fun out of it, and I want the tandem mechanic to be automated. I guess if we did have a beacon, a good solution would be that you can only get tandem units once a minute... that is once you transfer, there's a minute long cooldown.. maybe 2 minutes... But then I still think that's lame.
i can do the triggers to make it heros... so easy..
not all units have heroes, and again, heroes come with upgrades so it's not a good solution.
Making it transfer every other unit just about solves every one of our problems; the number of units in-game is no longer monotonically increasing, and it gets rid of luck-based complaints.
How does that solve turtling? It doesn't really solve luck either. If I'm microing I have to think about how my army can survive, not "I'm gonna kill a ling that won't count, and then the next unit I'll kill is this lurker so it will count!"
I wouldn't really know how to solve it in a way I like without score cap. I've thought about it awhile but it's just too much for my brain
On February 17 2010 09:23 Chef wrote: How does that solve turtling? It doesn't really solve luck either. If I'm microing I have to think about how my army can survive, not "I'm gonna kill a ling that won't count, and then the next unit I'll kill is this lurker so it will count!"
It will be more like if you kill one ling, it won't count, but the second ling won't. If you kill a ling and a lurker, both won't count. But if you kill another ling and another lurker, they both will.
How does that solve turtling? It doesn't really solve luck either. If I'm microing I have to think about how my army can survive, not "I'm gonna kill a ling that won't count, and then the next unit I'll kill is this lurker so it will count!"
I wouldn't really know how to solve it in a way I like without score cap. I've thought about it awhile but it's just too much for my brain
Just make the death count condition 2 instead of 1...
Also: If you can't break a turtle of any race, you're either D- or E.
1. Zerg has extremely mobile air armies, dark swarm, and PLAGUUUUUUUUUU to render terran mech lines useless. Turtling with bio is just retarded. 2. If you played TvT seriously, you know how to break tank lines. 3. Protoss can break turtles so easily... -Dweb + speedlot/goon push (dweb cast range = 9, charon-boosted goliath attack = 8) -Stasis field (cast range 9) -RECALL -Zealot bombs -Reavers