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My background:
I've been in masters 1v1 since sc2 beta. I've been playing Nexus Wars for the past 3 years and starting in 2013 I've pretty much stopped playing ladder because 1v1 Nexus Wars is more fun.
I've played about 25 1v1 NW games per week for the past 6 months. Among the regular players, I think I'm in the top 5 on the NA server.
State of the Game:
As of this writing there are about 5 active nexus wars clans, but they all play 4v4 exclusively. Although the 4v4 clans have many very good players, I have a feeling that if some of the 1v1 "regulars" teamed up, they would be better. It takes much longer to get an understanding of Nexus Wars playing 4v4.
For anyone who wants to play 1v1 just know it can take up to 20 minutes to match with someone in a public lobby (but it's typically less than 5 minutes). I only suggest becoming a 1v1 NW player if you have a couple of monitors and have other things to do while waiting for the match up.
The only known chat channel is "1v1 Nexus Wars" (started by me). It's not active.
How 1v1 Nexus Wars differs from 4v4:
You control 4 scv's, and each scv can build 1 pylon. It's important to build all 4 pylons before upgrading any of the pylons (it's more efficient to build a pylon at 175 minerals then wait for the extra income to upgrade a pylon at 250 minerals).
Each scv has 1 nuke so you have 4 total.
Only the off-colored scv can make buildings. The other 3 scv's can each make 1 pylon, nuke once, and repair or attack.
Upgrades of units are more viable early in the game (again, compared to 4v4). A build I occasionally do is going for 6 zealots in one of the lanes then getting the charge upgrade. It takes many units or a cannon to counter this, and I can sometimes sneak an extra pylon or two in while the other player deals with my chargelots. An early chargelot upgrade in 4v4 Nexus Wars doesn't work because the economy of each player is much smaller compared to the economy in 1v1. Put another way, only 1/4th of your team benefits from upgrade spending in 4v4. 100% of your team benefits from upgrade spending in 1v1.
Strategy:
The strategy used in 1v1 is similar to 4v4, with the following exceptions:
1. Always go Pylon First. If you go pylon first and your opponent goes units first, you should be able to hold without a cannon, although you may need to nuke. Your income will grow exponentially faster than his during this time though.
2. Keep an eye on income of your opponent. If both players go pylon first, you can watch the income to see if he then goes for a 2nd pylon, or goes for units. In high level games both players typically go for 2, 3, or 4 pylons before making a single unit, but you have to watch the income ticker & know what the other player is doing.
3. When you reach the end game, make many upgrade bays. If you have an end game composition with many races & armor types (like Thor/Colossus/Ultralisk/Scout/Archon), you will need at least 6 bays,
I'd appreciate any feedback on the comments above. 1v1 Nexus Wars is really really fun and I'd like to see the community continue to grow!!!
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On January 02 2014 05:14 Laertes wrote:
...I don't really see how the game can have any sort of advanced strategy whatsoever, and I'd like you to compare it to some other games "below the radar" that the popularity system fields. I personally believe every game has value, without exceptions, but because of the annoyingly competitive nature of blizzard's systems, nexus wars takes the spots of more deserving games. Truthfully, how much does nexus wars really mean to you? I personally can't see it as anything but a boring waste of time.
I suppose any form of video games could be considered a boring waste of time, so I'm not sure how to respond to that. From a theory perspective of real time strategy games, I like to think about how much of a custom game is focused on "real time" and how much is focused on "strategy". Playing ladder is something like 90% "real time" and 10% strategy. If you think that ladder is mostly strategy, then you would also have to believe that if a GM player like Bisu switched from protoss to zerg he would only be at low masters or diamond level because of all the new "strategy" he needs to learn. Unlike ladder, Nexus Wars is probably 95% strategy, 5% real time.
I have found I enjoy strategy more than real time... that's probably also why I've never liked a first person shooter game.
To your point about the popularity system, games like Desert Strike in Epic Mode are also mostly strategy, but in my opinion Desert Strike strategy consists primarily of knowing what units not to build. I think knowing what the best end game composition is, then making minor adjustments based on what the other side is doing, could result in someone being as good as the very best Desert Strike Epic Mode players. To put it another way, I think an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper could contain all the information needed for someone to be able to compete at the highest levels of Desert Strike epic mode.
1v1 Nexus Wars strategy is more complex. There is not a single build order or unit composition that can, with only minor adjustments for opponents composition, put someone at the highest level. Even when all the unit counters and statistical characteristics are well understood by both Nexus Wars players, there are many viable strategies and decisions that have to be considered to play at the highest level.
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i stopped playing nexus wars because protoss just kills everything. how can any other race stop mass carriers/archons?
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On January 02 2014 12:00 29 fps wrote:
i stopped playing nexus wars because protoss just kills everything. how can any other race stop mass carriers/archons?
All of these easily beat carrier/archon
queen/ultralisks/corruptor (with some hydra)
Immortals/scouts (with some colossus)
Viking/warhound (with some tanks & dingles)
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NW is really fun. And it requires a lot of strategy: it has specific openers, rushes, etc.
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On January 03 2014 10:41 honeybadgersc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 12:00 29 fps wrote:
i stopped playing nexus wars because protoss just kills everything. how can any other race stop mass carriers/archons? All of these easily beat carrier/archon queen/ultralisks/corruptor (with some hydra) Immortals/scouts (with some colossus) Viking/warhound (with some tanks & medivacs/dingles)
i dont deny the effectiveness of those combinations, but i just think the average player in 4v4 nexus wars sucks, so i've never seen anything that stops carrier archon.
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I'd love to see more people playing 1vs1 Nexus Wars. I mostly play 4vs4 since the wait time is nearly non-existant most of the time, but I'd probably do 1vs1 primarily if there were more players. The game is deceptively simple, so I'm writing this in hopes of convincing more players to give it a second (or even first) look.
Nexus Wars has a reputation for being a simple, dumb game where matches are won based on which team can spam the most units at the other team. Unfortunately, that is exactly how the game looks for someone who decides to try it out for a few games.
However, beneath the surface is a surprising depth that isn't always obvious, and the skill cap it quite a bit higher than you may think. New players instantly recognize that unit choice is important, even if they don't make good choices themselves, but below are some areas that even frequent players often overlook.
Economy: Resources are given to each player every 20 seconds (generally called cycles) based on the buildings they own, plus a small amount for each enemy unit you kill. Each production building increases income by an amount based on its building cost. Saving resources for more expensive units slows the player's income growth, and floating resources needlessly has an even greater effect. Upgrades and defensive cannons do not give added income, so their benefit must be weighed against the reduced potential income they cause before max income is reached.
Note: Cancelling a production building during the 5-second build time returns the full cost of the building. Salvaging a building after completion returns no resources and directly reduces income. Units produced by a building are free.
Micro: Army units can't be controlled manually, but player control is still important. The player's builder can attack enemy units (and is immune to damage). Attacking enemy units on your side of the map can make a critical difference, but it can also hurt the income of a player that misses income cycles as a result.
There are also more advanced forms of micro, such as splitting or dragging enemy armies. This is done by beginning the production of a building near the approaching army, hopefully causing them to stop and attack it, and then cancelling construction before the building completes (returns 100% of the building cost). The intent is to either split an army into smaller parts or to drag it to the other lane, which can take 6+ buildings. The difficulty here is that units will only attack production buildings when no hostile units are nearby, so depending on the skill of the player the drag can range anywhere from completely ineffective to the utter destruction of a superior enemy force.
Later in the game additional APM is required for control of hero units and constant chronoboosting of multiple upgrades.
Production Control: I feel this is possibly the biggest overlooked aspect of the game, because it is often the deciding factor in matches. In general, sending units 1 by 1 is far less effective than sending the same number of units all at once (with exceptions for units like High Templar). Nexus Wars allows players to manually stop and restart the production of individual production buildings (same process as in ladder games). There is also a global auto-start every 10 seconds, so any idle buildings will automatically start producing at the same time.
"Syncing" is the process of having all units engage the enemy at the same time. Since units can't be controlled directly, their sync is controlled by production timing and building placement. The vast majority of players that sync their units tend to set their timing and leave it, but the best players sync every wave of their units, accounting for the variety of build times and movement speeds involved so that all of the units hit the enemy army together.
"Holding" is intentionally stopping all production, which takes some effort due to the 10-second auto-start. The primary reason players do this is because units from one team tend to group up into an increasingly large wave as they push across the map as the ones in front stop to attack hostile forces they encounter. Assuming one team defeats a wave that reaches their base, it usually results in the creation of their own wave pushing back toward the other base. By holding production at an appropriate time (usually near the time when your own wave reaches the enemy base) you leave no stream of units behind your push that the enemy can use to create their own return wave. Once your wave is dead the enemy units can walk across the map with no resistance, stretching out into a thin line due to different move speeds. With proper timing, that stretched stream of units will run into a fully sync'd army spawning just as they reach your base, completely nullifying the enemy's push and creating yet another wave for you.
There is much more to this game that what is listed here (mid lane, heroes, walling, etc), but my main point is that it isn't the herp derp spam contest that many players seem to believe it is. Yes, there are bad players as with most anything on arcade, but the balance and depth of the Nexus Wars is far greater than most of its players are even aware of. Playing against the good players is another level of complexity entirely.
Hope to see you on the battlefield. =)
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My Battle.net character name is Soop but apparently it's already been claimed on these forums. Also, I have much respect for Honeybadger - easily one of the best I've seen on 1v1.
Anyway, here are my tips for everyone:
1 - If you lose, watch the replay. Know why you lost, why the opponent won, and learn from your mistakes.
2 - Use control groups. SCVs, pylons, upgrades, the nexus, your middle buildings, your heroes, everything works much better if you use control groups.
3 - Leverage defender's advantage. Early game, SCVs with the correct micro can handle pretty much anything. If the situation allows, I will hold my production buildings until the enemy is on my ramp. An early game lead usually snowballs.
4 - Place your buildings in purposeful, strategic locations. My early game buildings go directly next to the nexus (see 3) and I build in columns so that the units come out in ranks. The furthest back two columns are reserved for air, and power units go on the middle.
Hopefully I can get some more worthy opponents. I learned Nexus 1v1 through my replays and in my opinion, that's all you need.
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to be honest, the main problem with nexus wars is there is no forum, no groups, no way for people to gather to make a community.
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I agree with you SBWildFire. Many of the good 4v4 NW players don't like 1v1. It's really a different game.
I've been using "1v1 Nexus Wars" chat channel. I also have about 20 people on my friends list that are good.
I've run into three GM's while doing public games (at least one was due to this TL thread). They were all good. Soop's probably the best player on the NA server though.
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Nexus Wars is a broken map. Don't believe me? Watch this video explaining you how to trap your units until you get an army.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On November 11 2014 14:39 MeesturViet wrote:Nexus Wars is a broken map. Don't believe me? Watch this video explaining you how to trap your units until you get an army. + Show Spoiler +
You do realize that over the course of the life of Nexus Wars that there have been my bug abuses like this one that have been fixed or modified in some way right? Caging units in some way has been around for over two years. It's really not one of the more game breaking bugs.
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On November 11 2014 14:39 MeesturViet wrote:Nexus Wars is a broken map. Don't believe me? Watch this video explaining you how to trap your units until you get an army. + Show Spoiler +
Glitches like that don't really impact 1v1 nexus wars. They have also been fixed by lilman (I just checked and as of November 2014 the bug in the youtube link no longer works).
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EPT
