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Hey everyone, now I may be just a simple college freshman, but I love game theory in microecon. as of right now. The only real example we've encountered are Nash Equilibriums. I'll skip some background and go straight to my point. In many commentaries I see people debating whether or not to get Banshees and rush the other player in TvT. Of course the other player usually responds with Vikings. Now this made me think, hey, hard counters can be applied in a Nash Equilibrium. This is when you point out the choices made, generally by two people, and see how much benefit is possible in charts.
![[image loading]](http://i41.tinypic.com/xqb8yq.jpg)
I will now explain my pathetic chart above. Players 1 and 2 have two options, building Vikings or Banshees. I kept this as simple as possible as to try and make a point. Please do not spam me about externalities and the possibility of simply saving units, I wanted to analyze decision making in a limited but applicable environment. To work a Nash Equilibrium, you simply choose the options with the most benefit according to the other players choice. For example, Player 1 chooses Banshees, now Player 2 can either build Vikings or Banshees, I put the benefit for building Vikings against Vikings as a 1 to represent that usually both players just harass each others Vikings, no real mineral diving or anything. The 2nd choice would be he builds Banshees after seeing Vikings, this gives him 0 benefit because the Vikings generally counter Banshees quite easily. The same thought process is given to the other player and dashes are prescribed to the most optimal choice in each situation. The block that has two dashes is the Nash Equilibrium. In this case, building Vikings is the dominant strategy. This is a bit of meta-gaming so of course other factors can come into play, but when I saw KawaiiRice faceoff in the HDH tourney, I couldn't help but wonder, why would anyone build banshees in this situation? Any thoughts or comments would be nice. I really just made this because I was somewhat bored and stressed because of finals, starcraft seems to help with that. If anyone is confused about the process of choosing the best choice, I'll be happy to reiterate.
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It is nice to apply science and skills like that towards RTS and SC, but the players that do usually are not getting better when they can think about it so much more easily.
Vikings are air to air, banshees are not. Therefore whoever builds vikings first instead of banshees has an advantage and will try to maintain it. TvT is like this a lot.
I said basically all of your high science in a short little snippet. It is not good to overanalyze decisions that can be kept simple and are simple.
sometimes there is no intriguing or massive science behind why players do things.
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![[image loading]](http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/6010/312414.jpg)
hf
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On April 28 2010 05:58 avilo wrote:
It is nice to apply science and skills like that towards RTS and SC, but the players that do usually are not getting better when they can think about it so much more easily.
Vikings are air to air, banshees are not. Therefore whoever builds vikings first instead of banshees has an advantage and will try to maintain it. TvT is like this a lot.
I said basically all of your high science in a short little snippet. It is not good to overanalyze decisions that can be kept simple and are simple.
sometimes there is no intriguing or massive science behind why players do things.
This is true, I just felt like sharing.
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I read the thread title and all I could think of was John Nash doing some freaky codebreaking thing, maphacking, then pushing his desk out the window and deciding to play go instead.
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On April 28 2010 06:01 paper wrote:hf
+1
This is the true chart. Very complicated, especially when you add in ground unit choices.
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I think you have an interesting start, but there is actually a lot of analysis with randomization in game theory. Rock paper scissors, island war, or other simple randomization games would be more realistic bases for formal models about starcraft.
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Cloak and raven usually don't come until later. These tables are used for blind decisions, but I do agree that vikings will be the the standard in the matchup. I like going marauders for defense, then a viking, or more, depending on their banshee and viking count, then tanks tanks tanks. I like tanks and vikings in the end game.
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And what happens when they mass marauders that do 20 dmg vs your vikings?
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Calgary25980 Posts
This is oversimplified to the point of uselessness. It's like comparing player 2 has the option of Scourge or Mutalisks and then arguing that Player 1 should go Corsairs since they rape them both.
Like common sense and your question "Why would anyone go banshees?" should dictate that you add a column called NEITHER that bashees beat. I don't understand how you didn't consider this.
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If you start cloak the same time as you start making a banshee, it's finished what... 30 seconds after that banshee is made? Then you force your opponent to have to use scans over mules then build a raven, etc, etc.
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On April 28 2010 07:13 Creationism wrote:
And what happens when they mass marauders that do 20 dmg vs your vikings?
The viking man gets banshees to kill the rauders? 
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On April 28 2010 07:19 Chill wrote:
This is oversimplified to the point of uselessness. It's like comparing player 2 has the option of Scourge or Mutalisks and then arguing that Player 1 should go Corsairs since they rape them both.
Like common sense and your question "Why would anyone go banshees?" should dictate that you add a column called NEITHER that bashees beat. I don't understand how you didn't consider this.
Let's stay on topic please. This discussion is about the choice between rock and scissors. If you'd like to discuss paper, maybe you should start a new thread.
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Hold up. We actually do need a Neither column. I have a nice background in game theory under biological conditions which SC arguably mimics. In fact, LzGamer actually has shown this nicely in a number of his games and I would argue is why he has had solid TvT success. Without a Neither column, you can't actually generate a real equilibrium equation. The logic goes like this:
If I go Banshees and he goes no air, my Banshees increase in value.
If I go Banshees and he goes Banshees, we are at least even.
If I go Banshees and he goes Vikings, my Banshees lose value.
If I go Vikings and he goes no air, my Vikings have the same value.
If I go Vikings and he goes Banshees, my Vikings increase in value.
If I go Vikings and he goes Vikings, my Vikings have the same value.
Now this can be expanded for Cloak, Ravens, etc/ But the principle is very good. The incentive for Banshees is that it can seriously increase the chance to win the game if he chooses nothing. The incentive for Vikings is that they will never not be okay.
I'll post more later on this theory.
EDIT:
So here is what Lzgamer did to great success against CauthonLuck (I think?) a while ago. On Steppes of War, both players did a standard 10 Depot, 12 Rax, 14 Refinery, 15 Orbital + Marine and killed each others scout. So now both players are in the dark (this is before Marauders lost the innate slowing).
CL and LZ each think:
If I get a Reaper and he goes Marines, my Reaper increases in value.
If I get a Reaper and he goes Reaper, we are at least even.
If I get a Reaper and he goes Marauder, my Reaper loses in value.
If I get a Marauder and he goes Marines, my Marauder has the same value
If I get a Marauder and he goes Reaper, my Marauder increases in value.
If I get a Marauder and he goes Marauder, my Marauder has the same value.
Now, if you consider each of your opponent's responses equally likely, you just evaluate the sum of scenarios 1 and 3 for Reapers versus 2 for Marauders. CL decides to go Reapers, LZ goes Marauders, LZ comes out ahead in investment.
The players continue to tech almost identically and they reach the expanded Starport decision tree, ie Vikings vs Banshees w/o cloak vs Banshees w/ cloak vs Ravens. CL is behind because of his investment in Reapers and goes Banshees w/o cloak. LZ goes 1 Raven into Vikings, stops the Banshees and 1 tank pushes into CL's base and wins. There were only 3 skirmishes, Marauder vs Reaper, Viking vs Banshee, army vs army.
Now, the reason this is valuable is through assigning probabilities to each decision and relative point values. Then you simply do a statistical crunch via trials and what comes out is what you should do, at a given point, without any extra information. This analysis only improves with more information.
For example, if you know you are superior to your opponent in a long game, the likelihood of him going for a possibly hugely beneficial move, like fast Reapers or Banshees, probably increases. Even if that weren't the case, by taking pathways that involve less risk, you prevent any simple BO disadvantages, such as Reapers vs slow-Marauders, or Vikings vs Banshees.
Discuss.
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This comment will probably look trollish, but please, bear some thought to it.
For starters, game theory is applicable for huge processes, it will give you tools to analyze the best dominant strategy, etc...
in SC2 we are not interested in huge dominant strategies. This game doesn't have 5 years of stable meta-game, it hasn't even been released yet! What we are interested, is in individual games.
Also, to "balance a (real) game" is to make it so that applying "Game" Theory into it will give us no useful info.
the "game" in "game theory" is not the same "game" as in "video-game", so don't.
We'll get MUCH more info through empirical tests. There's WAY too much noise and game design here for game theory to bear any usefulness.
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You are dead wrong. Allow me to elaborate
The "game" in game theory refers to the use of creating simple "games" to represent phenomena. In this case, we are making a "game" in choosing tech routes. This is perfectly acceptable. In my research, we used "games" of bacteria deciding to replicate versus increase their innate defenses. They are the same scenario.
Dominant strategy only refers to, as you play an infinite number of games, what offers the best success rate. This informs current decisions by showing what should happen if you play enough. Game theory actually shows application to single instance events, ie the Prisoner's Dilemma, among 82,000 other applications that are all well-documented.
Complex game theory has successfully modeled living organisms. This is a game with a finite number of interactions, where all variables can be known and even quantified. If game theory works when we don't know everything, you are obviously wrong that is not useful here. See my example above.
If you have no idea what you are talking about, then stop.
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Thanks Sleight, I really enjoyed your responses to my post. You really discussed well on the neither option which has started some of my thinking again.
I see the point that my example could be recalled as useless, but I never told anyone to apply it to their games or their strategies. I just thought it was one example where I thought of something "cute". While that may argue that it is even more useless, I don't mind if it is, it was simply something thought in passing. Also Chill, that is not the same example because the options for Corsair vs. Scourge/Muta, is unlike Vikings and Banshees. I didn't consider a neither option because I'm generally caught up in the base of my ideas and don't think about expanding them till later.
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Those equations don't really take scouting into account. Scouting will render many of the If > then statements useless. I'd like to see common scouting opportunities worked into a comprehensive If > then tree of reasoning.. That would be awesome.
Another problem is it considers each of the 3 options marine / marauder / reaper equally likely. But in order to make a good calculation you'd have to have a massive web of reasoning describing all aspects of the matchup which you then ascertained probabilities for each action from, and that web would have to include not only unit compositions and scouting, but map features as well. Constructing such a complicated web for even one matchup would probably take like a month.
The problem with using a simple scenario is it doesn't acknowledge the actual factors which determine choices made; it merely delegates these explanations to probability. So on Desert Oasis it might be that reapers are the better choice 100 percent of the time, but you may still see them as 20 percent likely; and then you'd play 4 games on different maps and your suspicions would be confirmed.
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Starcraft is zero sum, so it doesn't make sense that in one box your payoffs are (1,1) and the other (2,2). You can't have an option that's better for both players.
Unless of course you are modeling some utility that is not chance of winning, like fun or personal improvement or something, but that doesn't seem like the case.
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On April 28 2010 08:01 Sleight wrote:
If I go Banshees and he goes no air, my Banshees increase in value.
If I go Banshees and he goes Banshees, we are at least even.
If I go Banshees and he goes Vikings, my Banshees lose value.
If I go Vikings and he goes no air, my Vikings have the same value.
If I go Vikings and he goes Banshees, my Vikings increase in value.
If I go Vikings and he goes Vikings, my Vikings have the same value.
Discuss.
Shouldn't it be:
[B1]: If I go Banshees and he goes no anti-air, my Banshees increase in value.
[B2]: If I go Banshees and he goes Banshees, we are at least even.
[B3]: If I go Banshees and he goes Vikings, my Banshees lose value.
[V1]: If I go Vikings and he goes no air, my Vikings lose value.
[V2]: If I go Vikings and he goes Banshees, my Vikings increase in value.
[V3]: If I go Vikings and he goes Vikings, my Vikings have the same value.
The next step would be quantifying the value loss-gains.
[B1] is extremely high value, since banshees with no anti-air will rape. At the very least, you might count ~50% of opponents current SCV's in this, assuming the opponent eventually gets some AA before all of his SCV's are raped. An SCV's value is 50 mins + SCV production time + lost mining time.
[B2], by definition is zero.
[B3] should be expressed in terms of the cost of both the banshees in min/gas, as well as time lost for tech lab and time lost due to banshee building.
[V1]: This is not a complete loss of the min/gas value + build time of vikings since Vikings can still land and harass and scout.
[V2]: The min/gas/time cost of opponents' expected losses should be included.
[V3]: By definition, gain-loss is zero.
In the SCV vs. mule thread, someone mentioned that we need a time-value of money calculation. We need it here, too. Looks like it's time for this to be tackled.
This analysis can be done excluding the time-lost, but it wouldn't be fully accurate. It would, however be a 60-80% complete picture, given the simple limitations of the scenario (Viking vs. Banshee).
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On April 28 2010 07:28 Kantutan wrote:
If you start cloak the same time as you start making a banshee, it's finished what... 30 seconds after that banshee is made? Then you force your opponent to have to use scans over mules then build a raven, etc, etc.
Banshee build time=60 seconds
Cloak research=110 seconds
Viking build time=42 seconds (and Reactor-able, and cheaper on gas.)
Looking at this, one might not ask, why not just open with Banshees and Vikings? 1 techlab starport and 1 reactor port.
I think this might be safe just in the context of this particular decision matrix, but IMO you may not get enough Banshees out to beat any kind of ground-based Marine/Tank/(Turret) push.
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Wow. As an econ senior, I can ALREADY tell you you've made 3 pretty ridiculous assumptions.
1. No other units exist (there obviously are)
2. It's a game of perfect information (it isn't)
3. You randomly assigned values to the outcomes of the game. (damages will be different every match)
Take an actual game theory course please, then come back.
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lol I see ECO TAs teaching 1st year ECO student here.
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Nivra:
I appreciate your criticisms. For [B1] I would argue that non-turrets/vikings really don't pose that much of a threat to Banshees at the juncture of decision making we are discussing. For [V1], vikings are quite good at harassing mineral lines and being ground units, so they can never be worse than what they come out at, in my opinion.
I think the proper way to do this would in fact be to run the expanded simulation of Vikings vs Banshees vs Banshees w/ cloak vs 1 raven into vikings and see what we get. Right now, there are just few ground units that seem to offer anything relevant to the air battles, that I think this simplification will suffice.
ZapRoffo:
While SC is zero sum per se, game theory payoffs don't operate in the same way, particularly because the game doesn't end once you choose Viking and he chooses Banshees. By assigning weighted points for a possible outcome, you can predict what role it will play in a game overall. If we can decide upon the strength of a unit in different scenarios, SC can be boiled down to calculating all the relevant values up and comparing them.
Cartoonx:
There is some truth in that, but not for our purposes. We are trying to make informed pre-emptive decisions regarding basic strategies a matchup revolves around. The purpose is to say, all other things being equal, how should I approach the use of air units? What takes skills is understanding that a) things will rarely be equal and b) properly accounting for that to modify your decision making paradigms. Thus, we don't need to work through all the variants, just the key principles of what is critical to each decision, and consider them in real time as needed. As I mentioned explicitly in my post, these three things are NOT of equal value, which is where actual playing comes in.
EDIT:
Sadistx:
Sorry chump, the use of game theory in economics is more recent than its use in most other fields. In fact, game theory offers some of the weakest success in properly predictive economic models. The most success occurs under biological scenarios. Speaking from three years of active research, I can safely say, simplifying assumptions are the manner in which you approach a problem. The way in which to improve the model is to assume the simplest case and then build up as data becomes available. Stop trolling.
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Sleight,
3 years of research means you are in graduate school at best, or just starting. The other poster is a senior, which means he's not even in graduate school. Both of you need to drop the personal credentials war and just discuss the topic at hand imo 
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I realize that you're trying to break this down in a formulaic way, but I feel that you're oversimplifying something that is, in general, a bad line of strategy.
Pardon my bad manners, but KawaiiRice played poorly and mindlessly, there's just no other way to look at it. His early Starport was scouted, giving his opponent ample time to counter it, yet he commited to it. Twice. A Banshee rush is like a Wraith rush in Starcraft 1. Against a competent opponent, it won't work without the element of surprise. In fact, it's a colossal loss to the player doing it if it's at all countered or stopped. The issue is as simple as that. KawaiiRice showed no adaptability beyond a static strategy he had memorized, and embarassingly, he commited to it in his second game as well, with even worse results than the first.
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? I just can't wrap my head around people's lack of solid builds or drive to formulate solid builds. Terran players will be playing like this once they stop getting so wrapped up in this one-base all-in mentality. It's the equivalent of what Day9 used to talk about when he began his career; he used to do lurker drops on his enemies, and one day, it stopped working when, gasp, he ran into a few turrets, and he had no strategy, he didn't know what to do. The same holds true for most "top" Terran players today in regards to air tactics, as is evidenced by KawaiiRice, unfortunately.
I apologize if I'm missing the point of the more precise analysis you were trying to make with this thread, but I can't help but feel that people are missing the bigger picture here, and that this type of analysis simply isn't necessary.
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terran air mechanics is real simple. if enemy goes banshee, you have no other choices but to go air too, i.e. vikings. mass thor wont do well against mass banshee in late game (try this if you dont agree)
the key to dominate TvT is to make the right amount of vikings. if you have too many vikings and enemy switches to pure ground, you are done. if you mass ground units i.e. tanks+marauders plus a few but insufficient vikings and enemy goes mass air (vikings+banshees), you are in danger, too. banshee kill ground units as fast as vikings kill banshees. resourced used in both build? equal.
best way is to keep a reactor-port just for quick transition and check out his unit combination every now and then. cos in TvT surprise is fatal.
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On April 28 2010 05:58 avilo wrote:
sometimes there is no intriguing or massive science behind why players do things.
... and having the "correct counter unit" doesnt automatically make you win. Playing skill (scouting the Banshee AND controlling your Vikings) is required too to be effective.
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I am a COLLEGE STUDENT, hold the applause, and I'm here to say that game theory has nothing to do with anything, especially games.
Genetic algorithms will solve everything anyway. EVERYTHING.
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On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
I realize that you're trying to break this down in a formulaic way, but I feel that you're oversimplifying something that is, in general, a bad line of strategy.
Pardon my bad manners, but KawaiiRice played poorly and mindlessly, there's just no other way to look at it. His early Starport was scouted, giving his opponent ample time to counter it, yet he commited to it. Twice. A Banshee rush is like a Wraith rush in Starcraft 1. Against a competent opponent, it won't work without the element of surprise. In fact, it's a colossal loss to the player doing it if it's at all countered or stopped. The issue is as simple as that. KawaiiRice showed no adaptability beyond a static strategy he had memorized, and embarassingly, he commited to it in his second game as well, with even worse results than the first.
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? I just can't wrap my head around people's lack of solid builds or drive to formulate solid builds. Terran players will be playing like this once they stop getting so wrapped up in this one-base all-in mentality. It's the equivalent of what Day9 used to talk about when he began his career; he used to do lurker drops on his enemies, and one day, it stopped working when, gasp, he ran into a few turrets, and he had no strategy, he didn't know what to do. The same holds true for most "top" Terran players today in regards to air tactics, as is evidenced by KawaiiRice, unfortunately.
I apologize if I'm missing the point of the more precise analysis you were trying to make with this thread, but I can't help but feel that people are missing the bigger picture here, and that this type of analysis simply isn't necessary.
If your opponent goes banshee vikings, you're stuck in your base unless you want landed vikings to demolish your towers and let the banshees in.
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I'M THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND I HAVE 100 NOBEL PEACE PRIZES
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United States33360 Posts
I've never seen a useful application of game theory on a video game forum ;p
Here's some advice from a former econ major: If you learn econ well (in undergrad), the biggest thing you'll learn is how LITTLE you know, and how silly it is to try and apply your rudimentary theoretical knowledge to real life things  . But it will get you a job easier than art history ^_^
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On April 28 2010 15:19 Waxangel wrote:I've never seen a useful application of game theory on a video game forum ;p Here's some advice from a former econ major: If you learn econ well (in undergrad), the biggest thing you'll learn is how LITTLE you know, and how silly it is to try and apply your rudimentary theoretical knowledge to real life things . But it will get you a job easier than art history ^_^
This is the truth, basically, although it improves your thinking skills and gets you thinking by default in terms of opportunity costs which is a pretty valuable concept that lots of non-econ people just totally botch.
Although I did take one seminar course where we just analyzed the shit out of data about recessions, now I know quite a lot of patterns behind that.
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On April 28 2010 15:13 Odge wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
I realize that you're trying to break this down in a formulaic way, but I feel that you're oversimplifying something that is, in general, a bad line of strategy.
Pardon my bad manners, but KawaiiRice played poorly and mindlessly, there's just no other way to look at it. His early Starport was scouted, giving his opponent ample time to counter it, yet he commited to it. Twice. A Banshee rush is like a Wraith rush in Starcraft 1. Against a competent opponent, it won't work without the element of surprise. In fact, it's a colossal loss to the player doing it if it's at all countered or stopped. The issue is as simple as that. KawaiiRice showed no adaptability beyond a static strategy he had memorized, and embarassingly, he commited to it in his second game as well, with even worse results than the first.
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? I just can't wrap my head around people's lack of solid builds or drive to formulate solid builds. Terran players will be playing like this once they stop getting so wrapped up in this one-base all-in mentality. It's the equivalent of what Day9 used to talk about when he began his career; he used to do lurker drops on his enemies, and one day, it stopped working when, gasp, he ran into a few turrets, and he had no strategy, he didn't know what to do. The same holds true for most "top" Terran players today in regards to air tactics, as is evidenced by KawaiiRice, unfortunately.
I apologize if I'm missing the point of the more precise analysis you were trying to make with this thread, but I can't help but feel that people are missing the bigger picture here, and that this type of analysis simply isn't necessary. If your opponent goes banshee vikings, you're stuck in your base unless you want landed vikings to demolish your towers and let the banshees in.
to counter: make no more than enough vikings to handle banshee and use the remaining resources to build a ground army to finish off the opponent. because your opponent needs resources on both mass vikings and mass banshees, and you only need a little more vikings without banshees. you have the econ advantage for ground units turret, and expansions. Vikings are purely for map control, whereas ground units are the key to bring a gg to him.
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On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense?
Your basic idea is right, but Banshees are really strong air-to-ground and enough of them will easily kill turrets. (Banshee+Raven > Turrets, unless you have lots and lots.)
A few turrets can help as as do-not-die-right-now cludge, but I think in a longer game Vikings are the best bet.
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On April 28 2010 16:23 ComTrav wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? Your basic idea is right, but Banshees are really strong air-to-ground and enough of them will easily kill turrets. (Banshee+Raven > Turrets, unless you have lots and lots.) A few turrets can help as as do-not-die-right-now cludge, but I think in a longer game Vikings are the best bet.
turrets are a terrible counter to fast banshees. Their range is so short, the banshees can always find a way to sneak in and do damage.
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On April 28 2010 16:46 Luddite wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2010 16:23 ComTrav wrote:On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? Your basic idea is right, but Banshees are really strong air-to-ground and enough of them will easily kill turrets. (Banshee+Raven > Turrets, unless you have lots and lots.) A few turrets can help as as do-not-die-right-now cludge, but I think in a longer game Vikings are the best bet. turrets are a terrible counter to fast banshees. Their range is so short, the banshees can always find a way to sneak in and do damage.
One in each mineral line is definitely a good investment, they will hold banshees off until there is 3-4 and give you time to react and pull the neccesary units to actually defend properly. Not to mention detection before ravens and without wasting scan.
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On April 28 2010 19:02 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2010 16:46 Luddite wrote:On April 28 2010 16:23 ComTrav wrote:On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? Your basic idea is right, but Banshees are really strong air-to-ground and enough of them will easily kill turrets. (Banshee+Raven > Turrets, unless you have lots and lots.) A few turrets can help as as do-not-die-right-now cludge, but I think in a longer game Vikings are the best bet. turrets are a terrible counter to fast banshees. Their range is so short, the banshees can always find a way to sneak in and do damage. One in each mineral line is definitely a good investment, they will hold banshees off until there is 3-4 and give you time to react and pull the neccesary units to actually defend properly. Not to mention detection before ravens and without wasting scan.
one in each... so you fast expanded? And also built an ebay and two turrets? Then you're dead. You won't have enough marines, you won't have vikings yet, and all your unit producing buildings will be undefended. With 2 fast banshees he also has the option of just going straight for the cc.
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On April 28 2010 19:07 Luddite wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2010 19:02 sob3k wrote:On April 28 2010 16:46 Luddite wrote:On April 28 2010 16:23 ComTrav wrote:On April 28 2010 12:42 RatherGood wrote:
Secondly, Terran players have it wrong in thinking that they rush or be rushed by air. There's a third option: get an engineering bay and play your own game, not an entirely reactive one to something that's easily countered by something that will eventually be in your build anyhow. One or two scans, which you would use on Banshees, more than cover the necessary Turrets and Engineering Bay that you would get otherwise -- doesn't this just more logical, solid sense? Your basic idea is right, but Banshees are really strong air-to-ground and enough of them will easily kill turrets. (Banshee+Raven > Turrets, unless you have lots and lots.) A few turrets can help as as do-not-die-right-now cludge, but I think in a longer game Vikings are the best bet. turrets are a terrible counter to fast banshees. Their range is so short, the banshees can always find a way to sneak in and do damage. One in each mineral line is definitely a good investment, they will hold banshees off until there is 3-4 and give you time to react and pull the neccesary units to actually defend properly. Not to mention detection before ravens and without wasting scan. one in each... so you fast expanded? And also built an ebay and two turrets? Then you're dead. You won't have enough marines, you won't have vikings yet, and all your unit producing buildings will be undefended. With 2 fast banshees he also has the option of just going straight for the cc.
yes you're right! only counter to banshee - viking. turrets only buy you sometime.
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Vikings have additional value if you go tanks in TvT, even if opponent doesn't go air. They can provide sight for your tanks and deny enemy tank sight. TvT i always get early viking for scout, as it is cheaper than scan. You can fly over his base as it is fast and rines will not shot it down fast enough. Than if I see ports, i make more (either vs banshees, medivac drops or enemy vikings). I think a lot of TvT is about air dominance if you go tanks as the sight rules. I am just a silver player, but TvT is far best of my match-ups (no problem taking down gold terrans) using rine, tank and more vikings than opponent.
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Someone always has to try to apply game theory to RTS....and they never do it correctly.
This is EXTREMELY oversimplified and you have just made the degree on my wall start crying....now I must go comfort it.
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EPT
