EPTFor every line in the OP it gets sillier and sillier.
Sun Tzu on Z & T - Page 3
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gillon
Sweden1578 Posts
For every line in the OP it gets sillier and sillier. | ||
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stickman.hqt
United States47 Posts
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viraltouch
United States299 Posts
jk, I skimmed your quotes and connections, but its just garbage. | ||
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AlaskaYoung
Canada14 Posts
On September 28 2010 13:44 sikyon wrote: Hypothesis: Terrain makes ZvT imbalanced because Terran can manipulate terrain very advantageously while zerg cannot. Unbiased test: PvT with forcefields. Result: PvT is not imba in favor of toss just because they can manipulate terrain at will. Hypothesis disproved, Scientific method >> Sun Tzu. But in a more direct tangent, your explanations are a giant stretch. "Intensity" = stim? No. That's just a unit mechanic. You have a giant confirmation bias here where you're reading Sun Tzu, thinking he's a military genius and then trying to pidgeonhole everything into his theories. You might be able to explain away some things with the art of war but it's so vague that it's very difficult to make non-trivial predictions with it (yes I have read it). Please set aside your availability heuristic and take a look at your analysis from a point of view which doesn't start with "I KNOW ZvT is imba and I KNOW I can explain it with Sun Tzu" And before anyone starts poking at me, yes, I am ~1000 points in diamond, and I do play random and I'm not saying ZvT doesn't favor T at least in the effort department Force fields create encircled terrain at will. That's one of eight points where Protoss has dominance in any matchup, the other seven show Protoss no advantages. In TvZ, Terran has a huge advantage in all eight sections. Compare the two. Hypothesis not disproved, your logic is just flawed. You make a nice connection, but I think it's a little faulty. I'll talk about contentious terrain. Unlike human warfare, it's a lot easier for Zerg to take contentious terrain than you're making it out to be. If a Terran were to secure his main by turtling, there's no way he could hold contentious terrain. The T's army would be spread apart, giving the Z free unit kills and map control to take the contentious terrain that isn't being guarded. In this case, as a Z I would gladly trade a few units for his because I will already be on 3 bases to his 2, and whittling down his army to slow his push = good thing. | ||
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skatbone
United States1005 Posts
I enjoyed your post and I appreciate its thoroughness. I'm also of the opinion that you are forcing too much data into the general theory that TvZ is imbalanced. I agree, imbalances exist, but in hammering on this assumption in your application of Sun Tzu's categorizing of space, you overlook a number of the ways in which Zerg characteristics, much like those of Terran, can take advantage of the terrains of SC2. To retune to one of Toxigen's points from page 2 of this thread, strategy is the means through which a player uses different types of space to his or her advantage. I'm okay with letting Blizzard know about the specifics of imbalance. But in the meantime, don't let space dictate your play. I lose to Zerg who find ways to use space to their advantage. And given the newness of the creep tumor and overlord vomit, I'm not sure that Zerg have fully explored methods to capitalize on space through the spread of creep. I'm eager to see how experimentation with creep shapes the T is imba discussion in the future. It seems to me that overlord creep vomiting is a form of creating dispersive terrain that does not require a centralized location (you claim that Zerg can't create dispersive terrain without a centralized location). Furthermore, lost in the discussion of TvZ imbalance is the question of how to use space to mount a successful attack on your opponent. Imo, the Zerg that I beat tend to play much to linearly. Attack me at two or three points at once or flank my main army with lings and run me onto high ground into your ultralisks. I will want to be on high ground for the space advantage, but if your ultras are lying in wait, you'll burn me. In other words, our gameplay is conditioned by space, but we then react to and use that space in creative ways. I always feel anxious moving my army onto creep. And while sieged tanks might claim portions of your creep as "contentious" terrain, I will have to move them. Much as I have to commit mental energy and micro into pushing the tanks, the burden is on Z players to take advantage of this moment and attack when I am unsieged (when the terrain is less "contentious"). Again, I believe in the imbalances, but I repeatedly win games against Zerg who fail to attack in creative manners and who fail to harass enough to unnerve me. Over the last two months, I have seen repeated critique of the ease of Terran drops. Other races have drop potential as well. And when, as a T, I drop, I am rarely attempting to end the game right there with my drop. As Toxigen points out, drops are often part of a larger strategy of diversion. I find that the best Zs I play against are, in fact, savvy at the art of war to the extent that they are creatively attacking me. People claim that Terran is all 1a2a3a and, in the same breath, accuse us of easily dropping on three locations at once. Attacking three locations at once takes strategic spatial thinking and multitasking micro. I often drop on one or two locations when the game stakes are already high and I'm scanning to gauge the position of your mutas and the defenses of your bases. Maybe you see the drops as easy or op; but note that I am dropping your main in combination with a 1a2a3a on your expo. From my perspective, this isn't simple. Rather, I am exploiting a hole in your "dispersive" space (the undefended back of your base and your preoccupation with the location of my main army on your creep) to cause some devastation. Similarly, when a Z flanks my main army with lings, hits my expo with muta harass, and then capitalizes on my confusion to run blings and lings up my ramp, the territorial advantage I might have had has been compromised. The application of Sun Tzu makes sense to me; thanks for your efforts. But the burden on players is to exploit and find limitations in their opponent's relationships to space. Even Z can achieve this in a TvZ if they are playing against me. | ||
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Tical3000
40 Posts
...particularly when Terrans Forces are sieged up in a contain infront of your base... ways away from defending they're own? With your logic, does burrow become overpowered or else, moreso units that can burrow while moving? Having a speed advantage with a majority of your army... even more so with creep spread surely provide some terrain advantage as well? Can a book based on real' life war situations seriously put in the same reference with a futurisitc sci-fi based VIDEO-Game? | ||
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nemahsys
Canada457 Posts
(Btw, this is NOT a QQ thread but rather an objective view on terran imbalance with regard to Sun Tzu's military principles, hopefully upon reading the rest of this you will be able to see the bigger picture, that it's not just about terran's unit X being imba against zerg build Y and nerf it bla bla bla) how is anything in your post even remotely close to objective? do you even know what the term objective means? this post reminds of when artosis made his "map balance" post where he claimed to be objective then spent 10 mins explaining why EVERY map sucks for zerg and owns for terran. I can just see you patting yourself on the back after writing that massive wall of text and feeling so proud and so smart for what you had come up with. Well, you shouldnt be proud. You've said a ton of stuff that was said in fucking phase 2 beta 3 million times and isnt even nearly as relevant since the patch changes, then you attached sun tzu quotes to those things and thought it made you a genius. pointless thread is pointless. | ||
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MangoTango
United States3670 Posts
On September 28 2010 15:27 Calmwinds wrote: Although I certainly applaud you to look for parallels, why does every person who has read Sun Tzu suddenly start seeing parallels in everything they see? Some person needs to right a strict interpretive text. Sun Tzu's domain only goes so far, and starcraft 2 is not one of them. Sun Tzu is not everywhere. But illusions of pattern and parallel sure are. Most pro SC teams require their players to read The Art of War, by the way. | ||
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Gdarkness
United States40 Posts
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TheFinalWord
Australia790 Posts
You could have made an ok point but you insisting on finding terran imbalance in every line of the quoted text. It's hilarious how you say this is an objective view while saying it is imbalanced in the same line. | ||
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PhilipJWitow
29 Posts
Like if I was to go through Hannibal of Cartage's readings, I could easily find that Zerg is overpowered. This is because Hannibal loved to use tactics where units would be surrounded/ambushed, and Zerg seems to be pretty good at that compared to other civs. Same deal with the blitzkreig, you get roaches/hydras to weaken an enemy's defences/create some holes and then send a mass of zerglings in to finish the job. Terran can't do a blitzkrieg because all their units are pretty much the same speed. You can interpret a lot of things a lot of different ways. While the post is entertaining, it should maybe be in general forums rather than strategy forums as it doesn't actually say anything and it's a lot about interpretation rather than actual facts. :\ | ||
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Shuray
Brazil642 Posts
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HunterX11
United States1048 Posts
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febreze
167 Posts
On September 28 2010 15:27 Acritter wrote: So, what does Sun Tzu say about macro mechanics? I like his work as much as anyone, but it's philosophical principle and can't be applied mathematically to a problem as you have attempted. This, more than anything, just supports the concept that the maps are the main problem here. Using proxy pylons are better than reinforcing from your main. | ||
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Lukk
United States36 Posts
On September 29 2010 06:04 MicroJFox wrote: The art of war is not practical if, say, one side has Blue Fire and Siege tanks and Giant Robots, while the other side has green waterguns and dogs. For example, the side with Blue Fire and Siege tanks and Giant Robots can be aggressive in any terrain, while the side with waterguns should give up all terrain and find another planet to live on. Of course this is a hyperbole, but I'm just saying, this stuff is applicable when the two sides have the same tools. Just a quick fix to keep that post relevant  Still im a strong believer the maps favor terrans creative play while limiting zergs.(ie: Easy wall offs, attack paths tend to be clumped and easy to prevent surrounds, and way to much high ground low ground with an easy to defend ramp or no ramp for zerg to use.) This brings me to point 2 terran medivacs negate any of this territory strategy because again they create whatever or wherever they are into an advantage with medivacs.(THOR DROP ON LT  )Get some of these iccup maps imo they really change the dynamic of some mu's | ||
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Blaqkheart
12 Posts
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PrinceXizor
United States17713 Posts
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Mataza
Germany5364 Posts
Also some things from Sun Tzu can only be brought over in painful analogies. One of the more accented parts were about spies and morale if I remember correctly. Tell me how to bribe hostile spies and how to simulate the strong fighting spirit created by being surrounded with no way out into starcraft 2 and I may buy into the whole "Art of War applies to all RTS aspects" thing. So long. | ||
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Informat
Canada45 Posts
btw i think you are misinterpreting some of what sun tzu is trying to say for example: "On heavy terrain plunder for provisions." Yes you understand that you won't be able to supply/reinforce the army easily. But the quote tells you to plunder for provisions meaning to rob the person of their supplies and make them your own putting less stress on your country. Basically in starcraft 2 terms, deal as much damage to the other player's economy while using that time to expand. That's what it means. Where if one fights with intensity he will survive but if he does not fight with intensity he will perish, it is 'fatal terrain' This does not apply to starcraft 2. it pretty much talks about the mentality of the army when in a situation where they cannot escape. In real life, soldiers that are forced to fight in order to survive will become a much more potent force then if it were in a situation where they will run away. As if 1 soldier was equivalent to 3 other soldiers because they are in such a desperate situation, a human (like an animal) would do anything to live showing no fear in their eyes. Instead they only show a fierce desire to live. If you were to compare stim to something, compare it to steroids. Your personal opinions are leading you to misinterpret what sun tzu is trying to talk about. | ||
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xxklownxx
Canada47 Posts
So working under the assumption that the way you plugged in Terrans op'ness in regards to their ability to manipulate the terrain was flawless and indisputable..that still would leave a glaring hole in this analysis... We have air units..Terrain bypassed or disregarded completely. | ||
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