Kanes Wrath

ok fracture lets go! You drew the short straw and got me!

Awesome man, im pumped.
I'm not working this weekend, so i should be free saturday after 8ish and sunday just let me know when you want to.

xfire= r3troviru5

I'll see you this evening. I took a look at that first rep you did good. I noticed a few things we'll cover 'em tonight.

Should be fun!

fracture asked me a question about the mechanics of the ladder today. I answered his email and the decided I'd answer it here as well in case anyone else has a similar question. To the best of my knowledge this is how it works (sorry for the disclaimer but some of it is behind closed doors so to speak)

You start off with a certain number of points. Say a 1,000. The max you can gain or lose in any one match is 64. Keep in mind these are point not spots. Look at the ladder currently. The #1 player has 2,206. The last player (point wise there a few suspensions or some such at the very bottom where the points don't make sense) has 345 points and a 2 - 89 record.

When you first start inevitably you lose more than you win. When this happens you drop below that 1,000 point opening threshold so technically you are now ranked below people who have not even played. Thankfully those people don't have ranks so you don't get all wigged out about being awful but when you see someone who is 1-0 when you have 30+ wins (or whatever) and they are ranked better than you then you go like "WTF!"



Well how many losses do you have that go along with those 30 wins? I'm not talking to you fracture I'm just lecturing. Lets say you have 75 losses. Well depending on the mix of players you won and lost too the more losses than wins probably means you have drifted under the 1,000 point threshold which means that 1-0 player has more points than you do.

And a better rank.

The good news for any of you in this particular boat is that as you go through this program you will get better and the wins will start to come at a faster pace. When that happens you will be surprised at how quickly you move up.

Any questions?

PS anyone with anything to add to this feel free. I am by no means a ladder expert if there is such a thing.

This post has been edited by methuselah: Sep 25 2008, 22:12 PM

hey man, i was just wondering in addition to the questions i asked, this corresponds to the same replays. When im scouting and I know that he will send a reckoner with black hands, what is the best way to prepare for it? I remember having rockets and scorps, but i guess it wasnt enough.

you have identified the secret to stopping reckoners. Scout them out early and stop them in route. Bikes are terrific at this because of their speed. A reckoners stopped in route represents a significant advantage for you because of the cost involved not only in the unit itself but the garrisoned units. If you are unfortunate enough to not see them in time to stop them in route then anything with range works. Rocket squads or beam cannons are good and I know how you love the bc's.

alrighty, so i played a few matches today, and i realized that a lot of my losses were due to economy issues as well as proper strike force compositions. Um. in this match, after watching the replay, i realized that there were several times that with good scouting, i could have attacked him as he was very poorly defended in some areas. Theres a part in here where i just get molested by his rocket troops, mines, and fanatics. Im afraid to say this is actually my first encounter with mines, with fanatics, and also with the tiberium vein detonator. Some issues in this match were that by losing several scorps early on, i had to catch up and thus couldnt get my economy running properly, couldnt expand properly, and i just froze in terms of strikig him and harassing him. I did use some of the stuff that you taught me though, it terms of harvester micro, and....actually i think thats it =S

But yeah, any other advice would be greatly appreciated.
And....i just realized that although i captured the bottom garrison...i never sent an engineer to grab the tib spike.

I never properly countered his air...i fully knew that he had it what with the mines, fully saw random venoms here and there and yet did nothing about it.

That plagued me as well, as with my strike force made of scorps for damage, blackhands and infantry to take care of the fanatics/rockets. I was just sitting like a noob taking all of his air abuse thus halting my forces...although i was able to take his ref, factory, and operations centre and 1 power plant. I did nothing to slow him down anymore...as the game was just me stretching out the play length...but yeah, i learned my lessons from this one.

Hey man, this was a match against steel talons...I think my biggest problem with this match was just being just plain ignorant in terms of what kind of units steel talons has. I saw his army, and...had no idea what his units were capable of. I tried to focus on strike force composition, as well as economy which i think fared well. I scouted him...not as much as i could have, but well enough to see what was coming. But...even though I knew, i was just really unfamiliar with what those units he had could dish out. Any criticism is welcome and Im going to go over this match again to see what i could have done differently. Thanks man.

I'll take a look at these tomorrow. The eco issue has been plaguing you since we started don't lose sight of it because it is key. You can outplay your opponent significantly and still lose because you don't manage the macro portion of the game very well.

okay I watched the first one. Here are my thoughts

• decent start other than the attempted spike grab. Those engies can't be undefended like that if you have not watched what happened to them please do
• very nice job on his initial bike rush. You did not panic and held onto your harvies
• ECONOMY, ECONOMY, ECONOMY! Keep saying it over and over. I'm attaching a shot of the mini map at about 6 minutes in. He has 2 refineries and 4 harvesters on his main field and has expanded to field #2. You are still on 1 field and have 2 harvesters. The game is over at this point.
• as soon as you saw Venoms you needed some element of AA both offensively and defensively. The fact that you did not offensively killed your attempted offensive ending the game.
• ECONOMY! Resources collected at the end of the game were 40k for you and 96k for him. Hard to over come that.

you are clearly getting better but eco is really holding you back. He put some pressure on you but not enough to stop you from expanding. On this map expansion is critical because the starting field is small. I'll look at the other one in a bit let me know if you have any questions.

game 2

• lost both spikes ouch!
• good scouting initially don't waste you buggy though get him out of there so that he can rescout
• much better job on your initial eco
• quick tech and timely exp. Nice
• initial offensive was going no where retreat don't suicide your units
• t3 before expansion....on this map that is challenging unless you have a very specific plan
• you allowed him to keep the bottom spikes with no effort to take them away or destroy them. You can't do that
• final eco 64k to 117k

you've had a day or two to digest this one let me know your thoughts on what you feel like you would do differently.

Yeah, those were really off games.
Recently ive been winning more solely because of my economy.
Ive placed more refineries and expanded sooner and ive noticed a world of difference. At the end of my games, our eco/min is almost the same, and our totals were close too.

One of my problems now like you saw is losing too many units uselessly by not retreating. So im going to work on that as well as countering using what i see in his base structurewise to get the job done. I realized that my beginning build orders were ok...but as soon as i started producing units, i just completely lose control over my structures. Everything is sporatic with no real plan after my inital start BO.

So in summary, if you could give me any more strike force combinations, build orders (opening, priorities in terms of what to have, like you said for the last game not to go t3 before expanding) and lastly if you could give me any tips in general for expanding. Like...how much is too much defense or too little protection etc.

my losses recently have been mostly due to not scouting properly again isntead of eco.
But moreso, because i dont really know the other factions as well as i could. Like losing vehicles mindlessly because i didnt know titans can crush them, or not realizing seekers were good AA (lol, that was messy).

Yeah, so any/everything you can give me would be great

I recommend no defense beyond specific circumstance defense (anti infantry if a Prodigy is running amok, an Obelisk if Dev/Cor combo's are inbound, etc.) otherwise always use offensive units for defense because they are mobile.

As far as strike forces those will have to be dealt with circumstance specific. What you do depends 100% on whether you are dictating the pace or are you countering? What side are you facing? A Nod mirror strike force will be different than if you are facing Traveler. The map also enters into the equation.

If you want we can play a few with me taking the sides you are least familiar with. That way we can pause, talk about what works or does not, and then reengage and test it.

sounds awesome man
That way we can always refer to the game we just played and you can give me semi-instant feedback. And of course we dont have to consider my opponent being a noob or whatever.

hahaha! Well that depends there are a lot of people around here who think I'm a n00b

Logging in right now I'll look for you.

Hey man, alright....so i think ive improved with my economy, ive gotten the hand of expanding and stuff and i think im learning how to manage my qeues so i dont run out of money. I think im learning how and whn to go to t2 then t3. My problem now is just getting caught by surprise, not necessarily by scouting...although in this game i lost a huge army because i didnt have any AA....and lost like 10 beam cannons and 7 scorpion tanks uselessly. But its that i dont realize that other armies have certain capabilities, like...in this match i get decimated because while i planned to use powers, these planes came out of nowhere and destroyed my key structures. I thought i could manage his hammerheads with stanks. But these planes come out of nowhere and destroy at least one building per attack.

I also have a problem with breaking through to fight properly. I need to work on formations and work on micro.

Im starting to get the hand of things, but when it comes to t3, i think i could really use some help.

Thanks

I'll take a look at the rep as soon as I can but from your description it is scouting related. Once you initially scout you have to continually re scout or that sort of thing will happen to you. There is no way for your opponent to build a sufficient amount of air power to decimate an army of yours without you having sufficient time to identify what he is doing and adjust accordingly ( a few stealth tanks along with your armada spells doom for your opponents air force.)

I'll check it out though and give you more specifics later.

hey man, just wondering if you got the chance to check out the replays or anything.
But anywho, just some random questions

in some games even after i can blackhand/reckoner rush them and take out all of their refineries (they still have their harvesters though), they seem to come back fast and manage to build up econ right up. I realized in replays that they managed to cap tib spikes while i was trying to build back up some forces.

I was just curious, like in starcraft, if you manually order scvs to return to command centre, you mine just a bit faster. Is that true here too? I wanted to run some experiments in sandbox mode just to dick around. If i let it get to ful, and order it back to refinery right away, would that be faster?

I really want to work on my micro too, do you have any tips?
Also, i think i got the hand of the spacebar and h key. Do you have any other useful hotkey advice? those helped a lot already.

Thanks alot

I've read a lot of stuff on the micro management of harvesters. I don't do it beyond making sure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. The only time I bring them back without a full load is if I desperately need a few credits to purchase that 1 thing I really need and I can't wait. I'm not saying to experiment....by all means do. I'm saying I just don't know.

Here are my thoughts on your replay

• I lol'd when I saw your opponent. Niai is the Senior Replay Reviewer on the Kane's Wrath staff. You gave him a nice tussle well done
• you surrendered both spikes for no strategic reason. In other words if you skipped your hand of nod in order to get to a bike rush faster that makes sense. You just let him have them without contesting them. Even if you don't want them you have to stop him from getting them....or punish him for spending the resources to get them
• your expansion timing was good
• dual w.f. with 2 refs and 3 total harvesters is doomed to fail unless you are doing an all in bike rush. You can't support them economically
• rescout! Your initial scouting was good, you made an attempt to rescout that failed, and then did not attempt again. This cost you the game because you were not ready for the air power
• sell your buildings before they are going to get destroyed. If your building is going to go away and you can't save it sell it
• you got to t4 but I get a sense you are teching without a plan. We need to work on your t3, t4 timing when you can meet me online
• be more aggressive. Your first offensive failed dismally due to not knowing you needed anti air. The second one hurt him it was well done
• heal your buildings. You lost your mcv, you lost one wf, and you had one left on yellow health and never healed it. That building was a game over if you lost it you should have been all over healing it every time it took a nick

We need to play a few games. You are teching nicely but it appears to be kind of random. On your hotkey question I can tell you what is important to me. That may not translate to you though. One of the most key ones is reverse move. To me that one would be next after H and Space Bar. The other ones are your unit groupings (the number keys), your units modes (attack move, aggressive stance, hold fire, etc.) Are you using any of these currently? If so remap them or learn the defaults and use the hotkeys.

Let me know when we can play a few. I think you played well in that match you just seemed uncertain as to what to do. At one point I'll bet you had 12 to 15 scorps and had very few units. Had you been scouting him sufficiently and known that you very well might have won the game.

awesome, thanks a lot!
Scouting...i gotta write that down somewhere and tape it to my monitor.
But yeah, thanks for going over that.
I am available to play thursday night and friday night.
Midterms...yay

I really am lost after i move passed my beam cannons lol. I know stanks=AA....specter bombing i can work on, and i dont know when and when not to use avatars.
Im really lost when it comes to stanks and specters in that i dont know when they can see me and when they cant. That little notice in the bottom left helps, but i still find that i cant tell still. I think it may also be im not quite 100% sure what the other factions SD are.

and oh, is that you on the left or right in your sig? lol