pbhead/DT map in game 2

Ok, DT thinks he founded too late. I have other perspectives, derived after many minutes of analysis.

First, I think pb should have founded on the aluminum and ganked all of it except one or two. DT's possible counterplay to pb's carbon found would have been to gank all the aluminum in response, by preparing an expansive over the alu patch and waiting for pb's carbon found. This would have been devastating to pb. DT failed to expect this, and pb grabbed an alu claim first, getting lucky.

But what would have happened if pb founded on alu? If pb was scavenger (which is optimal here), then DT has the option of ganking the carbon patch, but this depends on the click speed of both players. Claims after founding are instantaneous, and there's no delay for the second player found, leading to a gank rush.

If pb was non-scavenger, or the carbon gank failed, then DT would (optimally) found robotic somewhere else. So now we have options:

If first player founds scavenger, second player successfully ganks carbon, then the first found should not have been scavenger.

If first player founds scavenger, second player unable to gank carbon, then found at 50k debt (faster upgrades, silicon tile priority for glass-consuming colony, slightly lesser water, scav vs robo, only close aluminum). This is assuming the last low aluminum was far away, Zultar never looked at it.

If first player founds expansive, second player founds robotic, then found at 25k debt.

There's a big difference between a found at 25k debt and a found at 50k debt, all depending on who has confidence in their clicking speed and twitch reactions.

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Reply #1 Top

Hmm. very interesting.  I frankly did not notice that all the AL was effectively smash-able; I noticed there was very little, but didn't catch the possible monopoly. Far to worried about the whole, no good iron thing, and only one decent carbon patch.  And also worried about the whole scav-beat-me-last-game-i-need-the-scav-spot-thing.

Did anyone notice the Seed of that game? I don't have the replay, but I do have the log file... but not seeing anything obvious with the seed in it.  Might be interesting for other players to play that map.

 

 

Reply #2 Top

the seed is 4125 (it showed at about 36:45 in Zultar's past broadcasts) and it'll probably require 2 human's to generate the correct map.

Reply #3 Top

First I was going to found scav at the exact spot as Pb(But I was too late probably because I was panicking. Usually for that spot I will go 36k+ debt), after that I wanted to smash the alu with expansive but he already took the alu

Reply #4 Top

The last low aluminum tile was in the water patch to the right of PBHead's base, about 7 or 8 tiles away. It was a low alu/low water tile. I did not take note of how many iron tiles were nearby. I think it was two separated high tiles.

 

Being entirely retrospective about prepared founds:

Expansive, squashing most of the aluminum patch, is a good pre-found. I tried figuring out whether a robotic found would work there as well, but the best found I can see leaves four aluminum tiles open. 

If the opponent goes scavenger (in this case PB) on the carbon, you can insta-gank.

If the opponent goes expansive on the aluminum before you, you can found robotic and attempt to steal iron (trouble!) or go robotic.

If the opponent goes scavenger on the aluminum before you, you can attempt to found on the carbon or go robotic.

 

The other prepared found would be scavenger on the carbon, so that:

If the opponent goes scavenger on the carbon before you, you can attempt to gank (in this case DeathTacticus) or go expansive/robotic.

If the opponent goes scavenger on the aluminum, you can insta-gank.

If the opponent goes expansive on the aluminum... you're in trouble. You can swap to robotic and attempt to steal the iron (risky!), or stick with scavenger. If you do go scavenger, one (silly) option is to found on one of the iron spots.

 

Assuming you prepared scavenger on the aluminum:

If your opponent goes expansive on the aluminum before you, you're in trouble again. You can found robotic and attempt to gank, or go with scavenger and attempt to grab some a low tile and get by.

If your opponent goes scavenger on the aluminum before you, you can try to gank the carbon tiles or found expansive/robotic.

If your opponent goes scavenger on the carbon before you, you can try to swap quickly to expansive and found on the aluminum, or otherwise go expansive/robotic somewhere else.

 

 

TL;DR/Summary

The constant seems to be that founding expansive on the aluminum and taking the two high tiles immediately is a dominant position to be in. Another weird thing you could do is try to found expansive on the carbon, grab the iron tiles before your opponent founds, and let them have the aluminum. What are they going to do with it without access to iron or carbon, anyways?

 

edit: This is only if you plan to ignore all other found spots on the map.