What would you do vs. a very slow and defensive player?

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5dPZ
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Joined: July 11th, 2006, 7:20 pm
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What would you do vs. a very slow and defensive player?

Post by 5dPZ »

I ran this several times for 1 vs 1s.

Both side are same alignment - e.g. UD vs. Orc, Loyalist vs. Rebel, Dwarf vs. Rebel - can't really take huge adventage of ToD.

Opponent will not cross midline of map - just wait at his side with a good ZOC line so you can't get more than 2-3 tiles on his units on good terrans close to his base villages.

Opponent will take 5-10 minutes every turn, even just wait for you with his defensive line, doing nothing.

This leaves you few options -
1. attack into him, you would likely to fail any kills due to his good zoc and terran, he can heal up (as he always stay at his villages) and retaliate you on good terran.
2. play a staring game and stay at your own sides too, aka, maybe 2-3 hours until both of you figured and agree it is a draw.
3. Doing some tricks such as stay at lower upkeep for more units, lv 0 spam etc, BUT remember, every of his turn takes 5-10 minutes, in order for this to work, it would be at least a 4-5 hour game...

So just leave such game? it feels like you are conceding if you do so, and make his "evil" plan works...but I can't come up a good plan that can punish such players...

Any help?
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Lord-Knightmare
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Re: What would you do vs. a very slow and defensive player?

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Opponent will take 5-10 minutes every turn, even just wait for you with his defensive line, doing nothing.
I think for games such as this, you can set a brief timer (with the shortest values) at the very start of the map so neither player can come to smarter decisions and have to go with the fastest move their mind can conjure up. They wont get time to set up these good ZoC and terrain control either given the brief duration. That's one way to go.

One other way is just blacklisting those players and avoiding games with them.
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5dPZ
Posts: 211
Joined: July 11th, 2006, 7:20 pm
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: What would you do vs. a very slow and defensive player?

Post by 5dPZ »

I think for games such as this, you can set a brief timer (with the shortest values) at the very start of the map so neither player can come to smarter decisions and have to go with the fastest move their mind can conjure up. They wont get time to set up these good ZoC and terrain control either given the brief duration. That's one way to go.
The thing is it is too late to setup a timer after you figured out that your opponent is doing this. The one i met yesterday had the 12 minute timer (he is the host and knows what he is doing, obviously).
Also, even if there is a short timer (say 3 minutes), it is almost always more adventagous to the defensive player - he doesn't move around much at all just waiting for you, while you need to plan all the attacks away from your home base on bad terrans.
Yoshi
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Re: What would you do vs. a very slow and defensive player?

Post by Yoshi »

If I am playing a very defensive player I will set up an extremely onesided aggressive attack on one side of the map and a scout on the other side. If they keep an even keel defense they will be at a loss and if they abandon their side to fortify the other side use the scout to steal their villages. If they keep units on their villages they are at a numerical disadvantage because the scout can reach many villages.

If the statemate went on for a long time I would even go as far as march my leader off the keep and try to take their keep and help with the assault.

If they start to mount a counter attack of their own you got what you wanted, draw them out.

Even if they only leave 2 or 3 open attack slots, 3 mages would almost certainly be able to defeat any unit. If they are not on a village you could just use an elvish fighter to plink at them.

The weakness of defensive players is that they are too focused on surviving instead of winning, if they are coddling units and trying to farm exp you just need to hit them fast and hard until they are backed into a corner.
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