OVO Castle: MMS Early Spear Strategy (1.8k-2k rating)

Started by: Josephong | Replies: 43 | Views: 8,579

alternate

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Mar 1, 2017 11:19 PM #1476770

this thread is kind of funny... vigorously debating a pointless meta on a dying game with a laggy player.
#winning

nutsophast

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Mar 2, 2017 7:00 AM #1476783

Quote from AsePlayer
Well I'd prob have a second archer by the time he has one, and he'd be prone to spearton cheese, cause that passive from tower helped a bit.

Would you really be able to get that archer so quickly? His archer purchase comes right after MMS. Even if you do get your archer that quickly there is no way you get a spearton that early in the game. By the way, what is "cheese"?

@skeleton That's funny, I don't see you offering a time to play. lol

Skeletonxf
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Mar 2, 2017 9:20 AM #1476784

I offered 3 evenings?

ISyncErrorI

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Mar 2, 2017 12:56 PM #1476787

Would like to add that, if they go AM instead of Sas, you can go MMSASA to contest for Tower. It sometimes fucks with people who think I'm going CA and won't have the units to defend. Or you can go MMSM-CA which gives more eco and a faster spear, works well vs AMM

Quote from Josephong
Would like to add that, if they go AM instead of Sas, you can go MMSASA to contest for Tower. It sometimes fucks with people who think I'm going CA and won't have the units to defend. Or you can go MMSM-CA which gives more eco and a faster spear, works well vs AMM

Like I said, even if they think you have a CA, they're still gonna push in and fuck your economy one way or another. Rushing is how you play SE generally. So no matter what you do, there's always gonna be rushing and CA dodging.

@skeletonxf
Sorry for the late reply! I'm in army so i have a very irregular schedule that I don't know beforehand so I thought I'd see first if I'm free on those dates. I should be free on Friday UTC 0 (i hope that means 8am on friday in Singapore, hope i didnt get that wrong). See ya! I shall add you on my main Josephong97

@gaismail
I don't remember that exact scenario happening, maybe it was quite a long time ago idk
But yeah my point still holds. My point is that

-as of now, very few players can CA dodge successfully
-it is normally seen at high ranks eg 2.2k above, very rarely below
-ping is a concern too
Bearing all this in mind, a CA strat should be fine for a 1.8k to 2k player using this strat

I don't think that one isolated example of you raping me (if it's true) is a good argument against my point. I feel a good argument would be against the points i mentioned above. If CA kiting is commonly seen at mid-high ranks and executed as successfully as g kiting, then i have nothing to say.

@alternate
Then why are you even here then? Also, to you, everyone who wins vs you is a lagging/cheating/abusing 3rd world thrash so I guess it's hard to take your claim seriously.

@skele I pm you!

nutsophast

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Mar 2, 2017 2:44 PM #1476790

Quote from Skeletonxf
I offered 3 evenings?

Heh, you did do that. But I was thinking of time as in "4:20 AM", not "Friday evening". I suppose you were still offering a time. But I don't see the purpose of pointing out how he didn't do the same.

ISyncErrorI

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Mar 2, 2017 3:33 PM #1476792

Quote from Josephong
@skeletonxf
Sorry for the late reply! I'm in army so i have a very irregular schedule that I don't know beforehand so I thought I'd see first if I'm free on those dates. I should be free on Friday UTC 0 (i hope that means 8am on friday in Singapore, hope i didnt get that wrong). See ya! I shall add you on my main Josephong97

@gaismail
I don't remember that exact scenario happening, maybe it was quite a long time ago idk
But yeah my point still holds. My point is that

-as of now, very few players can CA dodge successfully
-it is normally seen at high ranks eg 2.2k above, very rarely below
-ping is a concern too
Bearing all this in mind, a CA strat should be fine for a 1.8k to 2k player using this strat

I don't think that one isolated example of you raping me (if it's true) is a good argument against my point. I feel a good argument would be against the points i mentioned above. If CA kiting is commonly seen at mid-high ranks and executed as successfully as g kiting, then i have nothing to say.

@alternate
Then why are you even here then? Also, to you, everyone who wins vs you is a lagging/cheating/abusing 3rd world thrash so I guess it's hard to take your claim seriously.

It was 2 weeks ago.

AsePlayer
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Mar 2, 2017 3:57 PM #1476793

Quote from alternate
this thread is kind of funny... vigorously debating a pointless meta on a dying game with a laggy player.
#winning

If you're not going to contribute to the discussion then stop replying. It's off-topic.

Skeletonxf
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Mar 2, 2017 4:41 PM #1476795

Quote from nutsophast
Heh, you did do that. But I was thinking of time as in "4:20 AM", not "Friday evening". I suppose you were still offering a time. But I don't see the purpose of pointing out how he didn't do the same.

Because my schedule is flexible enough I can do more or less any time around 6pm to 10pm with enough notice on days where I'm not super busy or already doing something.

Quote from Josephong
Hi skele! Joseph here
Can we play a little later
like +1utc lol cos i dont wanna wake up early
But if you can;t its fine we go ahead with the usual +0 utc plan

I'm not 100% sure you understand time zones. It's 16:38 for me as I write this, in my time zone of UTC+0. For you if you're wanting to play at 8am ish your time (which I presume you understand means Saturday) then that would be mid night for me as I think Singapore's time zone is UTC+8. Midnight is quite late for me and obviously 8am is very early for you. Pushing it to 9am for you is definitely way too late for me.

8 hours is just really awkward in general actually. :/

I can try to do midnight but that's not a great time for me and seems very early for you so it might be best for us to reschedule. I could do most times on Saturday for me.

alternate

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Mar 2, 2017 6:11 PM #1476797

Quote from AsePlayer
If you're not going to contribute to the discussion then stop replying. It's off-topic.

Didn't you build your entire forum persona off of not contributing to discussions, including actually important ones?

Are you a forum mod? KK.

I was contributing, merely pointing out that this discussion is pretty hilarious given the state of the game. If you don't like my comment, gasp, you can just scroll on by.

AsePlayer
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Mar 3, 2017 5:05 AM #1476814

Quote from alternate
Didn't you build your entire forum persona off of not contributing to discussions, including actually important ones?

Are you a forum mod? KK.

I was contributing, merely pointing out that this discussion is pretty hilarious given the state of the game. If you don't like my comment, gasp, you can just scroll on by.

You aren't contributing to the discussion by being like "LOL SE IS DEAD"
We're aware of the current state, this person who still plays the game wants to have a discussion about a strategy, we don't need your whole "why discuss, SE is dead anyways" tangent on an SE forum board.
Grow up please :)

Raptor
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Mar 3, 2017 5:16 AM #1476818

I'm not really strict with off-topic posts as long as they don't derail the thread too much. Don't want to police conversations.

Alternate isn't breaking any rules, he's just being an irrelevant asshole lol. Big difference.

AsePlayer
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Mar 3, 2017 5:25 AM #1476821

Quote from Raptor
I'm not really strict with off-topic posts as long as they don't derail the thread too much. Don't want to police conversations.

Alternate isn't breaking any rules, he's just being an irrelevant asshole lol. Big difference.

Oh well, was worth a shot.

Skeletonxf
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Mar 4, 2017 1:27 PM #1476857

Results, games in reverse chronological order. I lost all but one though a lot of the loses happened in the following spearcher game rather than the phases where these two strategies were most relevant.

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082368&version=2.29 - my counter did not really work well after my first spear dive was too soft and then didn't achieve anything but ensuring my units were more hurt than Josephs'

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082325&version=2.29 - loss of control once mage showed up, less ideal start dives, I still had decent control of mid for most of game even with poor macro decisions the till mage showed up

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082274&version=2.29 - poor play from me, bad macro

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082238&version=2.29 - trivial win for me by MA start, Joseph did mess up a bit

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082207&version=2.29 - We had same eco, I had center and same army at start of mid game before I lost control, I was briefly tied/winning but my macro let me down again

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082154&version=2.29 - Initial start good, loss of control, triple diving was less effective than I hoped for

www.stickempires.com/play?replay=replay14082117&version=2.29 - I seriously messed up the dives, loss of control early in

VERDICT

Joseph's strategy has a time window in between 1:45 and 2:00 (just before the spear comes out) where a powerful dive can hit hard and it is possible to dive with 2 archers and other units at this point, but you have to seriously commit to doing it. If you dive 20 seconds later you'll be fighting a spear and an archer and a sword, with similar units and a weaker eco and probably lose.

Triple diving doesn't work at high ping because dives just aren't as effective and are higher risk. At lower ping this method is still probably less than ideal.

Going heavy eco yourself with an archer to hold mid for free till 2:20 lets you match Joseph in pop and hold center. I repeatedly lost the following spearcher meric battles when going for this but I am fairly confident that if the two players were more or less equal then opting for this method would give a slight advantage and effectively be a soft counter. Admittedly it's very soft but that's still more of an advantage than two identical SAS starts.

Basically to counter you have to either commit to a serious dive and kill as many miners as possible just before 2:00 or commit to your economy and take advantage of the center gold to swing the macro game in your favour. Opting for a middle way means your dives don't hit hard enough and you lose in eco and consequently are left with few ways to win in the ensuing macro game.

Unsurprisingly then we're left with SAS still being a more robust strat once the skill level is high enough, though not by a lot.

Josephong

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Mar 5, 2017 3:02 AM #1476901

I agree with skele. What I feel is

-the idea of triple diving sucks even with perfect ping, because you're diving with 1 archer 1 sword. Even if you sacrifice the sword, you can't kill any miners as I can pull back any already weakened miners, and it takes 3 CA hits + 1 sword swipe to kill the sword, with my sword tanking the archer hits so I don't lose anything. If you dive and get your sword out in time, you can only get 2 archer hits on my sword, so minimal damage. 2 archer diving is much better.

-if you rush for a spear yourself, it turns into a game where both players rush double spears. Your initial spear is faster and can kill 1/2 miners, but i can hold with CA, and go for miner trades with yours. I have the advantage with CA so I have a higher chance of winning.

-the only good counter is archer after 4th miner, then attack between 1:30 to 2:00 with 2 archer 1 sword to snipe weakened miners. When spear comes out, have 3 archer 2 sword to block it, then outmacro the opponent by holding centre tower eco advantage

-even if the counter is applied, the advantage they get is not huge. Because this map is small, you can't use the tower eco advantage to churn out more miners and snowball into a heavy eco lead. So the eco lead translates into 2-3 more archers/1 more spear which is not much. The CA provides so much coverage, that even if you are up one spear, by attacking, you can't achieve much as you need to tank CA hits. If you go for tower spawn, you can't push much into CA territory, and you will have a much later mage which is gg on this map. So this advantage is not huge, and can allow me to still win if I have the better macro (as can be seen in the games). Vs a equally skilled player tho, I will have a lower chance of winning than by going SAS (50-50 chance)

-My conclusion is that vs higher skilled players above 2k rating, MMS can be countered and give them the advantage to win. Thus SAS is better because the chances are now 50-50, or close to there. However vs lower rating players, you can use MMS to avoid the risky SAS build, and go into mid game where your better macro will win you the game. For example, if I play skele and we both go SAS, my win/loss rate can be 50-50, but if I go MMS, my win loss will be extremely high cos my macro is better (he is very rusty XD). So when ranking in ladder, I feel this strategy is better against weaker players than SAS. I would like to see any arguments against this point

TL;DR: MMS is better against weaker players as you can out macro them, compared to SAS which heavily depends on luck and ping. Thus when climbing ladder, use this to secure wins on castle vs weaker players