errorblankfield wrote:I hear what you are saying but I still disagree.
As your mass calculations where getting at, even mass v mass, you can fudge it around such that UEF wins. That's great and all, but that's not the full story.
Getting to those requires a lot more on the UEF side that you sweep aside. For example, merely getting a single bomber and having land spam means you have to have two factories -one air, the other land- which aeon could have just invested in two land factories and call it a day. Then you have the added engery to worry about and the mass cost of making said energy... either way, you are in the whole just rolling off bomber number one.
But ignore all that as well.
To have any bombers really matter, you have to air superiority. At the very least, that means you have one intie over your foe + any bombers needed to negate their land spam. Obviously, a game can't be summarized in such a fashion, but we are theorizing so whatever. So to keep air, you need one intie over the other guy so mass for mass, you need just one intie.
Then add in however many bombers/tanks gets the job done and hope things work out. So from the get go, you have to make sure your bombers pay off the cost of one intie and the power that's needed to make them (which is
really relatively expensive in the early game).
Compared to Mr. Aeon who spams T1 on a loop and dances on water. >_>
Of course Aeon can just force you to mass interceptors by massing them himself (cause you need x + 1) to the point you can't build bombers cause such a cut in production would lose air. So it's an air race -Mr. Aeons favorite cause at T2 he'll win air no sweat. All the while, any mass you both devote to land is ultimately better spent by Aeon with their tanks. If you break for a bomber or two, you've technically lost the mass race and he'll always have an intie advantage -
theoretically!
So your options are land spam, which straight up loses cause Aeon have better tanks.
Or Bomber spam, which leads to an intie race you cannot win.
And yea, a lot of hand waving has to be done and skill and eco advantages get in the way of a perfect war but it's all I got.
Long story short, mass bombers is really easily countered in the current game as both of you devote mass away from land spam to the same unit so your only goal is to out produce that unit. No variation really. If you get the air advantage as the non-aeon, great! Bombers now work if you maintain air (which is a strech on it's own but okay). If Mr. Aeon has it, now you have bombers to worry about.
Either way, it's a wash decided by the air part of this game and the air v land dynamic is great as far as I'm concerned. No one spends 1:1 on air, so gaining an advantage is possible. But the joy is that once you have it, since you are forced to invest in ATG units, it's really easy lost. Since air is just a risk on if it will work or not, while (aeon) ground spam is a sure thing, I think the problem lies with having no ground solution to the tank, so LAB it up in my opinion. Make both options strategic and possible.
Cheers.
I think you have some really good points here. And, like you said, this is all theoretical and to an extent probably doesn't reflect the real game. To an extent, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I still think my point remains that the idea is, if you are not aeon, to match your opponent on inties and just replace a few tanks with bombers, and that this is very mass effective. In my experience, no one really tries this.
BUT, you're right in that it is a somewhat tricky procedure. Also, you're right that in not factoring in the additional power that air costs, I was making a mistake. But, I do think that here you're making the situation sound a little stronger than it is.
1.) "Then add in however many bombers/tanks gets the job done and hope things work out. So from the get go, you have to make sure your bombers pay off the cost of one intie and the power that's needed to make them (which is really relatively expensive in the early game).
Compared to Mr. Aeon who spams T1 on a loop and dances on water. >_>"
This is a good point, but if the aeon player is just spamming land and doesn't bother with an air factory at all, your bombers are going to be way more than mass effective. Also, you can send a scout over his base, see he has no air factory, and not bother with the interceptor. So, the (high) cost of an air factory pretty much needs to be incurred by both sides, right?
Even if he does have an air factory, I'm not sure you need that intial interceptor. I'd just open bomber. Keep in mind, he needs only 1 pass to pay for himself! In my experience, people tend to get more than 1 pass with a bomber on me, even if I have an interceptor, but maybe it's because I suck with my interceptor. At the very least, it's non trivial with one interceptor to kill a bomber before it makes 2 passes, and even if the aeon player does, it paid for itself in 1. And, that was like a worst case scenario for the bomber player! Say you open bomber and you get one pass in before your opponent realizes he needs to make inties! You can probably get a second before the inty comes out, and then, a third, a fourth? Maybe get some vet? That's the best case scenario for the bomber player (other than your opponent not having an air factory), but even in the worst case scenario, where the aeon player decided to build an inty early, you just need 1 pass.
2.) "Of course Aeon can just force you to mass interceptors by massing them himself (cause you need x + 1) to the point you can't build bombers cause such a cut in production would lose air. So it's an air race -Mr. Aeons favorite cause at T2 he'll win air no sweat. All the while, any mass you both devote to land is ultimately better spent by Aeon with their tanks. If you break for a bomber or two, you've technically lost the mass race and he'll always have an intie advantage"
See, I feel like you're still oversimplifying it a little. Let me put it another way. Here are a few strategies that the non-aeon player could try.
A.) Open land factory air factory, invest in a bomber. If your opponent has no air factory, bomber spam until he makes one.
B.) Open land factory air factor invest more mass in air than your opponent. If you're investing more mass than your opponent, you can break for a bomber or two and still be on equal footing in the intie race, right? That's great for you, because your bombers pay for themselves in one pass, and if you have air control, you can get 4 or 5 passes, right? Maybe more? If you get 1 or 2 bombers to 4 or 5 passes pretty early, you've won the game right?
C.) Open land factory air factor, invest in two bombers really quickly and then ignore air. I think your first two bombers should more than pay for themselves, because your opponent will probably have 0, and will have at most ,1 interceptor, and you'll be able to get off at least 2 passes per bomber. Then, push your com and your land spam to the front. Your opponent probably built a few inties and land aa, which is now a total waste. I feel like you'd have a huge advantage. Think about it, your bombers took out at least equal mass in tanks, and now your remaining army is entirely land spam+com, while your opponent has invested in inties+landspam+com.
You're right that the scenario thing is simplifying things, it's a very dynamic game. Just think about the strategic possibilities that opening a bomber or two could give you though (maybe you'd really want to go third factory air to do this, so that there are more tanks to hit, but the point is to have bombers hit the field when your opponent has 8+ tanks). If your opponent does no air, you keep going, if he goes interceptors, you can either shut down your air and leave him to have wasted his time, or try to out interceptor him. You're on the front foot, I think. You could react however you want, and if he reacts incorrectly to your reaction, he's in trouble. If you're pushing your land into him with your com, he has to be microing his auroras while paying attention to your air composition, or lack thereof. If he builds 5 inties because he put them on autobuild when he saw the bombers, and you build 3 bombers and call it a day, he's in a lot of trouble.
Overall, do I think auroras are OP at t1? Perhaps a little. My thinking on this only applies to close quarter battles and I don't know if it holds up at all in a bigger scale. You made some good points here, and perhaps my initial argument was made and a oversimplified manner. But, I still think the logic holds. I'm all for buffing labs a little and making the tanks less accurate while moving, but let's not exaggerate the power of the aurora too much. There is plenty of room for the metagame to develop, and people to better utilize early air. It takes games a long time for the best strategies and counters to be discovered. At least on my level, I am fairly confident that they could be used much better. You're right that it takes some skillful play to work air in with land, but if the aeon player doesn't counter by doing the same, all is lost for him.
I appreciate you engaging me in this dialogue. Your points are interesting and I think it's fun to think about. I would have liked to write the post more cleanly or something but I really gotta do a little work
.
Aurora land-spam a sure thing? Nothing could be further from the truth.
IMO addressing this is by far the most important part of this balance change, everything else is less important.