Essence

And the Tao of RPS?

Just a small observation:

There seems to be a Rock-Paper-Scissors effect in the 1250-1350 gold game right now. It looks like this:

The philosophy of the rushes (primarily Netjak style) is "kill the Cleric fast, fall back, heal up, take out the now-heal-less other units."

The philosophy of the successful antis (thank you, AU and Xaiou) is "kill the opponent's fighting units fast and hard, and get into an i-gots-more-left-than-you position before he's in full fall-back-and-heal-up mode".

The philosophy of the successful turtles (Stone or not) is "Keep the fighting units well defended and alive so as to be able to press the attack."


Thus, without even looking at the individual tactics, the strategies have an RPS to them: antis beat rushes, rushes beat turtles, and turtles beat antis. OK, old hat, right? We all know that.
The question, then, is this: what is the philosphy that can synthesize two of these goals and thus come out 66% dominant on the RPS game (rather than 50% like the big three types)?

There are a limited number of goals that it's reasonable to have. Obviously, everybody's end goal is "kill/paralyze their last unit before they kill/paralyze my last unit" -- but how to go about that is a widely varied field.

The obvious ones:
* Kill the Cleric (most Rushes)
* Kill the Range (most Frost Whores)
* Kill the stuff that's Easy to Kill (most Wall Turts)
* Kill the stuff that's Hard to Kill (my current pick; good with Antis)
* Keep them the hell away from me! (Furgon Forts)
* Keep Them from Accomplishing <pick one of the above>

I propose that somewhere, there exists a form that is capable of creating such a range of threats (or defenses) that will allow it to choose one of at least three of the above goals to pursue without requiring more than a single move of "setup" to do so.

What I'd like to see is all y'alls attempts at creating such a form, hopefully with a little explanation as to what and why.

Any takers?

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Essence

Light a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a night. Light a man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his short, agonizing life.

Bottle

The search for the "perfect" formation has been going on since TAO was created. The problem is that when it is found, people use it all the time, and then other people start looking for counters, and then they become popular.

You'll never be able to get a truly dominant formation because of the constant attempts to counter anything popular. And the "perfect" formation, which never finds itself at a disadvantage when it enters the arena, simply does not exist.

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Courtesy of ExpectDeath
Official Best and Worst Moderator of 2007 and 2008

FlamesOfTheDragon

Yeah thats pretty much TAO for you. Try finding a set thats not *perfect* but can be easily changed into a different formation.... say a rush that cant be rushed.........

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-=HOUSE by S3RO=-

Essence

You mistake my point. I'm not looking for a "perfect" form. I'm looking for a form that's flexible enough to bend to a greater variety of situations than the 'big three' without losing too much.

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Essence

Light a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a night. Light a man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his short, agonizing life.

Bottle

That's my definition of a perfect form. One that doesn't have a disadvantage straight away from any common formation.

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Courtesy of ExpectDeath
Official Best and Worst Moderator of 2007 and 2008

Gold Jumpa

No, thats just a form that works well against a couple other forms. The perfect form is one that doesn't lose ever.

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Simon Underwood

Yeah i agree, bottle you may have slightly missed the point here, or as you said you just define "the perfect form" differently than what we do.
Very nice thread there Essence, keep it up!

pongmaster73

I'd personally have to say that you'd need to be a furgon beast to have the perfect flexibility form. I've heard it takes a really long time to actually get good with the furgon, but once you do it can be incredible. My Idea of a flexible form would be to frontline the knights, dragon and get the mud and scout in 2nd to third row. Then, put a furgon frost and cleric in the back. That way you could try to attack the NJ rush better than it can you due to the furgon, have offensive units to play with the anti but still capable of easily converting into a single gold turt and playing a slow game. Against a turt, you can rush Also, and stop their counterattacks if they go for one.

Even if I made up this form, I'd have to play with it a whole lot to get used to it, so right now I am satisfied with using an anti. Any opinions on how good that form would be?

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Gold Jumpa

I actually was just trying a form like that on a single. I'm no expert but I'm going to keep on trying it. I like the fact that its at least a little bit original.

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Gypsy

The idea with the furgon is to buy at least one turn, if not secure something, furgon can be masterful.