Limited High Funds Revisited

First topic message reminder :

Original topic here: http://www.amarriner.com/awbw_forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=14478

This game style has a ton of potential, and I wouldn't mind reopening the discussion on it. Unfortunately it seems that there's only one replay available, so if someone else has replays of past LHF games stored somewhere, please share them!

I'm also thinking that it could be very interesting to see some games with Funds per Turn set to 0 (rather than 500), and it would be prudent to ban stealths and megatanks, as they are the only units that require mirroring your opponent to counter effectively. I might make some games on old Mori maps with these settings, so if someone is interested in testing stuff out, let me know.

Dang! You kids are still on this thing. I might just weep right now. Mass respect to you all. I never thought LHF would lead to anything beyond this. Now I'm blown away.

And I completely agree, we need more playtesting to work out the kinks in the CO Tier. Best to keep it labeled as LHF/LiHF Tier list so as not to confuse the newbies to oblivion.

Great to see you around!

Created a few LHF games for testing. Please feel free to join.

Great comments there. Keep them coming!

I was not expecting to win out against on this open map, much less a com tower.
 
http://awbw.amarriner.com/game.php?games_id=223403

We both stuck to the usual low tech units and attempted to outnumber each other in terms of unit count. What hurt him was the lack of available cities with which to use Sensei's powers to spawn units, and attack strength collectively. If I recall correctly, ghosted cities are unusable for Hachi and Sensei. So, having a few free mechs are nil compared to the numerous artillery encroaching about in bloodlust. Losing both rockets and having a completely crippled front on the north pretty much ended the game. It is quite hard for me to gauge just how good/or broken Grit is in LiHF, and this example buffs him up a little bit. Still, I am not convinced that he ought to be broken like . If he consistently wins more games in LiHF due to his versatility and excellent d2d, I might reconsider his place in the tier list. Suggestions are most welcome.

I will create some more LiHF games soon.

Interesting game for sure. I think I agree that only having a few cities for Sensei to use makes him much weaker, probably to the point that he'd drop from the broken tier under normal circumstances (or at least make him the worst choice of the 5 by far).

I'm definitely interested in trying this out for both fun and data collection purposes, but knowing that you can beat the FANG makes me wonder whether I'd be enough of a challenge for you Anyway, feel free to PM me when you make any games and I'll be happy to join!

No kidding, I respect the FANG for his skills. He was good when I played against him a few years ago, and now he's really good.

Awesome! I created 6 LiHF games. They are up in the public games list. I sent you a PM as well. Good luck!

Kamuscha wrote:http://awbw.amarriner.com/game.php?games_id=223403

That game's finish was pretty hype, haha. Glad to see this gametype is still getting love, it's very cool.

Yeah it was. We've only scratched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gamestyles. It warms my gooey insides to see that LiHF is gaining some ground in AWBW. I am anticipating the possibility of hosting a LiHF tournament after we have done some deliberate analysis, testing and figuring out the CO tiers and map balance.

It's quite a different shift from the standard 1k funds game, but one that allows the CO's to truly shine which is one of several reasons why it was inspired.

Yeah, I believe labbing expensive units like the neotank will go a long way towards minimizing fta and progression of unit development. Turn 1 neotanks tend to favor fta like what Everdan pointed out earlier. So, how do we go about having HQ's and neutral labs and still prevent fta?

I was also wondering whether it would be beneficial to have a base that heavily favors use for the purpose of building infantry. I recognize that there isn't really a conventional capture phase for a couple of key reasons (mainly the high funds and low importance of having cities) but I think even getting a couple extra infantry per side on the field would make things more interesting. You don't want too many because the ability to have high powered units hiding behind a wall of infantry begs for stalemates but too few infantry makes it hard to have strategic opportunities for advancing units semi-safely.

The lab idea could slow heavy vehicle production (most notably neotanks) a bit and let some infantry get to the front first, but it definitely makes it hard to balance FTA if the ability to build the important units is solely a function of capturing a single property. Maybe making them lab units and giving each player 1 predeployed neotank in a remote area behind the bases. Let P2 (or, more accurately, whoever captures the lab second) get the neotank out on a schedule equivalent to building it the turn before their enemy captures the lab and make it so P1's neotank makes it out the turn that P1 captures their lab. That basically makes it go like:

P2 "builds" predeployed neotank
P1 captures lab, builds neotank(s) and "builds" predeployed neotank
P2 captures lab and builds neotank(s)

Hmm, these are viable ideas. Could we test it out and see how it plays in practice? One idea I had was to have pipeseams blocking off the heavy units while they are banned or labbed in-game. Even woods are effective enough to slow movement.

Yeah, that's definitely along the lines of what I was imagining too. Another idea to add to this could be a predeployed (but mountain locked) arty that can break the seams for the unit(s) escaping to save their ammo, or at least some of it. You would have to base escape time off of both units attacking for obvious reasons.

You could also take that idea and use it to help slow early progression (similar to the lab unit idea) by placing a mountain locked rockets for each player in an area that makes it hard to enemy units to get too close. However, make the rocket really vulnerable to any air units (close enough to enemy airport and on low defense terrain with little ability to directly support it) and time airport capture with when you want central access to be granted. It might not even be a bad idea to counter FTA/STA by giving a defense boost to the rocket that gets hit first. Assuming OS gets the airport first, place the OS rocket on a shoal/road and put a mountain under BM's; turning a 6-7 damage attack into a 3-4 damage attack leaves BM's rocket halfway useful after being hit while OS's is basically crippled. It's not a super counter, but it's something that could be considered if needed.

Just a couple of ideas.. I didn't yet fully read all the posts above so I hope this comes out OK!

About the early neotank advantage problem. I remember ages ago playing a similar thing in fog on red11 big map when neo limited vision means they are not so great. I think FOG would stop any early neo advantage.
There are many ways to get or encourage infantry. Predeployeds, or put one base behind mountains so only soldiers can get out.
Also big maps quite often solve a lot of problems.

I didn't visitvforum for a month or two and I couldn't remember what exactly limited high funds exactly was. Can't we call this modality simply High Start Funds ?
The low 500 income compared to usual 1000 is anyway a secondary factor when you have 100,0000 to spend.

Whatever great idea. Am available for some fun test games in fog.

Blanci wrote:About the early neotank advantage problem. I remember ages ago playing a similar thing in fog on red11 big map when neo limited vision means they are not so great.  I think FOG would stop any early neo advantage.

That's definitely a valid point; I've seen that in Broken CO (Colin) Fog/rain matches. vision is extremely important and drastically reduces the effectiveness of high powered tanks and bombers etc. The only problems is that I think the game becomes more and more of a crapshoot the higher you go in (early) funds with FoW simply because of how many options are available. It basically becomes a gamble of "did my opponent crank out a ton of neotanks and a few recons or a ton of arties and a few recons?" Guess wrong and you're done. I'd still like to see if there's a way to make it work better- maybe predployed mountain locked recons to let you get a glimpse of at least one enemy base to you can see what they build, but not where the units are on the front etc.

Also, with one LiHF game (or whatever people want to call it) under my belt, I'll say I'm surprised to see Javier do so well with the indirect game being so underplayed (due to low meatshields and early high-powered tanks). On the other hand, I've been doing some thinking and I wonder if LiHF lends itself too well to artillery spam. Sure, it can be countered but on the other hand it's a perfect counter to neotank spam if it's done correctly. You save a lot of your money and deal out way more in damage (funds) per hit. I think it's probably a good idea for playtesters to completely throw out their current meta concepts and try bold and different strategies like this so we can cast a net over a wide area and get a better feel for where the meta for LiHF will ultimately end up. That obviously gives us a huge step forward in designing optimal maps and creating optimal settings for the game style.