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I wonder if anyone has tested out the 'size' of the maps in SC2 to see how the rush distances compare to that of SC1.
It seems like a lot of the maps in the ladder are much smaller than SC1 iccup maps, especially the 2 player maps like Steppes of War. Perhaps the small rush distances are the reason why 1 base play and early aggression are the dominant strategies so far?
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Some maps have close rush distances, some have long. Maps like scrap yard and desert oasis have very long rush distances.
It will take time before finding a FE Build order that do not fail to any early agression. as there is not yet any " Standard" BO ion any matchup, timing a FE is very hard and often fails. I think this is why most people play 1 base.
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Even if the maps are normal size for SC2, there is so much void space around the map edges that is being wasted. The evolved SC1 maps always have main bases hugging the edges, and a narrow ramp or choke is standard (I think Scrap Station is a little wide).
Do you remember Blizzard's SC1 maps? Bloodbath, Labyrinth, Wheel of War. I think Lost Temple was the only "sound" map to make it out of that generation.
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combination of smaller maps and units move faster than in broodwar. some maps have longer distances, but if you remove destructables the distance is really short (Blistering Sands, Scrapyard). It definitely factors in how the early/mid-game is played. Also, increase mobility in all the races for harassing and troop movement, like nydus worms/warp-in/cliff jumping(reapers) means terrain is less of an obstacle.
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The main reason why aggressive one base play is so dominant is the that people are not yet familiar with how the game works, and playing aggressively requires less knowledge about the game than playing a "management" style. Once there is a somewhat stable meta-game and people know how to stop all the various timing attacks, Starcraft 2 will take the same route that Broodwar took and economic play will be much more common and successful.
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Rush distance means little to the might of the proxy pylon!
Also, has anyone even spawned cross position in a 4-player map? I can't recall if I ever have.
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On February 22 2010 08:26 silencefc wrote: Rush distance means little to the might of the proxy pylon!
Also, has anyone even spawned cross position in a 4-player map? I can't recall if I ever have. It's happened in streams.
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On February 22 2010 08:22 Drunken.Jedi wrote: The main reason why aggressive one base play is so dominant is the that people are not yet familiar with how the game works, and playing aggressively requires less knowledge about the game than playing a "management" style. Once there is a somewhat stable meta-game and people know how to stop all the various timing attacks, Starcraft 2 will take the same route that Broodwar took and economic play will be much more common and successful.
I don't know about that.. I mean I agree that people are probably not being effective in countering their opponents and therefore it's harder to expo, but from all the streams I see it really looks like expanding is extremely risky at any point in the game. I've seen people try to play defensive style with siege tanks or cannons or spine crawlers but none of those "base defenses" seem to offset the tradeoff of having less units. That coupled with the fact that you have almost no advantage from fighting at your base (because rush distance is so small) really seems like it makes expoing really hard =(. It also means that after you lose one battle you never really get back into it, because you have no time to re-make your units by the time the enemy gets to your base.
I'd really like to see bigger maps. It'd probably turn sc2 into much more of a macro game. Unfortunately map size probably has to be balanced around warp gate^^;. Suddenly having the ability to proxy all your gateways to anywhere on the map makes for very short reinforcement distances.
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Rush distance makes a huge difference in ZvZ at least. Roaches are so slow :X
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On February 22 2010 09:10 Feefee wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 08:22 Drunken.Jedi wrote: The main reason why aggressive one base play is so dominant is the that people are not yet familiar with how the game works, and playing aggressively requires less knowledge about the game than playing a "management" style. Once there is a somewhat stable meta-game and people know how to stop all the various timing attacks, Starcraft 2 will take the same route that Broodwar took and economic play will be much more common and successful. I don't know about that.. I mean I agree that people are probably not being effective in countering their opponents and therefore it's harder to expo, but from all the streams I see it really looks like expanding is extremely risky at any point in the game. I've seen people try to play defensive style with siege tanks or cannons or spine crawlers but none of those "base defenses" seem to offset the tradeoff of having less units. That coupled with the fact that you have almost no advantage from fighting at your base (because rush distance is so small) really seems like it makes expoing really hard =(. It also means that after you lose one battle you never really get back into it, because you have no time to re-make your units by the time the enemy gets to your base. I'd really like to see bigger maps. It'd probably turn sc2 into much more of a macro game. Unfortunately map size probably has to be balanced around warp gate^^;. Suddenly having the ability to proxy all your gateways to anywhere on the map makes for very short reinforcement distances. Defending in an RTS always requires more knowledge than attacking. For a successful attack, you just need to find a timing at which your army can be very strong relative to your opponents army/defenses and then figure out how to get the strongest possible army at that point in the game. To play defensively, you need to know every possible attack timing that your opponent could be using and you need to be prepared to counter every single one of them, while still getting enough eco/tech so that you don't fall behind if your opponent doesn't go for an attack.
Walking that fine line between not enough defenses and too much defenses requires extensive knowledge of the game and that's why such a playstyle is rare in the early life cycle of an RTS. Now I obviously cannot predict what the game will look like in 5 years after 2 expansions and numerous balance patches and metagame shifts, but I can practically guarantee that expanding and playing defensively will be more viable then than it is now.
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