Xasica Prime: [1v1]

[Tryptic]

posted on October 5th, 2010, 5:10 am

Last edited by Tryptic on January 3rd, 2011, 4:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Centuries ago, a fleet of powerful warships ripped a corridor through the Xasica system's asteroid belt.  Nobody alive today remembers whether their frenzied passage was a charge or a retreat, but only the largest asteroid, Xasica Prime, survived the ordeal.  Now it stands as a silent witness to new conflicts, as starship captains often come and reenact the ancient battle.

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I've been noticing lately that going for your expansion first is a valid strategy, and wanted to make a map that played this to its fullest.  There are advantages and disadvantages to building your base in a forward position: while your corridor may be easy to defend, your resources aren't.  Raiding early and often is key to this map.

There is one problem.  With the players so close together, it's possible to turret-rush or even yard-rush your opponent.  While this isn't entirely an unfair strategy, it can ruin the fun if the opponent thinks it's a cheap move.  Decide beforehand if you want to allow constructor-rush strategies or not.

10k by 8k (small)


http://www.mediafire.com/?js1xv29xj4057xq

EDIT: Aligned the starting positions perfectly on the grid and removed the space from the filename.

posted on October 5th, 2010, 5:49 am

I loved testing out this map. Definitely my favorite 1 v 1, especially when you figure out the key to winning on this map. 

posted on October 6th, 2010, 5:54 pm

This is an interesting map.  I definitely like it.  Just go right up to the enemies first expansion and put a turret there.  Then do the same for the other expansions.  By the time the opponent gets enough resources to blow your turret up, you'll already have enough resources to wipe him/her out.  Very nice.

posted on October 6th, 2010, 6:07 pm

This is an interesting map.  I definitely like it.  Just go right up to the enemies first expansion and put a turret there.  Then do the same for the other expansions.  By the time the opponent gets enough resources to blow your turret up, you'll already have enough resources to wipe him/her out.  Very nice.

that's not true, try that in a real game and you'll run out of money for turrets when you get your miners killed.

posted on October 6th, 2010, 9:43 pm

Then Ill go Feds! Feds don't need miners to survive!

posted on October 6th, 2010, 9:45 pm

Then Ill go Feds! Feds don't need miners to survive!

that's close to true lol

posted on October 6th, 2010, 10:33 pm

Well, I was playing as the Federation with a Borg opponent.  Although I think I still need to adjust the modifiers a little to get the build time and costs just right.  I'm pretty sure though that it would have been a lot harder to expand the way I did if it was an online game.

posted on October 6th, 2010, 10:56 pm

Wait, what?  You can exploit my map by building a turret near the enemy's mining?

What's the prerequisite for fed turrets?  I might need to look into this...

If somebody did manage to turret your expansion, you'd probably have enough monetary advantage to take the top or bottom pair, or harass the enemy into destitution.

posted on October 7th, 2010, 12:09 am

Well, during my last offline game with a somewhat more accurate simulation of what would happen, build a couple of shipyards, a research and science center, and a starfleet command.  Very effective.  The opponent will put up a fight, but if you send a group of Sabers, Monsoons, and Intrepids to the opponent's center expansion, then build 1 phaser turret at each of the other expansions, bringing your fleet as necessary, you'll be a very difficult opponent.

Works offline every time with the AI at Hard and AI cost and time at 2x.  Which is probably a good simulation of what your opponent might do.  But by the time your opponent realizes what you're doing, it's probably too late!

posted on October 7th, 2010, 12:17 am

But by the time your opponent realizes what you're doing, it's probably too late!

Unless they have a scout and see your constructor slowly doing the rounds?

posted on October 7th, 2010, 12:32 am

..I don't think that's a good simulation of what your enemy might do at all.

On this map, your human enemy will have scout info on your base within the first 20 seconds.  He can watch your constructor travelling to his base, and will rush either a combat ship or his own turret as fast as is physically possible.  The only races I'm concerned about are borg and romulan because they can't get their own defensive turrets up.

What I'm afraid of is this: when the game starts the mayson fed player sends one of his two constructors to build a platform at his enemy's expansion, and starts the antares with his other constructor.  As soon as the platform finishes it will get phasor upgrade, plus a second platform starts building next to it.  The Fed player has horrible economy, which is probably the key to defeating him.

The worst-case scenario is this: a romulan player builds his staryard next to the expansion moons and a fed player builds a turret next to it, fast enough to snipe every ship that comes out.  The turret kills the yard, and the romulan player loses his economic advantage over the fed.  Can somebody please test this out for me online?