Poll: Defense or Offense?

[Razentsu]

I'm a defensive player. I play patiently and try to outlast my opponent. But I often think I respect my opponents too much. Being defensive often means giving up momentum, which is incredibly important factor in most games.

I've had many games stolen from me because I gave up momentum too easily.

 

[Blatherscythe]

Against bots I generally take a defensive approach. However, with games like AOM where walls, turrets, and fortresses do diddly against your enemy I take a more offensive approach.

 

[Doneeee]

-delete-

 

[Ryotknife]

Generally I've found in RTSs that "defensive" players, are simply bad players that are unable to micromanage scouts and resources.

Scouting is by far the biggest problem. If a defensive player scouts properly they shouldn't lose, plain and simple. Defense has the natural advantage of added preparation time while the opponent travels. If you're opponent has built right on top of you (thus negativing travel time), this again, is primarily a scouting issue. Through proper scouting a defensive player should catch a glimpse of their opponents buildings, figure out the most logical strategy their opponent will take, and prepare for it.

Now occasionally you will encounter a "defensive" player that does all this and is able to shut down the assault. The issue then becomes confidence; many simply aren't confident enough to begin a counter assault -- at this point playing "defensive" becomes turtling. If you're thinking "rebuild" instead of "counter attack", that's not playing defensive and you might as well go play Minecraft on creative mode or Simcity as it's apparent you only want to is build.

Finally there's harassing. Many so called defensive players don't harass. They don't harass in the beginning, they don't harass if they shut down an assault, and they certainly don't harass during an assault. If someone goes all out offensive or if someone rushes, they are likely incredibly vulnerable at home, even sending two or three troops can be devastating.

I will say that RTSs with premade maps (eg. Starcraft) do allow for skilless offensive play. An offensive player can ignore scouting because they know exactly where the enemy is, but really this doesn't, or shouldn't, work too well outside of bronze league.

I don't mean to come off like a dick, or call all defensive players bad, but that generally is the case. I do speak from experience. I used to call myself "defensive", shake my fist at the sky complaining about "rushers", that is until someone I didn't even know (for whatever reason) whipped me into shape.

eh you are probably right. im terrible at micromanaging which is one of the reasons why i dont play SC2 against players (the other being the plethora of really cheap tactics that are always employed, SC1 only had ONE cheap tactic and it was an all or nothing thing). I like planning more so than actively doing things.

In SC2 i will turtle up while pumping out reapers to harass while my teammates start building up. It is also one of the two strategies ive found to work against the AI on the hardest possible difficulty (the other being to rush right after an assault)

 

[StBishop]

Yeah, I'm another one who wants to point out the difference between chips and French fries.

OT: I play offensively.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Both. I turtle like hell until I can blot out the sun with capitol ships, then go and curbstomp all the things.

What game are you referring to?

I tend to turtle up and let the enemy attack first. Then have my static defence hold intil my mobile forces arrive to beat back the invaders then push forward.

REcaptcha: slush fund

 

[lunavixen]

I have a largely defensive strategy, solid defenses that are hard to break, and then i go offensive.

For the record, they are all chips to me, just varied sizes of chips

 

[Riddle78]

Primarily? Defense. My kind of RTS is Supreme Commander (THE FIRST ONE!). Secure an economy,then form a "Firing Line". Impenetrable defenses that generally feature all levels of PD,AA,and AMS. Furthermore,I always include at least two T2 artillery platforms per cell (my defense lines are modular,and made of cells),just to say "FUCK YOU!" to any mobile artillery,or,heaven forbid,boats that come to play. I also keep at least THREE shield generators covering each cell. I also keep fighters patrolling inside the defensive bubble,and I have gunship,bomber,and torpedo bomber kill teams ready,just in case something outranges my defenses...Or an Experimental finds it's way in. And I ALWAYS keep nukes handy. I realize that in SupCom they're near worthless because of how easy it is to get SMD's,but a nuke is often the easiest way to stop a massive strike force,or an Experimental. I nuked a Fatboy,once. It died. Shields don't stop nukes.

My win condition is usually a "Win from home" solution: Saturation shelling or,if it gets to it,nuke spam. If I can't readily achieve either of those,then it's just an enormous wave of ASF's and gunships. Unless I'm Cybran. Expect to see 50 Soul Rippers if I'm Cybran.

Long and short of it? Win from home,or shock and awe,after turtling like a boss.

 

[Jamash]

I actually have trouble choosing between the two. It actually causes me alot of problems in games like skyrim.

I can see how trying to decide between two opposing RTS tactics could cause you a lot of problems in a game like Skyrim...

 

[gideonkain]

I am not that great at DoW, but I have recently been moving up the ranks of the Starcraft 2 ladders.

Basically, the key to victory is to do more with what you have at your disposal.
It's a balancing act.

If you turtle in you have a bunch of static defenses that won't win you the battle.
If you go too aggressive, there is a very real risk of losing your force to their defenses or having a majority of your forces in one location while they decimate another.

The key to victory is to "Start Strong", "Expand Safety", "Upgrade Continuously", "Build Reactively" and finally "Study".

1) Start Strong
If you think about it, every second of the game is a divergent moment, everytime you make a builder instead of a soldier and vice versa you are making a choice that will affect the outcome. The key is to develop a large enough economy to always have a "force in development" if your barracks(or w/e) is idle your doing something wrong, either your neglecting it or your not gathering the amount of resources you should have. (Alternatively, you can find yourself gathering more resources than you need to, if you have "more money than you can spend" your doing it wrong. because that basically means you don't have sufficient defenses to protect an operation of that size

2) Expand Safely
Using rally points, you can have troops automatically arrive in a certain location. Early on you want to assign them to gaurd resources and chokepoints where "rushes" are forced to come in. Once you decide to expand you need to provide security for your expansion, there is no scenario where sacrificing a base due to lack of protection will work in your favor.

3) Upgrade Continously
This is definitely what separates players into skill levels - most players will try to build the most massive force they can to overwhelm and destroy you, very few actually take the time to upgrade the individuals. IF you have 6 soldiers with level 1 weapons fighting 3 soldiers with level 2 weapons, they will probably destroy each other the difference is that your opponents loss in funds is twice that of yours. For every encounter you want your costs to be less than theirs. Always upgrade weapons/armor/shields, it usually costs about as much as a single unit per upgrade so even though it takes time it will be worth it in the end...you can also build multiple upgrade buildings, but if you have that much excess income, then your probably not being forceful enough and you have a lot of "reserve units" just waiting for the inevitable mass strike or God Forbid they make 4 clicks and break their forces into two prongs. Which brings me to my next point.

4) Build Reactively
Scout. Scout, Scout, Scout, Scout, Scout. You should scout. Early on with a builder, later with flying units and stealth units. To consistently win you need to know what your up against, not just have the most devastating force ever conceived and hope that they don't exploit your weaknesses (which are built into the mechanics of the game)

If you know what they are doing, you can "act" toward victory and not just "react" to the Shit Storm at your front door.

So many RTS battles are lost because the player has no idea what the opponent is doing. Something as simple as setting a ground unit on a patrol between you and your opponent's main base gives you an early warning system for minimal cost.

I hope these tips are helpful to you, my final piece of advice is to "study".

5) Study
Go on YouTube and watch matches with your chosen race(especially the ones that have commentary) you will learn very quickly what actually works and what is just "cheese" that will only work if your opponent is trying less than you.

Good luck to you!

 

[kommando367]

A good initial rush or 2 to distract the enemy while I build defenses and assess their strengths and weaknesses. Then, I exploit their weaknesses with a specialized rush before they get a chance to advance very far.

 

[Joccaren]

I used to play defensively, until I realised that it was the reason I kept losing.
Then I started playing offensively, and I could not only win more often, but I understood exactly what would be going through my enemy's head at any given moment. I was able to manipulate them to stay inside their base whilst I took control of the rest of the map, or to attack me where I was strongest with their whole army so that I could make a counterattack whilst they rebuilt.
Playing offensively is, IMO, the only way to win in most RTSs. Some games have defensive strategies being effective, but not all too often.

 

[bakan]

It depends on the RTS I'm playing and the enemy I'm facing.
It's all about adjusting to different situations and making the best choices.

 

[Exocet]

In most games, my technique is to defend while taunting my enemy with one or two long range fire units (think cannons in Total War, and tech3 artillery in Supreme Commander), then wait for him to attack, crush his puny attack with my offensive units helped out by some base defense, then counter-attack hard.

Or there's bulldozing, where your defense line creeps toward the enemy base. That's fun too, although quite costly in both resources and time.

 

[Odbarc]

You spelled defence wrong in the poll but right in the post.
Defense.