Ultimate Apocalypse is a mod for Dawn of War Soulstorm, which aims to create the most diverse possible unit and faction selection within the confines of the original DOW engine. We strive to create the most engaging and balanced Warhammer 40,000 game that we can, without sacrificing the fun factor. From hordes of Orks to the towering Titans, you can always find a new way to play UA. We invite all of you to join us on our Discord server to keep up with the development of the mod!

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Anyone playing competitive 1v1 games? What are the dirty tricks? (Games : Dawn of War : Mods : Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) : Forum : Strategy Discussion : Anyone playing competitive 1v1 games? What are the dirty tricks?) Locked
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Jul 6 2016 Anchor

So I've been playing this mod for a while, mainly with a game group of about six. I dabbled at playing Soulstorm competitively but got a little bored with the strictness of the build orders. In a game with eight races the game is more fun in teams or in an FFA because there's a natural imbalance present in those modes that ironically balances out some of the more exploitative garbage.

That said, I'm curious if anyone has been trying to learn particular races in a 1v1 setting? There are a bunch of strange details that aren't intuitively obvious, and if you know your micro it's easy enough to confuse an AI into defeating itself.

Case in point: I notice some players who exclusively play against computers defending the state of static defense in UA, likely because AI places them sub-optimally, and a smart human can wield the things like a sledge hammer coming down on an egg - map depending. A human builds defensible, fortified positions, a computer does not, and a computer doesn't always attack your worker units to prevent them from finishing a turret if one is in progress.

The weirdest faction is the Daemonhunters. There's a lot of lateral upgrading, it's unclear how much requisition the urban workers produce but I think it's +1, and the anti-daemon specialization is super wonky versus races that rely on those unit types. I was reading the discussion about them in the forum, but I'm not really seeing anything too... thoughtful? They just feel incredibly unwieldly and I can't get a bead on them. The AI plays them to strange habits. I can play them and win matches but they feel amorphous. And of course I see Cylarn nerfing one of their long range attacks into utter worthlessness but everything prior to Apocalypse level seems to get that treatment if it can annoy a turtle.

I really hate turrets, but this is because we have a guy in our group who's dedicated himself to using them and walls on the offensive. Human strategy. ANNOYING strategy. A STRATEGY THAT HAS NO COUNTERS on specific maps because all the long range attacks that take advantage of the turrets' immobility keep getting nerfed!

Anyway, if anybody out there is trying to play serious 1v1 or general competitive stuff with thinking, living humans, what are some of the dirty tricks and exploitative things you've seen? How are people getting certain races wrapped around their fingers in ways that seem really hard to counter?

Aside from offensive turrets, the wall'n'stall thing seems to happen a lot too, where certain maps provide an advantage if you focus on tech and turrets rather than armies since you can choke off half the map. Tyranids have a quick early game thing with gaunt spam - since they build so many units at no cost, it's fairly easy for them to seize a lot of points early on as well as getting into your base to cause trouble. Otherwise, the auto-repair function seems to maintain a supreme role until at least T2, seating itself as the most potent, wide-spread ability in the game.

Catz_Rule
Catz_Rule Uhhh....
Jul 7 2016 Anchor

Well, DaemonHunter have a really good anti turret ability with the Calculus Logistic guy that you build from the hq. AT 250 power (i think), you can disable all turrets defenses for a while and get a, small advantage on them I guess. Also Auto-repair has been nerfed to be more harmful now as it lasts longer but heals less. They also have the whirlwind Hyperios, very powerful artillery unit. Eldar and Dark eldar have their Artillery too, that when upgraded to some shard weapon do crazy unbalanced damage. Daemons can pretty much ignore turrts with their debaser spam early game( 3rd vehicle that is mark based), and with greater daemons using the mark of Tzeentch for ranged resistance. The Yellow horrors are also really powerful. Then theres Eldar, space marines, Daemons, actually a lot of races capable of bypassing the turrets by just 'jumping over' with a webway gate, thunderhawk transport, depstriking. But then again, all these counters will force you into a changed playstyle which isn't necessarily fun either. I played a bit with a friend, and he kept doing this with necrons or eldar. Best way to deal with it was to rush.

--

Ummm....

Jul 7 2016 Anchor

Yeah, rushing is the easiest way to deal with turret spam. At T1 most factions are able to sink their teeth into a turret nest because they're still the game's vanilla turrets. At T2, the reward for having invested in turrets really sinks in, though. The range gets bigger, the damage output gets higher, and because they're cheap they'll very easily recover the cost of building them in the first place. Many, many UA games have been turning into WWI trench warfare for me.

If it comes in at T3, I don't really consider it a crucially valuable counter. At that point you're looking at relic units and upgrades powerful enough for you to just tank on through a defensive line. T3 artillery is pretty strong for the factions that get T3 artillery, if you want to sit outside the other person's base and drop bombs on them, but the artillery isn't really too impressive at killing buildings and you'd honestly be better off building something with a giant laser on the front so you can simply punch on in there and get the enemy before they have time to do something about it.

On the bright side, I haven't really played with my friend who really applies the wall'n'stall thing offensively since the update that made it so walls can only be built in a control area. What he used to do was sneak builders to choke points at really far forward points in the map, wall it off, then just work his way back from there with an army until he held everything behind the wall. There's always a control point by those chokes, so with a few turrets there was really never any taking it back. Walls have roughly the same health as an HQ and more armor, so it was a waste of time to try to fight it without the kind of firepower that rapidly melts an HQ.

The fact that he can't start by walling off a choke before he gets to work is going to really screw him up. Although he's telling me he's REALLY excited that tank traps give buildings a cover bonus now, so I think I'm going to learn soon how to feel about that little adjustment. Odds are good it's going to diminish the tactical viability of rushing.

-edit-

Oh, speaking of tank traps. You know what else is funny? Neither the Reaver nor the Warhound have keen sight. I once had a game where I thought I had the one up over my wall'n'stall friend because I'd built a Reaver before he'd finished anything on that level. This was before the Reavers had stomp damage, so I walked to his base and then the pathing got wonky. The thing got shelled by artillery until it died because it couldn't advance and wouldn't turn around for some reason. At first I thought it was the map, but then it turned out my friend had peppered the area outside his base with tank traps. Dozens of these cheap, stupid, invisible walls, and the Reaver couldn't see them.

"Fun" game mechanics. Walls. Man. I HATE walls.

Anyway,moving on from the wall rant. I've been looking at Daemon Hunters and this is what I've got so far:

Units:

  • Bodyguards may theoretically become viable given enough upgrades, but they're outclassed by Stormtroopers well before then. Starting off with grenades give them some kick while skirmishing over the first control points, but it's not enough to keep me from phasing them out.
  • Stormtroopers are great on defense. Being able to entrench and equip grenade launchers gives them both reach and defensibility if you don't want them to move. They are passable on offense but have trouble with morale. Early Krak grenades make them threatening, especially against T1 turrets, but I'm expecting Cylarn to nerf that.
  • Grenadiers are also great on defense. Anti-building launchers are completely worthless and don't seem to have a notable positive impact. Anti-vehicle grenades don't have much bite, but in enough numbers they do the job.
  • Grey Knight strike teams are fine. Pretty low on morale for the Emperor's Finest. Given their later availability I'm not finding any real advantage to building them over Stormtroopers.
  • Grey Knight Terminators are mediocrity incarnate for their price. Morale breaks easily. However, they're pretty tanky so they do a reasonable job of getting in the way.
  • Predators are good thanks to all the vehicle upgrades. They arrive late but they hit like T3 units.
  • Whirlwind Hyperios takes a long time to build, and once they get out they aren't really saving the day. Honestly I'm preferring to build predators which are more instantaneously effective against troops, vehicles, and buildings alike.
  • All the heroes feel quite fragile. Even the Gray Knight heroes. They have some really good abilities once the financial momentum is there to buy them, but it's pretty crucial to micro these guys and keep an eye on them. They seem to die pretty quickly if I quit babysitting them.

There's also the relic units, which normally don't warrant a lot of consideration because they show up so late and decide the game based on who gets to them first. The relic units are all strong, though, and they do what I expect them to.

Buildings

  • Turrets are the standard thing. Stronger than any troops and with longer range to boot. As long as they're supported, nothing counters them until T3.
  • Deployment turrets are essentially winning battles for me. I feel like Inquisition troops break too easily on the offensive, but deployment turrets make every fight defensive. Just spam up the cover and throw down a few deployment turrets! Individually they have very low health, but in the middle of a big fight the things have a pretty vicious DPS and since they can be upgraded to pack heavier rounds they're great to wipe out a base once the enemy infantry is mopped up. These have been so reliable I haven't really had a reason to not put them on auto-build.
  • Mega Melta bombardment does what exactly? It tickles, is what it does, but this is how UA "balances" long range weaponry. Sometimes I'll toss it on a nearly dead tank as it tries to run away, but it's honestly not worth the power I spend on it.
  • Psycannon Bombardment is devastating to infantry or clumps of generators, and at 800/800 it damn well better be. I find myself using it very rarely because I try not to let myself sit on a ton of spare resources unless I'm saving up for something. Cylarne is nerfing it by a WHOPPING 46% damage though. Good lord. People were complaining because the "hard" and "harder" AI could spam the ability, but that's because the AI cheats with ridiculous income bonuses. Post-nerf this button is going to go from rarely used to gathering dust in the Emperor's tool shedarium. It'll be a great way to waste 700/700 on killing worker units.
  • Bunkers don't seem to perform well with bolter turrets, but the flamers obliterate morale and do enough damage. They are walls that are also bunkers, so of course they're hard to kill. Since you can garrison troops in them, it only adds to the defensive power of the faction. It's weird how you have to build one to start recruiting generals, though.
  • Urban developments buildings seem to be where the game-breaking potential is at. The urban workers don't seem to do anything except waste my income - I may be wrong about that, but whatever bonus they offer pales in comparison to the fact that you can string four requisition upgrades together almost right at the start of the game. Each new building costs more requisition but not a lot of additional power, and the same is true of new HQ buildings. Further, because the early game is requisition hungry and the late game is power hungry, spamming requisition upgrades has no early drawbacks. It doesn't diminish my capacity to build or reinforce troops.

Prognosis so far:

Figuring out an army and where its breaking points are takes a lot of drilling and examination. I've used some of the other units but haven't really drilled them. All the stuff I've got listed are things I've built over and over in games. Sometimes against AI and sometimes against people.

  • Urban development buildings. This is the faction's most OP element as far as I can tell. They add +5 requisition and can be upgraded to boost requisition by 25%. There is a law of diminishing returns, but it occurs at around eight buildings or so, by which point I'm already far ahead in resources. I find myself throwing down four of these ASAP so that my requisition income rate is essentially at T5 within the first ten minutes. Then I build another HQ and do the same with the power resource. I find myself building the statue of the Emperor within fifteen minutes on a lot of maps. The hitch here is that when I don't abuse this mechanic, the Inquisition army feels very fragile and very cowardly. There's not a directly logical growth in unit power and I'm not really feeling them as a cohesive force. It's more like I'm exploiting their income growth to the highest tech tier and then smashing my opponents while they're still trying to reach T3. I don't know how you could balance this mechanic, especially when it's obviously the core of the army's design.

Things to look at:

Obviously I need to try the other units, but it's common to be able to look at what a unit's role is supposed to be and say, "Okay, this is redundant, or this is similar to that". In some cases you can imagine some solid timing pushes.

  • Weapon servitors. I haven't really done anything with them yet, but I suspect that attack units with repair capabilities are very strong on defense. The Inquisition doesn't actually need more defense power. In fact it's pretty much the best thing going for them until Predator tanks.
  • Scholars. I don't really like how easily they break early on, so I've used them mainly as tar pits and otherwise not at all, but waiting for the Gray Knights to provide front line cannon fodder has been too time consuming. Having gotten comfortable with the general rhythm of the army, I need to go back and look at these guys to see if I can't bring out their potential a little better.

Edited by: Flamgino

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