I'll tell ya!

[Guest PhantomMenace]

I was goofin off on gamespy and i was talking to a guy about playes on the zone. Of course i mentioned that i think there was some kinda trick to how they get to level 3 at a surreal rate, and i guess he was bored or something but he offered to show me how they do it. Now dont get me wrong, a tactic is a tactic and if it can be used then its fair but the thing is most of the zone players try to put on a front like they were all skilled and everything when in actuallity nothing could have been further from the truth. If you consider yourself a newbie then i want you to pay close attention to the following lines and you'll see how the so called "pro's" do it. In no time you'll be just like em and you'll see that its got nothing to do with strategy but rather a tip passed by word of mouth from person to person is all. Aparently what they do is start off by only collecting carbon from trees and killing gia for food, i argued with the guy that if you put those in a nursery you'll get more food in the long run but he told me to wait and see. (we were playing against comp same team btw). This guy didnt build a barracks, a nursery, a nova mine, or an ore mine. He just got the required food and wood and bam to my surprise this dude was at tech 2 in no time. Now where a newb or i guess myself woulda went wrong would be to build a barracks you know and try to get some rush defense...wrong and i'll explain why. Ok at tech 2 he only built 3 more buildings a spaceport and a jedi temple. He took a good deal of the food and wood he had and traded a big chunk of it in for nova. Now at this point you can do 1 of 2 things... you can one build about 3 or 4 jedi's and send em over... as i argued in a previous post this sucks cuz 1; jedi can waste about 9 troops on his own so this guy that thought he had D with some troops was fooled...also even if he was wise and built some towers, jedi are melee so they will get in close on those towers. More than likely hte other guy aint at tech 3 so he cant research Rotation Bearings to attack close. If he was even smarter and staggered the towers so they could help each other still..all you gotta do is run that jedi somewhere the towers cant reach and attack like a far off carbon mine or something. THe other thing you can do is take that nova and start progressin to tech 3. At this point, the comp; which was on hardest difficulty setting was just now gettin to tech 2. We had it on reveal and he barely had troops even. This dude then went to tech 3 and got aircraft and then the game was pretty much over. With a combination of aircraft and jedi the comp was toast, i woulda been toast. If you woulda looked at the base fo the guy that was showing me this i dont even think he had a power core! Just the required buildings to get to tech 3...the moral of the show was first to hit tech 3 wins pretty much. I thought this was pretty sh**y in my mind but i could not deny that it worked. Its all about the tech 3...those turrets wont do you any good against jedi without the rotation bearings research, plus if you not at tech 3 you wont have a descent counter units to jedi anyways. As for the aircraft...well...anti-air troopers wont cut it..the comp actually had a few and they went down fast. So as you can see no real complicated strategy just a rat race to exploit some humongous balance gaps that i guess somehow escaped Mr. Fixit and Gamespot! Practice this a couple times on the comp and in no time you'll be a zone pro!

[Duke Straykker]

Hehe, well, all I can say is this. I am gonna try this right now, and see if you are right. I do believe however, that he shouldnt have gone for carbon the most, I would always head for the food, for my first 8 to 10 workers, and only building 1 shelter. Then, start up on carbon, and build 2 more shelters, and really go for it. My fastest tech 3, that I have ever recorded, and even remembered, was 16:30, and I am by no means, an expert player, I am probably just an easy to medium level guy, but can take a lot of ****, lol.............

 

Here goes...

[Guest PhantomMenace]

Well trust me it works..i saw it for my own eyes. I dont know if you're gonna do it right but if ya stick somewhat close to what i said you'll see results. Like i said i think this sucks...its now become clear to me why the castle and jedi rush are so effective. Somebody on the play balance team droppped the ball bigtime. If lucas arts does browse through these boards then i have a suggestion to solve those two problems...they can take em for a grain of salt..i dont really care. I mostly play Final Fantasy X and Dead or Alive 3 lately so i dont care if they are listening or not.

 

-THe way to fix the jedi rush is to make Bounty Hunters a barracks units and make them availble at tech lvl 2 the same time jedi become available...i dont know why im just now realizing this.

 

-The way to fix the castle/fortress rush is to make Blaster CAnnons available at tech lvl 3 the same time forts are...that way as soon as you see that fortress pop up off in the distance you can begin building a blaster cannon to bring it down.

 

Just more suggestions, as i said, take or err...take em.

 

 

 

"You betta listen ta ole Jake!"

-Jake

NPC Fallout Tactics

[Chessack]

I'm curious... did he build any more workers, or just use the initial 3?

[Guest PhantomMenace]

Lol...of course he built more workers..and appropriate housing...he just didnt build anything else beside what i described above..no mechs, no mech factory, no war center, etc.

[duder]

More typical than Jedi, you will get hit by fighters in a tech 3 rush. Tech 2 AA troops die very quickly against fighters.

[pottys_ATAT]

thanks for the help now newbies like me might stand a chance.

[Diversion]

I wonder what times this guy got ? I tried this and hit level 2 after about 10 minutes and level 3 after 18. The computer was set on hard and even if I hit level 3 first the computer still seemed to have better production. I say this because it seemed to have been able to save up for a jedi and a handful of mounted troopers while still keeping pace with men in other areas. So they hit me while I hade no military units save a Padawan for picking up holocrons.

 

This strategy seems to depend on that you hit level 3 before the opponent with a much wider time margin than I managed, so you have a few minutes left to build for instance the Airbase and some fighters before the enemy arrives. It also seems that you must be lucky and find enough animals in the first minute to get food fast enough.

 

Another factor might be that I played on a tiny map, so the computer found me after just a few minutes.

 

Again what times did he manage?

 

Just to get a benchmark:cool:

[Chessack]

OK... I tried the Jedi T2 rush strategy (well, I was the Empire, so a Sith rush, but same thing) against the computer last night. The computer kicked my butt.

 

I built a bunch of workers, and had them focus on two things: food (to get to T2), and Carbon. I didn't do anything else except scout. I had the game set on 2 players (me vs. comp), tiny (2 player size) map. I used my scout to find where the enemy was quickly, while I was still building workers. I made no farms -- used banthas and food bushes (I picked the Reytha map, which is usually high food, to give myself unfair advantage, since this strategy, it seems, would suffer in a low-resources type map).

 

I hit T2 in about 10 minutes, with tons of carbon to spare. I then detailed a couple of food wokers to build a spaceport, and started trading carbon and food for nova, while those same workers built a Sith temple. I then made 5 Sith Knights as fast as possible. I thought about building a second temple to make production faster, but doing that would've lost me almost as much nova (in trade of carbon) as another Sith Knight, and I wasn't too sure whether it was worth it. So I had one temple, built five Sith Knights, and then I went after him.

 

By this point, the comp had just recently (a minute or two earlier) reached T2. I figured he'd be dead meat. I was going at him with 5 Sith Knights. What could he possibly have to stop me?

 

Easy: he had blocked off all the "choke points" with walls and gates. I had no way into his village (at least, not a quick way. It might've been possible to go all the way around, but that would've taken a long time, and I assumed time was money in this case.) So, I tried going around a little bit, and found a spot where I finally started hacking at his wall (next to a gate) with the Knights... that seemed the only choice. He immediately responded with a horde of troopers firing at me. If he had stopped there, I would've been finished immediately, but stupidly he also charged with some mounties -- so I used the open gate to sneak my Sith Knights into his town. I figured if I could slice into his workforce, I'd harm his econ enough to damage him.

 

Nope... He had about 20 total troopers (split between mounties and ranged troopers) and about 30 workers by now. As I started laying into his workers, they turned around and attacked me. My 5 Sith Knights were faced, now, with being surrounded by workers, mounted troopers, and ranged troopers, and having to fight 5-on-50 or so. Needless to say, they died quickly and ignominiously.

 

By that point, I resigned the game. Having banked my entire production on the "Jedi Rush" strategy, losing there, meant I was basically out of it. With no real buildings, and no workers diggging at Nova or Ore, I had no way to stop him from a counter-rush or to develop my econ. Also, the point of the rush had been to see if it works.

 

It seems to me the "stupid" computer has given a nice lesson in how to protect yourself against a Jedi Rush: Build walls, and lots of ranged troopers, and just stand behind the walls firing at the Jedi. They can't hit you until they destroy the wall, and if you're smart enough to just stay inside your gates (lock them if necessary), I don't see how the other guy can beat you. Towers will help -- just make sure you put them behind the walls, rather than outside them, and the Jedi will have to knock down the wall first, then the tower, to get at you safely.

 

Also, don't freak out when he attacks you. 20 or 30 workers are nothing to sneeze at, and while you might lose a few, workers are only worth food -- Jedi are worth 250 Nova each. In T2, you can't afford to lose many Jedi and still hope to have enough spare production left over to keep up with the other guy. There's just not that much nova in your stockpile yet -- especially if you haven't been mining it!

 

So... Perhaps I "played it wrong," but that's my story, of how the T2 Jedi Rush that is supposedly unstoppable, was stopped by the computer (quite easily, I might add).

[Guest PhantomMenace]

LOl..you gotta be kiddin me! Something tells me CHessak already knew about htis strategy and is trying to downplay it by saying it didnt work for him so the secret isnt blown..lol. It works, the comp rarely builds walls...very rarely do i ever see a comp get hot on walls til way late in the game. the game i was watching the comp didnt build walls..hell he barely had time to build troops. The guy i was watchign got to tech 2 uber fast...and he woulda prolly got there faster if he wasnt wasting time typing and explaining things to me. i'd say he was at tech 2 under 10 mins easy. if a herd of dewbacks or eopies were way off he just built a food center right next to em and i guess sometimes he got lucky that more than one herd of animals was next to where he built his extended food processor. as far as a barrage of lasers? well the comp had the tech 1 troops only which means they were only carrying the little pistols...hardly a barrage! REally even if it was tech 2 troops have ya seen lasers hit jedi...might as well throw the damn gun at em. You got better luck waiting til they get close and kicking sand in their eyes than trying to kill em with a raygun. Sounds like the comp you played against was an inordinately smart comp! Either that or you want to make it seem effective so newbs wont start using your own tactics against ya...lol. And you missed the other two points a made about fortresses and aircraft. If he had 20 regular troops sending 1 aircraft over woulda been like shooting fish in a barrel...unless he had 2 barracks there woulda been 1 aa troop coming out at a time. Kinda like that game at the circus where the duck pops up and you immediately shoot it back down. Also you coulda sent a worker in close and started building the fortress next to his base. He coulda countered with pummels but your jedi should work fine against those. Trust me this strategy works, i actually think the guy was holding out on me, so i'm betting even what i told you is incomplete. There's no doubt in my mind that guy coulda hit tech 4 in close to 20 mins if not less.

[Chessack]

I wasn't making it up, and I did not lose on purpose nor try to downplay it. No one could've been more surprised than I, at how things turned out.

 

My point was, my experience shows how you can counter the Jedi Rush T2 strategy. Build walls. Stand behind the walls with your troops, and fire away.

 

I also will point out, your little buddy had (according to your first post) the "reveal map" setting on. Perhaps appropriate for teaching you what he was doing, but... it also lets him see things like where the bantha herds are. That makes it a lot easier to be efficient with where you build your processing centers, etc.

[Chessack]

So... I re-played this game. This time, I built the spaceport and waited till TL 3, built an air base, and made 8 fighters and 6 bombers. After the first 5 fighters came out, I grouped them and sent them to the comp's town center. He had 3 AA troopers, which attacked me in "single file," so I was able to nail them all without losing a single TIE. Then I went ahead and started strafing the daylights out of his farmers and nova collectors. Oh, he held out for a while, but then my bombers showed up, and took out most of his buildings, including his power cores... and that was the end of it. Comp. resigned in about 24 mins.

 

So, you are right, that the "ignore nova and ore and go for food and carbon big time" strategy can work. However, the computer (on the same map, with the game re-started) did build walls again... It had great spots for walls, so maybe that's why it did that, but I still say that walls are a great early defense against a TL 2 Jedi rush.