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Two Chickens Questions

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12 years ago
1) How (if at all) does the Chicken AI balance itself against the number of players, against their skill level, against their starting resources, and against the amount of metal available on the map?

2) In most of the Chickens games I've watched or played, the players make a mammoth defensive line and don't aggressively push into the chicken territory to destroy nests. Also, in most games I've watched or played: player-aggression-rating plummets, the defensive line crumbles when lobbers or blobbers arrive, and the subsequent heavies devour the base like a swarm of sharks on a bucket of chum.

I've even seen experienced players do this, though... players who surely already know the Zero-K mantra of "attack attack attack". So my question is this: why do they play this way?

a) They don't know any better

b) They know they can win by attacking, but it's more fun to play tower defense

c) It's I who doesn't know better, and D-FENZ is actually the right way to beat the chickens

???

Answers from chickens players would be greatly appreciated.
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12 years ago
Meh, I view the D-FENZ as a kind of thing you just do in chickens. It's possible to win vs blobbers by spamming tremors.

It's the spires that get you. But then you should have a gunship swarm or starlight already. If not, you didn't get enough territory.
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12 years ago
The times that I have seen successful attack, the game lasted <15 minutes and was not very fun.
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12 years ago
quote:
How (if at all) does the Chicken AI balance itself against the number of players, against their skill level, against their starting resources, and against the amount of metal available on the map?

Number of players increases burrow spawn rate sublinearly, and also adds a small tech bonus to chickens every wave. It doesn't care at all about the other three values.

Games lasting too short (and having low chicken variety) in aggressive games is a problem I need to work out.
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12 years ago
Thanks for the info, KR.

Godde mentioned somewhere that keeping PAR between 1 and 3 is the easiest way to win. With that in mind, I think it would be interesting if, simultaneously:

a) It was difficult but possible to win with a very low PAR,

b) It was difficult but possible to win with a very high PAR, and

c) It was easy(er) to win with a neutral(ish) PAR, but difficult to keep your PAR within that neutral range.

In other words, neutral PAR should be unstable, with something(s) driving you further towards the extremes regardless of which direction you're going. For negative PAR that's pretty obvious and exists now - as the chickens tech up, good luck pushing back against the onslaught; you'll be doing well enough just to hold the defensive line.

For positive PAR that seems like an odd thing... you can always stop being aggressive, no? Well, how about if it were like an addiction? Once you get started, you never want to stop... because stopping is a whole lot worse than keeping going, at least until you finally hit the wall. So, say, as long as your average burrow kill rate stays about the same, then the burrows keep spawning just a little bit faster (so you have to gradually pick up the pace, which you can do because you're getting better econ, but that gradual increase also leads you to creep up in PAR). But if your burrow kill rate ever drops, then the burrows spawn A WHOLE LOT faster, as a kind of rebound. So if you get too aggressive, you can either back off and endure a big bunch of pain right now, or keep pushing and end up in the world-of-hurt later on.

Just an idea.
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Lossing unit to chicken is psychologically sad thing... One can do raider in early chicken, but then chicken doesn't seem to have cost inflicted to them while your units keep dying. The only time that is righteus to attack chicken directly is when you have 10 million hp detriment... or very long range cannon.
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Skasi
12 years ago
Huh.. whenever I played normal or hard chickens I build nothing but Bandits and Vandals, morphing stuff as xp and resources allow, makes for easy games. Never really tried eggs though. You never have serious problems with Blobbers when playing offensive, so I think "They don't know any better" applies here.
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12 years ago
"a) They don't know any better"
Similar games such as tower defence games don't require you to be aggressive.

"b) They know they can win by attacking, but it's more fun to play tower defense"
It's also harder to micro a moving force. Defence is placed at 1 spot and then you kill each wave as they come to your defence, you only need to consider placement of groundturrets, shields and ground AA once before you place it. If you want to kite the chickens you also need to consider how much space you need before the next wave hits you and move out to get enough room.

c) It's I who doesn't know better, and D-FENZ is actually the right way to beat the chickens
I mostly played the harder chickens but the chickens will tech much faster if you sit in a corner and defend and I find it really difficult to fend off the higher level chickens before i have 10-20 Annihilators.

"Godde mentioned somewhere that keeping PAR between 1 and 3 is the easiest way to win. With that in mind, I think it would be interesting if, simultaneously:"

a) It was difficult but possible to win with a very low PAR,
You get surprise attacks in your base, long range chicken artillery, hightech chickens earlier. It sure is dificult. Placing defence is relatively easy comparing it to having to move out, kill burrows and reclaim. It would be hard to say what would be a good level of difficulty for porcing in a corner.

b) It was difficult but possible to win with a very high PAR
Just kill burrows as fast as you can and kill the queen when she comes. If the player aggression rating is high the Queen anger rises alot when you kill burrows. It's difficult to get enough metal if the queen comes at 10 minutes :D.

c) It was easy(er) to win with a neutral(ish) PAR, but difficult to keep your PAR within that neutral range.
Given that killing alot of burrows makes the queen come come early and that chickens tech fast if you play defensively it is generally "easiest" to play aggressive and kill some burrows but not too many.
The problem when you are being aggressive is to keep the chickens from running through your lines or empty areas behind your lines while also keeping your builders occypied with reclaimig eggs(i mostly play chiken eggs).
You might end up with the chickens pushed all in 1 corner of the map and then it gets hard to reclaim the eggs that you kill just outside the burrows without actually killing the burrows and if you are too aggressive you get White dragons that might spawn before you even have a sumo.(Bandit, Outlaw, (jacks morph inbetween), Sumo and shields plus vandals and flak for AA is typically what i use against chickens. Then i have a defencive line of annihilators as a retreat zone against heavy chickens.
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12 years ago
The problem is that everyone always wants to play these castle maps or hilly maps with chokepoints. That doesn't work with chickens, though. Because once you get the all-terrain ones, you're a goner.

I've found that very flat maps are the best ones for Chicken.
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12 years ago
I can win chickens easily by attacking and killing nest(which lowers players aggression rating) aslong as ar(aggression rating) is less then -5 then they dont atk with lobbers till right before the queen shows up. I prefer tower defense and turtle shelling it cause its fun. and no the chickens dont take account of metal on map (can figuere that out by metal multiply if u like to play that way)
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12 years ago
Most irritating thing about chickens is that cliffs that should be easier defendable are actualy a hell to defend. All terrain chickens stay out of firing range while they can fire on your turrets. Can be fixed with razor kisses in front of the cliff but thats a bit lame if you ask me.

Shoulnd it be the other way around?
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12 years ago
I dont play chicken very often so I dont qualify as a "chicken player", but my last game was on Verdant, and it was actually nice. You should try that map. Lots of low ELO players, but we managed to finish it with good aggression rating control...

http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/72836
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