New guy here, looking for good maps to play primarily 2v2's, maybe some 3v3's with a friend and bots. The map list is pretty... overwhelming. So far we've played mostly Obsidian which has been nice for bot factories and air, but Rovers/Tanks/water-/Amph units haven't seen much use. What the maps should and shouldn't be like: - Not too large, so that I can't easily get enough metal and bunker up (build defenses and sit in base, this game probably has a different word for that play style). - Enough contested metal to force aggressive play, not too much safe metal. - While not mandatory, vehicle/water play styles being available would be nice. - Starting (metal-) spots that discourage corner camping early on. Bots should have enough leeway to flank my base, and that option shouldn't be possible to be easily blocked off. Obsidian and Calamity are good examples for this, though Calamity has way too much early safe metal available. We don't use any large-scale terraforming tactics and human players are banned from using 'superweapons' (Detriment, BB, DRP, nukes etc.). Bots can still build these.
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- inculta v2 - comet catcher redux - alien desert - red comet - ravaged - eye of horus - valles marineris i can´t suggest good water-maps, as i rarely play water at all. if you play vs BrutalAi, defensive playstyle should work only if you have a LOT more metal, so at that point it wouldn´t matter wich strategy you choose, you have already succeeded in getting significantly higher income. camping should only work against the weaker bots.
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The ZK term for building a defensive fortress (aka "turtling" in many other games) is "porcing", i.e. making yourself dangerous to come near, like a porcupine. This is usually a losing strategy in Zero-K (usually, but not always). Overbuilt defenses, or otherwise useless defenses (like towers that aren't protecting anything important and that aren't in chokepoints), are often called "porc". A large map doesn't really help you porc. Large maps usually have a lot of metal outside your starting location. If you take control of it, you're not really porcing - you're defending a large territory. If you stay in your starting location and porc, you'll surrender control of that metal to the enemy, and they will use it to gain a decisive economic advantage and tear your fortress apart with their superior forces. Porcing can be somewhat successful against the AI because the current iteration is not very good at demolishing very strong defenses. It will crush moderate defenses if given the chance. If there's enough easy-to-grab metal close to your base and you're very quick about making defenses, you can porc up, hold off the AI, and then slowly expand with enough massed forces to defeat it locally in small chunks. But this is very tedious, and it doesn't work against human players. As far as maps for 2v2 and 3v3: Most of the popular 1v1 maps will support 2v2 or even 3v3 and still make for a good game. Sort the map list in the lobby by type, and browse through the 1v1 maps and try a few. A lot of them have a lot of flat ground, which is great for Rovers, Tanks, and Hovers. Some have enough water to make playing Amphs and Hovers nearly mandatory. Ships are only going to be a good pick on maps that are mostly sea. You can also use Amphs on dry land and they'll do just fine if you just want to play with the units rather than explore water-oriented combat. Here's all the 1v1 mixed water-and-land maps: https://zero-k.info/Maps?mapSupportLevel=2&size=Any&sea=2&hills=Any&elongated=Any&assymetrical=Any&special=0&isTeams=Any&is1v1=true&ffa=Any&chicken=Any&isDownloadable=1&needsTagging=false&search=Here's all the 1v1 sea maps: https://zero-k.info/Maps?mapSupportLevel=2&size=Any&sea=3&hills=Any&elongated=Any&assymetrical=Any&special=0&isTeams=Any&is1v1=true&ffa=Any&chicken=Any&isDownloadable=1&needsTagging=false&search=Here's all the 1v1 flat maps: https://zero-k.info/Maps?mapSupportLevel=2&size=Any&sea=Any&hills=1&elongated=Any&assymetrical=Any&special=0&isTeams=Any&is1v1=true&ffa=Any&chicken=Any&isDownloadable=1&needsTagging=false&search=There may be others that would meet your needs that don't show up on that search because they haven't been given the appropriate set of tags. You can see what the popular maps are by looking at the replays catalog. Go to https://zero-k.info/Battles and enter "Player count" from 2 to 6, set Bots to "No", and click search. That'll give you some idea of the maps that people like to play in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 (plus some random FFAs thrown in there as well).
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   katastrophe, thanks for the map suggestions! I do play BrutalAIs, but both Nimbuses and Firewalkers mixed with some static defenses enable a camping play style that works well even against them. Firewalkers are especially cheesy, preventing just about any attempt from AI to push through defenses. Striders would do the trick, but BrutalAI seems exceptionally unwilling to build Striders unless they have insane mex superiority and/or are losing very few/no other units. And they keep passively losing units because they keep coming into Firewalker range... Not that I'm just cheesing my way through BrutalAI. I play a wide variety of strats and facs in order to learn what works and what doesn't.   CrazyEddie, thanks but I asked for suggestions so that I wouldn't have to go through all the maps on my own :P Game time is precious, and many an hour would be spent on just testing out maps if I were to go through them by myself. I looked through the replays, but I've no idea about the differences between PvE and PvP in Zero-K so I can't distinguish which maps would be good for AI as well. AI can never be truly player-like, so the maps that fit them are often different from ones that PvP'ers prefer.
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@Highrule1 I'd like to see if that works against the next release of ZKGBAI. :P The current release is still suffering from future shock, but it shouldn't be too long before the next one is out.
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on a sidenote: yes, firewalker is cheesy
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ZKGBAI uses the exact counterplay to circuit in the early game (at least as far as i can tell)
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quote:
I looked through the replays, but I've no idea about the differences between PvE and PvP in Zero-K so I can't distinguish which maps would be good for AI as well. AI can never be truly player-like, so the maps that fit them are often different from ones that PvP'ers prefer. |
Circuit isn't perfectly player-like, but it's a pretty good simulation of a very good player. Most maps that work well for matches between small teams of players should work just fine for small team matches against the AI. Is there some particular behavior of the AI that you're trying to find a map to accommodate? --- Katastrophe's list is a good selection of popular, well-designed 1v1 and small-teams maps that have enough flat terrain to allow Rovers and Tanks to play well, so that should probably give you a decent start at what you're looking for.
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CAI is like a bacterium, circuit somehow resembles a swarm of ants. The difference between humans and these AIs is the attention. in 1v1 playing with the atention of your opponent is extremely effective. playing AI is completely different. this is why i don´t really care for super-human-strenth bots. the human vs human element for me is the really interesting part of the game. Anyway, @Highrule1 i started EXACTLY like you, nice too see, have fun man.
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katastrophe Here's one replay of Nimbuses: http://www.mediafire.com/file/cerd80v45takt6u/20190820_034929_Obsidian_1_104.0.1-1344-g07bdbaf_maintenance.sdfz/fileI played more aggressively (first raid at 12'ish minutes = true aggressive playa right here) than I'd usually do, because I was somewhat miffed after losing my first four Nimbuses instantly the game before thanks to being a moron and paying zero attention where I flew them. Haven't used Firewalkers against Brutal that much though, as the results didn't seem to differ from Hard all too much.  aeonios I'll probably give it a go sooner or later, once I get a better hang of the game overall :o CrazyEddie I'd say I'm looking for maps that make the most out of an AI's strengths. As for what that exactly means, I've no idea atm. Currently racking up losses in Comet Catcher, trying to figure out what the hell all these vehicles are :)
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The AI is especially good at expanding and raiding. It's good at sweeping across uncontested areas looking for targets, at probing for weaknesses, at striking with a squad large enough to do significant damage, and at retreating when it encounters strong resistance. (These are skills you should develop as well!) A map that plays to its strengths will have:
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a lot of metal spread across the map, so it can exploit its ability to rapidly expand in multiple directions with multiple constructors simultaneously
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open, unprotected starting areas with few bottlenecks, so that it can raid from multiple directions and bypass defenses
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flat surfaces so it can play Rovers or Tanks and thereby rapidly retreat when it needs to
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short distances between starting areas so that it can quickly arrive with its early raiders before you can build up defenses
Red Comet, Alien Desert, and Inculta and fit this description nicely. CCR (Comet Catcher Redux) has a larger distance between starts but is insanely metal-rich, so the AI will have a field day building mexes faster than you can keep up, and then steamrolling you. Ravaged has very secure bases, but all the expansions immediately outside the base are heavily contestable, which again plays to the AI's strength - you can defend any one of the expansions easily, but you can't defend all of them, and it will find the ones you've left open and rip through them. This is more true in 1v1 than in small teams, where the humans have enough attention between them to cover all the approaches. I think you could play very satisfying games on any of those. But the AI will give you a tough fight on almost any map you choose, because the things it's good at are valuable on and broadly applicable to the majority of maps you'll play on.
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Lost four games on CCR and three on Inculta before winning one on the latter. CCR does seem to punish mistakes and slowness a lot more. Only tried these two maps so far, but they do seem to be what I was looking for :) I kinda want to challenge the AI in terms of expansion, but I think I'd need another set of number keys for that...
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@Highrule1 You could try global build command, although I'm not sure if it still works. :( I haven't gotten around to it yet.
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i didn´t really play that well in this one, but this is my take on circuit on this map. http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/761779
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Watched the replay. So Rovers are good. Normally I play 2v2's, with my friend or with a BrutalAI as my ally as well. I suppose that partially screws me over as well since they expand way faster together than the AI in that replay, and they also got teamwork which I basically have none with my AI.
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you can play botmatches via the multiplayer menu by creating custom battleroom. This is good because it creates replays on the site that you can link to
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If you play in a custom multiplayer battleroom and thus have a shared replay, the rest of us can watch the replays and offer suggestions, should you be so inclined. (... although 1v0ry_k1ng will watch them so he can see how to make the AI even better at stomping newbies!)
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If you find the brute force of the AI's infinitely multitasking expansion too challenging, try a smaller map with less metal. Red Comet, Ravaged, and Living Lands all will provide interesting (and different!) tactical challenges. You'll still need to expand, but you can focus more on using units to control territory and fight the enemy without having to devote all of your attention to matching the AI's inhuman mexing speed.
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