7/21/2010

Combating the Zerg

A bit late; you might have seen this already, but here is a trailer on the new Civ5 game:
http://kotaku.com/5565685/civilization-vs-trailer-is-a-love-letter-to-pc-gamers

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What is wrong with zerging?
Essentially nothing; its legitimate, not cheating and is usually effective. Its fun when you roll your enemy because of this. Can be boring at times as you may not feel that you're truly contributing to the whole. And is frustrating by being rolled by one.

I personally dont like it; its usually slow and unweildly. It feels like we're a group of sheep just following and doing whatever the leader says. Because there are so many people, if there isn't sheep, there will be many different voices spamming the channel to get the zerg to do otherwise. I personally like working as a smaller group on vent and ninja-ing objectives or providing hit-and-runs.

Hey Mythic.. where is my stein? :P

My idea to break up the zerg is as follows:
- keeps can only be entered by defenders from the postern if the postern isn't broken
-- depending on the tier, there may be up to 3 posterns (one per side)
== this will force the zerg to breakup and destroy the posterns (there must be a graphic for a broken door though)

- when a keep is captured, the victor's warcamp spawns a npc caravan which transports troops/Lord to the keep
- the keep spawns extra potent oil and all their warmachines which are invincible (though their users not)
- that keep will only spawn 4 champion guards and 1 champ lord, if killed, it will become contested
- the doors will respawn at 1/4 strength, and if there are two doors, then only the one to the keep respawns, if broken again, it stays broken-- the other side has the ability to attack and destroy that caravan from making it to the keep
-- the caravan is powered by the objectives
-- the caravan wheels can be destroyed to halt it and takes a few minutes to respawn and continue
-- the caravan has a dome/something that can be destroyed, though very strong, similar to keep lord strength/keep door, it doesn't attack back
--- if the caravan is destroyed, the caravan will start again from the warcamp, but if destroyed 3 times, the keep will become contested

Contested State
- the weakened keep lord vanishes as well as any associated guards
- caravans from both warcamps spawn and make their way to the keep, both moving at the same speed (hence some keeps will be easier to take than others)
- the side who's caravan makes it there first with the most health takes control of the keep
- if a caravan is destroyed, it instantly respawns and starts again-- when control is taken, normal guards are temporarily upgraded to champion guards for 5 minutes and spawn, the doors respawn, posterns become in control of the victor, as well as the Lord
== this will purge the keep of any enemies

With this in place, it is guaranteed to split a zerg (nearly). The victor will want to both guard their weakened Lord from the enemy at the keep and go protect the caravan to take control of the keep. The other side may be tempted to zerg the keep, but with more warmachines and oil, it would be harder to roll the enemy.

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