More supcom notes

Hills and Artillery

Hills are both useful and a pain with regard to artillery. They're useful, because you can place important buildings or units in the lee of large hills to avoid long range artillery. They're a pain because if you're the one with artillery, you need to make sure you build away from hills you need to fire over, and of course your opponent can build in the lee.

This becomes particularly interesting in the desert 2v2 map, where tech2 artillery is of sufficient range to target between choke points, but insufficient to get over most of the hills. One possible tactic to deal with someone who is pinning down the chokes in this fashion is to build a tech2 tac nuke in the lee of the hill nearest. The tac nuke is a rocket so it doesn't have the hill problem and you may be able, with sufficient cunning, to temporarily push back an artillery crawl before they build tac defense (by which time hopefully you have done an artillery crawl of your own to wall them off).

Sacrificial Dual Role

A slightly more extreme version of the Dual Role strategy outlined below, after the offensive player has constructed enough base to produce engineers, the commander is slaved via assist to the econ players commander, providing an immediate and enormous construction bonus which should allow the econ player to tech both factories and extractors at high speed.

2v2 blockade buster

It appears, that in a 2v2 assassination game, the players lose only when both commanders are dead, they don't lose independently per commander. This needs to be confirmed. If it is the case, a Combomb returns as a blockade buster strategy, or as support for a Heavy Drop. It also permits the option of upgrading one commander into a mobile tac launcher or equivalent assault support without risking the entire game.

Forward tac station

A formalism of the anti-artillery strategy outlined above, the forward tac station, placed in the lee of the middle hill on the desert map, would (likely) provide reasonably heavy fire to both the chokes north and south, as well as the forward part of the enemy base choke. Equiped with tac nukes, one anti-tac plus t2 anti-air and radar, the tac station would be untouchable by anything short of overwhelming force or a very carefully executed drop.

It would be very effective in preventing an artillery crawl, as well as preventing staging of enemy units forward of the choke, causing longer travel times and reducing the enemies ability to perform ground assaults with the element of surprise. It can later be upgraded with point defense, t3 AA and omni as required.

Phi + Pozz vs Wobbler + Deigobah

Strategic analysis

Wobbler and Deigobah adopted a turted strategy right from the start. Given a review of the replay, it is clear that they both a) had planned to do so and b) had practiced and executed this strategy previously. The map choice was one of the few that permits a turtle to this degree.

Phi and Pozz failed strategically on a number of counts, most significantly on a failure to have a strategy determined initially, and subsequently failing to recognise the lack and adopt one.

We also failed to correctly determine the enemy strategy, while we did recognise the symptoms of a turtle, previous executions of a turtle by the same player (Wobbler) in a game vs Phi and Pozz resulted in abysmal failure for Wobbler, partially due to his partner failing, an partly due to very poor air coverage (remedied this time).

Tactical notes

The opponent deployed air immediately, as part of the initial build order, with all other attention focused on economy. Wobbler was either detailed, or volunteered to build the choke entry point defense but in comparison to Phi and Pozz a remarkably small percentage of absolute resource was focused on weaponry.

A low-level artillery crawl with supporting units was utilised to ensure no static offensive units were brought within useful range of the choke. A growing horde of intercepters backed by t2 anti-air walls provided serious air-assault deterant.

A relatively early and comprehensive focus on the construction of a t3 artillery ensured the traditional seige breaker was ineffective, Phi's t3 artillery was destroyed at 60% complete.

The end game was achieved by the use of heavy air cover for a sacred bot and a break-through swarm of t3 seige.

Counters and options

Given the situation, the number of available counters were nearly limitless, the most serious problem was the failure to choose one and go for it. That said, some major options seem attractive:

Option 1: Heavy drop

While the interceptor swarms were intimidating, during the early game their effectiveness was actually quite limited. A light dropship almost made it into Wobblers base, if it had had any air support at all it would have.

A focused version of this approach would be to load up 3-4 light drops with sufficient land weaponry, plus a couple of engineers, assisted by as many interceptors as possible. A scout or two deployed forward to distract the covering air would allow the drop to happen almost without contest. Once deployed, the land force could engage production or economy while engineers attempted to build production capacity inside the base, and further drops via ferry could be maintained to increase pressure.

The most likely end-scenario of such an assault would be a commander suicide in an attempt to stomp on the infiltration, but close placement of units and production to the enemy base would result in the destruction of their base as well.

Option 2: Dual role

Probably the best as an early choice, and one we have often previously adopted. One partner takes responsibility for early engagement and defense, with a focus on keeping the enemy off balance rather than inflicting damage. The other partner is tasked with getting to, and staying on top of the economy leaderboard. The idea is that if someone is going to be first to build anything advanced, it will be you rather than them.

It is likely that a small degree of experiment with this approach could lead to a drastically faster build than either of a more balanced pair - a greater number of extraction points could be dedicated to the econ player, and the offensive player could dedicate some build capacity to speed up construction by using assist, a favor that could be returned later in the game as the offensive players capability to attack reaches minimum.

Summary

It will be necessary from now on to enter games with a clear strategy in mind. Load time should be taken to decide on one to utilise, and then resource should be dedicated as fast as possible to its execution, with scouting to determine if the enemy actions are likely to hit a strategic weakspot. More games will be required to determine what precise weakspots Dual Role or Heavy Drop may have.

Engineer folklore

(source: wikipedia: Pixie)

Engineer folklore

During the construction of Hinkley Point nuclear power station, anything that went wrong was blamed on "the Pixy", the station being built near Wick's Barrow, an Iron Age burial mound called "Pixies Mound" by the locals.

After construction was completed, the contractors presented the station manager with a garden gnome, representing the Pixy. On the one occasion the ornament was removed from the station's trophy cabinet, the station was closed down by a freak flood.

New Supcom strategies

Today I learned (the hard way) the following two supreme commander strategies:

Tech 1 bomber overload

Requires: lots of tech1 factories, decent economy, an enemy who is reasonably far away from you and is significantly less air focused.

Counter: large numbers of tech1 anti-air is only marginally successful, sweeps of bombers will quickly demolish static defenses. Interceptors are a risky counter, anyone building this many bombers will have more than enough margin to add in piles of interceptors as well. Most effective counter appears to be to race for tech 2 immediately and deploy 4-8 tech2 flak cannons, which will demolish both the bombers and any likely subsequent air strike short of masses of t2 gunships, or t3.

Implications: Air-only is a risky strategy for all except UEF, no air unit short of the t3 broadsword is actually capable of withstanding significant fire, and only the broadsword and strat bomber are capable of delivering serious damage.

Conclusion: Unless you are nearly certain that the enemy is going to sit at tech1 for a while (history of, say, frigate rush), or you're UEF and plan to head in a reasonably straight line for broadswords, this strategy is unlikely to work if they are paying any attention. On the other hand, if you manage to keep all their scouts off, or it's a random-position ffa, it might work.


Tech1 stand-off artillery assault

Probably works best (only?) with Cybran. This is a modification of the classic mantis rush for dealing with a player who has successfully deployed point-defense diamonds (pd surrounded by walls) in suficient density to make a straight mantis assault uneconomic.

Requires: Same as mantis rush, needs an opponent who can be contained to ensure sufficient economy superiority to defend artillery, relatively small map with direct land access to opponent.

Counter: Uncertain. It is not possible to deploy sufficient numbers prior to a possible tech2 upgrade by the victim. A properly balanced t2/t1 mixed assault (say, shields + t2 heavy tanks + whatever t1 you can get) may be sufficient to break the force defending the artillery. Air superiority (bomber rush) or t2 point defense + radar may supply sufficient ranged assault to keep the artillery out of effective range.

Implications: The main implication is that the evolution of this tactic renders the previously solid pd diamond strategy ineffective as a sole method of preventing mantis rush. A rapid escalation to tech2 is the logical progression from the initiation of a diamond defense, along with a heavy focus on increasing exractor tech levels to ensure relative economic parity.

Execution: Rapid expansion with numerous land factories, it is imperative that a large economy advantage be gained and maintained, failure to do so will result in a rapid reduction in the effectiveness of assaults, and eventual out-teching by opponent.

Conclusion: Most effective for Cybran, a tactic likely to give success on small/medium land maps against a single opponent. Many ranked players appear to utilise this or similar variations.

The bizarre logic of IP

The murky truth of things is something that, as a species, we appear to be fundamentally irritated about. So much so, that we categorically deny that any such condition exists, and devise our arguments on any given topic with a focus almost exclusively on the black or the white of it, with no recognition for reality.

IP is certainly one of those things, most probably because even more so than the rest of reality it is a very human invention, from the concept of property itself right through to what precisely constitutes and idea, and when an idea is an invention rather than a discovery.

Iain M Banks, author of the awesome Culture sci-fi series, posits as part of his advanced civilisation the use of a language specifically designed to imbue certain attributes in the speaker, a function (presumably) of its precision and balance. IP would certainly be an area where us earthlings would benefit from such a design.

It is clear, that we don't understand what we generally mean by any of the following words:

• Intellectual
• Property
• Invention
• Discovery
• Rights
• Theft
• Copying
• Sharing
• Ownership

It is certain that as soon as we start combining any of these words into a sentence, all semblence of actual meaning goes out the window, and all that is left is the impression of the authors beliefs, bereft of supporting argument.

The problem, in its most essential form, appears to be that we feel unhappy when someone does something we disagree with. Normally, this isn't a big problem, because there's not a lot we can do about it other than complain and/or try and do something to resolve the problem.

However, we feel doubly unhappy when this thing we disagree with is somehow a consequence of something we ourselves did. This is almost a definition of ownership, the sense of personal responsibility relating to something which causes us to be doubly unhappy when it goes "wrong".

This became the idea of "property", here is something that, because of some kind of effort or trade, is now related to me and I want a say in what happens with it, so that I can avoid feeling doubly unhappy about something.

When this is related to physical goods, it is mostly tolerable, although there is a constant rough edge between what triggers the doubly-unhappy feeling and what people believe they should be able to do merely by existing (bush walks, beach access, tagging, homeless people, door-to-door godbotherers, new high-rises that block views..)

When it comes to non-physical goods, the whole thing just turns into a big spongy mess. The real source of the mess comes from a need to justify blocking the doubly-unhappy feeling. We can't justify it just by saying we'd feel pissed off, that's never been enough to justify any of the things we've done solely for that reason, so instead we commandeered the idea of "innovation" and made it a sacred cow.

The justification goes something like this:

If anyone could copy any idea I came up with, and do with it what they will, then I would have no motivation to invest good time and money in coming up with new ideas

There's this sense of barely constrained terror at the thought that anyone could just run off and do whatever they liked with ideas, as if it would lead to the collapse of civilisation as we know it, because there's no other motivation for investment in R+D.

Ok, lets be fair, the more reasoned arguments suggest that much of the R+D would continue, it's the large investments that they're worried about.

But referring to the black and white point above, this is a beautiful example. The idea that people would stop coming up with new stuff just because there isn't a monetary incentive is already clearly bunk, people do all kinds of things, including coming up with ideas, and sometimes they even pay money to do it - because it's fun.

Investment, too, would hardly be going out the window. In the end, people will buy the stuff thats marketted to them the best. There are still companies out there selling bread, and doing perfectly fine at it, despite a complete lack of original bread developments.

Yes, things would need to happen slightly differently, but in the end I have the sense that it would actually be for the better. At the moment, we have conflated two roles, that of the idea creator, and that of the producer. People often come up with an idea, then try and "earn back" research that they have done by selling the resulting product at significantly over its production cost.

As a consequence, they are rarely efficient at either research, or production. With a monopoly on the product there is no motivation to become an efficient producer, and with a long time and an easy market available there is no motivation to be efficient at research. All you need is one half decent idea and half assed implementation and you're set until someone works around your "IP".

I'm not saying all "IP" is bad. Trademarks make sense in a limited sense, they protect communication with the purchasers, as do advertising laws and consumer safety etc. However copyright is pretty much unnecessary except where it is taking on protection of communication roles, and patents are a bad idea across the board.

I belief the constantly alluded to idea that an engineer working out of his home garage could come up with something, then patent it to avoid being "ripped off" by a big company is complete fiction, big companies have lots of lawyers and huge portfolios of patents in order to win wars like that, the little engineer has nothing to look forward to but a big legal sink in his savings to play that kind of game. Much better to team up with a producer using standard contract law to protect the information.

In essence, I feel that the whole thing needs a more flexible approach, one less tied to protecting "property" and more focused on providing an economy that actually has efficiency as a motivator. I don't mean to suggest efficiency should be the sole goal of the thing, but at least give it a look in.

Repeating history

I was struck, at a recent meeting, by the regularity with which people compare the internet with a huge variety of supposedly amazing changes that happened in the past.

The saying "Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it" does not contain the word "understand" for no reason. The very idea that anyone understands the nature of the internet sufficiently to compare it effectively to changes in the past is laughable, and yet it seems to be the primary hobby of almost everyone engaging in thinking about the 'net.

It's as if we have dismissed, society-wide, the idea that a model can be constructed from first principles. Such a model lacks "weight", nothing is believable unless it relates to something that definitely happened in the past, no matter how superficial the comparison.

In the meeting I mentioned, I joked that the word "Governance" irritated me, suggesting that I was somewhat anarchist (lowercase). The discussion was in regard to a group that, at the time, looked as though it wanted to develop rules by which "online collaboration" could communicate (hence the "Governance").

I was arguing that we had no idea what was going on, that our understanding of the situation was far too incomplete to contemplate the idea of rules, let alone the level of legislation suggested by the word "Governance".

A hilarious moment for me was near the end, when one participant said "Remember, anarchy is not about having no rules, it's having no leaders". This was, as I saw it, the most laughable thing. We, who had no real idea what was going on, were standing up as "leaders" to define the "rules" by which people involved in creating "online collaboration" should communicate, as if we were capable of understanding their needs, as if we were the best people to create such rules, and as if they even needed them.

I argued, and I argue still, that the internet, and its ability to communicate information free of physical form, is utterly new, and that our constant attempts to rationalise it back to historical events where this was not the case is utterly flawed. If anything, the only reason the results will be even remotely similar is because the participants believe it will.

The very function of this newness is the difference between 1c, and free. We understand, intuitively, that the difference between the two is not just one cent, it is the difference between finite and infinite. It is this degree of difference that I believe the internet brings. Yes, people argue that it isn't free, that time is a cost, that people have to eat, but these are irrelevant to the core of the issue, which is that people do not percieve these as costs because they are a constant.

The core of the idea, still roughly formed, is that the more possibilities a person faces, the greater the possibility for them to assume responsibility for their actions. As they do this, the results - regardless of the remaining physical constraints - reflect what they wish to happen, not what they feel compelled to do.

I believe that the internet is the crux of a social change in which those willing to assume that responsibility are simply making things happen. If they wish to talk to someone, they will find a way to make it happen, them, or someone who thinks like them, eventually. No rules are necessary, "Governance" is a requirement of a world of slow communication and poor responsibility.

No doubt, there are a million facets of the situation that can change the end results. This is hardly utopia, and as spam and other things demonstrate, it is unlikely that it ever will be. But where others see this and point back to the "Tragedy of the commons", I see a simple failure once again to appreciate the difference between the historical situation, a function of very limited resource, and the current one, where the resource space is vast and ever increasing, faster in many cases than we can think of ways to use it. If someone installed a 10gbit link into your home tomorrow, do you think you could really use a fraction of that capacity? and yet, most people will get it sooner than they need it.

There is no question that understanding the internet is partly understanding humans themselves, and for this history is often a useful reference. But make no mistake, we have no idea the potential of the internet, even in the next 10 years. We have even less idea than those who first saw the telephone did of its capabilities - Do you think when the first few telephones were installed, that anyone considered telemarketting, vast call centers, faxs? modems? even answering machines?

We are children in a very new playground that only looks familiar because we have no other basis for comparison.

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