NeFuRii wrote:On a lighter note, using it, I have now won my very first game of multiplayer MAX.
Can you elaborate on that? 😀
We agreed on a short game, therefore my opponent, who was hosting, picked a small map - "Three Rings".
I picked Von Griffin, with 3 scouts (upgraded scan, and speed), massively upgraded missile turrets (enough damage, I thought, to kill a normal tank in one shot), three constructors, two engineers (I think). I picked the center eastmost position, because there were chokepoints both above and below, making it an easier-to-defend position. As it turns out, I needn't have bothered...
I sent a scout southwest, and another northwest, while I slapped down a habitat, light vehicle factory, a power plant, and a training hall, and started construction of a missile turret. My plan was to kick out an infiltrator, and have some fun.
Turn 2 - spotted the enemy, southwest. Bad news. Tanks with 16 armor, 9 speed, and other sundry scary stats, along with a scanner, heading east. Worse news: he wasn't stopping to kill my scout. Crap.
Turn 3, sent my scouts in to the center of the map. He had chosen the tank-rush setup, Musashi, one constructor, which was building, and one engineer. He had left his base largely undefended as he swept towards mine. So, having nothing better to do, I sent my south scout in for a quick hit on the constructor, then my north scout to do the same. One more hit, constructor would be dead. Darn it, wouldn't you know he sent some of his scary tanks in for my scouts. Caught the southern one.
My attack surprised him, I guess, because he kind of pulled back from his advance for a turn.
I started making an infantry, hoping to slow his advance (I was pretty much thinking I was totally hosed).
Turn 4, quit making the infantry, started making a scout (had to pick one or the other, as I only had the one power generator). He protects his constructor by moving it into a nest of tanks. I notice a distinct resemblance between this sitation and one of the stand-alone missions called "The Great Abandon," which I had just beaten the day before. I took the point of that mission, and pull up my engineer that was building the turret, grab all the excess materials from my mine and head east into the great abyss. He smacks my scout. All I can hope for now is that he won't kill me before the new scout finishes.
Turn 5, in the words of Forrest Gump, "I was running!" The eastward trek is slow, 3 movement for 1 square on the water. 3 tanks park right next to my mining station on the south. Crap. He knows he has my butt.
Turn 6, I am clicking on my light vehicle plant for life, hoping to get my new scout out before it was too late. Luckily, out he pops, and runs north, as the tanks begin handily destroying my base. My construction crew is still running east, where my surveyor had found a weak resource field in the water.
Turn 7, I send my scout towards his base; what else was there to do? I saw a tank in the north, but passed by out of scan range... he was still having fun killing my base. It all died this turn, I think.
Turn 8, I see his constructor with some tanks... he tries to maneuver so that he can whack me at the beginning of the next turn, but I stay out of range (5 [all shots gone with movement 9] + 5 [tank range] = 10 squares, my scan was 13 or so, speed was also increased).
Turn 9, he pulls his tanks back to his constructor for defensive reasons. I'm desperately calculating paths to find a weakness in his defense so I can kill his constructor. I spot one, and only one, uncovered square at the extreme south of his constructor, at just the limit of my scout's speed. Lacking any other worthwhile goals, I turn off the "halt movement on enemy detection" option to avoid stopping in a tank's gun range, and blitz down to that square, and pop his constructor. It blewed up real good. I shout "That's game!" He was in the next room, so he was confused as to how I had won (he was new to M.A.X., but quite an experienced tabletop strategy gamer - he had much more insight to M.A.X. than I did, and I'd owned it for years). I showed him all my construction crew out on the water and explained that it would take me about 40 turns, but he was as good as dead because I had enough materials and could build everything I needed out on the water, where he had no way to reach me. It turns out he had 11 tanks and hadn't thought there was going to be a need for more constructors or engineers. He said he would have been waiting for me on the coast, to come back out of the water, and probably would have figured out 10 turns later that I wasn't coming back out of the water...
