Custom Map #5696: Long Road. By: arin112

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This topic is for discussion of map #5696: Long Road


Author: arin112
Size: 256x144

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#crpl #long #flip #hard (~ first hour)

[GoodMorning]

There are few options here. Rushing the first three Emitters is good sense, and stabilising a fortress with Shields thereafter also proves practical, but there seems no scope for any reasonable pace of advancement. What am I missing?

[Arin112]

There are few options here. Rushing the first three Emitters is good sense, and stabilising a fortress with Shields thereafter also proves practical, but there seems no scope for any reasonable pace of advancement. What am I missing?

Hint 1 (fist three emitters)

Spoiler

[close]

Hint 2 (fourth emitter)

Spoiler

[close]

[GoodMorning]

Having erred before that point, I ended up capturing that one rather later after Shield-crawling over. I doubt I'll finish this, but would be interested to see what the rest of the strategy looks like. Assuming that one can't rush everything in such a manner, a Shield-crawl will eventually become necessary. I think I left the game clock at 7h, so many such time-shortening tricks are clearly possible.

I'd suggest that this map was balanced too much in favour of a rush; for such an unusual concept. I think that the Emitters could easily be cheaper to convert - one-tenth the request interval, ten times the effect. Allowing two or three energy-based weapons would also be a nice touch. Or the Forge. Making the conversion symmetric (flood/flood) or one-way (supply to permanently convert) is also more intuitive.

Spoiler

Plan B involves micromanaging AC Guppies to convert Emitters without coming close. Cheaper conversion plays into this, as it's already possible, just far more fun. I did try a deep-conversion, but the drain on the network was great and I couldn't be bothered keeping it up until the local Creeper reserve had drained enough to stabilise.

[close]

So... yes. Good concept, but the execution has room for improvement. Having some variation in strategy other than the "hours of slog" or "invisible tightrope rush" is also fun.

Edit: Having crawled along enough to get a working reserve of AC, I took the top-right corner. At that point, I acquired an economy capable of supporting these unusual guns, if I kept an eye on where the CN was drawing from - storage upgrades would have been nice. The cleanup was comparatively short, with the supply bottlenecks being the limiter rather than the magnitude of the supply...

So, rush it or don't bother is my advice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to re-imagine this with Berthas.

It reminded me of this map: http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=18583.0 ... somehow.