Multiplayer strategies and replays

[Guest Sphinx]

Hey.

I didnt find any topics about multiplayer games. Neither multiplayer replays. Are there any? If not, this should be the place.

Anyway... Whats the best starting strategy for multiplayer when playing VH? And wich is better, kill creeps off fast to flood others or play it safe and kill them slowly?

[holepercent]

there are plenty of replays on the forums.. here's some

VH replays by myself (played in vh rnd but it shows stuff like tower placement, choices and stuff)

VH ronald hunt

Cisz's replay pack

the best is of course kill as fast as possible and flood other players, but this is not possible all the time. playing at a fast placement such as VII or IV might result in leaks, especially if the build is weak. also, this depends on the rest of the players. in some games, players would be rushing, to keep up, moving up is necessary. in others, you may have the time to play at a slower location.

there are many strategies to approaching a game. the general concept is start with the aoe slows, the damage towers followed by the supporters.

most of us play in random so it's making the best out of the elements given to us. there's no fixed strategy. knowing what to build comes with experience.

[Guest 1mpulse]

in strategy you may have noticed the replays sub-forum ..

[Cisz]

When playing multiplayer there are three mayor things to consider, and all have to do with timing. You are connected to the other players by one rule only: If one player clears all creeps in his sector, the next wave starts. So the fastest player dictates the timing for all his oponents.

The first question is: Are we playing with each other or against each other? If you all try to beat the map, but not the other player, if you are good friends, finally trying to get to ronald, you agree on a place to play and slow down if your partners are in trouble.

The areas, ordered by their speed are:

7 long pass (tough to pull off)

5 long pass (very common)

4 two pass (very common)

1 long pass (very uncommon)

3 two pass (long second pass)

6 two pass (to slow on non extreme if your oponent knows what he is doing)

You understand the terms "long pass", "two pass"? You know where "4" is?

But if this is about humiliating your opponents, dominating them and smash them to pieces, the other two problems come up:

The most obvious effect is, that if you don't finish your wave fast enough and someone let's loose the next wave, you might leak. This is especially true if you use single target towers on two pass and with little or no slow. If you slow the creeps a lot and use splash dmg, than to some extend it doesn't matter how many waves you are fighting at the same time. Theoretically you could kill all waves at the same time, as splash hits an area. In eletd 4.0pb the minimum speed of the creeps was increased, so slow is less powerfull nowadays, but still, slowing builds are a little more resistant to a creep spamming opponent. But if you play single target towers, you willl probably be forced to two pass them on the higher difficulties. With a two pass build you should be very carefull to choose your location. 4 is tough, as it's a little under two pass, so you will need slowing. It's also almost impossible to not leak mechs with a two pass single target build at 4. At 3 you get a long second pass, which is great against mech and elementals, but you are slower. If your opponent makes his kill at 7, you might get two-sided at 3. Anything slower as 3 is unwinnable if your oponent plays at 7. (All of this assumes you don't play extreme.)

So: If you play multiplayer and expect to be raced, play with slowing and at 7, 4 or 5. 7 is the hardest but fastest choice. 5 is medium, and 4 is slowest and easiest of the three. You might notice that playing at 4 or 5 can be really tough, so maybe you need to drop the difficult-o-meter or seek out weaker oponents.

The last issue is interest.

If your opponent spends all his money to race at 7, but you hold all creeps at 5 without having to spend all your gold, you get interest and he doesn't. So as long as you don't leak and keep more gold than he does, you might get an advantage out of a creep spamming player. This is not entirely true if we are talking about early game or random though. In these two cases selling your towers and rebuilding them can be used to gain extra interest, and you will probably have a hard time to keep up with your opponent, if your placement is slower than his and he is on a high difficulty (so the next wave comes after like 3 seconds). When he starts the next wave and you are not done yet, he can allready sell and rebuild (assuming he is a top level player at 7 or a good player at 4 or 5). He can even time the last kill to match the interest timer by forcing his towers to hold fire (by pressing the "s" key fast and often). By the time you are done with the last wave, the next creeps are on their way, and it's likely that you won't have time to rebuild now, unless you are playing a similiar fast placement as your oponent. If you are not fast enough for stuff like this, forget the bit about rebuilding and play wherever you are able to not leak.

If you indeed are playing a fast paced early game or random, and selling/rebuilding/relocating is happening all over the map, another issue comes up: Where to build for what wave with which towers. With selling at 100% you can more or less move your entire build for each wave for a big portion of the game. On a samerandom with earth first, it's not possible to not leak wave 9 at 7 on very hard (afaik..). So even if you managed to play at 7 till then, for 9 you have to move to the next best thing, which is probably 4-5. While with fire as fist ele, playing 9 at 7 is a must if you are out to smash the opposition.

So where to play can totally change for every wave, and if you can sell at 100% you can take advantage of that. If one wave allows for a faster kill, you can try to push the speed up. And if one wave is tricky, you can play more defensively and as a result kill quicker as your opponent that tried to race it and failed.

Here are some replays:

1424 Eletd (4pb avh sr cm) died.w3g

Tournament Round 3 Final.w3g

[Guest Sphinx]

Yeah, ive seen the ronald hunts. Tnx for the long post and the replays.