Mechanized Assault & eXploration Reloaded

Subject: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

Hi,

Just finished my first multiplayer game of M.A.X. (M.A.X.R.) with 5 players, for which I waited about 14 years now so .

Sadly we lost to a player in the middle with too much gold which was allocated to his missile launchers blowing us of the map. All still smiling 'cause all this went by without any significant problem, nice work guys!

So my question is : what do you think is an effective counterstrategy for the p1mped Missile Launcher strategy?

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

easy: armor, speed and perhaps attack. I favor APC packed with infantry to encounter missile launchers especially when the opponent goes for "death from above" hit'n run strategy. APCs are fast, easy to p1mp and can spread 6 targets with 2 clicks. Plus they're stealth on the sea.

You can also outride missile turrets with tanks. Many tanks. Cheap to produce and can easy pack 2 or 3 shots. Don't forget repairing reinforcements

---

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

Hi,
interesting question, yes. Some more options (depending on the map and the skill of the missile turret player):

- Pimped gunboats (armor, hits and range to get in firing distance faster)
- Air superiority (but of course difficult if he has good air defenses, too)
- Infiltrators if he has no infantry
- boring option, but possible: own long range weapons (especially "death from above" or long range turrets at the borders of your base).

Combined strategy: Let him fire his missiles on your pimped tanks, that are then repaired by you, if possible. After he is out of shots:
a) enter with fast medium weapons (assault guns) and kill his turrets
b) use "death from above" (missile crawlers in transport planes) drops, to kill his turrets

Did he blow you of the map with stationary turrets or with missile crawlers?

More ideas?

---

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

Well, the game was lost because I was stuck on an island in a corner, with my shipyards blown away by 23 range stationary missile launchers with 2 shots and the sea packed with subs.
My strategy we're missile crawlers but the range was not far enough to reach the other island.

Gunboats and Tanks are the obvious counterstrategy, haven't got a chance yet to try it in maxr , in the original max the game almost always crashed trying such a thing.

APC's with infantry seems like a brilliant strategy, I'm a bit unsure how to get close enough without being blown up though, what happens to the infantry inside a blown up APC anyway?

As for infiltrators, could it be that they can't disable or steal yet in 0.2.6?

Thanks for the feedback.

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

I tend to default into a defense strategy using missile towers. I have observed that generally the missile towers can defeat most other offensive strategies. I think the biggest reason for this is not the stats balance but the current functionality of the game. It is much easier to manage a bunch of missile towers compared to the equivalent mobile force. This allows a player to focus more attention on base building and and growth than worrying about moving tanks around the battlefield. Hopefully this extra level of micromanagement required will be balanced for the mobile units. Additionally it would be a nice addition to allow infiltrators more of an ability to counter a missile tower defense by allowing disabling for more then one turn(I believe that is the current maximum) especially since buildings cannot be captured like mobile units.

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

Its hard to survive a charge if there are a certain amount of Missilelaunchers built in a certain area. You can build 10 Missile Launchers on one Spot quite fast and pimp them to at least 2 shots per round. So its 20 shots per round. If the range and damage is pimped very high you can easily blow away even a bigger, pimped tankrush. If you have to approach from the seaside, it can even be harder, because of the low speed naval units usualy have.

I did big sea, air and land rushes at once with dozends of pimped tanks, and at least 20 fast, well armored gunboats and 10 APCs with 6 marines each, waiting under water at the coast to deploy the marines on to the beach (D-Day ^^), while gunboats and scouts approach fast and airtransports brought in even more tanks. I didn't even fire one shot on those missile launchers or the radar, because of their huge range. Oh and in that game the infiltrators couldn't do their work and take down the missile launchers and anti air, cause that function didnt work that time, what I found out on that D-Day.

@ David
very good idea! I thought about, that especially missilelaunchers can not reload automaticaly and instead have to be resupplied by supplytruck only. So you move the aktive management back to the middle and you have to focus more on defending your base, moving in resupplies. Upgrading the ammount of ammo would become more important and cost some research time, that could be spent on range-research =o). There would always be a weak spot near the target "missile launchers", the supply truck.

Another possibility we usually use is that we decide not to research range and only buy it to the maximum limit with gold.

And another idea, more a mathematical solution ...more missilelaunchers lead to any sanction as less gold, slower production rates or what ever. A limit of maximum missilelaunchers could be a possibility, too.

How about, missilelaunchers can't attack infiltrators? And then..Infiltrators are equipped with 3 packs of C4 . No? Okay, just an idea... .

The second most used gameplay "strategy" is about massive aircraft rushes. If some of the fighting planes had to be resupplied of fuel after for example 200 moves, you would be forced to build up foreposts and resupply those. But thats hardcore micromanagement and so maybe an option for the hardcore mode of MAXR =o).

Sandman

---

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

I've heard of an out of the box strategy where you can just build a godly horde of Scouts to send in ahead of your military and armor them up a little to suck up all the shots of those missile launchers. After all shots are fired and Scout causalities are runnin' high, send in the artillery you wish to finish the bad guys off with. I'd recommend only doing this on an epic scale, and only if you have the last second resources to pull it off. If death is imminent I'd call this one your hail mary. =)

I've only heard of this but have never seen it done, so experiment with a friend on this one or something before trying it on an important game.

---

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

I finished several games early with a scout rush.

This is more a common game guide I may extend a little bit for the manual some time later:

From previous games I can tell you that you'll loose when you turtle up and leave the map to your opponents. It's only a question of time.

When you've been blown of by stationary missile turrets than you did something wrong already. Perhaps you turteled on a small spot and left all the gold to your enemy? In this case it doesn't matter with what he crushed you exactly. It's your job to find out early what strategy your opponent goes for and work against it.

Also don't only react on your opponents moves. Make your own. You can not win with defending only. Understand this and you can win in maxr. (Once my base was blown in bits. While keeping my opponent busy shooting my units I secretly build up a new base out of his range on the water with a lot of submarines and stuff. Guess his face when he thought he finished me when I returned with a bunch of good bombers out of nowhere :D)

BTW: Many good players I know don't even build defences to not waste resources on them. They put all the energy in attack units to bring the battle to the opponent. Sometimes they fall because of that when you manage to bring in some troups stealth or from behind. Most of the time however they pinpoint you in your base with this strategy, keep you busy, get more and more of the map and it's resources until their research und gold upgrades are that far ahead from you that they can easily kill you with one special pimped unit. Mostly with missiles, bombers or gunboats.

The ability of maxr to survive more but 160 turns before it eventually crashes doesn't mean that you have 160 turns time to build a nice base before somebody bothers you. Play some games and you'll get the hang of it It's plain normal when you loose your first matches because max multiplayer is completly different from other games and even from it's own singleplayer.

---

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

the problem with tank rush is that those are easely counterd by pimped artillery who are cheap and fast too build
even good amount of pimped groundattack planes can easily take out the tanks
i think the best way too counter is too not let happen that the missile guy has the abbilty too upgrade that fast by quickly attacking from the start of the game because that way he has too rethink his strategy

Subject: Re: Counterstrategy for Missile Launchers

---

It always strikes me that regardless of what tactic you use, if you have allowed your opponents to max the range on their missle crawlers then you have no chance of winning. This is becasue:

1. AA is cheap and very effective so you can protect the crawlers very easily.
2. All units can hit an infiltrator once he has been spotted, so they're only mildly effective.
3. If they already have a very effective range, you can't airdrop or rush units in easily as they'll be destroyed immediately as soon as they are dropped off.

I have noticed that if they are far enough away you can drop off a unit (via air transport) and then immediately pick them up which means that they cannot get hit. However, if you do this there appears to be a bug because you can no longer use that unit to attack (you can move it around, but cannot attack other unit). However, it does draw fire and uses up all the opponents movement points and ammo for your other units to be moved it without fear of getting hit.

---