[BattleMoose]

Winters Duel
A Guide by a BattleMoose

Winters Duel, being such a small map, is also a highly technical map to play, with small decisions having greater consequences than they might have on bigger maps. This guide is obviously only my opinion based on my experiences and anyone may disagree with it or think its nonsense. Indeed such a difference of opinion would please SonofShagrat.

I am mostly an exclusive Aeon player, (In ranked anyway) as such I will talk in detail on AeonVsUef, AeonVsCybran, and AeonVsAeon, other matchups will be discussed but not in such detail, largely as I lack that experience.

General Remarks and General Strategies

Reclaiming

The most important point on WD is that there is ALOT of mass in rocks that could be reclaimed. It’s important that you know where these rocks are and that you include reclaiming them into your build order. It is absolutely critical in getting your econ up or fast teching to T2. A lot of players have no chance on WD because they insufficiently reclaim this mass.

There are also rocks in the middle of the map, it’s important that you send your ACU forward to try and reclaim these rocks. Obviously this could (should) mean that you will run into the enemy ACU and some dancing should occur. You should have some t1 units to assist in this or at very least be able to spam if the need occurs.

Most people don’t want to draw and is largely frowned upon (Not trying to win and forcing a draw however) so as long as you have supporting T1 units, at worst, each of you should get “your” rocks and withdraw. Obviously move as far forward as you can reclaiming as much as you can. This is critical.

Ghetto Gunships

The use of ghetto gunships in WD is somewhat used and you have to look out for it. If it comes unexpected it can be devastating. I normally wouldn’t recommend using an early ghetto gunship on WD but I am always looking out for one. In moving your ACU forward, and you don’t encounter his ACU nor any of his units, and you don’t see your enemy doing anything, then get ready for a ghetto gunship. (An advantage of moving your ACU forward)

Normally I would recommend building an air factory 2nd or 3rd and building a scout to see what he’s up to. If he is going fast T1 gunship, you won’t get an interceptor out in time to stop it, but you can fast build an interceptor to help deal with it. Build a few T1 AA, mobile, and try shoot it down. Avoid moving your ACU back if u can, although mostly you would have to, if the units land, you might have no way to deal with them.

So, get an air factory 3rd at the latest, and try and determine what he’s doing, if you are encountering a lot of T1 units, then he’s not gone for a ghetto gunship. (Or an early one anyway)

Bomber Rush

Bomber rushes are so rare these days, and ineffective, if you see one on you, you can almost say GG, because you’ve won. Just build T1 AA, mobile, and flood your base with them, they prioritise bombers and they go down fairly quickly. But don’t cluster your power! Or there can be big booms, and its GG again, other way round, moral of the story, don’t cluster your early power. And as soon as you see a bomber, build T1 AA, ASAP, but be careful of building too much, because that’s also bad.

Scouting

Scouting is so important on this map, it’s a small map, but especially because it’s small, when a rhino appears, it takes quick quick for it to start shooting your stuffz, because your stuffz is so close. You don’t need to have scouts always flying over his base, but always try and keep tabs on what he’s doing, ie, fast T2 or fast econ or if he’s just turtling.

TML Snipe

I am not sure if it still happens in lower ranking games, but it used to. Watch for the tml snipe, also tmls are a good way of destroying t3 mexes and p2gens, so build tmds to cover your base and acu.

Also if you see the opportunity use tml’s to know out his econ. If it goes to the stage where you are building SCU’s, consider building about 8 TML launchers, then u launch all at an SCU while he’s standing still, and you’ll kill it, even if it has that insane repair upgrade.

Walls

They might be gay, or very gay, but wallz are a good way of slowing down an advance, so they can buy you time, if you can handle the abuse thrown at you, put walls everywhere. ^^

Dont’s

PD’s
A lot of players, used to, and still might, build T1 pd’s on WD, this is a big No No. An ACU can easily take down a pd, and reclaim the mass, it’s a gift. Even if your ACU is nearby, he can easily take the pd, reclaim the mass and withdraw, the PD building ACU might be able to force a draw, maybe, but depends what else is about.

If your opponent is UEF, don’t even think about T1 pd’s, Loboz, nuff said.

AeonVsCybran

Aeon, Economy Strategy

Most of the matchups are usually against a cybran player these days. (Not entirely sure why) The general strategy for a cybran player (Will talk about this later), is to go fast T2 and try and win with Rhino’s and Vipers, this is a potent strategy, but good handling of the Aeon, can “usually” hold this off.

T2 on WD comes very quickly, largely due to the mass that’s just lying around and also, whoever gets to T2 first has a big advantage, with units, especially with Rhino and Viper.

While the Cybran player goes fast T2, Aeon can upgrade a mex, to T2, this becomes very important later even although it sounds very dangerous. (It is very dangerous) During the time of going T2, you really need to scout the cybran player to see where he’s going or what he’s building, et cetra.

After you upgrade your first mex T2, then you want to upgrade a land factory to T2. By this stage Rhinos are starting to be built, or vipers, and should be moving towards your base. Buy as much time as you can with your ACU and T1 units to delay these units arriving, this is the most dangerous stage of the strategy and timing is absolutely critical.

Also if your player is neglecting air and air defence, use your own ghetto gunship to harass his T2 units, this should delay his push until he can get air defence, this is normally more than enough time.

If lots of vipers are coming, stop aurora and start building flares, more targets. If you reclaimed properly, you should have enough mass to pump out some T2 eng, and build a tmd (if required) or pd2, then build some mmls or T2 tanks, not too many. If time is tight, you might need a few pd1’s, this is played by ear. If you successfully hold this T2 assault off, well done. It’s not easy against good players, but you have almost secured yourself victory.

You should have been pushed right up to your base where your pd2 smacks anything that comes near. (Be very careful of heights, and your pd2 placement, you don’t want it shooting the floor) There should now be a large number of wrecked vehicles, yours and your enemies outside your base, reclaim this ASAP, it’s to fuel or economy.

Although you should have lost 2 mex points, you should have the same econ or better than your enemy. (Your T2 mex)

Now keep investing into your economy and find out what your opponent is now going to try, he has a few options:



Cybran Player:

Continue T2 assault and push through. As Aeon, build more defence and hold him off, note, t1 arty can be very helpful here.

Try and fast econ. Aeon has the advantage here, your T2 mexes and wrecks, just beat him.

Set up T2 Arty fire base on one of the ridges. This means an old fashioned T2 arty duel on Winters, Aeon has the advantage, mostly. But be aware, his arty can reach almost all your base, so u need to protect everything with shields, so be sure to build plenty of power.

Anyone one of the previous three, with a T2 drop. This can be fatal if executed correctly, to be blunt, you have to see it coming, or you are in serious trouble, so scout. You need to have lots of interceptors, all through try and keep interceptors, so u can shoot the trannie down , or build pds about your base, this isn’t hard coz the map is small. But if the tankz land, it doesn’t take long for them to blow expensive stuff up.

Of course Aeon can also try a T2 tank drop, play at your discretion. Aeon shields are better than cybrans, and people claim that cybran T2 arty is crap, but I am not sure, their crap arty has blown up a lot of my stuffz. In a T2 arty duel, you have to watch your power, if your shields go down for half a second, it can cause GG, if a shell hits fabs and a big boom happens. This has happened to me before. :-(

Recommended to build lots of power, and then fabz, so as u need power turn fabz off, but as u don’t, it fuels your econ. And try to build excessive shielding, recharging shields costs mass, and can end up being very expensive.

Also, in a T2 arty duel, players often neglect pd’s, not always, u already have pds, from before, so your covered. If he is neglecting Pd’s, or has few, u can just spam t1 arty and some t1 units up to the ridge. They should all die :P from some cause, but hopefully not before, enough of your t1 arty has done damage to knock down the shields and given your T2 arty to break the fire base. This has worked and can be very potent.

At this point the game can go in different directions, its impossible to discuss all variations, but the most likely occurrences are discussed. Although this is assuming that Cybran Player will fast T2, but everyone does these days, just make sure he is, by scouting.

Why Aeon doesn’t go toe to toe with Cybran T2

Vipers are deadly, deadly, deadly, they will tear your army apart, unless you build tmd as u move your army, don’t even think about engaging vipers with your mmls. Of course there will be rhino, which are considered to be better than obsidians. So engaging cybran t2 armies as Aeon, you are at the disadvantage.


AeonVsUef

On Winters Duel, facing UEF, is terrifying. Loboz. Don’t even think about building pd’s, its just wasteful. I still recommend upgrading a mex T2 and then your land factory T2, as fast as you can.

PD2’s can be useful but still die quickly if loboz get hold of it. But here MML’s are your best chance of defence against UEF T1 rush. Some T2 tanks are good too. Ghetto gunships are a good way of buying youurself time. Use your ACU to good effect delaying the push, as much as you can.

A UEF T1 rush is much more dangerous than a T2 rush, if he goes T2, then do the same as mentioned with cybran. If t1 just try hold him off long enough for you to get T2. But you have to upgrade that mex first, otherwise you will be T2 and hold him off, maybe, but your econ as at a big disadvantage, and you should lose. :/

Still scouting is very important; you have to see what’s coming so you can build accordingly.

As Aeon, facing a UEF rush, you will always be at a disadvantage, good luck. There aren’t a lot of ways for you to level the playing fields, just get out of T1 as fast as you can. But you can’t neglect your econ.

AeonVsAeon

The playing fields are equal with equal factions, all options are viable, but usually this ends up as a T2 arty duel. Normally whoever gets a Miasma up wins, unless they sacrifice too much of their economy to build it. It’s a balance, as always, see what your enemy is doing, if he’s building a miasma, get shields up or destroy it.

As mentioned before, T1 arty can be very effective at breaking a t2 arty deadlock!
And T2 tank dropz can also be very effective.

Playing as CybranVsAeon

Cybran T2 is very strong, this is where you want to win on Winters Duel, and you can get to T2 very quickly as well. It’s recommended that you fast tech T2 a land factory (forgot about upgrading a mex first) and get those rhinoz out. MML’s are great, but aeon tmd makes your mmls useless, so not too many viperz if he’s turtling.

You have to win at this stage, if it gets to pd2 creeping and t2 arty duels, cybran is in trouble, cybran t2 pd just cant compete with aeon and this kind of a battle with cybran is not recommended. If it does get to this stage, your best bet is to be sneaky, with dropz or to try and out econ him if you can. You have more of the map , try and use it to your advantage, reclaim everything that has yet not been reclaimed, which should be quite a lot.

CybranVsCybran

This should end up as a t2 army battle, unless one decides to turtle. Playing fields are even and vipers should be everywhere, consider building tmd’s.

Unlike aeon tmd, cybran tmd is crap, and cyrban mml is awesome, coz it mirvs. So with enough mmls you can overcome the tmd and start dismanting his firebase. This however is best done undercover of a shield, coz of T2 pd, cerebrus.

UEF

UefVsUef and UefVsCybran I wont go into, I don’t think I am qualified or have the experience to discuss these matchups. But for you UEF folkz out there, enjoy your loboz. ^^

[zhrance]

Hey thank you for posting such things, are you ok with it if I make it frontpage news and put it in a column?

[BattleMoose]

Absolutely.

I didnt know how to go about it, so I just posted it here.

Go for it.

BattleMoose

[zhrance]

Originally Posted by BattleMoose

Absolutely.

I didnt know how to go about it, so I just posted it here.

Go for it.

Hey BattleMoose, I made a Column for your guide, thank you for sharing!

Supreme Commander Community by Supcom Live.com: Winters Duel A Guide by a BattleMoose