@Ardaedhel @pt106

Not ready to post in main forum. I had a thought.

Following on from the power curve of deployment.

Tempo and the power cycle of a turn.

As with deployment, each activation has an associated power. Not necessarily unleashed power so maybe threat is a better word.

As ISD is the ultimate power activation especially if there are squads nearby it COULD activate.

A flotilla with no squads nearby is the weakest.

An MC30 regardless of its actual proximity is a high power ship.

In standard first player play. The power cycle is a burst at the start of the round and a burst at the end. The double beat at the heart of the fleet. During the middle low power static.

This forces the opponent to react to these peaks rather than use their own tempo.

Rieekan counteracts this by enabling a steady power per activation disrupting first player tempo with its own strong rhythm.

I am not sure where I am going with this but sure there is something in it. I think intuitively we understand the tempo of our own fleets.

I think my second player is usually.

Turns 1 to 3. Weak weak weak strong strong.

And then turn 4 or 5. Strong strong weak weak weak. As i switch from back foot to front foot.

I can agree with the general theme here.

A lot of what I think of as game flow. The flow of the turns and the flow of the game itself.

1 hour ago, shmitty said:

I can agree with the general theme here.

A lot of what I think of as game flow. The flow of the turns and the flow of the game itself.

Aye. But how do we draw this into fkeet building?

Yup, this is a thing. You can almost frame it as a pivot from a defensive to offensive posture, or shifting your weight from rear to front foot in combatives.

I think this will have some interesting interplay with a concept I myself am fiddling with: an "engagement envelope", trying to describe and compare the area, time, and intensity of combat. For example, a GSD has a very small, very high-intensity engagement envelope; an AF2 has a large, low-intensity envelope. An ISD1's is a moderately large area with high intensity, but difficult to get more than a short time.

I suspect that if we were to look at it, we could generalize that small, intense envelopes benefit from high-differential pivots. Hmm... I'll put some thought into it.

I like it though--it's potentially a good way to describe to the community this concept that we've picked up through experience. Which I generally think of as the ultimate goal of these kinds of efforts.

Curious. I like it. I shall loook forward to reading more on that.

Its all a bit to intuitive for me. I'm just wondering if there is a new rhythm to be developed. It all occured to me when I was thinking about why I hate flotilla overload so much. They cant push a high power activation, which just makes them a damp squid if your list is overloaded with them.

4 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Aye. But how do we draw this into fkeet building?

Tricky. Honestly it's why I moved into talking tactics though video. The next I have planned really looks at game flow and how to manipulate it. This seems less about fleet building and more about using a given fleet.

2 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Curious. I like it. I shall loook forward to reading more on that.

Its all a bit to intuitive for me. I'm just wondering if there is a new rhythm to be developed. It all occured to me when I was thinking about why I hate flotilla overload so much. They cant push a high power activation, which just makes them a damp squid if your list is overloaded with them.

I have to generally agree. Flotillas are useful, but the number of fleets I see with 2 threats and a pile of empty activations make me cringe.

The tempo you described is sourced from threats. Having multiple, legitimate threats allows you greater control and forces the opponent off of theirs.

I used to run a third mc30 purely for redundancy so my tempo wouldnt stop if they killed one.

Ooh thats an interesting point. Redundancy to maintain tempo.

Shmitty. Yup, 3+ flotillas is just depressing.

6 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

I used to run a third mc30 purely for redundancy so my tempo wouldnt stop if they killed one.

Ooh thats an interesting point. Redundancy to maintain tempo.

Shmitty. Yup, 3+ flotillas is just depressing.

Lrn2 bring four threats and three flotillas, scrub.

Tempo and activation advantage and what an activation can accomplish are directly related. In chess having tempo means to a degree that you're dictating the play. In Go the similar term is sente which is broadly the concept of being able to play where you want to play. There is something in this because it is baked into the DNA and fundamental puzzle of any strategy game.

In Armada having the tempo means you get to activate the meanest ship at the most opportune time.

I prefer nose punching ships with the first activation of the game....

... that counts, right?

2 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

I prefer nose punching ships with the first activation of the game....

... that counts, right?

The entire issue with your list is the tempo

Strong. Weak weak weak weak weak weak weak etc etc

Need to find more strong. Double relay may be crucial.

I don't quite consider it that, at all... My version of the list (at the very least), was Hyper-aggressive.... Speed 2 Double-Arcing Interdictors and a Follow-up Demolisher... The punch was for pulling out Lynchpins and capitalising on objective play, for the most part...

But perhaps my disagreement is a side-effect of the word weak . Because you can't be weak over the vast majority of the game and still win a tournament...

... can you?

If the strong is strong enough to remove your opponents strong and thus break their tempo...

Of course I am being extreme

I guess the biggest problem (and thus, the biggest lack of understanding) for me is, well... the fact I don't understand, so perhaps I just don't think in the same terms, or handle it completely intuitively.

Either way, I guess in the light of the fact that I don't understand, I'll bow out, sit back, and see if I can make heads or tails of it as the conversational evolves without me.

I'm excited for the new discard upgrades because that will disrupt the tempo of most fleets if flown well.

As it is, my tempo is fairly slow until round 3. The dual Glad fleet I'm using now build ups to the first attack, via multiple attack paths and stock piling tokens. At which point I set the tempo for the rest of the game.

By setting up multiple 1st activations, I can control how my opponent will react. Since I have so many potential activations, it means my ships are well positioned and a "proper activation" order falls into place.

For example, Insidious has a double arc into the rear of a ship. Demo is ready to move at speed 3+ET to get in range, and Instigator is sitting in a fighter cloud. Activating Instigator first will shut down squads, but I'll likely lose Insidious's attack, but that means Demo still gets to attack. Or they prevent a Demo attack but I still get Insidious. Or I activate Insidious first, since Demo has the most flexibility to attack, my opponent may activate their carrier next, which means if Instigator survives, it can attack any nearby ships instead of squads.

It's hard to set up, but so far I've been pretty successful with setting up all 3 ships, and occasionally the Arq.

On 27/3/2017 at 10:04 PM, Undeadguy said:

I'm excited for the new discard upgrades because that will disrupt the tempo of most fleets if flown well.

As it is, my tempo is fairly slow until round 3. The dual Glad fleet I'm using now build ups to the first attack, via multiple attack paths and stock piling tokens. At which point I set the tempo for the rest of the game.

By setting up multiple 1st activations, I can control how my opponent will react. Since I have so many potential activations, it means my ships are well positioned and a "proper activation" order falls into place.

For example, Insidious has a double arc into the rear of a ship. Demo is ready to move at speed 3+ET to get in range, and Instigator is sitting in a fighter cloud. Activating Instigator first will shut down squads, but I'll likely lose Insidious's attack, but that means Demo still gets to attack. Or they prevent a Demo attack but I still get Insidious. Or I activate Insidious first, since Demo has the most flexibility to attack, my opponent may activate their carrier next, which means if Instigator survives, it can attack any nearby ships instead of squads.

It's hard to set up, but so far I've been pretty successful with setting up all 3 ships, and occasionally the Arq.

If I understand you well I think I got something similar.

It took some time for me but I found that setting my threats one by one as domino's pieces works great.

I usually take the first and second round figuring out where the battle will take place and where will be each piece. During the third round I hold positions with my two beast (GSD) and try to force my opponents dquqdrons to activate throwing my alpha (defenders) with my Gozantis. As my last activation I send my raider into my opponent squadrons. At the start of the fourth round I flechette as many squadrons I could and escape with my raider. Free shots with my defenders activated from my Gozantis, setting my anonymous GSD as a mine for the fifth round. And finally Demo's double-tap and delay forcing him to fall into my second GSD fire and escaping. During the sixth round I have a last Demo shot and maybe a raider one.

Setting simultaneous threats didn't work for me. I like to go after big fish so if I place my GSDs in front of an ISD Demo could do demo things but then my second GSD is lost. This is more critical against Riekan. Of course you could do simultaneous threats as long as the threat doesn't go both ways like placing in front of a MC80.

Maybe all this doesn't have anything to do with tempo. Sorry.

Why no crescendo? Why no complete engagement on turn 3?

30 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Why no crescendo? Why no complete engagement on turn 3?

Usually that is the right tactic, at least for my play style; it's just about rolling into that crescendo well.

Also worth noting that "turn 3" for this purpose can commonly start as early as late turn 2 and never let up. Long-range high-threat ships that can wait out their targets can do this, as can Demolisher, CRambos, and high-activation MC30's that open at speed 4 directly across from their targets. Rogues can also kick it off during the turn 2 squadron phase.