Everyone (I think:) ) played latest (on 26 Oct 2010) official Desert Strike 1.2.4 by NudeRaider.

Nice version I should say, but imho need at least 3 improvements:

1) Spells: Protoss have nice MC spell, Terran have nice Heal & Repair spell, but Zerg have not good Infestation spell and let me explain why.

If you team consist of only Zerg (ZvX ZvXX ZvXXX ZZvXX ZZvXXX ZZZvXXX and so on) - you dont have a real counters for MC.
And if Terran or Protoss enemy build too much of air - your infestation will work not very good.
And most unfair thing I think is that infestation doesnt affect reavers and archons - most pain for zerg (cause they can attack in dark swarm and do powerful splash damage).

I propose next style of Zerg spell: Kill 75% of enemy units for cost of MC or Kill 50% of enemy units for half of cost of MC or something similar. And this spell should affect any kind of units (except interceptors).


2) Refund for spells: in 2x3 1x3 or 1x2 playing less team can use spells very often cause of refunds. Many people said, that this is imba. What do you think about this?


3) At the start of the game Terran can build 1 Barracks, then 2 bunkers near Fortress - and most of enemy attacks can be defended cause of possibility to repair bunkers, strong damage of all units ih bunker. If zerg or toss do the same with 2 sunkens or cannons - they will die quickly imho (in comparison to bunkers).

Do you think that bunkers are balanced to sunkens and photon cannons?


Thanks for you attention and have a nice playing:)

P.S. You can download current latest (on 26 Oct 2010) official Desert Strike 1.2.4 here: http://www.staredit.net/?file=2283

All next versions I will upload here: http://theleo-ua.livejournal.com/

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Oct 26 2010, 9:43 am by theleo_ua.

i think something that needs a fix is terran lifting buildings for a refund such as the attachments. They can both build units and use special when fighting. They build units then when comes time for special they lift those units and get refund. The other races don't have access to use their cash while they wait for special so why should terran. It is an unfair advantage!


refund from imbalanced teams are too much as well. It was a good idea but it wasn't properly portioned out. No refund the smaller team loses. Current Refunds the bigger team loses. Needs to be portioned better.

Forgot to say: lurkers, while burrowed near enemy units, approximately 70% of time dont attack. Anyone know why its happen and how to fix this?

Well you know...there is a version of desert strike called Desert Strike Revolution made by yours truly
-And while it doesn't really have anything to do with things that you said up there it is, unlike all most all of the other versions out there a pretty good one if I do say so myself.
-Thing with mine is you get to customize your game by Setting the Temple health & other options etc.
-Anyways, just thought I'd say that and also could you post raiders new v of d strike?

You can download current latest (on 23 sep 2009) official Desert Strike 1.1b6 here:
WARNING!!! 1.1b6 is still unfinished. Download at own risk!!!
http://rapidshare.com/files/283628000/Desert_Strike_v1_1b6.scx

All next versions I will upload here: http://theleo-ua.livejournal.com/

>>-Thing with mine is you get to customize your game by Setting the Temple health & other options etc.

Yes I played it - nice version. But are you already fixed the bug (in "no vision" version) that All players can see what orange player build (for example how much gas he has)?

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Sep 24 2009, 4:07 pm by theleo_ua.

I had a slightly-modified version of Ultima a few months ago that I truly think was the best DS ever. Queen version was god-aweful, and the original seemed lacking after I played Ultima. Revolution was pretty good, but the new features overrode some basic functions of the game, rather than add to them.

Its the AI Scripts. There is a similar problem with tanks not sieging strategically, and dark archons not maeling the masses. dark chons feedback medics but not wraiths, and queens must be attacked to use brood. most of the time, the queen dies before the brood sprite hits the target. Defiler doesn't use swarm to advantage most of the time. Vulture don't place mines.

We need better AI Scripts.
I liked the 'choose settings' in revolution.
fix unit lag and ccmu - possibly do a sand castle war/ds heroes, and make 50 rines a hero.
Bunker has 4x the fire speed compared to cannons and sunks. sunks do explosive dammage, keep in mind. cannons require pylon, and sunk/spore needs creep.
make it so terrain gets full refunds on the first 3 lifts, then no more refunds
add the resource silo if you haven't already, many people like it. or add it as an option.
anti bs/team banner/anti waste BOOM
add old anti hack trigs, to crash mac users. I don't like macs.
Add cheese cake while ure at it.

perhaps add a ffa mode. spawn directed by a civilian.

>>add old anti hack trigs, to crash mac users. I don't like macs.

haha - nice advice:)

First of all I'd like to thank leo for bringing up this topic. It should help me when I continue my supposedly more balanced (with any number of players) and more demanding (diversity of strategies, even micro elements) original line of Desert Strike versions.
Although I want to emphasize that the advertised 1.1b6 (6th beta of 1.1) is not done yet! There's a nasty bug giving double money to the enemy team when someone leaves. I was in the middle of fixing this bug when my Internet exploded several months ago.

About the specials:
I should mention that the Heal & Repair is largely underestimated. Firstly because it was a bit too weak in the earlier versions (especially as army sizes grew) and secondly because most people don't realize its potential as a mc counter. To effectively use it you have to anticipate when your enemy will use mc and build your heal at the exact same time (max 5 seconds later). This results in your units that are left over from mc not dying and getting reinforced by the next spawn. The healing effect last almost 2 spawns, so you will come out as victor against a mc and have spent less money. Admittedly this is hard to do, but imperative to master.
Also many people complain about the Broodling not killing air units. The reason for that is that Zerg usually has no problems to gain air superiority, but is relatively weak on the ground. However the games have shown that under some circumstances the good Zerg air cannot entirely make up for this weakness, so I'm planning to still convert 100% of the ground units to broodlings, but also 25%-50% of the air units to queens (because I like them ). I will have to test the exact number.

The refund for spells
is not a perfect solution but at least a pretty fair one. The reason why it is imbalanced is because when for example in a 1v3 the single player makes a special he can soon after cast another special. Then all of the 3 team could save money, so if they take turns they could cast specials in the same frequency as the single player. So the money is not the problem here when the team organizes itself who's going to save when. The real issue is how often it can be cast: In a 1v1 there is no refund, so both players have wait the full time until they can afford the special (like it's supposed to be). So you see, the more players in the larger team (or both teams, when evenly sized) the cheaper specials get, which creates certain imbalances in game play.
When people say that the bigger team loses this is probably because they don't coordinate themselves properly that there's always one player that can counter the enemy's special.
I was thinking about a system where players can add money to a "bank account" and only if there's enough money on that account the special could be cast. And whenever a player puts money there it is divided by the number of players in its team. When I didn't overlook something this would solve every imbalance concerning the setup dependent imbalances of specials. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The only thing I don't like about it is that I would have to make some kind of chooser system (dropship, civ, etc.) to allow the players to add money to their teams bank account. This would mean extra controls and thus extra noob confusion, I would have trouble explaining the system to the players (don't overestimate the apprehension of noobs) and it would also make the map seem less elegant. There's already too many (necessary) control mechanisms in there.

Defensive Structures:
Bunkers were much stronger than sunkens or cannons. Period. That's why I already raised the sunken's armor and the cannon's shield and armor significantly. They're also cheaper now. Seems pretty balanced to me now, with all 3 of them having their advantages and disadvantages. Check out the 1.1b6 (6th beta of 1.1) to see for yourself. Feedback appreciated.

Lifting Terran Buildings:
It's not an exploit, it's a feature! The idea is that Terran is the versatile race (Protoss the supporter race with spell casters, and Zerg the military race) which can quickly switch strategies. This is to make up for their weaknesses:
- Heal and Repair is only a passive special and if used as a counter hard to time
- Marines die hard vs reavers and lurkers (early until mid game, but this is when games are usually decided)
- Terran is absolutely helpless vs swarms because of bugging tanks

Unit AIs:
Well I must say I hate this topic because AIs are so unpredictable. Why can't the sc units just behave like one would expect?
Lurkers: I managed to make them useful after countless experiments and test games. But still several problems remain:
- They stop attacking after like 15 minutes into the game. (I have no clue why that is or how to solve it)
- They don't burrow on their own / they sometimes do, but very rarely (They do burrow when attacked, so this isn't too bad)
- They unburrow (to engage) when an enemy units are coming into range instead of just waiting burrowed. (Also not much we can do about it without changing the AI)
Melee AIs only seem to lessen the 2nd problem and nothing else.
Tanks: Obviously another one of Blizzard's faulty unit AIs. They are borderline useless in my map layout because they just won't siege in cramped areas. By the time you have the money to afford them you usually have too many units for them to siege or so few units that they die too quickly. They also tend to go back to their own temple and siege there, but I got that under control with frequent orderings. And it's really a shame because the siege tank is so important for every Terran strategy in sc.
Spellcasters: They are fine now imo. Not always perfect choice of spell or target, but generally they do use their energy. I guess also not much margin for improvements here.
Vultures: They are laying mines now. Not ordering them for 5-10 seconds after spawning does the trick. They are controlled by the melee AI in that time, so they lay defensive mines. Unfortunately for some strange reason when the middle down player (P3) is present they see him as a priority (yellow and blue vultures alike!) and go there, when without orders which is confusing at best. Ideas?

Unit lag and ccmu
Exceptions aside this is fixed since v1.1. I improved the spawning area and the manner the units leave the temple area.
Also when I detect a certain amount of units (like 600) I only spawn 50% of the units. This works very well, because with too many units balance got shifted and problems with sprite limit arose. This is now postponed to a *much* later stage of the game.

Resource silo
I'm a bit worried about losing viable strategies. In queen versions there's usually only one way to go from the start: Build no gas until you got their silo. And in my versions I have fine tuned it so that you can start with units or 1-2 gas or a mix - always dependent on the situation, your strategy and your teamwork.
But still I will probably add something like those silos and then adjust the balancing again. But this is not before v1.2

anti bs/team banner/anti waste BOOM
I do not plan to restrict bsing. Simply because I don't want to add a banner system as it would not fit well into the design. As mentioned above there's already too many inelegant controls.
Anti waste BOOM? Well... yes. At first my viewpoint was that if they are stupid enough to run into the darkened temple area or don't coordinate who's going to use it (double BOOM) they don't deserve better. But I now realize that this harsh policy doesn't add any value to my map, but occasionally kills a game - so I'll change it. I'm also thinking about integrating the banner into the civ: Unally one of your teammates and the BOOM becomes a BAN and will not die at the temple. Pros? Cons? Hm... or just unally to ban? Probably too direct/harsh/unexpected. What do you guys think?

Add cheese cake while ure at it
I will. Thanks for your suggestions.

And Thanks for your answer:)


Nice idea - I will try this:)

BTW - I should say, that bunkers strategy I explained before (1 barracks, 2 bunkers near temple then only gas and\or turret if enemy has DA) can be countered only in 2 ways I think: only gas without any buildings (or just with 1 starting building) or worker rush.

And interesting thing is that all my opponents never used this counter because of dont know it:) So I won all games with this strategy:)



You really think so?

But there is one bad thing: rocket limit for valkyries. If you want to countr zerg with valkyries - it is not a good idea casue of this limit.

But protoss cam easily conter zerg air with mass corsairs\high templars\archons\DAs imho. When I played Zerg vs Toss - my Mutas always were countered by psi storm:)


Nice idea. Especially about queens.

Many people dont make more that 1 queens nest, but they do nice esnare.



I think too complex (will be pain in ass to explain my allies how to use it).

Maybe you will do refund not in one second?

Example 1 (current situation):

Refunds give 1500 minerals in one trigger action (one second)

Example 2 (my idea):

Refunds give 10 minerals 150 times (10 minerals per second).


So now its the time to show all my funny replay of DS:

http://rapidshare.com/files/284979388/BEST_DS_REPLAY_EVER.rep

Watch it only in Multiplayer (try direct connection if has no internet) and only at 1x speed. Otherwise can be bugs in replay.

You should watch this replay because of:

1) my ally built 0 gas till all game, and enemies everyone built 5 gas
2) my ally built only sunkens near our fortress
3) my ally left the game on 30 minute and we will have both: often spawns ans a lof of sunkens:)
4) (main reason): my allied siege tanks cannot go through this sunkens and attacked enemy gas by siege mode from my base:)

That was funny game:)




Yes - I like this. Zerg should own haha:)

You can increase cost of defilers for balance this.



Maybe I need to watch ALL your lurker triggers to know why they dont attack? Cause in my castlefight they always attack while burrowed.

What is the easiest way to find all lurker ordering triggers and ai script triggers in your map?


Dont understand this sentence.


I should say that I do exactly same in castle fight. And vultures place mines only near caste and didnt go to enemy players bases (they only go to enemy castle as I want). This is very strange for me (that they go to P3 in DS). Maybe Heinermann or other gosu in "Starcraft engine knowlegde" can explain it?


Example: you have 400 corsairs, i have 200 corsairs. Spawn time: and I got 50% so it very nice for you haha:)


As for me - I dont like resource silo (and didnt used it in castlefight). So my wish is no silo in NudeRaiders DS.


AntiBS: can you give me examples of BS? Except killing allied units\buildings.

I never saw any BS while playing.

Team banner: I think we dont need this

Anti waste BOOM: maybe something like this:

if less than 50 (need tests for correct number) units detected near temple - then write next messages:

You now trying to boom while less then 50 units detected. You can move your civillian back during 5 seconds.
5
4
3
2
1
Then boom:)


Have a nice reading:)

GL in making new vers.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 25 2009, 10:04 pm by theleo_ua.

for refunds and special management idk how you fix the problem. The inital worst problem with specials on uneven teams is when refunded can use all the time. Some specials aren't as good either or don't counter the other specials as well.

This means the one can cast and even if the 3 cast each special they lose out because they would have to be the counter race to effectively cast.

The other thing is gas ratio's the one can effectively control his gas and the 3 cannot as only 1 player has control of his or her self.

when you created a bank the one is at a disadvantage because they 3 can more effectively pick the counter to his/her special.


I agree with the 50% spawn ratio its really bad for the losing team especially if the other team boomed and has resulted in unit overload. How are they suppose to catch up? Ultima seems to have best tank ai and queen seems to have best lurk ai. I would look at both "Nightstrike" by queen and "Ultima's platnium desert strike" by ultima.

Also i would think about finding a way to work in fbats better into desert strike as this would give terrans a chance to counter some swarms. Atm 1 medic and 1 bat for 300ish minerals is kinda bogus as the medic has the most value here and the bat can't be massed without creating medics for an expensive cost. I think this comes to shuffling arround units built by buildings.


My complaint about specials:
Heal and repair: not offensive it may be great for countering but it can't create any kind of push at all.

Nuke: overpowered as it hurts the Castle.

Mind Control: Just too strong. If we use heal and repair it becomes more of Like a Rock/Paper/Scissors game at later stages.

Broodling: Only targets ground has no chance vs mind control. Even with converting to queens it doesn't hurt someone who just mced all you big zerg air. It ignores the most annoying units reavers.

Personally i've never been a fan of the rock paper scissors contest. It would be nice if all abilites were somewhat equal. Nuke would be best if it either was out of range of the Castle or invinced the Castle exactly when the nuke did the dmg. The zerg need something to combat mindcontrol. Idk if queens will do it.


lastly the lifting of terran buildings for refunds is just lame I don't care how you look at it. He can readjust based on what units he is facing the most problems from and he can use to cast the special whenever necessary. The terran is strong enough on its own without this little bonus. While zerg own the air terran can two if they have the bigger army. Mass bcs are just as good as mass guards and devours.


The toss could also use an effective air solution as well. Idk what happened to queen but his night strike was the way to go imo. Implementing heros would have been extremly nice. You could have effective aa scouts that would hold all game instead of just until opponents massed enough air to combat even the sair/scout combo.

I agree with this.

Forgot to say: you can do next way of turning to broodling:

For example every 10 ground units will be turned in next way: 9 units turned to broodling, 1 unit turned to defiler.

If no attack orders to defilers = the result (I think) will be mass swarm.
If do attack orders to defilers = the result will be mass plague (tested on castle fight).
(I mean attack orders on exact locations where defilers appear).

I cant say anything about the balance (if defilers will be in special) but you have to think about it:)

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 25 2009, 11:21 pm by theleo_ua.

Just one general thing I'd like to add: I see a lot of arguments that race x has weaknesses against race y. Those determinations are true for the most part - in a nutshell. But this isn't how the map is intended to be played. The map is tuned to be most balanced with more than 1 race per team and thus this balancing has priority.
One race vs. multiple races always has disadvantages, that's the same in standard sc and that's why I'm not sure if I can ever get rid of it.
And one race vs. one race is hard to balance without throwing off the multiple race balancing. Admittedly I don't play much 1v1 so my experience with these problems is limited, but I'll try to balance issues when that won't hurt multirace balance.

More detailed answers pending...

i don't play many 1v1's either but i run into situations where you just cant overcome it. Especially when my team chooses 2 of the same plus another vs all three races wether this was doen by random or pre picking. The things i notice the most is the toss air just cant compete with the other 2 at all but at the same time the two other specials don't compete with toss special either.

Terran gets crushed by zerg if its 1v1 which is super annoying if you ever random 3 terran. Basically defilers end the game vs an all terran team.

personally i see only one battle over and over which is quite annoying. It basically is who has the best air and/or can use specials to obtain the best air. This really annoys me. Granted it is a part of the game but at the same time there should be more deverse battles. I think this is where heros would help deversify things but i'm not sure. This is exactly why i wont play half/speed versions as you never get a battle that doesn't have air and that just isnt very much fun.

Interesting, but it doesn't solve the real problem: The more players on the bigger team the cheaper (relatively) the specials get.
As I said money transferred to the bank account is halved for 2 player team and divided by 3 for 3 player team.
This way also all players of the team can contribute to the special, which is the only way to keep up with mass specials from a single player.
Just so that you know, specials will become cheaper (like mc 2500 or so), should I implement that.

That would basically remove defilers from game EXCEPT if you have Terran only enemies because to make defilers fair vs Terran I'd have to make the cost at least 1000-1500.
I could increase the cost via triggers: If you don't have 1000 extra it'd get removed and you get refund. Vs. Terran only teams only.

Text triggers: Look for keywords "lurker" and "script"

True. I'll just kill 50% of all current units too when this activates.

Firebats cannot counter swarms because ultras own them. Unless I make them uber-cheap, which would destroy early game balance. No, if anything we need tanks.
I was thinking about a switch that manually replaces all tanks on the battlefield with siege tanks. Not my favorite though. Could be exploited + needs control switch.
Or a swarm detection which orders Terrans under swarms to move outside. This would be ideal, but I'm not sure if I can do it properly.

Who said Terrans are the offensive race in DS? Team play / race combo is the key.

That's why there is no nuke. Just the triggers. Might put it in someday with invincible castle.

I agree. Late game isn't interesting. Ideas for faster games?

Why? Mc is more expensive. If you cast after him you have the only ground and about the same amount of air but also queens. That's how I plan it:
He casts MC: Steals 50% of your air. So he has 100% own + 50% your air, you have 50% own air.
Then you Brood: He has 50% own air + 25% your air and you have 50% own air + 75% queens (50% his air + 25% stolen your air). Together with your 50% ground + broods you should be able to push him back, although 50% : 75% air. If not, I'll just make 25% queens and 25% scourges.
Also it doesn't ignore reavers (as opposed to the broodling that is cast by queens).

About 1 race vs. multi race: I hear complaints, as already said I agree, but I see no solutions. It's just the way it is: The more diversity you have the more effective you fight.
Only solution I see is to make the single race team a multi race team by giving them a 2nd worker. Still bad because of tech requirements, and it doesn't really make sense to hand out presents...

Killer, I think we just have different views on how the map is supposed to be. I want 3 unique races which all have their strengths and weaknesses, but OVERALL are balanced. I will not make a map where every race plays the same because then there would be no point in having different races. Ideally you will just have to deal with the situation. If there's something that is to your disadvantage you have to make sure you have enough reserves that you can pull out your strengths.

Now I still dont think that bank account is the best idea for this (I will think later about another way of balancing it, because this is not simple task), but if you want it - I have idea how to simple implement it:

Nydus, Battery and Control Tower cost 0 minerals. Real cost of magic you can read by:

1) mission objectives
2) building them when you have less amount of minerals
3) any another method (move civillian\drone to fancy beacons).

To add money to bank account player just need to build Nydus, Battery and Control Tower.

If player build it - check next:

Player has 2500 (for example) minerals and account has less then 2500 minerals - subtract them from player, add it to account and write message "player x added to account Y minerals" even for enemies. Also kill nydus\tower\battery.

BTW - how enemies can see ally and enemy bank account? Triple ladderboard? Or maybe enable computer players in ladderboard and bank account will be cpu money?

The problem I think will be in colors - cpu have same colors as some players. But this can be fixed - when I choosed colors for my crazy cpu - I saw, that there are some Extra colors (for Jungle Terrain), that give to player one color in game and another color in ladderboard. So try PColor - I beleive that it solves the problem. BTW - there are some colors, that have black, blinking or invisible ladderboard (check my crazy cpu map if you want to see - you should be player 3 (last in game lobby) for see blinking one ). And remember, that if option "enable color cycling" in video options is OFF - then any ladderboard and any ingame colors will not blink.

Another solving:

Team 1: Yellow, Peach (or Pale Yellow), White and Orange (cpu).
Team 2: Teal, Blue, Pale Blue and Green (cpu).

So let me continue:

Player has 2500 (for example) minerals and account has less then 2500 minerals - subtract them from player, add it to account and write message "player x added to account Y minerals" even for enemies. Also kill nydus\tower\battery.

Player has less than 2500 (for example) minerals - write message "not enough minerals - you need 2500 for spell" and kill nydus\tower\battery.

Account has equal or more then 2500 minerals - activate current spell (infest if nydus, mc if battery and so on).

What do you think?



I think better to do next:

Defiler mound give 2 (or 3) defilers if zerg or toss enemy detected. And 1 defiler if only terran enemies detected.
Only hard thing is how to name defiler mound (somthing like "1\3 defilers [terran\other enemy]").

Cost you will choose during testing.



Ok. But now I think this lurker behavior maybe depends of give triggers (give lurkers to neutral and back) ? I think you should analyze Queens lurker AI in night strike. Maybe it help.



1) build defiler mound when you have less then 1000 minerals
2) build 3-4 ultra caverns
3) build defiler mound...

Are you sure you can do this without bugs?


Maybe change tanks under swarm to sieged? Or change tanks near swarm to sieged?

BTW - how to proccess all swarms by triggers? They always owned by p12 and you cannot give them as I know.



Maybe create some things (for all spells) like "mc affect on 50% units but maximum 100 units". If enemy has 400 units - MC will steal only 100. If enemy has 50 units - MC will steal 25.

Maybe this fix long games problems?



Extra worker - bad idea I think.



I think changing of spells will take us more to balance all race combinations. We should watch how it would be in game. And after we will say any our ideas.



I think you can do what you want by adjusting spells of all races (it should be fist step of balancing the game).

GL

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Sep 26 2009, 1:32 pm by theleo_ua.

Idk if anyone has mentioned this, but it seems with the new Battle.net some Ai give terran units the ability to Stim.
Would this be am imbalance for Terran?

1) As I know - battle net in SC1 is not changed last year
2) How battle net system can affect AI ?

BTW: official DS updated to 1.2.4: http://www.staredit.net/?file=2283

2 NudeRaider: some players told me that 4 zealots for 300 cannot counter 8 zerglings for 280, because 3 zerglings always attack same zealot a a time.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 26 2010, 5:53 am by theleo_ua.

New ideas:

1) Spells

Lets imagine that all spells (cost=2000 for example) can be casted only if ALL players in the team have 2000 minerals.
And, after it was casted, ALL players of a team lose 2000 minerals.
This forces all members of a team to deal with the other members about moneysafe and other.

I think this can solve 1x3 1x2 and 1x3 spell problems.

2) Who spawn next

I think blinking ladderboard is annoying: when you want to see the mineral amount, and you see who spawn next - it is not user friendly.

I think best way is to show mineral amount all the time, and name of the ladder board consist of 2 words: orange/teal (this mean that orange and teal are spawn next).

9 triggers needed for all combinations of colors.

About 1)
I already realized this problem before I even finished v1.0. With the current system specials get cheaper by 1/3 (2v3), 1/2, (1v2) or 2/3 (1v3) when teams don't have the same number of players. This makes them overpowered in these situations.
The problem with any solution to this is the stupidity of people.
Your solution has the problem that when you're playing with random allies often they won't listen to or even understand you when you tell them to save up money for a special, so it will never happen and 1 dumb player can bring the whole team down.

Right now I see 2 half-viable solutions:
a) Some kind of bank (e.g. a mineral patch showing the amount in the pot). Only when there's enough money stored on the bank you can cast a special. Every player can contribute to the pot but you can't take anything out.
_- Problem with that is if your allies won't listen you'll have to spend 2 or 3 times the usual money to pay a special on your own. This is boring (to have to wait to save up that much money) and frustrating (watching allies build shit while you can't compensate with the right units since you're saving).
b) A debt system. Whenever a special is cast the players not casting it will have a income downtime corresponding to their current income and the cost of the special. Only when the previous special has been fully repaid you can cast another special, obviously.
_- Problem with that is: Special is cast before you even have the money. (Well this could be part of the strategy, I guess) But people will complain when they don't have income for a long time (they already complain about geyser downtime). Also makes you very vulnerable to worker attacks (T can just fly a CC over!)

So tell me what you think. Maybe you have ideas on how to improve on my half-viable solutions?

About 2)
I think I'm gonna do that. Just need to figure out how to translate the dc that governs whose turn it is next into a condition, but I think I'll manage that.
Leaderboard text will look something like that:
<== Damn he's rich | ==> Next spawners: Tan vs. Green
Only the Tan vs. Green part will change.

Many people don't realize that the balance isn't in every tier being exactly the same strength for all races but the mixture of races and using the right counters. That's why playing in a team with everyone having the same race is much harder than with a mixed team.

In this particular case Toss has to quickly get some better income (lings won't do that much damage to the temple early on) and tech up to Reavers (0 Gas Reavers put you behind too much). No Zerg ground force can beat a well rounded Toss ground force. Zerg is kind of the rusher race and brute army strength (that's why they also win the Tier 1 melee battle), while Toss relies on supporting the team with Reavers and spellcasters like Templars and Dark Archons and later Corsairs and Arbiters.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2011, 1:04 pm by NudeRaider.