New Strategy/Aspect of RTSs - Retreat Point

Ok, this is an idea I have had for a very long time. It started back in the days when I would play Age of Empires 2 and get raped.

I was playing some random map and I was sending streams of units towards the enemy base by placing a rally point for my archery range, barracks, stable, siege workshop, etc, somewhere near the enemy base so I could concentrate on managing the front lines while my troops were in transit. I would be micro-ing at the battle, and my troops would all gather at an assembly point and be ready when I needed them or when I had a split second to send them into the battle.

One night I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, and was pondering strategies in the dark. I thought to myself "What if they had something that was the opposite of rally points?" (rally points in the way that I used them and described above)

And so the idea of "Retreat Points" or "Fall-back Points" was born. I think this makes a lot of sense for SC1, in that you could have 200 or so units prepared to attack, outside someone's base, when you run into a major zerg offensive coming out of a nearby base, for example. You could only select 12 units at a time, and even if you assigned control groups to all your units, you'd still have to cycle through all of them and click where you wanted them to go.

Similar to the way you could make villagers become militia in WC3 with humans (or ring the bell to get all your villagers inside a fortification in AoE2), you could have a hotkey combo (so you wouldn't hit it accidentally) that would tell all your military units to fall back to a predetermined retreat point.

Sent a swarm of hydralisks out of your base, only to find 2 groups of siege tanks deployed out of your line of sight? Use a retreat point. Get caught trying to sneak into an enemy base from the side, but finding new static defense where there weren't any before? Use a retreat point.

You could even have a retreat point for each control group, so you could get different groups to retreat to different spots (ie have a primary and secondary retreat point, one for each group, and one for all units)

Now...imagine sending a bunch of zerglings and hydralisks into an enemy base, and running into siege tanks and bunkers and firebats and goliaths and the whole nine yards. Take some punishment, then when your numbers start to dwindle, retreat to a retreat point you designated before you attacked. Lets just say the Terran player is cocky or smart and decides to counter-attack and hunt the remaining living units down. They follow you with goliaths and infantry, maybe some wraiths. Fall back to your retreat point then BOOM! You can have a bunch of hydralisks, defilers, zerglings, etc. burrowed at your retreat point and counter the counter-attack by un-burrowing and sending your retreating troops back the way they came!!!

Suggestions? Criticisms? Give me feedback!

 

interesting idea i actually thought about that before as well only problem is that the player is the one to decide when the retreat point would go off i suppose you would set it for a squad

example- you have 24 marines you set the retreat point for each squad of 12 and when it goes off so when each squad reaches 6 guys the squads retreat.

but i totally agree with you though

 

Hm, nice idea. I bet if it were implemented a whole bunch of branched tactis would spring up. Like re-grouping hotspots or repair stations for your weary fleet of BC's and Wraiths to get repaired after a long assault.

 

Exactly! It would make it easier to repair and heal at locations behind the front lines, just like in the real world, prolonging battles, etc.

Although Terrans would benefit the most from this tactic, or repairing and healing, and Protoss could recharge shields, I think the best thing for Zerg would be the counter-counter-attack that I described...they couldn't be like "RETREAT...TO...a place where we can heal slowly over a long period of time..."

 

Lurkers would be very good at these counter attax.

One off topic question, do Zerg regenerate quicker while burried?

 

I am not sure, but it might just be that they are not as vulnerable to attack or something

 

Hm, if they did it would complement your idea, for example.

You are attacking with 12 Hydralisks (dunno if it spelt it right xD)
You get pounded by unespected Siege Tanx.
You retreat to hideout, burry. (heal quickly)
Lurkers and other misc burried units fend the atak off until healing force is ready. =D.

 

Zerg units are effectively invisible and passable when burrowed. Their regeneration rates and armor levels do not change.

 

i think hes getting confused with warcraft3, crypt fiends can burrow, and when they do they regen, unlike the rest of the undead that always needs blight.

 

I used this similar tactics several times. My Protoss enemy sent out all his units to attack my ally. But instead of sending my zerglings and hydralisks into my ally's base to aid him, I send all of my units into the enemy's base. Because all of the enemy's unit is in my ally's base, it took them a while to return. Meanwhile I've completely devastated his base and soon after we had a victory when my ally sent all of his remaining troops in

 

That's why, when I see my ally being attacked, the first thing I say is, "Help or counter?"

Often, when it is me being attacked, I specifically tell my ally to counter, and let me deal with the invaders.

 

When countering, it's good to not completely eradicate their base but just devastate it beyond recovery. Then they'll leave the game

 

Na I love to completey destroy my opponent.

 

True with Ghost. I always play along if I can't recover but can still do some damage, especially in allied games.

 

Taking one for the team ^_^

In team games you could always get lucky with allies defeating the other team for you to gain extra wins .

 

I always send a probe/scv/drone to my teammate's base once I get up and running, just in case
that way, if I ever get taken out, my enemy will take a while looking for any residual buildings

and then I harass him verbally to distract him and laugh in his bnet face when I survive til the end and send like 2 zealots and a probe with the rest of my friend's army to add insult to injury

 

Do you send out a scouting scv/probe/drone at the start (with about 8 or 9 population)?
Useful in scouting enemy positions as well as what getting info on what they are thinking of doing.

 

oh yeah, of course...especially if I am protoss facing zerg, I always try to zealot rush and take out their pool

you can take one person out and tip the balance of the game in your favor early on, then dick around and do massive probe drops into the remaining enemy's base just to have fun ;D

 

I never have had to since ur opponent is right across from you most of the time but i usually go defensive and comstat then starve the other players with my inpenetrable defenses (terrans for you).

 

I usually play Big Game Hunters so I usually know where about my enemy is. And probably no need to check out what they are doing in early game, cos we can all predict what they'll do

Zerg - make zerglings and hydralisks
Terran - marines + firebats + medics
Protoss - zealots and maybe dragoons

So we know they'll make those units and you know how you should counter if they shall rush you with those units. It is in mid-game that spying on the enemy is essential. Especially if the opponent is Zerg, they can change their overall tech tree units very quickly.