Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Strategy and Tactics => Topic started by: piousflea on October 09, 2012, 09:13:13 PM
-
I've seen several people comment about sending "harassment" units to attack the opponent's starting Mana Crystals, but unless I'm totally mistaken this doesn't seem like a great idea.
A Mana Crystal costs 5 mana, gives 1 mana/turn, and has 6 HP / 2 Armor.
Therefore, if you cast Mana Crystal on Round 1, you'll break even at Round 6 and get a Mana surplus by Round 7.
The fastest way to rush the Mana Crystal is with a Bitterwood Fox (5 Mana, Fast, 3 dice atk) or Thunderift Falcon (6 Mana, Fast, 3 dice atk). A 3-dice attack deals an average of 1.81 damage against 2 Armor. It takes an average of 3.3 hits to kill the Mana Crystal.
If you cast a Fox/Falcon on Round 1, it can move 3 spaces on Round 2, and start hitting the Mana Crystal on Round 3. This means that the Mana Crystal is expected to die around Round 6 or 7.
Therefore, even without any attempt by the enemy player to kill your Fox/Falcon, the Mana Crystal won't die until it's already returned its full Mana cost.
On the other hand, if the enemy player kills your harassing Fox, you're down a tremendous amount of mana. Not only do you lose the 5 Mana from the fox, but your opponent is gaining a +1 mana advantage every single round.
Am I totally crazy, or is the "zergling rush" really not that great at crippling an economy?
-
Just a side note, but you cannot make three move actions with Fast. You can still only move a maximum of twice. It just lets you take a quick action after moving twice. This quick action cannot be another move however.
-
If going against a wizard and they have their Arcane Ring out, a Mana Crystal only costs 4 so its paid back faster.
There is a totem? I believe that gives all Animals Armor and Piercing I believe, might be an Incantation.
Truthfully going to do that, i would send them after the Mage to occupy and wear down while working on getting bigger and/or better out. Such as Redclaw and Timber Wolf's or the Bear or Ape.
-
Your argument is assumption backed by applied mathematics, but it doesn't make your argument any less an assumption.
I'll explain:
You are stating that X is always true, so Y is the conclusion. However, X is not always true, so your "always" conclusion is a logical fallacy.
Your examples of the "best" means of harassing an opposing Mana Crystal only take creatures into account. Your examples play the assumption that you are never going to move your mage by the time it takes a Mana Crystal to break even. These are unrealistic expectations of gameflow.
Your logic, within the confines of your defined parameters of "best" is sound, but your parameters, themselves, are false.
-nihil
-
Your argument is assumption backed by applied mathematics, but it doesn't make your argument any less an assumption.
I'll explain:
You are stating that X is always true, so Y is the conclusion. However, X is not always true, so your "always" conclusion is a logical fallacy.
Your examples of the "best" means of harassing an opposing Mana Crystal only take creatures into account. Your examples play the assumption that you are never going to move your mage by the time it takes a Mana Crystal to break even. These are unrealistic expectations of gameflow.
Your logic, within the confines of your defined parameters of "best" is sound, but your parameters, themselves, are false.
-nihil
While what you say is true, I think he was just looking at the fastest and most efficient way to go after a crystal that is on the opposite side of the board. Sure, you will be moving your mage during this time, but what are they going to do to the mana crystal that is cost efficient? They could use an Incarium Longbow (I've seen this done and it's not a bad play), but other than that I don't see a lot of efficient options. Surely you wouldn't waste mana on an attack spell to go after a crystal would you? I don't think that's a wise use of your mana, IMO. Even if you "only" spent 4 mana on a Jet Stream or Geyser, that's still almost the cost of the crystal itself...so you're not really gaining anything.
You could get the fast trait on your mage and haul ass straight for the crystal and start whacking it in melee, which would be cost effective, but then you aren't attacking their mage so I'm not sure that's the best play either (it's not necessarily a bad play, just questionable)
I think it's a legitimate question. Is it worth devoting resources to going after a mana crystal or mana flower? IF, and this is the question, you can take it out BEFORE they break even on the mana cost of casting it, it's a great play, but it seems pretty hard to do that without spending more resources than you are denying your opponent, or dedicating too many attacks that could be (theoretically) targeting their mage.
-
I didn't say the question wasn't worth exploration, Koz; I said that the OP's argument was a quantifiable logical fallacy.
And as far as exploring the question:
No. It's senseless theorycrafting. What if A, then B, however, what if C, but X, Y, Z? No. Here's the answer:
In some situations it will be advantageous and cost-effective to expend resources to destroy an opposing mana crystal. In other situations it will not. Mage Wars isn't Bridge. You can't quantify a game like this into "always" and "never" and "maybe." There are too many varied iterations of existence of the board at any given moment.
In other words: You basically answered your question...the question. If it is cost-effective and accessible, then it is "worth" it. Otherwise, it isn't.
-nihil
-
Just a side note, but you cannot make three move actions with Fast. You can still only move a maximum of twice. It just lets you take a quick action after moving twice. This quick action cannot be another move however.
Ooh, I never noticed that. I thought you could move -> move -> quick action (move). That makes the "zergling rush" even worse!
In other words: You basically answered your question...the question. If it is cost-effective and accessible, then it is "worth" it. Otherwise, it isn't.
Problem is, it is very very difficult to make a zergling rush cost-effective. I'm not saying it's impossible, it's just difficult.
For example, if your Fox rush kills the mana crystal, you still have a Fox running around. That Fox can continue to attack units, Hinder larger creatures etc, and pay for itself several times over. That would be highly cost effective.
However, just killing a mana crystal and losing your Fox is not cost effective.
-
I agree, piousflea. I'm not going to be trying to kill my opponent's Crystals very often.
I think the main reason that mana denial through attacking Crystals and Flowers is not that effective is that it's only 1 extra mana/turn, compared to Mages' innate 10 mana/turn. If you really depended on your Crystals/Flowers for your economy, and thus there was a large payoff for the "zergling rush" of crippling your opponent's economy, then the strategy might be risky but potentially profitable - but as things stand, it seems that your resources will usually be better used in other ways.
-
As always; what is best for the moment is what you should do. If there is a ungarded cristal in front of you why not attack it?
I don't dissagree with the Fox example, but even if you can't kill the cristal in 6 turns is it worthless not going after it then? I mean every turn it is still in play its a gain for your opponent. If you can kill it turn 10 its much better than to leave it.
-
As always; what is best for the moment is what you should do. If there is a ungarded cristal in front of you why not attack it?
I don't dissagree with the Fox example, but even if you can't kill the cristal in 6 turns is it worthless not going after it then? I mean every turn it is still in play its a gain for your opponent. If you can kill it turn 10 its much better than to leave it.
This is one of those issues where there will be two sides to the fence, and neither side right or wrong.
Side A: If you can't destroy a resource-production element within the timeframe by which the cost of playing that element is recouped in the resources gained, it isn't worth it to try and destroy it at all.
Side B: Any time you can eliminate a resource-production element, regardless of the timeframes involved, it is a good idea.
It's a...philosophical question; not a logical question.
-nihil
-
As always; what is best for the moment is what you should do. If there is a ungarded cristal in front of you why not attack it?
I don't dissagree with the Fox example, but even if you can't kill the cristal in 6 turns is it worthless not going after it then? I mean every turn it is still in play its a gain for your opponent. If you can kill it turn 10 its much better than to leave it.
This is one of those issues where there will be two sides to the fence, and neither side right or wrong.
Side A: If you can't destroy a resource-production element within the timeframe by which the cost of playing that element is recouped in the resources gained, it isn't worth it to try and destroy it at all.
Side B: Any time you can eliminate a resource-production element, regardless of the timeframes involved, it is a good idea.
It's a...philosophical question; not a logical question.
-nihil
I would say this is a matter of action efficiency. How much personally does a player think each full action and quick action is worth. If you think that a quick action is worth about 3 mana then that would be equal to 3 rounds of mana gain per quick attack used to destroy it. When you consider that the fastest games of MW are about 6-9 rounds and long games are 15-20 rounds. You then need to consider how quickly your build can kill. If you can not kill till rounds 15+ then it may worth destroying the extra mana gen, but If your build can kill in 6-9 rounds I would say it is not worth wasting the extra time on the mana gen items.
-
I've noticed that attacking mana producers early is a waste but many times devoting a small creature to attacking them during the mid game can be useful. If your opponent has a few big creatures he has to either devote a large creature to defending or have them die after a few turns of attacking. The starting turns are far too important for setting up your board presence to worry about destroying them.
-
The point in figuring out if it's worth you time to attack the mana crystal, isn't how much it already have produced, but how much it's going to produce.
So if it's going to produce more, than it cost you to kill it, then it's worth the cost to kill it.
-
I have used harassment creatures to target the enemy wizards mana crystals and his spawnpoint while playing with the priestess. He was using a lot of evasion tactics like teleport to keep me from attacking him so I just sat back and took out his support conjurations. It was efficient in that situation because it allowed to keep affecting the board after he used up his mana teleporting out of range.
-
i usually have my creatures take paths to their targets that let them take swats at the crystals/mana flowers on there way to them. while you dont want to dedicate too much to the venture. dont underestimate the value of dropping your opponents channel.
-
One issue that I think isn't coming up is the advantage that you gain with a higher Channeling over the course of many turns.
It not only lets you cast more spells or higher cost spells but you can also effectively bank that additional mana over the course of several turns to start casting high cost spells quicker.
The idea that a Mana Crystal or Flower doesn't start paying back for six turns is misleading. Lets look at an example using similar mana costs each turn assuming a base channeling of 10
Turn 1 20 mana - cast 14 mana - 6 left
Turn 2 16 mana - cast 12 mana - 4 left
Turn 3 14 mana - cast 12 mana - 2 left
Turn 4 12 mana - cast 10 mana - 2 left
Turn 5 12 mana - cast 12 mana - 0 left
With Mana Crystals
Turn 1 20 mana - cast 14 mana - 6 left - + 1 Channeling
Turn 2 17 mana - cast 12 mana - 5 left - + 1 Channeling
Turn 3 17 mana - cast 12 mana - 5 left
Turn 4 17 mana - cast 10 mana - 7 left
Turn 5 19 mana - cast 12 mana - 7 left
With those two Mana Crystals the player has, turn by turn, more flexibility and more mana.
Add a Moonstone Amulet and it gets better
Turn 1 20 mana - cast 14 mana - 6 left - + 2 Channeling
Turn 2 18 mana - cast 12 mana - 6 left - + 1 Channeling
Turn 3 19 mana - cast 12 mana - 7 left
Turn 4 20 mana - cast 10 mana - 10 left
Turn 5 23 mana - cast 12 mana - 11 left
So a very common build of two Mana Flowers/Crystals and a Moonstone Amulet gives a player more mana but also allows the player more flexibility. In the final example the player is able to cast a 20+ cost spell even when casting other spells.
This is why I quite often send creatures out to disrupt my opponent's Channeling buffs. I want to be the person with the mana advantage.
-
One issue that I think isn't coming up is the advantage that you gain with a higher Channeling over the course of many turns.
It not only lets you cast more spells or higher cost spells but you can also effectively bank that additional mana over the course of several turns to start casting high cost spells quicker.
The idea that a Mana Crystal or Flower doesn't start paying back for six turns is misleading. Lets look at an example using similar mana costs each turn assuming a base channeling of 10
Turn 1 20 mana - cast 14 mana - 6 left
Turn 2 16 mana - cast 12 mana - 4 left
Turn 3 14 mana - cast 12 mana - 2 left
Turn 4 12 mana - cast 10 mana - 2 left
Turn 5 12 mana - cast 12 mana - 0 left
With Mana Crystals
Turn 1 20 mana - cast 14 mana - 6 left - + 1 Channeling
Turn 2 17 mana - cast 12 mana - 5 left - + 1 Channeling
Turn 3 17 mana - cast 12 mana - 5 left
Turn 4 17 mana - cast 10 mana - 7 left
Turn 5 19 mana - cast 12 mana - 7 left
With those two Mana Crystals the player has, turn by turn, more flexibility and more mana.
Add a Moonstone Amulet and it gets better
Turn 1 20 mana - cast 14 mana - 6 left - + 2 Channeling
Turn 2 18 mana - cast 12 mana - 6 left - + 1 Channeling
Turn 3 19 mana - cast 12 mana - 7 left
Turn 4 20 mana - cast 10 mana - 10 left
Turn 5 23 mana - cast 12 mana - 11 left
So a very common build of two Mana Flowers/Crystals and a Moonstone Amulet gives a player more mana but also allows the player more flexibility. In the final example the player is able to cast a 20+ cost spell even when casting other spells.
This is why I quite often send creatures out to disrupt my opponent's Channeling buffs. I want to be the person with the mana advantage.
The Warlord's new war machine (Airko's Hammer or whatever it's called) is going to be REALLY good at taking out Conjurations if that's what you want to do. It'll only do it every other turn, but it will kill a lot of Conjurations in one hit, especially channeling Conjurations.
-
Sometimes attacking the opponents mana crystal isnt about it being the most strategically sound or efficient plan...sometimes its just about the warm feeling you get when breaking their stuff.
And yeah The Hammer is going to make most Conjurations pretty short term. At least its Warlord only, the new Ballistas that everyone can spec into decks will be a bit of a hassle as well. When the expansion comes out Im probably going to use Moonglow Amulet and Harmonize for my main channel sources (even though its a little more mana each) because of the new ways to attack conjurations. At least if its enchantments and equipment the mage will have to commit quick actions and burn up dispels and dissolves to knock them off of me... the new siege instruments do it without the cost of mana nor actions (other than the action and mana to place it obviously)
-
Something that came up earlier in this post was this: "Killing the creature attacking the crystal still costs mana." I feel like this needs to be emphasized, even in the case of a badass crystal killer like the hammer. That combined with the mana a crystal is NOT producing in the turns after its destruction cannot be ignored. A simple way to look at this is to figure out the lifetime mana benefit of the crystal. I like to assume 20 turns in a game (does anyone have an average for how long games take? that seems a bit long) That means a crystal might net you 15 mana over the course of a game.
The sooner you kill that mana crystal, the more of that lifetime mana gain you cut out. If you're not able to kill the crystal, if your opponent spends more mana killing your creature than you spent on the creature you've effectively reduced the total gain from that crystal.
-
Two question come to mind when I consider harassing the mana crystal.
How important is it to my strategy to deny my opponent mana?
If I am playing a wizard employing a mana denial strategy then the answer is very important. My goal is to disrupt my opponents strategy through resource denial. If I am playing a beastmaster attempting to swarm my opponent with creatures then it's not very important.
Are those mana crystals important enough to my opponent's strategy to make destroying them worth my effort as opposed to furthering my own strategy?
That is obviously the more difficult question as it is dependent on the situation at hand. To make the right choice requires keen insight into your opponents strategy, or maybe just some good luck.
I believe that the efficiency with which you can destroy the mana crystal, while important is of secondary concern to the necessity of doing it.
-
I dont think it's worth it at the moment, at least not with creatures. It just takes too long.
I'm hoping the Warlord will be a bit more viable in this strat, his catapult conjuration should hopefully be more effective in blowing up people's bases :cheer:
-
I dont think it's worth it at the moment, at least not with creatures. It just takes too long.
I'm hoping the Warlord will be a bit more viable in this strat, his catapult conjuration should hopefully be more effective in blowing up people's bases :cheer:
I tend to agree with your conclusion but for a different reason.
I like to build redundancy into my spellbook. That said, I definately consider mana production a key system. If I was playing a wizard and decided I needed a channeling value of 12 to run my strategy I would add 2-3 mana crystals, 1 moonglow amulet, and 2-3 harmonize to my spellbook. I also would include other equipment that would be high value targets that would make targeting the amulet a tough decision. We can't forget the nullifys in the spell book to protect the equipment. I will likely be running a spawn point too.
The bottom line is that I would offer little resistance to an opponent who thought it was a good idea destroy my mana crystals, perhaps just enough to make him feel they were vital to my strategy. An opponent would need to be dedicated to reducing all my mana production to hinder my strategy that way. Mana denial would probably be a key strategy of that opponent and he would double down with mana denial that doesn't require the destruction of conjurations and equipment.
I think that casual destruction of mana crystals probably isn't worth doing, however if your strategy is mana denial you will want to get around to destroying them sooner or later.
-
It also depends on your Mage's preferred damage type and what the Mana source is.
Crystals are Fire Immune, so my Warlock cant casually break it down even if I want to, whereas a Wizard might be able to Bolt it down.
Flowers on the other hand only have 6 health and a 2 dice Fire Vunerability which means even my low cost Flameblast has a good shot at insta killing it.
-
Two question come to mind when I consider harassing the mana crystal.
How important is it to my strategy to deny my opponent mana?
If I am playing a wizard employing a mana denial strategy then the answer is very important. My goal is to disrupt my opponents strategy through resource denial. If I am playing a beastmaster attempting to swarm my opponent with creatures then it's not very important.
Are those mana crystals important enough to my opponent's strategy to make destroying them worth my effort as opposed to furthering my own strategy?
That is obviously the more difficult question as it is dependent on the situation at hand. To make the right choice requires keen insight into your opponents strategy, or maybe just some good luck.
I believe that the efficiency with which you can destroy the mana crystal, while important is of secondary concern to the necessity of doing it.
I don't even think that it is worth it if your goal is mana denial. If you are investing so much into mana denial that you are both playing mana denial cards AND going after their mana generators then you are basically settling in for a long game instead of just going for the win faster. I think that is just too much of an investment and you are basically spending a lot of your own resources in an attempt to deny your opponent theirs.
I'm not sold on the whole "spending resources to deny your opponent resources" strategy. Things like Mana Siphon are nice, but it's really expensive, which means you are denying YOURSELF a good deal of mana in order to deny your opponent some mana...at a much slower pace than the 12 you coughed up right off the bat to cast the Mana Siphon. Going after Mana Crystals/Flowers are pretty much the same IMO. You are spending resources to deny resources. Are you better off dedicating a creature to attacking a Mana Crystal...or the opposing mage? I'd say the opposing mage, because that's how you win the game. Are you better off using an attack spell to go after a Mana Flower that may or may not kill it, or using that same spell on the opposing mage? Again, it's a no brainer for me: hit the enemy mage and put them on the defensive.
When it comes to the mana denial strategy, I think the best way to go is with passive denial. Things like Mana Leeches and Staff of Arcanum are really nice because you are generating offense at the same time you are denying your opponent mana. Essence Drain and Pacify can be nice because those mana costs can really add up and they aren't that expensive to cast. Things like Cloak of Suppression and the Obelisk are nice against creature swarms, but not otherwise. Mana Drain is decent because you at least have the potential to get a large chunk of your mana spent back. Mana Siphon is ok as long as you get it out really early, otherwise you may not deny your opponent more mana than you spent yourself to cast it.
But going after Mana Crystals/Flowers? Not a fan. You're better off just dedicating those attacks at the enemy mage and trying to win the game.
-
Just a side note, but you cannot make three move actions with Fast. You can still only move a maximum of twice. It just lets you take a quick action after moving twice. This quick action cannot be another move however.
I know I'm late to the party here, and this is OT, but thanks for this. A few games in and we've been doing this wrong :)
-
A Knight of Westlock with Bear Strength (taken with a steal enchantment from my Warlock Opponent) was able to take one of these out in one round on the way to taking said Warlocks head. Mana starvation is a very potent strategy, especially when you are on the +3 mana side of things. Yes it does take some time to recoup the initial mana cost but take it easy one round, say spend 4 or 5 mana total and the next round you are up in the low 20's.