Handicap games

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France [Armag] diarouga
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Handicap games

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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

I was wondering, how much handicap would someone need to beat a top player?
From experience, I know that I could win most of the time with a 10% handicap against people below pr 29.

kaiserklein said he could beat lieutenants with a 25% handicap and MS with a 50% handicap. I've never tried to do that but that seems quite hard to do :?

What about 1v2? I've never tried that, and I highly doubt it would work against pr25+, but I'm quite sure you can do that against people below pr20.

Also how would you play in these situations? I think that the best way is to go for a fast boom while harassing your opponent. Thus Japan, Brit and France would be quite good at it.
Opinions?
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Re: Handicap games

Post by WickedCossack »

Ive played around 100 1v2's over the years. With brit the limit is around pr25, probably 23-24 these days. 1v3 is around pr15-16.

And yea fast boom while harassing (so huss start as brits) is by far the bestway to play.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Mitoe »

I feel like booming is the wrong way to go about it. It can work if your harass does significant damage but realistically you likely won't do that much damage--it also depends on how high the handicap is. I think you need to play very aggressively and just overwhelm their APM or outmicro them in small skirmishes to get advantages.
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France [Armag] diarouga
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Re: Handicap games

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Mitoe wrote:I feel like booming is the wrong way to go about it. It can work if your harass does significant damage but realistically you likely won't do that much damage--it also depends on how high the handicap is. I think you need to play very aggressively and just overwhelm their APM or outmicro them in small skirmishes to get advantages.

Well, if you're playing with handicap it means that you're significantly better than your opponent, so you can make a lot of damage to his economy and with brit you can probably outboom even if he has a big handicap.
Playing agressively and outmicroing makes sense against handicap, but in 1v2 it's for sure the wrong way.

@WickedCossack Would you say that Brit is the best 1v2 civ? If so, I think that VC into cav start is the best way because regular cav start doesn't give a great eco.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Warno »

What does the handicap improve?

Is it just gather rate of vills? Or is it everything (unit stats, age up discounts, shipments?)
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Re: Handicap games

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Warno wrote:What does the handicap improve?

Is it just gather rate of vills? Or is it everything (unit stats, age up discounts, shipments?)

Just gather rate, but it also counts for crates, so with 100% handicap 700w becomes 1400w.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by WickedCossack »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
Mitoe wrote:I feel like booming is the wrong way to go about it. It can work if your harass does significant damage but realistically you likely won't do that much damage--it also depends on how high the handicap is. I think you need to play very aggressively and just overwhelm their APM or outmicro them in small skirmishes to get advantages.

Well, if you're playing with handicap it means that you're significantly better than your opponent, so you can make a lot of damage to his economy and with brit you can probably outboom even if he has a big handicap.
Playing agressively and outmicroing makes sense against handicap, but in 1v2 it's for sure the wrong way.

@WickedCossack Would you say that Brit is the best 1v2 civ? If so, I think that VC into cav start is the best way because regular cav start doesn't give a great eco.


100%, no other civ comes even remotely close. The manor mechanic is custom made for these type of matches!

I just did 3vil builds, you kinda want 5 huss out asap, rather not have any delay on that.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

WickedCossack wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:
Mitoe wrote:I feel like booming is the wrong way to go about it. It can work if your harass does significant damage but realistically you likely won't do that much damage--it also depends on how high the handicap is. I think you need to play very aggressively and just overwhelm their APM or outmicro them in small skirmishes to get advantages.

Well, if you're playing with handicap it means that you're significantly better than your opponent, so you can make a lot of damage to his economy and with brit you can probably outboom even if he has a big handicap.
Playing agressively and outmicroing makes sense against handicap, but in 1v2 it's for sure the wrong way.

@WickedCossack Would you say that Brit is the best 1v2 civ? If so, I think that VC into cav start is the best way because regular cav start doesn't give a great eco.


100%, no other civ comes even remotely close. The manor mechanic is custom made for these type of matches!

Japan/India ?
Japan can get a great eco and a great late game, so although you can't really harass you can win with some semi FI strats.
India can take the map, harass with sepoys, and your eco will be great. Also you have a decent late game.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by gibson »

Does handicap also change trickle, shrines, factories, banks etc?
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Hazza54321 »

yes
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Warno »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
Warno wrote:What does the handicap improve?

Is it just gather rate of vills? Or is it everything (unit stats, age up discounts, shipments?)

Just gather rate, but it also counts for crates, so with 100% handicap 700w becomes 1400w.



Sounds good, I will be your guinea pig if you want to test some games out.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Warno »

On the other hand, which would be the best civ to choose when you get a handicap?

French? Seems like their early eco would be incredible
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Jaeger »

I am 1st lt/captain, I would be willing to play in a 1v2 or with a handicap if anybody wants.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Kaiserklein »

50% vs serg/MS was a guess. I'm really not sure I'd win that. But I played lots of 1v1 vs queen when she had 25% and I was still mostly winning them, so I'm quite sure about that one.
Handicap doesn't only boost gathering, It also makes researching stuff (including aging up) and building stuff faster. So it's really huge.
1v2 worked for me vs lieuts but it also depends on their experience doing that. Like realistically if they just decide to both do a stupid rush like musk + huss there isn't much you can do to win if they don't totally fuck up. That's the problem of this format, you really rely on your opponents doing huge mistakes.

About the playstyle, from my experience in 1v2 you have to be aggressive. The eco and mass gets really out of hand at some point when you're facing 2 players, so you have to do lots of damage rather early. For example raiding won't be enough unless you really raid a ton of vils.
In 1v1 handicap, you can play it in different ways. Raiding while booming can work depending on the match up, rushing also can. I'd say the safest is to go for a big timing because regardless of the match up you'll usually outmass a lieut even with 25% handicap if you hit a big timing, and even if you don't outmass you outmicro hard and can win the fight. So for example germany is good in that sense. And you need a rather late game deck because games tend to last longer (since you usually keep winning fights but opponent keeps remassing hard), especially units upgrades are important since your units are much more valuable than his.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by gibson »

I challenge anyone to play me with a 25 percent handicap
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Kaiserklein »

I'd try with 15%
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Snuden »

I'm handicapped in all my gamesh. 666%
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Jaeger »

Kaiserklein wrote:I'd try with 15%


gibson wrote:I challenge anyone to play me with a 25 percent handicap

U guys want to play this on stream :D?
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Re: Handicap games

Post by gibson »

I don't think 15 would be really be fair, although since i haven't really been active the past month it might be.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Kaiserklein »

Well it's a try, can adjust to 10% if 15 is too much
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Re: Handicap games

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Post by HUMMAN »

Gibson would stack %15 more res. xD
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Garja »

It depends a lot on the civ, because if he can't keep up with the income and use it then handicap is useless.
But in general it gives quite an advantage because for example it makes you age up a lot sooner.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by bwinner »

even with 10%, I expect gibson to win tbh. I know gibson is approximatly the same lvl like me and I believe I would win very consistently vs kaiser with +10%.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by gibson »

HUMMAN wrote:Gibson would stack %15 more res. xD
The thing is 15 percent doesnt mean you have 15 percent more res, it probably means you have 25 percent more eco cause you scale so much faster.
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Re: Handicap games

Post by Kaiserklein »

bwinner1 wrote:even with 10%, I expect gibson to win tbh. I know gibson is approximatly the same lvl like me and I believe I would win very consistently vs kaiser with +10%.

Ok next time we try with 10%
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