Battlezone 1

I did not say it was better, i said it had more aspects to its gameplay.
Have you not realised which one of the two i play more atm?
When i said 'harder to master' i meant that bz1 is easier to learn.

You didn't have to attempt to make an arguement out of it.

When you said "more aspects" and "alot harder to master" you meant "better". No need trying to change your original thought now, this debate is silly enough.

Battlezone is easy to learn but hard to master is the right statement about BZ. Why? Because it has a bunch of little aspects which are not needed to be known for a casual playing. Even those who haven't mastered it will agree on that. Only those who think they've mastered it, won't.

I don't think bz2 is better, i play bz1 alot more!
If i wanted to say bz2 was better, i would of said it..

**EDIT**
Oh and nice one in giving me the title of 'Bz2 Player', i've said time and time again you might aswell call me a bz1 player now, i don't even play bz2 that much anymore..
All because i had an opinion on bz2, just because i disagree with you, doesn't mean you have to single me out.
I wonder where the 'democracy' is...

I must agree on the more aspects of gameplay and much, much longer learning curve that BZ2 presents.

The reason BZ1 stratters (for the majority at least 3-4 years ago) would approach strat as a DM was pretty much, well, because it worked. It is hard to argue that a dual SP tank, after having taken out the other player's ship, is in a position to do whatever he pleases. Turrets are meaningless in some cases (note, I stress the fact that the opponent's ship has been destroyed and he can not match you force for force). With a dual SP tank, it is possible to erradicate a turret before it notices your presence. Two turrets aren't much better. A group of gun towers might look your way but will stop when the S-Power is, fairly easily, disabled. While there is the 2 S-Power trick, it is still very easy to knock out a defense area.

The AI units aren't much better. I joined a late game in a BDOG scout (no particular reason) and the other player ordered all of his tanks, perhaps 7 to 8 in number, to attack me. My health was pretty low with maybe 4 tanks left, but I ran out of ammo. By then I had a new tank to replace the scout (stock tank, no SP) and finished mopping up his tanks. I lost that match due to an eagle lander insertion, but that is beside the point. The sheer destructive potential of the player's unit heavily rewards a deathmatch style of play. If you are the one on the receiving end of the DM player, you had better hope your base is turtled or he may rec-rush your base and kill the recycler in under 20 seconds. That is, if you didn't turtle your recycler, which, if that is the case, the game has already gone on far too long

As much as I disdain the self-proclaimed VET strat label, it does hold some truth to it. These people have mastered turret placement, insertion strategies, and defense movements to a point of near-perfection. The game may end in scouts in some cases, although these are less fun in some ways. I reiterate a point from earlier, wherein you may be distracting a group of players and sneaking a turret to a NAV across the map. The turret will kill the "mining" extractor and they get two choices: 1.) turn around and try to save the pool (this option will result in their deaths for turning around) or 2.) keep fighting and sacrificing the pool. In most cases, choice 2 is the only one available, because turrets are nasty little guys in BZ2.

Progression is arguably the second biggest gameplay change over BZ1. Call and response style playing is prevalent. If player A is all in empty scouts (no special hardpoint), player B will roll out missle scouts (2 shadowers) or a scout armed with a shadower. The player B has no countermeasure (Phantom VIR) and will be scraped from the map. Player B will either switch to full scouts with VIR, which renders the missle scouts utterly useless, or start on tanks with VIR. Tanks is the usual choice. Player A might build a gun tower, in which case player B can only advance the game with tanks because of mortars. If player B releases turrets, player A needs to get in tanks too or else their scouts are easy targets (not all of this applies every time, though, due to skill differences). The pivotal point in a match is when the call cannot be responded to because of midfield scrap domination, such as all the pools have been reclaimed. Player A is in his tank and has almost all of the pools. Player B's tank is destroyed and he can not replace it due to cost, so he needs to build a scout. Ordinarily, a scout will not win against a tank with blast cannon and laser. It is a snowball into defeat, as B's turrets and scouts are no match for Player A's rocket tanks and maybe walker by now.

"When you said 'more aspects' and 'alot harder to master' you meant 'better'."

Mars has more aspects and is a lot harder to master than the moon is if we were space colonists, does that make Mars better? It is a lot farther a way too and CAN at times be very cold and unforgiving. Same is true for BZ2, as some players can be as abrasive as sandpaper on a chalk board. If we were simply here trying to say BZ2 is better, then we wouldn't also be playing bz1, would we

Personaly, I am a sucker for a good debate. I could pick a stance either way, but the initial opening argument was for BZ1. If a couple of people simply agreed with the statements, the thread would dry up pretty quickly, and I wouldn't want Comstar to have a dead thread after only 5-6 posts!

I stopped reading when you said that you smacked 7-8 AI tanks alone. You can't talk bad about BZ1 while having noob attacking you on your mind.

There's topic about dumb AI in the strategy section. Anyone who read it or experienced it, knows that there's no such thing. I also wrote a strat guide on how to use AI properly. It's in the sub-forum tutorials. I would really like for everyone to get better, before talking about the things they don't understand.

(I got included into this discussion after Dominant's self-pronounced BZ1 master degree. Now, after re-reading other posts I realized I don't agree with more things said here, but I don't have the time or will to debate it.)

Not meaning to be rude, but I probably know far more about BZII strat then you ever will, Dominant.

Secondly, BZ II failed for many reasons, the reviews speak for themselves. You can go ahead and babble on about the features in BZII all you want and the endless armies you can make but when it comes down to managing up to 10 units, per type, it takes much more skills as you do not simply have a mindset of "it's okay, I got 3 scrap pools so I can make another one." In BZ, you go "Oh great, -1 tank...I need to go into battle to make more scrap to fill in that slot."

You know nothing of BZ1 strat, in fact I think I saw you in there maybe once since I discovered this site. You can't speak of strategy when you don't play like it in a strat game.

In a BZ2 strat game you aren't using endless armies. That's a bad idea waiting to happen.
In fact, I would go out to say that compared to BZ2, BZ1 makes more use of large armies (if large is considered 6+ units) than BZ2, definitely. This is a real strat I'm talking though, not a couple newbies. That "it's ok, I'll make another one" is for someone who isn't micromanaging. That next tank could be your last if someone knocks you to 1 pool. In fact, that dead tank (assuming modified) just cost your team 65 scrap. If the other team has a scav nearby, you are double-hosed. What did that one AI tank kill? Probably nothing.

To be fair for those 3-4 tanks I killed in the strat OUT OF 7-8 (I ran out of ammo so could not beat them all), I had range on my side with shadowers. They like to move in single file and such. You dodged the point though, that a dual SP tank would ravage an enemy platoon if the player was not around. That is the DM style play that works: swoop in and conquer with a tank, while he tries to defend his.

No it wouldn't. That was the point of my post. But you decided to ignore what I said and what I linked to. I'm now gonna start ignoring you.

Roboto, If you beat 7-8 AI units, they were probably commanded poorly and sent out on hunt. With properly commanded AI, you don't stand a chance VS 2 or more of them alone.

I see my title is now BZ2 player, which is accurate I guess. I also play Call of Duty sometimes, and for nostalgia X-Wing Alliance. There is also some tetris thrown in for good measure, feel free to use any of those.

They were all tasked to the scout, and I held at least 150-200 meters out from the line of inbound tanks and backed away, nailing them with shadowers if you want the very fine details. The map was blast chamber so there was plenty of terrain for them to negotiate. I only took out 3-4 of them with the scout and the fourth might have been wounded. By this time I was very low health and depleted ammo, but a scavenger dropped just enough scrap to build a tank. With that waiting for me, I hopped out and traded ships, finishing off his tanks (which were still attacking the empty scout). I was running low on ammo too, and the 7-8th tank might have survived since the ammo crate flew out of the recy and exploded due to splash from a string of rave guns. Out of ammo and with the sheer walls of blast chamber, the lander was allowed to due its bidding.

There are very important reasons why an SP tank can ravage a platoon of AI tanks. If you can maintain a distance of 150 meters, you already outrange them and they cannot fight back efficiently. If the other player is out of the picture, which I highly stress, concentrating on taking out tank after tank becomes easier. Bombers are a mixed bag, since while they may hurt their surrounding units, a misplaced bomb can cause massive damage to the SP tank. A rocket tank might break the priority order, but if taken out fast enough, not much can be done.

"properly commanded AI"

By this I am only going to suppose you mean ordering to attack constantly, which I try to do since they can get distracted sometimes. The biggest option would be to give tanks the rocket tank AI, because they would sit there facing you and firing a constant volley of AT as they try (impossibly) to gain a lock. Sure, they wouldn't dodge, but dodging isn't as useful to the AI as constant supressing fire is. Still, keeping out 150 meters with dual SP is a sure fire way to make sure tanks have a hard time retaliating. When I am being smacked around by 2x SP, the kickback is substantial and even I (the human player) have trouble retaliating. The AI can't correct for kickback from incoming weapons, which is also the reason walkers are easy to kill.

You are A NOOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I see you in strat, I'll show you the power of AI, and maybe that'll cure your case of noobitus.

So what you are saying is that the scenario I mentioned did not happen, was not correct, and was a figment of my imagination?

If so, maybe I should take up fictional writing.

I never said anything like that. My comment was criticizing your noobitus in the 2nd and 3rd quotes. I kept the first quote in my post for when I show you to never underestimate AI.

This actually made me laugh.
I said Bz1 is easier to master (in other words, its easier to improve at, i fail to see how it says 'i'm the bz1 master'
Bz2 is harder to learn. of course you wouldn't know that Mr.Spock, considering you don't master bz2 .
You speak to me like im an egoist. When i'm not, once again you have mis interpreted what i meant.
I've tryed to explain to you what i meant; but you don't wish to listen.
Nice One.

Yeah, you're a modder, and like most modders, you don't understand the game. If the BZ programmers and designers intended for Tanks/Scouts to attack aggressively all by themselves like Rocket Tanks, Bombers, and CCA Light Tanks do, they would have made it that way. But they didn't. They intended for the commander to be involved on the front lines, not just sit back and relax while sending unattended units like every other cookie-cutter RTS game ever made. Tasking your wingmen to follow other units achieves their aggressive "Rocket Tank" behavior. The only problem with this (in my opinion) is that I never figured this out on my own, it was not documented in the BZ manual. I was giving "Attack" command to all my units and seeing how badly tanks and scout failed at that, and at that point giving up on the game and activating all the cheats in single player. It wasn't until 2006, when some "Mr. Spock" character came along and began to explain to me the basics of strategy and AI control that I began to play the game for real. I then began to see what a great game BZ really is. It's main drawback was the manual not explaining enough about strategy. The game itself is (for the most part) designed very well. All it needed was a more detailed manual.