Omega wrote:An interesting question here, is, if imps were what won games, would people play impwar now, or would it still be grenwar?
Interesting question and I do have an answer. No, not to the extend grenwar was played. Swords in middle would be the excellent imp equivalent, tho not as fast. But these units win most games, yet swordwar tho played never really caught on. And it is for the exact reasons you described - there were too many other ways other than massing which made u in. And the unit massing is key.
Where u go wrong tho is here:
Even the reasoning that says grens were chosen because it was about who could make the most of them suggests that skill-minimization was an important, if not the primary (or even exclusive) factor.
This may seem wierd but u are giving the indy players of that time much too credit by thinking they actually knew this. No, the massing was concidered the hard part, the other things "cheap" ways to win the game... Obviously exaggerating a bit since going cav (both) in pocket was entirely standard. Siege were also considered a cheap way to beat the other team. As the real good player would try to be "better" than the other by outmassing. Reli same (I still hate that shit), tho I never got the HC ban.
My point: Grenwar was not chosen because it was easiest, it was chosen because it was the best way of getting the "massing wins" game. That it happened to also be the thing that required lowest skill was not something anyone were conscience about. It may have been the unconscious, but the massing part was considered the high skilled part.
To put it another way, why wasn't the default wing strategy to start with imps on wing and rush hard? It was damn effective, and along with a pocket that made grens with speed and also rushed, it was *vastly* better than the typical, easy cookie-cutter play most everyone would do.
This strat was used sometimes, but a strategy like that will never become standard because it relies on the surprise element and the assumption your opponents will do gren wing and goon pocket (the true standard). Most pockets did both imps and goons which is why the speed inf didn't work as well as super goons rush to the pocket (he would of course send goons to the dying wing... not saying speedinf wouldn't work btw, but u might need a halb or 2, which will be slow). Obviously late game the speed grens and imps wont do so well. Grens are wing because they're slow, and cav pocket because it's fast. Thats the main reason as I see it. Going nonrush cav on wing and grens in pocket, you'll have more grens on the wing and possibly win the game that way. Cav on wing only works in rush, which was frequently used in 3v3 especially (when we got a lil better).
A whole other reason was people were noobs, so doing the standard things were just something u did.
Or another interesting question, why would you say that that siege and hand cannons ended up getting banned?
Yeah I responded to this already but mainly because the "fair" way of winning was by outmassing the other. Any other way was not, like u say, considered too hard, but actually considered noobish. Even though it was the other way around.