CA Tactics and CA server booking....

DeVore

Right well I've been giving this a lot of thought recently and I'm not about to give away CG's CA tactics just yet but I have heard a lot, from players who should know better, is "CA is just a case of run about and frag like crazy" or "theres no skill"
or "spam spam spam"

Unfortunately Ireland's answer to this and seemingly our only concrete tactic is to run to an area at the start and camp the living bejaysus out of it. (take a bow INC and ABAT, sorry lads but its true. At least ye are thinking "clan tactics" rather then "FFS MINE!!!")
This tactic works on the basis that your opposition's communications are so poor that they cant inform each other that the enemy is camping an area.
It also requires that the opposition will blunder/wander into your area (usually RA) for you to kill.
As a final fallback you can stay there until the opposition become so bored/enraged that they attempt to rush you out of the area.

In a recent game against XCOM it became clear to XCOM that CG ruled the central area and that they were not going to beat us in a straight-up fight there. Fair dues to the lads, they decided to switch tactics take the crates/boxes area. The first time they did it we were still just enjoying a reasonable game of CA and not really teaming up much. Result: we got killed piecemeal. Second time we were a little smarter and when things went quiet we knew they were off somewhere. A little careful exploring discovered them in the crates again and a decent 4 man rush saw a big mill in the crates with CG coming out top, just.
After that I called for a regroup in the crates immediately the level started and the CGers got there like greased lightening and massacred the XCOM lads as they arrived for their camp.
(no disrespect to XCOM, facing a superior foe in first clan game of CA I would have prolly done the same.)

Moral of the story is that if your opponents are camping an area of the level you can combat it by arriving there first and basically out-camping them. Most ppl will camp crates or RA, and most clans can only really know how to camp one or the other.

The most powerful piece of information you can know about your enemy in CA is where s/he is heading. PPL are always accusing me of hiding behind doors, but the truth is that I have a million such ambushes all over the level and if I know where you are heading I can get to an ambush point and get that first, all-important rocket in.
If you repeatedly camp an area then you are simply telling your opponents "GO THERE, I'LL BE ALONG IN A MINUTE!"

What if THEY get there first and are set up ? What then?
It takes a lot to get 4 people into an area. It takes the discipline to answer the "regroup!" call , regardless of the tasty frags available. One player will get there first and often gets bored waiting for the others (or thinks that they arent coming) and buggers off. If 3 of yer players arrive in the same place at the same time you are doing well. That of course leaves the poor fourth guy out on his own.
To counter the campers, simply hunt that poor bugger to extinction (shouldnt be hard since its 4 v 1) and then deal with the 3 who are camping. The extra man makes a huge difference and since it was 4 v 1 against the other poor bugger who wasnt camping none of you should be badly hurt.

CA is about the ratio of damage you deal as compared to the damage taken. 4 v 1 and then 4 v 3 will increase that ratio. Camping really only works if the element of surprise exists. Otherwise it can turn into Sitting-Duck syndrome.

So what tactics are there in CA if you dont camp or spam (spam should not be a problem for a smart player, if you get randomly spammed out of it, its usually yer own fault.)

Well there are lots of really advanced tactics for start-, mid- and end- game (they change radically for each phase) and the teams that adopt them I predict will win more games then the campers. It wasnt too long ago that CG started communications in CA and regrouping and now thats a standard tactic. Its like the early days of DM, we didnt know what we should be doing and the obvious thing to do on (say) e1m2 was to camp the RL. Later we found tactics that worked but werent NEARLY as obvious. The same will happen to CA but it revolves around clan communication rather then areas of the map.

CG will be training on the server every Monday night from 10pm (thats the current thinking, we might change the day/time later but for now thats it) and I hope that we'll see a few new tactics emerging.

Anyone any thoughts?
You have to admit, its more mentally engaging then most of the threads here

DeVore.

Scarab

At last a proper posting.....

About INC tactics (not to give too much away :P ) but we dont really camp the RA , like sit there for the whole game and wait for the other team to get bored and come in and get killed. Any decent clan will cop onto this and just wont come in. We just use it as a secure place to meet up and then we can sweep the level in teams taking out offending positions. I still however think that pickup CA is still devoid of tactics and is full of muppets spamming and hiding until their teammates have weakened the other team and that clan CA is still no where near as tactically demanding as clan DM's where u really have to think and try and control the level. MORE WARS!!! :P

DeVore

Indeed I am on a one man mission to raise the standard of posts here so I'm going to post a long article of my , possibly useless, thoughts once a day or so.

Camping the RA to gather the clan sounds extremely dodgy to me. Once one or two are in there, the rest are going to find it hard to fight their way through. Esp, when your opponents cop on to what you are at (CG already have some tactics for coping with RA "gatherers"

Pickup CA suffers from lack of tactics the same way that Pickup DM does on occasions. When one or often both teams simply fight over which one gets to camp the "OBVIOUS GOODIE SITE". Eventually one side gets a strong hold and its spawn-frags until some of the other team simply drop.
Can you tell me you havent played in pickup wars like that?

"Ah! But proper pickup wars dont have to be like that! Real players would play as a team!" Well so would CA players if we took it more seriously. Imagine a CA server some 6 months in the future if you will. Players join up and are EXPECTED to communicate and take their alloted positions. The better players will be able to assess what went wrong between rounds and pick out weak points in the team.

DM is like this because we have played DM to a level that is just silly really. Even the worst of us could kick the crud out of most single-player quake players. But it took 2.5 years to get to this standard and get tactics together.
When I started playing Quake a year ago the sort of teamplay we have now was the stuff of legends. CW had the best tp basically in CTF and nD and CT were playing old-school DM.

But all these clans will tell you that the sort of tactics we use now make those tactics look like so much blundering about.
Nary a proxy in sight. I remember Overlord introducing us to the idea, we thought he was mad.

CA is very young and already I see changes in TP. Communication, teaming up etc. Ppl now proxy up for games.
I hope to play a role in this by trying new ideas out with CG. We may completely get it wrong and get hammered but from that we should be able to learn what works and what doesnt and after all we've never been afraid to lose, we're Clan Giblets, but I think nD will tell you that that should be a rare event

As for your tactics, I predict that, like the first gen tactics in DM, they will work well but will be countered within 6 months and then become a liability.

Myself and beast spent a night watching a Clan (AoD) in the states play CA as a team and we have yet to *touch* the sort of tactics they were using.

Time will tell.

DeVore.

Scarab

I still think that DM's are the way to go as it is more recognised the world over, as far as world standards go irish teamplay is pretty crap. If we want to just play against ourselves grand but i think that with the WDT and all these national teams starting to travel to other coutries to compete on LAN we need to get it sorted and start playing teams from outside of ireland, CW are the perfect example of this, in how they have grown to be by a long stretch the best clan in Ireland ..... becuase they actually go and play clans ourtside of Ireland. Sure CA tactics could be improved on but it is unlikely that there will be much sponsorship forthcoming for a CA team that is unlikely to play many games ( correct me if i am wrong ) . And another thing why does nobody in ireland duel??. The BW duel servers are packed from 7 or 8 until into the morning, duelling is an excellent way to improve aim and tactics.

Burrrl333t.

LoLth

Wow! More than ONE other person has recognised what the C in CA stands for! From such small nuts do great thingies get bigger...

I don't know about the rest of you but I've noticed that in CA the side that plays as a team doesn't have to defend at all. Moving in packs and kicking the living crap out of the opponent stragglers seems to work really well. The constant moving counters any plans for a concerted counter attack. Even if an ambush is arranged the last guy fragged still has to make it to his mates, alone, and probably through 4 or 5 enemy. So even with suprise, chances are that the ambushing side will be outnumbered, they'd better pray that they are 1. not spotted, 2. accurate enough to do as much damage as possible in the opening moments of fire and 3. Disciplined enough that one guy doesn't 'jump the gun' and tip off the victims too early.

Playing as a team forces the opposing colour to play and think as a team. There is still room for individual glory. There can even be set styles to team members,
1. The Fire support. the guy Daa hates (sorry , but you do!) he sits back and fires into a melee.
2. the skirmisher, the one that is really good at infighting. keeps the opponent occupied while the fire support pick him off (assuming the skirmisher doesn't do it first)
3. The decoy, someone who knows the level and can dodge like a dodgy thing. Leads enemies into ambushes (takes more skill than you might think)
4. The Armoured Infantry. Charges the massed enemy and tries to break the ranks through sheer force. Quite handy in some situations.
5. the Guerrilla guy, waits in ambush. Now, some may call it camping, but is it camping when you are either absolutely sure that someone is coming along soon (like ducking into the shadows when you see an enemy backing toward you) or you have arranged with a decoy to set up an ambush. After all, it's no good to the decoy if he doesn't know where to lead because the site hasn't been fixed.

Just a few small observations for discussion or consideration, or for ignoring completely. I might not be a great quake-ninja but tactics and combat techniques are common to almost every game of opposition, quake being no exception.

SickBoy

Wow X-Com mentioned in the same posts as INC <IMG SRC="http://lacerta.ucg.ie/boards/smile.gif&quot; WIDTH=15 HEIGHT=15 BORDER=0 ALT=":)"> we must be doing something right <IMG SRC="http://lacerta.ucg.ie/boards/wink.gif&quot; WIDTH=15 HEIGHT=15 BORDER=0 ALT=";)">
Sorry for spoiling a good thread but couldnt resist.


SB...

LoLth

Ooops! Before I lose my index fingers for making a stupid statement, let me correct it by saying 'does not have to defend a particular location' rather than does not have to defend.

also, if a server is booked by a clan for an unofficial arena match (ie. one purely for fun) how about allowing a place on each team for a 'guest appearance'. A non clan member.(at least not one of the clans playing). Benefit No1. You get to play alongside a wild card and will have to adapt your tactics to match and blend. If the newcomer is armoured infantry (see above post) you will most likely have a more direct approach to the fighting etc..

Benefit No2. You are not accused of 'shutting off the server to others' or of 'being selfish' and you don't run the risk (or annoyance) of ****ed off and disgruntled kiddies. They have a chance, unfortunately they were too late to take advantage of the offer.

Benefit No3. tied to No1 really. You get to play AGAINST varying tactics even if you are facing the same clan.

Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I am not a clan member (though I did sign up for Muso's clan I but I haven't gotten around to doing anything about it, which was the entry requirement if I recall). Mind you , I wouldn't mind the opportunity to play with and against a clan in an organised (and hopefully behaved) CA game. If anyone's interested I would reckon I'm the fire support type, or decoy.

Wow! you can tell I'm bored senseless at work today.

Black Pawn

Hmmmm strategies sound good

and yes Xcom vs CG games were great fun - strategies on the hop... but i would like to point out that having u spec made it easier for u to direct the next set of games...

For our first set of CA games back it wasnt bad though.. more to follow

Weekly booking of the server ? ok book xcom down for every tuesday night at 9pm for ca praccy.. gotta use my indigo dialup for it as iol connect to it sucks bad...

Jay

Aawwww..my finger is sore from rolling that ickle mouse wheel down......this page is sooooo long.
Why do I bother telling ppl this?

Take it finger!!

OSiriS

All hail DeVore, king of the long posts....

/me bows in awe of his greatness....