Marine Easy Win Strategies
Vangor
Join Date: 2002-05-22 Member: 655Members
Join Date: 2002-05-22 Member: 655Members
<div class="IPBDescription">and things to help everyone in general</div> Over multiple games on Marines recently, as I've been alien most games because of size unbalance before, I've come across horrible to great commanders, myself one of those great commanders. Now, I am capable of telling newer commanders what to do in game, however, that generally takes to much time, and they don't do it as fast or well as I would wished, so I figured to lend some of that knowledge here. For this example, I'll run through an entire game as the commander. If you aren't playing as commander, or not directly on this map, strategies are very similar, I'll explain notes and highlights.
Commander :
From the start, the commander should address who he is going to be just as the game as beginning, and hopefully, most people will allow you into the comm chair. There is nothing worse than a commander who doesn't claim he will be comm, except for one who steals it from another who has already said so. Hopefully, this doesn't happen, and the commander will go right in within the first 5 seconds.
- Note - For all of you newer people who have never played commander, the easiest way to learn the correct way is not to dive into the comm seat and make your team lose, read through this, and then watch a few other commanders before taking it upon yourself. Also, not everyone needs to try really, if you are a good marine who can follow orders and shoot, then don't worry about the comm chair.
Now, with your commander chosen, the first thing to drop is two infantry portals. These should be kept far away from everyone opening and away from vents, caged has vents, so you won't want them to place them over there, however, another annoying idea is to place them down on the catwalk leading to the comm chair, this makes a spot that doesn't have the mobility of the main room. So, keeping them away from vents and as far away from openings as possible, the obvious choice is to place one on either side of the small hall leading to the ladder to get to the comm chair. Not quite. One is now open to acid rockets or other ranged attacks, now, this isn't exactly dangerous, but more hassle. So, place them fairly closed to each other on the opposite side of the vent and closer to the comm chair.
- Note - Some argue that lerks can hit these with spikes, however, that is untrue, they can only see around halfway out from the vent to the entrance, and not very far to the side.
Ok, infantry portals dropped and built, by about this time, the skulks should have attacked. With some skill, your marines should have repelled all 10 with possibly 4 people lossed. Now, depending on the time of attack and the direction, you should be able to pinpoint their hive with ease, if they poured from the vents within 30 seconds, sewer hive, if they came from the left of the main entrance, generator, if they were slow and came form multiple directions at near the same time, ventilation.
- Note - If you notice a large gathering of a clan on Aliens, like four or so, they may be smart enough to try and confuse you by running slightly around, and some will take the bait, do not, find the biggest concentration that came fastest, that is all you need.
Next thing to drop? Many would drop turret factory, nope. Armory, consider that each of you marines will kill probably 5 times as many aliens as your sentry turrets will, they will need the ammo. While it is hard for the Aliens to mount for a second attack if the first did not crush you or atleast greatly delay your infantry portal building, single ones can come in, and your marines may throw rounds out like mad. Also helpful later of course.
Ok, so now you're thinking, I should drop a turret factory, again, no. Observatory next. Any good commander will drop an observatory, this lets you get phase gates, the backbone of the marines to be bluntly honest, without them, marines will lose to any decent alien team. Now, I'm sure you want to place that turret factory, don't. Drop a phase gate at base, and send your marines to another hive, let us say that the aliens did come from sewer hive, go to generator, however, 3 men should stay behind considering you have no turrets in place, this may seem like a waste of 3 marines but to be honest, 6 marines is as good as 9 against 1 or 2 skulks and it saves you a total of lets say 82 resources if you have 3 turrets up, or 101 if you have 4 up, a nice amount at the start of the game.
Now, you may want to fortify that stability monitoring resource, not a good choice. Instead, drop a resource tower there, and tell your marines to go to generator when that is complete for the phase gate. Drop the phase gate towards the back, not full back, on the generator's central walkway that goes through the main room. It is now time for a turret factory, drop it along that same path, but back towards the wall so that one side is completely covered. This leaves you one free side that won't be attacked, and lets you set up the pentagon formation.
- Note - Some commanders contend that this formation will be open to lerk attacks, I did think this once, however, if you are moving quickly and marines are following orders, they won't have a chance.
To set up the pentagon, place one turret before the phase gate, then, place two turrets on either side of the path back towards the turret factory. The back set should NOT be a bit tighter like you may think a pentagon would be shaped, pentagon is just alot easier than calling it a five sided figure with three flat sides and an angling vertex. Why not do it? Well, if you place it this way, then skulks biting the turret factory will have one sentry blocking another, much easier to attack this way, instead, they must contend with two turrets firing at them if they even make it this far.
- Note - Because of the way the generator is shaped, if you stick the fifth one in the center to far out, then lerks can freely fire upon it from the hallway, it should be slightly moved along the border towards that hallway and very close to the phase gate, so that it is hard to actually throw spikes at it without getting to close.
Immediately afterwards, your men should move to the auxiliary generator (I believe that is the name, however, it is the resource point after generator). Drop a resource tower here. Again, do not place down defense, nor should your men stay behind. Why you ask? Well, if you spent an extra 5 minutes per resource point and had to wait for those extra resources, you would probably wait another 15 minutes, by this point, they would have ventilation hive and you would be fighting fades with starting weapons and armor, not a wise choice. Besides, most resource points won't be attacked honestly.
Move onto the shipping tunnels, here is another resource point and another tower area. Move forward to the room just beyond, drop a phase gate in the corner just as you enter on the left. This will give your men a much easier time at shooting skulks before they get anywhere close. With this phase up, send one marine back to the shipping tunnel to close that vent off next to the resource point with a welder, this will save you some time on that resource point.
- Note - If that resource point in shipping tunnels is taken, leave it be, order your men to leave it be, you will attract attention, which is bad.
At this time, you need to quickly look over the other two resource nozzles. If both are up, have that marine with the welder go with one other person to sewer vestibule sublevel. With a bit of luck, they won't meet much resistance right there, and they can take down the resource tower and close those vents there.
- Note - I say if you have both of those points still do this, otherwise, your men should go to them and replace the tower(s).
Back to ventilation, go near to the elevator. Drop it in the corner to the left if you are getting off the elevator at the top. Then, two sentries should be set up to guard either side of the factory. Upgrade this ASAP, and I do mean ASAP, any decent alien team will be by now setting up that hive. Watch over this, if you have all of those resource points, or atleast two, feel free to drop another sentry or two near the phase gate.
Hopefully it is upgraded already, drop a siege or two as close as you can up on that top level to the ventilation hive. Remember, this may be going up, and if you all spent to long, this may be almost complete. Remember though, do not attack it. If you have even half of the resource points, of which I believe there are 8, they will not get fades before their hive is leveled by your sieges, do not worry. If they don't even begin to fire, but you know you placed them close (like on the lip of the elevator close), send your men to get that new resource point next to ventilation.
- Note - If one of your men see that the hive is still being constructed, which I would find unlikely, drop a siege down on the level just below the turret factory and take it out from close, then drop the resource tower.
Once this is constructed, set up two sentry turrets to guard the siege and resource tower. Hopefully your man still has that welder, if not, get someone phasing there with one. He should weld open that gate on the opposite hall of ventilation. Burn right through it, and get into the small area before the ramp down to sewer. A phase gate should be constructed just before the ramp. Make sure to check your other res points at this time, especially generator.
Set up a turret factory in that area under the pipe connecting to ventilation, as close to sewer hive without being to close. Drop four sentry turrets right around there, one in the area with the turret factory, two as the ramp ends at the bottom, and one in the center of the ramp. Upgrade that factory, and get siege as far out as possible. More than likely, you won't be reaching the sewer hive from this point, however, you should have enough fire power to destroy it. This should win it for you.
- Notes -
At any time after getting auxiliary generator resource point, you may rebuild any resource points you are missing for more resources. If you don't lose any, feel free to defend your base and those resource points. If you cross areas with resource points close to hives taken by the aliens, you do not want to be attacking these.
For other maps, things are very similar, these are the highlights -
You want to run straight for a hive asap, you need portals, armory, observatory, before doing so, phase just as you are. Other maps are much easier, caged has an annoying thing that their resource nodes are located outside of the hive, making it very difficult to defend along with the hive for both aliens and marines. On maps like say ns_eclipse, if you are going to maintenance, do not guard up horseshoe, drop a resource tower and move along, you will waste to many resources and to much time there.
Commander :
From the start, the commander should address who he is going to be just as the game as beginning, and hopefully, most people will allow you into the comm chair. There is nothing worse than a commander who doesn't claim he will be comm, except for one who steals it from another who has already said so. Hopefully, this doesn't happen, and the commander will go right in within the first 5 seconds.
- Note - For all of you newer people who have never played commander, the easiest way to learn the correct way is not to dive into the comm seat and make your team lose, read through this, and then watch a few other commanders before taking it upon yourself. Also, not everyone needs to try really, if you are a good marine who can follow orders and shoot, then don't worry about the comm chair.
Now, with your commander chosen, the first thing to drop is two infantry portals. These should be kept far away from everyone opening and away from vents, caged has vents, so you won't want them to place them over there, however, another annoying idea is to place them down on the catwalk leading to the comm chair, this makes a spot that doesn't have the mobility of the main room. So, keeping them away from vents and as far away from openings as possible, the obvious choice is to place one on either side of the small hall leading to the ladder to get to the comm chair. Not quite. One is now open to acid rockets or other ranged attacks, now, this isn't exactly dangerous, but more hassle. So, place them fairly closed to each other on the opposite side of the vent and closer to the comm chair.
- Note - Some argue that lerks can hit these with spikes, however, that is untrue, they can only see around halfway out from the vent to the entrance, and not very far to the side.
Ok, infantry portals dropped and built, by about this time, the skulks should have attacked. With some skill, your marines should have repelled all 10 with possibly 4 people lossed. Now, depending on the time of attack and the direction, you should be able to pinpoint their hive with ease, if they poured from the vents within 30 seconds, sewer hive, if they came from the left of the main entrance, generator, if they were slow and came form multiple directions at near the same time, ventilation.
- Note - If you notice a large gathering of a clan on Aliens, like four or so, they may be smart enough to try and confuse you by running slightly around, and some will take the bait, do not, find the biggest concentration that came fastest, that is all you need.
Next thing to drop? Many would drop turret factory, nope. Armory, consider that each of you marines will kill probably 5 times as many aliens as your sentry turrets will, they will need the ammo. While it is hard for the Aliens to mount for a second attack if the first did not crush you or atleast greatly delay your infantry portal building, single ones can come in, and your marines may throw rounds out like mad. Also helpful later of course.
Ok, so now you're thinking, I should drop a turret factory, again, no. Observatory next. Any good commander will drop an observatory, this lets you get phase gates, the backbone of the marines to be bluntly honest, without them, marines will lose to any decent alien team. Now, I'm sure you want to place that turret factory, don't. Drop a phase gate at base, and send your marines to another hive, let us say that the aliens did come from sewer hive, go to generator, however, 3 men should stay behind considering you have no turrets in place, this may seem like a waste of 3 marines but to be honest, 6 marines is as good as 9 against 1 or 2 skulks and it saves you a total of lets say 82 resources if you have 3 turrets up, or 101 if you have 4 up, a nice amount at the start of the game.
Now, you may want to fortify that stability monitoring resource, not a good choice. Instead, drop a resource tower there, and tell your marines to go to generator when that is complete for the phase gate. Drop the phase gate towards the back, not full back, on the generator's central walkway that goes through the main room. It is now time for a turret factory, drop it along that same path, but back towards the wall so that one side is completely covered. This leaves you one free side that won't be attacked, and lets you set up the pentagon formation.
- Note - Some commanders contend that this formation will be open to lerk attacks, I did think this once, however, if you are moving quickly and marines are following orders, they won't have a chance.
To set up the pentagon, place one turret before the phase gate, then, place two turrets on either side of the path back towards the turret factory. The back set should NOT be a bit tighter like you may think a pentagon would be shaped, pentagon is just alot easier than calling it a five sided figure with three flat sides and an angling vertex. Why not do it? Well, if you place it this way, then skulks biting the turret factory will have one sentry blocking another, much easier to attack this way, instead, they must contend with two turrets firing at them if they even make it this far.
- Note - Because of the way the generator is shaped, if you stick the fifth one in the center to far out, then lerks can freely fire upon it from the hallway, it should be slightly moved along the border towards that hallway and very close to the phase gate, so that it is hard to actually throw spikes at it without getting to close.
Immediately afterwards, your men should move to the auxiliary generator (I believe that is the name, however, it is the resource point after generator). Drop a resource tower here. Again, do not place down defense, nor should your men stay behind. Why you ask? Well, if you spent an extra 5 minutes per resource point and had to wait for those extra resources, you would probably wait another 15 minutes, by this point, they would have ventilation hive and you would be fighting fades with starting weapons and armor, not a wise choice. Besides, most resource points won't be attacked honestly.
Move onto the shipping tunnels, here is another resource point and another tower area. Move forward to the room just beyond, drop a phase gate in the corner just as you enter on the left. This will give your men a much easier time at shooting skulks before they get anywhere close. With this phase up, send one marine back to the shipping tunnel to close that vent off next to the resource point with a welder, this will save you some time on that resource point.
- Note - If that resource point in shipping tunnels is taken, leave it be, order your men to leave it be, you will attract attention, which is bad.
At this time, you need to quickly look over the other two resource nozzles. If both are up, have that marine with the welder go with one other person to sewer vestibule sublevel. With a bit of luck, they won't meet much resistance right there, and they can take down the resource tower and close those vents there.
- Note - I say if you have both of those points still do this, otherwise, your men should go to them and replace the tower(s).
Back to ventilation, go near to the elevator. Drop it in the corner to the left if you are getting off the elevator at the top. Then, two sentries should be set up to guard either side of the factory. Upgrade this ASAP, and I do mean ASAP, any decent alien team will be by now setting up that hive. Watch over this, if you have all of those resource points, or atleast two, feel free to drop another sentry or two near the phase gate.
Hopefully it is upgraded already, drop a siege or two as close as you can up on that top level to the ventilation hive. Remember, this may be going up, and if you all spent to long, this may be almost complete. Remember though, do not attack it. If you have even half of the resource points, of which I believe there are 8, they will not get fades before their hive is leveled by your sieges, do not worry. If they don't even begin to fire, but you know you placed them close (like on the lip of the elevator close), send your men to get that new resource point next to ventilation.
- Note - If one of your men see that the hive is still being constructed, which I would find unlikely, drop a siege down on the level just below the turret factory and take it out from close, then drop the resource tower.
Once this is constructed, set up two sentry turrets to guard the siege and resource tower. Hopefully your man still has that welder, if not, get someone phasing there with one. He should weld open that gate on the opposite hall of ventilation. Burn right through it, and get into the small area before the ramp down to sewer. A phase gate should be constructed just before the ramp. Make sure to check your other res points at this time, especially generator.
Set up a turret factory in that area under the pipe connecting to ventilation, as close to sewer hive without being to close. Drop four sentry turrets right around there, one in the area with the turret factory, two as the ramp ends at the bottom, and one in the center of the ramp. Upgrade that factory, and get siege as far out as possible. More than likely, you won't be reaching the sewer hive from this point, however, you should have enough fire power to destroy it. This should win it for you.
- Notes -
At any time after getting auxiliary generator resource point, you may rebuild any resource points you are missing for more resources. If you don't lose any, feel free to defend your base and those resource points. If you cross areas with resource points close to hives taken by the aliens, you do not want to be attacking these.
For other maps, things are very similar, these are the highlights -
You want to run straight for a hive asap, you need portals, armory, observatory, before doing so, phase just as you are. Other maps are much easier, caged has an annoying thing that their resource nodes are located outside of the hive, making it very difficult to defend along with the hive for both aliens and marines. On maps like say ns_eclipse, if you are going to maintenance, do not guard up horseshoe, drop a resource tower and move along, you will waste to many resources and to much time there.
Comments
Anyone who puts stuff out in the large hallway place in caged is going to get demolished by fades. Although I have seen a team work very well by putting EVERYTHING (inc 2ndary com chair) in the corridor outside..
It really threw us aliens <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
You might also wana shout something along the lines of:
'x people build everyone else cover, stay sharp don't forget the vent!'
I found when I started shouting that at the start I rapidly stopped losing my intire marine force to enemy, course it don't matter so much if that happens just distress beac them all back <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
BlueGhost
Also, if you are going to write a huge article such as this, try to format and proof-read it a bit more. It's a bit hard to follow.
I can't say much for the strategy other than "Keep up the good work," as I am terrible at commanding on caged. I don't like the map that much and therefore don't play it very often.