the we cant beat the marines thread
ZiGGY
Join Date: 2003-01-19 Member: 12479Members
Join Date: 2003-01-19 Member: 12479Members
<div class="IPBDescription">3 hives, 2 hives and that other one :o</div>So for those alien teams struggling to beat marine teams heres a few tips
== 3 Hives ==
Ok, there should be absolutely no reason to struggle w/ 3 hives :p
If you cant simply overwhelm marines with 3 upgrades then a heavy focus on your area of effect skills is essential to victory.
The big boy in 3.2 is acid rocket, spamming this tears marines to pieces at little to no risk to the fade(s), this used in conjunction with spores (and maybe umbra) will make marines look like paper.
Dont forget you also get xenocide (skulk weapon) which has a fairly chunky aoe dmg.
The only way a marine team can really win against 3 hives is to sneak attack a hive in a quick and decisive manner. To stop the marines from doing this youll need to keep tabs on routes to your hive, scent of fear would make quick work of this task but is not a requirement :p If they start pushing on a hive mass xenocide generally is too much for them as the aliens spawn from 3 hives.
== 2 Hives ==
Now were getting into something a little more interesting :p
A lot of 2 hive gaming revolves around resources, thats not to say its the be all and end all of a game but it plays a big role :p
If the marine team can hold *a lot* of nodes, not only will they tech up faster but theyll be able to afford *a lot* of HA/JP/Sieges/HMGs/stuff! Now no single marine army is invincible, but if they can keep them coming youre pretty much screwed :p
Consequently there should be no excuse as to why marines have loose(undefended) nodes.
Now your main goal to victory is to either: A). Severely trashing the marine base removing their key tech(advanced armoury, prototype lab, arms lab-- pretty much killing everything :P)/exhausting their combat power(resources+income) or more likely B). Acquiring hive3.
There are a few basic principals of achieving either of this
1. The start of your attack should ideally be the strongest part of the attack so they have the least time to react, example: if it starts with a skulk biting down a pg then they can just phase in and will be ready for the rest. But if a gorge drops the hive and theres 1 fade, 1 lerk, 2gorg, skulk immediately on the scene...
doing 1 is rather fruitless unless you...
2. Pressure the marines or "maintain the tension", if the marines arent being pressured (ie theyre free to do what they want) then youll probably find that juicy phasegate has more ordanance than style.
A couple of examples of pressure are, having a fade constantly harassing their mainbase or having someone attacking lightly defended nodes -- generally just forcing the marines to do things they wouldnt otherwise be doing.
"Maintaining the tension" is a chess term, which is similar to pressure but more abstract. Basically what this means is using a position to display the ability to do something without actually wasting resources doing it. An example would be having a phasegate NEAR a hive and resnodes, marines could easily go from the phasegate to either location (which would be bad) generally speaking most alien methods of this involve an onos.
3. Sometimes you cant achieve what you want straight away, this doesnt mean there arent other lesser victories to achieve during the game, never expect to win straight away, in strategy games MISTAKES play a large role, if you lose all your fades expect to start losing ground, if they randomly decide to rush a location they can expect to lose some of the stuff they left undefended etc :p
4. Ultimately that all revolves around taking, defending and attacking resources.
Other very important things to remember at 2 hives:
Again a sneak attack on a hive can spell doom, though your defensive power at 2 hives is significantly less for them to take a hive down with anything but a sneak attack will require a lot of res and skill (not to mention time) so SCOUT YOUR BLINDSPOTS PLZ!
Youre not going to win the game with just fades, this isnt 3.1 get over it. Groups of aliens are very powerful, you will want to mix them a lot of the time and I will quickly point out their strengths and weaknesses, the mixing I leave to you :p
Skulk- Cheap, can parasite marines, does a lot of damage || is easily killed (though leap can make marines sweat trying to do it)
Gorge- Fairly cheap, can heal, can bilebomb structures/mines for a fair amount of dmg, can lay down support structures/cap nodes || is fairly weak and slow compared to other aliens
Lerk- Can spore marines costing them res and taking their armour, can umbra which blocks 50% of bullets shot into it, is hard to hit || is vulnerable to weapons other than an lmg.
Fade - Is fast and deadly, can be quite hard to hit, can self-heal to some degree and pressure marines solo || costs 50 res, if it dies the balance of the round can severely change, quite weak to prolonged weapon fire
Onos- kills structures faster than I can eat pancakes(thats fast :O), hits hard, can eat marines taking them out of action and slowly killing them || is slow, is large and can get stuck in cramped areas, has a hitbox larger than my stomach(thats large :O)
Generally speaking, the more resource towers you have, the more freedom you have for groups/attacking purposes and the less resource towers the marines have the less youll need them. So midgame youre gonna want some nodes!
== 1 Hive ==
Well I could probably talk about 2 hives forever but Im kinda forgetting what I typed at the start of this so lets just go onto 1 hive.
The start of the game poses its own problems for most alien teams, I will just give some advice on this too
First things first, youll want some res so you can get a second hive before armageddon, the number of RTs you want is dependent on the size of the team.
0-3 players, you dont really need any nodes.
3-6 players, ideally youll want 2 extra nodes.
6-8 players, ideally youll want 3 extra nodes.
8+ players, take what you can :p ideally 3+
Ok so bam the nodes are down, keeping them up is going to be a problem against most teams, heres what youre gonna need to keep them at bay.
LERK- Spores can SERIOUSLY hinder marine attack groups, stripping armour makes marines 2 bites to kill instead of 3, thats HUGE! If the marines arent swimming in res then the cost of medpacks adds up FAST
UPGRADES- many upgrades boost combat power no end, especially for skulks, carapace- 50% more health for skulks (still 1 sg shot though), silence- youre an ambush master, celerity- speeding bullet, cloak- ambush GOSU, focus- can kill unarmoured marines in 1 attack!
Though you wont have upgrades immediately you should never neglect getting them at some point!
GORGE!- gorges can heal skulks, absorb damage and spit marines from afar at hive 1, if you dont like your skulking you wouldnt be hurting your team if you were gorging in the middle of the map* (*but dont put yourself in a position to be overrun by marines, get help from others if you need it, hell you can get more buildings for the team too!)
SCOUT/PARASITE- in countless, countless public games aliens have the same problem, they notice they have a threat too late for them to be able to do anything. Aliens are much stronger in defense than offense with their ambush power and high speed to switch between locations. in this case Prevention is better than Cure, if you have 2 shotgunners coming to a resnode and you dont know theyre gonna be there that resource tower will die in a single volley from their shotties. However if you knew they were coming(by SCOUTING and PARASITING), at the very least its going to cost them resources to take down yours.
something else worth noting is marine attack power is based solely on their income, marines have certain essential upgrades (armour1, advanced armoury, etc) which if they dont get theyll probably lose later unless theyve made a significant return on not getting them. So if you can kill an RT kill it, if there are marines there get someone who can to help or go onto killing something else.
A common marine strategy on public games is to pressure the aliens near their res or their hive, and then relying on an absence of aliens on the other side of the map simply cap all the other nodes. Sometimes even after the marines cap these nodes no one will even bother to take them down :p
Its worth noting that your strategy partially depends on what the marines do and vice-versa
and one last thing, at the very very least if youre not going to do anything else then youll want a gorge in the second hive area to help with healing to defend it.
Everything, absolutely f***ing everything, comes with fries. Peace out. <3
== 3 Hives ==
Ok, there should be absolutely no reason to struggle w/ 3 hives :p
If you cant simply overwhelm marines with 3 upgrades then a heavy focus on your area of effect skills is essential to victory.
The big boy in 3.2 is acid rocket, spamming this tears marines to pieces at little to no risk to the fade(s), this used in conjunction with spores (and maybe umbra) will make marines look like paper.
Dont forget you also get xenocide (skulk weapon) which has a fairly chunky aoe dmg.
The only way a marine team can really win against 3 hives is to sneak attack a hive in a quick and decisive manner. To stop the marines from doing this youll need to keep tabs on routes to your hive, scent of fear would make quick work of this task but is not a requirement :p If they start pushing on a hive mass xenocide generally is too much for them as the aliens spawn from 3 hives.
== 2 Hives ==
Now were getting into something a little more interesting :p
A lot of 2 hive gaming revolves around resources, thats not to say its the be all and end all of a game but it plays a big role :p
If the marine team can hold *a lot* of nodes, not only will they tech up faster but theyll be able to afford *a lot* of HA/JP/Sieges/HMGs/stuff! Now no single marine army is invincible, but if they can keep them coming youre pretty much screwed :p
Consequently there should be no excuse as to why marines have loose(undefended) nodes.
Now your main goal to victory is to either: A). Severely trashing the marine base removing their key tech(advanced armoury, prototype lab, arms lab-- pretty much killing everything :P)/exhausting their combat power(resources+income) or more likely B). Acquiring hive3.
There are a few basic principals of achieving either of this
1. The start of your attack should ideally be the strongest part of the attack so they have the least time to react, example: if it starts with a skulk biting down a pg then they can just phase in and will be ready for the rest. But if a gorge drops the hive and theres 1 fade, 1 lerk, 2gorg, skulk immediately on the scene...
doing 1 is rather fruitless unless you...
2. Pressure the marines or "maintain the tension", if the marines arent being pressured (ie theyre free to do what they want) then youll probably find that juicy phasegate has more ordanance than style.
A couple of examples of pressure are, having a fade constantly harassing their mainbase or having someone attacking lightly defended nodes -- generally just forcing the marines to do things they wouldnt otherwise be doing.
"Maintaining the tension" is a chess term, which is similar to pressure but more abstract. Basically what this means is using a position to display the ability to do something without actually wasting resources doing it. An example would be having a phasegate NEAR a hive and resnodes, marines could easily go from the phasegate to either location (which would be bad) generally speaking most alien methods of this involve an onos.
3. Sometimes you cant achieve what you want straight away, this doesnt mean there arent other lesser victories to achieve during the game, never expect to win straight away, in strategy games MISTAKES play a large role, if you lose all your fades expect to start losing ground, if they randomly decide to rush a location they can expect to lose some of the stuff they left undefended etc :p
4. Ultimately that all revolves around taking, defending and attacking resources.
Other very important things to remember at 2 hives:
Again a sneak attack on a hive can spell doom, though your defensive power at 2 hives is significantly less for them to take a hive down with anything but a sneak attack will require a lot of res and skill (not to mention time) so SCOUT YOUR BLINDSPOTS PLZ!
Youre not going to win the game with just fades, this isnt 3.1 get over it. Groups of aliens are very powerful, you will want to mix them a lot of the time and I will quickly point out their strengths and weaknesses, the mixing I leave to you :p
Skulk- Cheap, can parasite marines, does a lot of damage || is easily killed (though leap can make marines sweat trying to do it)
Gorge- Fairly cheap, can heal, can bilebomb structures/mines for a fair amount of dmg, can lay down support structures/cap nodes || is fairly weak and slow compared to other aliens
Lerk- Can spore marines costing them res and taking their armour, can umbra which blocks 50% of bullets shot into it, is hard to hit || is vulnerable to weapons other than an lmg.
Fade - Is fast and deadly, can be quite hard to hit, can self-heal to some degree and pressure marines solo || costs 50 res, if it dies the balance of the round can severely change, quite weak to prolonged weapon fire
Onos- kills structures faster than I can eat pancakes(thats fast :O), hits hard, can eat marines taking them out of action and slowly killing them || is slow, is large and can get stuck in cramped areas, has a hitbox larger than my stomach(thats large :O)
Generally speaking, the more resource towers you have, the more freedom you have for groups/attacking purposes and the less resource towers the marines have the less youll need them. So midgame youre gonna want some nodes!
== 1 Hive ==
Well I could probably talk about 2 hives forever but Im kinda forgetting what I typed at the start of this so lets just go onto 1 hive.
The start of the game poses its own problems for most alien teams, I will just give some advice on this too
First things first, youll want some res so you can get a second hive before armageddon, the number of RTs you want is dependent on the size of the team.
0-3 players, you dont really need any nodes.
3-6 players, ideally youll want 2 extra nodes.
6-8 players, ideally youll want 3 extra nodes.
8+ players, take what you can :p ideally 3+
Ok so bam the nodes are down, keeping them up is going to be a problem against most teams, heres what youre gonna need to keep them at bay.
LERK- Spores can SERIOUSLY hinder marine attack groups, stripping armour makes marines 2 bites to kill instead of 3, thats HUGE! If the marines arent swimming in res then the cost of medpacks adds up FAST
UPGRADES- many upgrades boost combat power no end, especially for skulks, carapace- 50% more health for skulks (still 1 sg shot though), silence- youre an ambush master, celerity- speeding bullet, cloak- ambush GOSU, focus- can kill unarmoured marines in 1 attack!
Though you wont have upgrades immediately you should never neglect getting them at some point!
GORGE!- gorges can heal skulks, absorb damage and spit marines from afar at hive 1, if you dont like your skulking you wouldnt be hurting your team if you were gorging in the middle of the map* (*but dont put yourself in a position to be overrun by marines, get help from others if you need it, hell you can get more buildings for the team too!)
SCOUT/PARASITE- in countless, countless public games aliens have the same problem, they notice they have a threat too late for them to be able to do anything. Aliens are much stronger in defense than offense with their ambush power and high speed to switch between locations. in this case Prevention is better than Cure, if you have 2 shotgunners coming to a resnode and you dont know theyre gonna be there that resource tower will die in a single volley from their shotties. However if you knew they were coming(by SCOUTING and PARASITING), at the very least its going to cost them resources to take down yours.
something else worth noting is marine attack power is based solely on their income, marines have certain essential upgrades (armour1, advanced armoury, etc) which if they dont get theyll probably lose later unless theyve made a significant return on not getting them. So if you can kill an RT kill it, if there are marines there get someone who can to help or go onto killing something else.
A common marine strategy on public games is to pressure the aliens near their res or their hive, and then relying on an absence of aliens on the other side of the map simply cap all the other nodes. Sometimes even after the marines cap these nodes no one will even bother to take them down :p
Its worth noting that your strategy partially depends on what the marines do and vice-versa
and one last thing, at the very very least if youre not going to do anything else then youll want a gorge in the second hive area to help with healing to defend it.
Everything, absolutely f***ing everything, comes with fries. Peace out. <3
Comments
Its also important to recap killed nodes so you can keep pumping out lifeforms when they die since most do alot easier now.
/me likes