Best General Marine Strat ...
NukeAJS
Join Date: 2004-05-04 Member: 28443Members
Join Date: 2004-05-04 Member: 28443Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Your opinion on the matter ...</div> I haven't been playing NS too long but for what I have I freaking love it. I've noticed that commanders have many different play styles though. What's the best play style on a public, generally? Some commanders lock-down a hive then go for the main hive, some try a complete lock-down with a nice phase network, some worry about res nodes a lot and avoid hives until it becomes a problem, some like a forward base close to the main hive ASAP, some encourage a a main hive rush, some simply deny res to aliens and hope for a lot of kills for res, some like sieging early on. There's about a hundred things you can do in NS but what in your opinion is the best? I've found that in most pub servers I've won the most amount of matches by taking just a couple of resources nodes (2-3), teching up, establishing a forward base, and giving the aliens main hive hell. All of this is done within a few minutes But I know tons disagree with me. What do you find is the best public strat? Mainly I'm looking for innovative play styles because the best strategy is one your opponent has never seen before.
Comments
This is how i won most of the games:
1st thing u need to finde what is the start hive and then reloc to dbls or hive (or any other good spot for reloc... lets say that u can control 2 RTs and a Hive with NP). Then i drop IP, ARMORY and ARMSLAB (give them A1). Send them to other empty hive, drop RT and TF (so i can ecl MS RT and HIVE RT). By now i have 5-6 RTs and W2, A2 on the way. Drop Obs for phase tech and link it with BASE, MS & HIVE. Upg. Armory and drop ProtoLab for HAs.
I try to elc all RTs... Drop some SGs for fades and save res for HA+HMG rush for last hive. In less then 15min we won the game... GG.
I research phase tech, and drop an Arms Lab - research a1,w1, catpacks.
then rush their main hive, drop a pg inside, or outside if it's defended, drop an armory by the pg, spam mines and shotguns, saving about 20 res.
Mines are for the pg and to defend marines while they shoot the hive with shotguns - catpacks on the guys shooting the hive with the 20 res you saved.
This usually takes about 6 minutes max.
If they have a second hive building I'll get my marines to spread out and move through the centre of the map, dropping any alien RT they find, then move in on the second hive, which usually isn't up yet, and drop a PG/Armory then spam mines, SG ammo and catpacks.
If the game isn't over then - it's time for MT and random scans to find the aliens hiding by a DC in a vent.
some key things you need to remember is to have armor 1 by the 3 minute mark and a decent res flow.
other then that I usually drop 2-3 shotguns and try and controle *key points of the map with mines.
-drop armory
-2x pack of mines
-recycle armory.
this is good for key locations, for example if you can keep 'em in they're hive, like on tanith when they're hive is sat comm.
early game set up some mines in the main entrance and in the vents. turret factory is ideal for this spot on tanith.
but all in all most important is to keep your marines *in control, have a decent res flow (3-4 nodes) and keep teching!
note: for those commanders who electrify res nodes. It's a good idea NOT to electify base node or the neighbouring ones next
to base. the further away the better, there are some exceptions though. ie Topographical on Viel.
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It's that simple.
It's that simple. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not that simple, really. If you react to what the enemy does, then they do control the pace of the game. That is correct. However, it doesn't mean you've lost. That just means that they put up that RT, you tear it down and put up your RT in it's place. It means they put up that hive, you take it out. They lockdown this hallway, you open a path and lock it down yourself. They relocate, tear the area to shreds as fast as you can.
If you react fast enough to their actions, you can keep them on their toes and win just as well as well thought out, strong, offensive play. It just matters on how you go about it.
but after that i tend to not waste res elect rts (unless skulks go by it a lot). i try to get mt a1 pgs and adv armory up as fast as i can. i prefer jps over ha, and i ussualy always locked down an important hallway very close to the alien hive. shuts them off from a lot of the map <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
1 IP
1 Armory
1 Arms lab --> A1
Mines
Listen for the hive, then group ALL of your marines and send them to the outlying RTs of those hives. Take all those RTs down, and replace them with your own.
It's sickening how it works.
If you see a nice stack of clanners/icons on your team then go for the aggresive tactics. Lock down hives quickly (seriously 2 turrets scares of a lot of pubbers = 30 res) and just keep pushing the aliens.
Lots of people think that res is all they need to win :/ It helps but you need to be presuring the enemy at all times else they'll be doing the same thing to you.
I try and win before protolab and most times before any serious upgrades.
Aggresiveness really pays for the marines.
Problem solved.
When I comm I often have problems with these offensive strategys. Either the marines can't aim or we get res raped (enemys taking over everything faster then we can take over theres) And we usualy end up stuck in a few secluded places, with tech and up's, but no where to go.
Is there any way to play offensivly AND keep enuff res around for backup plans?
Medspam the hell out of your marines.
Or.
Rush upgrades.
Either way, it'll keep you rmarines in the field that much longer. Even the worst marines can kill skulks with 3/3 upgrades.
Remember, A2 is the devil for skulks.
If your marines aren't exactly that great, rush A2. Otherwise alternate between armor and weapon upgrades. If you rush A2, you'll make sure that your marines can survive another skulk bite and that will give your marines an extra chance to pump that skulk full of lead.
Never stop the momentum of an offensive. NEVER! If many of your marines die, beacon, send them out together. If you keep a constant, refreshed threat into enemy territory, you'll gain the upper hand.
In the ancient game of Go, there is something called 'Sente' or 'Initiative'. Sente is extremely useful to have, since you have a choice of where to play. If you play at a crucial spot, your opponent must answer to it, and if you get good enough at the game, you start to predict 5, 10, 50 moves ahead (called 'Reading') of your opponent, and you can find out where sente is most effetively played.
This is the basis of how you must command in NS. The longer you keep the aliens chasing alerts around the map, the most control you have over the game. This also means that you can get at harder things much easier. For example, you send out 5 marines with shotguns up to Maintainance hive on ns_eclipse, and send out 1 marine to Eclipse hive, but only give eclipse a phasegate. Aliens will spot the shotgun rush on maintainance ("HOLY CRAP GUYS, GET DOWN TO MAINT NOW! SG RUSH!"), and rush immediately to the hive. Once all in the marines take down any movements, comm bacons, phase through to eclipse, shotgun down the hive.
This is initiative. If you have it, millions of options open to you: Should you attack that hive? take that choke point? take down double? and the aliens have no choice but to answer to it: Get to maint! save south loop! omg nanogrid! Lose initiative, and you have very few options, and these options are easily predictable and counterable:
One onos takes marines start and the other takes a locked down maintainance hive. They take turns hitting it: If the marines are in marine start, the maint onos hits the hive, and vice versa. If they try to defend both, they lose both.
What can you do? You can: Save base, or save Hive lockdown. Two choices compared to the alien's unlimited number of options.
Of course, in a nicely balanced game, initiative shifts hands from team to team. Its just a matter of who can create a bigger threat: Does that onos think that saving the hive from that heavy train is more important than hitting MS? You're just going to get slaughtered if you try to save it, so just hit the base to make them bacon. The marine team, who initially had sente ("OMG, heavy train incoming!"), just lost the initiative to the aliens, who try to regroup for an offensive on the train. If the onos feels content on losing the hive and just hits marine res nodes, yes it is a threat to the marine's economy, but not a big enough threat to steal sente. The hive goes down, and the game winds down to the point where sente has settled down in favor of the marines.
In simple terms: Hold sente longer, and you will win.
one other thing to touch on as well. which I think lito did..but will say again.
The first minutes are the most important...
If any of you know the chaos theroy you already know this..
something that may seem very small in the begining can turn into you losing bases, hives. etc. in the end. Losing an OC or a Rez node. or a turret could mean the diffrence between a win or a loss in the long run.
I agree with a lot of your thinking and the Go analogy is good. I would improve on it only in one sense: That is the matter of urgency. After the 5 minute mark, if you don't continue to have the initiative and the technology to keep it, the game can become unwinnable. Higher evolutions, if they are allowed to gather and make assaults, there is nothing that marines can do.
Certainly, a squad of JPers with HMG can take out a pack of onos, but throw some fades in the mix and they wont last. Similarly, an HA train is likely to last against small groups of higher lifeforms, but once they accumulate and have DCs backing them up, its all over.
Consequently, the marines MUST try to clean the aliens out quickly, or it'll be the Alamo (like that other guy said).
-stooopsy
If you react fast enough to their actions, you can keep them on their toes and win just as well as well thought out, strong, offensive play. It just matters on how you go about it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
He is mostly saying that without anticipating or your own iniative, you'll always lose the quickdraw. Meaning, it is alot easier to for example anticipate the hive going up, get a Phasegate outside it and walk in, then discovering a Hive and suddenly changing plans to scramble inside and take it down.
Because most likely, aliens will notice your 'discovery'. Whereas they have no way of knowing just how much the commander has anticipated.
What most commanders don't realize is that they feel that if they attack doesn't end the game, it isn't successful, that is untrue. If you setup a phase gate and manage to knock down their res tower, and their D chambers, then that attack is pretty successful. Sometimes hit "soft" targets is better than trying to end the game in one blow. (Sometimes going in and destroying everything works too). As a commander it is your job to realize the situation and realize what is more important. If they have too many guys in the hive, it might be better to hit those soft targets because they are easier to destroy.
Also, while attacking send someone to recap and breakdown their nodes, and don't forget to put mines by your phase gate, that is very important.
initiative, attacking, and first few minutes. the crucial tools to winning. imho.
If you control the pace of the first five minutes of the game, it shouldn't be any more difficult to control the next five minutes. As I've said in other threads, good commanding should be conditional. Your actions should be a response to the existing situation, not something premeditated or formulaic.
In terms of Lito's anology, one of the other main concepts of Go is called Atsumi. A line of stones with few weaknesses is considered strong, or thick, and one of the first proverbs you learn when you study go is "Do not play too close to thickness." That is, if you spend all your time fortifying a single wall then you'll lose the rest of the board. A big problem I notice with pub play commanders is that they tend to overbuild a position. I don't even blink at having to build four turrets without support anymore, but it really annoys me when he just... keeps... dropping them. Often games start with the marines easily having the upper hand (most pub players are about twice as good on marines as they are on aliens), however the commander wastes all his time building turrets and getting upgrades, letting the aliens kill anything that's weak (usually the res nodes).
If you manage to grab a strong position, use the leverage you gain to control the rest of the map by reinforcing any weak points you have with marines or static defenses. And finish the game as soon as you get the oppurtunity. Not only are you being polite to the aliens by doing this, you're avoiding the off chance that you may lose if the aliens regain their footing.
The game of NS is obviously much more fluid than Go, but a lot of analogies can be drawn between the two. The type of thinking for a commander is the same than for a good Go player.
Good thing my anger management classes have paid off.
Good thing my anger management classes have paid off. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why don't you just say "I'm too impulsive to read the whole post," instead of asking a useless question.
On a more thorough review, I still fail to see your point.
"wastes all his time building turrets and getting upgrades"
Now, if you meant instead of getting all upgrades before trying to finish the game, and finish it at first opportunity, then it's understandeable, even if it's not that quite clear.
</shameless infomercial>*ahem*
in a sense, he "wastes" time getting turret outposts up and getting upgrades, instead of actually commanding his marines to pressure key points and strengthening weak ones.
Thats what i get from the post anyways.
oh and kent, we should play go together atleast once. I'm just a lowly ~20 kyu though <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
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yes, that's what i got from it too lieto <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
so my build order is 1 ip, armory, arms, a1 + many RTs, a2, obs, pg tech, MT..
And now it depends, if we are holding ground, we attack first hive (PG, mines, armory, SG, sieges if apropriate), this results in marine victory at 6-9 minute. If we are weaker,we get PG in some strategic place - double or 3rd hive and push to get PG near or in second hive, either for locking or killing growing one.
Killing growing hive usually results in game lasting 10-12 minutes imo, while defensively locking 2 hives results in game about 14-20 minute. (Locking hive without ability to push aliens means rines loose res and if they cannot kill fades they need heavy guns or even HA to win..).
If attack on second hive fails and they got hive up, well you are most likely screwed, here is what you can done:
- beacon + SG rush hive by walking
- sneaky PG + SG rush to quickly kill hive (this works very well)
There is no point in electrifying/turtling 3rd hive at this point, if they have 2 hives and you are not currently pressuring them, or quickly kill 1 of hives, you die..
IP->Armory->Arms->A1k
After you drop the IP and armory, listen for the hive, leave 2 people to build at base and tell the rest to cap nodes. As soon as A1 is done, you should have enough res for W1 and an obs. After the obs is done tech phasegates, and then upgrade the armory.
Most fades go regen, if you upgrade around the 2, 2:30 mark you can HMGs at the 5, 5:30 mark, (keeping getting W2 and W3, while it is upgrading, also get MT if you have extra res.)
Tell your marines (not ALL of them) to attack the hive early, maybe you can get some spawn camping done, maybe not. Most pub players cannot handle pressure, they are used to the two hive lockdown, so exploit that. When they see the hive is under attack most of them will not have the discipline to figure out whats going on, so they will all run back to the hive. This will leave their resource nodes vulnerable. BREAK DOWN all their nodes, and you can delay their fades long enough to have both phasegates done, and AA done. Use a mix of HMGs and shotguns to shoot down fades.
After the advanced armory is done, depending on your res situation, the map, and generally how good your troops are, you might want to build a proto, or you might not. If its a tight res game, you might wanna focus on breaking down a hive first, then recapping some nodes. A lot of people get locked into the assumption that as soon as the advanced armory is done, they need to drop a proto right away. Its a waste unless you have A)enough of the proto B)enough for the tech C)enough to drop the tech for your troops.
Usually I can skip the proto because after the guys kill a couple of fades, its game over, sometimes it is neccesary though.
The key to this strategy is a lot of pressure. Pressure will keep them off your nodes, and force them to lose their nodes. The early advanced armory will help against those fades.
This strategy can win you a lot of games if you med your soldiers correctly, and you don't relieve the pressure.