The Best Alien Players Are The Best Commanders.
Chopper_Dave1
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Last night's strategy...</div> So I was playing a game on NS_Nancy, I believe. I joined just at the end of a game, and the marines were pretty much getting raped by the aliens (who had all three hives).
Everyone was quite fearful of commanding against the seemingly unstoppable alien threat, so I hopped in for a go and tried out a nice stategy I had been working out in my head, capitalizing on the mindset and strategies of skulk rushers. And by golly, it WORKED.
My players spawn, and I drop 1 infantry portal, 1 ammo dispenser, and 1 radar, giving them all explicit orders to have ONE person build and everyone else defend. Thanks to the long hallway, most of the skulk rushers were killed by my defense. Then, I dropped 3 packs of tripmines, and scanner-sweeped each hive, finding the alien hive in the no-name room. The plan was formulating now. I left one marine at the base to trip it up, and told everyone else to rush the hive room basked in the yellow light. The skulk-rushers, meanwhile, continued to smack down my marine base, while I built a new HQ (CC+3 spawn gates, ammo dispenser, etc) inside the alien base, and order my marine to weld shut the vent entrance. Soon enough, the aliens kill my starter base, and think they have us defeated; they get cocky. I tell me marines to play along....it'll make our new main base much more surprising =).
Because the aliens were busy hunting us, they didn't think to check the hive. By the time they ventured down our way, they found quite to their displeasure around 5 lasernets of tripmines, along with some turrets at the doorway. The trap was slowly closing.
Content with my base, I send out around 3/4's of my marines to conquer the 3rd hive (this is about the equivelant of most commanders' strategy of rushing and taking 1 hive while retaining the main base....but my main base was in an alien hive =)). They find one gorge, who has at this point only built a resource node, an offesnive tower, and a defensive tower (this whole drama unfolded with quite a bit of speed, mind you). My marines, with my help, quickly obliterated the establishment. I soon do the same thing as the last base, minus the CC and spawn portals, and get the whole place mined up, some turrets to defend, and a jumpgate between the two hive bases.
By the time I get a siege turret up in each base (in order to prevent the eventual Gorge turret rush), we had cemented ourselves a victory. The aliens, without their Fades, Umbra, and Pounce ability, could not break my base defenses...and could not get any good abilities. However, we were able to get Heavy armour, HMG's, and full armor and weapon upgrades. The aliens, meanwhile, wer limited to Skulks, Gorges, and Lerks with caraspice. MY MARINES LOVED ME...I actually got nothing but compliments from the marines under my command - and that really made me gleeful, considering the usual verbal smackdown I get from the dumbasses that refuse to follow orders. A lot of the aliens dropped, frusterated at how quickly I owned them with my mind games and 1337 strategy. My marines...well, they all got the first victory they had in a long while, and were quite happy.
A good new strategy? HELL YAH. I suggest you all try to use it sometime, it works very well under a myriad of different situations.
Everyone was quite fearful of commanding against the seemingly unstoppable alien threat, so I hopped in for a go and tried out a nice stategy I had been working out in my head, capitalizing on the mindset and strategies of skulk rushers. And by golly, it WORKED.
My players spawn, and I drop 1 infantry portal, 1 ammo dispenser, and 1 radar, giving them all explicit orders to have ONE person build and everyone else defend. Thanks to the long hallway, most of the skulk rushers were killed by my defense. Then, I dropped 3 packs of tripmines, and scanner-sweeped each hive, finding the alien hive in the no-name room. The plan was formulating now. I left one marine at the base to trip it up, and told everyone else to rush the hive room basked in the yellow light. The skulk-rushers, meanwhile, continued to smack down my marine base, while I built a new HQ (CC+3 spawn gates, ammo dispenser, etc) inside the alien base, and order my marine to weld shut the vent entrance. Soon enough, the aliens kill my starter base, and think they have us defeated; they get cocky. I tell me marines to play along....it'll make our new main base much more surprising =).
Because the aliens were busy hunting us, they didn't think to check the hive. By the time they ventured down our way, they found quite to their displeasure around 5 lasernets of tripmines, along with some turrets at the doorway. The trap was slowly closing.
Content with my base, I send out around 3/4's of my marines to conquer the 3rd hive (this is about the equivelant of most commanders' strategy of rushing and taking 1 hive while retaining the main base....but my main base was in an alien hive =)). They find one gorge, who has at this point only built a resource node, an offesnive tower, and a defensive tower (this whole drama unfolded with quite a bit of speed, mind you). My marines, with my help, quickly obliterated the establishment. I soon do the same thing as the last base, minus the CC and spawn portals, and get the whole place mined up, some turrets to defend, and a jumpgate between the two hive bases.
By the time I get a siege turret up in each base (in order to prevent the eventual Gorge turret rush), we had cemented ourselves a victory. The aliens, without their Fades, Umbra, and Pounce ability, could not break my base defenses...and could not get any good abilities. However, we were able to get Heavy armour, HMG's, and full armor and weapon upgrades. The aliens, meanwhile, wer limited to Skulks, Gorges, and Lerks with caraspice. MY MARINES LOVED ME...I actually got nothing but compliments from the marines under my command - and that really made me gleeful, considering the usual verbal smackdown I get from the dumbasses that refuse to follow orders. A lot of the aliens dropped, frusterated at how quickly I owned them with my mind games and 1337 strategy. My marines...well, they all got the first victory they had in a long while, and were quite happy.
A good new strategy? HELL YAH. I suggest you all try to use it sometime, it works very well under a myriad of different situations.
Comments
It requires people to cooperate & listen to the commander.
I've yet to see a full marine team do that on a non-passworded server.
See this post. If the aliens were smart, they would've realized what they were doing wasn't working and tried something else. It still must have been a fun game for you though. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I came to a similar conclusion myself after making a tactical error in the command chair my 2nd time out. I had captured the cargo bay hive on ns_nancy, built up defenses, fortified it and put a teleporter there so my marines could make it there quickly. But I failed to move my command center there, and the marines didn't get the concept of defending it. It would have made an excellent base since there's only one way in or out and moving command there would have (a) given the marines the incentive to defend it and (b) confused the heck out of the kharaa if they took the main base.
So really i dont think the aliens had a chance because its hard to get out the the mind set "we killed there spawn so we win" especialy when it falls to a rush and inst late game.
Something is fishy if nobody is in the main base.
I have to remember to check out the hives after the first initial rush. (when playing Kharaa that is <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->)
Everyone pretty much followed my orders because they feared the brutal alien smackdown that occurred in the 2 games before. They were a little worried when they saw that I was leaving the starting base completely undefended, but quickly regained trust when they saw what I had accomplished in the hive.
And it still took an effort to get them to go places, at first. A lot of it had to do with my strategy being completely outlined in binds "We need to get that hive base," "If we get that 2nd hive, they won't have anything!"
"Then we will have an easy path to victory!" Needless to say, with the promise of easy victory, most of them decided to follow orders if they hadn't already. After both bases were secure, I pretty much handed out HMG's and HA's to each marine and let them do their own thing. By this point, they actually began to see the advantages of working in teams, and walking around in groups of three, securing resources and welding each other with little to no intervention by myself. I will admit I was definitely was surprised and quite proud of myself and my team at this point. I dunno, maybe the marines are finally starting to figure out how to play the game (just like the oppressed Kharaa quickly did pre-patch). After a while, they were creating little strategies of their own: "Go through this hallway, it's les defended!" "Secure this room, it's a good choke point!", etc. etc., and I was simply there to drop ammo, health, and buildings. It was quite the experience.
I especialy love the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you can't find any of your marines, and the realise it's because they are all at the last alien hive taking it down easily and without any instructions from you!
This was really a strategy in alien psycology. It's not like the skulks happened upon a completely abandoned base that was ready for the munchin'; it was quite "well" defended by tripmines and marines. The skulks never thought of it as a decoy, because the two marines and I fought to defend it like we would have if it were REALLY our only base - we just had a good 4-5 other guys setting up a nice big base elsewhere =). They never realized that I in fact had established another base (and in their hive, no less) until it was far too late.
You are making your arguments on the assumptions that the aliens are all expert players while the marines have the brains of chimpanzees. If the marines had skill equivalent to these supposed expert alien players, then things could still quite easily work out. However, if the marines are the types that can walk in groups of 10 and be killed by 2 skulks...well, then the plan won't work.
I wouldn't say that the gameplay was bad on the aliens' part; it's fairly basic strategy. Skulks attack the marines and keep them busy, eliminating them if you can (but you probably won't), while 1 gorge or two runs around and gets some resources. But in our case, byt he time the aliens were building hteir first resource nodes and turrets, we had already assaulted both their hives and taken them. That's not bad strategy fro the aliens, that's pure SPEED on the marine's part. Nothing short of a coordinated skulk rush can defeat a team of relatively good marines, especially when they are holed up behind laser fences of tripmines and turrets.
There was a Gorge in the 2nd hive we took, if you remember. I'll bet he was saving to put up the hive, but we got there first =)
With a half-decent Alien team, by the time your marines had secured that hive room the Aliens would have had 2 - and most of the resource nodes on the map since you'd spent everything on that one hive room and on faking your base defense. Then it would have been a case of Fades vs un-upgraded marines, no contest.
Basically the Aliens had a crappy Gorge. With your entire team supposedly locked up in your base he should have run wild putting down res chambers everywhere, allowing him to plant the second hive very quickly (and no-doubt allowing him to discover what your plan was, from his wanderings around the map).
Teeth.
The hardest attack from the Kharaa will happen in the first minute of the game, before you've had time to build anything anyway. How you fight this off is debatable, but a decent marine team should have no problem fighting off that first attack. So after you fight that off, you decide you want to abandon that base and build another base? You've already secured your current base (which is just as defendable as any hive), you have a resource, and you have a command center and whatever else you built to help defend that base through the first wave. Why give that all up? Maybe if you happen along a disorganized group of stupid aliens you can trick them into believing that you are dead (even though you are respawning) and that there is no reason for them to go check out the hives at that point...
In my opinion the best way to work is to secure your base, and make a bee line for the hive furthest from the first alien hive, capping resources as you go. Making spawns and a command center in the base once you have it is an excellent idea, but not at the expense of your first base. Natural Selection, ESPECIALLY for the marines is about resources, and willingly giving up a resource, free equitment, and equitment that you have built using resources is just stupid.
As for "scouting" I hate to say it but right now, where you can hear hives beating, and resources sucking as commander, even though you can't see them makes scouting pointless. They need to get this fixed, but right now the aliens are a bit more powerful anyway, why not use the bug to your advantage.
And I completely agree with you strat about relocating your CC. I try to get my Comms to do it asap.
Lol that reminds me. Jumped into a server I play frequently todya on marine side. First thing i saw was a bile bomb drop on the infantry portal. Luckily i was off it by then. Well needless to say, I knew the locals so comm droped me and 2 others some HA HMG and Welders of doom. WPointed Sewer hive for us and told all else to defend. We slipped past the Onos' killed a couple Fades. Mowed through some offense towers and stumbled into the Sewer Hive location. 1 offense tower......My hopes soared. Took it out along wiht the def and movements then the 3 of us proceeded to weld the HIve down.
Took her and I thought I heard a turret factory spawn in. No, It was a CC.
By that time 2 Onos had made their way in there. I happened to check tab since that CC poped in, and yes the 3 of us were all that were left. I rushed for that CC jumped in. Watched my 2 brothers die and poped a infantry portal up on the walk way. I jumped out and WOOT Got it built. Killed one of 2 Onos. Then was trampled by the other one. Well I started cheering just for the fact taht my comm was smart enough to get thatt CC in there before the original went poof. We lasted for long enoug for 3 more marines to spawn. Although we didnt make a come back it was the closest ive eer been. I really cant remeber why I wrote this down, so Ill jsut say its to back up your idea of relocating <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ive rambled enough. Think its bedtime.
Guess not. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
It requires people to cooperate & listen to the commander.
I've yet to see a full marine team do that on a non-passworded server.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i've seen it once. when i was a n00b i didn't have a clue wtf i was doing... i joined a server and joined marines because i had no clue what aliens did or how they worked. one of the players commented "our commander kicks **obscenity**, he leads like stalin" and he was setting waypoints of stuff to build... we totaly raped the aliens hard core and the comm said "it's been great to lead you guys, you actually went to the waypoints and acted like a highly trained squad of marines"
well, after that, i've never actually played on a winning marine team. the comm is either a dumb **obscenity** or the team mates just don't listen to him <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
It is also important to make them put up lots of turrets in their main base. Every turret they need in main is one they can't afford to use on an expansion. In the late game, that doesn't matter as much, but if you can make them afraid of moving out early, you buy more time for the gorge.
A problem is that skulks should own the map early game, but in practice they tend to be clueless and walk around as if they don't know where to go (which is often true). Print a map of the levels, aliens! ns_nancy is a great level if you have a map, you can get nearly anywhere using vents. As a skulk, you can rule that map the whole game long unless the marines are very good at securing vents. On a game I played recently, the marines had defended all chokepoints they could walk though well, but using the vents I could drop into their main base at will, crawl behind a turret factory or resource node and start biting. Marines don't seem to like it when they move from their base to the mess hall and suddenly they get attacked by a skulk coming from their own base.
Mess hall is a very important area to have when you're marines, as you can use it as an acces point to every hive. But some marines mistakenly assume that just because they can't get far without mess hall, the aliens won't be able to get to their base without it either. That may be true for Onos, but skulks and lerks do get everywhere.
So, aliens, map those vents, it's not easy (I do get lost sometimes), but on some maps the vants allow you to attack almost everywhere. ns_nancy is the best vent map (can get almost everywhere without ever using a normal room), but even on other maps they often offer a great way to bypass most defenses. Even the alien-unfriendly ns_bast offers some good paths if you know them. (see overhead maps thread). Only ns_eclipse makes this less important, because there aren't many vents there.