He Who Has Two Hives Wins
Texas_Ranger
Join Date: 2002-11-24 Member: 9755Members
Join Date: 2002-11-24 Member: 9755Members
<div class="IPBDescription">at least 80- 90% of the time...</div> Ok,
Correct me if I am wrong, but I have been commanding for a few weeks now, even wrote a guide on it..
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=17&t=14018' target='_blank'>The Ultimate Newbies Guide to Commanding</a>
And after trying many tactics as both commander and an alien, I have come to the conclusion the best way to win is to take two hives immediately. I mean no dibble dabble with nodes, take two hives... As a bonus each hive has it's own node.
From an alien perspective, basically you want to secure a second Hive immediately and then harrass the hell outta the marines preventing them from expanding. Hell let them have that first hive, it ain't gonna do them much good at all. I mean once you have a small team of fades/lerks with umbra/rockets its pretty much the beginning of the end right?
Ok there are exceptions and on occassion I have seen both teams come back with only one or even more rare, no hives. This is rare and I have to say that holding/securing and defending two hives = guaranteed victory.... no matter which team you are on.
My new tactics as commander focus on this, and I am 3 wins 1 loss using these new tactics.. The loss was because we had no turret fact at base(observatory and phase gates first) and the skulks chomped my inf portals, then my inf, then me. I personally made a mistake that game and will never let it happen again.
So take two hives, its nearly fail proof plan. Hold them for 15 mins, and then morph/ upgrade and go to town.
Texas Ranger <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
Correct me if I am wrong, but I have been commanding for a few weeks now, even wrote a guide on it..
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=17&t=14018' target='_blank'>The Ultimate Newbies Guide to Commanding</a>
And after trying many tactics as both commander and an alien, I have come to the conclusion the best way to win is to take two hives immediately. I mean no dibble dabble with nodes, take two hives... As a bonus each hive has it's own node.
From an alien perspective, basically you want to secure a second Hive immediately and then harrass the hell outta the marines preventing them from expanding. Hell let them have that first hive, it ain't gonna do them much good at all. I mean once you have a small team of fades/lerks with umbra/rockets its pretty much the beginning of the end right?
Ok there are exceptions and on occassion I have seen both teams come back with only one or even more rare, no hives. This is rare and I have to say that holding/securing and defending two hives = guaranteed victory.... no matter which team you are on.
My new tactics as commander focus on this, and I am 3 wins 1 loss using these new tactics.. The loss was because we had no turret fact at base(observatory and phase gates first) and the skulks chomped my inf portals, then my inf, then me. I personally made a mistake that game and will never let it happen again.
So take two hives, its nearly fail proof plan. Hold them for 15 mins, and then morph/ upgrade and go to town.
Texas Ranger <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
its in my opinion that the marines should focus on 1 of 2 things:
1. Secure 2 hives asap to prevent fades owning your marines; or
2. Get heavy armor and guns asap to have your marines equiped to take out fades
then again, if the alien team is really smart theyll have a couple of lerks umbra'ing everything. so grenade launchers are very important too.
And Ackz, while the marines are rushing, the aliens could either defend and win, or go right in and smash the commander's chair. No commander = lose. No Infantry portals usually = lose. If the marines rush, chances are they didn't build anything. That or they only had time to build IP's, in which case there are no turrets so Skulks waltz in and kill IP's, screwing marines over.
My marines got a little nervous when I build 2 infantry portals, an armor, an observetory and laid out some mine packs and told them to mine the perimeter. After that, I sent them out of base without a turret factory....they were leery.
I had them advance to the first hive in hops, capping resource nodes along the way. I set up no defences on them either. We made the first hive, captured it without incident and THEN I built a TF and some turrest, plus phase gates back to base. I called them back to base and then started on a secondary route towards the second hive. (I had done a scanner sweep as soon as the observetory was up, so knew which one they started at), by this time my guys had motion tracking, a couple of shotguns and upgraded weapons and armor. They secured resource points along the way, only one of which I fortifed with some turrets because it was a choke point, then got near the second hive.
At this point, they had captured the second hive and some fades were starting to appear. NOW I had the resources, I knew the skulk attacks on base would end and we would see fades. One guy became my base sergeant and built and guarded at base and I was able to afford a LOT of turrets there.
The group (I kept them as one large group of about 6 guys) was then equipped with HA, HMG's and 2 Grenade Launchers....all with welders. By this time, I was averaging around 300-400 rp while spending. They then slowly, without siege, with me dropping health and ammo, walked up to the second hive and captured it. It was a pretty sight.
While this was going on, a bunch of skulks overran our base and destroyed the command chair, but I already had another at our forward base. I shot two of the skulks and phased gated out to the new base. The fades were killed off and my same group of guys (I didnt lose a single one) went and took the third hive. Game over. I ended the game with close to 2000 RP. I couldn't spend them fast enough.
Needless to say, the aliens had two hives and put up one hell of a fight. This was nearly a 2 hour game, but in the end it was tactics and planning that did them in. MOST of which was sucessful to the excellent marines under my command. They never once questioned my reasonings and kept following my orders.
Of course, I did something I noticed most commanders don't do. I gave them warning on the voice com when I saw something comming that they didnt. I also had door and elevators waiting for them. All in all, they all said I was the best commander they ever had! Seeing that this was my first attempt....I was quite pleased with myself!!
1) your team are newbs and constantly run off and die in HA/HMG eventually draining most of your rp and ruining your chances
2) Your Resource nodes become the snacks of wandering skulks and you spend more then your make trying to get them up and running
and
3) The aliens get two hives, amass with fades/lerk on both sides and destroy everything you have at that hive in a few mins, thus taking the 3rd and insuring total victory.
A lot of different tactics and strategies can be used for both teams, but in the end you have to work togeather as a team, conserve rp and hold chokepoints/ hives to win.
I still think he who has two hives and has them secured will win almost 90% of the time.. I mean if you had sent your elite troops into the second hive and run into endless walls of ot and dt. and walls of lame, it would have slowed your assualt down immensely and drained valuable resources while you build siege etc. And if the fades had attacked your original base and the hive you owned with the team they could have annihilated you defenses in a few mins.
Texas Ranger
Ive been in a game where the commander had us siege all the hives. It was great and we did it while there were having fades. Whats better is that we had no HA or HMG to fight them with. We rocked them. The key elements to that is we used phase gates and we had good teamwork defending the siege cannons (and while building them up).
But a good comander for the marines will see where the aliens are attacking from with the fades and strike the 2nd hive from behind with some seiges through the wall before the aliens even know there are marines on their flank. Also dont underestimate lightmachine guns, have a few marines together they can take out fades from range unlike hmgs which require you to be sitting up his **obscenity**.
The most intense part of the game is where the marines start getting hmgs and the aliens have fades.. its ment to be hard for both sides, its what makes it fun <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Texas Ranger<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They did exactly that. Two grenade launchers make short work of "walls of lame". It has to be the most underutilized weapon in the game. When they got extra tough, I didn't build a bunch of siege guns, I built an armory. When they were done with that wall, I recycled the thing and they moved on. The fades DID attack my original base, and they eventually (with skulks and lerks) took our my CC, but I had a back up.
Second note, I dont think I build more than about 4 siege turrets the entire game. And when I did, I made them count. The only vauable resouce it drained was dropping grenades and health packs to my guys, which were a fair trade off for "walls of lame".
What I didn't do was waste vauable resorces buidling endless turret farms at each resouce node. I had tons of spare cash to assault their second hive. Thats all I did with it except building new turrets at my original base. I also chose WHICH hive to take first, the farthest one from thier first. Not only was it a long way to go, but they had to go through us to get there.
I guess the most important point when playing marines is that your best defense is a good offense. When a majority of the alien team started attacking my base, what did I do? I attacked their second hive. They took out my base, I took out their hive. Guess what, I didn't need that first base, but they sure as hell needed that second hive. Two hives guarentees nothing....for either side.
DON'T BE AFRAID OF FADES.
There, that's the whole trick in a nutshell. Two LA marines can take out a fade with HMG's easily. One HA/HMG can take out a fade or two. One good jetpack + HMG can take out a fade, or several if he's really good. Early on, when fades first come out, if you kill them off fast, they won't be able to go fade again for a while. Use this time to kill the second hive.
99% of the people I see post say that HA is a bazillion times better than jetpacks. But jetpacks cost a fraction of the cost of HA, and can give you amazingly powerful marine squads. Get 3 marines HMG's and a jetpack, and tell them to simply assault the hive head on. Fly through vents to avoid all the defense, hover around the hive, one clip from each and it is dead. Sooooo simple.
Odds are, those 3 will die on the reload, but it doesn't matter. The hive is down, 80 resources gone, it will take time for another to go up, and by this time the rest of the team should be busting down the door to the hive the normal way (with HA).
Give a marine a jetpack, and suddenly he isn't so easy to kill. And you can give out like 3-4 jetpacks for every HA.
(killed 5-6 hives today, jetpacking in and assaulting it directly).
Ravlen
After that, I usually move the team towards the second hive, if taken or not, secure it, then win the game. So far, my track record is 15 - 6. About 3 or 2 of those are because of bad beginnings, but usually if I take commander from beginning to end, the marines win. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
(Also, it's always best to have good marines that can actually hit a skulk or hear the footsteps to warn his teammates, otherwise you'll lose no matter how good of a commander you are if your marines are bad-shots.)
Oh, and I agree with Ravlen, just as I always say. If you have LA and LMG, just rush them. Make them have to go back and heal themselves to buy your commander or teammates time to build that turret, or reload, or get ammo for their HMG whatever. If you're a marine, worry about the long run. If you don't kill that fade soon, chances are it's going to rape whatever bases you have because the aliens can only go fade once when they get that hive up, then they have to save up resources again.
You get fade fast early on, because you had 33 res when the 2nd hive went up. Don't want to waste that! Run away, live to spit acid another day. That is, if you are alone. If you got support, go munch those marines... or if they are setting up siege, sometimes you need to make the sacrifice.
Ravlen
Fades are easily spooked indeed, 5 to 6 marines pushing forward with HMG/GL/HA/Welde, constant welding and healthpacks being spammed sure seems to scare them. I must say managing a large team of marines is as stressful as it gets, but definately the most rewarding experience if you do it right <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->:D:D
A few grenade launchers easily scares back those umbra spamming lerks, and the fades dont liek them either.
In a large game, I will upgrade/research the entire game, and then wait until I have about 200 resources and drop a massive package of gear in the main base. At this time I start the push to end the game while distributing several smaller packages to equip the other marines
My record, unfortunately, is only 4-4, but 2 of those have been in a row, and I am definately geting the hotkeys and such downpat. I plan on playing nothing but Commander whenever possible, and being a grunt whenever I join a game that already has a commander.
Edit: Fixed a dozen typos, missed a dozen others.
Marines can always secure one hive before the **obscenity** hits the fan. Going for two hives at the same time is just sheer folly vs a decent alien team. You won't have the resource for static defense at both hives so early and you won't have the manpower to secure two hives AND your main base, especially at the start.
Aliens should always keep a watchful eye on open targets like comm chair or resource points or blind spots in a turret factory and if your marines are busy babysitting a second hive, bye bye first hive and/or main.
If you don't have ALL (if teams are small) or most (if teams are big) of your marines at one place, they're going to die (except for those crackshot, badass, "who's your daddy" marines that needs at least 2 skulks to take down at the worse of times).
Some of these replies seems to be off topic from the original, since the first post is talking about an early game tactic, you won't have HMG/HA/Uber upgrades. A decent alien team will get fades by the time you place down a prototype lab, provided you have 1/1 upgrades and an upgraded armory.
Rushing a fade with a group of LA/LMG marines is indeed the best way to kill one. Rushing a GROUP of Fades with LA/LMG is .. funny. Some of you talked about forcing a fade to run back to a hive and heal by rushing him. More than likely, that fade will deal a load of damage to your group of marines before retreating. But while you're doing that, what do you suppose the rest of the alien team are doing? If they're not there with that other fade to clean up what he started, ie killing all your hurt marines, they're probably attacking your fortified hive or resource points. That's the soul of an alien team. Either they're distracting your squad and hitting key points, or they group up and arrowhead through your outposts.
It's really, REALLY hard to get the upside when you're dueling with competent fades. Aliens can get them fairly early, they can come with you in groups and splash the hell out of your slow **obscenity** marines with acid rockets while staying behind safe corners. Blink can get them back to a hive to heal in about 10-15 seconds from ANYWHERE on ANYMAP.
All that being said, fades usually travel alone or at most in 2s. If you can get around 3-4 marines to kamikaze a single fade with pistols, you'll more then likely kill him. It takes much longer for them to get back to fades than having 3 marines respawning. If you can hold out vs fades and not lose too many outposts, you will be able to either successfully siege a hive, or get at most 2 packs of equipment (HMG,HA,Welder).
Oh and Ralven, jetpacks, putting the faith of the game on them when aliens have fades like giving out mines to your marines. Saying this:
"There, that's the whole trick in a nutshell. Two LA marines can take out a fade with HMG's easily. One HA/HMG can take out a fade or two. One good jetpack + HMG can take out a fade, or several if he's really good. Early on, when fades first come out, if you kill them off fast, they won't be able to go fade again for a while. Use this time to kill the second hive."
Just tells me that you've never played a game vs any decent aliens before. A decent fade will wipe the floor with your two LA/HMG marines and still be above half health, since a decent fade will just be doing potshots at your turrets and not getting anywhere near marines. A single HA/HMG will usually die horribly to a fade. Fades run twice as fast, which means he can just curve around corners and snipe your HA/HMG until he falls over. Jetpack/HMG might be able to solo a fade if you have at least 2/2 upgrades and that's counting your marine is a badass with a jetpack, otherwise he'll just die to acid rockets. Expecting JP/HMG to take on several fades is unwise, to say the least. (Of course it could happen depending on luck and whether or not said fades are running back to heal from a heavy encounter).
I think that's about all I wanted to say =)
I saw all those posts and just had to reply. Oh, btw, biteys are badass...
However, I think there is another key, secondary factor when considering the takeover of a hive at any time.
Whenever the marines take over a hive, they usually forfeit the considerations of advancing their strategic hold on a territory (i.e. towards an existing hive), and work more towards gaining ground in lands far from their own base). That leaves more resource nodes for the gorges to take over. Some maps even have resource nodes in the center of the map, and usually taking a hive means foregoing the inevitable taking of said bonanza (not true in all maps, and both can be done at the same time, except it takes more time). I've played numerous games where marines have lost due to one factor: resources. I really feel like I am at a point where I can almost determine victory based on the number of nozzles I hold at one point, and whether or not I possess at least one hive. Sure, call it arrogance at its finest, but if I am able to satisfy my marine's needs for weaponry, as well as upgrading weaponry/armor fast enough to prevent regular marines from becoming fodder, then the balance of power has significantly shifted for the marines.
Basically, I think a lot of games come down to whether or not who can get what counter fast enough:
Fade counter basic marines. Nuff said.
HMGs counter fades (to a certain extent)
Heavy armor + HMGS = tank. So long as marines are on the offensive, fades can't really do anything to stop them (esp if they have welders), much less delay their inevitable takeover of a hive.
The reason I think that most aliens are able to successfully counter the marines in the resource game is for 2 reasons:
1) Aliens are more independent-minded than marines are. For every 1 resource node getting raped by a marine that I encounter, I can usually remember 2 such incidents happening with skulks against a marine resource node. Skulks don't need orders to know to go off and rape a marine outpost--they just do it. Some marines, on the other hand, are so commander-dependent that even if they hear a gorge building around the corner, they'll just sit tight, not even look around the corner, or even tell the comm what they hear. That really sickens me. Marines should have some level of autonomy that is supported by the commander. Yes, supported. Sure, guns and armor counts as support, but marines are the frontline eyes and ears of the commander when he's not paying attention. After all, he's only human.
2) Alien regeneration is free. Since when was a health pack ever free? Personally, I believe putting down health packs for base level marines is worthless, especially early on. Resources early on I use for building outposts, and if a marine dies, tough. I save health packs when there's something important on the line, or if the value of the equipped marine is far greater than the loss of a few RP thanks to a healthpack (an upgraded armor/weaponed marine can expect to get healthpacks from me, and even a welder to fix his buddies). Anyways, aliens are the ultimate hit-and run tacticians. They can hit any outpost that is unmanned, and with the turrent factory being the everpresent achilles' heel, its sometimes just a matter of time before an alien takes one out (given a high enough level of regen and/or a commander working his marines on the opposite side of the map).
These two factors, I believe, give aliens the edge when it comes to initially holding the second hide with greater ease than marines (the first factor holds true even with one hive), simply because they're not as resource dependent. Heck, outfitting a ha + hmg is 50 full resources (research costs aside), a fade only costs 44 +4 for adrenaline and regeneration to be fully potent. Even 1v1, the outcome between a fade and said marine is questionable...to the extent where victory is only really assured when you have your entire squad well-equipped.
On the same note...most people believe that it's game over when the aliens reach the third hive. Not true at all. If the team sizes are larger than 7+ people, then raping enough alien resource nodes and claiming them for your own should delay onos long enough to secure a hive. Granted, this won't stop the gorge who's been saving all his RP the entire game from going onos, but one onos is far easier to deal with than, say, 7. If marines fight with greater than or equal killing potential to the aliens, then advantage two dissapears, as fades and other aliens (sans the onos) die really fast from hmg fire, and the average marine life expectancy thanks to heavy armor becomes far better than the fade's with regen--so long as he has a buddy welding him.
Its all about how much resources you have. If taking a hive was a basic contest between skulks and marines without any weapon/upgrade advantages, i'd just be a contest of who can kill who better. With better upgrades come a real, significant advantage that leads to your team's victory.
Second, just to reiterate:
Going for two hives at once is folly unless you're playing some stupid aliens. Sure, most maps do have several junction points that, when secure, split off into 2 hives, but that by no means makes the task of taking, and DEFENDING two hives given factor 1 easy, especially if you want to capitalize on your advantage with better guns and stuff to prevent alien advantage factor #1 from degrading all your outposts to junk metal. Early on, securing two hives is just silly tactically because: a) It leaves too many important junctions insecure, including your main base, and b) you suffer from a lack of resources that WILL kick your **obscenity**, due to the alien's ability to harass almost any marine outpost would force you on the defensive / slow/stop any offensive forces that you have, giving the aliens more time to chomp away and recoup from a potentially bad situation.
The best means of countering aliens, I think, is to find the right balance between the number of nodes you take, and how fast you take the first/second hives. Once you have that down, you'll be able to outfit your marines with the right stuff to press onwards and keep your offensive tank rolling like this: <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->