Author: Rebem
Modified: August 29, 1998 - 09:38:04 PM
Created: August 29, 1998

Note that this is a work in progress so there are blank sections yet to be filled in. Please let me know if you have anything to add or change via email.

Here are the section links:

Positions
Defence
Offence
Resources
Maps
Techniques
Summary

Positions

These are the formal names we use for offence and defence positions. The Best Techs are really only guidelines and their use should be balanced up against the situation at hand. Make sure you use the abbreviations (in brackets) when yelling out what position you’ll take. We need defensive players first and foremost, so if you’re thinking of changing during the game, make sure we have an RD and BD at least.

Flag Carrier (FC)

This is the guy that grabs the flag and runs with it (obviously!). It isn’t necessary to say that this guy HAS to get the flag and no one else can, moreover he’s the one who is the designated carrier. Often this is really the first of FC, FE and Freelance to make it to the flag so you have to make sure you’re ready to swap roles.

Best Tech : Attacking players should never enter an enemy base with a tech.

Flag Escort (FE)

FE’s job is to stay with the flag carrier at all costs. You never leave his side, except to throw yourself in front of incoming defence. It’s a very selfless role in that you must leave ammo, armour and health for your FC, and must be willing to die defending him. Remember, the worst thing you can do in this role is to gobble up all the resources around your FC, and then piss off and leave him alone!

Best Tech : Attacking players should never enter an enemy base with a tech.

Freelance

Well this guy does just about everything. His role is to do everyone else’s role. He can be an FC one moment, then swing around and shore up the defence, then over to camping with the rail-gun to pick off attackers the next. It’s important that this guy listen in carefully to his team communications. Defence should call the Freelance guy back if they need him, but must release him if it eases off. He must be allowed to do his own thing. I gave three examples of what he might do, here are a few more; gather resources for defenders, cause havoc in the middle areas of maps, go on flag sorties of his own usually via alternate routes to the FE and FC, act as the bait in offensive moves.

As the quad has become so valuable in games against the better clans, it’s usually a good ploy to have the Freelance player just hang around the quad spawning area. Once the quad appears, grab it and return it to base ASAP so the attackers can get hold of it.

Best Tech : Probably any of them but he should be giving up Strength and Accelerate for the defensive players. Remember that techs respawn OUTSIDE the flag rooms where defence can rarely get them.

Base Defence (BD)

The captain never leaves his sinking ship, and BD does similar. The whole idea of BD is NEVER to leave the base. So often I’ve seen all defenders run out of a flag room chasing the opposition’s FC, only to recover the flag and allow another attacker free rein of the flag room. Usually this guy does your typical sniping/camping trick by picking off incoming enemy using a strength tech boosted rail-gun or rocket launcher – VERY effective. The only way BD can leave his post is to go grab resources, and only after announcing the fact to the accompanying RDs in the room.

Best Tech : Strength – as last line of defence, he has to hit them hard.

Roaming Defence (RD)

RD must be an agile fighter, ready to get right into the midst of a firefight. His primary goal is to ensure that no enemy get into the flag room. Failing that, he chases the enemy FC until the flag is recovered or he dies in the process. Must be quick with communications because often other team members can help out with the chase. Like the attacking roles, this one is highly likely to get killed many times.

Best Tech : Accelerate

Defense

Flag Recovery

It’s primarily the job of the RD to recover the team’s flag from the enemy. Some of you are going to question this thinking, but I’ll try to explain why this should be the case. Firstly it’s usually RD who’s doing the chasing of the enemy FC so they’re often in the best position to grab it back. If this fails (i.e. the RD gets gibbed) it’s down to the other players to get it while he restocks. Our FC and FE are usually to busy trying to grab the enemy flag, and so they should be because without their flag, they can’t capture. So as soon as our flag gets grabbed, our attackers should go for it even harder. This leaves Freelance and RD to recover with BD staying at base. With the FE and FC back at our base after grabbing their flag, we have 3 defenders essentially, probably better than it started off with. Bottom line – RD and Freelance recover lost flags.

Offence

Techs

Recently we’ve found that it’s far better to have offensive players drop their techs in OUR base. The reason for this is simple. When you play offence, you expect to die most of the time. Not all of your attacks will be successful, and if you happen to be carrying a tech when you land in the enemy base and get fragged, guess where the tech stays? That’s right, just in front of the enemy defence who are just as desperate for techs as our defence (who rarely get to go outside the base and into the tech spawning areas). So, if you have a tech and you’re on offence, leave it behind!

Coordinated Attacks

Simultaneous attacks by two separate squads is very effective in most maps. With weaker clans, you can often send a single squad in crashing through the front door, take out the defenders and grab the flag. Unfortunately this approach will fail dismally against a strong clan with good defensive players.

The Hammer and Nail defence has its offensive compliment whereby the attackers work in a squad of 3, sending one person in ahead of the others to distract and weaken the defence. After several seconds of melee the remaining two attackers come in to finish off and grab the flag. Again, not a bad strategy against the weak to medium clans but will often fail against the stronger ones.

A better way of attacking is to use multiple entries to the base area and coordinate the attack using say_team binds. As an example, Freelance would run towards the alternate entrance and when in position shout something like "Set" to his team mates. FE and FC move into position near the main entrance but just out of site and also yell "Set". One of the attackers then yells "Go" and Freelance jumps into the area firing madly at defenders. Only a second or so later and FE and FC storm in with FC aiming straight for the flag and nothing else. FE and Freelance should be drawing most of the fire, and should be returning it like madmen. FC concentrates solely on the flag then gets the hell out of there. This tactic is perfect for levels like McKinley where the Freelance alerts the defenders as soon as he leaves the water (*splash*), so while the defenders look towards the tunnel and fire off rockets / grenades, FE and FC run down the hall as quietly as possible and hopefully surprise the defenders.

Resources

We all need resources to stay on top of our allocated positions in the game. Often these resources can be shared around by dropping them for other players. To this end, we came up with an alias which allows us to choose from a group of items to drop using one key, then drop using another. At the moment we can drop techs through another alias, but this one cycles between 5 rockets, 50 cells and the Power Shield. An even more complex alias developed recently maps 5 keys; one for selecting ammo to drop, one for item selection, one for weapon, one to drop the selected item/ammo/weapon and one for dropping every type of ammo at once.

By the way, you won’t see any mention here of the BFG. Its use is considered very poor form nowadays so none of us use it. Also, I won’t be explaining what each resource does because you can find that kind of info anywhere on the web.

Techs

In CTF or LMCTF there are four basic techs. Strength and Accelerate tend to be defensive techs because of the way defence often fights enemy from a distance, then progressively up closer. There’s nothing worse than getting fragged by your own rockets because you fired a strength boosted one into the wall next to you…all while carrying the flag!!

Our attackers no longer use techs unless they encounter them on their way to the enemy base. It’s far better to leave them behind in our base and deny the enemy while helping out defence.

We have a "drop tech" alias available which when bound to a key and pressed, drops the tech you have and tells your team where you dropped it. In a game of CTF which is going to plan, the player would drop their tech next to someone on the same team who needs it. However team mates aren’t always within sight so it’s handy to hear where it is.

Remember – attackers give up their techs to defenders when they return to base normally. Don’t turn around and return just because you picked one up during a raid!

Armour / Power Shield

Well, more importantly the Power Shield in this section, because I’m not sure if you can drop normal armour and why do it anyway? The PS only re-spawns every now and then and you can carry more than one, so it’s important to drop them off to team mates when they require them. Our drop alias does this.

Defenders should concentrate on throwing any excess PSs to respawned players. This is especially important for attackers who go into the enemy base techless. A bit of communication is required here, with attackers announcing their intentions and defence helping them out.

Quad

Quads can be dropped! Not a bad idea for the Freelance guy to scoop up the quads and drop them back at base for the defenders. Both attackers and defenders can benefit from this type of activity though. Especially effective on Q2CTF3 (Smelter) where often you find the FC holed up above the flag room hovering over the quad re-spawn location. This can be a good defensive point as well, so defenders here would get access to multiple quads to drop off to other players.

Ammo

The only types of ammo really worth passing on to other players is rockets and cells. Usually these are the two rarest types of ammo available and the most used. Defenders tend to be able to collect plenty of ammo between attacks, however it’s not always the case because they often have to travel outside the base area to get it. On levels where ammo is plentiful to defenders, they should use their drop alias to restock attackers when they return to base. Remember to bind a key to say_team "Ammo Needed" or something like that. A quick "roger" from the other defending / attacking player, and you can go collect some outside of your allocated area. If an FE or FC puts out the "Ammo Needed" call, the other guy should follow him while he collects so as not to weaken the attack squad.

A tactic employed recently had one RD collecting ammo for the other defenders. As soon as they asked for it, he’d cough the lot up in front of them. Worked very well!

Maps

The numbers you see appearing in brackets are the suggested number of defensive / offensive players based on 4, 5 and 6 team players. So for example, Defence (2 3 3) would mean when the team consists of 4 players the defensive squad should be 2, when 5 are playing there should be 3 in defence, and with 6 players 3 defenders are needed. Obviously maps that are easier to defend will have a lower defence ratio. These values are start-up values ONLY. If a weaker clan is encountered you should release the Freelance player or change a defender to attack.

Q2CTF1 (McKinley Revival)

Notes

Escaping with the flag is made easier by exiting via the sniper room down the elevator (crouch and grapple out using the first beam in view on the roof).

Defence (2 2 3)

Two to three standard positions for defence in McKinley. Normally RD will stand on the platform leading up to the flag. From here he has a clear view down the entry hall and can turn to fire at the water tunnel, all without moving. The second position is up with the chain-gun using a zoom down the entry hall. This is a sniping position using the rail-gun and helps if used in conjunction with the strength tech. There are a couple of other positions which can be used – above the entry hall doorway to drop down behind attackers, up the top in the corner where the cells and rockets re-spawn. Visibility from these two positions is quite poor though. Another area to use is around the crates at floor level. Cover is excellent here however you need to be an accurate shooter and can really only view the entry hall.

Offence (2 3 3)

Two simultaneous attacks work quite well in McKinley. Freelance should make his way into the enemy’s water entry tube but be careful not to jump out of the water (thus alerting the defenders with the splash sound). FE and FC should assemble just before the corner in the main entry hall. Freelance goes first to distract the defenders, but he shouldn’t have to do much more than jump in and out of the water to make the splash sound. If the defence are smart enough, they’ll hear it and start firing that way. If they don’t, climb up the ladder and go crazy.

Q2CTF2 (Stronghold Opposition)

Notes

Defence (2 3 3)

Offence (2 2 3)

Q2CTF3 (The Smelter)

Notes

Defence (2 3 3)

Offence (2 2 3)

LMCTF04 (Bloodbath)

Notes

The Quad damage artefact is in the slime right under the rail-gun in the middle of the map. Once you’re in the slime, head right for the Quad and escape using the teleporter.

Defence (2 2 3)

There are really two ways of defending this base – aggressive or passive stance. With the passive stance, two or more defenders wait in the base for someone to drop in and grab the flag. Best positions are one at each side entrance to the base area. From there they can see attackers coming through the doors at the top, and can hear them coming out the jump tube. Once they have the flag, shoot them and return it.

The aggressive stance seems to be working quite well in clan matches so far. This is where the RD stands directly at the bottom of the jump tube and watches the bottom door. The BD (or preferably another RD) should stand above him on the top walkway watching the top door. Usually the action comes from below so the RD at the bottom fires off a couple of rounds, which alert the top guy to the attack. He can then drop down and defend or fall back into the base. Either way you stop the attack before it hits the base. If it gets a bit hot down the bottom, all the RD has to do is jump and he’s back in the base.

Offence (2 3 3)

You really need plenty of attackers for this map, and if they coordinate their attack it can be devastating. One attacker should always grab the Quad while the others wait. He can then either throw the Quad to them (because he’s vulnerable with lowered health) or restock health in the jump tube chamber. Be careful though because jumping through the tube with Quad running and low health can be a bonus for waiting defence.

Once you’re ready to go, I’d suggest a two pronged attack, at least one from the top and one from the jump tube. Preferably the guys up the top attack first to draw the defence away while the third guy waits for the screams, then jumps and runs with the flag.

As an advanced attack, you could use the tube to your advantage. Leave one attacker down the bottom while another jumps and grabs the flag. The FC then grapples back into the tube (while the doors are open – be quick!) and drops the flag down to the waiting attacker who scoops it up and runs back to base. Takes a bit of skill on behalf of the jumper but can pay off easily. Oh yeah, then the jumper should release and fall back into the enemy base to cause a bit of mayhem.

LMCTF08 (Frozen Waste)

This level is really difficult to explain in words. The map is made up of two large base areas with a middle run of interconnected rooms and two outer runs of interconnected rooms. In the middle are three main rooms with two open areas. Each side of the outer passages has three rooms as well, connected via tube walkways. The sides are pretty much mirror images of each other.

Notes

Quad located in middle room of outer run (grills on floor containing water) on right hand side out of Red base. PS located under bridge in open area in middle run, and also in ceiling holes in outer runs (not sure which room though!).

Defence (2 3 3)

Three entries so this one is difficult to cover in defence, but this is a bonus for the attack squad of course.

Offence (2 2 3)

Techniques

General

Gaining Attention

The general way of gaining attention on the playing field (for EvEm players anyway) is to look at the guy(s) and jump up and down madly. When you leave your control keys to type in something like "Hey, watch this" it leaves you open to attack. A simple jump attracts their attention and allows you to demonstrate things without having to type. When you see someone doing this, try to give them the time to see what they’re pointing out. It may be the Power Shield which they already have, more ammo for you because they’re full etc.

Rearming

Try to rearm yourself back at our base. This serves two purposes. Firstly it gives us a greater defensive force in a single regroup area. Anything that makes it harder for the enemy to penetrate the base is worth doing. The other reason to do it is to deny enemy attackers resources close to our base. Outlands (Q2CTF4) when playing the blue team is a classic example of this because the enemy could eliminate our defence then rearm themselves inside the base before grabbing the flag and escaping. If defence fails it should have at least weakened the enemy FC, but if there are resources around and no other defensive players, they can do what they like.

It is tempting to run into the enemy base once you respawn, and quickly grab their flag, but against a good defence this will fail. It also racks up as a frag for the opposition.

Defence

Denial

This is actually a defensive technique but can be used by any player in the team. The point is to deny the opposition key resources. The quad collecting by the Freelance and RD has been mentioned earlier but this goes one step further. Bandoliers, backpacks and high-end armour should be scooped up at every opportunity. The best time to grab these items is when you’re running around setting up an attack, or collecting resources in general. All players should try to do it, but look out for members of your own team who may actually need the items and give them preference.

Offence

Decoy

Try to draw the defensive units of the enemy out from their base or flag room. Not only will this assist the simultaneous attack but may isolate a defender and rack up a frag for the team. To enact the decoy, you’ll probably need to make some noise, or do a streak. Your classic streak means that you simply run through an area inhabited by the enemy and hope that their rockets don’t connect (if you get the chance, a quick taunt doesn’t go astray!). It isn’t necessary to actually engage the enemy during the run however once you’ve dragged them out of their area, you should engage then. The best way to make noise is to let loose a rocket or two, or jump in and out of water.

FC

Grenade Trail

This great little alias drops a trail of grenades behind you as you run, without having to fire them off or do anything special. Very effective against pursuing defenders but has to be managed carefully so you don’t blow yourself or your FE up in the process! All you need is a stock of grenades, the launcher and the alias bound to a key. Some usage tips: make sure you switch it off before you run out of ammo, just as you switch it off stop running forward then restart again otherwise you get stuck on the spot, avoid walls!

180 Turn

One of the best ways to surprise a chasing enemy is to spin around to face them, but continue running away from them. It takes a bit of practise, but here’s what you do: run forward, release the forward key and spin 180degrees, start running backwards and fire at will. Of course this action has to take place quick enough to make it a fluid motion, so you’ll need to practise it heaps.

A couple of variations – After running around a corner, turn 180 degrees and stand still but fire at the spot where you expect them to appear. Continue firing and you’ll be surprised by the number of players who wait for one or two rockets to pass, then run around the corner. The other variation is to go around the corner, spin 180 degrees and let loose a couple of rockets to cause splash damage to anyone chasing, then turn again and keep running. This second one should almost be common practise and is used by several of the EvEm players as a standard manoeuvre.

Grapple

Many people forget that you travel much faster while grappling. Another feature of the grappling hook is that you tend to go faster still if you’re in the air, so grapple and jump whenever you can. Make sure you perfect grappling while you’re running. There’s no easier target to hit than someone standing still to aim and grapple up out of harms way. That 2 second pause is usually fatal.

Summary

If you can’t be bothered reading through the whole text, or need a refresher, check out these points as a minimum:

• Five positions – Flag Carrier (FC), Flag Escort (FE), Freelance, Base Defence (BD), Roaming Defence (RD)
• Freelance does as he likes but must respond to calls for help
• RD is the flag recoverer, BD never leaves the base
• Coordinate attacks by using two squads through separate entrances
• Call "Ammo Needed" and wait for "Roger" from partner before leaving your post to collect ammo
• On initial spawn, Freelance should grab the quad ASAP and continue to deny it from the enemy (or RD if the quad is close to base)
• Watch for team members jumping up and down – they’re trying to attract your attention or point out something
• Deny the opposition any resources that you can scoop up
• Return to base to rearm
• Don’t attempt suicide runs to get the flag
• DEFENCE should always come first – if you’re an FE, FC or Freelance and our defence is dead, WAIT before attacking
• Attackers must drop techs in our base to deny the enemy