THE OPENING TEAMS:
The opening teams can be seen in this pic here. By simple examination of the classes, one would think that team blue was setting up for a pretty even blitz of offense and defense with 2 engys and 2 scouts. The EOTL guys have a pretty good mix of classes (if a bit heavy on the snipers...).
THE OPENING PHASE:
Now this is what I call the 'opening phase' of the match. There is a critical period of about one minute when both teams are
scrambling to set up a defense, and are blitzing towards the enemy base in hopes of a quick capture while the D is
unprepared. This point in the match can set the tone for the next few minutes. If one team gets a flag touch and keeps the
pressure on, then it can cause the 'defensive' team to back up on its heels and lose the initiative. The dominant team in
this opening phase can have a decisive advantage for a short time if the other team does not put forth a strong showing.
Let's start with the red team - which is mostly comprised of clan EOTL. The pic below shows what team red was doing
during the first minute of the round in regards to defending their base. EOTL-Frootloops is a Demoman, and is defending the
ramp room with green pipes. Helping him out is the beefy EOTL-Ice who is heavy D as a soldier. EOTL-Ice is roving between
the ramp room and the main respawn deck, where i3-Spidey-Man has set up his sentry in a position where it can stop incoming
offense from the sniper deck and the 'grate'. This is a somewhat risky defensive setup in my opinion. Defending the ramp
room and the upper spiral door is chancy, and if a Medic slips past then you can pretty much bet that they are going to touch
the flag and move it some distance before you can stop them. Still, if the BLUE team doesn't put
up a strong opening offense, then it can work. Helping them in this effort are EOTL-VashtheStampede and EOTL-BCSquirrel on
the sniper deck as snipers. The snipers' purpose at this point is to weaken or eliminate incoming offense so the internal
base D doesn't have to work very hard. If the snipers do a good job, then some of these guys on D can swap to offense.
Looking good. This defensive setup should cause problems even for a determined offense.
So was blue's D comparable? The scoreboard doesn't lend hope, since two-fifths of team blue is light offense. A
sneaky-peeky at the blue setup confirms this. The only player on active defense is a little blue engy called meca. Blue has
another engy (shasha man), but he didn't set up his sentry in the opening, so he was a non-factor. Nighthawk (blue's sniper)
is outnumbered 2 to 1 by the red snipers, so he isn't helping much either. Meca is setting his sentry up in a decent enough
spot. His sentry is overhanging the gantry in the ramp room, and from there it can cover the sniper deck and whole ramp
room. However, it is easy to blow a sentry in this position unless there are others helping on D. Sadly, there weren't. To
make matters worse, blue's two scouts (Grease-cheese and Banzai) have not even left the respawn rooms. If they had made
quick offensive strikes into the red base at the elevator shaft they would have gotten the flag I think. However, they did
not so much as stick a nose out for a minute or two. This means that team Blue is (essentially) opening the match with only
2 active players (one of which is getting schooled on the sniper deck). Not good. Someone needs to grab blue by the
shoulders and wake them up. Clan EOTL ain't here to play patty-cake.
Well, Sgt. Hartman has given his directive. Team blue's D is weak, but the only red player on offense (in this opening
phase) is the lonely EOTL-PsychoManiac. As a medic, he has great mobility. He also knows his conc jumps, as the picture
below shows. EOTL-PsychoManiac chooses to bring the flag out the spiral, which turns out to be a bad idea. Meca (the blue
engy on D) is tenacious, and makes EOTL-PsychoManiac fight for every inch. It takes EOTL-Psycho no less than FOUR trips to
get the flag out of the blue base and onto the bridge. Once there, it is an inevitable capture.
Here is the scoreboard after the cap. Roughly three or four minutes have passed, and the teams have shifted somewhat as
well...
The
scoreboard shows that team Blue has gotten 3 more players - a medic named Dave, a sniper named Player, and a THIRD scout
named P. Exeter. You'll also notice that team Blue has NO heavy classes (soldiers, HW Guys). Team Red has gotten one more
player, a second soldier by the name of EOTL-Spiderman (not to be confused with I3-Spideyman the engy). Also, the board
shows that our Blue sniper Nighthawk is actually holding his own on the deck now with 4 kills (all enemy sniper kills
though). Everyone else on team blue doesn't seem to be doing jack except for Meca.
EOTL-PsychoManiac has learned from his first attack run. He has observed that the spiral is heavily defended by Meca, and
that moving the flag on the spiral is no easy chore. Therefore he has decided to attack the weakly defended elevator shaft
instead. Assisting him on the attack run is the newly arrived EOTL-Spiderman as heavy soldier O. EOTL-Spiderman clobbers
and distracts Meca while PsychoManiac makes a virtually uncontested flag capture. Red:20 and Blue:0.
You may wonder just exactly what the Blue team was doing during this obscene spanking. To be frank, I was curious myself.
It turns out that our earstwhile Shasha Man (engy) was on OFFENSE. This is dumb. Engys are weak and tend to only be good
on offense when they deliver a payload of EMP grenades to break a defense while OTHER offense gets through. Alas, for the
first minute or two, Shasha Man was the ONLY Blue offense. As the pic below shows, he spent half his time setting up
offensive sentries at the Red base's main entrance - only to have them instantly blown up by Red Defense. Towards the end,
Shasha Man got a bit of help (finally) from Grease-Cheese (scout). However, the pic clearly shows that the Red D was more
than up to the challenge of dealing with an engy and a scout.
THE MAIN GAME:
We now move from that short point of time in the beginning of the match into the 'main game'. The main match is an ebb and
flow battle that changes from moment to moment and it VERY hard to keep track of in terms of reporting due to the fact that
there are so many players and so much going on. However, you can probably guess how this match is going to shake out from
the first few minutes. Team Red is going to be all over team Blue like ugly on an ape.
Team Red's performance at this time is quite interesting. I am not going to give you a cap-by-cap listing of how they
clocked Blue. I am instead going to show you Flag Capture Number Six. Cap Six is highly educational and illustrative. Pay
close attention to see how this game should be played.
The picture above shows a cool little sequence. The first part of the pic in the upper left shows THREE red offense
players in the enemy basement. They are RIGHT in the flag room! EOTL-Frootloops, VashtheStampede, and PsychManiac are in a
nice little clot together. This is how you want to be when you are on offense. When you are in a group you can protect each
other, get healed by a Medic, and generally stomp your way through weak defense. The three EOTL guys start moving the flag up
the spiral.
The second pictures shows what they were up against. About this time Team Blue got a defensive clue with the arrival of
two new players, Malachai and Dave. Both Malachai and Dave went heavy Defense as soldiers and generally gave the Red Offense
a hard time. Soldiers are a royal pain on the spiral, and these two were no exception. Malachai and Dave showed that they
also were not newbies. They stuck to their duty, and killed Red Offense like flies.
But take a good hard look at the THIRD picture (upper right). This picture was taken with the 'mini-map' function of the
new observer mode. In it you can clearly see (pointed at by red arrows) the presence of several red 'dots' in the enemy
base. These 'dots' are red players coming for that dropped flag... IN A GROUP! Yup. Malachai and Dave have a tough row to
hoe. When enemy O comes in a bunch, you can generally stop one of them. Maybe even two. But FOUR?!? Not likely. At best,
you are going to slow them down, but not stop them. And that is exactly what happened. Pic four (lower left) shows one of
the Red O as they got past the Blue D. Pic five (lower middle) shows the map at the time of the flag touch. Red is STILL in
a group, and the Blue D is nowhere close by. Pic six (lower right) shows the final escape as a joyful EOTL-PsychoManiac
concs back to base with the goods.
Here is a pic that shows the EOTL boys like to work together a little TOO closely sometimes... :) Don't drop the soap...
But irregardless of their possible gayness, EOTL knows how to effectively mount an offense (no pun intended). Cap Number Six
is not an isolated incident. The whole 'main' portion of the match has EOTL swarming all over the blue base like black on a
bowling ball. Blue needed to work as a team to set up a defense strong enough to stop the invasion of multiple enemy
players. Blue had skilled players, but individually they could not stop the flood of reds.
Now for contrast, let's take a look at the ENTIRE Blue Offensive effort. Don't worry - it won't take long... :) Blue's
offense relied entirely on chance openings in the Red Defense, stumbled upon by lucky individual players.
The match was at about the 12 minute mark, and our little blue scout GreaseCheese has
maintained a posture of weakling light offense. Team red (to this point) has had a pretty stiff defense. However, Red seems
to decide all of a sudden that defense isn't necessary (since they are ahead 6 caps to 0). ALL the Red team goes offense at
this point. The Red team had 3 Medics, 2 soldiers, a demoman, and a sniper. No engys, and no one playing a defensive role.
GreaseCheese slides up the ramps and PAUSES. He sat there for about 20 seconds. Then he goes down the spiral and PAUSES at
the bottom spiral exit (see pic). He then grabs the flag, goes up the spiral, and PAUSES at the grate above the main
entrance. All in all it took him about 1.5 minutes to make this first cap for blue - as a scout - with NO red defense.
Yeesh! It should have taken him all of about 20 seconds.
Picture number one in the pic to the right shows a stupid spy by the name of
BronxCriminal. He is just feigning death in front of the Red upper respawn room. He's just sitting there. Doing NOTHING
FOR TEN MINUTES! AIGH! Red had no D at this point! He could have capped 3 times! But he's just sitting there like an
idiot! AIGHakdfjkd#%^$3~!
Sorry. I needed to go get a Prozac there. Anyway, a blue medic by the name of Player strolls unopposed into the Red flag
room. Now for those who don't know, 'Player' is the default name in Half-Life. Someone named 'Player' is either a total
newbie or a veteran who want's people to THINK he is a total newbie. Well, it doesn't take long for us to see which one THIS
particular Player is. He gets the flag, and merrily runs back to his base. But he doesn't know WHERE to cap his flag! The
2Fort cap point is on the sniper deck, but Player runs the flag to his basement and tries in vain to cap it by touching his
own flag. If he was playing Unreal Tournament CTF, this might have worked. Alas - he wasn't and it didn't. This went on
for about FIVE minutes! Player started scrambling all over the base like a jacked up gerbil. Thankfully he ran smack into
EOTL-Spiderman who slaughtered him like a pig. A Blue solly picked up the flag a second later and capped it, bringing Blue's
score to 20. The blue letters with 'Player' display his statistics. He has killed NEGATIVE four people, and died 32
times.
Believe it or not, the Blue team at this point outnumbered the Red team almost 2 to 1! This explains (perhaps) why Red's offense was not moving
as quickly as one would expect in a match this lopsided. Nighthawk is doing quite well - he has 48 kills all from sniping.
Malachai is also very good as heavy D. 38 kills, NO captures, and all on defense! The bottom part of the scoreboard shows
team Blue has two newbie Demoman, and the celebrated Player (who has now gone engy). Red has 80 points, and Blue has 20.
Team Red is still geared up mostly for offensive runs.
Blue's last capture was quite amusing. (3)Player (who has gone Pryo) waltzed into the undefended Red base and carried the
flag all the way to the blue ramp room. However, as can be seen in the pic below, the Red Offense was ALL OVER the ramp room
when he got there. They butchered him like an Ohio cow, and started defending the Blue ramp room. Luckily the competent
Malachai was around to pick up the scraps and finish the capture.
The match ended (mercifully) soon after this with team Red making one
more capture to bring the score to RED - 90, BLUE - 30. This match would have been a total shutout if team EOTL hadn't
swapped to all offense and left the flag room wide open.
There you go ladies and gentlemen! This report is a very good schooling for what makes a team work well and what doesn't.
When you are attacking, PLEASE remember to try and coordinate your efforts with your teammates. You can be the most talented
player in the world, but if the opposing team is strong you are NOT going to break them on your own. Team Blue in this match
had several talented players, but they were not working as a group. Their individual efforts gave them sporadic captures,
and only semi-competent defense. However, when the EOTL guys attacked in groups they utterly overwhelmed the Blue Defenders.
It wasn't that Red was necessarily possessed of greater skill, it was just that 4 guys in a group WILL smear 1 or 2 guys
alone. So when the Blue D only showed up one at a time, the Red O was able to easily overcome them.
The reverse is true in the Red base. Blue's O was coming one at a time ('lone wolves') and were no match for the stiff
Red Defense in the beginning of the match. The three captures Blue got only happened because the Red team became completely
unconcerned with defense due to the fact that they were way ahead. Blue had some talent, but it was undirected and
uncoordinated.
So next time you find yourself in a TFC match, stop for a second and ask yourself, "Is what I'm doing helping the TEAM?"
If the answer is "No, you idiot!" then perhaps you had better start doing something else. Communicate with your team. Try
to set up a defense WITH other players instead of without them. Use the voice-chat to time your offense with other players.
And above all else, always remember to do EXACTLY what...
THIS HAS BEEN A "NAFARIAS SEZ" PRODUCTION!
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