STRATEGY Common strategies used in INL games ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Joseph E. Beck" Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: INL strategy guide Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 19:39:35 -0400 The At Large Strategy Guide I'd like to preface this with two comments. First, these strategies have been designed so there is a minimal amount of message sending needed. I'm sure there are improvements that can be made to them if you have large numbers of players in the same room. Second, very little of this is actually my ideas, mostly it's from talking with other people and reading some posts. Credit goes to: Red Shirt woof ZZnew guy Wreck Bav MUCUS PIG FillInTheBlank Sorry if I forgot to mention you. A lot of this will be intuitive to many people. But there are new teams forming with the return of the college people in the fall. If I missed something meaningful, or totally blew the space control description, send me some email. This was supposed to be a "strategy" guide, but to a large extent wound up being a ship level tactics guide. To be honest, I don't see the difference, but the person who asked me to write this may have been expecting something different :-) Opening bombing run: I'm going to write this section assuming there is a 17 army start, don't try to use this for a 30 army game! Standard plan: Attack: To bomb enemy core planets initially SC's work best. They are fast so can make it enemy core worlds (hopefully) before killed enemies reappear to scum them. 4 SC's to bomb the enemy core is a good number. You will also want to AS bomb the front line on the first wave, this has two benefits: -their front planets are weakened (more than normal, since an AS is doing the bombing) and easier to take. -it is tougher for them to scum initially since they must return to core to get armies. Defense: There are 3 ships remaining for defense of armies, obviously one of these should be a SB. The other two should be in CA's and act as follows: CA-1 acts as pressor fodder to get the SB to a planet and then defends the 2 worlds the SB will return too. CA-2 helps make sure the 2 worlds won't be bombed, and should be able to save one advanced planet if the opponent doesn't AS bomb it. SB picks up from 1 or 2 planets and then sits between 2 planets to guard the army stockpile. Ideally you'll have your base sitting near an AGRI. Red shirt plan (feel free to correct it, this is from memory): Attack: Same Defense: SB picks up from 2 worlds and advances to front line. CA-1 acts as pressor fodder, may be able to save a core planet. CA-2 guards front line planet. This is useful if you have a good base, since you have the benefit of a LOT of extra firepower up front. If your base isn't quite as good you'll have to use the armies quickly. 1 CA should stay back to guard the saved planet (more on this later). Mid game tactics: First, the basic plan. It has the advantage that you don't need a good base, or very flexible SC players. I'll start off with the SC bombers, generally any number from 1 to 3 is considered normal. If you're feeling daring and want to crush them up front using 1 is good, and if you feel outclassed you probably want 3. In general the SC bombers are not responsible for bombing front line planets since they are easily scummed if they attempt this. Note: if you use the 3 bomber plan you'll probably want the bombers to bomb the front at least some of the time. If your SB isn't very good (many INL teams shove some poor, unwilling player into it), and you want to keep it alive let it stay in your core. Stick it between your core AGRI and the nearest planet and let it farm armies to be used later. Everyone else should get into a CA and "space control". I didn't have a really good idea about what this meant until about 5 months ago, and I'm still not good at it, but here are the basics: A long long time ago someone in California realized that chasing enemy ships just didn't work. He put a note in the motd so new players wouldn't try to do this. About a year ago someone realized that if the enemy is running at you, and you're moving slowly you have a similar effect. So the idea is to get to the contested planet first, and then wait for your taker to arrive (instead of the old method where a fleet rushed over with the taker). This way, if you get there first you can get into position in front of the planet and the enemy has to go *through* you if they want to kill the taker. This is one reason ogging has declined, it is tough to dodge through 4 CA's (especially since phaser locking has improved). Under this system the position of your ship is of great importance, it is often better to live with a wounded ship (even if you won't pick up armies). The main job of the space controller are: hanging around front line to escort, break up escort harassing enemy SC bombers bombing enemy front using armies on front line using armies in core if no SC person has a kill crushing (almost) anything in your space when you reenter The escorting part is fairly easy, sit between their planets and their homeworld and wait. If they don't attack you, eventually one of your carriers will try for the planet and you have perfect position to slaughter the attackers. If they do attack you (and no one on your team is trying for the planet), give ground slowly and runnerscum them up until you reach your front line. Then hold your ground. One side note on this is don't always do the same thing, don't *always* do the same thing, being completely predictable puts you at a great disadvantage. If the enemy front (or possible side) pops, head over to bomb it. One important note is that you should *NOT* run back to deal with enemies that get past you (excepting obvious situations like they're about to crush a crippled carrier). Unless something very important is going on enemies that get past are none of your concern, try to hold your position at the front line. An important side note to this is upon entering the game any CA's, AS's, or BB's in your space should be human targetted, scummed, or chased out. Since your people at the front aren't going to deal with it, you have to do it when you reenter. In the event you get a kill, definitely pickup front line armies. Consider heading back to SB to pickup. Finally, you can really annoy the enemy SC bombers but making them go all the way around the front line. If they seem to be cutting it close, maxwarp across the front line to force them to cloak and cut wider. You don't even have to shoot at them (take a giveaway kill, but don't bother phasering away half their shields), just make them burn fuel and etemp. This is highly underrated as a tactic. This is a good strategy for begining teams. There is not a lot of complexity (getting your CA's to act properly can be tricky, I recommend borrowing chi's macros :-). Alternate plan 1: What follows is a somewhat more complicated plan, it requires some additional coordination. Also, you need 3 good SC players. In the basic strategy, there were jobs for CA's, and SC's just bombed. For the most part, the CA roles are the same, but the SC's get a bit more complicated. SC roles: asw: either mutual with, scum, or drive out enemy SC bombers. bomb: obvious. take: if they scum a SC bomber. My personal favorite plan involves 3 SC players that operate as follows: upon entering the game if there are no SC's in enemy space Go there NOW (always have a bomber) if there is a SC bomber in your space Attempt to scum him, failing that mutual. Failing that run the SC bomber towards their space, failing that run him into 3rd space. As soon as you reach the edge of 3rd space break off pursuit and go bomb (again, try to angle them towards their space). if you get a kill if you're in your backfield: pickup if you're in their backfield and there is another SC in their space, consider returning to pickup. if you are the only SC in enemy space bomb passively Don't fight over armies, be inconspicuous (don't plink them when they reenter, etc.) REALLY try to avoid dying if there are multiple bombers in enemy space you can be more agressive about going for armies or double ogging someone. It sounds like a lot of rules, but they're fairly intuitive. The major drawback is that you need 3 SC's who can at least do a passable job asw, bombing, and dropping armies; not many teams have this capability. This leaves 5 other people, I can't suggest what you should do with your base since this depends very heavily on how good they are at ogging, etc. If your base is back in core, ideally your SC people should be the ones using the armies stored there (since they are picking up kills in the backfield) and your CA's shouldn't have to fly all the way back. Alternate plan 2: This is a continuation from the Red Shirt plan (above), and is useful if you have a strong base who can survive (with a lot of help) at the front. Basically, a CA at the front guards your core armies, and your SB moves to the front. This has the advantage that your ship with all the firepower actually gets to fight, and the ship that is a deterrent to SC bombers (since it can take planets if they give up a kill) is guarding the armies. With this plan you have 1 SC bomber, 1 SB at the front, 2 ASW people, and 4 people flying CA's at the front. The SC bomber should be passive (since if he dies there is no bomber until he returns). The 4 CA's at the front need to be a bit more flexible about helping with the bombing than they were under the prior 2 plans (instead of just bombing the front they may have to go to the side planets or even core). The ASW people require some extra explanation. These two players will have to coordinate with each other a LOT. Their job is to create an army pile on some convenient planet. The planet having fuel is almost a requirement, being AGRI or "frontcourt" core is nice too. If nothing good is around the homeworld will do. I'll break their jobs up by cases: 1 ASW has a kill, other does not ASW with kill should either take planets, or ferry to the stockpile. ASW without kill guards stockpile. neither ASW have kills 1 ASW tries to guard core armies and scum enemy SC bombers other ASW goes to front and acts as normal CA. both ASW have kills one should take planets while other ferries armies. The ASW should probably be in CA's or SC's depending on the situation (if you want to guard armies the CA is better, if you want to run down their bomber obviously the SC is the ship of choice). Also, just because you have no base doesn't mean this plan won't work. Just stick the base player in a CA and add him to the four people already at the front line. In addition to allowing you to use your base's firepower, this plan lets your team know whose job it is to deal with the SC bombers. A lot of teams have the problem that their players like to chase SC's, or are hesitant to fly away from a planet with armies since it may be bombed. This way you know that someone on your team is considering this, and unless you get a message from an ASW person telling you other- wise, it isn't your job. Communication: In general, the basic strategy requires little communication. The follow- ing set of macros should suffice: mac.3.T :%p++ @ %L eg. "5++ @ REG" Pretty obvious. mac.p.T :ESCORT! %a armies to %L @ %n. Currently at %B in a %S eg. "ESCORT! 4 armies to CAP @ 5. Currently at EAR in a CA" Fairly good distress macro, if you have any improvements let me know. mac.%.T :%L @ %n eg. "IND @ 1" I suggest only using this for weakend planets, not planet pops. mac.k.T :HELP ME AT %B, %f%% fuel! eg. "HELP ME AT CAN, 38% fuel!" To communicate more quickly, I recomend you map 3 of these macros to your mouse buttons. That way to send the message all you do is hit "macro" then a mousebutton. The fourth macro should be bound to your macro key, so all you hit is "macro" "macro" to send it. The 3 SC plan will require your 3 SC players to utilize the galactic map a LOT (the Bagels have pretty good SC players, and it took us 2 or 3 practice games and a LOT of yelling^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhelpful suggestions to get it right). For the Red Shirt plan, the two ASW people will have to do a bit of messaging to let the other one know who is taking, who is ferrying, etc. For this role, you'll want two people who can handle this. And WILL handle it, this is one job where you can't go off and do your own thing, cooperation is essential. General comments: A lot of these skills you can easily practice in pickup play. Space controlling is pretty easy, so is performing the SC jobs. There's no reason they won't work in normal pickup play (the ASW and SB roles are about the only ones not possible to practice in pickup play). Space controllers shouldn't spend a lot of time cloaking. It burns fuel, and your teamates don't know who you are either (assuming the enemy is fooled). Think about it, you tend to treat cloakers as hostile until you know otherwise, so the only people you're confusing are your teamates. Be flexible. Last season the Bagels used the 3 SC plan until we either gained or lost our front line, then we switched over to the Red Shirt plan. You may want to have a contingency plan setup, but I'd rather have a team understand one plan well, than two plans poorly. If you gain your opponents front line, move your team (and asw UP) and use the armies from the middle 6 planets to fuel your advance. If you lose your front line, don't have 2 SC bombers just bombing the enemy's back 7 planets. You're now playing 6 on 8 and they still have 6 planets they can pickup from. In this case I suggest either using 1 bomber, or if you use two, the SC's will have to be agressive about bombing the front. Unless you're being shot at (or shooting) STARE at the galactic, try to guess where your opponents are going and either tell your team, or head over yourself. This is especially important with space control strategies. ------------------------------ End of STRATEGY ***************