The Fortress

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Lucifer
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Post by Lucifer »

If a goalie is making a square box and grinding the inside of his tail, the only way in is a torpedo. If it's 1 v 1, you're screwed.

Not completely, I haven't seen anybody do that for very long without dying. Manta's done the best at it, I think.

Your squiggly line can get a goalie to break up his square, which gives you more options, but only if he's nervous. If he keeps his nerve, it won't do it.

So, a big square box is simultaneously the best defense and the worst. Best because noone can breach it, but worst because you eventually run out of rubber and brakes at the same time and die.

So, if you don't have a torpedo, or you don't want to use one, just wait and look mean.
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Post by Z-Man »

I use the squiggly pushing attack only if the defender isn't too good or there is plenty of time or another pusher on the other side. Bad defenders let themselves be pushed back two to five length units per iteration, and it usually is safer than an insertion attempt.

Many attackers do the squiggly push wrong, I observed. They squiggle all right, but they circle the zone with it, and the defender always reclaims the unavoidable unprotected territory.

Others squiggle in the same direction as the defender is circling. WRONG! The defender moves faster than you, will overtake you and push you into your outer wall, especially if you did not leave enough room on your way back around. Choose the opposite direction UNLESS there is some other attacker waiting for the opening the defender's attack will produce, and someone else to serve as backup because you'll be dead. And leave yourself some room between the sqiggle and your outer wall.

Also, I'd like to note that against a defender that does the big box death spiral defense, if it's one or two attackers, it's perfectly acceptable to go for the winzone. The defender is not even trying to hold the base, so you're not oblieged to conquer it. You're only saving time, watching a death spiral is never interesting and the end result is always the same.
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Post by gnorty »

Well, IMO there are just 2 disadvantages to the wiggling attack.

Firstly, you are VERY vulnerable to attack from a second defender. For me, at least, it is too much to concentrate on, and If I dont crash against the zone, the 2nd man will close me off and I die. If the attack is perfectly executed, this issue is avoided, but perfection is not always possible ;))Secondly, it is slow. Too many times my own zone dies while I am making dents in the opposition.

Other than that, I think it is very effective, even 1 on 1. The keeper CANNOT make a perfect grind, so at worst I am accelerating his inward spiral. At best, I can misshape his zone forcing him to start mazing, or create a gap for another attacker.

If anyone really wants to convice ne otherwise, I'd be more than happy to meet up on the fe server, and see what happens in "lab" conditions, but I do tend to think of this argument as a bit moot. Of course a fast, accurate attack is preferable, if you have the skill. I personally don't, so I choose a technique that leverages maximum impact from the skills I do have. As I say, it works best for me in the initial stages of an attack, and no doubt there are others who feel the same.
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Lucifer
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Post by Lucifer »

No doubt, gnorty. :) I don't know how much you depend on it, but I do know that if you just do the same thing, skills don't improve. So you have to balance. Umm, z-man's suggestion of experimenting with new stuff in the last part of the match when your team has either won or lost and can't make much difference is a good one, good time to try new things.

In 1 on 1, I find that I prefer to surround the zone and compress the goalie. If you go opposite him, and you have a little spot where you collect your loose wall so you're not stuck in a tunnel, it's very effective. The obvious counter is the goalie keeping his wall over a large enough area that you can't enclose him.

I was going to mention the second defender thingee. I pick off the squiggly guys like brushing off leeches when I work wide defense for my goalie. Timing is important, but generally a second defender can set a grind that will be tighter than anything the squiggly guy manages because he has more time to plan it. Then he just zips through from behind, so he comes up behind the attacker. Defender's going fast off a fresh, tight grind, attacker's going minimum speed on account of all his turns. Double back over him and seal him, then move on.

The reason it doesn't work in 1 v 1 of course depends on the goalie. I have two defences for it, one of which I mentioned before. That one is just to reconfigure my wall so I get to make the same sweeping move my second defender would make, if he were there, and to do it without you noticing. If you notice, of course, then it's sumo instead, and I think my chances are pretty good against most in a straight 1 v 1 sumo in the zone, so it's a reasonable risk for me to take. Anyway, rubber's all important here. Since you are making each of your squiggly grinds so close to one another, none of the subsequent ones will be as close as the first. In fact, their distance from the goalie's wall should be linear, with a slope that looks something like 0.1. That's because your rubber doesn't completely refill between each grind, so you feel closer if you look at your gauge, but you're not. (mark this s a reason I don't use my rubber gauge) Since I need to come from behind, I only need to beat one grind, and that's the first one. If you make that too close, you can't make any more grinds after it because you'll crash. So, I just check, and when you've left me a first grind that's beatable, I'll arrange my wall so I can box you and then beat that grind. Note, this only works if I make my attack while you're making your squigglies. If I get it while you're on your backswing, you'll just call off your zone attack and attack me for 2 points before continuing.

My second defense is to let you make ground. When you get far enough in, I can surround your whole area without leaving the zone and then squeeze you. If that fails, it's sumo again.

Hmm, that thing about rubber regeneration is also the reason you should go opposite the goalie's direction. If you go the same direction as teh goalie, he can just grind on your first squiggly and not give up any ground. If you go opposite, he'll either kill himself or jerk in a way that gives you lots of room.
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Post by gnorty »

I can't speak for others, I have developed my own style from scratch, refining it as/when needed.

Now I tend to aproach a wall to towards a corner, turn towards the corner with a HARD grind, build a wide box (of just the ringht size) and then finally turn and start my squiggles. This way, I am working inside a box that is quite difficult for the second defender to penetrate (so much so that once I am safely enclosed I can ignore them to a large extent. If the goalie or a defender makes a counter at this stage, it is easy to abort the attempt.

The important part of the squiggles is that the goalie must either leave a safe margin, or be *very* good at wall following. for this reason, MOST of the wiggles are effectively feints, close to the defence to look threatening, but not touching. This way rubber is conserved. Approx 1 in 3 wiggles are on the wall and are HARD grinds. The idea is that the goalie can attempt to follow the inner edge of my wall (I hope he does) but will come to a spike after 2-3 peaks, and have to overcompensate, at least by the cycle_delay margin. This gives me an instant terratorial gain, as well as a inwards kink to drive a wedge into, accelerating the collapse of the defence.

This method leaves a very small gap for counterattack hopefully a little more than a goalies gap), and the gap is treacherous for a goailie to attempt. as in all probabllity I am about to turn across him, and have a distance advantage. The gap is easily regulated by varying the depth of each wiggle, ie, short wiggles close the gap, larger ones open it. Most times the goalie attacks it costs me just a grinds worth of distance as the goailie backs off, and this is easily picked up on the next loop, as the goalies rythm is upset, and in most cases this counter is not even attempted until the defense is about to collapse.

I am getting better at countering an attack from the goalie. I tend to grind in the same direction as the goalies rotation for this reason. If the goalie can time a counter just right, and I look in danger, he leaves a tunnel that I can cut back down around the outer wall. I then have a major speed advantage for the ensueing sumo.

It is rare for a sumo to be needed though. In most cases either the goalie crashes, or he doesnt want to maze, so rather than start mazing to compensate for his smaller area, he spends more time outside, while I am spening longer and longer inside, and often the zone turns over without so much as a fight.

As I said before, it is not perfect, and for sure I do practice other techniques when the server is quiet, or as z-man said, if it doesnt really matter. Particularly if the server restarts and I am in the initial 1-1 I think it is not fair to the spectators to waste so much time. Even on non-team based servers with finite walls I like to aim at receding tail tips, it is all good practice, as is the sumo server..

With the current debat over double grinding unsettled, it would be interesting to see the effect of a DG'er bypassing the enemy's front lines, going around and starting this attack very early. If nothing else, it would give the goalie a problem trying to cope with 2 strategies on different flanks at the same time.

My point is that this is not just a lame thoughtless wiggle, it has a strong theoretical advantage over most techniques and does not require god-like timing to execute. I appreciate it is frustrating to watch if you are dead, but remain unconvinced about any tactical concerns.
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Post by newbie »

i would say that there is a new def

it's called 'sumo def' ;-)

with cyclotron/karrote we got really good results by playing it

there are 3 defenders, 2 of them stay inside the zone and keep it "slow" (one player left side, one right side), the third player is there for killing all attackers from the outside

it is quick, easy and straightforward if your team has two better sumo players

anyway more info from guys who played it too, project 2502-x, ed, sasha, infamous and some other 8)
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Post by ed »

Very effective defence.
At first I thought - who is this karrote dude screwing up newbie's defence!
But in time I could see how we managed to win most rounds, every match that I played.
Very difficult for an attacker to beat, as 2 good sumo defenders (newbie and karrote in this case) happily scissored him to death.
Nice.
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wrtlprnft
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Post by wrtlprnft »

Lucifer and me did that quite a while ago on fortress, and we were pretty effective, given the fact that we had by far the highest pings on the server and because of that sometimes killed each other, but otherwise we were pretty good :)
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Post by Spot »

hmmm i tried to if you got a good partner it work, but if you got a partner who never plays sumo that dont work :!: but its good if you can do it nice madmax, ed, and karote its a new def :)
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Post by Concord »

I knew I remembered KamP from somewhere famous. It was this thread!
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Re:

Post by newbie »

newbie wrote:i would say that there is a new def

it's called 'sumo def' ;-)

with cyclotron/karrote we got really good results by playing it

there are 3 defenders, 2 of them stay inside the zone and keep it "slow" (one player left side, one right side), the third player is there for killing all attackers from the outside

it is quick, easy and straightforward if your team has two better sumo players

anyway more info from guys who played it too, project 2502-x, ed, sasha, infamous and some other 8)
@wap :lol:

so 5 years later, sumo def was first played officially in the ladle by a team of rookies, 'team poland', in ladle 28, team poland was knocked out in the semis by the winner of that ladle, tx, i think sd has proven itself multiple times as a good anti-flooding strategy while facing a greater number of opponents (2x and more), (i remember also winning 2vs5 rounds with dlh in one of the later ladles) 8)
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Re: The Fortress

Post by Slov »

whoaa. some history here!
.pG (only like, the best clan ever)

my mixtape fire tho
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Re: The Fortress

Post by pike »

And now also some spam :mrgreen:
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