The Fortress

[Lucifer]

THe counter doesn't reset, but I don't know if it decays. I think it does, so with no one in the zone it should decay back to 0. It only goes to 1 anyway.

I'm finding that you want to make lots of squiggles when you do a follow-your-trail defense. That keeps most attackers from grinding your wall and gives you room, so you can pull up some of your wall so you can attack people who come near you, replacing some squiggly walls with a straight wall on that circuit. Keeps a wall around the fortress and gives you some play, so your'e not just waiting for someone to cut you off and take the zone, you can actively work against them. It also gives you room to double parts of your wall should you suspect the enemy of trying to use a torpedo to blast their way in.

I have two more examples of how not to take the zone. Both of these are with me as defender.

First. I was goalie, making my wall. Some idiot came along and surrounded my wall with his. Then he cut inside if his wall, so he was between mine and his walls. So I gave him room for about a quarter of a lap. He kept going, and committed himself to the path. Then I closed it. Now, we already know that trying to enter the maze like this gives the goalie all the advantages and is already dumb. However, since he had been so kind to surround my zone, even his buddy who was waiting for a chance couldn't exploit the hole before I came back around in a regular lap to close it. The sad part is that the two attackers were combined good enough to beat me, but they didn't combine their efforts and lost instead.

Second, I wasn't goalie. It was 3 on 3 and we'd decided to run no goalie. So a guy got past me, and I was giving chase. He entered our zone and immediately started making radiator coils. He had the upper hand! He was ahead, and well in a position to close off my way. But he didn't do it. Instead he made radiator coils. I was quick to surround him, and he died.

When you are racing your opponent to their zone, the guy in front has the upper hand, and he just needs to throw a defensive wall around the enemy's zone. Don't worry if you have to step out to make it a proper defensive wall, because once the wall's there, nobody's getting in fast enough to take it from you. Getting into the zone isn't enough to take it, you still have to hold it against your opponent for 2 seconds. So hold it!

[Tank Program]

I swear, we could make this thread into a book and sell it.

[Lucifer]

Turns out, not surprisingly, that there are a few situations where three attackers can take the zone. But we all knew that already, right? The catch is, all three of them have to be able to read each other's minds, pretty much. So they don't get in each other's way.

If you find yourself with a couple of attackers who can read your mind, and each other's, here's a couple of things that work.

The torpedo attack works and doesn't have the high requirements, but does require some communication. Earlier, I was coming in (so I had a long trail behind me) and nother guy was coming in. A third guy was already there. I called to be a torpedo and crashed, and both of them were able to go in my hole. Luckily they got in and turned opposite directions so they didn't kill each other. In this case, it works for two reasons. The first is that my wall was way behind me, I had come in. If I had already been there mazing, there would have been too many walls. The second is that two attackers can turn over the zone quickly, so they don't have to live very long once they get inside.

The second reason that tactic works is the reason this one works. Three attackers can turn over the zone very quickly, if they can stay alive long enough. This requires them to know what each one will do. Sometimes, well, a lot of times, the goalie has to seal the back of the line. When he does that on a large team, he makes a sizable area. We already know how to use that area to drive a wedge into the goalie's defense to drive him out. If the area is large enough, and three attackers arrive at the same time, they can hit their brakes and make lots of turns and turn over the zone quickly before they die. This is a suicide attack! While the likelihood is that one or two of them will live through it, you must expect to die when you do it. That makes it a suicide attack. This tactic works for the same two reasons the other one does. All attackers left long walls behind them, so the only wall in the zone is the goalie's, and they can turn over the zone quickly enough to win before dying. If one should die before the zone turns over, another *might* be able to go through his hole to gain more space.

That last one was funny because the three attackers were me, nemo, and subby, and after it nemo said "TWO CAN TAKE THE ZONE BUT THREE CAN'T" and it was pretty entertaining. I think we all lived through it, though I wasn't expecting to.

[Z-Man]

The conquest formula works like this.
The zone starts with conquest counter 0.
Every second, the number of attackers and defenders inside the zone is counted. The conquest counter is then increased by
attackers * .3 - defenders * .2 - .1.
The magic values are of course configurable, and also the counting does not happen once a second, but every frame, but you get the idea. If the conquest counter reaches 1, the zone is conquered.
So, one attacker and one defender in the zone don't change a the conquest counter. If you almost conquered the zone and leave with a single defender in it, the status will be back to zero in about three seconds. Two attackers take about three seconds to take the zone from one defender, one attacker takes five seconds without a defender. Three attackers turn the zone over in less than two seconds even with a defender inside, but you know those two seconds will feel like an eternity.

[gnorty]

improvement on my "wedge" technique for attacking.

A good technique for taking a zone for those who do not have the skill or speed to fight the defence directly is to zigzag along the outer wall, touching the wall from time to time, but keeping an eye on the rubber guage. go right along the side, making sure to follow any dips into the zone. after a while, brake off, go back to the start and go again (do not loop round the zone). by the time you get back to the start, the defender will have made another circuit, and will be further into the center of the zone most likely. do the same again. gradually, the wall moves back, and you are getting a portion of the zone for yourself. the hope is that eventually the defence will either crash, or start to stray out of the zone, and you can take over.

The real beauty of this is 2 people can attack from opposite sides, and not crash into each other, and it is virtually foolproof (if you dont screw up or get killed by another player). Also, it is perfectly possible for 3 players to work on 3 sides, even 4 if one can operate behind the zone without crashing. I have only a couple of times worked in a pair doing this, never as a 3, but I am sure it would be extremely effetcive as a 3. most likely a four would mean the goalie would crash.

I am struggling for a way to counter it as a defender. Certainly I have had good keepers counter by breaking off and killing me by surprise (it's quite hard to be aware of what is going on around when the smartcam is whipping all over the place) but against more than one attacker that would be fatal. I'd be interested to hear from one of the good goalies on how they could work against this. silly? meri?

[Lucifer]

The counter for this, gnorty, needs to be customized for the attacker. You can usually lure me into a maze if it looks tempting enough, but for you to lure me in like that, there has to be a real opening, not one of those fake ones.

Also, putting up ridged walls makes it harder to mount a wedged attack in the first place.

[Phytotron]

I'm not even sure what you're describing.

[Lucifer]

zig-zag, instead of making a straight wall. Doesn't prevent a wedge, but it counters the wedge. So you do L L R R L L R R L L R R L L R R. You could doublebind it and make it tighter if you wanted, but that takes more wall.

An attacker can still try to wedge you, but you can push the attacker out on other sides, because he doesn't dare try to get in more than 2 or 3 of your enclosures or whatever they wind up being. Even then, going into 2 or 3 is pushing it, I've killed myself a number of times trying to attack that sort of defense.

It also increases the chance of error when the second and third attackers get there. Gives you wall to pull back if you need to. I guess it's not specifically a counter, more like a general technique to use to hold off multiple attackers. It even gives you room to work with if they try to torpedo you. Just throw a wall across where they've entered and you've just made the inside of your zone very dangerous, but you have the upper hand in dealing with it because you made it.

[Z-Man]

I think Gnorty was describing this as an offensive tactic. I've seen him do it. The main disadvantage is that, against a good defender, it's very slow. You only gain maybe half a length unit per iteration (if the defender is good), you need 20 units to take half of the zone, every iteration takes, say, ten seconds. That's over six minutes!
Counter for the defender: well, don't go around making straight lines And enter one or two of the cavities the attacker makes from time to time. This will push him back a lot more than he pushes you. Or make sure you grind your own wall from the inside on the part of the zone the attacker is working on (double back and chase your tail on the other parts), this is risk free and will slow down the push even more, enough for your attackers (who will hopefully be alive and so something smarter) to succeed.

IHMO, you can't take the zone alone if you don't attack the goalie directly, you can only push him back by significant bits if you are close to him. Pushing his immovable walls won't bother him.

[Lucifer]

It can take a lot of time, that's for sure. If I see a strong defender that's going to take some effort, I'll usually hunt his teammates for awhile first. My defense can hold out longer if I help him out a bit in the beginning by going out into no-man's land and killing a few. You know, staying waaay out of my goalie's way, or going back to deflect someone who's putting pressure on him, pull him away from my fortress, and then fight him.

The advantages to that are that you buy time to take the zone and you might even free up your goalie to make a concerted attack on the zone. The disadvantage is the extra risk, of course, but against a few goalies, the risk involved doing this is actually less than the risk in attacking the zone alone.

I'm finding taking the zone to be more of an endurance game, against a strong goalie anyway. He makes a defense with no hole, and where you have to wear him down, hoping to force him into a spiral of death. In that case, you have the advantages, because you have more room to operate. You can leave his zone without risk, worst that happens is the zone counter resets. So just cutting in on his elbow room or forcing him to contract his defense into an unmaintainable shape without killing yourself are the preferred tactics. And watch for him to decide not to outwait you, but instead open up his zone!

Now that I think about it, that's the counter. If the other guy's trying to push you around, go ahead and rearrange your wall so that you're facing him directly and kill him. If you're a good mazer, that is. And watch out for his friends!

Of course, generally, lately, I've been getting greedy about points. I've been preferring to hunt for awhile before attacking the zone, and even then preferring not to take the zone, but instead to kill the goalie. You get maximum available points by killing all opponents.

[Z-Man]

Yes, the fun part about that is that people don't expect you to go for kills with all that area blocking strategy talk around

[Z-Man]

One trick I found to work quite well against a tailchasing defender, almost independent from the size of the hole he leaves: Pick a side of the fortress that's not defended by a too jaggy wall. In some distance, five to ten grid squares, go straight in the opposite direction to the defender. Keep going. Turn around and grind the wall you just made on the side the fortress is on. Don't use too much rubber for it, you'll need it later. Time everything so that you arrive at the fortress "corner" closest to you a bit earlier than the defender. Use your brakes for late fine-adjustments, you only need to be a bit faster than the defender. If you arrive too late, the defender can smack you against your own preparation wall. If you arrive too early, well, you'd better keep going straight and start over.
Anyway, so now you're grinding your own wall with a bit more speed than the defender and you are on about the same height as he is. You'll gain ground. As soon as you are ahead, turn towards the defender, just as if you would want to dump him in a regular game. Don't worry about his tail. If you hit it, just keep going. If you're not way too far ahead, the tail will go away before you run out of rubber. You're now stabbing into the fortress with still higher speed than the defender, who will have turned to the inside (or be no problem anymore for either being dead or having turned to the outside where he's blocked by his own wall). Cut him again, drive right to the next wall. Concratulations, you now own about three quarters of the enemy fortress.

Countermeasures: the defender needs to chase his tail on the inside when the attacker hits. Of course, this will make him retreat further into his zone, which is good, too. So feinting this type of attack after the defender has adapted to it looks like a good way to push the defender back.

[gnorty]

All this is good, as long as you dont screw up and kill yourself meantime

been playing a lot with my strategy tonight - as you say it is slow progress against a good defender, but hey, I normally make no progress against them, so it's all good!

anyway, found a very nice way to speed things up.

instead of aiming to get every zig-zag to be close to the wall, just making 1 or 2 touches is good, with the rest being maybe half a grid square short. I was playing against fiyawerx (IMO the most awkward defender to deal with) and managed to beat him a few times. the beauty of this refinement is that as the defender notices that he is losing ground, it is instinctive to try to do as z-man says and get into my gaps - fatal. sooner or later he will crash.

failing that, they try to maintain the shape, and as they round the corner, they clear the first couple of spikes and are head on towards one at close range. this causes them to make a big swerve, and you gain a LOT of space that iteration.

Granted, a very skillfull defender could fight this for ages, but I don't consider myself that skillfull judging by the numebr of 1 on 1's I lose and I can overcome some much more skillfull opponents in this way.. I would be interested to see how a more skilled player got on using this method of attack, as in theory at least, it tips the balance firmly in favour of the attacker, and given the number of people who coredump trying to beat the keeper on the turn, I figure the keeper has the edge in most attacks.

[Lucifer]

When it's 2 v 2, no goalie. You don't run a goalie. The team that runs a goalie will lose most of the time, and here's why.

You take it as two separate engagements. First you team up on their offensive player, then you team up on their defensive player. So it's 2 battles of 2 v 1.

When both teams know not to play a goalie, then it gets trickier, and is a lot of fun. You grind and break, then you go 1 on 1. Always leave a quick path back to your fortress, and feint towards the enemy's fortress. The feints allow you to gain ground, the path back allows you to go back and defend should your partner die. The farther your enemy is from his fortress, the greater his freedom of movement, so your chances of killing him increase the closer you push him towards his fortress.

When it's 3 on 2, and you're on the team with 2, you both defend. You grind out to the edge of your fortress, then turn away from each other. One person plays inner, the other outer. When you kill both assailants, you advance.

It's always important to keep an eye on the console and to count deaths. Keep track of who's alive on each team, and also keep track of where they are. It's doubly important on small teams, because each lost player during the round affects the remaining players to a greater degree than on large teams.

When it's 3 on 3, you decide whether or not to run a goalie based on team composition. When it's 3 on 4, you run a goalie and two wide defenders.

When it's 4 on 4, you run two defenders and two offenders. If you have a really strong goalie, then you run 3 offensive players, but one of them needs to be a shallow offense so he can double back to take over goalie if needed.

When it's 4 on 5 you run inner/outer goalie and two wide defenders. Kill two of the enemy, then your wide defenders become attackers.

When it's 5 on 5, you do the other things we've been talking about in this thread.

Anytime you're outnumbered by two, you take the defensive version of your team. So if you're 4 on 6, you run inner/outer goalie and two wide defenders. If it's 1 on 3, you play goalie only (special setup tactics apply here, no wall to grind!). If it's 2 on 4 you play inner/outer defense. If it's 3 on 4, goalie + 2 wide defenders. In any case, you advance either when teams become equal through kills, or you outnumber the other team. In many cases, you won't advance, you'll win by killing the other team.

The guiding philosophy is to defend your flanks! When you have an odd number of players, you can defend both flanks and spare a goalie. When you have an even number of players, you can defend both flanks, but you may not be able to spare a goalie. Running a dedicated goalie is a requirement starting at 5 teammates, but below that is conditional. Defend your flanks well and you don't need a goalie.

Also, you generally want to attack with 2 attackers. That's why when you have 4 players you generally fortify the goalie instead of sending out an attacker on his own.

[Phytotron]

When it's 4 on 4, you run two defenders and two offenders. If you have a really strong goalie, then you run 3 offensive players, but one of them needs to be a shallow offense...

/defense. Yessir. I just want to make this point again. If...

a) there are at least four on my team, and
b) the other three+ of you go out to attack, and
c) leave no one back or even in no-man's land as a backup defender, and
d) you let two or three attackers rush me at once,
then
e) don't blame me when the zone is repeatedly taken.

Granted, I haven't been playing well in Fortress lately, mostly smacking into my own corners (Lucifer said he hasn't been trusting his aim lately; I've been trusting mine but it has been failing me), but nevertheless, when the rest of the team drops their responsibility as a team, they really need to not fob off all the blame on me, or whomever happens to be goalie.

(This is the point where I think teaching them lesson is not a bad idea. I say, ok, you defend, and I'll let 2-3+ attackers rush you. Let's see how well you do.)