The Fortress

[Lucifer]

Instant chats you should have if you don't already: (use whatever synonyms you want, but be aware how your synonyms might have subtle meanings with them, which can be a good thing)

* Yes
Used to acknowledge something and should mean you'll do it.

* No
Used to negate something, obviously.

* I've got it
Just like in baseball, when two defenders arrive to take over for a fallen defender, one of them needs to call it, otherwise both will turn away leaving it open or both will turn in and possibly kill each other.

* I'm going into the zone
Used to tell your team you're going into the opponent's zone, of course. Lets the defenders know if they need to just hold the attackers, or if they need to kill (defaults to "kill if possible"). Also, when followed by a "I need help" call can get an offensive player to help tip the zone over quicker, or at all (if there's a defender in the zone and you can't kill him, you might want to call for help to tip over the zone).

* I need help
Used to call for help, of course. Should only be used when you're at the enemy's zone or if you're defending yours and you're under pressure. If you're under pressure in general, you might still call for help, but saving your life may not be one of your team's priorities.

* Break
You need two, actually. One of them will be used always, one will be used only when you have a large team (i.e. 2 or more grinders on one side of the center). This one you need to decide who will use it, too, the center or someone near him.

* Incoming
Tells your defense that one or more opponents have passed and will soon be at the zone if not intercepted.

Your instant chats need to be accessible like regular movement keys. I've got mine mapped like this:

Glance keys are z, x, and left-alt. a, s, d, c are instant chats 1-4. q, w, e, r, f, v are 5-10. 1 is #11, and left control is #12. I'm going to add more, too, because I also want:

* Acknowledged, I'm all over it.
* Acknowledged, can't do anything about it.
* Go right
* Go left
* I'm going right
* I'm going left
* I'm touching the wall
* I'm turning to center
* Play defensive, we're outnumbered or outclassed
* Incoming Right
* Incoming Left

Boy, that's a lot of instant chats.

[Phytotron]

There were some funny instachats instances the other night when I was playing on a team with my mom. They were his instachats, and it would go something like this:

I'm going left!
Negative!
I'm going right!

or...

Attack!
Negative!
Defend!

Despite those humorous idiosyncrasies, and the team numbers being significantly imbalanced against us most of the time, we still kicked booty. If he sees this and recollects, wasn't it 2 on 5 at one point, and we still won?

[meriton]

Lately my defense has been praised, so here is my approach:

1) Opening: At startup, first thing is to build a trap for any attackers coming through the middle, like this:

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  ||||||
  ||| ||
 /||   |/-\
/ |     | |
|         |
\---------/

Admittedly, this leaves a small hole, but the attacker will usually be too quick to even spot the exit (even if the pattern is known: left or right?), yet alone escape. In any case, a single attacker can not stay in the zone long enough to take it that way. A suicide breach is theoretically possible, but it is the offenses' job to prevent two from coming through the middle.

2) Middle game: Alternatingly chase your tail and grind on it. When attackers are near, slip inside, if not, slip outside to (re-)claim territory. Always keep same wall nearby to accelerate in case of need (to seal a breach, for instance).

Staying inside:

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/-------------
|
|
|
| ^
| |
  |

Slipping out:

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  ------------
 ^
 \-\
   /
  /
  |
  |

If pressure does not lift, you loose territory. Nevertheless, you proceed chasing your tail, doing detours into the zone (not leaving much zone area outside your wall, e.g. by using extended u-turns) to stay near your tail. This is helpful, because you can slip out on short notice, permitting to (re)claim territory and kill the more reckless attackers should pressure lift temporarily (for instance, because one attacker drove a wall around the fortress, effectively adding to its protection ... ) Of course, staying near your tail while doing detours takes practise.

3) Endgame:
If attackers are near the zone you can only continue defending, hoping for a mistake on their part. If no threat is close (in defender vs. defender endings, for instance), slip out, accelerate and head for the center of the grid (for winzone) or to the other fortress (if you can reach it before the other reaches yours).


4) "Wer solche Freunde hat, braucht keine Feinde mehr"
"With such friends, who needs enemies?"
"friendly fire is always, well, unfriendly ... "

There can be only one inner defender, so at most one player should double back right at start. For teams larger than 2, there should be a defender. So it must be clear who is going to defend. If a defender dies, he should announce that to permits someone else to take his place. It can be worthwhile to keep a backup nearby.

---

Any thoughts? Oh, and I'm looking forward to seeing Oscillo in action sometime to compare strategies ... unfortunately I don't know enough about football to understand the football methaphors he uses ...

Oh, in case anybody missed it in spite of the length of this post:

I really like Fortress! kudos to whoever's idea that was!

meriton

[gnorty]

On the rare times when I end up 1 on 1 with a defender, I absolutely love when it is one using a scheme like meritons.

It is nearly impossible to breach in the normal way, unless you are very quick/skilled, but you can take advantage of the sporadic wiggling.

Keep your distance, you need to make sure you have room for manouvre, but not so far as to let the defence think the pressure is off. every once in a while, the defender makes an "adjustment" to his course, usually by turning into the middle and doubling back out. This is the weakness.

If you can turn into the little pocket and back out, the defender is forced to make the same turn next time, but it will inevitably cut a bit deeper. do the same over and over, and soon you have a deep cut into the zone which the defender has to negotiate. This means that sooner or later he will not have enough wall to go all the way round and a gap is permanently there. When this happens, mostly the defender will change tactics, and start wiggling and leaving the zone open. sometimes they just keep going, and sooner or later they either dump or the gap is so large you can get in and cut them off into a small corner of the zone.

Either way, get yourself into the zone, and make your own wall that forces them to the outside. again, they either dump themselves or they lose control of the zone. either one is good

Only pitfall is that all the cutting in and out of the "adjustments" eats at your rubber, so you need to keep an eye on that (normally where it goes wrong for me!) but I think it is a good tactic, and a lot more interesting than waiting around for the winzone. Unfortunately unlikely to work with several attackers, as one invariably does an outer circle approach, and one or the other will cause team-kill.

[meriton]

On the rare times when I end up 1 on 1 with a defender, I absolutely love when it is one using a scheme like meritons.

[...] every once in a while, the defender makes an "adjustment" to his course, usually by turning into the middle and doubling back out. This is the weakness.

If you can turn into the little pocket and back out, the defender is forced to make the same turn next time, but it will inevitably cut a bit deeper.

1. For this reason, I do extended u-turns when going inside:

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 |          /-\  |
 \----------/ |  |
  /-----------/  |
  |              |
  \--------------/

I figure it is pretty much impossible to go inside these without dying.

2. Why would it cut deeper? The defender can drive as close to your wall as you can to the defender's ...

[gnorty]

As you quite rightly say, your way of making adjustments is much better, almost certain death for anyone trying to follow you in there, but still there is potential to do the same thing, although I am unsure how it would work ot after a few turns. maybe the second part of your L would have to get proportionally smaller each turn until it disappeared? I dunno.

The reason the defender must always cut deeper is that as an attacker, you can drive in right up to touching the bottom of the channel, and then u-turn out. The defender then needs to drive PAST the attacker's wall on the next lap. A perfect turn would therefore be just the same as the previous lap, anything less than perfect cuts deeper into the zone each time and if the defender is aiming so close, there is a good chance of crashing, especially with a little lag, so it is more usual for them to run past a little. In essense, you get to use rubber on the inside of a box, but not so easy on the outside.

With your L shaped walls you are more safe from this problem for sure, but not everyone uses this technique - certainly those I have seen.

[Tank Program]

I just spent I guess an hour playing as a defender on The Fortress and I musta been cursed or something, cause it always wound up being me vs like 3 of the other team, which to me is pretty hopeless... Just ticked me off so much... I kept asking one other person to help defend, and no one would do it... As always cooperation would be a big help... Argh... I guess I'm just ranting. You get that when when you loose like a bajillion consecutive matches, and it's always your fault cause you're the last one left alive...

[Lucifer]

Heh, Tank. I leave pretty quickly when I see my team isn't cooperating. I'm already tired of saying "Can I get another defender?". I'm also pretty tired of trying to explain that not everyone should be rushing the zone, so I'll say it once or twice, and if my team listens, we play and have fun. If not, I leave and I don't know what happens to them (unless I left by joining the other team, in which case my new team will crush my old team, and then I get accused of quitting to play on the "winning team".)

[meriton]

Cooperation, how heavenly would that be ... seriously, you know it's real bad when a team member writes

/team you suck

(multiple times and in various flavours)

Of course half the team started arguing, which dit not exactly improve cooperation (chat-bots are not really known for sensible driving ...)

(and yes, I actually had the misfortune to be in that team ...)

----

@gnorty:
Good point about the rubber. Of course, you need to get inside the L, which is really hard (the entrance is about 0.1 m wide, acceleration is maddening and very sharp turns are required. With standard rubber settings I consider that pretty much impossible.) Also, even if the attacker gets inside, your observation about the rubber's asymmetry applies to narrowing that entrance as well (the defender can use rubber to narrow from both sides. The attacker can use rubber only on one side (on the way out)).

[Tank Program]

I'm sorry to say I did't just leave . Instead I got really pissed off and started yelling at them... Things like "STOP DYING DAMNIT..." Yeah, I was pretty ticked...

[Phytotron]

When a single defender finds himself suddenly being rushed by three opponents at once, that usually means the rest of his team has dropped the ball, simple as that. This is especially true when there's a team of 5 to 7, or even more. Lucifer has his dual-stage break-offs. Like he said, the first, outside stage is actually defense, at least initially. Those folks need to stave off rushers from the other side. If they don't dump them outright, they need to at least stall them long enough for the defender to set up his defense, whatever it may be. If given that chance to set up my defense, I can often handle two or three attackers at once (depending on their skill level), but I have to be given time to set it up. It's my teammates' responsibility, if they want defense, to give me that time. Otherwise, don't start griping and moaning when the zone is taken, and definitely don't blame me (unless I screw myself up, to which I'll immediately own up, anyway).

Teammates also need to fookin' pay attention to team calls. If you see a call something along the lines of "defense needs help," then get back there. Like you guys said, some people are just zone-hungry and will ignore anything going on behind them. But what they can't seem to get through their skulls is that ignoring opponents rushing their zone is utterly self-defeating. Don't count on some arrogant notion that you'll take their zone before they take yours.

The best fortress play I've had is with Lucifer, our mom, and/or nemo. We dominate. Why? Not only because they're good, but because they pay attention to everything above. "Defense needed now!" "Roger that!" (And, hopefully by now needless to say, the other team calls are also essential.)

Of course, some situtations are unavoidable. Accidental team kills, a teammate's simple inability to get back in time, inadvertent foul-ups, or just superior opponents. Whatever. But that's not what this post is about. This is about those things that are avoidable, controllable.

Moral of the story: It's a team server. Don't be Terrell Owens. You will lose.

[Lucifer]

I've played enough different combinations of teams that I feel pretty confident to say that it is rare for a team to be composed of members that makes it a superior team.

Huh?

I mean that it's rare for a team to be composed of players that are just so good individually to make an unbeatable team. I've played on teams that had mostly inferior players to our opponents, and we won consistently, in some cases almost to the point of overconfidence.

A regular, normal game is going to be composed of players that are more or less equivalent in skills, and the winning team is going to be the team that has the best team play. The old adage (cheesy) about "the value of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" applies. The best teamwork wins. There are occasions when a player just makes a really good play, and you pat him on the back and say "good job" or whatever. Those occasions are the exception and not the rule.

It's a team server, so it makes sense that the best teamwork wins.

Something I'd like to see more of going on, though. When you see the other team starting to disintegrate into infighting, consider picking one or more of the arguing players and switching places. Sometimes a player just can't get along on the team he's on, for whatever reason, and if you all want a fun game, then you need to help out. You don't have to mediate the fight or whatever, just offer to switch places. If the fighting continues, then chances are you know who needs to be vote-kicked.

Nothing ruins a game more than petty infighting.

[Phytotron]

I agree entirely. I think you're just responding to my statement of, "...some situations are unavoidable...[such as] superior opponents," am I right? First, I just threw that in there as an example of something largely uncontrollable. Sometimes, all else being equal, the other team, as a whole, is simply better at killing your team than vice-versa. What can ya do?

But since you pointed it out and elaborated, I'll elaborate too.

When I used the phrase "superior opponents," besides (and perhaps even aside from) referring to individual skill, I primarily meant opponents (i.e., a team) composed of competent players who have their stuff together versus a team composed of bad players who do not.

I speak of the team as a whole. "Bad players" can mean players who play poorly as individuals, but it also is defined as a team not having its stuff together. Having your "stuff together" is (ideally) defined as follows (rehashing previous posts in this thread, and I may leave something out):

a) Everyone understanding the purpose of the game and general strategies.
b) Everyone knowing their roles in the offense and defense (which for some may mean straddling both).
c) Having at least one person who has team calls and makes them appropriately.
d) Everyone paying attention to those team calls.
e) The result: communication and collaboration.

And that's what tends to happen with those of you I mentioned above. All three of you have team calls, and you use them. That creates teamwork. You also all seem to understand what I wrote in the previous post. But, now, it does help that youse is good.

Anyway, yeah, a team can certainly win without individually skilled players. And a team of only individually skilled players, but who only do their own thing, can certainly lose. It does help to have good players on your team, but like I said, they can't be T.O. precisely because success in that server is mainly about the team, not individuals.

Erm, is that clearer?

(Although, all that said, as nemo has said a few times, "we're not playing well; they're just playing worse." But then again.... Heh.)

[Lucifer]

We (meaning "we") need to distill this thread onto the wiki.

[Phytotron]

Oh, by the way, the best advice ever given for playing 'tron:

STOP DYING DAMNIT