Marine Agression
Anderval
<3 Join Date: 2003-05-05 Member: 16073Members, Constellation
<3 Join Date: 2003-05-05 Member: 16073Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Please! no more 2 hour long games!</div> I've seen alot of topics in this forum where people have talked about 'Important locations' and fortifying them, for the most part these locations are hives. The question i have is why? why bother to fortify a hive with tf, turrets, pg, elec, only to have the aliens expand and claim the rest of the map before coming to destroy your unupgraded bases?
People might say that occupying a hive is useful so that the aliens cant get it building, but surely we must all realise now that, aliens really only need two hives in order to crush a dug-in marine team. You might think about locking down two hives...dont this is suicide, the res needed to successfully lock down and fortify two hives will cripple your chances of success, mainly becasue you wont have the time/money to upgrade.
Perhaps the only location i would consider fortifying with turrets is the double res on a map, beware though the aliens WILL throw themselves this place, and they WILL take it down if they are organised.
The reason aliens have been so successful so far in 2.0 is because they can expand so quickly, and for some strange reason the marine response to this seems to be defense, in my opinion this is wrong, what marines need to do is to play hard, try equipping a couple of shotgun toting squads at the beggining of a round, send one team out around the map (furthest away from the aliens hive) to cap res and electrify before moving on, the other team should be sent to destroy the aleins res, hopefully occuping the aliens long enough so that your other team can get around 3-4 rts up and electrified before the kaharaa even realise and by that time it will be too late to do anything about it until the second hive is up. This gives you about 5-10 minutes to upgrade and send out your endgame force before you lose your rts.
There are many other agressive tactics that marines can use, but the key is to not let the aleins control the game (i.e control where and when the fights happen) to even stand a chance of winning marines <b>will have</b> to stop defending a couple of not that useful locations (e.g. a difficult to defend hive) and to take the fight to the alien team.
This won't be easy an agressive style of play takes teamwork and communication, but to stand anychance of levelling the playing field in 2.0, the marines are going to have to adapt.
People might say that occupying a hive is useful so that the aliens cant get it building, but surely we must all realise now that, aliens really only need two hives in order to crush a dug-in marine team. You might think about locking down two hives...dont this is suicide, the res needed to successfully lock down and fortify two hives will cripple your chances of success, mainly becasue you wont have the time/money to upgrade.
Perhaps the only location i would consider fortifying with turrets is the double res on a map, beware though the aliens WILL throw themselves this place, and they WILL take it down if they are organised.
The reason aliens have been so successful so far in 2.0 is because they can expand so quickly, and for some strange reason the marine response to this seems to be defense, in my opinion this is wrong, what marines need to do is to play hard, try equipping a couple of shotgun toting squads at the beggining of a round, send one team out around the map (furthest away from the aliens hive) to cap res and electrify before moving on, the other team should be sent to destroy the aleins res, hopefully occuping the aliens long enough so that your other team can get around 3-4 rts up and electrified before the kaharaa even realise and by that time it will be too late to do anything about it until the second hive is up. This gives you about 5-10 minutes to upgrade and send out your endgame force before you lose your rts.
There are many other agressive tactics that marines can use, but the key is to not let the aleins control the game (i.e control where and when the fights happen) to even stand a chance of winning marines <b>will have</b> to stop defending a couple of not that useful locations (e.g. a difficult to defend hive) and to take the fight to the alien team.
This won't be easy an agressive style of play takes teamwork and communication, but to stand anychance of levelling the playing field in 2.0, the marines are going to have to adapt.
Comments
I agree a two hive lockdown is unfeasible, thats why when its done, its usually en route to the third hive. IE hive 2 is flattened but not locked down. You don't stop, you rush on to hive 3. If you dig in, the aliens will dig in at hive 3 - not good.
I agree. Every game that lasted more than an hour was due to marines going on the defensive at the midgame and not pushing to kill a hive. More often than not, these long games resulted in a marine loss. With onos no longer hive dependant, TSA outposts can easily be demolished at one or 2 hive lockdown.
The "easy" wins for marines, were when the comm used blitzkrieg tactics, hitting a hive quick and moving on. Though with Movment first for aliens, this is a tougher tactic.
In the marine wins I've witnessed, it's not just offense, but organized offense that's the key to victory. The comm should be very wary when he feels like he's going on the defensive.
edit: mmm just woke up class spelling <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
It was nothing, In base we had IP, ARM, TF (no turrets and later elec'd)2 people went the powersilo route. The rest the cargo route, capping every res on the way, and elecing them when possible. It was quickly 7 v 3 rp wise. Then we got a TF+PG+turrets in cargo, then we noticed silo was up, but they had not attacked the rt.
We quickly got a PG+TF+Turrets and got handed shotguns to take out the hive. Then with all these shotguns we ran to via and took it down. (1 GL takes hive, res the spawning aliens).
Seemed to depend a little on no serious base rush. Whole thing was less than 15min probably less...
Hard to say if this success was more to marine skill over alien skill, but it was highly effective.
In base I put IP, ARM, TF + elec and then I split my marines into three. Going to triad, Station Access and Horseshoe. The one that went to horseshoe pushed on and found Maint was the hive. So I got the marines in triad to move up to Ec hive and cap it. And the SA marines to go to Sub Junction which had an alien RT which they removed. I also elec'd SA and placed obs and researched Phase Tech. While this was happening a small rush on EC, but I sent the whole team to back them up. I then linked EC with PG and placed turrets. I also lost horseshoe.
Short lull. Then to keep on the offensive I dropped 5 SG's with a view to going to maint. However there were a few oc's at horseshoe that I thought required a GL. Started Adv arm, but as you know that takes a long time. So scrapped Maint rush and told everyone to go to EC and rush CC as I scanned as there was v. little defence. The rush took out the defence and thats about it. It failed. Never mind, I sent a few marines to take down sub junc which had been re put up.
Now another short lull and Adv arm finished and addend 2nd IP. So I decided to push to Maint 2 GL's and 3-4 SG's and rest of marines went that way. Horsehoe went down in seconds, capped it. Then took down maint. Set-up a PG there capped res. Also few TF + turrets, during this time aliens took EC back and Triad. Not wanting to let the aliens relax and seeing way to CC was undefended from the maint direction I attacked south loop capped it then moved on to CC. One or two onii, but they had arm1, weap2 and HMG's, GL's, SG's and took them out. Got a PG up during assualt and took CC down quite quickly. During this time aliens took SA, Sub Junc, South Loop and Horseshoe but didn't cap them. They also did a major assualt on base, they took out PG, and 1 IP but we managed to fight them off. So I put 2 extra IP's and alot of turrets. Then I re-capped all the RP's I had lost and got elec. A bit of a lull and I got weap3, arm2, and JP's.
I was going to try and take EC from CC, but a marine said meet at base and lets rush CC. They had 2-3 GL's HMG's SG's and JP's. They took it down quickly, unfortunately during this assualt CC was lost right at the end. Fortunately, however, no alien put the hive up so when EC went down it was game over.
Certainly was a fun game. Lots of action and toys for marines, but there were lots of times it could have gone either way. My marines were good stuck together not armoury humping, a large marine force ~9 is pretty formidable. Might be harder to pull off on other maps that are difficult for marines to get around.
The other day i was playing a game
The aleins had generator hive.
I let them **** around in the double res node and sent half my team there constantly to give them res.. and to also make them spend all thier starting res there defending it.. which they did...
3 guys went to upper sewere.. got that res.. then to purification station and got that res.... tf and 3 turrets at purification station...
Took the res outside via and built anotehr tf and 4 turrets and pg in sewer...
Everyone on my team then phased to sewer.. built two more turrets... and then promptly went to vent. Build a phase gate outside vent and a tf and 4 turrets.. then moved into hive to find about 3 skulks and 2 o chambers plus hive going up.. took it out and had a double hive lockdown.
Built in vent.. and built other phase... left old tf up..
Kept addin tf's evenly over three locations...sewer..main..and vent... with 5 res nodes this was easy...
Through EXTREME micromanaging... and teamwork.. we were able to defend these three locations.. and get turrets up at each... after about 3 min of the lockdown.. shipping went down and i scanned to see an onos.... had entire team phase to vent and QUICKLY build an observatory and 2 more turret factories... the onos rushed in as my team was hiding down the right side of vent hive.. as he ran out the team chased him.... as the lift slowly went back up they unloaded...killing him... SMOOTH... <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
built an obs and several more tf's at sewer had about 20 turrets at each hive now. All upgrades were completed and it was 4v6 res nodes.. took shipping tunnel res node again... and built sieges at base that reached towards generator hive.... they had about 3 harassing onos now.. so ordering marines was key. Fortified upper sewer. One man on my team took a team of 4 unupgraded marines completely unbeknownst to me... and took out central processing without my aid or help... a huge feat considering i had scanned and saw what was in there. after that it became clear we were going to win and i highly commended that team for taking that initiative.....
After that we handed out mass ha with our 7 res nodes and moved into auxiliary generator.. took the res and had 3 ha stay there to create a diversion.. everyone else moved in other side and got a tf and the res up at stability monitoring before the aliens realized our bluff... from there we mass ha rushed and won....
the main thing to remember.. is mass turret farms are not needed you can fortify 3 places with 3 turrtes.. then keep making turrets evenly at each place... and you will have plenty 10 minutes into the game when the first onos arrives.... everyone tries to make the huge base.. then move on.. not realizing this is not feasable with marines because most expansion must be done BEFORE onos arrives.. after that it becomes much harder
I think the most important thing for marines to do is to take the fight to the aliens, it's a cliche but offense really is the best defense. By harassing the aliens early game you can stop their usual expansion and pin them back, aliens dont expect this, and as a team can't handle it, the kaharra in 2.0 are designed to be manoverable and good on the offense with regards to rushing and ambushes, but poor defenders. If the comm on a marine team can get a couple of sg squads (only has to be one sg but also needs to be more than one person) to effectivly supress the aliens then most of the map will be safe enough for rts to be put up and to stay up with minimal defense - if you think about it this is almost the reverse of current ns games where the marines always seem contained to one or two bases and have to push out from there. Hence the horribly long endgames as the marines are much better at defending than the kaharra.
I would rather trade both their hives for the double res any day of the week. Because stategically your denying them a RT and one of their upgrade chambers which i believe is more important then just 2 RTs. And drop turrets and a PT and start working your way down to the 2nd hive.
Im sick of everyone going "Take double res. Take double res." but i would rather let them have it and waste their res bunkering it up and take a hive as well as the res nodes around it.
A good alien team will keep you bottled up in the double res 9 times out of 10. Even if the lerks can keep marines distracted while they are building. It takes away valuable time that would be better spent denying them a hive and capping nodes.
When the aliens are there first, move on. You'll not take it early game, and they'll just sit all day watching you bounce off.
And the best offense is a tempting defense... I love baiting alien swarms with the third hive (I "open" it to them) and then simultaneously smashing both other hives with L3 shotguns.
People might say that occupying a hive is useful so that the aliens cant get it building, but surely we must all realise now that, aliens really only need two hives in order to crush a dug-in marine team. You might think about locking down two hives...dont this is suicide, the res needed to successfully lock down and fortify two hives will cripple your chances of success, mainly becasue you wont have the time/money to upgrade.
Perhaps the only location i would consider fortifying with turrets is the double res on a map, beware though the aliens WILL throw themselves this place, and they WILL take it down if they are organised.
The reason aliens have been so successful so far in 2.0 is because they can expand so quickly, and for some strange reason the marine response to this seems to be defense, in my opinion this is wrong, what marines need to do is to play hard, try equipping a couple of shotgun toting squads at the beggining of a round, send one team out around the map (furthest away from the aliens hive) to cap res and electrify before moving on, the other team should be sent to destroy the aleins res, hopefully occuping the aliens long enough so that your other team can get around 3-4 rts up and electrified before the kaharaa even realise and by that time it will be too late to do anything about it until the second hive is up. This gives you about 5-10 minutes to upgrade and send out your endgame force before you lose your rts.
There are many other agressive tactics that marines can use, but the key is to not let the aleins control the game (i.e control where and when the fights happen) to even stand a chance of winning marines <b>will have</b> to stop defending a couple of not that useful locations (e.g. a difficult to defend hive) and to take the fight to the alien team.
This won't be easy an agressive style of play takes teamwork and communication, but to stand anychance of levelling the playing field in 2.0, the marines are going to have to adapt. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes, I suggested early shotgun squads with some welders and early armor upgrades. Haven't tried it yet rofl; but shotty + armor upgrades definitely is feasible, as long as you can afford it, even if not immediately. Simply upgrade armor @ the arms lab and pass out the shotties (Heavy armor + shotgun is the ultimate expression of this strat).
What I had in mind was doing this right from the beginning, creating an instant shotty squad, and passing out a welder or two to keep people in 100% condition, meanwhile working on the upgrades. But if you're going to hand out the shotties right away you might as well try this:
A strat to combat alien early expansion is simply to shotty rush the hive. If your rush sucks you will probably lose. So get it right. If and when aliens are in the know, and catch on, you're going to have to deceive their scouts in the beginning, or they will be prepared and your shotty rush may be wasted res, UNLESS you and your team will own them no matter what, or you are flexible and don't dump them all within 2 seconds but wait to decide whether to finish equipping only a squad for the squad tactic or equip the whole team to rush the hive.
The reasoning for shotgun rushing the hive is this: while they are fast expanding, they have all their troops away from the hive, several, if not many, who will be gorges, GORGES who r FAR AWAY from the hive. Your entire team marches right in, and blasts the hive apart. You will meet some resistance but I hope you will be able to figure out how to handle this. Practice makes perfect <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> also deception and all that, or learning when you can adjust to shotty squad on the fly, or learning what to tell your team, or waiting until you are sure they have left the hive, etc all the details
Shotgun rushes aren't much fun, since they tend to win easily (on pubs). However, they do a great job of slowing alien expansion during the next game as they worry about their hive.
Then later we lost a game on nothing, we pushed pretty aggressively into cargo and took that, then we lost because we didn't get a move on to more res nodes and another hive. We sorta just sat around while the partially clueless comm finished level 3 armor upgrades before starting on weapon upgrades.
Kill them before they kill you, and when you kill them go on to kill their base.
Aggresion can win the game indeed,but then you sometimes have to take risks to win (no turrets in base = skulk fodder)
Capping res has become crucial and the only reason and hive should be important is for its res and for a possible staging point to take down another hive or other alien res
Double Res is important, but i feel it blinds commanders to much to what is happening around him. Double res is good only what it it has (double res) and another key startegy in this game is deception. I always like to send and three squad of marines who can handle dieing to harass double res and hives to make aliens THINK that that is my main goal, but yet sacrifice the double res for the 6 other res on the map...letting the aliens spend their precious res building up those key areas for them when a couple siege cannons <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> can strip them of their power
Marine commanders must also look at strategic ways of placing stuff on the map. I see so many commanders spreading out the structures so wide in base and out of base when if u pack them clo9se together you can 1) protect valuable ones on the inside and 2) electrify a tf and give the aliens shock dmg when the attack any of your structures.
One of my favorite tactics for ending games when i have reasonably competent marines quick is to build 2 ips+tf+armory+3ts in base and while the r building that find the hive for my team..and send 2 guys out to cap res while i send the rest with shotguns to their starting hive..get a siege up and boom, games over in 3 minutes. Ive done this several times to enormous success.
What people also dont understand when the capture hives as a key is that in this game we have aliens who horde res...if marines just capture the hives, no matter how much defenses the get up, 1 onos <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> or a couple gorges <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> with bile bomb can end the game for them
I also want to explain something that alot of commanders dont understand. Aliens r given the gift at capturing res so fast and easily for a reason, they r at a serious disadvantage when i comes to res distribution...heres how alien res works. Each little res twr passes out 1 res every 3 secs...it gives one res to a different person every 3 secs...and once it finishes cycling it goes to the start again...going round and round in cycles. So marines have an extreme advantage because all their res goes into one pool...being able to exceed 100...and all of it being able to be used for the common good
The Jack of Spades
More to Come
In addition I will then maintain a hive lockdown by placing an outpost between two hives, barely in siege range of one. With a PG it is easier to maintain, you can expand the outpost size to siegeing range of both hives (making a grosly sized turret farm), while at the same time keeping your marines in a more consolidated area except when they need to get res. Occasionally you can get a foolish gorge to build a hive and just easily siege it as it is growing. <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo-->
Justy be sure to have enough observitories. I like to mess with them by pinging a hive (especially if they only have 1 at the time) by building a tf with 1 rine outside of base, pinging the hive and quickly reclycling the tf. Nothing is more fun then forcing them back to their hive every few seconds. It has a psychological effect on the aliens to where they rarely come back to defend the hive, kinda like the boy who cried wolf. If you get 1 rine to harrass it on a constant basis by shooting off a clip... it really messes with them.
Example... lock down waste, and reactor room and you dont need to electrify west access
IN ns_veil, you can lock aliens into cargo and pipe by farming the area just outside cargo, and the area between dbl, topo, and emergency nozzle
if you use these, you can win with ease
~Jason