Samhain's Strategy Guide
Samhain's Strategy Guide
Strategy, it's the toughest thing to learn in bolo, not to mention the hardest to teach. Strategy is more abstract than tactics, which is why it's so hard to learn. Anyone can show you tactics. Tactics are the things which you use to carry out your strategy, such as killing pills, tanks, bases, etc. It seems to me that the current generation of boloers are all tactically driven. The best of them can all take pills faster than I, yet, they still seem to lose. That, in itself, is pretty good evidence of the greater value of strategy over tactics.
So, how does one go about learning strategy? Playing against players who have it is a great start. Good old experience should never be discounted. Good experience, though, which means not playing with players who are worse than yourself. It's the big fish, small pond thing; you have to get outta your tiny little clique and play with the "big kids". So you lose a bit, get a rep for being a squid, whatever. The experience you gain will carry you much further.
Experience is what you need, but, not everyone has the ability to catch on to what they see on the bolo field. So, I'm writing this little piece to hand off what I've learned to whoever's interested. I've always been more strategy oriented than technically skilled. In fact, I'm apprehensive in writing this, with the thought that a great technically skilled player gains that missing link in strategy and tears me apart. Perhaps, I'll limit the distribution of this piece to a select few. Heh, as if any amount of reading could teach real strategy...
First things first, how can you tell that you're lacking in strategy? Well, I think it's safe to say that if you play a 2x2 better than a 1x1, that's a definite clue. In fact, the worst strategical players tend to hate 1x1's. 1x1's are where real strategy comes to play. A good 2x2 player isn't always a good 1x1 player, whereas a good 1x1 player is almost always a good 2x2 player. IMHO, that's where the saying, "I'm a team player, damnit", comes from. The more players in a game, the less strategy required. That's why most squids like 8 player games. The more players in a game, the smaller your sphere of play is. That's probably the reason why small maps are so popular among the tactically oriented. There's less territory to cover, thus, strategy is less important. The places to attack and defend, pillwar areas, etc., are all pretty defined and limited to certain areas.
The difference between strategy and tactics can also be related to bases and pills. Bases win the game, but, you use pills to do so. Strategy is what you want to do, tactics are how you do it. Good players realize this, and will generally focus primarily on bases, but, will take pills as needed.
One of the main concepts I feel must be learned is focus. The focus of a game shifts between pills, bases, men, trees, etc. If your opponent has 2 bases left, the current focus of the game is probably bases. At that point, your goal is to get your enemy away from those two bases. Either through spiking, or suicide stealing. That's a pretty basic concept. However, what most people fail to understand is that, the focus can be forcibly shifted. If my opponent has a 9-7 pill lead on me, but, I've got a 10-6 base lead, I will shift the focus from pills to bases. My opponent wants to keep the focus on pills, since he's winning on that side. However, by stealing 2 bases, on one full load of ammo, I've changed the base game to a 12-4 lead. By doing that, I seek to force my opponent to retake those bases or subject himself to a crippling spike. Thus, I make him either play my winning game, or I cause him to throw pills back to defend, making his pill lead inaffective, as he uses his resources to defend behind him. Therefore, I've evened out the pill war, and retain my base lead.
If the situation is reversed, then I must shift the game into a pill war. I would then place my pill aggressively against my opponent's, and attempt to make the takes. Any take I make can be either added to defend my backside, or further press my forward attack. By keeping my opponent defending on the front, I protect myself from the base run. It seems funny that I state an ability to win from either situation, but, it's just part of being a good player to win more often than not. In either case, I have to rely on my bag of trix being larger than my opponent's.
The most important concept to learn is role-playing. This is especially important for team games. Everyone plays a role in the game, even more confusing is that the role changes throughout the course of the game. If you're the stronger player in the team, it's up to you to press and win the game. If you sux, then it's up to you to slow the other team down. Pretty simple, huh? But, this concept is much more than a simple shift from offense to defense. To be a good player, you have to recognize your role in any given situation. If you sux and you encounter the opposition's best player, it's time to run in and kill him. If it's the worst player, then you leave him alone. Let's go over a few scenarios: 2x2 game, best and worst player allied, the two middle players allied. The worst player ties up one of the opponents, while the best player rox the other middle player, and the outcome is obvious. The medium player uses stalling tactics (sets up a wide pill line) against the best player, and the other mediocre guy rox the worst player. With knowledge of this on both sides, it's a matter of tactics to win the game.
Another role-playing scenario: One player gets double teamed, he messages to his ally that the double team is occuring, then works on stalling the twosome. The double teamed player must realize that he'll lose, but, has to make it take longer than it does for his lone ally to take the other side of the map, uninterrupted. The lack of role-playing has lost many games, when every player believes it is necessary to try and win the game. Some of my more frustrating games have been when my ally sets up a pill line against the weakest player in the game, while I'd been doing my best to stalemate the second best player in the game. You have to know your limitations, who and when to attack or defend. It's simple math. This is easily learned by being on the three side of a 2x3. One player settles into a defensive position tying up one member of the pair, while the other two players double team the lone opponent. It's simple subtraction, to win on the three side you shift the game to either a 1x1/1x1/1x0, or a 1x1/2x1. For the chess players, think back to the old rule, "never trade pieces when you're down." If I start out with a 6-5 lead on you, I want to trade pieces with you, because eventually, I'll end up with one last piece, and you'll have none. Not easy to play with no pieces, is it?
Simple arithmetic can help you out a lot. When I play in 3x3's, I find that I often run into 2x1's. I think that's mainly because they view me as the greatest threat, and think that they can win by double teaming me and keeping me from beating them. Depending on my allies, that's not always the best plan of attack. Why? Because I understand the concept of role playing. I know that when I'm double teamed, I don't have to win. Although, on some occasions, I have been able to beat the double team, I realise that my main goal is to not be beaten, and let my team's double team work. This works because I'm not trying to win, just maintain a line and keep the enemy from advancing. The single player on the other side often doesn't know that, and tries to beat the mismatch. By trying to beat the double, he leaves himself open to being beaten quicker than if he tried to defend. I keep this in mind at all times. Not all players are able to put their egoes aside and play the small roles, or the roles of the newb player (e.g. the constant attack on bases). But, this is what makes an effective player.
Role-play also includes the realization that you're the only ally with a man, a tree, etc. If you know your 3 allied enemies have only one man between them, and you paid enough attention to the newswire to know which enemy it is (hint), you then know who is capable of making a rebuild when you go for a take, and who to kamikaze on, so as to remove the last man from the field--even if it's only temporary. You role can change with a death and finding yourself on a different part of the map. Your role may be to start walling in back bases, running behind your enemy's pill line and causing him to die, or to refuel on a tangent base and start a flank.
All tanks are created equal, thing is, they just don't stay that way. Different tanks, like the various pieces on a chess board are all valued differently. Some tanks are more valuable from the start, simply because of who's in control. That's a pretty basic concept. However, a tank controlled by a better player, may, during the course of a game become less valuable than that of a lesser player. This, at first, doesn't seem logical. However, a tank without a man suddenly loses a great deal of it's initial value. If the tank has no ammo, then it's less effective. Even more than that, a tank with no ammo that just came back from death that's far away from where it needs to be is near useless. A tank with a pill is definitely worth more than one without. All of these values help to make the assessment of whether or not it is worth it to chase the tank across the map, force a dogfighting situation, or to leave it alone. The situations can occur in any combination, and it is up to you to be able to calculate which tank is more valuable, and whether or not the risk involved in losing your own tank is within acceptable limits.
Deception and distractions. This is my style of play. I use a variety of tactics from my bag of trix which leave you on the wrong side of the map, at the wrong base, defending the wrong pill. For example, I'll shoot a pill 6-8 times then immediately run to the other side of the map. Many players will run to that pill and repair it. However, often times by the time they get there, I'm on the other side taking a pill unopposed. To make it even more confusing, I sometimes shoot up a pill and set up blox while it kewls down, so I can make an easier take. In order to achieve these plans, I must have the initiative, the next concept of bolo theory.
Initiative is a term I've taken from chess. I have the initiative when I'm planting pills and making takes, pushing you back. I'm making the moves, and you're counter-attacking. When this happens to me, I usually try to either shift the focus of the game, or I use a distraction in order to regain the intiative. Initiative wins games. Players who understand initiative are often recognized by their aggressive spikes. Spikes press the issue of focus, since it's a general rule that spikes should be cleared. However, it really depends on the base count, the individual game, whatever. Gaining the initiative can also be gained by flanking.
Flanking, it's related to deception and initiative. Flanking is basically attacking on a tangent battle area. My main style of play is to set up a pill line pillwar, then flank. This is a combination of deception, initiative, and focus. By setting up the pillwar, I've shifted my opponent's focus to pills in a given area. This is my distraction. When I flank, I am attacking where my opponent is not, thus, giving me the initiative of the attack. My basic thought is that, I can take a lone pill faster than my opponent can take one from a pill line. The lone pill usually also leaves a hole in the defense which allows me to go on a base run.
Pills placement is a mystery to many players. While some set up pill lines, others send out hasty spikes, and others just gather them in blobs around their bases. Different games require different pill placement strategies. Pill placement is a little to difficult for me to explain in a strategy guide, as much of it is tactics. However, in order to help the development of pill placing concepts, I'd like to convey the idea that pills have spheres of influence. Since pills shoot in all directions, it's easy to see that there's a larger circle around the pills within which the pills may shoot. It's important to understand this when placing pills and spikes. Many of the newer players I've seen think of a spike as the placing of a pill directly adjascent to an enemy base. That's fine in some cases, however, that's not the extent of the spike. A spike can be seen as placing a pill such that an enemy base falls within it's sphere of influence. The offensive affectiveness lies within the shooting range of a pill, it's sphere of influence. Often times, I'll see a player adjascently spike each of a three base cluster, when a spike in the middle would be enough. Knowing and understanding the spheres is what enables many players to defend and attack more efficiently. On quadrant type maps like CT III, I find that with a single pill, I can back the enemy off into his allies' corner, simply because his open bases are within my pill's sphere. By heating up the pill, I prevent the enemy from *easily* building blox and defending. When I push my opponents to one quadrant, it's much easier for me to either clean up the abandoned corner, or to attack the remaining one and go for the kill.
Player recognition isn't just good for making fair teams, it's also there for exploiting weaknesses. If you know who you're up against, you know how aggressive/defensive you need to be. Because of the weak strategy that so many players seem to have, you can also count on many of them to play pretty consistently. Many will fall for the same man-killing tactic, succumb to frustration, have weak defense in a pill war, not realise that a change in focus has occured, blahblahblah.
Knowing which players are capable of what is extremely important. There are moves which are basically, stupid. However, when the enemy isn't able to counter them, they can be quite powerful, like spiking in front of an enemy tank, or doing a pill take right in front of another tank. What makes these moves stupid, is the assumption that the other tank can kill your man. However, there are many players whom are unable to pull off such trix, and thus, the moves change from being to stupid to only being risky, and sometimes even good moves. It depends on who you're playing against.
Although it really isn't strategy, I feel this little concept is important enough to mention as well. If you're not doing something, you're losing. It's as simple as that. No matter what's happening in the game, you *must* be doing something. If you're deadlocked on a pill line, flank and steal a base. You either gain a base, or the enemy goes to retake it, and as soon as you see him retake it along the message wire, you're tearing up his pill line. This works because you've taken the initiative; he doesn't realize that you've left to take a base, until it turns... Still, always make sure you're doing something, anything, go shoot a tank, steal a base, go shoot every red pill 6 times, and make your enemy chase you around rebuilding pills. Something is almost always better than nothing.
However, this brings up the questions of defending, and vulturing/ambushing. While defending a line, I think still think it's important to always be doing something, specifically, heating up your own pills and rebuilding them. It makes it difficult for the enemy to take a pill from the line when everything's pissed. Vulturing/ambushing, well, you *are* doing something. I wrote this section mainly because of all the times I see players sitting on bases when they're already full, Sitting around not doing anything, grabbing trees for no reason, driving around the map, etc. because they don't know what they should/could be doing.
Confidence wins games, too. Santa and grinch have both noted the importance of ego for greatness. That's not entirely true, but, confidence in one's ability can make the difference between a win and a loss. I know of a couple of players who play well with a good ally, and poorly against a good opponent. It seems as if they get psyched out and play less aggressively and make many more mistakes. Play with confidence. Just don't get cocky--cocky's when you can't back it up ;)
Hmm... Now that I look at this piece, there's doesn't seem to be that much to my strategy. Dang, I thought, for a second, that I could help fill that gap left by Black Lightning disappearance from the bolo field and along with his excellent posts on strategies & tactics. I guess it's because strategy is so abstract that it doesn't appear to be very complicated on paper--compounded with the fact that I can't write worth a jolo of bolo skill (j/k jyl ; ) ).
Another thing to keep in mind is that I've written this guide from my own perspective. This means that there'll be biases which fit more to my style of play, which may contrast to the styles of other established players. However, I have attempted to be as general as I possibly could, in order to convey my thoughts and ideas to the player who has yet to develop a sense of strategy. It would be fairly trivial for me add the extremely stylized strategies of many of the top players. I feel that the main strength of this guide is in displaying the concepts of my basic views on strategy with a few references to my own playing style. It's up to the player to explore the game further to find the strategy which suits him best.
Another thing that's important to remember is that I've tried to portray concepts here. I wrote this to help other players to understand strategy. I tried to avoid specific "strategies" (plans) because there isn't one specific strategy that will win every game. You have to choose the best path to victory in every different game.
I've made a few references to my bag of trix. That's basically a description of the collection of tactics, etc. that I've obtained over the past months of boloing I've done. It's the little things, those insignificant little moves that save you that .001 seconds that put you on top of your opponent, tactically. You put enough of those little things together, and you'll accumulate a lot more wins. I'll write a paper on tactics pending how this one is received.
Apprehensively, Samhain