Tip 22 - The road is long

URL: http://half-life.morat.net/tfc/guides/

But in the end, you have only 15 seconds to traverse each part of it.

The gates opened, the decals remained mysteriously suspeded in space.

The scouts flooded forth, and... deathmatch occurred because of a stupid prematch bug.

The map re-restarted, the home points actually actuvated, the scouts ran forth...

And dethmatch occurred in the centre point.

Warpath. A crazy tale of death, death and.. urm.. death.

Don't get me wrong, I love the map - but it's easy for it to go very wrong, and only organised play can stop that.

Ok, the basics first.

Once a point is capped, the next point in line becomes available to that team to cap. 15 seconds later, the point they just capped goes live again, and the enemy can recapture it.

Cleverly, 15 seconds isn't QUITE enough time to progress to the next point.

Subtleties - there is an underground route connecting points 2 3 and 4. It takes a demon to detpak each stage open - and can be resealed in the same manner.

There is also a sky route from 2 to 3 and from 4 to 3 (accessible the other way if you RJ / CJ)

Capping a point undisguises a spy.

Oh - and the point you respawn at depends upon which point is currently activated, the closer the enemy is to your base, the further back you spawn.


Finally - unlike CZ2 and most other domination style maps - you do NOT get ANY reward for trying. You have to cap all 5 or you get no points at all.


Now, how to play it.

1. Standard O/D setup.

I don't advise this, but it works. Sorta.

(All this will be written assuming that 1 is your home point)

Build most of your defence at point 2. Sentry gun (up near the ammo pack is hard to kill, but scouts can slip by.

Demon is a good thing to have - especially to reseal the ground route.

HWG, soldier - and due to the nature of the choke a good sniper are all obvious choices too.

You will want SOME defence behind here - maybe a SG around the corner (although it's going to be mostly spies you are worried about) to stop people sneaking off and waiting in our base.


The offence to TRY and counter this, is to move your defence forward, midfield a lot, and get solid control of 3 - with a resupply there, a sentry gun.

Get a force through to point 4, cap it and THEN kill the defenders. They will respawn at point 5. Pull to try and consoldiate four, and when they recap it, push someone forward to 5.
Some of them will turn back to stop it, and you've got a chance to recap 4 while your sneak gets 5.

If you can keep pushing them back, then you can get through.

Alternately, give ground to them, let them push forward, perhaps grow complacent, then take 4 and 5 in a single solid push.


2. Rear D.

The enemy is using a lot of heavy offence, has built a base at 3, and is consistently taking 2. If they aren't, then don't use this defence - because they will start to.

You pour a lot of spam into the channel from 4, build a few SGs, and keep people on the ledges to take out spies, and knock CJers off target.

I don't advise this defence. It may stop you from losing, but it won't help you win - the enemy may well take and hold point 2, and then you're basically stuffed.

Your offence will be spawning right back - and your chances of pushing them right back to their base are close to nill.

To do it, your best chance is to coordinate heavily with your D, and make one single solid push to move most of your D to point 2 - while your offence keeps the enemy busy trying to stop them capping all the way back.

The offencce to oppose this?

You're in trouble. You can try letting them come forward, then crushing them, retaking 4 and 5.

Or you can just keep hammerring on them with a mix of heavy and light classes - and a truck load of spies.

But this is a defence that is trying to lock the game.


3. Mobile D.

Probably the best, but certainly the jhardest to pull off.

Your team splits into four parts (pairs)

One pair is dedicated offence, always ahead of the current point, eithe rharassing the enemy (if your defence says it hneeds time) or moving to capture the point after next. Spies and scouts and maybe medics are good for this.

One pair is dedicated defence, they hang back, build level two sentry guns, catch any enemy who make it through the other lines. Your usual last line defence - they hang back behind the points that the action is at.

One pair is your main defence. They follow up behind the offence, and HOLD a point. Try to stop the enemy taking it, recap when needed, stop enemies coming past, and generally blow everything up.

The usual demons / soldiers are good for this.

And the final pair is your main offence / offence support - they hang around either where all the fighting is, or just in front of it - to take the next point before the enemy can.

To play this, you need a LOT of comms - your pairs want to be kept informed of where the action is, whether to move forward or fall back, when to change classes, whether to harass the enemy because a group behind them needs time, or to try to bypass them.

Most of the fighting will happen at points 2, 3 and 4 with this setup - you're almost purely reactive, and have to move around when the points become capped.


4. FAF (Fast as f***)

Forget defence. Cap everything before the enemy knows what is happening.

No sentry gn can lock on to more than one scout at once.

2 defenders. Just enough to prevent the enemy actually capping your home point.

6 scouts / spies.

Attack attack attack. Cap all the points. Don't let the enemy get set up. Force them to always defend their home point, rush rush rush. This can be devastating, because it forces a map reset - and can be a good initial strategy when you don't know what defence the enemy is using. But once they DO get set up, it tends to be ineffective - and it only takes one slip up by you, and a failure to recap 2, 3 and 4 (which you do all in one go) and the enemy wins it.


5. HWG hardpoint.

4 HWG stay together, and slowly move forward, stopping anyone getting past.
A couple more heavy classes move to try and break up attacking groups, and to take HWG places while they are dead.

Mow everyone down. Don't fall for spies, and slowly budge the point under contention forward.

Add to this maybe a couple of scouts to harass the enemy defence, and they may not notice that your defence has come to have a little word with theirs until it's too late.

When it DOES happen, be ready to swarm through and grab the last cap - and also have a medium class ready to recap 2 and 3 while everything hits the fan at 4.

To stop it, mirv is good, as is a well timed detpack - or your scouts can go around while they are at 3.

Not a great tactic, but suirprises can sometimes work, especially if the enemy is getting predictable.


6. ANOTHER map bug

Going out of 3, turning right to go into the coridoor, there's an odd glitch that makes scouts (and, it seems, only scouts) slide left as they go. Be aware of it.


7. The enemy is in your base warning.

Be careful of it.

It *may* be safe to ignore it, because it means that there is one less enemy actually doing anything useful against you - BUT.. you CANNOT let the enemy capture point 2. Because then they cap.

OTOP, don't put TOO much effort into hunting it down - because that makes it all the mor likel ythat the enemy DOES take point two.

Best not to let it happen in the first place.


Setting off the enemy warning can be fun. There's a big open area to dodge in, and they can have real trouble catching you sometimes.

If you can force more than one or two enemies back to deal with you, you've made it that much more likely that the rest of your team can push forward.

Of course, TELL your team what you are doing.


Humm - thats it for now. We'll see what other strategies develop as more leagues play this map more.

i