Introversion

Hi guys...

When playing a capture the statue map, what do you feel are the best tactics?

Do you immediately go for any unused spawns?
Try to dominate as many Statue spawns as possible early on to grab the statue as it appears?
Try to dominate the enemies coloured statue area to prevent them taking it and stealing it for yourself at the last minute?

Do you have other tactics?

At the moment its my favourite game mode, but I am constantly losing to more organised opponents..

Any tips, opening strategy/long term stratgeies would be appreciated

It depends on the map.

A powerful strategy on Melting Pot is to seize the center. That way, you can attack anyone who's brought the statue to their recovery point and take it from them.

However, a counter-move to this is to ignore the statues for the first few minutes and attack their spawnpoint instead. If they're so focused on seizing the center, then it's likely they have most of their Darwinians clustered around the recovery points. Stealing their spawn location secures at least one statue spawn point all for yourself, while being able to cover two points. You'll also have twice as many reinforcements to seize the center with.

Scorched Earth and The Tortured Expanse are other maps I frequently play with, and both feature evil trees between you and a statue. If you're willing to sacrifice some Darwinians to get them, you might grab some statues unmolested while everyone else goes after the easier center spots. Though one underhanded tactic is to let your enemy take the damage to get the statues out into the open, where you'll loose less Darwinians snatching them and bringing them back to your base. Be warned, though, if the enemy is focusing their attentions on seizing that particular statue. The law of capturing spawn points also applies here- if your enemy is busy focusing his forces elsewhere, leaving his spawn point open, snatching it might be a good idea.

One other thing- if you get an explosive powerup, save it. Anthills or Evil forests might be planted at your spawn points, and you'll need something to deal with them quickly. However, if you're within the last minute of the game, you can probably use them without worrying about seriously changing the outcome.

Also- the only way to destroy the statue is to tip it over. Forcing your enemy to choose between a rock and a hard place might make the statue easier to capture... or deny him the use of a statue.

If a statue is getting dragged off away from the center at a quick pace, it might just be easier to let it go and hold the center/spawn point. They might have that one statue, but you might be able to seize the next two if they happen to spawn next to one another.

In games against the AI I notice sometimes they pull flanking maneuvers to try to capture my spawnpoint. It may be prudent (at the expense of loosing a few Darwinians to fight for the statue) to form two squadrons on either side of your spawn point (on maps like Tortured Expanse and Scorched Earth) to guard against any swarms coming at you. Pay attention to the terrain in this case- as if you hold the higher ground you'll loose less Darwinians to grenades.

I typically let my enemy grab the first statue and go for spawns/area domination. The statue binds his forces, leaving the rest prone to attack.

If it's a 5 minute map, I generally go straight for statues and grab spawns if any are available... for longer games, I go for a more dominating strategy - I played a game on the 3-player map with 2 statuespawns in the centre and three around the outside with dark forests (don't know the name), and instead of trying for any statues, I amassed a force and attacked the player who looked the most distracted by the statues - by the time I took his spawns, he had 3 points, but he had nothing but retribution left, and with twice the amount of spawning DGs, I quickly took control of the centre and grabbed 5 statues before the time was up.

I always go for spawn points, and cubes if i can ALWAYS. Period.
What works for me most of the time is you go for all the SPs you can grab,
then get them to route their forces to the nearest Statue Spawn (leaving some for defending the inevitable attack)
In maps with many scattered Statue Spawns, i try to go for the ones no one else is going for (read: not in the center)
In maps with limited ways to your Statue CP, you can set up a array right in the path of the statue from your opponent,
and just jack it and run. That works well on barren waste...something like that. The one with 4 people and 3 Statue Spawns in the middle
Waitaminute!
why the heck am i revealing all my stratagies to my potential opponents?

Greendingbat wrote:why the heck am i revealing all my stratagies to my potential opponents?

So we can tell personally tell you how much you suck before and after we counter them!


Seriously, though. Capturing spawns points is *very helpful*. As is taking the outside statues which while being guarded by BLACK FRACTAL DEATH aren't nearly as contested. Highway robbery is also a very good way to cut out some of the work of defending the damned things yourself. But the best strategy is clearly this:

Make them lose the spawns at their capture point

Why? Because just guarding the spawns screws them over completely as you can throw 200 MWs at the statue, grab it, and cart it off somewhere else. The most they can do about you trying it is defend, and what are the odds they can capture statues as well as keep their spawns?

Hmm, during a game against Pox today (on The Bloody Shrine), I was in a position where we had 0 points, and I had both (the statue spawns just two statues at a time) statues relatively safe and close to my scoring zone.

I could have just kept them there and defended the position, which should be a lot easier than actually hunting down statues.

I try to take all the spawn points and then swamp the enemy with huge formations, thus taking their statues and dominating the battle field.

This was a bit of a useless bump, since that strategy had already been mentioned a few times.

And only effective against really weak players, as it's otherwise painful slow and likely to have you trying to recover from a nigh impossible lag in points.

I think the better way to go about that is to take some of your opponents' spawn points then you'll have a better edge without losing too much game time. The thing is, if you take over the whole map, then start taking statues, chances are, the other players already have a few points, and by that time the game clock will probably only have a minute or two left, and it's likely you wouldn't be able to capture enough statues in time.