Lyramion

A thing I see too often.


The SL yells "Go get the flag!" and everyone throws their bodies on it like some football players who just made a touchdown.


Two soldier on a flag are enough! The rest of you guys should give them cover and be ready to revive them. If everyone goes to the flag you WILL cap faster but more often than not some skilled grenades or rockets will whipe out most of your squad effectively ending your assault.



An example attacking Statue on Belgrade would be like this:


SM1 "Getting the flag neutral"
SM2 "Supporting SM1"

SM3 "Covering from the wall of the north building and ready to revive our guys on the flag"
SM4 "Covering from the wall of the south building and ready to revive our guys on the flag"

SL "Hiding inside the building"
SM5 "Protecting the SL"


This will bring the flag down in a reasonable speed while forcing newly spawned defenders into crossfire situations. While of course in a real fight the setup will almost never be this clean you can still strive for it to make your assault as efficient as possible.





Let me take Command Center as another example:



As you approach the stairs one guys should be the point man. He will rush up the stairs efficiently defusing possible APMs. Crouching past them is nice but in a realistic fight I have all too often seen the first two guys crouch past it and the third triggers it - sometimes even killing 2 people and in the worst case the SL.


Command Center flag does cap very slow but this is NO reason to throw as many bodies on the flag as possible. Even with 5 people it is still a long cap and you are making yourself a very easy target.




SM1 is the "bait" soldier. He is the one most likely to die first so him being the Support can make sense.

SM2 hides behind the column barely in cap radius. Sometimes he will survive some rocket fire and be able to revive SM1.



SM 3 and 4 are the stair soldiers. They will never get close to the flag unless revives are needed. They cover the stairs and try to keep them clear of enemies. If both SM1 and 2 die SM 3 and 4 should communicate via VOIP or logic who goes for the revives on the flag. If the minimap shows contacts on the left stairs the one protecting the right stairs should go.



SM 5 will cover the back of the stair soldiers. He will shift and reinforce left or right stairs if contacts become spotted. He will revive the soldiers on the stairs but also serve as protection of the SL. The back is hard to hit but grenades can reach it fairly easily from down below if the opponent knows what the are doing.


The SL will hide in the back.









Those examples should give you a basic idea of my point. For competetion play teams often set up a chain of cover points when taking a flag so each soldier is knowing what he does and what direction he will cover and which of his teammates are the first to revive.


In our all day play on TG just be sure to keep these simple rules of thumb in your mind:

2 on the flag
2 covering the guys on the flag
1 covering the SL

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sc1ence

I will tend to be a bit riskier at times depending on the situation. Having at least 1 guy in a safe spot in addition to the SL is usually a happy medium to me. Some times I will throw everyone on the flag for a quick neutralize then have guys back off for the cap.

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jazy2

Excellent post Lyra!

I'd never really thought of it like that, always going for the quick cap!

I have a feeling that flag caps are going to get a lot harder in future.........

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jonathanshifty

i was in that round too bad im not in picture yeah but lyra is correect

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Razcsak

Three soldiers seems to be the optimum for solder/cap time, so if you need to flip a flag fast, get three on it while the others fan out around the flag.

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MDFubar

Great post Lyra!

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
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SharinganTH1422

Hmmm...I'm gonna be daring and kind of disagree with Lyra. Although this does sound like the more sensible and moderate, and strategic thing to do, in my limited experience of SL, I've always preferred all 6 players on the flag.

This is for 2 main reasons, firstly, obviously, the cap speed is huge. Even the Command Centre flag will move quick enough to get a 2 or 3 second neutralize if nothing else. On a normal flag, you'll have the flag down in seconds, and that's it, that's the difference between us getting a back flag with a few of our team spawning there and holding it, and being wiped off by some rockets from the enemy; those few seconds do make a difference.

Secondly, the fact that you are close together does have some benefits. Firstly, if there are 5 med kits and 1 supply box down, everyone's gonna stay pretty happy in that tight vicinity. Also, with all that fire coming in, there's more to aim at. 1 guy with 3 rockets between SM 1 & 2 and their both toast. SM3/4 jumps in and you're compromised on that side. 6 guys around 1 spot, and 3 rockets won't kill all of them, in fact, all those medkits down may only kill one or two, and what do you have around you in the immediate vicinity...? Guys with defibs. I'm not sure what flag it is on Belgrade, think it's Playground, it's the one with the big tree and the foliage that provides excellent cover, someone in the centre of the map. I used to probably SL on Belgrade the most, and I'd get everyone to jump on the flag, and I'd sit with my defib looking for bodies of my comrades in the cover. It would be blurry and we'd get hit and healed, and then we'd die, and get revived, the fact that there is so many defibs and medkits around. The effect of those rockets are negated by the awesomeness of the tight squad.

In the example you gave, Command Center is a problem because of people coming up the stairs, for which you have 2 things. Firstly, if it's an entire squad of awesome shooters, if there's one guy at the top, you're screwed. Then SM 5 is screwed, as are the SMs on the flag, and the SL. The squad is a little too spread out. A full squad moving up one of those stairs together should pretty easily get rid of the squad on the flag (unless one of them is Lyra ). However, if you were 6 guys on the flag, you would have 2 advantages.

Firstly, the fact that you are all together, 6 Vs. 6, firing at a bunch of guys, gives you a better chance (especially since you are set and ready to shoot, whereas the other guys are moving. This is negated a little, because you're probably shellshocked from rockets and grenades, which decreases you're shooting ability, plus you're all probably trying to revive when the guys come up the stairs, but I usually take the initiative to face one of the staircases, and keeping that as my position while still being in range of the flag, letting everyone else take care of the revives. This way I can try and buy my squad some time as I begin firing as soon as I see an enemy, and I can tell them someone is there. (an IDS helps as well)).

Secondly, by everyone being on the flag, you are taking it quickly, therefore, by the time the squad realises you're there, gets to the top and exterminates all of you, you should by the very least have it neutralised, which can open the window of opportunity for another squad on your team trying to join the attack.

That's my take on it at least. I'm not an experienced SL, so I'm not too sure about the ideas I've put forward, but I have thought about this before, and this was the conclusion I came to.

__________________
Anger is a gift - Malcolm X

...If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

Ikariam:
1) Uchiha - Nezyos [50:31] - Crystal glass
2) Hyuuga - Engoos [77:79] - Wine

Lyramion

I completly disagree with having all 6 on the flag.

When you add 1 guy to another guy the cap speed will double. Flag will be capt in 50% of the time as it if were one guy.

Adding a third guy will cap the flag at 33%

A fourth at 25%

Fifth 20%

Sixth 16.6%


As you can see putting a 6th in there over a 5th will only net you a 4% gain. Putting a 5th there over 4 guys will only get you a 5% gain.

4 guys on the flag should be the absolute sane maximum. 6 people cuddling on a flag will statpad my K/D but have no tactical value. Flags are THE keypoints on the maps. Many good players have ranged out those spots with Grenades and Rockets perfectly.



Also as science noted you can be dynamic about the people on the flag. 4 to get it neutral then spread out with 2 guys left while the rest clear out the remaining defenders.

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SharinganTH1422

Ah, another piece of knowledge I didn't know about. I never knew that it worked at certain speeds...all i knew was, the more people, the better, .

I'll definitely bare that in mind in the future, but I still do believe that stuffing a lot of soldiers on the flag is better than just having a couple, with other guys far off and covering them.

__________________
Anger is a gift - Malcolm X

...If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

Ikariam:
1) Uchiha - Nezyos [50:31] - Crystal glass
2) Hyuuga - Engoos [77:79] - Wine

Razcsak

It naturally depends. If you know (through IDS, UAV, or commander) that there are no people at or near the flag as you hit it, getting all six on reduces the chance that a squadleader or enemy squad will spawn on the back flag that you're trying to grab. Flipping it as fast as possible is then an advantage. If you've got a support or engineer and you plan on defending the flag, he should be moving to lay deployables in a forward position while the medics cap. If the flag is hot, three would be the most on the flag, in my opinion.

Also, getting the flag neutral is a lot more important than actually capping it. Getting it neutral means that you and your enemy are on relatively even footing with regards to reinforcements, and getting out of the frag danger zone is fairly important. The Com Tower flag coming from Ruins is a key example of this. Com Tower can get pounded so easily by grenades and rockets from Ruins and people spawning at Com Tower are in perfect positions to attack the flag, so getting it neutral and then getting the hell out of dodge means that you're not going to lose tickets.

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pred011586

What I've done with my squads in the past. If we get up to a flag in hostile territory, I call for "Bodies on the flag." My whole squad moves on the flag, and I stay a very short, but safe, distance away so if they die, they can respawn on me. Once the flag is neutralized, I think to myself to give the order to fan out, but 9 times out of 10, my SMs are already 2 steps ahead of me and taking defensive positions. The downside to this, is that sometimes EVERYONE moves off the flag, but in those situations I move onto the flag myself and let my squad cover me.

I didn't know the exact numbers for flag capping speed, although I was under the assumption that the time was (time / n) where n is the number of people on there, which is exactly what Lyra said.

I see the benefit of putting everyone on the flag to neutralize it as such. Yes a single grenade can wipe the whole squad, but with how quickly that flag will be neutralized, they can wipe out the squad but once they see the enemy flag start to drop again (meaning no enemies on the flag, they'll just run to capping range. At which point I come out of my safe spot, revive one or two SMs, and my squad now has a shot at taking a couple of them out. Now unlike the first rush on the flag, the enemy can't spawn nearby without a squad leader. Which is why if I recognize a known SL, I always make them my first target.

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[T-BAGZ]Pred011586

Azura

Great post Lyra! Really is a quick, cautious, defendable way to capture a flag.

One thing a lot of Squad leaders need to know is when to call their guys onto a flag. Squad 1 is moving to harbor on Gibraltar, so Squad 2 see's they are pushing the flag, and decides to take up the East buildings and cover. Well you don't got a lot of time until the EU defenders get riled up because Squad 2 took their tanning place, so Squad 1 has to get that flag!

Well, instead Squad 1, set's up at the top of the ramp constantly killing the enemy, taking heavy casualties, but they don't care. Why? Seriously people forget the enemy respawns, that spending more than forty-five seconds to "pepper" down the resistance is just plain stupid. Unless the enemy gets mad and spawns somewhere else, then maybe it'll work. Truly, you have to push. This is important because, Squad 2 now needs to see that Squad 1 is pretty much doing nothing, if Squad 2 send three men on the flag, they not are being covered by Squad 1 sort of.

Squadleaders really gotta pay attention to the movement of other squads, and use their best judgement to say, "So much for Squad 1, let's push in!"

Also remember, everyone tends to follow one another, like Lyra said, put half your Squad on the Flag, because before you know it you'll be sharing with Squad 1. All clustered together, tasty, just waiting to be rocketed!

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Bagheera

The best flag caps I've seen have;

3-4 people on the flag,

2 covering close entrances, and

1 doing long range overwatch, far enough from the flag to not get bombed, and also in a good position to see incoming troops at range (usually a Baur or sniper rifle user.)

SharinganTH1422

Yo Bagheera.

Don't know if it's just me but haven't seen you round the forums in a while, how you doing.

__________________
Anger is a gift - Malcolm X

...If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

Ikariam:
1) Uchiha - Nezyos [50:31] - Crystal glass
2) Hyuuga - Engoos [77:79] - Wine

Exploding_Silver

capping a flag ultra quick with 6 also can be a psychological attack on the enemy, the situation changed in a flash and they could do nothing about it !

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