Min's Tips and Tricks (short version)

Ok, I'm going to list some valuable tips and tricks that I learned from various people over the course of my time playing bolo, I'm going to try to stick to just the major ones here, if you want a better idea, you can read my strategy guide post which has most of the stuff also, but much much longer to read.

Tip 1

Don't Die. (macarthur told me this one)
This one is pretty important, when I was a wee newb and learning the game, I found that the games I did the best in were the ones were I didn't die very much. Dieing is a waste of time and resources, avoid it if possible. Dieing for that lgm kill most of the time isn't worth it.

Tip 2

Use your gunsight (this one is from me)
I've mentioned this to a few people privately. This one is fairly important, aim at what your shooting at. If your shooting a base, aim at the base, if your shooting a tank, aim at the tank. There are many reasons why this is good, first reason is it allows your gunsight to be close already if you need to do a snipe on a lgm the tank your chasing just sent. There are alot of other reasons also, the short is, if you do this, you will improve your play dramatically. IMO

Tip 3

Turn off autoscroll, and use pillview/tankview (this one is from me also)
Dunno how many people do it, but turn off autoscroll and use your scroll keys to see whats going on around you, battle field awareness is key. If you watch the best players play, anytime they can they are blasting through pillview to see whats going on with their pillboxes. Again, battlefield awareness.

Tip 4

Consistency. (this one is also from me)
Alot of the time we'll see a player that plays incredible one day, and then the next day they suck. This is inconsistency every new player suffers from this one at some point in the learning process. When I was a new player I discovered a way to keep my play consistent. I'm going to share that with you all now. What I would do is simple, I'd fire up a modified version of the advanced training barrage map that I created http://www.winbolo.net/mapcollectioninfo.php?id=7327 not sure when pyscho got it or why he uploaded it, but that's it. Then, I'd play the map in practice mode, in a particular way. If I screwed up a take, lost my lgm, or couldn't complete two full takes without refueling. I'd restart the map and try again. Sometimes I'd have to restart this map 20+ times before I could do it. Once I could play it all the way through without dieing, without losing my lgm, and by taking down two full takes on one refuel. I'd be ready to play bolo. This fixed my consistency problem.

Tip 5

Pave it. (this one comes from drad specifically)
What drad told me was pretty simple. If you have to drive over it more than once. Pave it. Period. If you watch some of the top players playing right now, you'll discover that when they are maneuvering around for position on pilllines or whatever, they are paving. Paving is huge!!!! but they do it in 'down' time when they aren't pillwaring or whatever. While refueling for example, they'll pave some tiles.

Tip 6

Abuse the tree regrowth algorithm. (drad/sloth)
When your farming tree's, if you can, farm a tree that has alot of other tree's around it so that its more likely that it will be selected by the tree regrowth algorithm for a new growth. The tree algorithm selects a tile that has alot of trees around it to regrow a tree. If your always farming in a checker pattern for example on your side, and your enemy is not. Your side will get -all- the tree growth on the map. Seriously. Only your side will grow tree's and your enemy will get none. This can be -killer- in some games.

Tip 7

Increase your bag of trix (samhain)
This is huge, learn as many different pilltakes as you possibly can. Get good at them, do them so well you can do them in your sleep. If you can think of a weird pilltake to be doing, do it. Practice it, get good at it. If your the tank that can do pretty much any diagonal take. Your the tank to watch out for on the battlefield. If you can only do pyscho neighbor, then your predictable, and its -easy- to defend against you. Vary it up, become unpredictable, do weird pilltakes, do them well. Especially long pilltakes alot of people don't seem to realize in pillwar, its better to keep your pills back further, and do long pilltakes, rather than cluster your pills close to theirs and do short ones. It keeps your pillline closer to your side, forcing them to move theirs forward if they can't do good long takes. Etc, there are alot of reasons to do long takes instead of short ones.

Tip 8

Use mines to slow your enemy. (from me)
Alot of people hate mines. That's understandable really, they create rubble, they can cause trouble. However the craters they create are the best way to prevent a enemy that's better than you, faster, and a just a better player overall from rolling over you like your a newb. If you setup a pilline and then lay a strip of mines in front of it. It forces them to plant over the rubble, or use their lgm to repair the rubble before they can move their line forward. This -slows them down- This is hugely important. While they are fighting on your slow side, you can run over to the other side and take their defensive. Or you can just flank them outright. This can be -critical- to winning the game. The other nice side effect is that it pisses them off. People who are angry don't play bolo well!!!!!!! which brings me to my next tip.

Tip 9

Relax (this one is huge)
if your upset, you can't play bolo well. If your enemy has pissed you off, or your ally has pissed you off. Sorry, but your going to play like crap. No matter who you are, and how good you think you are. If your angry, your not in your bolo groove. Become a emotionless bolo robot. If mines piss you off, learn to not care. If a bad ally makes you upset. Learn to not care. If you can manage that, you'll play more calmly and make less mistakes. Bolo is all about who makes the most mistakes.

That's all for now, I wanted to keep it short, but I may have blathered on a bit to long as it was.

Min

Excellent tips.

The don't die is one that is especially important....and presents the greatest way to improve with minimal time required to get good at it.

With the don't die one, I typically also include 'learn to dodge' a lot of people don't actually realize how bad they are at dodging. Just fire up this map http://www.winbolo.net/mapcollectioninfo.php?id=3399 and try to drive through the 3 pills. If you can't do it, you can't dodge. Time to practice.

Min

I split me and nemo bitching at each other and put it in general chat.

Min

Min,

This is great! And except for using pill view, every point is useful when playing my other favourite bolo variant.

This list should be enshrined as the most concise and useful of them all!

Min,

This is great! And except for using pill view, every point is useful when playing my other favourite bolo variant.

This list should be enshrined as the most concise and useful of them all!

I'd prefer to think of it as a good starting point. Being good at bolo is a lot of hard work.

Min

Tip 10

Speed
Speed isn't something you just have, you need to learn it. Figure out how to do things quickly. For this I would typically fire up chew toy 3 in practice mode (open game setting) and then time how long it took to kill all the pills. (not collect them, just kill them). I would keep replaying until I got my speed to less than 3 minutes 30 seconds. This improves speed, and you learn how to not waste time. If you can't manage to kill all the pills within this time, you won't be able to compete against the faster players. Speed and efficiency are critical in playing bolo.

lol i love how your opening paragraph states "all the tricks and tips ive learnt from other players"..

half of your list, is your thoughts and your tips; not stuff you learnt from other people.

Min, go outside and do something productive please.

dz wrote:

lol i love how your opening paragraph states "all the tricks and tips ive learnt from other players"..

half of your list, is your thoughts and your tips; not stuff you learnt from other people.

Min, go outside and do something productive please.

Everything I know about I learned from someone, I just don't recall who specifically, or when. Sometimes its things that I gleaned from many different games with many different people. Those things get attributed to myself usually.

'Going outside' has very little to do with being productive. Your stuck in the 'jock' archetype were you think everyone has to go do some sort of athletic activity otherwise they are a burden on society, yet here you are. Posting on a internet forum claiming I need to go outside, or some such. Take your drivel elsewhere DZ.

Min

Tip 11

Know your role.
Alot of players these days don't really understand this concept. Its extremely important as a bolo player for you to know what role you need to play in the game your in. For example if your ally is one of the strongest pillwarriors in the game, and favors pillwar, your role will be to support them in this, stay out of their way, repair when needed, defend their lines, and do your best to keep them in their groove. If your ally is a spiker, they always grab their first pill and spike with it. If you do nothing, you are not supporting them, you need to anticipate their spike, watch pillview to see what is happening, and perhaps even spike yourself, or support their spike. Roleplaying is a extremely important part of being an effective ally, if your a newer player, you need to recognize that you shouldn't be making the moves that win the game, you should be supporting your stronger allies, letting them make the moves and help them when they do. Small games and 1x1's are when you should be stretching out and testing your skills. In larger games with alot of allies, you need to recognize what role you need to play, and play it. Sometimes that means just staying out of your allies way. Learn the roles, play the roles. And you will become a more effective bolo player.

Min

I would say this is an implied tip for players that have been around for a while too. As I have been on the lesser skilled side of a 2 or 3 team in many many games, it simply doesnt do to discount yourself as THE person to push your position further, and win if necessary, this tip has very important ties with the 'value of a tank' theory on Samhain's guide, however I will leave it to other more experienced players to emphasise this point. But it's something to take into account, many a time have i seen a more skilled player get all shitty at a noob for 'not playing well enough' [or whatever that they feel justifies their own or perhaps their allies poor play in that particular game]. It is an important factor to consider when on both parties of Tip 11.

Tip 11 is intended for personal development. Your always going to find people who aren't very good at knowing their role, the strong player has to recognize he has to push, the weak player has to realize he needs to support. Its a team effort, all players need to be flexible when it comes to playing together as a team. Knowing your role is just not something that people are doing right now in bolo. Hence why I brought it up. If you have a team with 2 of the strongest players in the game, one person has to take a submissive role, who is going to do it? the person who is better at knowing their role. You may end up having to 'know your role' as a stronger player with a much weaker person due to their inability to change their style. For example, if you have gameboy as your ally, even if your the best bolo player ever, your going to have to support his retarded spike. That's the ultimate in knowing your role. If you have a bunch of allies that won't take their roles, like ling and rider for example. As a better player your role becomes 'clean up their mess before they lose the game for you'. This also plays back into 'its always your fault' because no matter what your allies do, its your fault for not overcoming that. Even if having that player on your team is the same as giving you -2 allies.

Min