Mar 06, 2003 12:11
Strategy Rants That I have laying around.
I didn't write this ... but its interesting:
You already know what bolo is, and what everything is called. So I've put together some basic tips and general strategy you can follow, and grow on.
The number one rule of bolo is to have fun, its a game for crying out loud! When you have fun, you learn more, and get better, winning isn't all that important.
Bolo is all about the resources. Trees, ammo, armor, mines, and pillboxes, these are all your tools in the quest to control the bases. Time is also a huge resource, kinda, little bits of wasted time can add up. Do not waste a single thing mentioned so far. Learn to use these resources well, and you will play well.
TREES- farm as many as you can while your refueling, zooming past friendly territory, or any safe situation. Don't try to farm when your being shot at by anything (pill or enemy) cause theres a good chance of you losing your man. Sometimes you have to however, it takes experience to know when those times are worth risking it.
AMMO- the most important resource in the game, and the reason why you want control of the bases. Dont waste a single shot, practice your pill takes so you have the angle down cold. This can be done offline while practicing. Dont chase an opponent around firing blindly, in fact dont chase him at all, shoo him away with a few shots, but dont bother chasing him across the map.
MINES- mmmmm mines. Always have a few handy, take the extra refuling time to stock up and trees and run through the ol' pillview slide show. Actully no mine placement is a wasted mine unless you run into it yourself later on. Lay them strategically though, put a line around a single pillbox to slow down any attack for example, or lay them down if your running through your opponents quad, just dont get hit by pill fire or it may knock you back into your mine field.
PILLBOXES- where would we be with out them? There an offensive and defenisve tool used to complete your objective (getting all the bases). Ill go on more about these in the strategy bits of this.
TIME- bare with me on this one. Time is a huge part of the game, since its a game played in real time. This is the one thing that seperates Chess from Bolo. Farm while your refueling, send your man to set up your next pill take while your completing one, use your ammo effiecntly so you dont have to go back and refuel. That last one is the key to my game, you should be able to take 3 pills on one full loading of ammo, assuming you dont waste any shells. Also always keep moving, always be doing something.
There are your resources in a nutshell, lets talk about some tactics.
Tactics are what you use to compile a strategy. Tactics include stuff like pill takes, diversion, spiking, raping, and stuff like that. Here are a few tactics to be aware of:
DONT DIE. Death is bad. When you die, you opponent has precious seconds to afflict damage and you cant do a damn thing. Plus you may respawn in areas controled by your opponent, and you'll have to zoom pretty far to get ready for battle, adding more time for your opponent to afflict damage.
Place your pills wisely. When spiking a quad, dont set 1 pill right against each space, remember those pills fire in any direction, so place them in the center of a group of bases, so atleast 2 pills fire at one base if someone were trying to refuel from it. Also remember to place pills so they have a task, dont place them somewhere where they can be easily taken either. Dont be afriad to move them around either, if spike a quad, then later on take all the bases, take one or two of the pills away and use them somewhere else.
Diversion is your friend. Make your opponent think one thing and do something else. These things come to you with practice. Things like seting up a pill take, then hauling ass somewhere else. Go as far as to complete the pill take, but leave the pillbox dead, your opponent may be forced to come all the way over there and deal with it, letting you do something more productive like removing a spike, or going after a pill that is doing more damage to your game plan.
Pill taking, simplicity and speed are the key here. Dont go crazy with fancy takes. Have a handy trump card like phallus at your disposal, with phallus, practcie the angle before anything else, once its a reflex, then try the other part, doing this with 2 pillboxes is also a good way to score a builder kill and to keep away those pesky vultures, practice pracitce pracitce. And reguarding physco neighbor don't waste anything here, once your blocking pill is up, nail that angle while your man is on his way back to you. Your block should pop up on the screen, then both the pill you intend to take and your block should disapear with in 4 seconds, to do this you have to nail the angle immediatly, combine this skill with other time saving tips and you will rock at starting off a game.
Base running should be done right. Dont die during your base run, get all the open bases as fast as you can, and if you make it alive go after any open ones your opponent missed, and use the starting ammo to rape those should he already have gotten them.
Now that you have a general sence of some tactics, lets talk about pasteing them together into strategy.
Here is the second part of this .............................
Strategy.
Strategy cant really be taught through words on a page, its something you learn with experience, however I can get you started a bit.
Stategy itself is how you use the tactics you've learned to take control of the bases. WeIRDo_THC is another guy who you'll see over here, he once told me that "no strategy is perfect, they all have holes, the trick is to adjust many times over the course of a battle so your opponent can not take advantage of them. This creates an overall grand strategy, which itself, has a hole." He later said "The greatest of all warriors are as aware of their weaknesses, as they are of their strengths."
THC isnt that great of a player, although he is well versed the Okinawa styles of martial arts and he literally knows hundreds of combat strategies, and thousands of combinations for them. He can recognize the strategy of others, so he can select a strategy that targets their particular weakness. If he were able to aply his knowlege to bolo, and pick up a boat load of tactical training, he could rock up there with Shenobi.
Here is some general strategic information. You'll come up with others of your own as you become a better player. It's going to take alot of practice before you can recognize when a situation calls for a particular move. Make the wrong move at the wrong time, and your in for a hurtin'. Also learn to recognize them so you can find that hole in your opponents strategy, and take advantage of it.
Strategic Pill Placement.
Offensive playing makes for quick games. Take all of your bases and begin to gather your pills, you have to be quick about it to be effective. Comit those pills to spiking your opponents bases, while raping the others if necessary. Its a good way to put your opponent in a hole, and make him fight to regain momentum. You may also want to learn a few good spiking methods, the pill-right-next-to-base style is fool proof, but extreamly easy to lift. However the biggest hole here is when you use pills to spike, you cant use them to protect, and you just lifted the nuetral pill protection, your opponent can attack these the same way you just attacked him, and your both limited on ammo. This would also be a seriously bad time to lose you LGM. BUT if you manage to kill his builder you can put this game away very easily.
Defensive Pill Placement is the opposite. Use your pills to keep your opponent out of your quad Your opponent will have more trouble taking pills away from you if you place them well enough, and throw some mines infront of them, the rubble produced by these mines slows down your opponents LGM so you can swoop in from the other side and vulture them, or you can nail his lgm while hes trotting over tricky rubble. After you get his man, take the pills which have been freed up by your opponent, and give one of his quads hell, lift the protecting pills, or do whatever you want, just do it fast before his man comes back. If the jams a pill inside of your quad, use blocks to refuel, and then take it. The only problem with this style is that you dont have to pill power to take the offensive to him, its going to be hard to fight him on both quads, since he has nothing else to de besides attack both of your quads. He may pretend to head over to the other side of this battle, and then swoop around back to where he started once you fell for his stunt and moved to the other side to try to defend from him. Lose your LGM here, and your a gonner.
The best thing to do it to mix these styles, and change them as the game progresses, its going to take experince to know when you lean more towards the offensive, and when to lean more towards the defensive.
Strategic Pill Taking.
Offensive pill taking is when you take pills that our protecting your opponent, this eats away at his defense, and helps you close in on a victory. Watch your opponent here, try to get a general sense of where he is and what he is doing, you dont want him to sneak into the scene and blow you away or kill your man. Once you have the pill dead, repair your block if you had one, and set up some blocks to block fire from other pill boxes near the dead one. Go in and take it, and set it up for your next take, or leave it there and draw your opponent over there while you set up a trap, like heating up one of your pills and try to blow him away or damage his other pill boxes, or zooming over to another area and taking another pill from a better area.
Defensive Pill taking is when you take pills that are spiking you, or that are meant to slow you down. Its best to use a pill or two as a block for defensive taking, use that same angle as Phallus to do this, and your opponent will have a heck of a time trying to repair his pill, he will have to send it from a distance to avoid it getting blasted my the other pill of yours, and you will have a better shot at whacking it if your opponent is sending him from a greater distance.
Strategic Raping.
Rape bases near your own, it gives you more distance between your original bases, and your opponent. It's best to protect freshly taken bases on smaller maps untill they have a decent amout of regenerated armor. If your opponent has the base you think it neccessary to take protected with pillboxes, find an angle where you can fire at it untill it is dead, and then set up some blocks to obsorbe some of that pill fire. Pill boxed get EXTREMLY upset when you fire on a base in its range, so be careful. If the base is heavily gaurded, and there is no way to kill it, attack somewhere else, and force your opponent to move some of the pills to guard that area, then comeback and take the lighter guarded base.
Don't take a base unless you have to, or your opponent has began to take yours. Taking a base deep in his territory is rather usless, if you cant take a few of them and set up some protecting pills. You may just start a rapefest, which sucks.
Thats all I can really tell you about strategy with out going into my somewhat unorthadox styles of playing. Strategy will come to you with time. Play as much as you can, and you will learn alot if you play with an open mind. You will also come up with some strategic moves of your own. As i said before, you will have to learn with experience when a situation calls for one of these strategic moves, all used together to make your grand strategy. You will also learn to see other peoples strategies, so you can blow them apart, and break them down.
Now I'll give you a taste of my unorthadox styles and theories, which i call: THE SCIENCE OF BOLO.
He never did get around to sending me the science of bolo ...... I'll probably post some more strategy type stuff if I find any hanging around on my harddrive
Min
You already know what bolo is, and what everything is called. So I've put together some basic tips and general strategy you can follow, and grow on.
The number one rule of bolo is to have fun, its a game for crying out loud! When you have fun, you learn more, and get better, winning isn't all that important.
Bolo is all about the resources. Trees, ammo, armor, mines, and pillboxes, these are all your tools in the quest to control the bases. Time is also a huge resource, kinda, little bits of wasted time can add up. Do not waste a single thing mentioned so far. Learn to use these resources well, and you will play well.
TREES- farm as many as you can while your refueling, zooming past friendly territory, or any safe situation. Don't try to farm when your being shot at by anything (pill or enemy) cause theres a good chance of you losing your man. Sometimes you have to however, it takes experience to know when those times are worth risking it.
AMMO- the most important resource in the game, and the reason why you want control of the bases. Dont waste a single shot, practice your pill takes so you have the angle down cold. This can be done offline while practicing. Dont chase an opponent around firing blindly, in fact dont chase him at all, shoo him away with a few shots, but dont bother chasing him across the map.
MINES- mmmmm mines. Always have a few handy, take the extra refuling time to stock up and trees and run through the ol' pillview slide show. Actully no mine placement is a wasted mine unless you run into it yourself later on. Lay them strategically though, put a line around a single pillbox to slow down any attack for example, or lay them down if your running through your opponents quad, just dont get hit by pill fire or it may knock you back into your mine field.
PILLBOXES- where would we be with out them? There an offensive and defenisve tool used to complete your objective (getting all the bases). Ill go on more about these in the strategy bits of this.
TIME- bare with me on this one. Time is a huge part of the game, since its a game played in real time. This is the one thing that seperates Chess from Bolo. Farm while your refueling, send your man to set up your next pill take while your completing one, use your ammo effiecntly so you dont have to go back and refuel. That last one is the key to my game, you should be able to take 3 pills on one full loading of ammo, assuming you dont waste any shells. Also always keep moving, always be doing something.
There are your resources in a nutshell, lets talk about some tactics.
Tactics are what you use to compile a strategy. Tactics include stuff like pill takes, diversion, spiking, raping, and stuff like that. Here are a few tactics to be aware of:
DONT DIE. Death is bad. When you die, you opponent has precious seconds to afflict damage and you cant do a damn thing. Plus you may respawn in areas controled by your opponent, and you'll have to zoom pretty far to get ready for battle, adding more time for your opponent to afflict damage.
Place your pills wisely. When spiking a quad, dont set 1 pill right against each space, remember those pills fire in any direction, so place them in the center of a group of bases, so atleast 2 pills fire at one base if someone were trying to refuel from it. Also remember to place pills so they have a task, dont place them somewhere where they can be easily taken either. Dont be afriad to move them around either, if spike a quad, then later on take all the bases, take one or two of the pills away and use them somewhere else.
Diversion is your friend. Make your opponent think one thing and do something else. These things come to you with practice. Things like seting up a pill take, then hauling ass somewhere else. Go as far as to complete the pill take, but leave the pillbox dead, your opponent may be forced to come all the way over there and deal with it, letting you do something more productive like removing a spike, or going after a pill that is doing more damage to your game plan.
Pill taking, simplicity and speed are the key here. Dont go crazy with fancy takes. Have a handy trump card like phallus at your disposal, with phallus, practcie the angle before anything else, once its a reflex, then try the other part, doing this with 2 pillboxes is also a good way to score a builder kill and to keep away those pesky vultures, practice pracitce pracitce. And reguarding physco neighbor don't waste anything here, once your blocking pill is up, nail that angle while your man is on his way back to you. Your block should pop up on the screen, then both the pill you intend to take and your block should disapear with in 4 seconds, to do this you have to nail the angle immediatly, combine this skill with other time saving tips and you will rock at starting off a game.
Base running should be done right. Dont die during your base run, get all the open bases as fast as you can, and if you make it alive go after any open ones your opponent missed, and use the starting ammo to rape those should he already have gotten them.
Now that you have a general sence of some tactics, lets talk about pasteing them together into strategy.
Here is the second part of this .............................
Strategy.
Strategy cant really be taught through words on a page, its something you learn with experience, however I can get you started a bit.
Stategy itself is how you use the tactics you've learned to take control of the bases. WeIRDo_THC is another guy who you'll see over here, he once told me that "no strategy is perfect, they all have holes, the trick is to adjust many times over the course of a battle so your opponent can not take advantage of them. This creates an overall grand strategy, which itself, has a hole." He later said "The greatest of all warriors are as aware of their weaknesses, as they are of their strengths."
THC isnt that great of a player, although he is well versed the Okinawa styles of martial arts and he literally knows hundreds of combat strategies, and thousands of combinations for them. He can recognize the strategy of others, so he can select a strategy that targets their particular weakness. If he were able to aply his knowlege to bolo, and pick up a boat load of tactical training, he could rock up there with Shenobi.
Here is some general strategic information. You'll come up with others of your own as you become a better player. It's going to take alot of practice before you can recognize when a situation calls for a particular move. Make the wrong move at the wrong time, and your in for a hurtin'. Also learn to recognize them so you can find that hole in your opponents strategy, and take advantage of it.
Strategic Pill Placement.
Offensive playing makes for quick games. Take all of your bases and begin to gather your pills, you have to be quick about it to be effective. Comit those pills to spiking your opponents bases, while raping the others if necessary. Its a good way to put your opponent in a hole, and make him fight to regain momentum. You may also want to learn a few good spiking methods, the pill-right-next-to-base style is fool proof, but extreamly easy to lift. However the biggest hole here is when you use pills to spike, you cant use them to protect, and you just lifted the nuetral pill protection, your opponent can attack these the same way you just attacked him, and your both limited on ammo. This would also be a seriously bad time to lose you LGM. BUT if you manage to kill his builder you can put this game away very easily.
Defensive Pill Placement is the opposite. Use your pills to keep your opponent out of your quad Your opponent will have more trouble taking pills away from you if you place them well enough, and throw some mines infront of them, the rubble produced by these mines slows down your opponents LGM so you can swoop in from the other side and vulture them, or you can nail his lgm while hes trotting over tricky rubble. After you get his man, take the pills which have been freed up by your opponent, and give one of his quads hell, lift the protecting pills, or do whatever you want, just do it fast before his man comes back. If the jams a pill inside of your quad, use blocks to refuel, and then take it. The only problem with this style is that you dont have to pill power to take the offensive to him, its going to be hard to fight him on both quads, since he has nothing else to de besides attack both of your quads. He may pretend to head over to the other side of this battle, and then swoop around back to where he started once you fell for his stunt and moved to the other side to try to defend from him. Lose your LGM here, and your a gonner.
The best thing to do it to mix these styles, and change them as the game progresses, its going to take experince to know when you lean more towards the offensive, and when to lean more towards the defensive.
Strategic Pill Taking.
Offensive pill taking is when you take pills that our protecting your opponent, this eats away at his defense, and helps you close in on a victory. Watch your opponent here, try to get a general sense of where he is and what he is doing, you dont want him to sneak into the scene and blow you away or kill your man. Once you have the pill dead, repair your block if you had one, and set up some blocks to block fire from other pill boxes near the dead one. Go in and take it, and set it up for your next take, or leave it there and draw your opponent over there while you set up a trap, like heating up one of your pills and try to blow him away or damage his other pill boxes, or zooming over to another area and taking another pill from a better area.
Defensive Pill taking is when you take pills that are spiking you, or that are meant to slow you down. Its best to use a pill or two as a block for defensive taking, use that same angle as Phallus to do this, and your opponent will have a heck of a time trying to repair his pill, he will have to send it from a distance to avoid it getting blasted my the other pill of yours, and you will have a better shot at whacking it if your opponent is sending him from a greater distance.
Strategic Raping.
Rape bases near your own, it gives you more distance between your original bases, and your opponent. It's best to protect freshly taken bases on smaller maps untill they have a decent amout of regenerated armor. If your opponent has the base you think it neccessary to take protected with pillboxes, find an angle where you can fire at it untill it is dead, and then set up some blocks to obsorbe some of that pill fire. Pill boxed get EXTREMLY upset when you fire on a base in its range, so be careful. If the base is heavily gaurded, and there is no way to kill it, attack somewhere else, and force your opponent to move some of the pills to guard that area, then comeback and take the lighter guarded base.
Don't take a base unless you have to, or your opponent has began to take yours. Taking a base deep in his territory is rather usless, if you cant take a few of them and set up some protecting pills. You may just start a rapefest, which sucks.
Thats all I can really tell you about strategy with out going into my somewhat unorthadox styles of playing. Strategy will come to you with time. Play as much as you can, and you will learn alot if you play with an open mind. You will also come up with some strategic moves of your own. As i said before, you will have to learn with experience when a situation calls for one of these strategic moves, all used together to make your grand strategy. You will also learn to see other peoples strategies, so you can blow them apart, and break them down.
Now I'll give you a taste of my unorthadox styles and theories, which i call: THE SCIENCE OF BOLO.
He never did get around to sending me the science of bolo ...... I'll probably post some more strategy type stuff if I find any hanging around on my harddrive
Min