Thread: Karkand

Originally Posted by iamjohnnyrico

Walk the talk:

Seriously, why would I follow anything anyone says if they can't prove it to be victorious on the battlefield?

Proof is hard to come by. Experience can be a good proxy to proof, but it's not perfect.

The original assertion in this thread was that Karkand was not about conquest; that once USMC takes a flag, the bleed stops. That's true, and since it's just the mechanics of the map it's provable. In my mind it's the single most important thing about Karkand, and everything else flows from that. From USMC perspective, you need one flag. Having only one flag is also a problem. So you need a second flag. Etc, etc.

Just like bob said, my experience is also that Train is a brutal killing zone. Train is the bleed on Karkand. It's like the floodlight that attracts and kills moths. If I'm US commander then I don't care if we have it, but I don't want to defend it. In practice, I've never seen USMC willingly give up Train - and in a river war that's exactly what they should do - but it's hard to get everyone to stop spawning there. What I have seen is a river war where the MEC successfully assaults Train, is still ahead on tickets, and then loses the round.

I completely agree with you, bobbarkerisstatan.

Originally Posted by iamjohnnyrico

Attachment 3742
Attachment 3743

Those are good screen-caps, Rico. I'm not sure it's proof, but it's certainly evidence.

There are other ways to read those tea leaves, though. Your team obviously kicked a lot of ass. The top three scorers were in your squad, and your squad was the top squad, so that's more solid ass-kicking. You were the top scorer, and had the second-most frags overall, and have one more Gold Star in your treasure chest. Those pics might be telling the story of teamwork. But they might also be telling the story of two sets of gladiators going toe-to-toe, the stronger vanquishing the weaker.

Originally Posted by iamjohnnyrico

P.S. Kawaldt, I can draw yellow squiggly lines too.

Nothing is sexier than yellow squiggly lines - and when I say "nothing" I mean "there are so many things as to be uncountable" - and I took the time this morning to draw some squiggly lines of my own on a different screen-cap (from, I think, this past Friday):




The first thing to note is that I'm the top scorer on the winning side. No one would ever believe that my gladiator skills are anything other than mediocre, and so we will dismiss this as an anomaly; the sort of freak statistical occurrence that we all know happens on rare occasions and to which we attach zero importance.

There are other things to note, but I think the yellow squigglies speak for themselves. The story in this pic is that superior gladiators lose to superior teamwork. That doesn't mean that mad skillz don't matter, just that they're not enough. Good skills + Teamwork beats Mad Skillz almost every time.

And isn't that why we're here?

I was in Rico's squad on that map. I wish I could remember who else was with us (pretty sure Cleanfreak, probably Klaus) because it was some of the most fun I've ever had in BF2. The whole side worked well together, and nightassn did a great job commanding. They had great pilots, and it was a tough fight from start to finish.

And we won. In the end, it wasn't that close.

So I agree with your point too, Rico:

Originally Posted by iamjohnnyrico

Any map is about the cohesiveness and awareness of the team. No one player is better than the team. Drop your l337ness and sniper kit, and learn how this game should be played - BY HELPING OTHERS!

*sigh*

You should stop sighing. Teamplay lives.

It's why I'm here. I happened across this server in mid 2007. One evening I was leading a USMC squad on Karkand. Our side got Hotel, Square, and Suburbs, and the commander gave my squad an order to defend some random point on the map that wasn't near anything but a stairway. I didn't get it at first, and then in actual real english words over voice-com he told me to go to the mark-point and keep them from getting to Hotel or Square. No one took Train, the defend mark wasn't random, and we got our share and the team won. I wish I knew who was commanding, because they did me a huge favour that day and I'd like to thank them. I didn't get to play BF2 for almost a year after December '07, but when I came back I came to TTP.

Cheers,


AetheLove

Another issue with taking an east island flag is that your armor takes forever to return to the front once it's been destroyed. And if the MEC still has a flag on the west side, especially hotel, they can severely hamper their ability to provide support. Meanwhile, MEC's armor will keep rolling out of their main. Once their team has turtled back to the east island with their armor, it's significantly harder to get that glorious factory flag, and even harder to hold it.

ill capture any flag and make it work. jeez rico dont make me come in the server and make your squad my bitch

Originally Posted by visuvius

All of this is well and good and sounds great on paper but in the midst and chaos of battle, it is ridiculously difficult to stop everyone who takes Suburb to NOT roll into Train. The team needs to be mostly regs and there MUST be a commander who constantly spams ahead of time "DON'T TAKE TRAIN YOU MOOKS."

Yeah.

Originally Posted by visuvius

Most of the time, the collective consciousness of the team demands that Train be capped, mostly because its convenient. Not saying that this is a good thing or the right strategy, but its what usually happens. Same thing with Warehouse once Gate or Factory is capped. So, I guess this thread isn't completely pointless conjecture with a fair bit of blowhardyness from the usual source thrown in, but its getting close.

One day, if I study real hard and eat right and keep straight with god, then one day I might be the usual source of blowharyness.

... but maybe I should have a different goal. Thanks for the warning. :)

Cheers,


AetheLove

Report from the Trenches:

Three times since this thread was last active I've been on the server when Karkand evolved into the "Don't Take Train!" scenario. Two of those times (and maybe all three, I couldn't tell) it was a conscious decision on the part of one commander.

The first time, as MEC, we pulled back to a river war and USMC took train. As Visuvius says, it's hard to get everyone to act in concert. It took way too long, and MEC was down on tickets when USMC took train. The river stalemate held, and the ticket gap closed steadily, but in the end MEC lost a close one.

The second time, as USMC, it was obvious to many on our side that after giving up the second flag, the MEC was conceding the west side of the map; but - in what I think we should all call the Visuvius Effect - it was impossible to get the US to back off train. In fact, as it played out, about a third of the the US team wouldn't leave train and another third wouldn't stop mounting pointless cross-river assaults. I wasn't commanding, and so I only had a grunt perspective, but even from there it was easy to see that the MEC played a conscious strategy and won.

I don't remember the details of the third time, only that at the end I thought "huh, it happened again."

Other times it played out more fluidly; once ending with MEC trapped in Warehouse at the end of a round that I can't imagine was any fun for them at all.

I wonder if this thread had any effect on play this past week. Anyone else have data points to share?

Cheers,


AetheLove

Your 1st and 2nd times are examples of the "Fallback Defense" I described back in reply #10.

But it takes an experienced MEC team to implement it. It would also take an experienced US team to avoid it.

Originally Posted by AetheLove

Report from the Trenches:

Three times since this thread was last active I've been on the server when Karkand evolved into the "Don't Take Train!" scenario. Two of those times (and maybe all three, I couldn't tell) it was a conscious decision on the part of one commander.

The first time, as MEC, we pulled back to a river war and USMC took train. As Visuvius says, it's hard to get everyone to act in concert. It took way too long, and MEC was down on tickets when USMC took train. The river stalemate held, and the ticket gap closed steadily, but in the end MEC lost a close one.

The second time, as USMC, it was obvious to many on our side that after giving up the second flag, the MEC was conceding the west side of the map; but - in what I think we should all call the Visuvius Effect - it was impossible to get the US to back off train. In fact, as it played out, about a third of the the US team wouldn't leave train and another third wouldn't stop mounting pointless cross-river assaults. I wasn't commanding, and so I only had a grunt perspective, but even from there it was easy to see that the MEC played a conscious strategy and won.

I don't remember the details of the third time, only that at the end I thought "huh, it happened again."

Other times it played out more fluidly; once ending with MEC trapped in Warehouse at the end of a round that I can't imagine was any fun for them at all.

I wonder if this thread had any effect on play this past week. Anyone else have data points to share?

Cheers,


AetheLove

That last one you mention, where they got trapped in Warehouse, is the only one I vividly remember. DoubleFistin was commanding and we were talking throughout the entire first half of the round. Once I knew we were getting across to river, I emphasized to both him and my squad to please not take Warehouse. Whether or not Double listened or it just worked out that way, a couple of my dudes went from the captured Factory to Cement, and someone else went to Gate. Death ensued at Warehouse for the next 10 minutes. It was an impressive round for US all around and shit actually seemed to go textbook. Or it was just chaos and happened to work out okay. Not sure yet.

Karkand strategies is to drop the armor as quickly as possible due to the fact they kill infantry real quick. Having too many medics CAN actually hurt your team.