Xiahou Dun

My last Thread got a pretty good reception so I'm going to choose to interpret that as a good sign and continue as I was.

Sun Tzu's book the Art Of War has an entire Chapter devoted to Offense and seeing as I'm basing these guides upon him and his strategy I feel obliged to follow in his footsteps.

"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy."

To start with have a small think about Offense. Gather your thoughts on everything you know and understand about the meaning of the term Offense. Depending on what you're thinking in all likelihood you need to throw it all away. Everything. Offense is not about attacking and never will be. Offense is part of a struggle towards victory between you and your opponent where you are assuming the active role and your enemy is recating to you. You don't have to attack, you don't have to move. You don't have to inflict a single point of Damage to any unit on the field. As long as your opponent is reacting to you and not you to him you are on offense. You could wall yourself up behind shrubs and still be on offense.

Now with that short lesson out of the way let's carry on. The following is based on Sun Tzu's lesson entitled "Five circumstances in which victory may be predicted" which of course means five things to look for to know who's winning.

1 "He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious."

Translation. "Know when o give up" Now that's not hitting the White Flag surrender button as soon as it gets a little rough as seems to be quite the trend these days. But knowing when to pull back and cut your losses before you fall too far behind. Even some of the top players out there can have problems with having the humility to stop and think "Hey I'm getting stomped on here, maybe I'm doing something wrong" they might just get frustrated and dig themselves an even deeper hole. They might make excuses like "You got lucky" It's stupidity. There is never such a thing while on Offense, it could only everbe used as an excuse on Defense. If you are on Offense as I've already said you are setting everything up beforehand, carefully, meticulously with little to no risks at all. if that Scout side will ruin you then your Offense is inadequate. Approach the attack in a different way. Sidetracked there but let's get quickly back to the point. Fall back before you're in too deep. You can run away form one fight and swiftly win the next one and catch back up if you stay there you're going to get butchered.

2 "He who understands how to use both large and small forces will be victorious."

Of course this doesn't apply directly to TAO word for word. I'm not telling you to go around using 3 units for a week and trying to win. But there is meaning to be found.n real warfare a Small Force will usually be outmatched by a Large one (NO 300 doesn't count!) in TAO this scenario usually comes from Grey v Gold, Turt v Rush or Drop disadvantage situations. Good players often know how to play in all sorts of circumstances and can alter the way they play to suit the circumstances. Try playing a few Dropless games against a friend of relatively close but still lesser skill then you with the skill gap wide enough for you to be confident to win the majority of game but still have to play at your best. Play a few in a row and then swap your opponents Dropless set with one that includes a Frost or Furgon, or maybe both. After a couple of games at the latest you should notice the way you played has significantly altered. You should pick up pretty quickly on the fact that the same tactics do not work when different units are added to the game. When facing Frosts you don't dive knights in and wreak havoc on weak underbelly units knwoing their blocking will help carry them through because odds are they'll just freeze them and block off any chance of you recovering them. The ability to play with ay set is highly recommended but even if you only play in one style yourself always make sure you have experience playing against many kinds of formation or you will find some pretty tough games ahead of you when you're caught off guard by someone who plays different from the norm.

3 "He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious."

Everyone knows this one "Work together" it's common knowledge. In TAO your units are all technically "You" but they still need to work as a team. If you turn the battlefield into 10 different one on one fights (9 if you have a dragon) while your opponent kills units one at a time with their units working together you will almost certainly lose. Now that's an extreme example and I'm not saying you should only focus on one unit at a time then move onto the next. Usually it is the best approach but if you have the opportunity to kill/threaten 2 units just as fast as 1 of cours eyou shold take it. But keep in mind your units need to be "United in purpose" you need a common goal. You can't Shrub your Flank in order to be able to Frost whore as well as killing a paralysed Mud while your Cleric heals to save your Dragon and your GA and Mud move up to combo kill their Cleric, good luck trying. But if all your units focus on say eliminating the enemys range together instead of just killing their Myd or taking their Freezers and Cleric instead of one or the other you are likely to do well.

4 "He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious"

This literally means Camping. As I've said before a lot of people get very upset by Camping. Particularly with the aid of the frost furgon combo. They might get very mad. But then people get mad when i use a DSM or if my Grey set has more drops then them. This is not just anger. It is a weakness. People often tend to react with anger when they are hindered by something that sops them from winning, or winning easily. if someone gets upset when you Freeze all their range early on or heavily damage all their Knights in a few moves then do it again. practice it. Tweak it. perfect that strategy. if they complain everytime you use a certain tactic that is a weakness. Exploit it to it's fullest. You're both trying to win tere is no reason to give the enemy an easier time. Of course some people might say I'm condoning cheating on sets. It is obvious I'm not. If someone asks you beforehand for a grey game then play them Grey there is no excuse for dishonesty. but if someone asks you for a Freestyle game then complain when you have a DSM and happen to be on the same side as their Turt then laugh at them for their foolishness.

5 "He whose [units] are able and not interfered with will be victorious."

This is a toughie to apply to TAO, but I'll try anyway. If you are the better player and you have a good set with decent units and nothing interferes with your play you will usually win against a less skilled player. Everyone knows this. So how exactly can the less skilled player know how exactly they can "Interfere" with te pther player. Well, simply don't take them on in a battle they are accustomed to. If you try to beat them at their own game you will not have very good odds of succeeding. Instead change the game, knowledge of the player helps immensely here but there can also be guesses on their strategy even against an unkown by analysing their form and first few moves, if a turtler moves Mud all the way down and skips then follows iwth Scout you can guess they're aiming to unstone you pretty quickly, whereas if they Stone then Shrub their flank they're probably going to play more passively. Be alert for signs that show your opponents temperament and you can predict almost anyone, if youc an predict tjhem you cna counter their plans before they even make the moves ot set them up and when that is done to you it is scary stuff and a real confidence killer. If they are used to taking Cleric and Frost whoring go for their Frost straight away. See how they will react. Even the most brilliant player that ever lived can be beaten simply by not being prepared for an unorthodox approach. The best move is not always the one with the most strategical possibilites but often the one with the least defense prepared for it. Seeing someone switch sides before playing me because they know that I always set up away from Bin in The Settings sScreen (I just KNOW this is going to come back to haunt me...) is a sign that they have played a lot of TAO. Seeing me deliberately switch sides at the same time because I've guessed thei intentions is another. Remember, predictions and interferences can sometimes outmatch even skill if done correctly.

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|airforceone|

Adding on to this.. You must know when to start an attack as well. Sending a mud, dragon, and scout at a stoned turtle accompanied by a furgon is stupid. By the time you get more support there you'll have already lost a vital unit and the game's over.


In my earlier days as a noob gold I was always having trouble with turtle anti's in freestyle games. I was unfamiliar with them and really had no idea how to deal with it. So... I began playing myself. One account with my rush and the other the turtle anti. I eventually got pretty good at attacking them. =p

This is probably the most important concept in TAO. You can move only one unit per turn and the cleric heals every unit equally. It only makes sense to focus your attention on killing/pressuring a few units at a time. Once the cleric dies though.. Its sometimes a good idea to spread out damage and try to create one on one situations.

If you use a set against someone too much they may counter it. =p

Other than that, its sound advice, though the ones who complain about certain sets to their opponent usually aren't very good.

Not really much to say about that. Play to your strengths and don't let your opponent play to theirs.

These threads are nice and all.. But in my opinion are better for reading than actually improving your game. =p

Best way to improve is gaining experience.

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Xiahou Dun

Yes that's good advice.

A good example.

Of course. Ths still works under the common goal concept. With the Cleric out your units goals may be to take their Knights so both their healing and durable units are gone. you may do this by spreading damage to them or trying to seperate them and deal with them individually. As I said, although it iis often the cas eyou shouldn't always focus on one unit at a time. just one objective.

They may. But those who complain about your set probably aren't every good at countering it. I wasn't talking about sets here o be honest but more a specific unit or a specific way of doing something which people may complain about.

I'm addressing the Knowledge > Experience Experience > knowledge thing later. Suffice to say both is best.

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Formation

Good job Xia. Impressive work and fairly dead on. Good basic rules from moving from average - good player. Most importantly though is figuring out how units work together and how to remain safe no matter whether you are facing a rush or a turtle.

Moving from a good - excelent player is usually time devoted on learning how to deal with every set and adjusting your formation properly. Also knowing how you are going to attack/defend as the game starts by just looking at your opponents formation. Knowing how to counter single and multiple units. Always luring and approaching confidantly and calmly yet cunningly and carefully. Finally predicting opponents moves is extremely key to being an excellent player.

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Syphon

I can see that you were not striving for conciseness Nonetheless, well written, apt, and accurate.

One more piece to mention! When attacking, as you said, knowing when to go in, back out, and concentrating firepower is the utmost priority. I just want to emphasize that when targeting units, do so with a purpose. While you play with the general aim of winning, you need to split your approach into little mini-goals, certain objectives that will make it easier to achieve victory.

Doing this allows one to pick their targets more consciously = good.

du

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FlamesOfTheDragon

I've learned all these things overtime in playing. You can learn from watching other players and experimenting to see what's effective like you said. Hopefully what you said will help some players become better.

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Zehro

I learn from other players.
Nice advice, XD.

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/bump


Well written, Xia.

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Xiahou Dun

I need ot get back to these....I had about 7 Rough drafted up.

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