Strategem
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." ~Emerson
<<September 19, 1999>>
The clouds gather overhead ominously, promising a quick end to today's game. You look around at the battlefield . . . dirt ground and trees every five feet. Well, things would certainly be interesting.
You scrutinize your army. In addition to yourself, you had three greens, three regulars, two veterans, and an elite. Your armory consisted of a CPS 2500, two 1500s, three 250s, three 110s, three 90s, and a 40.
The opposing team had five greens, one regular, a veteran, and two elites. They had a 3000, a 2000, two 1000s, a 275, two 175s, two 105s, and two 65s.
The rules were pretty typical for a capture-the-flag style game. Each team had a flag, the goal was to grab the enemy's flag and carry it back to your side. Anyone who was hit had to move to a "jail" at the enemy's side, where they stayed until a free teammate managed to run into the jail, at which point everyone was freed.
Of course, once you were free, it took quite some work to keep from being mown down by enemy fire instantly.
You sigh. It was going to be quite a game, all right.
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I would have the two 1500s (veterans) near the flag and the 2500 (elite) patroling the area near the flag. I would have the 250s (1regular, 2 greens) patrol the outskirts, and the 40 (green) as a spy. The 110 (2 regular) would be near the flag until they would be alerted of an attack. I would be near the flag with a 110.
~Anthony
You get a better reaction if you tell me WHY you do all of this stuff, as this, rather than position, dictates the behavior of your troops.
First of all, a green spy is all but useless, and doubly so with no backup. Usually, a spy's function is to obtain information, not to carry out some kind of surprise attack. However, trusting either operation to a single, probably inept troop when the enemy has four CPS weapons and and half of the enemy troops have more experience, most of them significantly more.
It sounds like you have your two vererans with the 1500s and yourself with a 110 guarding the flag, and two regulars with 110s nearby who will rush off at the first sign of an attack, which will be given to you either by the regular and 2 greens with 250s patroling "the outskirts" or the elite with a 2500 patroling closer in.
Most seriously, I notice that you have no one guarding the jail -- this means that they can throw half their troops away getting one of your men, and then simply get all their troops back with minimal risk/losses -- what if they did this once for each player on your team? Even if they only pulled this off a couple of times, that's a serious detriment to you, because you've lost a fifth of your force and have to re-write your entire defense plan in mid-battle.
Also, even without any such strategems on your enemies' part, with your forces so stratified (it almost looks like you went out of your way to create anywhere from 2 to 4 layer that they'll have to punch through), even a fairly small enemy attack force will have advantages in both numbers and firepower THE WHOLE TIME unless you manage to eliminate some of them early, and with your wandering border patrols and the two 110s who rush up after the fact, they'll be able to be fortified instead of you half of the time, which is another serious reduction to your effectiveness.
I'm also concerned that you're not making any kind of offensive plans except for your spy. If he were "killed," you would never know about it, and the enemy wouldn't lose, because by the time you realized that you'd have to attack, my guess would be that the rain would spoil the game -- in other words, that best you can realistically hope for with this plan is a draw, not a win.
I would assign the CPS 2500 and the XP 40 to the elite, the CPS 1500s to the veterans, I would take an XP 110 and a 90, give two of the regulars 110's, one of the regs two 90's and the greens 250's. I would have the elite, one vet and the regular with the two 90's guard the flag. The jail would be guarded by two green troops and a regular. A veteran and a green would pair up and me and a regular would pair up. The veteran and the green would run in on an attack, and the regular and me would follow, but at a distance. The veteran and the green would do their best to clear a path for me and my partner. If they both were captured and there was still sufficent resistance, we would turn back, and get more guys, but if they shot enough guys, we would still head in, grab the flag, and head out like greased lightning.
~Marauder
. . . I hate it when I'm confronted with a lack of specifics on an attack plan . . .
First of all, wielding two weapons can be a real pain, so always hestitate before you try something like that. Just because you've got all these weapons doesn't necessarily mean you have to use them. Two-weapon troops can sometimes be effective, but more often they're just clumsy. The elite will probably do all right, but might be better off with two small weapons, since you really need 2 hands for the 2500 (just to AIM!).
All things considered, I think you have enough firepower on the flag that no one's going to clear them out, at least not unless the enemy sends a very large offensive force, which would give you an equal opportunity to counterattack. However, your elite (who has the best weapon and is most likely to survive, by virtue of experience and most specialized weapon) is weighted down, so a quick attack that evaded or knocked out the veteran and regular troop and grabbed the flag could present a problem. If one of them was eliminated and the enemy grabbed the flag, running fast enough that the elite couldn't catch him, the other defender (the veteran or regular not killed) would have an awfully hard time stopping them on the way out.
Now let's consider the jail defense. You've got two heavily-armed greens and a lightly-armed regular guarding it . . . in other words, you've taken the opposite approach here than with your flag. One or two skilled enemies wouldn't have much trouble breaking through your defense, but those heavily-armed greens can still hit a broad side of an enemy at point-blank range, so you plan to re-kill everyone who gets rescued, as well as anyone who makes a really obvious, ill-planned rescue attempt alone. As long as the enemy acts stupidly desperate and just rushes in with no plans beyond freeing everyone, this plan will work like a gem. As soon as they come in with the intention of killing the defenders before rescuing anyone, you're in trouble.
Its also noteworthy that it is not necessary to establish a jail defense until AFTER you capture an enemy to put in the jail. Until that time, your troops may be better used elsewhere
OK, your defense has been sufficiently scrutinized, let's look at your offense. You've got a green and a veteran in front, with you and a regular brining up the rear. Your plan isn't very well-defined, which leaves a great deal of freedom to your forward fighters, but also a high margin for their surprising you. If they suddenly decide to make some maneuver -- they take cover, or split up so they can try to establish a crossfire, or they veer off to intercept an enemy force and expect you to take the opportunity to continue forward -- if you're not expecting it, things could get messy real quick.
Also, if these two lone forward attackers manage to get themselves captured, you're going to pull some unspecified troops away from your defense to continue your jaunts into enemy territory. What happens if the enemy sends their two elites, armed with 1000s, around to the back of your flag and they launch a surprise attack on your defenders? As it stands, you should be able to make a fight of it (though victory is, obviously, far from certain); but if you pull any more troops, especially your elite, a small but competent assault can put you out of business back home. Your jail defense is even more shaky.
Then, your final plan, if worst comes to worst, is to rush in and grab the flag, then run away. You've got to do an awfully good job surprising the defenders (or leave them otherwise indisposed) to get away with something like that in a water fight capture-the-flag. In normal capture-the-flag, where the enemy has to TAG you, all you needed was a 3-foot head start and an equal pace to escape. When your enemy has water guns, if they can see you, chances are they can kill you unless you kill them first. Just getting near the flag would require some serious planning and luck, getting out with it would be next to impossible.
For those of you who like to analyze ME looking for mistakes, this is not a contradiction to my previous concern about someone running out with the author's flag. When your numbers start dwindling, the enemy is going to MOB any attackers you send into their territory, and they'll almost invaribly have several lightly-armed good runners. If there's the usual mix of players for a capture-the-flag game and you don't get to pick your own talent, some of them could probably outrun you with a 20-pound weight strapped to their back if you had a 15-foot lead. Also, numbers do wonders to the size of the area you can keep a good watch on. Three guys (one of them merely regular, and therefore probably without great discipline) can't look everywhere at once, and there are plenty of trees to hide behind.
The truth is that with this much cover around, you can probably survive (if you work at it) long enough to get out of range if your opponent stays put, because you can dodge behind the trees. If they chase you, and/or sound an alarm that allows enemies to intercept you, things get a LOT harder.
I would give the 3 greens the 250's and the 110,s to the 3 regulars. i figure that the greens need somthing to compensate for there lack of skill and the regulars should be pretty good at handling weapons with skill. 1 1500 will go to one of the veterens and 1 to the elite. the other veteran will recive 2 90's and a 40 as a sidearm, w ill take the 2500 and the last 90.
Hold on just one minute! Its extremely cumbersome just trying to CARRY three weapons at once, let alone USE them! Secondary weapons are frequently more trouble than they're worth -- you really can't use a weapon 1-handed, because you have to pump, so if you're using more than one then every single one MUST have some place you can put it while you're using the other, be it the ground, a pocket, a shoulder strap, or whatever. Dropping it on the ground is impractical unless you're defending by kneeling on the ground behind cover, 40s and 90s don't fit into pockets, and they don't come with shoulder straps. Using the 90 as a sidearm to the 2500 MIGHT work, but I doubt it.
the 2 veterans will guard my jail while the 2 regulars guard the flag.
There are 3 regulars. It is not THE two regulars, it is two OF the regulars.
Myself and the elite will take the 3 greens and the 1 regular to the enemy camp. The greens, with rather nice sized weapons will go in as a sacrifice.
Make sure you've got a very, very good reason before you sacrifice anybody. Also, I should point out that in all liklihood, more than half of the enemy team has a better armament than each of your greens do, and since they're green and on the attack, I'd expect that you'll be lucky if they take out two enemies before getting themselves killed.
The greens should take out as many as possible before being shot. After the commotion has died down send the regular to sprint for the flag(shooting on the way), no doubt grabbing the attention of the remaining forces which will be when myself and the elite will make our move on the enemy forces who are going for the regular. and if we do not take out all the enemy forces, we should have don some serious damage which the 4 back at base can clean up.
~sXorpion
You've divided your attack force into 3 parts. You've heard of "divide and conquer?" You're doing the "divide" part for them. I would expect you'd take significantly more casualties than them. Furthermore, the rest of your team is also further subdivided, and they have no way to know what's happened to you, so they cannot "mop up" whatever you leave. I'd give you about a 25% chance of victory at most, and that's not good odds.