I think it may be time to reformat the Ladle, drastically perhaps. First, I’ll outline some of the shortcomings of the current format and some of the entities that have become a requirement of any format. I was planning to suggest a solution, but I need to think some more on that, any suggestions are welcome. This post is mostly brainstorming
Grid Game is my attempt at a serialized fiction using Armagetron Fortress as my material. In Part 1, Halfwall Holding, a retired player, started challenging the legend of Leo, the game’s premier player and personality. In Part 2, Halfwall fills us in on his own story.
Grid Game is my attempt at a serialized fiction using Armagetron Fortress as my material. Feedback is welcome, I wouldn’t want to put time into something people don’t enjoy.
Jim’s Café was a not a great server, but it was home to a lot of players. The settings were standard fortress, the quality of play was not particularly high either. Were one to spend just five minutes at Jim’s, one would discover why people went there again and again. Stories of triumph and folly were traded freely, the place was just pulsing.
Desolate recently wrote a thought provoking piece on the cyclical nature of fortress strategy. In many ways I think he is correct. The game has stagnated. Clans play each other again and again with mostly the same players. There are a couple top tier teams that compete with each other for Ladles and a bunch of really good teams that compete for smaller victories. Generally, everyone is playing a similar game. The better teams play a more cohesive, disciplined version of it, they have the nuances correct. Meticulous attention to the details is what makes them better. But, overall, without exception, each team plays quite similarly.
I wrote a while ago about how it would be great if fortress diversified. It has not and I have been wondering why. Perhaps it because teams see very little to be gained from innovation. We seem to be accepting that the current tactics and strategy are best possible. We all share a similar understanding of the game. The engine to further strategic development is a deeper understanding of the laws of the game itself. It requires really getting inside the nature of fortress. Each round begins the same, with two zones and spawns. We are given complete freedom of where to go with our cycle, yet round after round, things develop similarly. There is some inherent logic woven into the fabric of the game. Good tactical players have a good read on that logic and can intuitively know where they need to be on the grid. (Remember that location determines action in fortress.)
The theory essential to good fortress today is the theory of player advantage. The thesis is that the fewer opponents on the grid, the easier it is to win. To win, gain a numerical advantage. The idea being that it is easier to gain a numerical advantage than to take a zone, and therefore a numerical advantage almost becomes a prerequisite to taking a zone. This is the logic of slow, conservative player-advantage based strategy. It is tenacious, secure and effective.
Player advantage can be turned on its head though. The converse argument is that the actions of an individual player can win rounds. In a 4v6, some disadvantaged player can still cut through layers of sweepers, enter the defense and out sumo his advantaged opponent. Playing in defiance of numbers requires a great deal of pluck and a basic belief that one is going to outperform one’s opponents. That type of confidence is dangerous and mostly frowned upon in big time fortress.
The primary objective of fortress then becomes to gain player advantage. We are all trying to figure out a systematic way to do this. We then plan to do it over and over again. We seek to codify a method for killing opponents and replicate in every round.
Tactical and strategic progress are going to require one of several developments. I will outline a couple here. 1.) A significant increase in skill level by at least one player. This player is an attacking weapon that defies that player-advantage strategy. 2.) A dedication to innovation by at least one team, often in direct conflict with match-level success. You need players dedicated to finding something new, even if it means temporary failure. 3.) An accidental discovery in casual games.
Of the three, we cannot simply wait for the third to occur. I believe there is something at stake and worth gaining through an active approach towards innovation. It makes for fun, anyway.
A decent amount of time has passed since the three consecutive ladle wins of Speeders, where we saw conservative step defenses and tactical holing begin to become prevalent in average ladle play. The defensive side of a team was definitely more powerful and important then the attacking side in this brief period of time. We saw the old methods of attacking, using speed to cut the defender, diminish, and be replaced by shrinking defenders, killing sweepers, and then holing. The introduction of the no-point hole, soon before Ladle 33, focused most attacking squads on eventually performing a no-point hole on the defense, and quickly ganking the zone. The game itself revolved around this concept for a good amount of time.
As we got closer to today, however, I believe that the way competitive fort games are starting to revert back to their old tactics and strategies, in a way. Could this be a sign that fortress tactics can be cyclical? Look at the change in defensive strategies. The top defenses in the game no longer use a step defense, but a defense based off the plain square around the zone. Defenders are usually more aggressive now, and are more willing to expand. As the fortress community as a whole becomes more skilled, we also see attackers begin to cut defenders much more, even in ladle situations. The average playing ability of a fortress player has improved greatly since the beginning of the year, and many are able to succeed in risky attacks a majority of the time. Attackers actually attack at this point rather than killing sweepers and holing every round. I’ve also seen some players begin to revert back to normal holes rather than the no-point alternative. Good holing situations may arise during a round, and it is up to two attackers to quickly react and hole. A majority of the time, this small window of opportunity is only big enough for a regular hole.
There’s a small analysis of some of the changes in fortress tactics that have occurred recently. I have obviously not covered everything that could be said, nor did I want to.
This Ladle will be the third straight I have played in and I feel sufficiently qualified to give my thoughts on the clubs and players competing in it. I hear a lot about how fortress is opening up again, how concrete tactics are giving way to freer play, but how the game is more advanced then ever. I agree with some of what I hear, disagree with most, and think most of it is irrelevant. Most analysis is of play that has already happened, not of what will happen. Similarly, most “predictions” are not predictions at all, but a simple combining of the names on the challenge board, server assignments and finishing order in the Ladle previous.
(Of the misconceptions out there, the belief that servers somehow relate to the quality of a team is up there with the belief that Napoleon was a midget. He was about 1.70 meters, the average height of frenchmen today being 1.77 meters, then it was right around Mr Bonaparte’s. Servers in no way determine how good clubs are. Predicting brackets is often meaningless, as authors just rely too heavily on server assignments.)
In my power rankings, I take a look at fortress as it currently is played and the clubs currently playing it, and look forward. I hazard a guess at what might happen in the next month, tomorrow’s Ladle being the most significant competition planned. Of particular import this month is the game’s midfield, attacking intelligence, and grinding proficiency. Among the questions we all ought to be asking each other are the following. What causes stupid mistakes that lead to death and how can clubs systematically avoid those mistakes? How does a team gain momentum and how does it keep it? What on earth should attackers be doing? Why do some clubs win more than others?
That ought to be enough of a prologue, now to the rankings. 2085 words to come after the jump Continue reading
I just re-found this piece of writing by 2020, who is an older player some of you may know. The poignancy of it, just kind of hit me, so I thought I would pass it on. In my opinion, it’s some of strongest writing on teamwork.
The big difference between fortress and other gridplay is the initial grind: we all follow one another. With team play, it is safe to follow a teammate since they will not just shimmy a corner right in front of you. The initial grind is the experience which proves teamwork, since it enables a speed advantage to outflank opponents…. So, back to basics. Grind; which means, check out what other people are saying and follow them. Help them realise their idea. Don’t split, don’t fork, just follow them in their idea if you can. If you can’t, someone else will. The trick is for us to get from an idea onto the grid in the shortest possible time. It’s not about splitting and creating alternatives. It’s about following someone’s idea, building up the speed, so it gets practiced on the grid.
