Guide to capture the flag for Unreal Tournament 2004, by IhaveSomething4U This guide specifically focuses on the Face map, but many of the points that apply well to Face also apply to other CTF maps. Bot behavior is described on Face with a total of 8 players, bots set to Adept. First off, face does have a good spawn rate for supplies, but it's not a big map, so resources can be stretched pretty thin if several players are drawing on the same spawns. For this reason, it's not a good idea in a CTF game of 2-3 humans per team for more than one of them to play defense. You can play forever if your offense sucks, as long as you don't lose any flags, so defense should always be considered more important than offense. Offense can only win the game. Defense can only LOSE the game. Don't rob the person defending the flag of any supplies they want that are nearby. This includes mainly ammunition, armor, and for some players, adrenaline. If the defender has a favorite weapon, keep away from the ammo pickups for it. Don't take the armor unless you know they are already armored up. So you can play defense or offense. I will cover both separately. Defense: Due to all the walls and the straight run up the ramps, the rocket launcher and the sniper rifle are the defensive weapons of choice on face. Defender should CONSTANTLY be considering how many rockets they have left, and frequently checking on rifle bullets. When ammo is running scarce, pay attention to when you grab more rockets. 9 per pack, 30 max. If you just fired three, you have 27. If you pick up one now, you have 30. If you wait 10 sec later to pick up, you might have 22 and now you have 30 again. If you had picked up earlier you gained only 3 and now having fired 8 you have 22 again but now have to wait for it to respawn. Other players in the area should be aware of this need also and if possible only grab one rocket pack (if any) when running by. The launcher starts with quite a few rockets and that should be enough for basic use. It's a total waste grabbing the launcher and both packs if you are just going to run for the flag and get headshot 5 ft out the door. If you run out of rockets by the time you get to the other side, take THEIR rockets. If things get out of hand or the flag gets pulled while you are busy inside, the sniper rifle is a must to have as a fallback to kill the monkey that is running away with your flag. Don't fire recklessly. Fire slowly and aim deliberately. Usually they're pretty beat up already so you don't usually need a head shot. But if they are moving slowly and not dodging, or perhaps shooting ot someone else, feel free to try for a headshot. Caution - once your flag is pulled, any other enemy bots instantly switch to "cover me" mode for the flag carrier. They will usually STOP, crouch, pull out their sniper rifle or other point weapon, and shoot at anything threatening their carrier. They may be standing right next to you and totally ignore you. KILL THEM FIRST. You won't live long enough to kill the carrier if they are around. After you take your first shot at the carrier, you can bet money the covering bot will bullseye you, probably several times in a row. If you snipe the carrier, don't let your guard down. The flag being down will attract all enemy bots. They tend to travel straight for the flag, as to most human players. Start laying rockets on the ground at the flag, so anyone that grabs it pays for it. Bots that are set to adept or higher have a high chance of dodging any incoming rockets so lay rockets down on the flag to prevent/discourage them from daring to grab it. If you don't have a rocket launcher or the flag is a good run away, keep your sniper rifle crosshairs on the flag as you sprint for it, and tack anyone that grabs it. The link gun can also be effective here to lay down a "minefield" string of green shots across the flag that any enemy will have to take a few of to grab the flag before you get to it. If you are killed while defending the flag you will spawn randomly left or right. If right, grab the rifle and let them have it. Fire slowly and deliberately. Bots in Cover Me mode KNOW if you are scoping in on their carrier, and WILL headshot you even before you can take a shot. Only round the building as far as you need to to get a clear shot if their carrier is already headed up the bridge. If you spawned left, DO NOT go for the rifle, you will not make it around front in time to make a difference. Grab the link gun and try to guess where on the ramp the bot will be when your shots get there, and lay down a line of fire. (and pray they are leaving to the left) Get back into the building as soon as possible when the flag is returned. Remember, bots will be in Cover Me mode and if there were several bots in the building when you died, you can bet one or more of them is crouched down in the entry way waiting for you to attack his carrier. Kill him first if you think he's there or you'll get a shock rifle in the back almost guaranteed. I've seen strategy guides say to concentrate on the carrier, and this is true of games vs people, but in games vs bots you have to kill the defenders first. Due to the way the ramp slopes, you will actually lose line of fire on a fleeing carrier when you hit about 1/2 way up the ramp, so if you have the sniper rifle it may not be a good idea to give chase, you will have less opportunity to shoot at the carrier. You may be better off to quick run upstairs, gun down their carrier and keep your scope on the flag to keep the others from picking it back up until one of your teammates can return it. If I spawn to the right I grab the sniper rifle, kill any bots on the bridge as I run up, and just run short of even with the front and off to the right a bit, and wait for the carrier to run out the entry, rifle aim set for head shot. I can kill the carrier about 9 times out of 10 first shot that way. If you leave anyone alive on the bridge they often will zing you before you can get a shot off on the carrier. On face, probably the biggest challenge the defender has is dealing with two or more bots at once, where one runs around the column (to stop and grab the redeemer if spawned) while the other dogdges your rockets in the entrance. If the dodging bot can stall you long enough, the other bot will come around your right with a hail of shock combos and dance you to the ceiling - you'll die before you get a chance to hit the ground again. You have to mind the time when you see them split up like that and make sure you have a spread of three rockets ready for the one that just grabbed the shock rifle. If the bot on the left is clearly stalling you, run right past him and OUT your building, facing your entrance, and let the rockets rain in on the floor, trapping them inside. I don't know if it's something to do with their play engine, but bots that run around for the shock rifle and redeermer tend to be healthier than normal. (keg of health I am guessing) Keep this in mind when dealing with this bot, it may take more than one volley of rockets to down them. If they take the teleporter to the redeemer, it's best to time three rockets to land dead center on the teleporter as they emerge. You have to learn the timing but it's something you really need to get good at because tyou will probably lose most of your flags to this double teaming scenario. Even if you kill them JUST as they emerge from the teleporter, 1/2 the time they will have a shock ball fired already, (they know you are there before they teleport) so be prepared to dodge one even though they're good as dead. If the bot with the shock rifle gets to the flag station, you can try to run out the door and lay down rockets, but I haven't had a lot of success with that - bots are VERY good at dodging rockets when they have the flag and are facing you, and you will be presenting the back of your head to all the bots on the bridge that are now in Cover Me mode. Your better bet is to run out and around the corner and catch them from the side, which will also protect you from being shot by the dodgebot turned cover me bot that is now standing inside the entrance waiting for you. Also, it's not always a good idea to stand ON the flag when being assulted. Back and left or right provides you with protection from both rockets and shock combos from bots coming in from the entrance or around the back, depending on which side you are on. If you see the bot run to the rockets instead of the flag, immediately go to the alcove to that side of the flag, so they don't have a shot at you the instant they pick up the rocket launcher. Plant rockets on the flag base until they try to grab it. If they shock combo you, it won't send you flying across the room, just pressed back against the wall where you are so it won't disorient you so much. If you are defending the flag your job is to maintain 150/199 or as close to this as possible for as much of the game as possible. At every opportunity, pick up adrenaline, this is the only way to get your health up over 100. When you have adrenaline, WAIT. Make sure you have 100 health AND 100+ armor. Then hit booster combo. (back-back-back-back) If timing permits, wait until all the adrenaline have spawned, hit booster, wait 2 sec, then pick up the adrenaline. If you kill a couple enemy while it's boosting, you will get adrenaline for the kills and it may be enough to keep booster going until more adrenaline spawns. If things go well you will have 150/199 when the adrenaline runs out. (I'm assuming you will get shot up a bit in the meanwhile) Remember your adrenaline (even at 100) carries over when you are killed, so if you are not in a good position to take advantage of it, hold onto it until you have 100 health and at least some armor. If the adrenaline respawns, CHECK your armor and health. If you're playing well it should be at 150/199 and you are still eating up the last bit of adrenaline. WAIT for it to stop, then pick up the adrenaline. Otherwise that adrenaline is wasted. You should pick up any spawned adrenaline anytime there is even a brief pause in the action. (good time to restock rockets and check for armor also) Adrenaline and rockets respawn a lot faster than the armor so get in a habbit of grabbing more adrenaline frequently so you get it back to 100 faster. If you can get to 150/199 and have 100 adrenaline, that's ideal. At that point leave the armor and adrenaline for your flagger, and msg them whenever you see armor is available. Don't grab the armor unless your armor is under about 80. Otherwise it's a waste the same was as was decribed by the rockets above. If your armor is at 130 and you are considering the armor, remember - 25 seconds from now when you've taken 90 pts of armor damage you will be wishing you had waited. The purpose of armor is to keep your health over 150. Armor you can always get more of, quickly, but health > 100 requires adrenaline which is not in as plentiful of supply. When you have > 150 health, it's OK to waste some armor to get back to 150 if it's to protect high health. (so grabbing the +100 armor when you are at 120/185 would be a good move) If you're playing with a human flagger, you should adjust this so the flagger can get armor more often. If you don't have a sniper rifle, use the shock rifle where needed. Shock rifle is more effective against humans since although you can make a bot fly, you cannot disorient them. Stop sniping. It's counter-productive on face unless they are carrying away your flag. Lets say you are an excellent sniper and you decide to defend face by sniping up top. You will find several things. (1) hitting a target from far above is a harder shot than on the same level, especially when the target is moving vertically in your view instead of straight toward you. (2) if you keep killing the bots as they run UP the ramp, they keep spawning at their base, by where your flagger is headed. Keeping the enemy bots concentrated on their side of the map makes flag pulling very difficult on the flagger. It's OK to rough them up a bit though, which can make life much easier on the person down below defending when they near your base. When either flag gets pulled, enemy bots with rifles will headshot anyone they can see, and if you are on top of the tower, that will be YOU. No use in getting pissed off that the bots head shot you two shots back to back and killed you, all 2 seconds after a flag got pulled - you asked for it. Also, more often than not it's a waste of time to down the carrier when they are past the fork on their side. It's difficult to keep killing opponants while waiting for a teammate to return the flag which was dropped in their entryway. If you must snipe, try for one body shot on each bot to soften them up, but don't kill them. If you see a bot pick up the keg, drop them. When your flagger pulls their flag, spend your time wiping out bots spawning on the left that have sniper rifles. Don't be surprised if you start taking immediate head shots whenever a flag is pulled on either end. You can burn through a LOT of armor fast that way, and the defender and your flagger will not appreciate you for that, so you might just want to NOT get the armor since it's basically wasted on you. The same applies to sniping from ground level. If you keep tacking the bots as they crest the bridge, you will be concentrating healthy bots on their side of the map where you can't help your flagger, and he will consistently get shot in the back running away with the flag. Ideally they should pull the flag just about the time the opposing bots are about 1/2 way down your side of the bridge. After their flag is pulled, the bots will continue to try to assult your flag for about 10 seconds. They will then suddenly turn around to go after your flagger. (ideally this should happen about the time they reach the entry of your base) This is the time to emerge out of the base and try to help by shooting them in the back a they run away from you and toward your carrier. Ideally by the time they respawn and get a weapon and around their base, your carrier will be cresting the bridge and be safely out of sight of the respawned bots with rifles. This is why it's important to not kill the opposing bots at the wrong time. In CTF, timing when you die and when you kill the opponants is sometimes a tactical choice. Understanding this single concept is probably the most important element of CTF. After you have drilled any bots on your side of the map, guess which side your monkey is on. (ask him if he's in the room!) Take his side. Use sniper rifle until you get close, then switch to rockets. If you don't have communication with him, loft a couple rockets over your side of the fork. Bots don't randomly fire rockets in the air so they should recognize which side is better for them if they have the option to change sides when they get to the middle. It sounds cruel for your carrier, but get out of the way of fire once you pass him. The bots will be very intent on shooting your monkey and will ignore you if you stay out of their path. Rocket them as they run by for easy kills, just plant a rocket on the ground in front of them. If they kill your carrier, DO NOT go after the flag immediately. Continue to mow down bots until it's just you left standing. Either help will arrive and pick up the flag, or if you have eliminated all the enemy, then you can grab the flag. Launch rockets AT your carrier if you like. If friendly fire is off it won't hurt him and if he's smart he'll jump over them. If he does, any bot that's behind him will get pasted, as they will tend to exactly follow behind him while chasing. I have noticed that it's a "good sign" when you hear "blue flag dropped. Blue flag taken". This means one of your bots died, and another picked up the flag. The one that picked it up was a cover me bot. He very likely killed or badly mauled whoever killed the original carrier. When I hear this I always sprint out of the base to assist because there's at least a 30% chance he will make it to crest the bridge. If I have adrenaline for speed I use it. At least 1/2 of the flags I get are this way. If your carrier dies a considerable time after pulling, he may have died near the crest, just out of sight. It's a good idea to continue running toward it, you may find that he and his attacker killed each other and there's no one left to return the flag, so you may be able to just run up and grab it and hightail back with it. If the carrier died only a short time after pulling and you don't hear an immediate retake, it's probably a waste of time to run out. Offense: The redeemer is a tactical weapon and does not do well with bots that tend to have sniper, shock, or lightning rifles, particularly on face. All bots flip out when you are carrying a redeemer also, so it tends to attract trouble if you're packing one. (bots know when you are carrying a "super weapon" such as a redeemer or painter and will focus on you - they also flip out on you if you are near an available superweapon pickup) The ideal two uses for the redeemer are to kill bots chasing your flagger back, or to "flush" the enemy building before entering / leaving it. Stepping around the corner after pulling the flag and dumb-firing it at the ground just before the ramp splits can be extremely useful. Be sure to step around the corner to avoid the blast. It's a rare time that you can use the redeemer for defensive purposes, so you might want to leave that for the person on offense, or just ignore it altogether. While flying a redeemer all the way to the enemy base and taking out all the bots at once is gratifying, it's tactically pointless unless your carrier has just pulled the flag. When playing purely against humans, I have some success with a redeemer/translocator combo. Atop the tower, I fire the translocator so it goes as far as possible up the bridge and lands safely. Then I dumb fire the redeemer to hit in the middle of the entry way of their base. Then I translocate and sprint for their base. The redeemer will fly over my head and hit their base about the time I get close to it, "flushing" the base. I refer to this as a "Face Airstrike". Just don't be too close to the redeemer when it hits. It also works well to help another carrier and doesn't leave you vulnerable steering it. But bots are so good at shooting down redeemers that it's a waste of time if they are present. You will have to negotiate with your defender as to the armor. Grab a sniper rifle and the rocket launcher, but leave the rockets for the defender. Grab armor. DO NOT BOTHER going after the flag without armor, it's a waste of your time unless you think you can make it to the other side alive AND get their armor. Negotiate with him on the adrenaline. It's useful to have speed but not required. You can get adrenaline by killing opponants. +2 for kills, more for killing the carrier, returning the flag, and any verbal announcer rewards in general. DO NOT get into fights with the attackers. If you scuffle with them and kill them, they are just going to respawn in front of you (back at 100 health) and have at you again. Take the fork that has fewer or no enemy coming in on it. Use the shield gun to protect yourself from random assult rifle and sniper rifle fire from the attacking bots. LET THEM GO BY YOU. The defender's job is to take care of them, and he is right next to the health and armor, and you are not. The shield gun only works in the direction you are facing so you may need to turn a bit to keep the shield facing them as you run by them or if they are shooting at you after you have passed them. The shield gun is time limited, so learn how to use it effectively. I won't go into that here. When you get to the enemy base, do not touch the flag! if there's a defender there, kill him. Pick up health to get to 100, and grab rockets and launcher. Run upstairs and grab sniper rifle, ammo, and armor. If armor is there, it's a really big plus because you probably don't have any at this point. If you are playing with people, they may chase you upstairs. Greet them in the teleporter with rockets when you detect a pattern. Go downstairs with rockets loading for spread fire. Blast any opponant unfortunate enough to be in the building, and pull the flag. If you have adrenaline, DO NOT USE IT YET. Make a quick determination as you step into the entryway whether or not to use speed. If neither fork is free of enemy bots, don't waste it. otherwise hit it. Left free is preferred since sniper rifles are by the right spawn point. Switch to rockets and run. Do not run in a straight line, as 1/2 of them will be shooting rockets and link gun at you and will light you up if you stay on a course. Grab the keg if it's there. (duh) When you get to the middle, decide which way to go. Avoid enemy bots if there are any, and prefer the fork that has more of your teammates on that side. If the defender is doing his job, you should not see any enemy come up over the crest to meet you in the middle. If the keg is there and a human teammate is running for it as you approach, make it clear that the keg is YOURS. If you happen to pass the enemy carrier, tempting though it may be, DO NOT get into a fight. That's your teammates' jobs now. YOUR job is to get back to your base safely. In most cases, it's not a good idea to try to kill your persuers unless they are people taking aim with sniper rifles. If you can't make it to midfield, owell, try again. You are going to get killed more often than not, so don't get discouraged if you have problems. If you think you can take out a pesky persuer with the sniper rifle or rockets if they are closer, you can wheel around and backpedal as you try to shoot them off your back. Once you have cleared the halfway point, stop jumping! Bots have lost line of fire on you due to the crest of the bridge. If you jump, they have a shot at your HEAD as you run. Nuff said there. Strafe sideways for a significant speed boost downhill. This is a good skill to have at any time. If you are playing with a teammate that is defending, you should expect to meet them just after you pass the middle. If not, yell at them and explain the concept of "support". If your flag is not at your stand when you return with the flag, you will have to wait for your team to return it. You CAN try hiding, but this is only effective with people. Bots ALWAYS know where the flagger is, and will take the shortest possbile route to get to you. (you can use this to your advantage when you are looking for a hiding carrier - follow your bots) You cannot hide from bots. If you are only playing with other people, hiding while waiting for your flag to be returned is a good tactical choice. Hiding on a ledge behind your building is particularly effective. What if the enemy flag is not there? Somtimes you will get to the flag station after a teammate has already pulled the flag, or it may be down and waiting to be returned. Stay out of sight and load up on health, armor, and ammo. If you are standing in the entryway and you have a clear shot at bots pursuing your flagger, take them out, but only if they are close enough to your flagger to threaten him. (if they are way behind, there is a good opportunity that when the flag is hung, you can pull it again immediately AND all the opposiung bots are now on the other side of the map by your base, which is IDEAL, but you have to let them live to pull this double score off) Pull the flag the instant it's returned. Bots are psycho when either flag is pulled, and will shoot you on sight if they see you hanging around the flag station. If they don't have a shot at you they will be running to return their flag and will ignore you for the most part. This is also a good time to see if their redeemer and armor is there since they will be ignoring both. In general I don't recommend offense when playing with bots as the rest of your team. Their defense can be so poor as to be pathetic, and in most cases where it's me vs another person (plus 3 bots each), whenever I set my bots to defend and try to get a flag myself, *I* end up having to kill the enemy flag carrier while I'm on the way back with their flag. One game I had to do that three times. Running faster than "run": UT uses a vector engine to handle player movement. This means there are ways to cheat the system a little bit to get more performance. One way is to cover terrain faster than normal. This is useful in CTF both for the monkey and the monkey chasers. When you dodge (tap left or right twice quickly) it jumps you to the side. It does not interfere with your running, and you can do it pretty frequently. Your net speed is a function of your speed forward and your speed to the side. If you are moving forward, and then add side movement without cutting into your forward movement, the net amount of ground you cover is more than just running alone. Dodging works better when you are going downhill. So on face, you need to be able to run down the bridge at an angle, heading toward running off the edge, and dodge back the other way as you continue to run. This will make you move in a zigzag way, which is very hard for peope to hit with a sniper rifle. It will also make you move about 20% faster than anyone running after / away from you. You have to get the angle to face down right, because you are not going quite in the direction you are facing. On face it's easy to jump off the edge before you get the hang of it but you should practice this. It's not effective going up the bridge because dodge stops when you hit the ground. You get a lot more mileage when going down the bridge. It can help on level terrain but to a much lesser degree. The bots do not appear to use this technique regardless of what they're set at. If you MUST snipe: Some people just have to snipe, it's the only part of the game they really enjoy. So for you we have a special section. It's not a recommended technique, but if you must, here's how to make the most of it and not just be dead weight. Remember, where and when you kill them is MORE IMPORTANT than how many you kill. I don't want to hear about your getting 3x the kills of anyone else in the game if we lose 1 to 0. Ideally, you should play a back and forth game. Stall for time by killing anything that moves, so your flagger can get armor AND adrenaline built up. Then send him down the RIGHT side (no sniper rifle for opponants) and kill anything that spawns right. leave the ones on the left alone. This will help your flagger arrive at their base healthy. When he comes out with the flag, ideally you want him to go to his left (your right) and again to avoid sniper rifles early on. Again kill anything that spawns right, and anything left that has made it around the building a ways and has a shot at your carrier. Anything on your side of the map is fair game. Done properly, this technique is very hard to beat. If you are playing against people, beware of someone snagging a sniper rifle and taking you out by peeking around the left OR right side of their building. There are some good hiding places. One of my favorites when there are no bots is IN the fire at the top. There are two. If you are in or behind one, you can shoot and see for the most part, but you are very easy for the opponants to overlook. Others have luck standing on a ledge midway down their tower, in the shadow. Running out of ammo is a problem for them, and they have less coverage on the other side of the map due to their lower height. Leave a translocator up top to get back there for ammo as needed. Other ideas: When playing practice on face with 7 bots, the intial rush is always hard. I swear every time the other team's bots get the keg. And three of them usually rush your flag at the same time. It's common for me to die in the first 30 seconds of a game. Sometimes getting "established" in the building takes a minute or two. The armor will not spawn soon enough for you to grab it immediately, so you will have to endure the initial assult without armor. It's common for both flags to be pulled 25 seconds from start. If you can recover your flag, the odds of your hanging their flag on that pull are better than 50%. This is because all the opposing bots are dying at that critical time I discussed above with regard to when your flagger pulled the flag. Once established in the building, I usually set all three of my bots to get the flag. Bots on adept and higher are worthless for defense. About 70% of the time I have to rely on my bots to recover a flag they fail to do so, so I do defense since they are so poor at it. The most common time to get a flag seems to be when by chance my bots are all assulting together at the same time. I have mulled the idea of setting my bots to "hold this position" for a few sec to "sync" them, and then turn them all loose at once. I suspect this will greatly increase their odds of bringing me back a flag.