Entombing; why it sucks and you suck if you do it.

EVERY time I have seen this tactic since I started playing, it has worked. Either 1 or more enemies waste time trying to get the guy, or everyone forgets about him thinking they'll get him when he comes up, and he manages to get out and do damage to their base, either of those is what usually happens.

Sure, if you're not even doing it in a place where this tactic is going to be useful, or the game is over, then it's useless, and you suck if you do it. But rarely have I seen it done in a place that can not be put to use (since this most often happens when either tunneling under the enemy base, tunneling into a tower or encasing yourself after you get into the enemy base).

This just means that the person(s) doing so sucked and did not employ this tactic usefully, not that the tactic is useless or sucks.

Nobody is saying that it's the most efficient and useful tactic there is. But it can be pretty efficient. As i've already explained, much of the time when you are about to get killed, your team could stand to gain more from you doing something like encasing than if you simply let yourself die. If you manage to get 3 or 4 guys digging for you (not a rare occurrence), that's a massive benefit to your team. If we imagine there are 16 players in the match, the teams are now playing 7 vs 4, because of what you're doing.

Again it's not always a good thing to do and many people will do it when it's unnecessary. Even when it's used well it is kinda annoying, but the point is, that it is just not a useless tactic.

 

Jeez, you're like Noc defending staircases. Like I said, there's plenty better tactics. It's a shitty, pussy tactic and I'll always stand by that. If you can't be an offensive builder without encasing yourself in stone (WITHOUT chipping away at a tunnel or structure) then you should hang out in the backfield and repair your team's base. That's my own personal feeling and I'm sticking to that. If "distraction" makes it a viable tactic, then me bombjumping on top of a little tower where knights can't reach me while shouting "DICKS DICKS DICKS LAWL" over and over is a viable tactic too.

 

I'm like noc defending staircases? No, the difference is that i've given you plenty of legitimate reasons why it can be an effective tactic, to which you have not actually provided any reason why it can't. Like you just said yourself "It's a shitty, pussy tactic and I'll always stand by that. That's my own personal feeling and I'm sticking to that." The internet equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "lalalalalalalala".

Like I said, it's not THE MOST effective tactic there is. There are better tactics. Nobody ever said there weren't.

Distraction does make it a viable tactic. If enemy players are trying to reach you, then those players are not out defending towers and killing your team.

Well, if more than one player wastes their time trying to get you instead of being out on the battlefield, then yes, bombjumping onto their tower has been effective. You can also throw bombs into their base, jump down and kill people, destroy shops etc. Such a use of one life would be pretty effective.

You can be a good offensive builder while still employing this tactic if you need to. If you are under the enemy base and you are about to be screwed by knights from both sides, blocking yourself under their base can be a good thing to do, for reasons i've already stated multiple times.

Basically, your stance is "i don't like people using this tactic, therefore it is useless." you haven't given any legitimate explanation for how it is useless, while I have for how it is not. It's perfectly fine that you think it's a shitty or cowardly thing to do, you're entitled to think that. My only point is that it is not useless. And it it blatantly obvious that that is the case.

 

KRITZKRIEG WALL O' TEXT INCOMING.

Way to steal my likes with that post. Asshole :)

Spoiler

Okay, so those of you who know me know that I fucking HATE entombers with a burning, seething passion. It is the cheapiest, laziest, most useless tactic in the game, but I never really gave an analysis as to why I hate it so much.

Your personal feelings on a strategy or tactic doesn't have any bearing on its validity. I have used entombing numerous times to either distract 4+ people, essentially taking them away from the fight, or if left to my own devices I'll rip down a tower or get many kills by placing spikes through corners. I've even saved entire games by entombing/tunneling, popping out to make a makeshift wall and killing the flag carrier. Although I prefer to call entombing builders parasites. As thats what the are, you have to get it out or it will hurt you. I've even developed ways of getting wood while entombing(legitimately).

Spoiler

When tunneling, I noticed this shit happens far too much. Noob builders don't have any other bright ideas when it comes to tunneling, so instead of making well thought out traps OR EVEN A WELL PLACED SPIKE, they entomb. So let's compare the two types of entombers, shall we?

Spoiler

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the calling card of the noob. When spotted by the opposing team and is close to death, rather than finding a different solution to the oncoming horde (dig out two spaces beneath the people digging down and PLACE TWO SPIKES, INSTANT DEATH) they'll just surround themselves with stone and hope beyond hope the enemies will eventually leave and forget about them.

Dearest retards, do you think we're stupid? Do you think we're just gonna forget that there's an enemy builder camped out below our tower? Granted, in the right hands the builder can be the single most destructive and versatile class in the entire game. However, in the WRONG hands, you end up with this shit. It offers you no options. You just sit, wait, and drag out the game even further if you do it during the end game. Other friendly units can't get in to help you, you have no way out, no way in, nothing. You are just trapping yourself and as soon as you're out of resources you're fucked. When I say ENTOMBING, THIS is what I mean.


Now here is the other type...

Do you see the difference? By placing stone along the top and bottom of your tunnel, it makes it very hard for enemy builders to get to you (as it is time consuming), and impossible for a knight without bombs. THIS IS NOT ENTOMBING. This is PROPER TUNNELING. As you go, you should also dig out some tiny spike pits, place a half team door to allow your team through but to send knights to their deaths... Etc. Here are a few things you SHOULD do as you're tunneling or "entombing".

This part of your post is very incoherant. I have no idea what you're trying to say. Those two images are basically identical yet for some reason you are calling one of them a noob/retard and in the other one you are praising him to high heaven.

It seems you have an entirely wrong idea of what entombing/parasitism is or you're lamenting people who have no idea what it is? I can't honestly tell. It may be a reading comprehension failure.

Spoiler

Now, do NOT be intimidated by this structure. CLEARLY it is IMPREGNABLE, but you CAN tunnel beneath using good trapping and muddling! high five if you get what I'm making fun of


Now as you can see, I have spotted a good entry point for where my non-entombing tunnel needs to go.


This is a good way to kick things off. MAYBE even have backwall to make it dark!


Now this is just a personal preference, but I like for my tunnels to be at least 4 tiles high. Allows for a slight bit of jumping and also allows for workshops to be placed.

How is this a less valid strategy to what you have suggested above. In your example you are digging a massive time consuming tunnel what isn't doing direct damage to the enemies structures. They can simply seal up the entrance in stone and forget about you until they need to pay attention. In my picture I'm being brazen and bold, challenging the enemy and doing direct damage to their structures.

The main difference between our strategies is that mine has directly done damage and/or distracted the enemy team whereas yours is basically just been digging alone perhaps maybe influencing the battle if you can get people to go in the tunnel. When I take down the tower I have shaped the battlefield to my will, whereas you have let the battlefield send you hiding underground.





Been around for a long time, I've been calling it "Bolting" for months. You've really gotta weigh the costs and benifits though in time and resources. If no one is actively digging for you why bother right now? Wait until someone is a threat and then do it, best to get the tunnel going faster if you're going to tunnel.

Spoiler

This not only saves materials, but it also saves time since you don't have to dig every piece of dirt/stone/heavy stone, just every OTHER one.

Spoiler

Here is a very simple bait trap used in tunnels. It allows for your teammates to get up very easily to heal, but will eviscerate any enemy that tries to come about. Keeping a knight or builder stationed here might be a good idea. I have a half door so that if a builder happens to destroy the spike, you can simply place another. Quarters are good for healing and the perfect bait for hurt enemies.

A clever variation on the autospikes. Nice.

Spoiler

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And finally (mostly because this is tedious and I'm bored of it already), PUT LITTLE SPIKE PITS ALL ALONG THE WAY. I can't even BEGIN to tell you how many enemy knights/builders I've stopped from getting to me in a tunnel with the simplest of spike pits, this being the easiest one to make;



Again, staggerstoning or just placing stone beneath the spike is a good idea, but if you're low on time/mats, this will suffice.

So there you have it. When it comes to entombing, there is NEVER a good reason you should do it. All it does is buy you just a little bit of time before enemies reach you, and believe me, one builder could be laddering up a tower to overtake it. That is FAR more efficient than entombing. Can't we agree?



tl;dr version-

If you entomb, you suck and you should just quit playing KAG. Seriously. I can't stand to see kids surrounding themselves in stone and then awaiting the inevitable. Die like a man, start over and plan ahead a little better next time.

As I've read and re-read your post I'm still completely at a loss. I think you have the complete wrong idea about what entombing is. Entombing isn't encasing yourself in stone and waiting to die. Entombing/termiting/parasitism is encasing yourself in the side of an enemies tower and hollowing it out. So either we're on the same page or you've got the nomenclature all wrong. I can't honestly tell.

As a competitively minded player I laugh at any instance of a tactic/strategy being called "Cheap, gay, or unfair". The angrier a strategy makes people, the better it is, not because it makes people angry but because its so effective that people get angry.

Entombing is a very valid and effective strategy in the right hands. I've won games using it. BlueLuigi basically summed up my feelings on it. If even one person is distracted trying to get you out, then you've come out even. Every single person after that is a victory for your team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester's_laws Look at Lancasters Square Law.

Spoiler: Explanation taken from the Zero-K wiki

Lanchester's Square Law

It's no secret that a big army stands a good chance of beating a smaller army. However, the larger force's advantage can be a lot bigger than you think.
Suppose you have a certain amount of artillery, and your enemy has a different amount of identical artillery, and both are steadily shooting at each other and reducing each other's numbers. If everything else is equal, who's stronger? Obviously, whoever has more guns. How much stronger? Obviously, the proportion between the size of the first army and the size of the second, right? Blue has three times as many field guns as red, so blue is three times as strong.
"Wrong!" said Frederick William Lanchester, a British engineer and mathematician who lived from the middle 19th century through the end of World War II.
In 1916, Lanchester devised a series of differential equations to demonstrate the power relationships between opposing forces. Among these were Lanchester's Linear Law (applicable to ancient combat, where engagements on the individual level were purely one-on-one), and Lanchester's Square Law (for modern combat, where multiple individuals can attack a single target). It is the square law that concerns us here in ZK.
According to the square law, the relative strength of two forces is given by the ratio of the squares of their relative numbers. Thus, while two Stumpies are four times as strong as one, four Stumpies are sixteen times as strong as one. Note that the Square Law does not apply to multiple weak units against a single strong unit: for a lone tank A to be able to compete with four opposing B-tanks , tank A needs to be qualitatively four times better (four times damage, four times HP) than an individual tank B. The Square Law is why ten Reapers take a lot less than 50% losses when squaring off against five Reapers.
Anti-Square Laws

So, if numbers are so important, then why doesn't sheer spam win out every time? There are several reasons for this:

• Limitations to simultaneous engagement. Due to constraints such as range, there is a limit to how many units in a force can engage the enemy at a given time. While both sides are at this limit, the battle will tend to follow the Linear Law; the attrition rate will be based on the linear ratio of combatants currently engaged (unity if the same number of units on both sides can fire at any given moment). Since more expensive units have longer range and higher density, they have a higher engagement limit (ie. more of your metal is spent shooting rather than sitting around) and can thus gain the upper hand over swarmers in choked conditions.

• AoE weapons. While the Square Law assumes that any individual unit may only fire upon one target at a time, many riot units in ZK have AoE weapons that allow multiple units to be damaged at once. As a result, they tend to do several times more damage to large groups of small units than to smaller, more dispersed groups, or larger units (where usually only one unit at a time takes significant damage, as opposed to several for the swarm).

• Weightclass. Because a ZK unit retains full firepower until the moment of death, a group of small units can lose strength over time due to attrition while a single large unit does not. However, as the number of combatants involved increases, the weightclass advantage diminishes as both sides suffer attrition at increasingly equal rates.

What does all this mean to me?

Due to the squaring effect, you should take note of the following:

• Focus fire - it's how the law works, after all. The more enemy units you destroy, the bigger your advantage gets.
• Pool your forces, including with allies. Even a few extra units can really tilt the battle in your favor. By creating local superiority during battles, you can even overcome an enemy who has more forces on the global level.
• Formate your units. A good formation allows more of your boys to be shooting theirs at once; even if this advantage lasts for only a few seconds, it can significantly affect the outcome of a battle. Moreover, the less clumped your units are, the less AoE weapons can hurt them. Always try to have a line or encirclement formation when joining battle.
• Don't have metal in your storage. When even one tank makes a difference, it goes without saying that you want as many units as you can possibly get.

Essentially, the less people in the frontline engagement the bigger the disadvantage is. Taking two people from the front line in exchange for your 1 is a big advantage in general terms.

 

I hate all people who eat through our towers and surround themselves with stone. Doesn't matter if they sit there or not - I just think that the tactic itself is too easy to pull off and wastes the time of builders too much.

However, if you're talking TUNNELING, I'm cool with that. Digging under the dirt of an enemy's tower seems perfectly valid to me. Digging through the stone, however, just makes me feel like builders are incredibly powerful little termites that take up the time and attention of half of a team before they can be squashed.

 

If someone's entombing to be plain idle and doesn't want anything to do with fighting, surely they might as well be AFK and their team should be responsible for kicking them, if they don't seem to deem them kick worthy then they deserve everything they get having some little gaylord sitting in a square of stone all game. In general though whether they're sat under your base in a thick layer of stone like they're trying to survive some medieval nuclear apocalypse or sta right under one of your towers, it's not gonna cause you a problem unless you make a problem of it, as has been mentioned. More often then not what happens alot of the time, much like when knights get stuck in stone traps and it's made out to be a potential super aids outbreak of a problem for your team and you get countless fuckwits plunging to their deaths into spike traps to deal with the entirely useless knight and archers wasting arrow after arrow on them while they happily sit there and soak up your teams tickets, just fucking leave them it's really simple. (Most) people can't seem to contain themselves in these situations and simply must destroy or kill or whatever when it has no benefit for your team, and usually impedes your team a fuckload. I used to play project reality alot for BF2 which is meant to be played by smart people and this problem would occur, tanks and shit like that were all side-locked, but if you managed to disable one somewhere which completely nullified it you could bet your arse some thick fuck would deem in necessary to make it go boom time.

Anyway, that's that problem, which isn't really one anyway it's just unfortunate people aren't capable of thinking outside of "must kill/smash enemy". As for actively termiting a tower rather then just sitting under it, given that a decent tower well guarded and repaired is fairly sturdy I think it's perfectly legitimate. You can win a termite war with some discipline and thought anyway, I'd say it's one of the most interesting little tactical standoffs in a game, making sure you can get to them before they cause major damage while not hacking at bit of your structure which are gonna aid his cause and etc etc, it's usually pretty interesting if your up against someone thinking about what they're doing and you have a few people that aren't morons helping you.

 

Holy fuck, I'm not getting mad and everyone (including potato) are getting the wrong idea. My personal feelings on the matter and the VERY FEW people who do it effectively do not hold bearing on what I'm referring to. I'm not referring to people in this game who have a brain and use techniques like "entombing" and "termiting" properly, whether it be entombing to distract a team of builders while capturing a tower, or termiting through a large stone slab.

I'm talking about what a normal, every day builder does, even in a situation that doesn't call for it.

This is a GOOD strategy.



You're making forward progress, you're completely disabling a tower in the process, and are giving the enemy one less barrier between you and the flag. This is GOOD.



This is BAD. Do you have any idea how many times I've seen guys do this? In the wide open, not near any towers or checkpoints where it could possibly be useful? I'm talking midfield, above ground where everyone can see. Not up against a tower that you're taking down, not underground keeping the enemy out, and not even near a suitable point that would be worthwhile to distract the enemy.


This is a viable tactic. You're out of view of the enemy, you could sit there until the coast is clear and finish digging up to take out the tower, digging out to termite another, etc.


Even this is a viable option. Out of sight and when the coast is clear, you can wreak more havoc.

And just to test my theory, I went into a random server, entombed ABOVE GROUND JUST OUTSIDE THE ENEMY SPAWN, and waited.



Nobody even paid any attention to me. They tried like hell to kill me before I got the stone in place, but after I did they all just jumped over me and paid me no mind. I sat for FOUR MINUTES. They even managed to get the flag back to their tent.


So how is that particular instance even close to viable? Because that's the reason I started this thread. People entomb above ground (or even below), nobody pays attention to them and they just SIT THERE. How is that useful? How is that efficient? I could see if you were unseen and hid and surrounded yourself in stone in an attempt to conceal yourself, but to do it just to do it... Why?

 

People do it because they see no other option, I see people do this when they have knights with them, like WTF!?!? knights and archers are there for a reason.

 

Bonesauce, trust me. I know what you are trying to say and let me tell you something. Whenever builders entomb like that, I realy hate it. First of all, during the end game, people leave because it takes to long. The reson for this is, Oh, look at that. It's entombing. I personally can't do anything about it because I play archer 85%-95% of the time. 1%-2% of the games I play is knight and the remaining percentage I play as builder. When I play builder I am making defences. To sum this up, I HATE ENTOMBERS The one other thing that drives me nuts is people who dont know how the trap bridge jump pad works. I make this:







and when I come back, I see this:







Of course, I elaborate on the first design to make it look a bit like this:



Then when I come back, it looks like this!



I mean realy, all it does is waste materials, and give the enemy more of a chance to get up! The thing that really bugs me though is that they don't know how to use the trick.

Yes I have changed the archer's cursor, and yes, I did change the config files to get archer in sandbox.

 

Ok. There are enemies all around you. Some people do this:






Look, This is bad because 1, you are not doing anything. 2, people are most likely just going to ignore you. Also note, you aren't in the side of an enemies building, you are out in the open. To get to the building, you have to come out into the open again to get there. This is worse than building it in the side of a building. If you build it in the side of a building, like this:






:)



That is resonable, vaguely, because you can destroy the inside of the building and set up a camp. This is not nesecarily the best option.

The first one is called entombing. The second, if you DO NOT hollow out the building, is also entombing.

This is slightly better than entombing:



This is slightly better than the other 2 examplesbecause, as you can (hopefully) see, a tunnle can lead towards the enemy base. Before, the floor was blocked off.

This, is deffinately not entombing.



As you can see, red has used a blue tower as a base. The past three examples, tot even your team can get in.

I used a basic example for this, so yes, you can improve option 4 by making it so there is a trap infront / befind the door.

And also, thanks for the tip about trap bridge vault pad. Ill use that next time :)

 

I agree with you on that. But that's not what you have been saying, you've only just now said that THIS SPECIFICALLY is the only thing you're talking about. If that is the case then you are basically saying "if you encase yourself in stone above ground and do absolutely nothing, then you suck, and this is a useless tactic.". But you've been saying ENTOMBING sucks and that it's useless. What you're now saying is just common sense. Of course sitting in a stone box away from where enemies will care and not doing anything is a useless tactic. Nobody said that it's not.

For one thing, i've seen maybe one or two people do what you're talking about in my time playing KAG. (just encase themselves on the battlefield and do absolutely nothing). Even so, even if the majority of entombers did what you're saying, it would not have any bearing of the validity of entombing itself. MOST of the time when I see entombing used, it's:
1. Encasing yourself into the bottom of an enemy tower. From here the player works to destroy it from the inside.
2. Tunneling under the enemy base, and blocking yourself in as you are about to get raped. From here you can employ this as a useful tactic because of reasons i've already stated.
3. Getting into the enemy base from above and encasing yourself there because you're about to be killed. again this can be employed as a useful tactic because of aforementioned reasons.

Those are all useful implementations of entombing. Can we agree on that?

If you're saying what you're saying now, then we have a non-argument. Nobody disagrees that the specific use of entombing you're talking about is useless. The point is that entombing itself can be employed in multiple useful ways, and often is. So it does not suck, and it is not useless, which is what you were saying before now (and is what the title of this thread is).

 

I agree with you, but when I say entombing, I mean sitting there in a box doing nothing. When I say tunneling, I mean tunneling under a base and possibly blocking the entrance. When I say termiting (I assume this is what it means) I mean hollowing/destroying the interior of an enemies structure and possibly using it to your advantage. From my definitions (I appologise if they are incorrect) here is a graph:

Tunneling:
Termiting:
Entombing:

Sorry if my definitions or spelling are incorrect.

 

hexaslug, that's exactly what I've been saying. Even entombing in a tunnel, just replacing all the stone that gets damaged... Yeah. It's pointless. If you're using it to dig into a tower, awesome. You're doing something. Blocking the enemy from getting through a tunnel? Not my preferred method, but it works! Entombing, in my eyes, is when a player simply doesn't want to bother employing any sort of strategy and just surrounds him/herself in stone, not contributing, not doing anything besides sitting there spamming 2 and 5.

 

1, it does happen out in the open. 2, it still is entombing if you keep replacing the blocks. 3, did you see my chart? entombing = not doing anything = . Encacing yourself in stone to do something PRODUCTIVE = not entombing = .