In order to advance in competitive Counter-Strike, there must come a time that your team makes the transition from using random elementary strategies, to more complex and coordinated tactics. When you begin climbing the ladder of competitive play, whether it be online through some league, or at local LAN tournaments, you will have to face opponents that are much better than you. You can compensate for deficits in skill and punch above your weight by basing your team on exceptionally coordinated tactics and on great percentage and team play. What you lack in individual skill, you can make up through hard team based practice.

One of the most complicated maps for teams to develop on is de_train. Many lower leveled teams have the ability to almost hang with better teams on maps that don't require the teamwork and tactical fortitude of de_train. With this in mind, we will take a look at some of the classical strategies and setups employed on de_train, and evaluate how your team can use them to reach the next step.


Offense

Most teams' tactics revolve around peeking corners and getting entry frags on the opponent. However, entry fragging is by its nature random. There is no way to guarantee that you will get the frag every time you peek a corner. CS is far too random to even make the assumption that even if you shoot and hit first, you will end up with the frag. You would expect tactics of this nature to have an average success rate, based on equal skilled teams, of around 50%. Against teams that out aim you, you have practically no hope of winning any number of rounds. I propose playing fast with coordinated flashes if you are out skilled. It is possible to know where the CTs can get to from the start of the round, and you can design flashes to blind these possible locations. With flashes going off first you greatly enhance your chance of success by removing some random elements from the equation and also tipping it in your favor.

It is very important, and very hard, to judge a tactic's success rate. Did the tactic fail because it is fundamentally flawed, or did random chance cause it to fail that round? Did the tactic fail because the other team has adapted, or has a play style that counters it? Now for the hardest question: is the tactic's success rate above 50%? If so then it means that it is a team based tactic that would potentially allow you to beat teams that have superior aim. Perhaps the hardest thing in CS is to draw the line between a good tactic, a flawed one, and one that only works some of the time due to aim. A general ballpark figure for the success rate of a good tactic is 60% or more. A tactic that works around half of the time is an ‘aim based’ tactic; one which has a lower success rate is a flawed tactic. However, it is hard to judge this because if you are playing an aim based tactic against a superior team, you can expect your success rates to be lower.

My general tactical principles and reasoning for train are as follows: playing fast reduces the number of locations to which the defense can get to from spawn, therefore reducing the number of locations you need to check when entering the outside bomb site. Since you are throwing flashes straight off the spawn, they can be designed to blind all the common locations in which the CTs run to. The more uncomfortable you can make your opponent the higher your chance of winning rounds. If the other team’s players are worrying about playing their regular spot because they get 'so blind’ it will put them out of their comfort zone and off their game, making them less confident about beating you than when they went in. If you can accomplish this, that's half the battle.

Another fundamental of Train tactics, more so than other maps, is that you must operate from a 'common base'. What do I mean by this? I mean that you must design your tactics so that an observer from the opposing team cannot tell which tactic in your repertoire you are running, until it is too late - thus leaving them very open to fakes. To do this you must 'waste' a number of flashes and smokes to cover what you are doing each round - although you are not really wasting them, as you are using them to confuse the other team, and keep them out of their comfort zone and adjusting the way that they play.

Some of the tactics have been given specific code names, usually named after the team I adapted it from. For LAN play, you need to have code names so that your opponent has no clue about what you're going to do when they overhear talk of running an 'EYE' tactic; the same reason why American Football teams have code names for each of their plays.

You might wonder why I favor a set piece approach to tactics over the free flowing sort that a lot of teams do. I am not saying that players should not have the ability to think for themselves, as my tactics are merely a blueprint for the first few seconds of the round. After that it’s down to the surviving players to use their brains and work together to win the round. I think that if you have a general sort of ‘lets work B’ approach to tactics, it leads to hesitation within your team, which costs you rounds. A set way of working B, for example, means that everyone knows what they are doing, and they know what everyone else is doing, which instills confidence in their team. This allows players to focus on their own job and in fragging the opponent. A set approach means that the in-game leader only has to type one word into team say at the start of every round, instead of explaining to his teammates on ventrilo what they are going to do. This frees him up to concentrate on his individual game.

Typing tactics in team say also means that there is no possible way for your opponent to overhear what you are doing. Having said all this, it is still important that when something goes wrong that your team has the ability to adapt. This is fully down to the individual skill of the players and the decisiveness of the leader.

Free flowing tactics depend heavily on the confidence of your players. If that confidence gets shaken, you will find it very hard to win rounds. For example, your lead player could be very confident at going round corners first and getting frags when he’s at home, but when he turns up at LAN, that confidence disappears and your attacks flounder. If, on the other hand, in the tactic it says that ‘Player X will flash at X time and player Y will peek,’ the player concerned doesn’t have to think about peeking the corner – he just does it because it’s his job.

I also believe that set pieces are less random than free flowing tactics as they control as many variables as possible. Not to say they are non-random, as everything in CS is random, unfortunately. Player skill affects set pieces less, therefore making it easier to beat teams that would otherwise be out of your reach.

Set piece tactics have the added benefit that since they will win your team games that you otherwise wouldn’t; you get the chance to play against more individually skilled opponents. The end result is that it builds the individual skill of your team faster than playing free would. As we all know that how good you and your team are is dependent on whom you play with, and who you play against.