The Very Basic Counter-Strike War Strategy Guide
(Wiki Edition)
This is an introduction to Competitive Counter-Strike War Strategy & Tactics. It includes important definitions, terminology, keyboard binds, rcon alias / aliases, FAQs and other useful information about Counter Strike and the strategies you can employ. If you are completely new to Counter-Strike visit my Introduction to Counter-Strike page first.
Version 4.5.00
Last Update 08February2006
What this Guide is: This guide is meant to explain many of the common mistakes new and even experienced clans make, which can affect the outcomes of wars you play in, usually in the negative if you do not heed this advice. It also explains some basic buying strategies so clan leaders can call for something specific and after studying this guide, everybody will know what they are talking about. For the most part you require no skill whatsoever to execute the advice offered here, only a modicum of intelligence and concentration.
What this Guide is not: This is not a strategy guide that will walk you through how to play a war on any particular map, nor is it designed to teach you how to play wars if you have not experienced playing in them. It is not going to teach you where to stand, how to aim, shoot, or throw grenades. It does not claim to be the final word on the subject on the common mistakes that cost clans wars. These are just made up from my own experience, and I am sure that there is plenty more that can be added.
WARNING!!
Finding 5-6 committed players who want to play as often and as seriously as this guide suggests you need to if you want to do the best you can is extremely difficult.
The amount of practice and discipline required, can cause a lot of friction between team members who want to do the best they can and those that only want to play for fun or to mess about. I strongly suggest you assess exactly what sort of clan you wish to be or be in before attempting to follow or have people follow anything presented here.
Thank You.
Contents
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* 1 Definitions
* 2 War Strategy
o 2.1 Basics
o 2.2 Organisation
o 2.3 Money Management and Spawn
o 2.4 Communication, Sound and Movement
o 2.5 Terrorist Notes
o 2.6 Counter-Terrorist Notes
o 2.7 Source Notes
o 2.8 Other
* 3 Very Basic Buying Strats
o 3.1 1st Round
o 3.2 2nd Round
+ 3.2.1 1st Round Win (1-0)
+ 3.2.2 1st Round Loss (0-1)
o 3.3 3rd Round
+ 3.3.1 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Win (2-0)
+ 3.3.2 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Loss (0-2)
+ 3.3.3 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Win (1-1)
+ 3.3.4 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Loss (1-1)
o 3.4 4th Round
+ 3.4.1 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Win (3-0)
+ 3.4.2 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Loss (2-1)
+ 3.4.3 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Win (2-1)
+ 3.4.4 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Loss (1-2)
+ 3.4.5 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Win (1-2)
+ 3.4.6 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Loss (0-3)
+ 3.4.7 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Win (2-1)
+ 3.4.8 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Loss (1-2)
o 3.5 5th Round
* 4 Buy / Cost Matrix
* 5 Weapon Tables
o 5.1 Weapons Table for CS 1.6
o 5.2 Weapons Table for CS:Source
* 6 Server Bookings Settings
* 7 Common RCON Commands
o 7.1 Counter-Strike 1.6 RCON Commands
o 7.2 Counter-Strike Source RCON Commands
o 7.3 War Map Names
o 7.4 Other Server Settings
* 8 Common Binds
o 8.1 Waits
o 8.2 Buy Binds
o 8.3 Built-In Weapon Aliases
o 8.4 Grenade Scripts
o 8.5 Radio Binds
+ 8.5.1 Radio Bind Examples:
+ 8.5.2 Radio Binds as Aliases Example:
o 8.6 Built-In Radio Aliases
o 8.7 Other Useful Scripts
o 8.8 The Finished Config
* 9 Other Notes
o 9.1 TJ's Section for Pub n00bs:
o 9.2 Shak's List of Essential Peripherals for the Serious Gamer
o 9.3 Why this Guide was created:
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Definitions
ACE
A five-man - when one person kills the rest of the other team. See also TD.
AK RUSH
Buy AK and armour and rush hard.
BUY UP
Get rifle, full armour, HE grenade, kit/flash Grenade, partial primary ammo, flash, full primary ammo, smoke.
CHOKE POINT
A choke point is a point in the map where the action is concentrated into one small area, eg. On de_dust - the CT entrance to tunnel near the doors is a choke point. Also a point on the map where a whole team can be held by 1 or 2 opposition players only, or a point also know as a deathtrap, (the room between the 2 sets of double doors at long A on dust2 is a good example of a deathtrap) where if two or three HE Grenades come flying in, your whole team is dead or as good as, and the round is effectively over without even firing a shot.
CLUTCH
Winning the round when the odds are stacked against you. The more the odds are stacked against the player or the more important the round win, the bigger the clutch.
COVER
Cover means 2 things: You either stand right in front of the guy you are covering so you get shot first, or cover a point on the map so the enemy must engage you before they see the guy you are covering!
DE RUSH
The Desert Eagle rush where you buy Desert Eagle and armour, and rush if you think opponent is weak in a particular area, that might enable you to win a round back after loss of previous round.
ECO
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY GUNS!! Short for economy, used to save money for the next round so you can afford better weapons.
ECO RUSH
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY GUNS!! RUSH HARD.
FAKE
Terrorists creating a diversion to make it appear that a particular bombsite is the primary objective. Against bad teams the FAKE bomb site often becomes the primary, after your 1 or 2 players annihilates the opposition. Also used by Counter-Terrorists to make it appear that they are holding a particular area of the map strongly.
GG
"Good Game". General courtesy extended to the opposition at the end of the war for playing against you. Also used to indicate that the war has ended and the player/clan intends on leaving the server, because a result has been achieved. Teams and players who do not say GG at the end of a war (no matter how bad or good they did) are considered impolite and poor losers.
GH
"Good Half". General courtesy extended to the opposition at the end of the first half of a war.
GOBLIN
Sneaking your way in for a bomb plant or a bomb defuse. Also used in the context of outflanking the opposition in a manner that is wholly unexpected, usually due to stealth, eg. Hiding while all opposition runs past you, then shooting them in the arse. Also referred to as "NINJA"
GL HF
"Good Luck, Have Fun". General courtesy extended to the opposition at the beginning of the war for playing against you.
LO3
Live On Three. The typical method used to commence a war, where the round will restart three times. The war begins after the third restart.
MP5
Buy MP5, full armour, HE grenade, kit/flash Grenade, partial primary ammo, flash, full primary ammo, smoke grenade.
MR12
Maximum Rounds Twelve: Twelve rounds maximum will be played per half before you change sides.
MR15
Maximum Rounds Fifteen: Fifteen rounds maximum will be played per half before you change sides.
NL
No Live/Not Live: Quick way to indicate that the current round is not live. If you have an AFK on your team, you'd type out NL to make sure the other team doesn't try and LO3, for example.
OT
Over-Time. If the combined total of both halves results in a draw, then Over-Time is played. This usually consists of Max Rounds Three, mp_startmoney $10,000 rules.
PCW
European equivalent of the word SCRIM, standing for Practice Clan War, means a game which does not mean anything but is played for practice or to test out tactics.
PICK
The art of picking off your opponents one at a time who are camping in high probable positions with a pre-aimed shot, or camping a spot waiting for the opposition to appear in a very tightly defined kill zone.
POINT
The guy at the front.
PUSH
Moving into an offensive position rather than a defensive position. Usually used to describe Counter-Terrorists who have moved out of the normal defensive position in an attempt to out flank the opposition.
ROTATE
How Counter-Terrorists reposition their team mates in an attempt to redress a perceived or actual tactical disadvantage. eg. Losing a player in a key position will cause the Counter-Terrorists to rotate a player from a less key position, to fill the void left by the dead team mate. The definition also applies to terrorists. For example, if while moving towards one site you encounter a lot of enemies, you may choose to rotate to the other site where you hope to face less resistance.
STACK
Stack means you put all your eggs in one basket and place most, if not all your players in the one area of the map, either as in a Terrorist RUSH or protecting one bomb site only as Counter-Terrorist. It can also mean having multiple players stand on each others heads, usually with 2 or 3 players, as in the famous de_dust2 double door CT NOA stack. Stacking is great for situations where your team is saving (for example, after losing the previous round), since you will often find yourself with poor guns (USP/Glock) vs. the more powerful weapons of your opponents.
TD or TEAM DOWN
When one player kills the entire opposition in a single round. A TD in a CLUTCH situation on the round that decides the map in a final, is about as impressive as you can get.
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War Strategy
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Basics
* Kill the enemy. Do not shoot, grenade or flash your own team.
* Ego is possibly the biggest down fall of many a clan. For some reason, many people think they are so much better than everybody else, and don't have to do a lot of the simple things it takes to win. Get over yourself, you will learn quicker and be more successful, if you treat the opposition with respect.
* Don't rely on having faster reflexes and aim than your opposition to win wars. Far too many clans think this is all they need and quite often this is all they have got. Clans that over-rely on the AWP tend to have too many of these types of players.
* Learn the maps, the choke points and how long it takes to get to them. Know the camping spots, the bomb planting and defusal positions, and how to navigate the map without actually having to see where you are going.
* Learn what the various choke points on each map you play on are. Learn how to gain control of them early and how to hold them. Learn the timings for moving to and through them are and the time it then takes to reach a bombsite once the choke point has been breached. Also know how to take a choke point back if you need to with more than just superior reflexes and aim.
* Learn how to use your radar (see description below) to determine position of teammates and the enemy. You know where the enemy is when you see a dot disappear off your screen.
* Have scoreboard bound close by your movement keys so you can easily check team and enemy numbers quickly, without having to take your hand off movement keys.
* As Terrorists you should be skin 2 (L337 Krew) as Counter-Terrorists its skin 4 (French GIGN) in order to cover your numbers. 5 guys popping in and out 1 at a time will look like the 1 guy if you all have the same skin. L337 Krew is the skinniest and hardest to see model most of the time; French GIGN has the smallest head for Counter-Terrorists and a head similar to the Phoenix Connektion Terrorist skin.
* Some maps allow you to determine early what the other team's defence and offence strat is going to be. Figure out which maps these are and how to do it.
* Don't pick up enemy guns if somebody else in your team needs it. If you pick up enemy gun, do not drop it again, because you will keep all the bullets, and the gun is practically useless to whoever else picks it up, because the gun won't have any spare ammo.
* Do pick up guns that the enemy drops, if none of your team needs the gun. If you have time, empty and drop them to deny enemy a gun with bullets if they pick it up, since all ammo stays with the person who drops the gun, so long as they are alive when they do it.
* Do pick up guns of dead people to top up your own ammo, but make sure you reload first. Very important on wall spam maps like de_nuke.
* Know which guns share ammunition to maximise the benefit of the previous points. eg. (Colt, Clarion, Defender, AUG, Para) (USP, UMP) (Glock, MP5) etc.
* Don't stand in front of AWP'ers, crouch or get out of the friggin' way.
* You absolutely must learn how to use ALL grenades, I cannot stress this strongly enough. Most good teams base their whole strategies around placing specific grenades into specific locations at specific times, they hardly ever rely on just being a better shot than the opposition players. Just about everybody in a half decent clan can aim and shoot when they are supposed to. If you don't throw a HE/Flash Grenade(s) to make them move, or Smoke Grenades to obscure their vision, they will have you pre-lined up for a headshot, and you will lose the majority of these encounters.
* Learn how to throw the various grenades so they land where you want them from various positions on the map. This includes knowing what angle you need to use to achieve a certain effect, as in banking off a wall or throwing them at a certain angle so they land where you want it to. You ought to know how to put a grenade where you want it without putting yourself in danger.
* Practice selections of various weapon combinations via the keyboard or mouse scroll wheel, so you are used to going from gun to flashbang to HE, back to gun, then pistol, then gun, to smoke, to gun, to pistol to gun again for example, relatively smoothly. Do it with and without the bomb if you use the mouse wheel to scroll through weapons. Do not use scripts to do this for you, they are not flexible, and you cannot use them at LAN events, so you better just get used to not relying on them.
* Keep your crosshairs pointed at head height. Many good players get a lot of kills merely by holding their crosshairs in the correct position. Remember, it takes time to move your mouse, the less time you have to spend moving your mouse the quicker your shots will be and subsequently your kills as well.
* If you are relying on being a better shot and out-aiming the opposition players, then you have missed the whole purpose of why this page has been written.
* Not dying is a skill too! Learn how to get yourself out of no-win situations, or better yet, not place yourself in no-win situations in the first place. 1 live player on 1 health is eminently more useful than a dead player!
* If you are a really good player trying to offer advice to your not so experienced team mates, don't just yell at them and call them a n00b when they do something stupid or wrong. Tell them what they did wrong, what you would have done differently, and exactly why you would have done it the way you described. Point them here if you have to! If you do not know exactly why you would have done something a certain way, then that is worth investigating and integrating into your playing technique. The whole raisons d'etre for this guide, was to map out exactly the things to do or not do to improve me and my clans playing.
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Organisation
* Get a plan and stick to it. Practice that damn plan, and test it to exhaustion in practice wars to see if it actually works and has the outcome you expect. Have alternate plans if it is obvious that your original plan is never going to work. Like finding out 1 site has 3 AWP's in it and you have no smoke grenades.
* Don't be afraid to dump a plan if it doesn't work for your clan, so long as you give the plan a real chance to work. Remember the goal of having a plan is to win rounds with the minimum of casualties to your team, thereby winning you the war. It is very hard to win wars, if your team constantly dies, even if you happen to win the round. The money system will eventually grind you down.
* Get organised. Its no use having the best strats on the face of the planet, or the best players in the world, if you are a disorganised rabble, with everybody doing their own thing. Practicing your strats is the easiest way to do this. Everybody knowing the order things should be done is good, since if you have to use a substitute, you reduce the amount of explaining you have to do, and any re-organisation you have to do, won't upset things too much.
* Timing is everything. A simple strategy executed with precision is always going to be more effective than any strategy that is poorly executed, no matter how good that strategy is.
* Start simple and work your way up. Just do simple flashbang pushes, where you smoke to cover you and then put 1 flashbang in after another at selected locations, all the while making sure you have team mates with guns out, in position, ready to take advantage of where the flashbang has been thrown.
* Have somebody call the play. Really good clans will already know what it is they have to do, but it still requires that somebody call at the start of the round what it is your clan is going to do that round. Have back up callers in case your main strat caller dies. I've seen clans fall apart because the main strat guy dies and then nobody knows what it is they are supposed to be doing.
* Some strats for both Counter-Terrorist and Terrorist depend upon where you spawn. Learn what the obvious strat will be depending upon where you spawn on each map. Examples are: Dust, Dust2 and Prodigy for both Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist, Train for Terrorist, etc.
* Instead of assigning specific roles to specific players, get used to assigning roles by player position instead. eg. 1st player goes back left, 2nd player goes right, 3rd plants bomb, 4th backs up player 2 and 5th hangs back to cover the rear etc. etc. Then if one or two of you die, your strategy does not fall into a complete mess. The same principles work for both Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists and helps to avoid situations like there only being 3 of you left as Counter-Terrorist on dust2 and all trying to retake B through the double doors.
* While you are dead and at the start of the round, discuss with your team, the location and disposition of the enemy and start working on game plans to defeat what the enemy is doing. eg. Where are the Counter-Terrorists camping the bombsite. Have they done the same the same thing 2 times in a row? What plans in your arsenal do you have to defeat their defences? etc.
* Learn to use smoke grenades to provide COVER from AWP's or to just cover your movements and numbers. Learn where you need to place them to be effective. Learn where not to place them, so you do not screw up your own team. In Counter-Strike 1.6, the smoke is not as thick as it used to be and runs out quicker, but starts up a hell of a lot faster, you usually need 2 smoke grenades to provide the same thickness of smoke you used to get in previous versions of Counter-Strike.
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Money Management and Spawn
* Do not buy immediately, wait for the call from the person calling the strats and listen to the call. The worst thing you can do is have a gun when the rest of your team has pistols, or vice versa.
* Person calling the strats needs to call quickly whether you are ECO or BUY UP ASAP.
* Have buy binds for things like all grenades, defuse kit (since it swaps positions on the buy menu), usual guns, and the 2 different levels of armour.
* Do not replenish your armour at the start of each round. 50% armour is just as effective as 100% armour. Only re-buy your armour if you get down below 30% (because at this level or lower, you may actually run out of armour before you die) or you weren't able to afford full armour with a helmet (something I believe is a failure in the game, as you should be able to buy a helmet separately, without having to buy a new vest as well).
* If you win a MP5 round and intend to buy a rifle the next round and none of your team requires your MP5, drop it at end of the round so the gun cannot be retrieved the next round.
* You can increase the teams ammo capacity if you swap guns and buy ammo at start of round for guns that do not share ammo. eg. Colt, AK and AWP.
* BUY UP on last rounds or sudden death rounds regardless.
* Request Rifle while dead or ASAP in spawn if you die and your team is winning. You need the cash to buy armour and grenades, and not having to buy rifle gives you the spare cash to do so.
* State your cash in Team Chat ASAP and at start of each round, so the person calling the strats will know how much you all have and be able to make an informed decision.
* If you have $4,500 or less, ask your team for a gun at the start of the round so you can afford full armour, grenades and a defuse kit. There is no excuse to not be fully kitted out if your team is winning, and you will be more useful to your team.
* If you have over $5,000 and are already fully geared up, offer to buy Rifles for rest of team, ask "Who needs a gun?" You are a lot better off with team mates that have weapons that actually damage and kill the enemy.
* If you have over $10,000 and are already fully geared up, it is very important that you buy Rifles for anybody who has only $7,000 or less. You cannot save more than $16,000, therefore it is better for the teams total cash reserves that you buy a gun for somebody else, rather than have somebody deplete their personal cash reserves when you have so much cash in hand. Feel free to ignore this if you all have over $10,000.
* Learn to calculate the enemies cash position by paying attention to what weapons they had and how difficult or easy it was to kill them. i.e. Did they just lose after ECO for 2 rounds? If so, then its likely they will ECO the next round.
* Always pick up dropped AWP's if you are winning round or have won it. At respawn drop picked up AWP for your clans AWP'er (DO NOT BUY GUN, unless of course you have a lot of cash) Unless they are low on cash, Clan Awper Buys Rifle for the person who drops AWP.
* It can be advantageous to not buy full ammo for guns until you have ensured you have a Defuse Kit, a full complement of Grenades and Armour. Its a real pain in the arse to come up $50 short for full armour just to have 90 Rounds of AK ammo in reserve when you can easily get away with 60 and even 30 can be enough, or to not being able to buy that Smoke Grenade you know you are going to need. Do you really need 30 rounds of spare AWP ammunition?
* If it is the last round of the half and you have lots of cash, buy a Desert Eagle for your pistol, unless you are a Counter-Terrorist who thinks the USP is a better gun.
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Communication, Sound and Movement
* Get your Microphone working. You can be the best player in the world, but unless you can communicate where the enemy is and in what numbers, you are only half useful, and you are dead when the rest of your team gets annihilated because you didn't tell them the enemy was coming and you are left all by yourself.
* When communicating enemy positions, be precise, and give numbers of players, and weapons when possible.
* Count off dead enemies, start off with 5 Terrorists/Counter-Terrorists, when one dies count one off to yourself, if you are not under pressure announce number of opponents over voice comms, by saying "4 Terrorists", "3 Counter-Terrorists" etc.
* Bind a Radio key, preferably something like; "Enemy Spotted" or "Need Backup" close to your movement keys, so your team mates radar will highlight your current position.
* Pay attention to who kills who with what sort of weapon. Use this information to your advantage. Also if you know where your team mate was shot from with a particular weapon, tell your team the location of that opposition player.
* Call your status out, eg. "Reload", "Throwing Grenade", "Throwing Flash", "Throwing Smoke", "Blind", "I have X Health" etc.
* Other than what I have stated above and below, keep voice and radio chat to an absolute minimum, so your team can pick up enemy sounds as early as possible.
* Have your team agree the names of map positions so everybody knows what you are talking about in the previous points. Even go so far as labelling a map (as shown in the example below) and put it on a web site or transfer it to each of your members some how. You don't even have to agree with the names I given to these locations (dust2 if you're not aware), just as long as everybody on your team knows wtf you are talking about. I may even make some for the war maps later if hassled enough, but don't expect anything to grand.
* The overview images for the warmaps can be downloaded from here. (1.4MB File)
* The overview images for the Counter Strike Source warmaps can be downloaded from here. (2.3MB File)
* Unless rushing in a group, good players when they come around a corner only reveal the absolute minimum of themselves for the shortest time possible, to pick off the next likely camping position. Map knowledge is crucial in this regard and a skill that requires constant practice.
* Don't run behind each other, fan out in as widespread a pattern as possible, so you can't get owned by a single player. You may want to disobey this deliberately if you have a specific flash rush strat, but I think it will be rare.
* Don't block your team mates in, the guy in the line of fire has right of way.
* Do stay as close as possible to your team mates when attacking without blocking your team mates.
* Don't run with your knife out, at least have a pistol out.
* Do run from spawn at the start of round with your knife out when it is your intention to get to a choke point as soon as possible.
* Don't make any noise whatsoever unless you really really have to, (This applies equally to Counter-Terrorists, as it does to Terrorists) one foot step, zoom sound, or weapon switch is all it can take to alert the enemy to your position. This includes throwing grenades, shooting, and switching weapons unnecessarily.
* You can move quickly when there is a lot of gun fire and grenades going off as the sound of Gun Fire, Especially AK's, which will cover the sounds of your footsteps. It is one of the reasons why people use silenced Colts in wars.
* Another reason to use a silenced Colt, is so you can hear the thud of your bullets hitting the enemy when you are shooting through walls, etc.
* Do make a lot of noise if it is your intention to act as a decoy or create a diversion.
* Learn to tell the number of opponents by the sounds of their footsteps. Its easy to pick a lone opponent versus 2 sets of running footsteps, which in turn can usually be differentiated from 3 or more, at which point you are going to be able to say, "there are at least 3 enemy at location X".
* Don't break Windows and Vents when you are close to them, or you need them intact to alert you to possible enemy movement.
* Do break Windows and Vents when you are far away from them and its to your advantage that they punched out. Punching the top vents on de_nuke as Counter-Terrorist, the bottom vents of de_nuke before you plant in the bottom site as a Terrorist, the Vent in the Counter-Terrorists Sniper nest on de_inferno as Terrorists are good examples of these. Don't punch the bottom vents as Terrorists on de_nuke, if there is only 1-2 of you left, since you do not have the player numbers to COVER like you would if you had 4 or 5 players left alive.
* It can be advantageous to pick up other teams guns, so if you are a Terrorist you have a Colt or if you are a Counter-Terrorist you have an AK, since you may get a slight delay in response because opponents cannot tell your gun sound from their own teams gun sound. This slight delay in response time can make all the difference.
* Don't allow yourself to get picked off from obvious camping spots. Learn to know where these camping spots are and avoid them when possible.
* Don't stand still to take on a camped enemy. You will just get spammed to death along with the rest of you team. The entrance to site B on dust2 from the tunnels is a classic example of why you don't stop to take the guys camped outside B double doors. You will die and cause the rest of your team to die as the get stuck behind your lifeless body.
* POINT should be a guy with a rifle excepting special places on maps where an AWP'er should go first. In which case the point man should act as a fast moving decoy to attract fire from snipers, and let your snipers have a free shot.
* POINT always watches the front, and sweeps all corners as you move around map, rest of team watches spots opposition can appear from once the point guy has swept that spot, UNLESS
* Whoever is last in line, looks backward to COVER your backs and should also have a Rifle, unless you are going to hang right back with a AWP.
* Pair up, and make sure you pair up a strong players with a weak players. The weak players should be the point and act as decoy for strong players.
* Don't bait your teammates. That is to say, if you are rushing out, don't let your teammate run out on their own without backup and don't run straight for cover at the first sign of gun fire. This principal is very important when dealing with an opposition AWP, because if you don't move out together, you will get picked off one at a time, when you should be able to go 1 for 1.
* Don't rambo, at least not against good teams/players. If your teammate(s) are 10 meters behind you, they are not really going to be able to give you very good support? If they have just shot a whole clip of ammo, they are going to be reloading right? Why weren't you out there shooting at the opposition as well in the first place? If they have bought grenades, they are going to want to use them at appropriate locations, right? You running out like a headless chicken is not going to help one bit, and ruins the perfectly good flash they were going to throw, because you are now in the way, AND they have to also switch back to a real gun!
* Baiting is a legitimate tactic in wars if done deliberately, especially if it enables your team to eliminate the best player on the opposing team for the loss of only one of your own and preferably weakest players. Done often enough, it destroys the confidence of the good player and demoralises the opposition. Just remember if you are the bait, to give the exact location of the opposition player, don't just run without looking.
* When working in pairs, the front guy should be crouched while the guy right behind him stands. Guys in front should generally be crouched when working their way quietly around a map. Feel free to ignore this if your location is well and truly known to opposition.
* When working in pairs approaching a single sided corner, learn to work out the correct distance you need to be so the inside guy and far side guy reveal themselves at the same time. The inside guy needs to be at the front.
* When approaching entrances with 2 sides, the left hand guy looks right, the right hand guy looks left. I know this sounds like really basic stuff, but I've seen this screwed up often.
* Do shoot close and far corners of walls, doors and boxes as you move around the map, to push opposition players out of position. Practiced enough, you can even get kills this way.
* Do spam walls and boxes of likely camping positions of enemy players as you move around the map.
* When spamming, do not have the whole team doing it at once, learn to alternate between yourselves and only empty half a clip at a time, then reload. This ensures that somebody has a gun out with ammo, and you can cancel your reload sequence if the opposition comes, and not be entirely defenceless.
* You must learn what the good positions on a map are, and what the bad positions on a map are, and you must learn not to get caught out of position that leaves you in a situation where you are going to die for little or no value. eg. Dying without getting a shot off = bad. Dying and killing 3 of the enemy = good. M'kay?
* Know what positions on the map are DeathTraps! Move through these positions as quickly as possible. As soon as the enemy knows you are there, you will be wearing several HE Grenades and that can effectively end the round for you team. Do not be afraid to surrender these positions and fall back. It is often advantageous to cause the enemy to think you are moving into ones of these locations to get them to use up their supply of HE Grenades.
* Crouch when moving up and down ladders, it is slower, but it does not make noise.
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(Wiki Edition)
This is an introduction to Competitive Counter-Strike War Strategy & Tactics. It includes important definitions, terminology, keyboard binds, rcon alias / aliases, FAQs and other useful information about Counter Strike and the strategies you can employ. If you are completely new to Counter-Strike visit my Introduction to Counter-Strike page first.
Version 4.5.00
Last Update 08February2006
What this Guide is: This guide is meant to explain many of the common mistakes new and even experienced clans make, which can affect the outcomes of wars you play in, usually in the negative if you do not heed this advice. It also explains some basic buying strategies so clan leaders can call for something specific and after studying this guide, everybody will know what they are talking about. For the most part you require no skill whatsoever to execute the advice offered here, only a modicum of intelligence and concentration.
What this Guide is not: This is not a strategy guide that will walk you through how to play a war on any particular map, nor is it designed to teach you how to play wars if you have not experienced playing in them. It is not going to teach you where to stand, how to aim, shoot, or throw grenades. It does not claim to be the final word on the subject on the common mistakes that cost clans wars. These are just made up from my own experience, and I am sure that there is plenty more that can be added.
WARNING!!
Finding 5-6 committed players who want to play as often and as seriously as this guide suggests you need to if you want to do the best you can is extremely difficult.
The amount of practice and discipline required, can cause a lot of friction between team members who want to do the best they can and those that only want to play for fun or to mess about. I strongly suggest you assess exactly what sort of clan you wish to be or be in before attempting to follow or have people follow anything presented here.
Thank You.
Contents
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* 1 Definitions
* 2 War Strategy
o 2.1 Basics
o 2.2 Organisation
o 2.3 Money Management and Spawn
o 2.4 Communication, Sound and Movement
o 2.5 Terrorist Notes
o 2.6 Counter-Terrorist Notes
o 2.7 Source Notes
o 2.8 Other
* 3 Very Basic Buying Strats
o 3.1 1st Round
o 3.2 2nd Round
+ 3.2.1 1st Round Win (1-0)
+ 3.2.2 1st Round Loss (0-1)
o 3.3 3rd Round
+ 3.3.1 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Win (2-0)
+ 3.3.2 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Loss (0-2)
+ 3.3.3 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Win (1-1)
+ 3.3.4 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Loss (1-1)
o 3.4 4th Round
+ 3.4.1 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Win (3-0)
+ 3.4.2 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Loss (2-1)
+ 3.4.3 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Win (2-1)
+ 3.4.4 1st Rnd Win, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Loss (1-2)
+ 3.4.5 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Win (1-2)
+ 3.4.6 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Loss, 3rd Rnd Loss (0-3)
+ 3.4.7 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Win (2-1)
+ 3.4.8 1st Rnd Loss, 2nd Rnd Win, 3rd Rnd Loss (1-2)
o 3.5 5th Round
* 4 Buy / Cost Matrix
* 5 Weapon Tables
o 5.1 Weapons Table for CS 1.6
o 5.2 Weapons Table for CS:Source
* 6 Server Bookings Settings
* 7 Common RCON Commands
o 7.1 Counter-Strike 1.6 RCON Commands
o 7.2 Counter-Strike Source RCON Commands
o 7.3 War Map Names
o 7.4 Other Server Settings
* 8 Common Binds
o 8.1 Waits
o 8.2 Buy Binds
o 8.3 Built-In Weapon Aliases
o 8.4 Grenade Scripts
o 8.5 Radio Binds
+ 8.5.1 Radio Bind Examples:
+ 8.5.2 Radio Binds as Aliases Example:
o 8.6 Built-In Radio Aliases
o 8.7 Other Useful Scripts
o 8.8 The Finished Config
* 9 Other Notes
o 9.1 TJ's Section for Pub n00bs:
o 9.2 Shak's List of Essential Peripherals for the Serious Gamer
o 9.3 Why this Guide was created:
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Definitions
ACE
A five-man - when one person kills the rest of the other team. See also TD.
AK RUSH
Buy AK and armour and rush hard.
BUY UP
Get rifle, full armour, HE grenade, kit/flash Grenade, partial primary ammo, flash, full primary ammo, smoke.
CHOKE POINT
A choke point is a point in the map where the action is concentrated into one small area, eg. On de_dust - the CT entrance to tunnel near the doors is a choke point. Also a point on the map where a whole team can be held by 1 or 2 opposition players only, or a point also know as a deathtrap, (the room between the 2 sets of double doors at long A on dust2 is a good example of a deathtrap) where if two or three HE Grenades come flying in, your whole team is dead or as good as, and the round is effectively over without even firing a shot.
CLUTCH
Winning the round when the odds are stacked against you. The more the odds are stacked against the player or the more important the round win, the bigger the clutch.
COVER
Cover means 2 things: You either stand right in front of the guy you are covering so you get shot first, or cover a point on the map so the enemy must engage you before they see the guy you are covering!
DE RUSH
The Desert Eagle rush where you buy Desert Eagle and armour, and rush if you think opponent is weak in a particular area, that might enable you to win a round back after loss of previous round.
ECO
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY GUNS!! Short for economy, used to save money for the next round so you can afford better weapons.
ECO RUSH
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY GUNS!! RUSH HARD.
FAKE
Terrorists creating a diversion to make it appear that a particular bombsite is the primary objective. Against bad teams the FAKE bomb site often becomes the primary, after your 1 or 2 players annihilates the opposition. Also used by Counter-Terrorists to make it appear that they are holding a particular area of the map strongly.
GG
"Good Game". General courtesy extended to the opposition at the end of the war for playing against you. Also used to indicate that the war has ended and the player/clan intends on leaving the server, because a result has been achieved. Teams and players who do not say GG at the end of a war (no matter how bad or good they did) are considered impolite and poor losers.
GH
"Good Half". General courtesy extended to the opposition at the end of the first half of a war.
GOBLIN
Sneaking your way in for a bomb plant or a bomb defuse. Also used in the context of outflanking the opposition in a manner that is wholly unexpected, usually due to stealth, eg. Hiding while all opposition runs past you, then shooting them in the arse. Also referred to as "NINJA"
GL HF
"Good Luck, Have Fun". General courtesy extended to the opposition at the beginning of the war for playing against you.
LO3
Live On Three. The typical method used to commence a war, where the round will restart three times. The war begins after the third restart.
MP5
Buy MP5, full armour, HE grenade, kit/flash Grenade, partial primary ammo, flash, full primary ammo, smoke grenade.
MR12
Maximum Rounds Twelve: Twelve rounds maximum will be played per half before you change sides.
MR15
Maximum Rounds Fifteen: Fifteen rounds maximum will be played per half before you change sides.
NL
No Live/Not Live: Quick way to indicate that the current round is not live. If you have an AFK on your team, you'd type out NL to make sure the other team doesn't try and LO3, for example.
OT
Over-Time. If the combined total of both halves results in a draw, then Over-Time is played. This usually consists of Max Rounds Three, mp_startmoney $10,000 rules.
PCW
European equivalent of the word SCRIM, standing for Practice Clan War, means a game which does not mean anything but is played for practice or to test out tactics.
PICK
The art of picking off your opponents one at a time who are camping in high probable positions with a pre-aimed shot, or camping a spot waiting for the opposition to appear in a very tightly defined kill zone.
POINT
The guy at the front.
PUSH
Moving into an offensive position rather than a defensive position. Usually used to describe Counter-Terrorists who have moved out of the normal defensive position in an attempt to out flank the opposition.
ROTATE
How Counter-Terrorists reposition their team mates in an attempt to redress a perceived or actual tactical disadvantage. eg. Losing a player in a key position will cause the Counter-Terrorists to rotate a player from a less key position, to fill the void left by the dead team mate. The definition also applies to terrorists. For example, if while moving towards one site you encounter a lot of enemies, you may choose to rotate to the other site where you hope to face less resistance.
STACK
Stack means you put all your eggs in one basket and place most, if not all your players in the one area of the map, either as in a Terrorist RUSH or protecting one bomb site only as Counter-Terrorist. It can also mean having multiple players stand on each others heads, usually with 2 or 3 players, as in the famous de_dust2 double door CT NOA stack. Stacking is great for situations where your team is saving (for example, after losing the previous round), since you will often find yourself with poor guns (USP/Glock) vs. the more powerful weapons of your opponents.
TD or TEAM DOWN
When one player kills the entire opposition in a single round. A TD in a CLUTCH situation on the round that decides the map in a final, is about as impressive as you can get.
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War Strategy
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Basics
* Kill the enemy. Do not shoot, grenade or flash your own team.
* Ego is possibly the biggest down fall of many a clan. For some reason, many people think they are so much better than everybody else, and don't have to do a lot of the simple things it takes to win. Get over yourself, you will learn quicker and be more successful, if you treat the opposition with respect.
* Don't rely on having faster reflexes and aim than your opposition to win wars. Far too many clans think this is all they need and quite often this is all they have got. Clans that over-rely on the AWP tend to have too many of these types of players.
* Learn the maps, the choke points and how long it takes to get to them. Know the camping spots, the bomb planting and defusal positions, and how to navigate the map without actually having to see where you are going.
* Learn what the various choke points on each map you play on are. Learn how to gain control of them early and how to hold them. Learn the timings for moving to and through them are and the time it then takes to reach a bombsite once the choke point has been breached. Also know how to take a choke point back if you need to with more than just superior reflexes and aim.
* Learn how to use your radar (see description below) to determine position of teammates and the enemy. You know where the enemy is when you see a dot disappear off your screen.
* Have scoreboard bound close by your movement keys so you can easily check team and enemy numbers quickly, without having to take your hand off movement keys.
* As Terrorists you should be skin 2 (L337 Krew) as Counter-Terrorists its skin 4 (French GIGN) in order to cover your numbers. 5 guys popping in and out 1 at a time will look like the 1 guy if you all have the same skin. L337 Krew is the skinniest and hardest to see model most of the time; French GIGN has the smallest head for Counter-Terrorists and a head similar to the Phoenix Connektion Terrorist skin.
* Some maps allow you to determine early what the other team's defence and offence strat is going to be. Figure out which maps these are and how to do it.
* Don't pick up enemy guns if somebody else in your team needs it. If you pick up enemy gun, do not drop it again, because you will keep all the bullets, and the gun is practically useless to whoever else picks it up, because the gun won't have any spare ammo.
* Do pick up guns that the enemy drops, if none of your team needs the gun. If you have time, empty and drop them to deny enemy a gun with bullets if they pick it up, since all ammo stays with the person who drops the gun, so long as they are alive when they do it.
* Do pick up guns of dead people to top up your own ammo, but make sure you reload first. Very important on wall spam maps like de_nuke.
* Know which guns share ammunition to maximise the benefit of the previous points. eg. (Colt, Clarion, Defender, AUG, Para) (USP, UMP) (Glock, MP5) etc.
* Don't stand in front of AWP'ers, crouch or get out of the friggin' way.
* You absolutely must learn how to use ALL grenades, I cannot stress this strongly enough. Most good teams base their whole strategies around placing specific grenades into specific locations at specific times, they hardly ever rely on just being a better shot than the opposition players. Just about everybody in a half decent clan can aim and shoot when they are supposed to. If you don't throw a HE/Flash Grenade(s) to make them move, or Smoke Grenades to obscure their vision, they will have you pre-lined up for a headshot, and you will lose the majority of these encounters.
* Learn how to throw the various grenades so they land where you want them from various positions on the map. This includes knowing what angle you need to use to achieve a certain effect, as in banking off a wall or throwing them at a certain angle so they land where you want it to. You ought to know how to put a grenade where you want it without putting yourself in danger.
* Practice selections of various weapon combinations via the keyboard or mouse scroll wheel, so you are used to going from gun to flashbang to HE, back to gun, then pistol, then gun, to smoke, to gun, to pistol to gun again for example, relatively smoothly. Do it with and without the bomb if you use the mouse wheel to scroll through weapons. Do not use scripts to do this for you, they are not flexible, and you cannot use them at LAN events, so you better just get used to not relying on them.
* Keep your crosshairs pointed at head height. Many good players get a lot of kills merely by holding their crosshairs in the correct position. Remember, it takes time to move your mouse, the less time you have to spend moving your mouse the quicker your shots will be and subsequently your kills as well.
* If you are relying on being a better shot and out-aiming the opposition players, then you have missed the whole purpose of why this page has been written.
* Not dying is a skill too! Learn how to get yourself out of no-win situations, or better yet, not place yourself in no-win situations in the first place. 1 live player on 1 health is eminently more useful than a dead player!
* If you are a really good player trying to offer advice to your not so experienced team mates, don't just yell at them and call them a n00b when they do something stupid or wrong. Tell them what they did wrong, what you would have done differently, and exactly why you would have done it the way you described. Point them here if you have to! If you do not know exactly why you would have done something a certain way, then that is worth investigating and integrating into your playing technique. The whole raisons d'etre for this guide, was to map out exactly the things to do or not do to improve me and my clans playing.
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Organisation
* Get a plan and stick to it. Practice that damn plan, and test it to exhaustion in practice wars to see if it actually works and has the outcome you expect. Have alternate plans if it is obvious that your original plan is never going to work. Like finding out 1 site has 3 AWP's in it and you have no smoke grenades.
* Don't be afraid to dump a plan if it doesn't work for your clan, so long as you give the plan a real chance to work. Remember the goal of having a plan is to win rounds with the minimum of casualties to your team, thereby winning you the war. It is very hard to win wars, if your team constantly dies, even if you happen to win the round. The money system will eventually grind you down.
* Get organised. Its no use having the best strats on the face of the planet, or the best players in the world, if you are a disorganised rabble, with everybody doing their own thing. Practicing your strats is the easiest way to do this. Everybody knowing the order things should be done is good, since if you have to use a substitute, you reduce the amount of explaining you have to do, and any re-organisation you have to do, won't upset things too much.
* Timing is everything. A simple strategy executed with precision is always going to be more effective than any strategy that is poorly executed, no matter how good that strategy is.
* Start simple and work your way up. Just do simple flashbang pushes, where you smoke to cover you and then put 1 flashbang in after another at selected locations, all the while making sure you have team mates with guns out, in position, ready to take advantage of where the flashbang has been thrown.
* Have somebody call the play. Really good clans will already know what it is they have to do, but it still requires that somebody call at the start of the round what it is your clan is going to do that round. Have back up callers in case your main strat caller dies. I've seen clans fall apart because the main strat guy dies and then nobody knows what it is they are supposed to be doing.
* Some strats for both Counter-Terrorist and Terrorist depend upon where you spawn. Learn what the obvious strat will be depending upon where you spawn on each map. Examples are: Dust, Dust2 and Prodigy for both Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist, Train for Terrorist, etc.
* Instead of assigning specific roles to specific players, get used to assigning roles by player position instead. eg. 1st player goes back left, 2nd player goes right, 3rd plants bomb, 4th backs up player 2 and 5th hangs back to cover the rear etc. etc. Then if one or two of you die, your strategy does not fall into a complete mess. The same principles work for both Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists and helps to avoid situations like there only being 3 of you left as Counter-Terrorist on dust2 and all trying to retake B through the double doors.
* While you are dead and at the start of the round, discuss with your team, the location and disposition of the enemy and start working on game plans to defeat what the enemy is doing. eg. Where are the Counter-Terrorists camping the bombsite. Have they done the same the same thing 2 times in a row? What plans in your arsenal do you have to defeat their defences? etc.
* Learn to use smoke grenades to provide COVER from AWP's or to just cover your movements and numbers. Learn where you need to place them to be effective. Learn where not to place them, so you do not screw up your own team. In Counter-Strike 1.6, the smoke is not as thick as it used to be and runs out quicker, but starts up a hell of a lot faster, you usually need 2 smoke grenades to provide the same thickness of smoke you used to get in previous versions of Counter-Strike.
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Money Management and Spawn
* Do not buy immediately, wait for the call from the person calling the strats and listen to the call. The worst thing you can do is have a gun when the rest of your team has pistols, or vice versa.
* Person calling the strats needs to call quickly whether you are ECO or BUY UP ASAP.
* Have buy binds for things like all grenades, defuse kit (since it swaps positions on the buy menu), usual guns, and the 2 different levels of armour.
* Do not replenish your armour at the start of each round. 50% armour is just as effective as 100% armour. Only re-buy your armour if you get down below 30% (because at this level or lower, you may actually run out of armour before you die) or you weren't able to afford full armour with a helmet (something I believe is a failure in the game, as you should be able to buy a helmet separately, without having to buy a new vest as well).
* If you win a MP5 round and intend to buy a rifle the next round and none of your team requires your MP5, drop it at end of the round so the gun cannot be retrieved the next round.
* You can increase the teams ammo capacity if you swap guns and buy ammo at start of round for guns that do not share ammo. eg. Colt, AK and AWP.
* BUY UP on last rounds or sudden death rounds regardless.
* Request Rifle while dead or ASAP in spawn if you die and your team is winning. You need the cash to buy armour and grenades, and not having to buy rifle gives you the spare cash to do so.
* State your cash in Team Chat ASAP and at start of each round, so the person calling the strats will know how much you all have and be able to make an informed decision.
* If you have $4,500 or less, ask your team for a gun at the start of the round so you can afford full armour, grenades and a defuse kit. There is no excuse to not be fully kitted out if your team is winning, and you will be more useful to your team.
* If you have over $5,000 and are already fully geared up, offer to buy Rifles for rest of team, ask "Who needs a gun?" You are a lot better off with team mates that have weapons that actually damage and kill the enemy.
* If you have over $10,000 and are already fully geared up, it is very important that you buy Rifles for anybody who has only $7,000 or less. You cannot save more than $16,000, therefore it is better for the teams total cash reserves that you buy a gun for somebody else, rather than have somebody deplete their personal cash reserves when you have so much cash in hand. Feel free to ignore this if you all have over $10,000.
* Learn to calculate the enemies cash position by paying attention to what weapons they had and how difficult or easy it was to kill them. i.e. Did they just lose after ECO for 2 rounds? If so, then its likely they will ECO the next round.
* Always pick up dropped AWP's if you are winning round or have won it. At respawn drop picked up AWP for your clans AWP'er (DO NOT BUY GUN, unless of course you have a lot of cash) Unless they are low on cash, Clan Awper Buys Rifle for the person who drops AWP.
* It can be advantageous to not buy full ammo for guns until you have ensured you have a Defuse Kit, a full complement of Grenades and Armour. Its a real pain in the arse to come up $50 short for full armour just to have 90 Rounds of AK ammo in reserve when you can easily get away with 60 and even 30 can be enough, or to not being able to buy that Smoke Grenade you know you are going to need. Do you really need 30 rounds of spare AWP ammunition?
* If it is the last round of the half and you have lots of cash, buy a Desert Eagle for your pistol, unless you are a Counter-Terrorist who thinks the USP is a better gun.
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Communication, Sound and Movement
* Get your Microphone working. You can be the best player in the world, but unless you can communicate where the enemy is and in what numbers, you are only half useful, and you are dead when the rest of your team gets annihilated because you didn't tell them the enemy was coming and you are left all by yourself.
* When communicating enemy positions, be precise, and give numbers of players, and weapons when possible.
* Count off dead enemies, start off with 5 Terrorists/Counter-Terrorists, when one dies count one off to yourself, if you are not under pressure announce number of opponents over voice comms, by saying "4 Terrorists", "3 Counter-Terrorists" etc.
* Bind a Radio key, preferably something like; "Enemy Spotted" or "Need Backup" close to your movement keys, so your team mates radar will highlight your current position.
* Pay attention to who kills who with what sort of weapon. Use this information to your advantage. Also if you know where your team mate was shot from with a particular weapon, tell your team the location of that opposition player.
* Call your status out, eg. "Reload", "Throwing Grenade", "Throwing Flash", "Throwing Smoke", "Blind", "I have X Health" etc.
* Other than what I have stated above and below, keep voice and radio chat to an absolute minimum, so your team can pick up enemy sounds as early as possible.
* Have your team agree the names of map positions so everybody knows what you are talking about in the previous points. Even go so far as labelling a map (as shown in the example below) and put it on a web site or transfer it to each of your members some how. You don't even have to agree with the names I given to these locations (dust2 if you're not aware), just as long as everybody on your team knows wtf you are talking about. I may even make some for the war maps later if hassled enough, but don't expect anything to grand.
* The overview images for the warmaps can be downloaded from here. (1.4MB File)
* The overview images for the Counter Strike Source warmaps can be downloaded from here. (2.3MB File)
* Unless rushing in a group, good players when they come around a corner only reveal the absolute minimum of themselves for the shortest time possible, to pick off the next likely camping position. Map knowledge is crucial in this regard and a skill that requires constant practice.
* Don't run behind each other, fan out in as widespread a pattern as possible, so you can't get owned by a single player. You may want to disobey this deliberately if you have a specific flash rush strat, but I think it will be rare.
* Don't block your team mates in, the guy in the line of fire has right of way.
* Do stay as close as possible to your team mates when attacking without blocking your team mates.
* Don't run with your knife out, at least have a pistol out.
* Do run from spawn at the start of round with your knife out when it is your intention to get to a choke point as soon as possible.
* Don't make any noise whatsoever unless you really really have to, (This applies equally to Counter-Terrorists, as it does to Terrorists) one foot step, zoom sound, or weapon switch is all it can take to alert the enemy to your position. This includes throwing grenades, shooting, and switching weapons unnecessarily.
* You can move quickly when there is a lot of gun fire and grenades going off as the sound of Gun Fire, Especially AK's, which will cover the sounds of your footsteps. It is one of the reasons why people use silenced Colts in wars.
* Another reason to use a silenced Colt, is so you can hear the thud of your bullets hitting the enemy when you are shooting through walls, etc.
* Do make a lot of noise if it is your intention to act as a decoy or create a diversion.
* Learn to tell the number of opponents by the sounds of their footsteps. Its easy to pick a lone opponent versus 2 sets of running footsteps, which in turn can usually be differentiated from 3 or more, at which point you are going to be able to say, "there are at least 3 enemy at location X".
* Don't break Windows and Vents when you are close to them, or you need them intact to alert you to possible enemy movement.
* Do break Windows and Vents when you are far away from them and its to your advantage that they punched out. Punching the top vents on de_nuke as Counter-Terrorist, the bottom vents of de_nuke before you plant in the bottom site as a Terrorist, the Vent in the Counter-Terrorists Sniper nest on de_inferno as Terrorists are good examples of these. Don't punch the bottom vents as Terrorists on de_nuke, if there is only 1-2 of you left, since you do not have the player numbers to COVER like you would if you had 4 or 5 players left alive.
* It can be advantageous to pick up other teams guns, so if you are a Terrorist you have a Colt or if you are a Counter-Terrorist you have an AK, since you may get a slight delay in response because opponents cannot tell your gun sound from their own teams gun sound. This slight delay in response time can make all the difference.
* Don't allow yourself to get picked off from obvious camping spots. Learn to know where these camping spots are and avoid them when possible.
* Don't stand still to take on a camped enemy. You will just get spammed to death along with the rest of you team. The entrance to site B on dust2 from the tunnels is a classic example of why you don't stop to take the guys camped outside B double doors. You will die and cause the rest of your team to die as the get stuck behind your lifeless body.
* POINT should be a guy with a rifle excepting special places on maps where an AWP'er should go first. In which case the point man should act as a fast moving decoy to attract fire from snipers, and let your snipers have a free shot.
* POINT always watches the front, and sweeps all corners as you move around map, rest of team watches spots opposition can appear from once the point guy has swept that spot, UNLESS
* Whoever is last in line, looks backward to COVER your backs and should also have a Rifle, unless you are going to hang right back with a AWP.
* Pair up, and make sure you pair up a strong players with a weak players. The weak players should be the point and act as decoy for strong players.
* Don't bait your teammates. That is to say, if you are rushing out, don't let your teammate run out on their own without backup and don't run straight for cover at the first sign of gun fire. This principal is very important when dealing with an opposition AWP, because if you don't move out together, you will get picked off one at a time, when you should be able to go 1 for 1.
* Don't rambo, at least not against good teams/players. If your teammate(s) are 10 meters behind you, they are not really going to be able to give you very good support? If they have just shot a whole clip of ammo, they are going to be reloading right? Why weren't you out there shooting at the opposition as well in the first place? If they have bought grenades, they are going to want to use them at appropriate locations, right? You running out like a headless chicken is not going to help one bit, and ruins the perfectly good flash they were going to throw, because you are now in the way, AND they have to also switch back to a real gun!
* Baiting is a legitimate tactic in wars if done deliberately, especially if it enables your team to eliminate the best player on the opposing team for the loss of only one of your own and preferably weakest players. Done often enough, it destroys the confidence of the good player and demoralises the opposition. Just remember if you are the bait, to give the exact location of the opposition player, don't just run without looking.
* When working in pairs, the front guy should be crouched while the guy right behind him stands. Guys in front should generally be crouched when working their way quietly around a map. Feel free to ignore this if your location is well and truly known to opposition.
* When working in pairs approaching a single sided corner, learn to work out the correct distance you need to be so the inside guy and far side guy reveal themselves at the same time. The inside guy needs to be at the front.
* When approaching entrances with 2 sides, the left hand guy looks right, the right hand guy looks left. I know this sounds like really basic stuff, but I've seen this screwed up often.
* Do shoot close and far corners of walls, doors and boxes as you move around the map, to push opposition players out of position. Practiced enough, you can even get kills this way.
* Do spam walls and boxes of likely camping positions of enemy players as you move around the map.
* When spamming, do not have the whole team doing it at once, learn to alternate between yourselves and only empty half a clip at a time, then reload. This ensures that somebody has a gun out with ammo, and you can cancel your reload sequence if the opposition comes, and not be entirely defenceless.
* You must learn what the good positions on a map are, and what the bad positions on a map are, and you must learn not to get caught out of position that leaves you in a situation where you are going to die for little or no value. eg. Dying without getting a shot off = bad. Dying and killing 3 of the enemy = good. M'kay?
* Know what positions on the map are DeathTraps! Move through these positions as quickly as possible. As soon as the enemy knows you are there, you will be wearing several HE Grenades and that can effectively end the round for you team. Do not be afraid to surrender these positions and fall back. It is often advantageous to cause the enemy to think you are moving into ones of these locations to get them to use up their supply of HE Grenades.
* Crouch when moving up and down ladders, it is slower, but it does not make noise.
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