General Guide to Strat Calling
1. Introduction
2. Making Strats
3. Presenting Strats
4. Dry running Strats
5. Knowing where to put who
6. When to Call What
7. Set Strats
8. Dynamic Strats
9. Mid-Round Adjustments
10. Spawns
11. Freeze Time
12. Conclusion
1 - Introduction
In this article I'll be walking you through how to make a decent strat book for de_train (just because it's the map my team is working on this week), where to find strats to rip, how to adjust those ripped strats to your team, how to present them to your team, and all the other shit in the Table of Contents.
2 - Making Strats
This is arguable the easiest part. You can "make" strats just by googling for "de_xxxx strats." But that's too easy isn't it? :P A good guideline is to download a few playbooks, or buy some. JuanSource(www.juansource.com) and GotFrag Prime(www.gotfrag.com/css/prime/) are excellent pay4access resources with lots of stuff about strats. Generally, you want to make a default for the given map first, along with 2-3 split strats, 2-3 fakes, and whatever you come up with during the match. You generally won't use all 3 fakes in a given scrim, but they're important to have because all teams that you play will have different weaknesses. This means that if they're weak at inside and you take inside 4 rounds in a row, you can run your inner fake, whereas your ivy fake wouldn't be nearly as successful, since they know they can shut you down if you rush ivy. But, first things first. The Default.
In de_train, terrorist defaults are generally 2-1-2 outside attacks. 2 ivy/alley, 1 mid, 2 ladder. This tactic works well if your team can consistently out shoot the enemy team, and if your team can throw good grenades and take outside control. The strategy generally starts off with an AWP picking CT connector from T connector, or jumping straight out to pick at ivy. A key point about this strat if you run it a bit late, is that everyone executes at a certain time, ESPECIALLY the ladder players and the t connector players. This is because ladder can easily see heaven and people peeking t connector from ladder train, along with an obvious view of any CTs being gay on the right side of T connector. The T connector guy can see anyone in the ladder train area, not to mention CT connector. The ivy players need to decide before hand if they're going left, towards spawn, or right, towards the courtyard. Generally, going right side is the better option, as you have more teammates around to cover you as you plant, and planting for outside gives much more flexibility in defending the CTs.
Now, you can't just have a default, or they'll stop playing people inside and you'll end up at 1:1 odds all the time, making things exceedingly difficult for you. This is where making stuff up comes in. My team has 6 terrorist strats in total where everyone has a specific job. This includes a 2-1-2 default, 3 kinds of inner takes, an outside fake to inner split strat, and a straight up inner split. I'll go over each of these briefly.
Our 2-1-2 essentially has 2 rifles going ivy, doing a dry runned take of ivy peeking certain angles and throwing certain grenades. They smoke left and plant. The planter goes to gay spot after bomb is down, and the other guy hides under a train or peeks CT connector from a wheelbase. The T connector player picks CT connector, nade stacks it, and makes himself a pain in the ass for CTs, trying to get as many free kills as possible. The ladder players send a flash down first, followed by an AWP, shortly followed by a rifle after the awp clears up front. Most people prefer to have the rifle go first, but I don't like my team blocking each other so the AWP can peek heaven, etc. They hang out in the ladder train/room and generator area, with the rifle watching for a quick flank from an inner CT by sitting inside ladder room.
Our first inner take is our most complicated. We call it PC blue, since that's what turmoil calls it, and that's who we stole it from. http://www.winaround.com/?url=news_overview&id=103 has it outlined in greater detail, but essentially, you send a lone rifle (preferably silenced M4) down ivy. He waits for a push of some sort in a hidden position (I recommend the dumpster if you're on 1:45 rules, otherwise you might be too late.) He waits ivy until the inner take is happening, and then he's wary of any late rotating CTs. As you're taking inner, he starts full rushing towards CT spawn, picks up any free kills on AWPers in ct connector/lower ct side ramp, and then goes and watches the bomb from backstops. You send the other 4 players inner, one of whom waits above ladder until the take is about to start. You smoke out upper ramp twice to avoid being awped and then throw the smoke shown in the winaround link to smoke out the bomb planter, who plants for backstops. One player may try to full rush towards CT connector or to hide under a train, but it's at his discretion. After bomb is planted, everyone retreats back to boiler area, trying to delay until our ivy player shows up. When he finally shows, he can take potshots at any CT defusers, and if he has a silenced M4 a lot of the time the CT has no idea what's going on.
Our second and third inner takes are very generic. If they do a rifles setup we do 2nd take, which means flash lower, smoke upper, plant, and take up positions around the train yard. If they do awps at the ramps, we smoke out the awps, plant, and rush towards CT spawn to get free kills on the AWPs and rotators. Pretty simple.
The outside fake inner split is what it says. We're faking outside, then splitting inside. We send 2 to T connector who nade stack CT connector, usually meaning a quick kill. We then smoke up ivy area to close off that lane, along with bomb train for fear of passive ladder players AWPing, tossing flashes all the while. The other 3 players have been going ladder, and they're going to take CT connector once the original 2 players are back in T connector on their way to B. Once the 2 B guys are ready to rush down lower, the CT connector guys start rushing out, usually leading to chaos and an easy plant.
Inner split strat is basically sending 3 inside to do a standard take 2 inner, which is aggressive vs. rifles up close, while the other 2 players smoke out bomb train ladder lane to avoid being awped, and who then go CT connector to split inside.
3 - Presenting Strats
This section won't be so long winded, I hope. Basically this just means how you're going to explain the strats to your team. Video, voice, text, picture, etc. I personally recommend doing all 4. Give everyone a video explaining the basic idea. Can be made using CSStrat, a free program. Then ask if there are any questions from your players. If there are, answer them. Also be sure to mention who's doing what of course. The pictures can be used to show what specific grenades they need to throw, or you could forgo the movies in favor of doing it in paint. Use text after practice/scrims 1 on 1 with your teammates to go over any concerns they may have personally.
4 - Dry Running Strats
Most teams generally hate this part, but it's extremely important that you do it and do it well. Basically you're pretending there's an enemy, but no one is around. Just running a strategy over and over in an empty server until you don't screw up grenades, and until your timings are right. Each strat generally takes 20 minutes or so to get down if you explained it well.
5 - Knowing Where to Put Who
This is frequently overlooked until teams realize this strat isn't winning. Basically, you need to play off your strengths and hide your weaknesses. Do not put AWPers in rifle positions when you have a perfectly eager rifler right next to him. For example, a lot of people on my team can AWP, but only 1 spot on de_train really NEEDS an AWP in my opinion, and it can be rifled occasionally as well, and that is CT connector. Ivy can awp/rifled, inside can be awp/rifled, as can ladder and any floating positions you may have. Remember to limit yourself to 2-3 awps at once lest you go broke.
6 - When to Call What
This is basically about looking at your money situation, morale, the other team's weaknesses, your spawns (along with the enemies spawns), and whether or not you think now is a good time to call it. What I mean by this is, don't run 2-1-2 when you can't afford AWPs. Instead run PC blue, or another inner take variant. If you're deagle saving on CT, staying in AWP positions is a bad call. Play pushed up with your newfound toy! If you notice their inner player gets wrecked a lot, start rushing inner every round they lose there. As for your money situation, you can obviously buy more often on terrorist. If you plant the bomb every round, you could buy a $4500 rifle kit FOREVER, even if it always gets defused. If everyone has at least $3200 or so, you can do a deagle save. I think of deagle save as a gun round with a deagle, not an actual save round. The whole point of a deco, at least for me, is to kill the enemy by having 3-4 guys shooting at him at once, then take his gun and find the next enemy. Make sure that if you know you can't get an AWP to call rifle buy so there isn't any confusion. Most importantly, make up your mind. If you can't decide what to do, spread for picks, work your default, SOMETHING. Anything is better than sitting in spawn.
7 - Set Strats
It's time to call set strats when the other team is good enough to be able to shrug off random rushes and 2-3 splits. Try modifying them to focus on their weakest player, or by killing their best player early.
8 - Dynamic Strats
This is important to do when the team you're playing has caught on to all your normal stuff, or you know they got a hold of SourceTV or something and anti stratted you. Dynamic calling is just the opposite of set calling. In a set strat everyone knows what they're doing when they hear "PC Blue," or whatever the strat is. In dynamics, everyone is improvising, going on instinct and skill. Avoid if the other team consistently out shoots you.
9 - Mid-Round Adjustments
So the bomber got picked off randomly because the enemy nade stacked ivy. What now? Without the bomb, running the strat like normal is no good, so you need to come up with a plan on the fly. It doesn't need to be complex, in fact, the simpler it is the easier it will be for you to convey to your teammates before the round timer ends.
10 - Spawns
Spawns in CS:S are pretty easy to figure out. You spawn based on your connection order. For example, on de_dust2, if you're the last person to connect and you go CT, you generally get a Long A spawn. Spawns rotate in 4 round patterns like so.
1 - 5 - 9
2 - 6 - 10
3 - 7 - 11
4 - 8 - 12
Now, what does this mean, and how can you use it to your advantage. Quite simple really. If you know on round 3 the opposing team rifle rushed B, it's a good bet they'll try it again rounds 7 and 11 because they have good B spawns. If you know they didn't pick middle on first round either, you can heavily counter it by sending a guy lower B while having 3 other guys stack in site, with your last player spotting long incase they aren't going B. As a strat caller it's important to have this chart totally memorized. As a player, it's important to be able to figure out when they're going to rush your bombsite. If you know they rush B when you have a bad B spawn, it'd be best to set up outside the bombsite to flash them then get a few free kills before your teammates rotate so you can retake it together.
11 - Freeze Time
The freeze time is one of the most important parts of any given round. No one should be talking except the strat caller. At the beginning of the round, type your money but going into team chat and typing the first 2 digits. If you had 8400 you would type 84, etc. If you have less than $2000 then type 1.7 if you have $1700 for example. It'll be a sad day when you type 16 and the strat caller says to drop AKs for everyone, and you don't have any money. It's also important not to immediately buy after you type your money. If your AWP player can afford armor+nades+AK, but can't afford an AWP, and you can, you can both buy the armor and grenades, and you can buy AWP and trade him for an AK. If you'd bought your AK first thing you wouldn't have had enough money to buy him an AWP, and even if you did, you'd be really broke the next round. If you need a gun drop, it's important you look at how much everyone has. Remember, an AK47 rifle kit costs from around $4500 to $5250, and an M4 rifle kit generally costs $5300. Do the math to see if they can drop you before you ask. A good way to ask is to have 2 radio signals. One for drop rifle, One for drop AWP, if you AWP for your team at all. That way, you have a green exclamation point above your head, and you blink on the radar, along with it showing up in team chat, making it easy to give you your gun. Also, try to avoid blocking your teammates. In de_dust2, if you need to go to B and there are people in front of you, it's important one of you call out "pass on left/right." This makes sure there's no bumping into each other.
12 - Conclusion
I hope this guide to making a playbook helps out your teams at least a little bit. Check out my other articles for some more tips. -Kazz