Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Strafe Left: The Formative Years #28

By Tim Stone on May 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am.

Was reviewing a lot of Blitzkrieg clones at the time

One from summer 06.

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25 Comments »

  1. Testicular Torsion says:

    I don’t get it. Am I being dense?

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  2. roBurky says:

    I didn’t get it at first.

    Then I saw the title.

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  3. This one took me a while first time I saw it, but – yes – very clever.

    I actually use CTRL-7 a fair bit. CTRL-6 are my lonely men.

    KG

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  4. Anthony Damiani says:

    Subtle.

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  5. Wouldn’t ctrl group 9/0 be more appropriate or is it because 7 is equidistant between both ctrls? Or am I over analyzing it

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  6. Frosty840 says:

    The man’s a genius.

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  7. Nimic says:

    Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

    I got it now.

    Brilliant.

    Oh, and freelance, some people (me :x) use 0′s and 9′s for “special” groups :P

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  8. Sander says:

    Excellently funny. Had the same reaction as roBurky, although to be honest I still don’t get which game we’re talking about.

    It’s just that whenever I do try to play an RTS, if I even get organized enough to assign control groups, this is exactly what all of them are doing before I decide that apparently I still don’t get RTS’s and uninstall. So, funny ‘cuz it’s twue – for me.

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  9. Homunculus says:

    Right at the moment Ctrl group 7 for me are repeatedly trying and failing to take Hill 187 in Company of Heroes. Needless to say, there’s not been much opportunity for idleness.

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  10. Mike says:

    Exactly. Winners use 0 and 9 for the artillery and the like. But 7… man. They’re the ‘special’ corps.

    I like this one. I don’t think I saw it in PCG, but yes. Good.

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  11. Andrew says:

    Neato :D funny, hehe :)

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  12. Pidesco says:

    I also only got it after seeing the title.

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  13. Alex Dodge says:

    I kept trying to figure out what the joke was. I thought it had something to do with that one guy being armed with a sitar. I still don’t I get that. Did they finally send a poet?

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  14. Grandstone says:

    I’m pretty sure that’s a metal detector for spotting mines.

    I thought the joke had something to do with the medic on the right smoking in panel 3, attracting a sniper who shot his helmet off for panel 4.

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  15. Optimaximal says:

    I originally thought that bombers were moving into attack them because the guy removed his helmet ala. the blackouts :)

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  16. Fumarole says:

    Hmm, 7 always seems to be my most used control group. But I use 1-5 for buildings in most RTS’. This means I often use all 10 control groups. Of course, games like Company of Heroes are largely making this null and void.

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  17. wyrmsine says:

    Seven is my engineer/special builders group. They only get called when I need to take over an enemy structure or repair something fast, so they tend to stand around a lot, then die in a hail of gunfire.

    Ctrl+Groups 6 and 8, on the other hand, tend not to see much action at all…

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  18. Pod says:

    Fumarole: How odd! To me, 1-3 scream out to me “BIG THINGS, IN ORDER OF BIGNESS”. So “1″ is always the stuff wot kills the most.

    7, is of course “engineer” territory. I rarely use 8 or 9. 0 ir sometimes my scout group in Rise of Nations.

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  19. Jochen Scheisse says:

    I bet Fumarole is a pain to play against. I never got around to handling my base with the CRTLs, but its the most obvious choice really, except for arty like stuff, which I also normally put on 8-0. Keeps your screen on the action.

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  20. 18Rabbit says:

    For most RTS’s ctrl+7 for me would be an empty group. I rarely use more than 3. Of course I almost never play multi-player either so those 2 may be related.

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  21. Fat Zombie says:

    I’m not sure about ordering groups. Whenever I play Homeworld, CTRL-GROUP 0 is either the Probe unit, or scouts. CTRL-1/2/3 are usually the largest wodges of units, which usually end up becoming CTRL-1 after a fight.

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  22. Duoae says:

    Ctrl-5 is always my airborne units, regardless of whether six and seven are land-based as 1-4 are.

    :)

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  23. jgreynemo says:

    I begin having neatish and ordered CTRL groups (all put in big splash damage hating blocks – you know, the ones that move across the minimap in a satisfying block of green that blots out the rest of the landscape while it moves…),

    1 is always the regular units that are scouty and expendable, 2 and 3 being heavy armour and support, 4 and 5 being artillery and repair. 7, 8, 9 being special units and 0 being something terribly special and possibly game-ending.

    However once the namby pamby hand towel arranging ends and you’re being attacked or doing the attacking.

    The mechanics of having something being repaired or built halfway across the map just has everything either joining the supreme cluster-trucking 300 unit strong groups of “1″ or the tiny, resource barren I-can’t-produce-enough-replacement-units-with-a-factory-that-is-on-fire-and-38-units-queued “2″.

    1 – GO ATTACK THAT THING I WANT TO BE ATTACKED NOW!!! GO!! That thing now!!! I don’t care if all you do is repair buildings and plant herb gardens. ATTACK NOW!!!!

    2 – DEFEND BASE… OMGWTFBBQ!?!? WHY AREN’T YOU DEFENDING BASE 2??? My god, 2 is so full of FAIL… Why can’t you be more like 1? Hey wait a minute… where did 1 go??

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