A successful game is one where EVERYONE has a good time.
If I win, that's just a bonus.
The only bad games are those where people go away unhappy.

One of the reasons for this article is to dispel the myth that FPS games are no more than simple 'run-n'-gun' games. A tight game of cat and mouse between 2 teams of tactically savvy players is incredibly fun and being mentally sharp counts as much as having the fastest trigger finger.

1. Develop Basic Skills. Addresses the basic requirement for effective in-game control of your player
   • Use a mouse-keyboard setup
   • Stay in motion
   • Get comfortable running backwards
   • Mouse-flicks
   • Circle-strafing
   • Tweak your controls
   • Practice
      
2. Know The Game. Talks about the game environment and how you interact with it.
   • Maps
   • Weapons  
     • Weapons Accuracy
     • Panzerfausts
     • Artillery vs. Airstrikes
     • Directing Airstrikes
        
3. Think Tactically. Discusses how you think through a game. Attempts to build a deeper appreciation for the tactical nuances of RTCW, or any FPS for that matter.
   • Keep your cool
   • Watch and learn from your opponent
   • Avoid predictability
   • Learn when to run away
   • Maintain situational awareness
   • Anticipate your opponent's moves
   • Keep yourself topped off
   • Take a smart approach to doors and natural choke points
   • Don't silhouette yourself in doors and windows
   • Use prep fire when available
   • Strafe around corners
   • Backtrack occasionally
   • Avoid natural kill zones
   • Getting your groove back

Develop Basic Skills.

Use a mouse-keyboard setup.
This is as basic as it gets. While there are other ways of controlling your player, such as joysticks and trackball, at minimum, you should be comfortable using the mouse-keyboard combination. There is too much going on to rely solely on a keyboard for all of your looking, shooting, and running. Get used to freelook and play with a mouse.

• When using the mouse, you should be able to look 180 degrees simply by twisting your hand at the wrist.
• Avoid moving your entire arm since it's hard to get the entire arm moving, hard to get it stopped, and you'll tire quickly.
• Use the fingers to pull the mouse into your wrist or push it out to look up and down.
• When you shoot with MOUSE1, especially at long distances with a sniping weapon, don't stab down at the button, gently apply pressure until you shoot. If you hit it too hard, you're most likely pushing your mouse back towards you and throwing off your aim.

Stay in motion.
Don't stop moving unless you have a good reason. If you stop too long, you're dead, plain and simple. Most newbies stop moving because they can't shoot on the run. Moving and shooting accurately are independent. Tweak your controls until you do both comfortably. You need to learn how to combine them together effectively. My advice is this, learn. Practice with a friend to develop this skill in a low stress environment.

Get comfortable running backwards.
Tactically, you want to learn how to run backwards to return fire as people chase you or to avoid presenting your blind side while you run into dead-ends to pick up items.

• Once you've perfected your mouse flick, try running forward, jumping, mouse-flicking to execute a 180, then simultaneously shifting to running backwards.
• You can use this technique when you run into alcoves to pick up items so that you never present your back to your opponent.
• This is also useful when you are being chased. Often times your opponent is so intent on chasing you that he becomes an easy target.

Mouse-flicks.
A mouse-flick is the trick of rapidly executing a 180-turn by quickly flicking your mouse left or right.

• With practice, you should be able to execute a perfect 90 or 180-degree turn every time.
• Practice in a map with plenty of running space and try a 180-degree mouse-flick then fire when you land (or when you complete the 180).
• Adjust the sensitivity of your mouse to the point where you can control your crosshair easily but still have the range of motion to execute a 180.
• Next, try running backwards then use a mouse-flick to turn around while you simultaneously change to running forwards.

Circle-strafing.
This is simply strafing left or right in a large circle. You want to learn this to dodge enemy fire while still being able to shoot back.

• Find an object to shoot at in a map/room with plenty of space to move around.
• Strafe left or right while using your mouse, to move your crosshair in the opposite direction. The effect will be that your crosshair stays on target while you circle around him. Keep firing while you do this.
• Try strafing in the opposite direction. Now try to alternate between strafing left and right while keeping your crosshair on the target. If you're doing this correctly you should be pumping a steady stream of fire into your target while staying constantly on the move.
• Another technique is to move closer or further away from your target while your circle strafing. This is especially effective against rocket launchers aimed at your feet since it's harder to predict shots in 2 dimensions than 1.
• However, make sure you don't develop a pattern in this as well. Try to randomly go inwards and outwards of the circle, it will be harder for your opponent to predict where you will be next.

Tweak your controls.
Ultimately, you want to have the simplest command set possible while making all of your important weapons and commands accessible.

• Write all of your key bindings NO scripts They are not allowed at the -=AN=- Clan  into an autoexec.cfg file that is kept in your [gamdir]/main/ folder.
• I try to keep all of my commands on the left of and including the keys 6-T-G-B. This is as far as my hand can comfortable span.
• Try not to make key bindings too complex or you will get confused in the middle of a game.
• Conserve keys. If you have two commands that are mutually exclusive bind them to one key using a toggle command instead of using 2 keys for separate set commands. See the bind keys pages to learn more about toggles.

Practice.
Grab a friend, set up a simple LAN game between the two of you, and spend a few minutes practicing basic skills in a low stress environment. If you live close enough, I would call them or use a VoIP (Voice over IP) application like Ventrilo to coordinate your practice section.

• Have one person stand still and try to circle-strafe around him. Do this again but shoot at him while he moves. Can you hit him? Now switch places.
• Learn how to do the basic functions for each class. Start off on Beach and practice blowing the breaches. If you're working with a buddy, practice having one person plant the dynamite, while the other person guards. Practice, whipping out the syringe and reviving a buddy. You can do this by having one person binding a key to "kill", which will make him wounded and give you the chance to practice revivals.
• On the same map, stand by various points in the map, have your friend run around and listen for the audio cues. Can you guess where he is based on the audio cues? Have him try to surprise you. Can you surprise him?

Know The Game.

Maps.
It helps a lot if you know the terrain that you're fighting on. There is nothing more frustrating then losing a game because you're constantly getting lost or you haven't figured out where the objectives are. If you're playing on a server with a published map rotation or you know what maps are going to be played, download the maps and spend a couple minutes in a private server just running around, seeing where everything is, and figuring how to get to various items.

For a more thorough discussion on how to learn a map, visit my article on Map Reconnaisance

Weapons.
Know where all your weapons are located on your controls set up. Get your autoexec set up just right so that all of your most commonly used weapons and tools are within easy reach. Simple scripts, such as weapons toggles, can also make this easier. Choose the right weapon for the job. Every game tries to balance the weapons so that each one has advantages and disadvantages. No weapon is perfect for all occasions. Learn what each weapon can do, under what circumstances it is most useful, and what its downsides are. 

For more information about weapons got to the weapon page.

Weapons Accuracy.
I conducted a weapons accuracy test with the Thompson, MP-40, and Sten. Each weapon was tested on rate of fire and accuracy. For the test range, I used on the Allied spawn point on Assault. Rate of fire was evaluated in terms of number of seconds require to empty a 30-round magazine. For the Sten and MP-40, this meant dumping 2 rounds to make sure all guns started with 30 rounds. Since the Sten cannot be fired continuously, I fired in bursts to empty the magazine as fast as possible. The number of seconds required to empty each weapon were:

1. MP-40 - 5 seconds
2. Thompson - 6 seconds
3. Sten - 8-9 seconds.
   I've been told that if you measure the fire rate for 10 rounds, the Sten is actually faster, but have not measure this for myself.

Accuracy was tested by looking at impact groupings from a continuous burst as well as a series of 3-round, 5-round, and 10 round bursts. All weapons were fired from the white line labeled "Firing Line" into the target area. I then used the binoculars to zoom in on the target area and take a screenshot of the impact marks.

Weapons were fired from a standing position approximately 3 tile lengths from the wall.

In the following screenshots, I've compared the impact patterns from the Thompson (column 1), MP-40 (column 2), and the Sten (colum 3). The rows show the type of bursts used: continuous (row 1), 5-round bursts (row 3), 3-round bursts (row 2), and finally 10-round bursts (row 4). Note: The same picture is used for all 4 Sten patterns.

Thompson - single continuous burst	MP40 - single continuous burst	Sten - fired as fast as possible
Thompson - 3 round bursts	MP40 - 3 round bursts	Sten - fired as fast as possible
Thompson - 5 round bursts	MP40 - 5 round bursts	Sten - fired as fast as possible
Thompson - 10 round bursts	MP40 - 10 round bursts	Sten - fired as fast as possible

Other observations:

• Distance doesn't affect damage
• It appears there are only two damage zones, the head and the rest of the body.
• It doesn't matter if your helmet is on

Panzerfausts.

Panzerfaust Blast Radius Diagram Explained:

Starting from the left...we got the poor dumb sap just standing there. Poor guy... The colored bars show the point of impact of the panzerfaust round.

The Gib Zone represent the total area between "Poor Dumb Bastard" and the "Gibbed Point". If a panzerfaust hits within the red area, our "Poor Dumb Bastard" would be gibbed with no way for a medic to revive him.

The "Grey Area" (grey) is a big question mark for medics. This means if "Poor Dumb Bastard" is a medic with full health and the panzerfaust lands within the grey area ... a random amount of damage is assessed that MAY OR MAY NOT kill him. If he's not a medic however, don't worry about the distinction because he'll will still be gibbed.

If the panzerfuast lands within the yellow area, the blast will kill "Poor Dumb Bastard" if he is any class other than a medic. However, he can still be revived by a medic.

If the panzerfaust lands within the Damage Zone (green), "Poor Dumb Bastard" will take damage according to the numbers on top of the bar.

This analysis assumes that "Poor Dumb Bastard" starts with 100 health.

Artillery vs. Airstrikes.
Artillery. Obviously better at hitting longer range targets than airstrikes. Can be employed in 2 ways.

1. Destroy fixed defenses. This is pretty much a no-brainer. This is how I typically see artillery employed, to fire on groups of defenders who may be fixed in place because they're defending an objective like the comm tower.
2. Deny access or passage. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see this application used much. Since artillery gives visibible signals that it's coming in, and lasts for a period of time (4 rounds) people avoid the blast area. You can use this to prevent movement through certain areas or channel enemy movement areas into more advantageous engagement areas. (e.g., bottle up in spawn site, deny reinforcing movement). For example, an arty strike at the foot of the ladder leading to the comm tower, can choke off the flow of reinforcements from the allied spawn site to the defenders around the comm tower.

1. Air strikes are best utilized to clear an area that friendly forces have just vacated thereby giving some cover and breathing room, or to clear an area that friendly forces will move into to clear enemies and provide cover. This has to be pretty carefully synchronized and people have to be careful not to run into the smoke until after the airstrike.
2. However, when used in the assault, an airstrike marker will typically make all the enemies run away and then, if all the attacking forces begin a sprint move immediately after the last blast, the resulting cloud of smoke provides good concealment (not cover) to move onto an objective. This not only helps you move across open kill zones, but if you move fast enough, you can move into far side cover, out of sight of the enemy and cause them to lose track of you - disrupting their defense.

Directing Airstrikes.

Did you know that you can control where your airstrikes will impact after you toss the airstrike cannister (aka smoke grenade)? Typically, if you throw the airstrike cannister and stand still, the airstrike will impact a rectangular area centered on the smoke grenade and running nearly perpendicular to you (doesn't seem to always be perfectly perpendicular). However, you can adjust the impact area in two ways.

First, you can make the airstrike land further away from the airstrike cannister by backing up once the cannister is thrown. The airstrike should move away from the cannister the same distance you backed off. Just be careful that you don't move so far that the point of impact ends up in a place the pilot can't see or the airstrike may be aborted.

The second method is to move and rotate your point of view. Try throwing the airstrike marker, strafing right a comfortable distance, and then making a 45% left turn. The airstrike will still land on top of the smoke grenade, but now, it will impact diagonally from where you tossed the cannister

Think Tactically.

You want to control the game by getting your strategy going or by preventing the other player from getting into his rhythm. This can be done by controlling key objectives, chokepoints, or spawn points, thereby forcing your opponent to constantly react to your moves.

Keep your cool.
Everyone blows theirs, especially if they get into a bit of trouble early in the game. However, the best players/team recover quickly or just don't let it get to them.

• The important thing to remember is what ends the game. Sometimes, it's a set time limit. For other game type, the game doesn't end until the final objective has been taken. When you're playing for specific objectives, then the number that counts is what your team has at then end.
• Think rationally about why you got tagged so quickly so many times. It might have been luck, or you might have been caught in a chokepoint a few times in a row. You might be showing some hesitation because it's an unfamiliar map.
• Adjust your playing style as necessary to compensate. On new maps, I adjust to play more defensively and watch what other people do.
• Avoid getting angry when playing. You may think this will help fuel your fragging, but it will make you more jittery. You need to stay calm so that you can maintain your aim and keep thinking straight.
• Continue to kick ass.

Watch and learn from your opponents.
Scope out how your opponents are playing and that will give you a better sense for the strategies you'll need to beat them.

• Are they playing aggressively or defensively?
• If they are defensive players or tend to stay in one area, you have a lot more freedom to plan how you want to take the fight to them.
• If they are on offense, then you constantly have to be on guard lest they surprise you. This may mean that any rest or listening breaks are done seldom and finished quickly.
• The best way to learn any game is to play against people who are better than you. Play against them as often as possible and watch their technique. If they're really cool, they might even share some of their tips with you.

Avoid predictability.
When I first started playing FPS games, the single biggest problem I saw in myself was that I could always be counted on the chase after a target. I usually got a bullet to the head for my troubles.

• Don't always run in straight lines. Zigzagging as you run, even when you think you're alone is permitted.
• Don't circulate the map or portions of a map in the same pattern. I still find myself doing this and it's easy to get stuck on a set route you use to navigate a map. A smart opponent will pick up on this and be able to anticipate where you will go and therefore wait for you on his terms.
• Don't circle-strafe in the same direction all the time. The point of circle strafing is to dodge fire. But if you're going to keep moving in the same direction, it's easy really easy to lead you. Change it up every now and then.

Learn when to run away.

• Run away when you no longer have the advantage in a firefight (e.g., when you are outnumbered and nearly out of life).
• Sometimes you will want to run away even when you have ammo or health:
  • Run away and immediately double back. If your opponent is chasing you, thinking that you've run out of ammo, you may surprise him and gain the upper hand.
  • If your opponent has guessed that you are trying to get behind him, he may have doubled back, trying to cut you off. He may have turned his back to you, giving you the chance to catch him unaware.
  • This is also a part of not being predictable. If you run away even when you have ammo, especially after pulling some really good ambushes, your opponent is more likely to not immediately try to chase you down when you run. This gives you valuable breathing space when you REALLY DO NEED to run away because of low ammo, you're hurt, or he has the upper hand.
• When running away, try to run backwards, but ensure you still check your back often. This allows you to run away while preserving your ability to return fire. Keep in mind that you sacrifice speed for security.

Maintain situational awareness.
Maintaining your situational awareness is the art of knowing what is going on in the map at any given point in time. If you watch any Quake 2 demo featuring Thresh, then you know what I'm talking about. Thresh seems to know exactly where his opponent is going, when they're going to pop out of a door, when they're going for armor, etc. This lets him get a lot of frags before the other player even has a chance to react.

• Look behind you every now and then. I can't count all the times that I've followed someone around the map and they never noticed I was there.
• When you cross corridors, take a quick look left and right.
• Listen for audio cues to discern where the other player is and where he is going.
• Keep tabs on when key objectives have been taken, especially true when a new spawn point has been taken
• Don't get so focused on chasing down one person that you lose track of other people who may be gunning for you.

Anticipate your opponent's moves.
People are predictable and you should take advantage of that. During games, observe your opponent:

• Does he move predictably? For example, do he always strafe-left or circulate the map in a clockwise direction? Picking up on these patterns will enable you to anticipate where your buddy will be and therefore get yourself in the best position to frag them.
• Are audio cues followed by predictable actions? On certain maps, when you hear and audio cue such an an elevator, do you just know exactly where your enemy is and where he's heading?
• Does your opponent always chase you, only pulling back if he is out of ammunition?

Keep yourself topped off.
Keep your ammo and health status in mind and don't unnecessarily call for or look for ammo or med packs unless you need to.

• There is nothing worse than getting killed for health pack or an ammo pack that you simply did not need.
• Don't make a habit of picking everything up unless you need it. Remember, you have to share with the rest of your team. If I'm a medic and have picked up at least one ammo pack, I'll leave the rest for other people.

Take a smart approach to doors and natural choke points.
The worst thing you can do is to walk straight through a door. Watch how a police SWAT team takes down a room. It's an interesting exercise that has a lot of practical applications to RTCW or any other FPS.

• Doors are natural choke points because they're narrow and restrict your ability to move and dodge. From the shooter's perspective, it's easy to concentrate fire into a doorway, especially with splash-damage weapons like panzerfausts and gain easy frags.

The following screenshots were taken from the Elite Forces map 'Boarding Party'. I may or may not adapt this for RTCW.

Simply stepping through a door leaves you exposed to fire from both sides of the corridor.		Starting from the oblique enables you control how much of cooridor the room you want to expose yourself to at any given point.

There are a couple of counter measures that can be used individually or in combination:

• Get a buddy to open the door and then have him step out of the way. If you open the door with your body, you'll be forced to hesitate for a moment while it opens for you, exposing you for a few moments.
• Sprint through doorways. People are going to be gunning for you and you want to get though this constricting passages as fast as you can.
• Get close enough to the door and open it, but take a step back or to the side. Often time, someone will shoot at a door as soon as it opens, expecting a body to come charging through. Stepping back makes them waste that first shot and alerts you to the presence of an opponent.
• Approach the door from the oblique. This means that you're standing off to the side and looking through the doorway at a 45-degree angle. This gives you a view into about 1/3 of the room while hiding your from the other 2/3. This has most of the advantages of taking a step back, but gives you a better field of fire into the room. You can take in the remainder of the room by circle-strafing left or right, attack by going straight on or button-hook around to the opposite side.
   

In this example, I'm getting ready to enter No Man's Land on the Wizernes map. I suspect that enemy soldiers might be hiding along the walls, so I begin my by quickly checking the wall opposite of the one I plan to move down. If there is an enemy soldier, I'll either withdraw or shoot it out with him.		I see there isn't anyone there, so I execute a quick button hook, clear the near side wall, and make a quick scan of No Man's Land.
Once I'm convinced there are no enemy along the near side wall, I circle-strafe right, keeping my eyes on the center of No Man's Land and my back to the wall.		Now I'm up along the right hand wall and ready to move down to the far tunnel. At no time do my eyes leave No Man's Land and the activity along the right wall.
As I move down the right wall, I move at the oblique so that my gun stays trained into the center of No Man's Land. I do this so that my gun is ready and so that I can take in as much of the action as possible. I can also see the destroyable Allied side entrance so if something develops up there, I can quickly run up the stairs to assist		I finish near the far tunnel, ready to move into a blocking position or stage for the next push to the Allied far side spawn point

Don't silhouette yourself doors and windows.
There is no sound-tactical reason to stand directly in a door or window to shoot out.

• Standing directly in front of or in doors and windows silhouettes you perfectly for anyone who wants to return fire.
• Door and window frames make you vulnerable to splash damage.
• Instead, take a step or two back from the door. It's still as easy for you to shoot into a room and actually reduces the area inside the room from which people can see you. Plus you retain your peripheral vision to see people coming down the hall.
• Stepping back will most likely put you into more shadows.
• It also gives you a little more room to maneuver to incoming fire or if you get surprised.

Use prep fire when available.
This can be really useful if you have a lot of ammo, and you know the opponent is probably set up in a defensive position, for example, the map room on Beach. Often times as I enter a room or approach and elbow in a corridor, I will toss a grenade just before I go in. This does several things:

• If I think someone might be coming around the same corner, you can surprise him or her with an area effect weapon. Since they have no idea that you are around the corner, they probably won't have the opportunity to dodge out of the way.
• If someone is waiting to ambush you, the suppressive fire can cause him or her to break ambush early, thereby saving your skin. If the person simply happens to be coming down the same corridor, it could cause them to hold up and try to figure out where you are shooting from which buys a couple of moments to gain the advantage.
• Naturally, the benefits of this should be weighed against the disadvantage of potentially giving your position away.

Strafe around corners.
A lot of players stop at intersections, turn, and then proceed on their merry way. Unfortunately, this causes you to stop for a moment and creates a situation where you are not looking at where you are most likely to encounter an unexpected opponent.

• Always keep your crosshairs centered on the corridor, door, or path that you intent to use.
• As you approach the opening, circle-strafe left or right so that your crosshairs stay on target, but your model is swinging around in alignment with the door.
• Once you're lined up the way you want and you're convinced the coast is clear, make your entry.
• This ensures that you are always ready to shoot if someone pops out of the entry.

Backtrack occasionally.
Every now and then, do a quick mouse-flick, turn around and backtrack. It's healthy to look behind you every now and then and see if anyone is chasing you. This also helps you be a little less predictable.

Avoid natural kill zones.
Many maps are designed to funnel the action around key areas or items. The last place you want to be is standing in the middle of those places.  

• This is especially true in certain maps were all the action is funneled into arenas (like Wizernes) where you might have 8-12 people exchanging fire back and forth across No Man's Land. Why would you want to be in the middle of that? Stay on the periphery of these areas and shoot into and across the kill zone.
• By staying on the edges and keeping your back to the wall, you only have to keep track of your left, right, and front. If you're in the middle, you have to keep track of all 360 degrees.
• You become less of an easy target. People will typically shoot at the easiest kill. You just don't want 8 people to see you as the easiest kill.
• By staying back, you can also keep better track of what's going on thereby letting you play smarter with your ammunition and shots. Watch who is getting hurt and go for the easy kill. Gang up on the same target as a teammate for faster kills.

Getting your groove back.
Sometimes all the stars are aligned; you run the maps beautifully, every shot hits, you're absolutely untouchable. Then, all of a sudden, your game goes to crap. Now you're always lost, you couldn't hit yourself with the panzerfaust, and every grenade seems to have your name. Sounds like it's time to take a step back and analyze what's going on. Ask yourself a couple of questions and see if they lead to any revealing answers

• Are you playing on new maps
  • How well do you know the maps?
  • Are you spending more time thinking about navigating the maps than you used to?
  • Are you playing on maps that you simply don't play well on? Personally, I do very poorly on certain maps.
• Have new players been introduced
  • Has the total number of players increased? In servers with large numbers of players, especially on small maps, this may put a lot of additional pressure on people who are used to having that extra moment to line up their shots.
  • How good are the new players? How can you adjust your game style to compensate? What techniques do you need to work on?
• Are you playing on a new server?
  • The server may be running a mod that changes the game in a different than you are used to.
  • Is there new weapons or equipment being used?
  • How does the ping and lag compare with your regular server? Have you compensated yet?
• What else has changed?