Revised 2007 Outlook

[DX]

In the past 2 weeks, my enthusiasm for Ridgewood water warfare [and the community in general] slid to the lowest point in 3 years and then rose to the highest point in 3 years. Why? 2 weeks ago, I had never seen the community more dead. Past Winters have been quiet, but I have never been able to count the active members on my fingers before. The local teams shut down 2006 without a season-ending battle and college became omni-present. I've been co-running Dart Wars, a team assassination tournament at my school using Nerf guns. Yesterday is when it hit me that Dart Wars could hold a huge pool of potential manpower for 2007 water wars! Out of the 96 participants, several might show interest in water wars if the subject is brought up. So now I have a revised, much more upbeat outlook for our 2007 season.

Although 2007 will be cut short due to colleges, it will be much more action-packed than past seasons. The Dart Wars participants are now in the RM claims list, as the tournament itself is RM-run when you think about it [the organizers are a RM founder/CO and an RM colonel]. That will put great pressure on Waterbridge to increase their own claims list. Both team rosters should skyrocket. This is a double-edged sword, however. We've always dreamed of putting 10v10+ numbers on the field. The price of more numbers is experience. Too many freshmen with too many bright colored stock guns could actually drop our caliber. 2007 will probably pit an older Waterbridge against a youthful Ridgewood Militia, as while Belisaurius can continue drawing from upperclassmen, my pool of them has dried up.

Either way, skirmishes will become more common. I'd be scared to put freshmen into a real war for their first combat action. Our 16 month streak of no losses might not continue to hold, as we've taken winning for granted via a strong, veteran, mostly senior team.'

It should be fun regardless of what happens numbers-wise and experience-wise. We're going out with a bang and we've got Tactical Theory on our side. Viva la Ridgewood Militia!

[SilentGuy]

That's great news, especially since I probably don't understand your caliber and how much you might lose. But hopefully things will continue to work well even in 2008...who knows. It definitely sounds like it'll be more fun, if not of such high caliber.

[DX]

Actually, I'm gunning for the Professional Level, a caliber up. I'm going to do everything possible in order to avoid sliding down to Advanced. With enough veterans present, the new members should learn fast. When you take the field for the Ridgewood Militia, it doesn't take long to realize that this is war, not kiddie play. I can't wait to get back in the reeds and can't wait to fight in the rain! I also have the problem that the level of fun would indeed drop with a drop back to Advanced. We spent so much time building up to the crest of the Hardcore team caliber. Professional is knocking on the door. It would be a grand shame to waste all that progress when we're so close to Tactical Theory's ultimate level of the game, currently occupied by no team at all.

2008 will definately be...different. Unlike here in Ridgewood, I'll have no reputation to draw from when trying to form a new team. Going lone wolf is not bad, but I won't be thrilled with that status. After all, everything I do wars-related revolves around the team. Tactical Theory is team-based; almost every tactic I use works best with more than one person.

[Ultor_Solis]

All you've got to do is hold out until the next generation of soaker warriors comes along and takes over.
-- Hey I've got three more years until college!

[FinalFantasizer]

@ Duxburian: Be very careful when inviting inexperienced players to a war. A 10 v 10 battle sounds amazing, but it will come at the cost of people who do not truly know what a water war is. I made the mistake of passing out 60+ water war flyers at the end of my sophomore year in high school. My plan was to have a large war with many new "warriors" who would learn from the experienced players present (myself and the 5 people I usually play with). The battle took place the day after school ended as an "end of the year party" of sorts. Needless to say, I was at the peak of excitement. The 3v3 battles I was used to would be multplied by a huge factor and would catapult water wars into the "popular" status.

I was wrong.

There was a grand total of ~21 people who showed up. Most carried typical bright colored stock soakers: Arctic Shocks, FFs and Max-Ds. We played a total of three 10 minute long CTF matches that were marginally fun, after which things fell apart. Most people there decided that they preferred to just shoot each other and laugh instead of competing. All attempts to reorganize were failed. The event was an utter failure and may be the single reason why water wars lost most of their popularity in the time that has passed since.

My advice to you is to choose new players carefully. Don't let their first water war be against a serious player such as yourself. Introduce them to modded/homemade guns beforehand. Duel with them a few times before the battle so that they get a feel for how the system works. Make sure that they are commited to following the rules and the Honor System before actually inviting them to the war and affiliating them with a team.



Edited By FinalFantasizer on 1168215857

[SilentGuy]

Nice post. But that leads me to an interesting thought...

The same "selective" approach occurs with more popular sports, such as paintball and airsoft, because of the danger and price involved. But they're still popular, but because numerous individuals convince a few others to try it. They don't advertise huge matches, not everybody has a cheap gun--they're just popular because people everywhere have heard about it. Which hasn't happened with hardcore water warfare, and never will because it's too easy to develop into a common, but low-level, sport.

Sorry for darkening the mood.



Edited By SilentGuy on 1168216997

[DX]

The Ridgewood Militia is one of the most selective teams around. We now have a reputation, one that might as well belong to a hardcore paintballing or airsoft team. In fact, I bet we take things further. We'd never bother to do "woodland combat" in a man-made arena, for one thing. Man-made/positioned cover? An area so small that you can see across it, even from high ground? No way! :p

New members must be friends of either me or Nibordude. They must also be competent and have some kind of skill. If you're not fast, then you'd better be tactically smart, for example. New members also realize quickly what is expected of them. Our battlefields can exert their own unique force on our members. They have weight in the minds. After a while, members realize that they must wage war on the battlefield as well as on the enemy. It "presses" on you, and you learn to "press" back. I know you think Duxburian is off his rocker, but it is true. A hardcore battlefield tries to limit your success [seems longer than it is], throws you curveballs [deeper fording point than it looks], and tests your will [mosquitoes, poison ivy, thorn bushes, gnats, surprise rain, wind when you don't want it, etc.].

New members walk into our parks and get what's going on. There's no fooling around like children, especially when we are down in score. There's a big obsession with score. The stakes are also higher due to the fact that we haven't lost in a billion years or so. We also feed newbies right into the fray, several had our 2006 season-opening night battle as their rookie debut. You can bet they came out of that with a different perspective on "fighting" with water guns. You fight one battle with the RM, you get hooked into the system naturally. It's a load of fun. I wouldn't trade our style of fighting for the most powerful homemade in the world.

[Dr. D]

Glad to hear Ridgewood Millitia's keeping it together!

Although my friends and I play on a level that does not begin to rival your's, we've been pretty blessed with competence and weaponry. Altogether, we have around 6 core people who are very handy with mid-range CPS guns, 4 additional secondary members who can also handle CPSs and up to ten extra semi-reserves that aren't as good as the others, but can still competently wield light-medium CPSs and will not waver on the battlefield. My best friend and I also just discovered an amazing wooded area behind my house complete with a brook, ravine, cliffs and a waterfall perfect for filling up guns with remarkably clean water (I'll get to posting some pictures of the area sometime in the next few months...) My friend and I had our first one-on-one skirmish back there yesterday (here's to global warming! :p just kidding..)

Pretty much the biggest problem we're having this year (unless interest suddenly unexpectedly drops) is that our league's armory is severly dwindling. We barely have enough CPSs for out league's veterans, and lately the eBay market seems to be quite empty (that's probably just seasonal though). I've tried my best to convince league members to accept Flash Floods and Blazers asworthwile guns over the last couple of years, and it looks like this year will be the one that people will truly have to accept them. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that the hydroblitzer will be the first truly great CPS since the 2100 (or that they rerelease some of the older CPSs).

Here's to 2007!

[DX]

The RM has also been having armory problems. We have enough guns, but they love to break on us. That's the main concern about trying to maintain a large collection of aging and heavily modded soakers. Many of our members in the larger wars last season used Flash Floods. We really didn't have any choice. Luckily that's when Tactical Theory kicked in and so the newer stock guns didn't sink us. Waterbridge had the same problem to an even larger extent, as their pool of older modded guns is vastly smaller.

For us, weapons of the Firepower Level are becoming dinosaurs, but an 1100 still makes its weight felt in all-Flash Flood gun battle. By the end of 2006, turnout was low enough for us to use all-2500s [we have 4 that work], but the scores were closer even though Waterbridge didn't change up their guns. Recently, WB has had the upper hand in turnout, but better guns and better tactics are still key. You can't run a conventional offense against an all-battle Outnumbered Defense and expect to win.

[FinalFantasizer]

My problem this season is participation, not equipment. Even some of the people who were really into water wars last year are, at best, lukewarm about the topic this year. On the good side, I too have found a perfect battlefield for my wars. It is a creek with many sandy banks and the potential to function as a supply route if I can figure out a way to buid reliable rafts.The creek runs through a forest and can be traversed easily over trees that have been toppled by recent heavy thunderstorms. The numerous branches of the fallen trees provide great cover and even show fort potential!



Edited By FinalFantasizer on 1168301673

[WaterWolf]

Sounds pretty ideal. Congrats on your find.
I'f only you lived closer to VT.

[DX]

Bodies of water always prove interesting. For us, both parks are cut down the middle by rocky/sandy streams. At Waterbridge, the stream used to be somewhat of a secure flank, however now both teams ford it anywhere. There is one large tree that fell over like a bridge, but we don't use it anymore because it sucks to fall off from that height and people have. The brook is overall pretty shallow, knee-wasit deep. Belisaurius has waded in up to his chest before, which is how deep it can get in some isolated places. At the Goffle, the stream is much narrower and looks deceptively much shallower. There are places you can basically run across, but there are also hidden, embedded drop-offs that are probably over 20ft deep. It owuld be quite funny if someone fell in one, but so far no one has been that dumb, for you can see where the water gets cloudy and the bottom abruptly vanishes.

Good luck with your new battlefield! I know that lackluster interest feels like, especially at this time of year. Interest was low for the global warming war last weekend and everyone was busy, so it didn't happen at all.

[mutuhaha]

Nice battlefield, hope it'll do well for you!

New recruits are coming in next week with a strength of 40 although I'd expect it to drop to 30 once the administrative chaos is resolved. Quite a small batch this year, but we're doing squad organization in 2 weeks time, and the first training skirmish may be in 3 weeks, once they've been organized. The next war will likely be in early March. However controlling a horde of 100+ in a water war is going to be extremely chaotic. On top of that, the hardcore warriors are only a tiny proportion of that.

Participation is not my worry, equipment as always, is the main issue. Most of us spend our time finding equipment for everyone and cannot afford time for even K-modding. Guns do break down as well, so most are good grenadiers by harsh necessity. APHs are being looked into though as a mass armament scheme.

The bad news is that due to a lack of competition outside ourselves, the skill and enthusiasm level has and likely will continue to drop with every cohort going out. Without an existing enemy organization, there is little motivation in plain sight for future generations to continue the hardcore warfare. Thus, I'll be working very hard to make water warfare mean something to the new recruits, one of organized water warfare's last chances. If I fail, it will likely go extinct.

I read soakerdom's longest article, nice work Duxburian, the tactics are easy to grasp while being nicely universal.

[DX]

If no enemy will appear, you could try splitting your group to create an enemy. The RM was a wing of Waterbridge before we became our own team. Despite being "enemies" the two teams have basically the exact same kind of people from the same groups of friends. A smaller Waterbridge and smaller RM has been a hell of a lot more fun than a larger Waterbridge-only would have been.

Oh, that old article? I wrote that when I realized that my scattered articles could be connected for one purpose. I called that big article "Tactical Theory". Then when I thought about it some more, I could add more, and more, and more, and realized what I'd stumbled upon. That big article lacks the contexts of what now is the Tactical Theory and most of the advice is totally out-of-date. Also, if you were to print it, it would take up roughly only 16 pages. The refined Theory has no page limits, because it is possible to write indefinately on the subject. It can never be totally described; the tactics section alone allows for hundreds of thousands+ of possible tactical combinations, taking into consideration order and situations. Speaking of, I've got some new tactics to add to the list. :laugh: