This short article will be about the use of the social engineering in a myth environment.
First of all, what’s the social engineering? Wikipedia says “(…)a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions(…)”. One of the SE guru is the worldwide famous “hacker” (he wasn’t exactly a hacker) Kevin Mitnick. If you want to know more about this modern time hero, watch the movie “wargame” (remember : a movie is not the reality).
Applied to myth, SE can lead to very profitable situations, or, if you are out social engineered, to doom.
How to use the SE in a myth context ?
In a first part we’ll see the various ways of using SE. In a second part, we’ll do a player rating and we’ll analyse the limits of the SE.
Part I- The use of the SE
1- Battlefield exploit
a- Ghol anthology
This is a very common SE use. Find an explosive thingy (bullet, satchel, dud bottle) laying on the ground, and then try to lure in the ennemy with your puss Ghols.
In theory roots shall fly to the moon.
The dud bottle, the ghols, and the army
The clumped army kills the 2 ghols. A puss falls on the ground
Boom
b- Flying roots
This is a common variant. It involves a dead dwarf, a stupid ennemy, a flaming arrow, and something to lure the ennemies on the dwarf body.
Let's see how it goes :
Two Heroes Herons vs one. Pink is in troubles Notice the dieing dwarf, and the presence of the pink archer
Pink heron moves in the direction of the satchels. Red comes to intercept. Meanwhile, a flaming arrow is shot
Ignition.. And the pink heron makes a fast U turn
The red player is italian, see part II of the article
1 bis- Bottle Puss and SE on the article writter
Bottle puss and satchel puss is also a big part of the Myth SE.
It's an easy move :
When you see clumped melee, send a first group of ghols loaded with satchels or bottle duds, then send a second wave loaded with puss to start the firework.
HOWEVER, do NOT use it on the article writter, which is me, aka Enculator.
Here is what will happen if you try :
Two waves of ghols, clumped melee, everything seems to be allright
Simultaneous puss and bottles trow, perfect move
Clumped melee, LOL THIS IS GONNA HURT
TOO BAD, double dud ! Result : the team moral is destroyed, Enculator wins!
2- Mr Wight : The ultimate tool
a- The famous fake retreat
This is a subtle move which must be used with caution. The principle is easy to understand : your unnoticed wight is waiting to unleash hell. You slowlsy retreat and act as if you were going mid (or somewhere else, if you’re mid..). The opponent thinks that you are scared, crosses, and dies.
The 2 keys of success :
Doing the retreat in a good timing
Sinking the wight without being spotted
Sorry, no images for this.
b- The Frumious Wightblast Manoeuver ™
This is a copyrighted move, to learn more about it, read this article :
http://mindscapefx.com/uploads/-frumiou ... blast.html
LINK BROKEN
3- Dorf’n’Satchels : the dangerous cocktail
This can be very dangerous for your own army since you must NOT drop satchels here. So if your dwarf is pussed, don’t protect it by clumping your melee around it.
Basically, try to use the dead body as a vengeance by luring the ennemies on satchels, and make them detonate with every possible means.
Here is a good but not perfect example (it didn’t kill much, but the idea is here)
poor frozen duff
A fire arrow is shot at the dwarf body
A few warriors die
And here is a good example showing why it should be used with caution.
The dwarf dies in the middle of a fire (notice the flying head)
Mr Jman is nearby..
..not anymore
4- SE global strategies
a- The desert in your brain
This strat is specially adapted to desert, but can be modified to work on a lot of other maps.
North has 6/5 puss ghols and 14 warriors. They hide in the corner and sends a scout at river crossing.
army in standby
South has the same amount of units (but 13 warriors) and does the same move.
army 2 in standby
Mid has thralls, arcs, and dwarves, and must just hold (but sometimes even the players in your team doesn’t understand your own strategy, and pushes).
So you give the rushes to the only 2 decent players of your team, and mid duty for the others.
In a perfect world, this is how it goes. Our mid holds like champion, their south and north crosses, “READY TO PINCH MID”.
the lulz army is ready to get rushed
The 2 rushes come from behind, and kill everything, then you only have to clean mid.
And rushed it will be
So, once again, this SE move must be used with caution. If you face relatively good player, they’ll send scouts, and the rush will be less effective
To learn more about when to use or don’t use SE, see the part II of the article.
b- FFA SE : Fake AFK
It works pretty good on 6 players koth games. While you’re contesting the flag, a idiot always comes and tries to kill your backup, thinking you are afk.
So you mustn’t move until he is in your range of fire. He’ll think that you didn’t notice him, and will take his chance. Then you move, and destroys him in a gasp of surprise.
No images for this, let your imagination work.
5- Lowering your opponent vigilance level : The dummy account
One of the big issue is the celebrity. When you become a “famous” player, after earning your place in the hall of fame, you suddenly realize that SE has no more effect or maybe only a limited one against very new players.
If Hamurabi sees Tirri’s flank retreating on desert, even if he has brain lag, he will probably think “Hum hum that is not normal” (or maybe not, I’m not sure that he can think). Then, the hidden wight won’t have a sufficient damage/trade point cost ratio.
The solution lies in the dummy account : take a name like Bryan247, inform your captain of your real identity (otherwise you shall be in charge of the thralls), and wight Hamurabi like a champion.
Now that we made a sum up of the SE tactics, let’s try to identify when it’s applicable or not.
Part II : The limits
1- The ball chart
SE efficiency according to the ball level
Comment: This accurate chart shows us that the SE efficiency decreases when the ball rating increases.
Conclusion: You must detect the type of opponent you’re fighting before using SE.
2- Opponent types
a- Guest stars :
Kabuki: Even if you do the same trap 50 times in a row, it will work 50 times. Kabuki is the perfect tool if you want to practice SE.
Father Xmas: The same applies to Xmas. He plays like a poorly scripted AI.
Father Xmas trying to recruit for his MWC team
b- Players by country
South America: The climate of their country has an impact on their brain. Even THOR is affected. SE is usually effective against them.
How to identify them : they speak like babelfish.
typical South American myth player
Italia: If you lay a pizza shapped satchel trap they will immediately teleport in its middle and try to eat it. Yeah SE is very efficient against them.
How to identify them : They have a poor English level and they usually play together on their “private” host.
An italian player doing the only thing he can do
Australia: This country is filled with poisonous snakes, white sharks, big spiders and kangaroos. So yeah they’re very cautious and SE shouldn’t be effective against them. With the exception of the WWII players. Also, watch out for the Steve Irwin syndrome.
How to identify them : they play at a weird time of the day and they wear a wwII order tag.
Aussies aren't the same since their idol died
UK: If you see a TFS tag, you spotted Elfoid or his friends. You could be using SE without even realizing it.
How to identify them : they will talk about teenager bands and/or about their internet friends.
Exception : Dantski
elfoid
Eastern Europe: They are kind of new to myth, and SE should work pretty good on them.
How to identify them : they’ll have a IX tag or a weird name or a very low English level.
Exception : Mark
typical sunday in poland
Finnish/Northern countries players: It’s so cold in here that they spent all their childhood on myth 2 instead of hunting deer and moose. You can’t use SE against them.
How to identify them : They speak with a lot of K, V, Y, and other crappy letters.
Exceptions : Lord Alliance, Milky
tirri wearing his camo suit
Japanese: They have an important kamikaze background, and it should work pretty good against them, especially the ageha crew. Also, try to rename your units Pikachu, it should lure them into your traps.
How to identify them : They say “ty” when you give them units, “Banwa-“ for “Hi”, and “W” for “LOL”. Also they like tentacle porn and girls in school uniform.
Exceptions : Duan and CRC.
Welcome to Japan
USA: It’s kind of hard to put them all in the same wagon. Some of them are good, some others are terrible. SE will work on 2 ballers and bellow, so check the previous MWC websites player assessments.
But always remember : you can meet a Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris doesn't sleep, he waits
or a Hulk Hogan,
HULK STOMP
but you can also fight this kind of players :
lol pigfuck
How to identify them : try to speak about Iraq or something not American and they’ll immediately react.
They also talk about drugs (BECAUSE DRUGS ARE COOL LOL), about how they dated that imaginery girl at this awesome party, about fast foods, or about bad music bands.
Canada: Canada is cold, so Canadian players are usually good because there is nothing to do than play myth when it’s -35°celcius outside. SE won’t work.
Exception : Gabba the androgynous (his gender has yet to be determined).
How to identify them : They play Dead of Winter a lot because it reminds them their country. Some of them are also traitors and oath breakers.
Typical canadian, ready to fight the -35°c
Africa: I don’t know any. Except maybe Souly and Pablo Escobar. SE has yet to be tested on them (but Souly has the FTS tag and lives in a bush).
How to identify them: They often yell “BRB there is an elephant in my garden”.
Don't mess with them
High ego players: They think that they are awesome at the game myth 2 : the soulblighter. If they see you running away they’ll think ‘haha, he hit F6 and saw that he’s facing a M2SBR legend. He”s trying to save his ratios, I’m gonna hunt him down”. Then you wight them.
How to identify them : They drop if they have less than 30% of the units. They like to rush. They use capital letters. They like to throw random insults. If they loose an important unit they yell “FROZEN” even on a symmetric 100 MB host. They are also post excuses masters.
I M BETTER THEN YOU LOL
Conclusion: SE and myth form a good combination. If correctly used, it can add a lot of fun to the game, especially when fighting weak players (which is usually not fun).
However, using it against power players is a waste of time.