Part 47

Learn the ins and outs of Domination mode in Unreal Tournament! Discover strategies for capturing and holding Control Points, understanding bot behavior, and securing victory.

Alright, let's talk about Part 47 of our Unreal Tournament journey. We're diving into some advanced tactics, focusing on weapon usage and a game mode called Domination. Don't worry, it's not as complicated as it sounds, and once you get the hang of it, you'll be dominating the scoreboard.

First off, a quick word on the Slime Gun. This thing is surprisingly effective for holding down areas. You can find a tiny room that gives you a great vantage point to fire goop out into the courtyard. It's also perfect for keeping an eye on those explosive kegs from a safe distance.

Now, about the rocket-launcher room. Bots tend to spawn up there a lot, and with three spawn points, they get a huge advantage, especially with the armor and the ability to launch rockets right away. If you want to try for some spawn kills, you can camp in the corner near the lift, under the torch. From there, you can spam towards the rocket-launcher room.

For areas like 'Peak,' one person with a pulse rifle and UDamage can really lock it down. Camping the amp with these might be your best bet. To do this effectively, you'll want the boots or some other armor power-up so you can quickly reach the very top roof. If you can snag the amp and the pulse rifle, the game really starts to swing in your favor.

Miscellaneous Tips:

• The Boots are super important. They give you escape options, better air control on tricky platforms, and let you reach the amp and armor faster than the bots. Always grab them if you see them!
• Bots technically *can* path to the UDamage, but they usually can't because they need the boots, which spawn lower down. The chances of them making it all the way up, jumping twice, and reaching the amp without dying are pretty slim. This means the amp is usually yours for the taking, so prioritize it, boots or no boots.
• You can reach the UDamage with a single hammer-jump, or with the boots. You can also get there from lower platforms (like the courtyard or the thigh pads ledge) by doing a boot-hammer-jump and then alt-clicking off the wall at the top of your jump.
• Don't even think about jumping into the belt pit, even with the belt, keg, and boots. You won't survive the drop.

4.2 Domination

Before we get too deep, I highly recommend playing the DOM Tutorial map. It'll give you a solid grasp of the basics.

Domination maps are essentially Deathmatch maps with added Control Points (CPs). Think of it like playing DM, but instead of just focusing on killing enemies, you're controlling the map itself. You might get nowhere by treating DOM maps as simple DM maps. You can rack up a ton of kills and still lose badly because frags don't really matter for the final score. It's better to see Control Points as immobile, vulnerable teammates that need your protection.

To control a CP, you just need to touch it. Your team scores points as long as a CP is your team's color. Naturally, the more CPs you control, the faster you score. This means your team needs to be holding at least two out of the three CPs on any given map to win. This sounds easier than it is. If you're not controlling any CPs, you're not scoring any points at all.

Spawn points in DOM are as random as in DM, so neither you nor the enemy will know which CP you'll respawn near. This makes it tough to plan specific strategies for the single-player campaign. When enemies die, they could just respawn next to a CP on the other side of the map – a CP they might not have reached again for a while. Base your tactics on controlling the CPs, not just on controlling the enemy.

One tactic that seems to really mess with the DOM ladder is having all your teammates cover you. Letting them freelance seems to be just as effective as attacking or defending, though I personally prefer the 'hold position' command for DOM. If you do want to issue tactics, you can fly around the map in ghost mode before the match starts and give your teammates orders to hold position on two or three CPs. This saves you from having to do it mid-game.

Your bots can be a bit… relaxed about holding position. They'll often wander off to grab ammo or do other things. The GOTY edition also adds an 'Enhanced Team AI' modifier to DOM matches, but honestly, I have no idea what that actually does.

Whatever you do, your goal should be to have your team performing better than the opposition. Giving your team 'hold position' commands can often give you the edge, since the enemy bots won't hold their assigned CPs with nearly the same discipline as bots who've been ordered to do so. The downside is that your bots become pretty inflexible, refusing to bother with CPs they haven't been assigned to.

Many CPs can be defended by just one person for a long time. Since your bots aren't great at spamming or camping, it's probably best if you camp the most bottlenecked CP on the map. Let your teammates handle the other two. For example, the Garage CP in Condemned can be defended by you alone for ages, just by firing shock-combos at the top of the ramp whenever you see an enemy. This lets the rest of your team outnumber the freelancing opposition, giving you a numbers advantage on at least one of the other CPs – preferably the Roof. This applies to most DOM maps: find an easily defensible CP and claim it for yourself, letting your teammates overload the others with 'hold position' commands.

Another similar strategy is to put 'hold position' bots on the two least popular CPs and then just freelance on your own. Since the enemy bots won't use similar tactics, their forces will always split up to cover all three CPs, giving them a numerical disadvantage (on average) against your team on two of the CPs. This is a solid way to ensure your team has the advantage.