Why Caiger Fell

Why Caiger Fell

A Comparative Essay of Survivor and Zombie Strengths, Weaknesses, and How This Led to the Fall of Caiger Mall

Reason for this page

This page is intended as an examination of The Third Siege of Caiger Mall and how that pertains to the greater game dynamic of zombie vs. survivor.

Backstory

On November 10th, 2006, Caiger Mall fell in culmination of a more than two week siege by the Shacknews horde, among others. Long regarded as a bastion of human resistance, Caiger's defeat and subsequent re-christening as BARHAH Mall came as a huge blow to survivors desperate for hope. Having survived two previous sieges, the question of Why Caiger Fell is now a pertinent one which could shed light on survivor tactics gamewide.

Reasons Why Caiger Fell

Mechanical

The use of ransack proved decisive in the taking of Caiger Mall, allowing zombies to take a single corner and keep it out of human hands permanently. In order to ransack a building, it must be free of live humans. Once ransacked, a building cannot be barricaded or searched until it has been repaired. A ransacked building cannot be repaired until all standing zombies are removed. This means that all zombies must be killed first, a lengthy process during which more zombies can pour through the open hole and simply stand to fulfill their purpose. The only real way a major breach/ransack can be overcome is a massively coordinated survivor effort, as demonstrated by the Blackmore Bastard Brigade in the Blackmore Building.

Ransack is one of a golden handful (for zombies) of skills and game mechanics changes including feeding drag, feeding groan, tangling grasp, and large building functionality (mall-swarming) that were implemented in response to Stanstock '05, a huge protest on behalf of the (at the time) seriously underpowered zombies.

• Feeding Drag - Survivors of 12 hp or lower can be dragged out of the building onto the street. As was pointed out somewhere else on this wiki (edit if you know where), this essentially lowers the hp of everyone in a siege by 12, since it's unlikely anyone could survive being dragged out into a crowd of 150+ zombies.
• Feeding Groan - Allows zombie to call to each other in the event of a feast. Can attract huge numbers of ferals who will aid a siege by simply acting opportunistically.
• Tangling Grasp - Adds to the effectiveness of hand attacks. Enough said.
• Large Building Functionality - The truly decisive element in the Fall of Caiger, and the single largest problem for any modern besieged mall, large buildings can be moved about freely, instead of being barricaded against themselves. Admittedly, this makes perfect sense for realism purposes, but mixed with ransack it proved to be absolutely devastating.

In the same period that zombie received such massive boosts in playability, survivor characters received NecroNet Access, powered searching, Brain Rot detection in DNA extractors, a revivification syringe nerf , and radios.

• NecroNet Access - Allows survivors in a powered NecroTech Building to scan recently DNA-sampled zombies in their area, revive Brain Rotted zombies, and manufacture syringes for 20 AP. DNA-sampling is considered dangerous with scent trail allowing zombie to track back to a human who has sampled them, Brain Rot relief is a fairly rare issue (rotting is considered the most hardcore of zombie skills), and a powered NecroTech building will yield roughly 3 syringes in the same 20 AP space.
• Powered Searching - Improves the rate of return on searching in any building considerably. Very useful for stocking purposes, the presence of a powered generator (which requires fuel to run) is noticed from the street and is sure to attract zombie attention.
• Improved DNA Extrators - Essentially eliminates the risk of wasting a syringe on a rotted zombie by noting cortex damage with a warning to not attempt revivification.
• Revivification Syringe Nerf - Upping the AP toll for a revive from 1 to 10, a single character can perform at most 4 revives during a 50 AP play session, as compared the the possible 40+ before the change. Requires much greater coordination when maintaining revive points.
• Radios - Largely unused by most serious groups, who generally convene through some other forum (see metagaming), radios allow for the long-range broadcast of messages to anyone tuned to the appropriate frequency.

This is not to say that zombies are now overpowered, or that humans ought receive more updates, simply that tactics valid during the first two Caiger sieges are no longer valid, and the Caiger Paradigm must be broken game-wide.

Tactical

The page Why Caiger Mall Fell argues that the main reason that Caiger succumbed to the undead masses was not one of mechanics, but one of organization. The zombies (especially the Shacknews Horde) were massively well-organized and concerted, while survivors largely acted indepentently (see below for zombie/survivor mindset comparison). The zombies were also methodical and thoughtful in their approach, slowly cutting off resources (especially NT Buildings) before heading into the mall. Survivors, on the other hand, seemed to see the Mall as a glorious and independent bastion and flocked there, never bringing the battle out to the zombies on a large scale. Without serious leadership, strategies were entirely personal.

In the end, while a unified strike on the undead side could compromise a corner of the mall, a unified strike on the human side could not clear it. It is this fact which is more deeply examined below, and which has the greatest implications for survivor gameplay.

Zombie/Survivor Mindsets

Unaffiliated

Anyone who has ever played a low-level feral zombie (or really, a feral of any level), knows that it's a hardscrabble life, with kills few and far between, going days at a time searching for food and finding nothing. An individual zombie can do nothing to the surrounding human population.

Survivors, on the other hand, have no real need to group. A single human can barricade a building safely, then spend their days doing strafing runs on the local undead population, winning experience and maybe harassing them enough to discourage their presence.

TO BE CONTINUED