River Tactics
| Survivor Tactics |
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River Tactics
River Tactics are a broad range of strategies which seek to gain an advantage over zombie horde and mega-horde incursions through flexibility, redirection and avoidance. Borrowing heavily from concepts cultivated in Aikido, River Tactics do not directly conflict with the thrust of enemy strikes, instead exploiting the voids for survivor advantage.
Conceptually, River Tactics are simply any plan that uses avoidance of the enemy as a positive characteristic. There are opposites to these tactics, such as Dam Tactics and meat-shield tactics(see below); these tactics, employed together, create a powerful survival tool.
Water can flow, or it can crash... be water my friend. -Bruce Lee
Operation Tumbleweed
Operation Tumbleweed was the first organized use of River Tactics. It preceded and inspired the River Tactics, successfully introducing the notion of avoidance as a useful tool against zombie infestations.
Essentially, Operation Tumbleweed operated on the theory that zombies want to eat humans, and if humans are absent, zombies will move. The strategy was to encourage a total evacuation of target suburbs to encourage a migration of a horde which had moved into them.
Analysis of Defense
Zombie hordes move in concentration to their specified targets. In small scale hordes, they may focus on specific buildings or complexes such as Malls. Larger hordes and mega-hordes migrate from suburb to suburb, corroding everything in their path, laying waste to the entire area. They move in large masses, a rolling wave of destruction that consumes everything.
There are many tactics employed by survivors to effectively hold off a zombie assault (See How To Win A Mall Siege for defensive techniques, and when they are more appropriate than River Tactics). The effectiveness of these tactics relies on a balance of AP dedicated to barricading vs. AP dedicated to destroying barricades. If the AP used to erect defenses is insufficient to counter the level of AP being used to destroy them (bearing in mind that building barricades is inherently easier than destroying them), breaches occur. Once breaches occur, then some AP is needed to eliminate any invading zombies as well as sealing the breach. Should zombies successfully make a breach and ransack a building, all zombies inside the building must be killed, and the building repaired, before the barricades can be erected again.
While River Tactics advocates redeployment around hordes, it has been proven that coordinated and dedicated survivor efforts can withstand the onslaught of a horde. This strategy of avoiding the zombie threat is sound on a number of levels, but in some circumstances a redeployment is counter productive; group leaders must gauge their own circumstances. Survivors do not need to flee from every pack of zombies, but it is important to note that whenever a defensive situation arises where survivors are spending actions to barricade and zombies are spending actions to tear down barricades the AP on both sides cancel each other out (unequally).
Directly opposing zombie concentrations is a dangerous proposition, and requires an investment of AP on behalf of the survivor population. Without superior numbers and vigilance, it is foolish to weather a siege.
River Tactics capitalize on a phenomenon of zombie ‘society’ – congregation. Zombies are more effective in larger numbers and because of this they tend to stay concentrated. Feeding Groans encourage this behavior as zombies call others to their location.
At the time of this writing (July 24th 2006), there are 24,187 non breathers in Malton (this includes 5028 dead bodies). There are 10,000 blocks in Malton. This means that if the zombies diffused into an average density, there would roughly be 2.4 zombies per block. As is evident, many spaces are completely devoid of zombies, pointing to a habit of zombie congregation. Zombies form packs and hordes and use their numbers to crack safehouses and feast on their inhabitants.
Ironically, this is an advantage for survivors. The larger the horde, the smaller the affected areas and the more traceable and predictable the threat.
Zombies don’t hold territory
Humans ‘camp’ in malls or resource buildings to amass supplies and launch calculated expeditions. Humans constantly reinforce barricades and make a suburb safe by providing plenty of safe places for a survivor to regenerate AP. Zombies have none of these concerns.
With few exceptions, zombies tend to be nomadic. Admittedly, there are suburbs that have consistently high concentrations of zombies for long periods (Ridleybank being a notable example). However, this seems to be the exception, not the rule. The reason for this is because zombies have no need to be defensive. If they lose all of their hit points, they just stand back up. With the Ankle Grab skill a zombie can stand using only 1 AP (6 AP if it took a Head Shot), and when it does so, it is at full life. There is little vulnerability a zombie has, and that makes them predatory. Predators seek out prey.
A zombie staying in one place is effectively not a threat to survivors.
Flowing into the void
If zombies congregate by nature, and if opposing a zombie horde is pointless, then it stands to reason that flowing around zombies is more productive than directly opposing them.
River Tactics (such as Operation Tumbleweed) flow around zombie concentrations and establish operations in areas with low zombie concentrations. This is called “Flowing into the void", and robs hordes of their most basic goal – eating survivor brains. Survivor presence is the goal of zombies, so avoidance accomplishes the following:
- No payoff. Zombies spend AP traveling to and then tearing down barricades only to find the buildings empty (ie wasted AP)
- Lower survivor casualties. By leaving the danger zone, fewer survivors die. By extension, this means fewer revives are needed.
- Faster migration of zombie hordes. Zombies won’t stay where there are no humans to eat.
Employment of River Tactics around Malton
- Operation Tumbleweed - Operation Tumbleweed is the earliest known applications of River Tactics. It was originally activated by PLEB in October of 2005 in East Becktown. The operation was a rousing success against the Church of the Resurrection, who passed through the Area quickly.
- Operation Tumbleweed part 2 - In February of 2006 Operation Tumbleweed was used again to avoid the carnage of the Mall Tour '06.
- Operation Monkeyfinger - Operation Monkeyfinger was a DEM operation that took place in July of 2006. As the Big Bash moved through their district, the DEMs evacuated, and deployed in Brooksville and Shore Hills, into the wake of the Big Bash. In the vacuum left behind the mega horde, only a few ferals remained, allowing the DEMs to build barricades and manage revive points in a short time.
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