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After reading through the guide, don't be worried if you didn't understand some things. You can't be expected to learn everything in one sitting. Most importantly, you should get some practical experience, preferably right after a reading. Always remember, practice makes perfect. Also, repetition is the key to learning. Once you've read this guide, practice. Then read it again, and practice some more. You will gain more understanding with each reading and each practice session, in time leading to an eventual culmination of all the lessons. And with the many excellent CS Bots coming out (like
Count Floyd's POD Bot), there's no excuse for not finding any punching bags to practice on.

I also include cheesy quotes like this to spice the guide up. Ignore them as you wish, they're just there for decoration:

"If the student does not wish to gain strength, he cannot become truly strong."
-- Hiko Seijuro, Rurouni Kenshin

If the guidelines I stated above seem too demanding, all I can say is that
I'm doing this for your own good. I'm trying to mold you into the best player you can be. This isn't some overnight miracle guide. You have to work for it. The desire to be strong must be present, overpowering, enough for you to overcome all these hardships and strive to reach the goal. If you are going to be half-hearted about the process, not practicing or taking the time to understand all the tricks in this treatise, then you will not become strong.

But in the end, keep in mind that Counter Strike is only a game, and anyone taking a game too seriously needs to be dragged out and roughed up.

Anyway, to help get the info you need, be sure to check the Table of
Contents and see what looks useful to you. Copy the section of interest and use your text viewer's find function to skip to the relevant part. I regret the need to resort to this technique, but my organizational and layout skills are horrible, as you can see.

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II. BASIC FIGHTING ATTITUDE
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"A sword is a deadly weapon. Fighting techniques are what perfect killers."
-- Himura Kenshin, Rurouni Kenshin (Hecto version)

"A gun is a killing weapon. Fighting techniques are killing techniques.
This will always be true."
-- Me, paraphrasing the Hitokiri Battousai

Remember that at all times a gun is a deadly weapon. Point it at someone only if you have the intention to shoot, and potentially kill. This is moral bullshit which I think people all people should remember. But also keep in mind that Counter Strike is just a game, and pointing a gun at someone in this game is done all in the spirit of fun. No hard feelings! But when you do point that gun at someone, be sure that you are whole-heartedly focused on aiming at him, and shooting to kill. Otherwise you will die and you'll be stuck as a ghost until the round ends.

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| Mental Focus and Determination are the most important traits of a killer |
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Keeping your mind focused allows you to react faster, and thus kill faster. That is why having the right attitude to killing is very important. You must be whole-heartedly devoted to the act of pointing your gun at your opponent, and squeezing the trigger. Hesitation will end up with you dead.

"There is a world of difference in our resolve. Unlike you, I am staking my life on this!"
-- Rouge, Soreyuke! Uchuusenkan Yamamoto Youko

As a PC game player, I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of savegames. However, savegames do gamers a disservice by making them bad players. Why? Because with a save game, you don't value your life. You are not "staking your life" on the outcome, because if you die you can instantly reload. However, consider a game with no save game, or limited save point functions (like Hitman or Resident Evil).
Because you can't save anywhere, you do your best not to die at any given point (especially if you're far from a save point). Most people don't notice this, but this is a crucial factor in forming your mental condition.

In Counter Strike, you should adopt a more advanced version of this philosophy. You should play as if your life were depending on it, as if there were no tomorrow. This will put you in a far better mental state. You must be determined to win. Although I reiterate that this is just a game, sometimes you need to adopt a deadly serious attitude to go beyond your limits. I don't recommend this for friendly play, but if you really must win, you might have to take the game far more seriously than you normally would.

In real life, I think this is what they mean by "living life to its fullest."

"Live your life, Kenshin."
-- Hiko Seijuro, Rurouni Kenshin.

Regardless, you must always keep your mind running, even while just standing in one spot. If you slack off even for one second, your reflexes will drop, and you will be a dead man. I cannot emphasize this enough. A casual player will probably just take a passing interest while fighting, may even snooze a bit while camping. These players often end up dead. But if you seriously want to improve, keep your mind focused. That is the true key to victory; physical skills like aiming and shooting are secondary to this basic truth.

"You can win a thousand battles, but you can only lose one!"
-- Zaknafein, Homeland

I firmly believe that the best fighter is the one who is ALWAYS on alert; never to let his mind slip at any point. I must confess that I myself have not achieved this level. Ever wonder why sometimes you have "hot streaks," or times when you seemingly manage to kill wave after wave of enemies without taking a hit, but sometimes you can't kill for the life of you? My theory is that it is a case of mental control. You achieve a hot streak when your mental focus is at its highest, and a losing streak when your mind is at a low. While I have not managed to achieve that highest level of perpetual mental focus, nor do I know anyone who has, I am sure it is possible. I like to look at historic warriors who are said never to have lost a single battle --
Miyamoto Musashi, Yagyu Jubei, and so on -- to prove my point.

It might help if you learn to meditate or do some other training to concentrate and focus your mind. Just a suggestion. Try taking up Zen,
Yoga or some really intense sport if you really want to master Counter
Strike, heheh. ^_^;


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III. BASIC COMBAT TRAINING

Now that you're hyped to kill your enemy, you need to learn some basic concepts regarding player movement in counterstrike.
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3.a -- Camping or Assaulting

Now, in CS, each side, the terrorist and counter terrorists, have goals to achieve. Depending on the map, one side will usually be defensive or offensive. Indeed, some maps were meant to be very defensible for certain sides. Because of this, there are two main kinds of playing mindsets in CS: camping or assaulting.

A camper is someone who sits tight in a very defensible position.
People often despise campers because they are cowards who know nothing of honor and would rather hide behind a crate in a dark corner rather than fight head-on. Well, campers shouldn't let such taunts bother them; they do what they do to win, and camping is the way they know best to do this. Campers rely on patience, and often work in teams because no single person can cover all the critical points effectively. They wait for the enemy to take the battle to them. The team taking the defensive position, such as terrorists in a CS map, often makes use of camping techniques.

An assaulter is someone who charges right into the fray. Whether the enemies choose to meet him in the same way, or whether they hide behind a rock is of no consequence; he will charge right in and make mince meat of his opponent as soon as he comes across him.
They take the battle to the enemy. The team taking the offensive, like terrorists in a DE map, often go the way of assault.

Now, each mindset has its advantages and disadvantages, but most people often fall somewhere in between -- they camp when they must, but they attack when the need arises. However, I've found that the truly great players who rack up lots of kills are often true bred in one of either of the two disciplines: the shameless camper who waits at the end of long corridors with his AWP, or the relentless attacker blaring away with his MP5.

Campers have the advantage of position, and can stage ambushes.
Defense is always stronger, they say, and campers can pick the most defensible position and stay there, waiting for the hapless assaulter to walk by, conveniently exposing their back to the camper. The drawback is that campers need lots of patience, and have to hone their reaction time greatly. Camping condones laziness, which dulls your reflexes. On average, a camper will develop slower reflexes than an assaulter. The worst part of camping is that they have little control over the flow of the game: they lend their destinies to fate, or more appropriately, to the actions of the assaulters.

Assaulters, on the other hand, have the advantage of proactivity. By taking matters into their own hands, they call the shots: they do what they do, when they want to. They can stick together and attack in masse, while campers tend to spread out for defense. In other words, assaulters do what suits them best at any particular time. Because of inertia, a car in motion will accelerate faster than a car at rest. The same principle applies to people's brains from a physiological standpoint.

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| An assaulter will have a better reaction time than a camper: because | | they are always on the move, their minds are "in motion," not "at    | | rest" like a camper.                                                 |
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In theory an assaulter will often shoot first if he and a camper detect each other at the same time. This has been proven to me time and time again over the years.

It is up to you to choose what path you really want to take. You have the potential to rack up the kills no matter what you are, but keep in mind that the key to racking up those kills and staying alive depends greatly on how other people behave. The real secret to CS tactical behavior is anticipating everyone else's moves, whether they are going to camp or not, and bring the appropriate tactic to bear.

For instance, if you're planning to camp but all your team mates are going to assault, you probably won't be getting too many kills.
Likewise, if you go assault, but all your team mates are going to camp, you'll die in seconds from lack of cover fire. I cannot stress the importance of team behavior: in a friendly game this is not so important, but in serious fights like tournaments, or if you're playing to win, having team tactics is vitally important. But I'll discuss that some other time, that's an advanced tactic. For now, just remember that teamplay is crucial in CS.

Knowing your team is not the only thing you need to do; you also need to know your opponents. If they plan to camp, do you go in and assault, guns blaring, and hope to succeed? Or do you have to use the appropriate tactic to breach their defense? Just keep these things in mind for now, for I will not discuss them at this point.

The important thing now is to recognize the different kind of players in the game: campers or assaulters. Although I mentioned that pure, true breds of each are often the better players, the best player will likely be the wily, cunning player who knows when to be a camper, and when to be an assaulter. Just keep in mind the basic strengths and weaknesses of each style, especially with regard to map type.

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| CAMPERS:                                               |
| Strength: positional advantage (i.e. - sniping points) |
| Weakness: no control over the flow of the battle,      |
|           slower reaction time                         |
|                                                        |
| ASSAULTERS:                                            |
| Strength: control over the battle                      |
|           faster reaction time                         |
| Weakness: prone to backstabbing and sniping            |
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Learning to be either a good camper or a good assaulter is vital in CS. If you're defending positions, like hostage areas for terrorists or bomb sites for counter terrorists, good camping skill will help. But keep in mind that a swift assault by the defensive team is both unexpected and can neutralize the enemy's advance just as effectively as a long camp-out. As a newbie, you