AIMperiumPlayGame guide · 25 topics
Two halves of 12 rounds. The first club to 13 rounds wins the match.
The two clubs swap sides at half-time.
A 12-12 tie goes to overtime.
Overtime runs in blocks of 6 rounds, 3 a side.
Blocks repeat until one club takes a whole block.
A round lasts 115 seconds.
Planting takes 3 to 5 seconds, and only the bomb carrier can plant.
Once planted, the bomb goes off after 40 seconds.
Defusing takes 10 seconds bare-handed.
A $400 defuse kit cuts that to 5 seconds.
Every match, each team wakes up a little hot or a little cold.
The five players share one swing: every attribute of every player moves by the same amount, up to 9 points either way, and only for that match.
That swing is what makes an upset possible.
Experience and the Cool head trait do not change it.
They act on something smaller: how steady a player is from one round to the next (Experience, Special traits).
Before every league match the two clubs ban maps from the pool of 8, turn by turn, until one map is left. That map is the match.
The home club bans first and bans last, so it makes 4 of the 7 bans and in practice picks between the final two maps.
The away club is paid for that: it chooses which side starts.
Home gives you the map, away gives you the side.
From your second match on you make your bans yourself on the veto screen, and a ban is final; other clubs ban by map strength.
The map is fixed the moment the veto ends and kept with the result, so a rewatch and a paused match always run on it.
Clubs ban the maps they are weakest on, so the veto follows map strength.
A club with a favourite map will keep steering matches onto it, which is why your own map strength is worth watching.
The veto screen shows the strength of both clubs before you agree to your bans.
Your own numbers are exact.
Theirs are a range, and a better Analyst makes that range tighter (Staff roles).
From your second match on, Play opens the veto screen first: one list of the 8 maps, with a strength word for you and one for the other club beside each (the strength words).
Click a map to ban it. The other club takes a moment to answer ("is deciding…"; click anywhere or press any key to skip the wait), and you take turns until "bans to go" reaches zero.
A banned map goes grey and shows who banned it and when; a ban is final, there is no undo.
Away, the other club bans first, so the screen opens on its turn; the map your ban order would take next carries a "Your ban order" tag.
After the last ban the map left standing is lit, its picture appears below the list, and only then does "Accept and play" show.
"Back, decide later" forgets every ban made so far and closes the veto; in your first match, or when you simulate, your ban order is played for you. Your first veto is guided.
The away club chooses which side starts, T or CT.
When you are away, you pick it on the veto screen: two buttons, "Start as CT" and "Start as T", sit on the map card that appears after the last ban.
One of them is already pressed when the card appears; leave it and that is your side, or press the other before "Accept and play".
When you are at home, the other club picks, and that card tells you which side you were given.
Your first match has no veto screen, so its starting side is drawn for you, as when you simulate.
Your starting side and the ban trail stay with the match: in the match header while you play, and in the rewatch afterwards.
Your first match has no veto, so the guide comes at your second match.
The first veto you accept is guided: four short hints, one for each moment, each with a Guide button that opens the entry behind it.
On open: two clubs ban maps in turns, and the last map standing is played. Press "Got it" and it goes.
The other three come and go with the turns: at your first ban, at the other club's first ban, and when one map is left.
They count as seen only when you press "Accept and play"; "Back, decide later" shows them again next time.
After that the veto screen opens with one line and a Guide link, and a career reset that shows the tutorial again brings the hints back too (Start a new career).
The map list on the left of the Playbook IS your ban order: the 8 maps in the order you want them banned, the one you want gone first at the top, moved with the arrows.
The list is saved with your club and stays the same from season to season until you change it.
A club that never touches it uses the standard order.
In every veto the map this list would ban next carries a "Your ban order" tag on the veto screen, so a quick veto is one click per ban.
The list is what gets played for you when you simulate a matchday, and in your first match.
Before round 1 the ten players join the server one by one, both clubs mixed, over about 8 seconds at normal speed.
Until a player joins, the map does not show them and their row is blank. At the join they pop in at their spawn, the row fills, and the match log gets one line, "Nick joined", with no clock.
It is presentation only: the result, the score, the money and the round history are what they would be without it; under the fog an enemy spawn stays hidden, so watch the rows and the log.
The Speed slider speeds the joins up, Pause holds them, and Skip to round result skips the joins and the round in one press; the scrub slider sleeps until round 1 starts.
It plays once per match you open: picking round 1 again shows only the round, and a resumed match starts on its round.
A re-watch shows the same joins in the same order, because the order comes from the match itself.
The flat bar under the picture drives the whole match, and the panels and scoreboard carry its numbers.
Left to right it reads like a broadcast: the round clock with the round number and the alive counts, the play controls with the scrub under them, then Speed, Scoreboard and Skip; the line under it says what is happening.
The big play button starts and pauses the round, and turns into a replay arrow once the round is over; the double arrows jump straight between the round's moments: a kill, the plant, the defuse.
The long slider scrubs to any second of the round, and dragging it pauses playback.
The Speed slider runs from slow motion to a fast skim; the number beside it is the multiplier.
Skip to round result stops the playback and shows how the round ended; the round counts either way, and while the between-round card is closed a Next round button at the end of the bar opens it again.
Scoreboard, or the Tab key, overlays both teams' numbers for the half.
Click a player there to open their stats; Escape or a click outside closes the card (Closing a pop-up).
The two team panels list both starting fives with their health and loadout, thinning out as players fall; on a wide window they stand beside the map as rails, otherwise under the bar.
The bomb clock appears in the bar the moment the bomb is planted (Round timers).
Under the fog an enemy's health, money and loadout stay empty for the whole match, round end included; only the name and alive or dead show.
In a scrim one more button appears, Fog / Broadcast, which reveals both teams while you practise (What you can see in a match).
The rails are the two team columns beside the map on a wide window: the T side on the left, the CT side on the right, each under its coloured team bar with the round score.
Under the T five sits the round history; under the CT five the match log.
Every player is two lines: the nickname with health and money, then the loadout, gun, armour, grenades and ammo; under the fog an enemy row keeps only its name and alive or dead, all match.
Helmet means kevlar and helmet, Kevlar the vest alone, and + Kit a defuse kit; the grenades are named in words, 2× Flash for a pair.
The map is sized first and the rails share only what is left, so the map never shrinks; a window too narrow for two rails uses the team panels under the control bar instead, as the phone does.
Click any player row to open the player's card, exactly as in the panels.
The round history is the strip under the T team in the left rail: one cell per round, coloured by the side that won, with a mark for why and a yellow bar under your own wins.
The marks: a skull for kills, a bomb for a detonation, cutters for a defuse, a clock for time; the round you are watching is an empty cell until it ends.
The strip breaks at half-time and at every overtime block, so the halves read as rows.
Under the strip a list gives each round's club, its mark with the bomb site, and the score so far, home first, with a line at half-time and overtime.
It never runs ahead of the picture: a rewind takes a winner away again. Rows are not clickable; re-watching a round stays on the post-match screen.
Click its title to fold it to the title row and a chevron; the choice is remembered on this device, not in your save.
The match log is the written record of the match so far: under the CT team in the right rail on a wide window, at the bottom of the screen otherwise.
Every round opens with a header line naming which club plays which side. Under the fog the log leaves out the enemy's gun gifts.
Then come its kills and gun gifts with their weapon, headshot and flash marks, the bomb planted with its site, defused with the seconds left, or exploded, and the result with the reason.
It never runs ahead of the picture: earlier rounds are complete, and the round you are watching lists only what has happened so far, so a rewind takes lines away again.
While a round plays the log follows its newest line; scroll back to read and it stays where you left it until you scroll down again.
Click its title to fold it to the title row and a chevron; the choice is remembered on this device, not in your save.
When a round ends, a card opens over the dimmed picture about 1.5 seconds later, once the round banner has landed; after Skip to round result it opens at once.
It shows the score, your economy for the next round, your tactic choices and, when you play as one of the five, your player's style for the round.
Keep & play next plays the next round with the tactic you used last on that side; pick another chip and the same button reads Change & play next.
Close it with the cross or as any pop-up to look at the map, the panels or the scoreboard; nothing is decided, and a Next round button in the control bar opens it again.
Finish match now, the quiet control apart from the two, simulates the rest at once; it asks you first unless you turned that off (Finishing a paused match).
After the last round no card opens; the match goes straight to its result.
Each player on the map is an operator: a team-coloured body with a helmet showing which way they are looking.
Red is the attacking side, blue the defending side, and your own club has a white outline.
The ring around an operator is health: a full ring is 100 HP, it drains as they take damage, and it pulses when they are nearly down.
Kneeling at the bomb means planting or defusing.
What they are holding tells you more again: reading the guns.
Some maps have a bridge, a raised catwalk drawn as a planked deck; an operator passing UNDERNEATH it is drawn faded and dashed, so you can tell who is over and who is under.
Each of your own players carries a small mark above them: the icon of their role, in that player's own colour.
The icon says what they do, and the colour says which of your five they are, so two players of the same role still read apart.
The colours are the ones your five wear on the tactics map, so a mark here is the same player as that dot on your plan.
Rest the mouse on one of your players, or tap them, to read their nickname; move away, or tap the map, to hide it again.
A player who is down keeps their mark, faded, so you can still see who fell where.
Only your own club is marked, on either side and in every rewatch; the other club never is.
The weapon in an operator's hands tells you their buy: a small pistol on an eco, a rifle or the long sniper on a full buy.
That is how you spot a force-buy or a held sniper angle without opening the scoreboard.
A lone weapon on the ground is where someone died; it vanishes the moment another player picks it up, so watch for a rifle disappearing off the floor.
A weapon can change mid-round: walk over something better than what you hold, and the gun in your hands changes there and then.
SCAVENGED marks a gun picked up off a team-mate; LOOTED means it came off an enemy they had just killed, which is the rarer of the two.
The kill feed names whatever they were really holding, but the scoreboard still lists what they BOUGHT.
The match map shows what YOUR team can sense, not everything that is happening.
An enemy one of your players has a clear line of sight to is drawn normally.
Your players also HEAR an enemy who comes close to one of them, even through a wall, but a heard enemy is only a "?" marker, never a normal one.
An enemy far from all of your players is not heard at all, however noisy the place they are standing in.
A spotted enemy stays drawn for a moment after they break line of sight, so someone ducking behind cover does not flicker; once the bomb is planted, its position is always shown.
The rails hide the enemy too: a row shows the name and alive or dead, every other spot stays empty, and nothing comes back at round end. The match log leaves out the guns they bought or handed over.
A dimmed marker with a "?" is an enemy you cannot see: one you have lost track of, or one you can only hear.
A heard enemy's marker sits where they were when you heard them.
A lost-track marker sits at the last place you knew about, which may be nowhere near where they are now.
Either way it shows the direction they were facing back then, not now, and it fades away after a while.
Enemies you have never seen or heard are not drawn at all, and neither are their view cones, their shots, or the bomb they are carrying.
Your own league and cup matches are under fog while they play; watched again afterwards, like any match between two other clubs, they show both teams in full. A scrim has a Broadcast button.
Your own match is saved after every round, in the league and in the cup, and kept if you stop or the tab closes.
If the connection drops, the game keeps trying until a save gets through; a tab closed before that can lose the rounds since the last good save (When a save does not get through).
To stop on purpose, use "Save & exit" on the match screen: it says "Match not saved yet" until the last round's save gets through, then "Match saved" until you resume.
When you come back, or simply next open the game, the last round plays back from its start, in case you missed how it ended.
Then you pick your next tactic as usual, with the score, the money and every past round exactly as you saw them.
A paused match must be finished before anything else.
A half-played match must be finished before anything else: while one exists, the rest of the club is locked.
Play it out, or use "Finish match now" to simulate straight to the result; it asks you first, and Escape there means Cancel (Closing a pop-up).
You can tell it to stop asking, and switch the question back on under Account.
There is no way to restart it, so a bad start cannot be rerolled into a good one.
One exception: after a game update, a half-played match starts again from round 1, and a short notice in the match explains it.
The updated engine would replay your saved rounds differently, so a fresh start is the honest option.
After a match you watched, "Your tactics this match" lists each of your tactics that ran, per side and per buy type: the rounds it was Played, the rounds it Won, and its Plants.
On the CT side the third count is Enemy plants: how often the bomb went down against that setup.
The rows split by the 3 buy types, Full buy, Force buy, Eco, and a pistol round counts as Eco (Buy types).
It counts and never judges: one match is a small sample, and a tactic that lost two eco rounds may still be the right call on a full buy.
Press a row to mark its rounds in the round strip above, to see when in the match it ran. Press it again to clear the mark.
Only your own tactics are listed, and a tactic that did not run has no row. To change what runs on which buy, retag it in the Playbook.
After every league and Invitational match you play, Share opens a 1200 by 630 picture of the result, made to post. A cup card has a gold frame and the Invitational trophy.
Your club is on the left in gold, with both crests, the score, the map and the occasion. A close loss is worth a post too.
You pick one more true line; the MVP is the default. A league card can offer a win streak of 2 or more, or "Promoted" on the last match of a season that sends you up. A cup card can offer the round.
Save picture keeps a PNG file. Where your browser allows, Copy picture and Copy text put the card, or one line with the result and the link, on your clipboard, and Share… opens your device's share menu.
Each cup in your Legacy cabinet has Share too, with its title, the name you won it under and its MVP.
Scrims, re-watches and spectated matches have no Share. Nothing is stored, and sharing earns nothing.