Pick a location

Picking a location for your base should reflect the number of troops you have. For instance, a large force should take advantage of height & cover rather than concealment. The reason is, if they position a Dog Igloo on top a very high hill on a relatively flat, open area, their range will be greatly increased. Furthermore, their enemy will not have these advantages:

* Greater Range
* Not much cover or concealment
* Surprise attack

However, if the enemy were larger than you, it would be wiser if you placed your base somewhere that offered maximum cover (in the event of an attack, you could defend your base well) and superb concealment so that the enemy will not be able to make assaults on your base. See further down for more information on defending a base with few soldiers.

Construct the base

There are infinite ways to create a base for a water war... and I am in no position to even attempt to try and list them out. However, I will introduce you to some of the less common ways to construct a base. For more information about bases, see the "Related Links" section of this article below.

First, there's the perimeter fence. For this base, you need:

* Six posts with pointed tips
* A hammer
* Five long ropes or clotheslines

Take four posts and place them in a rectangle or square. Be sure that you will be able to tie the string around them. Next, take the other two posts and make a door out of them (i.e. one on either side of were you want the door). Take the ropes & tie them all around your structure. Put one at nose height, chest height, torso height, knee height, and ankle height. This will slow the enemy down, as he will not be able to jump over it or crawl under it. You should leave a gap in the middle of the "door way" so your troops can get in & out. Make sure the door way is heavily fortified (with cardboard boxes or some other similar material), heavily guarded, and facing the direction the enemy is least likely to come from. This should make the "door" fairly secure. Secure this even more by putting cardboard boxes along the string to provide cover & you'll have one sweet base!

Perimeter defenses

Besides barricades of cardboard boxes, strings, and whatnot, there are several other perimeter defenses that can be used to protect your base, drench your opponents, or alert you when the enemy is near.

I will be listing some of the more uncommon defenses. See the "Related Links" section at the bottom of this page for more information.

1. Placing those cheap, little kid walkie-talkies with tight string wrapped around the "Talk" button is often efficient. These walkie-talkies typically have a range between about 46 meters (150 ft.) to 90 meters (300 ft.) The procedure goes something like this: You tie the string to it, turn the volume low (almost off), place it were it's needed, and camouflage it. Back at the base were the other walk-talkie is you will be able to hear if someone passes by. And if you're lucky, what they are saying! Something to note though, buy walkie-talkies first for communications then for alarms.
2. A cheaper, but less effective way to detect enemies is to do the ol' fishing string-'n-pop cans alarm. I think pretty much everyone who is going to read this knows what it is so I won't go into too much detail. This trick is used most efficiently at night battles.
3. Take a garbage bag, fill it 1/3 to 2/3 full, then burry it somewhere. This is basically an over-sized version of the water balloon mine. This, however, will probably get a lot more of the person wet and, you may get more than one person at a time!
Defending with few troops

This is a problem that has plagued water warriors for almost two or three decades now. If you have only a slight disadvantage to the enemy, then consider going on defense, employing more booby traps & alarms, and focusing more on cover & concealment rather than height.

But, if you are at a significant disadvantage with the enemy, then perhaps you should consider that if the enemy has to capture your base to win, and you have no base for them to capture, they couldn't win.

But were will you put your extra equipment? In a wheel barrel or a backpack. Designate a couple of people to make sure the wheel barrel is mobile and is properly camouflaged. If you have a backpack, then designate the strongest guy as the freighter and give him/her some escorts.

Related Links

* Spartan Battle Manual on defenses
* Note: I looked for quite a long time trying to find information about bases, but I found nothing besides a few dead links and the Spartan Battle Manual article about defense.

Summary