1st full CO exp - Sun, 18Dec ~8 CST

[kornkobcom]

After a pretty decent round and then starting another without a CO (and no one stepping up) I jumped in the hotseat. I was probably emboldened by the fact that it was Gulf of Oman (a map I know pretty well) and that I didn't see any of the heavy hitters on the other team.

I learned that:

a) I need to figure out how to map my keys so I can talk to individual squad leaders. As it was the one button I did have mapped talked to all the SL at once. This inhibited my ability to tell the SL my intent

b) Related to A: The SLs managed to figure out what my intent was even when it was pretty vague like putting a Defense command in the middle of an open area--- some of those ommanders really manage to figure out that means that I need multiple areas covered.

c) Ea/Dice really didn't do the commanders any favors when they didn't build in a squad management system into the CO screen. Sure woudl have been handy for me to be able to quickly and easily combine some of my onesy twosy squads into larger elements.

d) Also related to command screens: I didn't see an easy way to see the SL names. That was hard too. Also be nice to see the Squad titles for those squads that use the custom name--- help see what their intent is.

And finally: it was pretty durned stressful running all that stuff. I can't imagine doing it when someone was actually hunting you. Hard work being CO.



Thanks to all you folks who were on the teams for putting up with my little experiment.

[JMJ]

Cleansweep - Man, what do you have against snipers?

[kornkobcom]

My theory: The arty should fire every single time it is available. If the arty is silent then it is not doing ANYTHING to harm, disrupt, scare or deny ground to the enemy. If I've got nothing else better for it to do, I'll shell any likely avenue of approach just on spec. Heck-- on Oman I shelled the water several times and I think I even got a boat once.

When I have arty available and no viable targets anywhere else at the moment (usually because the enemy and friendly troops are too close to each other or moving to fast) then I target the lone stationary guys because they are probably either:

a) making a nuisance of themselves
b) bored and need something to wake them up
or
c) all of the above

[DigitalAssassin]

Yeah, I wondered last night when the artillery started hitting the water between the beach and the carrier. At one point it seemed like there was a lone guy treading water out there.

I played OpFor all evening and am not sure what was up but we managed big wins on Karkand and Oman, both of which are normally closer matches. I was quite impressed when we had all land maps on Oman. The poor boats trying to reach the beaches didn't have a chance.

[kornkobcom]

I was on a squad for Dam and then when the map changed our CO left. So when Oman loaded and it was apparent we had no CO and that was killing us, I took on the role. The amazing part was I spend 50% of the game, lying the hillside northwest of Hotel, directing traffic while a firefight raged just a 100 meters away.

After some amazing and persistant work by squads 1, 4 and 5, I got into the groove a little bit and helped the squads divide the work some. After some sniper killed me on the hillside and I came back and found that the orders I issued were actually working! : )

There was some confusion because of my lack of control over my voip to each squad but eventually the squads realized that we owned the whole map and everyone needed to camp the beach and keep stomping their arty. We put out a couple fires but basically once we pushed them off the beach, it was over.

Cleansweep was another glaring example of where my lack of good voice coms hurt the whole group. I was unable to tell Squad 1 and 6 to cover the back 3 bases while 5 and 2 covered base 1 and the other squads covered the first 3.

Especially when the enemy grabbed our main base I really could have used voice coms as I tried to reorg to mean the threat.

When Kark loaded I had to leave to pack (for my trip to Key West & Ft Meyers) and then get to bed. As I shut things down here at work and get ready to head home to take the dogs to teh kennel, I thought I'd drop in here quick.

More after my little vacation. Hopefully there won't be any roaming death squads of APCs on the beaches in Florida. : )

[Santa]

Originally Posted by JMJ

Cleansweep - Man, what do you have against snipers?

most commanders hate sniper squads The good kind of sniper squad realizes that their purpose isnt to kill things from a distance for the hell of it (They usually get revived anyway) but to cap undefended or lightly defended flags. Any time i actually get a sniper squad that listens to orders, i congradulate them on it. Teams also shouldnt have more than 1 sniper squad, and that squad should only have 2-3 people in it at most.

Anyway, to get back on topic after my rant , its great that more people like you are trying out the CO thing. To help you on one of your points, if you get out of the CO screen and press tab, you can see squad names. Its also helpful to simply ask every squad to tell you if they are a specialist squad. Keep doing it and eventually the pressure wears off and managing the squads becomes second nature.

The biggest advice i can give any CO is to be as quick to respond to a squad leader request as possible. Dont make him sit there for a minute wondering if you have VOIP enabled. If you cant give him want he wants at the time, explain to him why you cant, and when/if youll be able to give it to him.l