The (Even More) Reluctant Commander

[thedogwarrior]

In the midst of a my brief foray into SL'ing last night, we didn't have Commander on one of the Belgrade rounds. So I jumped in the saddle...

I've got zip experience as CO under 2142, but tried it a bit in BF2. It was enjoyable, but I've got a lot to learn. Zoraster's CO guide is definitely on the reading list.

Wanted to shout out thanks to Bommando, and other guys on Teamspeak, you saved me with my oh-so-noobish question about how to comm. with my SL's. Turns out my initial guess was right.. but only 1 of the SL's ever responded, a fellow 21r, insunabula.

I had fun, and hope I didn't emp or orbital too many of my own guys... My apologies to all if that was your fate. We won one round, kept Statue to ourselves just about the entire round, and lost the next.

[INSUNABULA]

That was quite a funny round actually: I was in pole position to take over SL when you went "Dog", but 30 seconds later I see myself at the bottom of the list - so about 2 minutes of debate ensued on how to re-arrange the squad, half of them not responding, half of them leaving then rejoining and all the while we managed to hold off 3 separate attcks from ground attacks stemming through Comm Tower to Vehicle runs up the ramp. Running around like headless chickens seemed to work - the enemy must have been thinking "bloody hell we're not going up there - they're all bloody nuts!!!". Thanks to all the guys who stuck with me, we kept the Statue for the entire round - I was proud of you all

[thedogwarrior]

Wild.. didn't notice the comings and goings... Seems like the non-unit squads really have a lot of entries and exits as players come/go. That one round on Suez, I couldn't keep the members straight.. but then we were all pretty busy.

[SpiffBiffster]

Insunabula, I was on your squad for the second Belgrade game. Towards the end we were defending at Playground and I was sitting in the railgun. Shot two enemies at 75m on the southern end of the ramp to Statue. Then killed a tank and driver from the south. Then killed an enemy at the containers 15m to the north, then killed the guy trying to revive him. My fun was spoiled by an APC from the south.

Best railgun shot I ever made was a crossing shot at about 25m on a running cloaked recon. I saw him cloak, started tracking the blur, pulled the trigger and swung through him just as the gun went off.

[thedogwarrior]

Railgun vs. Person kills are the best... Discovered recently that you can zoom the railgun... just right-click... and you're ready. Very slow to move once you're zoomed, but gives you a more detailed crosshair.

[INSUNABULA]

Hey Spiff, you did good soldier, you did real good. My best railgun shot was actually against a buggy making a turbo dash across my field of vision - fired about 5 meters infront of it, ran into my shot and it kept going up and over the hill then exploded - it's like the guys at EA had "drama" scripted into the game code. Gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside

[Ferris Bueller]

Originally Posted by thedogwarrior

Railgun vs. Person kills are the best... Discovered recently that you can zoom the railgun... just right-click... and you're ready. Very slow to move once you're zoomed, but gives you a more detailed crosshair.

I agree. I love the railgun. I think i've got close to 500 kills with it, and considering I only have like 2500 kills total, thats not bad.

[Aerosecurity]

I actually tried my hand at commanding a round yesterday afternoon. I think it was on... Belgrade? I still don't know all the map names :P

Anyway, I did my best to keep everything in order. I'm really glad that the squadleaders were talking to me and keeping me updated on what was going on. Sure the sattrack helps, but nothing beats a quick intel report from one of your squads. The hardest thing i saw with commanding was the split second thinking you have to do in order to exploit every weakness of the enemy, and every strength of your team (i was a little late on the resupply of that tank at church... sorry whoever that was).

Anyway, it wasn't a complete slaughter, we still held on pretty well, though I think we could have done better if we were able to take either valley farm or church. And good job with Hillside Farm whoever squad 1 was, you kept it the entire game after taking it. I just could not break the defenses of the other team, every time i tried to switch flags to take, the enemy commander would just allocate more people to that flag. Bleh, it was a little frustrating i guess.

[Ferris Bueller]

Commanding is a tough job. You really have to stay on your toes and prioritize. In my experience commanding, heres a few basic tips that I learned very quickly:

-use the Sat Track every single time its available. This gives you an update on the enemy position at least once every 30 seconds. Used in tandem with the UAV, this can provide deadly intel for on-point squads.

-be careful where you drop orbital. avoid dropping it in open areas or areas with too much cover. look for spots that have a little bit, but not much. also dont use orbital to take out just one guy. use orbital to scare people into or away from where you want them to be as much as you do to kill them.

-EMP strike isnt just for vehicles! Have someone pestering your guys with a railgun? EMP it. Nasty little AA gun? EMP it. Big group of guys have your team pinned down? EMP them. Remember, while EMP doesnt kill the other guy, it can immobilize static weapons and give surrounding infantry disco-vision, making them much less able to shoot straight. This is especially nice if you have a sniper that's tearing you up.

-Drop supplies as fast as you can when theyre called for. Often times I've seen flags turn that could have been held if the squad holding it could have repaired their walker with a box, or had a faster resupply for troops because of it.

-Prioritize your targets. Is it crucial to take the next flag, or can you just surround them and turn it into a slaughterhouse? Should you keep a squad on defense of a back flag? Do your assets need to be repaired by hand or can you drop a box and fix it? These are things you need to keep in mind. You are ORCHESTRATING the battle. A commander has the ability to shape the battlefield, so you should always try to shape it to your advantage.

-Communicate CONSTANTLY. Give and get intel reports. Let your squads know when and where UAV/Orbital/EMP/Supplies are dropping. Above all, tell your squads OVER VOICE COMMS how they're doing. If you have a squad that's ignoring orders, tell them to shape up. If you have a squad that's kicking butt and taking names, tell them they're doing a damn fine job. Dont use the cheesy right-click commands to tell them, it means more to people to hear you say "kick ass work taking that flag squad 2" or "squad 5, what the heck are you doing in their UCB?". Communication is essential, dont ever let anyone tell you that you talk too much as commander.

-DO NOT BE A BATTLE COMMANDER. If you're commanding, your job is to COMMAND. NOT drive a walker. NOT fly a gunship. NOT go help squads take flags. NOT run around and kill people. Sometimes the commander has to fight, like on gibraltar if someone gets to EU base. Otherwise, you should never close the command screen. If you want to fight, dont command because you're going to be ineffective at both areas. It's that simple. I cant tell you how many games i've seen lost just because the commander was too busy trying to cap flags and run around or drive a vehicle to do his job.

Like I said, thats just some basic stuff, but following those things has earned me a 9:1 commanding win/loss ratio. It may sound boring to just lie there in the back away from the action, but it's really not (plus it's a hell of a good way to get insane amounts of points...650 points as commander on my last titan match, and thats a short titan game.)

[Aerosecurity]

Originally Posted by Ferris Bueller

...It may sound boring to just lie there in the back away from the action, but it's really not...

In my opinion, being the commander should be the hardest job in the game, and is if you're doing your job correctly. Anyone can tote around a gun and kill people, take flags, and whatnot, but it takes a dedicated commander to handle the stress of commanding your squads (especially if there are a few squads that don't quite follow orders).

And I can't stress enough how important it is to talk to your squads. I gave most of my orders to all squads, even if it only applied to one squad. I did this so the other squad leaders knew where the other squads were and how they were helping in the battle. I don't do this in all situations. If I needed squad one to defend one flag and have the other two push for another, I would say this to all squads so they have more situational awareness of what the other squads were doing. Then I'd go into the individual squad comms and give more specific orders to each.

Example comm that I had fun coming up with
ALLSQUADS: Squad 1 defend outpost A, Squads 2 and 3 attack outpost B.
SQUAD2: Attack outpost B from the east, there is least resistance there. Hold at (this) position and await my signal to proceed.
SQUAD3: Attack from the North, it is the most defended side, you will be covering for Squad 2 which will be attacking from the East. I repeat, attack outpost B from the North, now.
...
SQUAD2: Squad 3 is in position, attack outpost B from the East, now. SQUAD1: Stay at outpost A, and keep up the good work!

I really didn't give all that specific orders when I was commanding. I couldn't think straight as everything was moving so fast. I'm going to need to practice commanding to learn these tactical decision making skills.