Tempus

I'd like to point you to our Battlefield 2 Server Rules and Guidelines...

B) Commanders MUST make their command role their primary activity. A commander should not be engaging in front-line battle as it impedes their ability to command their army and maintain awareness of what each squad is doing.

I saw commanders tonight who did not adhere to this rule.. Please be aware of it in the future, as it will earn you a kick from the server.

Thank you.

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-- Suits are what you wear when doing things you shouldn’t want to do anyway.

FROM THE TACTICAL GAMER PRIMER.
3) Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine.

Gordy77

our primary I understand and agree with, but its still ok to do some battling no? I commanded for abit tonight and most of the time just sat still or capped a safe point. but the first vehical I jumped in I got some talk about. no big deal but I was just wondering.

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When I get home people'll ask me, "Hey, why do ya do it man? Why? Just some war junkie?" Ya know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.

Karkianman101

The commander should ideally never see action. As 1 soldier you are pretty much useless. If you die, you are out of the chair for 15 seconds, and if the timer is increased possibly up to 1 minute, then... well thats bad. Every second you spend not in comm mode, thats one less second to notice the enemy squad moving in to seize your assets or airfield, 1 less second to call an arty strike and catch the enemy before they move out, 1 less second to inform the defensive squad that an enemy detatchment is sneaking to their east with a tank.

Tempus

Every second spent in a vehicle, fighting, or whatever, is a second that could be used to help guide your team to victory. Situational awareness suffers, your troops suffer, and the game suffers.

The only other thing the comm should be doing is basic repairs in base.

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-- Suits are what you wear when doing things you shouldn’t want to do anyway.

FROM THE TACTICAL GAMER PRIMER.
3) Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine.

Apophis

When I command I usually take the engineer role and sit at the main UCB with my wrench. It gives me the ability to get the UCB assets back on line after a strike without tasking an entire team to it. Other than that, I tend to keep out of the battles, but I do move from place to place on the map to get myself into a vantage point where I can look down on a region with heavy combat.

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Apophis

While I agree with this in theory, in practice it's not quite the same.

I have yet to see a squad that responds to any orders in this time frame. Usually you'll issue an order to a squad and it will take several minutes before they act on their responses to their orders. 15-30 seconds isn't going to make any major difference in these situations.

Enemy squad movements are also largely predictable. It's not the commanders job be the exclusive means of SA on the battlefield either. Soldiers need to be able to bring their own SA to the table.

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Red_Dog

I've not checked this yet, but if your at some high vantage point are you not sightable by the enemy commander with "scan" or "UV"? Would it not be better to be enscounced in something that artillery cannot get to?? Personlly I don't like this because if feels too much like hiding my sorry ass. :-)

Leffty

I agree hiding seems chicken, but its the most effective way of keeping your command assets up and running. I'm suprised people don't hide more. If you think about it though, on a 64 player server, approx team size is 32. So it stands to reason that the "team" is actually a reinforced Platoon and would be led by a 22 yr old Lt. Now if my 35 year old butt was 1st Srgt. and I found my Lt hiding in a basement somewhere after ordering me to storm that bunker/Tank/(insert other scary thing here), I'd Frag him and write home to his mama he didn't die alone... hehe

Meat_Drapes

When I command, I find a corner , get in the prone position and go to my screen where I can run the show. I do not leave it. Although...as an engineer it would make sense to perhaps try and keep your things up and running. But then again, if its been destroyed, are those that destroyed it still there? I dont see how anyone can find the time to ever leave the Commander screen. Not even for 5 seconds.

Meat Drapes

Makk

Two questions about commander -

1) People say 'be an engineer' to fix assets as needed. Now.. where I see the flaw in that is that the pesky SF guys that blew up my UAV trailer or arty.. will probably be around. As soon as I make myself known to fix them they would probably take me out. Does that make sense? Now, wouldn't SF be a better kit? That way I won't show on the enemy commander scans (do SF only not show on scans or is it also on the UAV?), and thus I will be harder to find if they are 'commander hunting'.

2) I hear you regarding never leaving the CO screen. Now (And I know this question doesn't apply to your server), do you think that would still hold true on a very small game (8v8 or 10v10)? I ask because that is going to be the typical ladder sizes, and my clan will be playing that size games. I've been wondering if that means you NEED the commander's gun, and then you need to be a part-time commander and part-time soldier.

Captain_Klaus

When I play as CO I find a quiet spot, right at the edge of the map. Once there my CO screen comes on and never goes off. If my equipment is attacked I drop supply crates to fix it, if it continues to happen I assign a squad to defend it. IMHO a CO's job is just to command and not fight.

Klaus

Makk

Dropping a supply crate next to equipment (such as UAV trailer, arty, or radar.. even vehicles?) will fix it (without an engineer's help)? I didn't know that.

Telorn

That is a sneaky little trick. Now I know to destroy the supply crates when I see them next to enemy facilities.

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Telorn

Lagomorph

Totally agreed that CO has to command as primary action. The problem arises (As Makk has brought up) when you have a smaller game. Very often you will feel the "need" to get in the fight because "an extra gun is worth 'more'."
While in a smaller game, sure you could be a little less reluctant to engage near your position. From my own experience with small LAN games(never bigger than 8x8) I have found the best thing was to:
-Take spec-ops kit (Enemy CO is unlikely to find you, only UAV will show it)
-Spawn
-Sprint to farthest cover without stopping and hit the deck
-Bring up CO screen, scan...UAV...arty(only if neccessary), exit CO screen
-Sprint again (You're taking a round-about route to the enemy base by the way)
-Continue until you reach the enemy base (Using time sprinting to allow CO stuff to recharge and CO screen time to allow stamina to recharge)
-Drop a supply crate somewhere hidden in the enemy base
-Wait for enemy to have a second flag or otherwise be unlikely to be in their base
-Run around and plant as much C4 as you can on their assets (refill with crate - I think you can place more than your max, I forget how much)
*I recommend UAV and Radar first for small teams (The arty is hard to use anyway if hes near blind)
-Find a good hiding place
-Blow hostile assets

I found this sort of thing to be an effective use of both your CO and "normal" screen time. Also it means you dont have to assign any normal soldiers to spec-ops to blow hostile assets. Feel free to kill the enemy CO if you find him hiding in their base, but I don't recomend attracting "too" much attention. (Unless its your plan to force some hostiles to be pulled back) And don't worry at all about your "wasted" gun, unless its 4x4 or smaller the info you give your teammates via constant scanner+UAV is worth vastly more than another gun.

Good Luck! Sometimes the smaller games can actually be harder on the CO than big ones. =P

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Combat is very simple, there is a first place and a second place. Second place is laying face down in the mud...sometimes, so is first place.
[age-c1]
[eng][air]

xguild

The role of the commander can be as much or as little as you make it. I find that (especially on Tactical Gamer servers) that the response from Squad Leaders and players as a whole is really great. They are ready and willing to execute your orders and only in unusual circumstances will they question or disobey your orders. Which I suppose is semi realistic, after all, I'm back at the base nice and safe and don't see every potential problem with my orders. None the less the commander position if executed correctly should keep you far to busy to allow for any time to actually play as a soldier in any form. In fact, it's best to hide yourself somewhere safe and perhaps somewhere that gives you a good view of the battlefield while being close enough to your artilary, UAV and radar stations so that you may repair them when they are blown up.

KEY DUTIES OF THE COMMANDER

1. Organization. This is the key role of any commander and should be the first thing you do before you start ordering your Squads Leaders to take action. When I say Organization I mean figuire out what every player, Squad and Squad leader wants to do and make sure they are in the correct squad to recieve orders. People who want to be doing special forces missions should be in their own custom squad. Pilots should have their own custom squad. You should have at least 1 good front assualt squad (probobly best to have 2-3). You should make sure that each squad has medics, assault and at least 1 engineer on the squad. Snipers should create their own custom squads let the commander know where they are going to be since they are likely to know where the good spots to hide are on the field. Generally speaking, organization means organizing your team into the correct squads. It's better to find out what people want to do and them find a way for it to help the team, then trying to force people to take roles they don't want to play. Another words, lean on their strenths.

2. Make sure every squad always has up to date orders. Give them waypoints and then communicate to them via VOIP. Commanders should use VOIP liberly and no commander should ever attempt to run as commander without VOIP. Same goes for Squad Leaders. Make sure you always have something for everyone to do.

3. Support them using UAV and artilary. This may be obvious but I'm always suprised to see how little some commanders use these tools.

4. Learn the "game tactics". As much as we want BF2 to mimic reality, it doesn't. This is still a game and you have to think of your strategy and tactics in the form of the game. I could write a whole book on this topic when it comes to BF2 as each map offers unique tactical puzzles that when put together can make your team seem impossible to beat. Perhaps one day I will write it, but for now in suffices to say that if you don't know what I'm talking about here your not ready for command. A good start to learn tactics is to play the role of a squad leader because many of the things that work at that level also work on a larger scale.

5. Take advantage of Pilots. I can't say enough about what a difference it makes if you have one or two people on your team that know how to use Planes and Helicopters. on many maps, the team with the best pilots will win.

6. Defense, Defense Defense. To often Commanders play round robin with flag control. They send everyone on one flag, once it's taken they move to the next flag, leaving the newly captured flag exposed. Always leave people behind to defend flags and make sure they do with tanks, Mines, C4, proximity mines the whole shabang. In fact I always try to create a defense squad with 1-3 people in it who get the instruction and support from me to booby trap the hell out of an area so that taking it back is no small task for an enemy.;

7. Always send in Artilary prior to sending in your squad. A good Squad Leader can take a flag in less then 15 seconds, if coordinated correctly this approach works great. Again it comes down to communication. Let them know what the plan is and then execute. VOIP!!!!!!

8. Realize that battle in the field is hectic, people die left and right. You should be watching what you Squad Leaders are doing, if you see them dying left and right they are NOT doing their jobs. Their primary function is to make sure that their squad is together, obeys orders and the most important function of the squad leader above all else is to be a SPAWN point so that as your members in the squad die, they can get right back into the fighting. Squad leaders should hang back in safety taking easy shots when possible. Preferably they should be Snipers, Engineers or Anti-Tank. NOT MEDICS!! For the love of god... Don't let your Squad Leaders be medics. Medics are too close to the fighting, your Kit should allow you to hang back away from the hot zones. Preferably hiding behind a building, on a roof, inside a stairwell, somewhere away from sight but close to the fighting.

Squad leaders should also only enter vehicles that their whole squad can fit in. If you see your squad leaders flying attack helicopters, Jets or other one seater vehicles you should talk to him immediatly and let him know that hey, I don't have a problem with you flying a plane, just don't be squad leader.



Hopefully this will help some of you guys out there, but like I said at the begining of this post, as a Commander you should be far too busy to play the role of a soldier.