[I'm already in paradox's kill-list so nothing new. Still waiting for Spike doing his ultra advanced tutorial on commanding ABC.] I tough this game needs new people and more commanders to relief a little the veterans from their command routine, but don't fool yourself! If you don't have 900 hours minimum of game experience you can't command. I don't care, game is public so i trying to find the spot myself. There is enough good will people! All what i gonna learn here and get from others gonna be placed there for future people, having something to read and be closer at understanding the Empires commanding. 1. First thing first. What we need. You need those things to consider commanding: [] Have a microphone; You need to have it to communicate with team and squads. It is always faster than texting. Try to be calm and point things to your people so they can get it. If you don't speak English naturally, try to speak slower and clear for people catching your words. (If you team is full British then just quit. No seriously, quit. ~Me) (Sometimes yelling at people is good, because often thats only way they obey commands you issue and think of its importance. ~Flasche) [] Have some time behind game itself; Even if you played a lot of RTS, basic understanding of infantry-man vision is very useful. You know a lot of things thanks to this, where enemy could go, where they hide or what is mostly needed on front lines or attack/defense situations. Often things behind the doors can just pass you, but you can learn this when you have opportunity in less try-hard moments in game. (There is no non-try-hard moments in this game. That is sad. ~Me) (Large scale games are out of range for new commanders, also new players need to learn a lot about game itself to consider even starting as new commander. ~Paradox) [] Have big amounts of patience; Players believe in you sometimes too strong and try-harding is multiplying this effect so you often gonna end be blamed for everything and if people could, they would love to hang you. There is no place to argue with those kind of people. You need to just ignore that and try learning what went wrong and reconsider tactics. If you find in this flame-war someone who isn't throwing meat at you, but giving you advices, listen to him/her instantly. Those people are most important in your journey to be commander. (It is just a game, why you heef to be mad. ~Internet meme) (Be ready for being blamed for everything ~Flasche) 2. Meet your Ferrari CamperVan. Picture of Berondi Empire Command Vehicle It is your new home. It have armor (6 front, 5 sides, 4 back) and nice hp pool. Remember that is only one vehicle and destroying it means you team lose. You use it to transfer yourself from infantry mode into RTS mode by F2 key on keyboard. It have standard engine and isn't fast vehicle (top speed 55 km/h) but turns like truck so be aware you can easily hit something in the process. Handbrake is broken in Source games so use it to turn 180 degrees only when you have enough empty space. You need to know additionally that it isn't hard to get it stuck on something so avoid weird terrain, jumping, stunting and rallying. Be aware that people gonna love you to ram so avoid destruction derby too. Another thing to consider is always moving with it. As stationary, you can be ambushed by enemy "Ninjas" that gonna turn your CV into smoking wreck. Always be sure that if you need to leave CV, make it close to barracks and/or nice amount of Turrets. (Don't be a stationary commander ~Flasche) (If you have multiple bases and one of it is being assaulted, don't wait to fall back with your CV ~Flasche) 3. Meet your ugly Command Vision Picture of Command mode Let's start with basics. You move your camera with arrow keys or with mouse (it is ultra weird and sometimes buggy). Zoom is on mouse scroll (most annoying working zoom) and to rotate the camera hold alt key and move mouse. Picture of Various buttons [] Units; Here you can see status of units and buildings on map. [] Build; Here you purchase new buildings. You need to be aware of 2 things: - To rotate building you need to hold left mouse button - You can't place yellow buildings, this means you want build something behind Fog of war. You can place red walls, because they always says that they collide because they aren't have point of start. Just left click to start drawing them. [] Factory; Here you have control over Factories. You can block people free build vehicles from main resources. (it doesn't block people wages) You can 'build'/'create your template' of vehicle selected. [] Research; There you got short information what you researching, how time it takes and the cost of it. Click 'View research tree' to see most weird idea of research tree ever it and select what to research ---=== More will come soon[tm], Feel free to give me tips to make this topic nicer or whatever...===--- last edited 2017-04-17 02:43
You can only reliably command large scale games ( weekends where we enforce experienced commanders only ), when you understand the core game aspects. And you cant possible understand the core game aspects without anyone else noticing you do. Those people mostly vouch for someone else that they can comm. The odds of ruining great games in the weekends is just not worth it, letting a new player comm and fail
Commanding is easy if you have someone talking you through it. All you need to understand is 1. Research 2. What actions are prioritised throughout the phases (early, Mid, late game) 3. Map specific points of interest. Pretty much all you need to know is the buttons and commander GUI and then any other commander can just tell you what to do. That's it for a competent commander for pubs. To kick it up a notch just add situational awareness and decent communication to direct your team and relate strategy and timing.
yes a mic is important. the not screaming part not so much. infact it sometimes helps a lot to yell at people, yelling indicates importance (no joke). i think thats my biggest problem with commanding, i never yell at people. another really important thing is, fire up a listening server (or join an empty server) and get used the commander interface. you should waste no second thought about where to click for what. figure out where to place buildings. dont space rax and vf too much. learn the research tree. you need to know where items are and also learn common research paths. dont be afraid to first copy others. just researching the tanks you like to use also is a good idea. dont overcomplicate it though, time is important. rather get "the best" items later if you can skip a tree to get heavies sooner. but dont just "single tree" it, thats not that good anymore. the importance and efficiency of turrets grows as player numbers lower. learn to identify good field players. usually theyre also people who are willing to teamwork. if you have really important and/or risky stuff to be taken cared of, address them by name and ask them to do the job. (i mean fe someone sneaking by to ninja or you see a rush coming and need killspawns - in the later case yelling is a good idea) unless players do it on their own, remind people to build tanks. and not only remind them, beg them, yell at them, call them names, do whatever it takes to get them drive tanks. tanks are empires (sadly) also get gren upgrades. learn to command a specific map first. look at what good comms do on this map, try to figure out why it was good and copy it. add your own style. then add more and more maps. if you play enough learning the map specifics isnt so hard. learn to read the minimap. command with one eye on the minimap at all times. dont watch your dudes on the field. jump to a position, try to grasp the situation as fast as possible, maybe drop a few buildings and/or give targets, switch to another postition. if people run by a rax dont be afraid to annoy them with "guard this unit" till they turn around and fucking build it. dont stand around for too long. and if you stand around for longer, make sure its close to a barracks and at realtively secured position, at best with a few turrets nearby. when you still have more than one base, it falls under heavy assault and fleeing is an option, get your ass out of there. dont get out the cv when you far away from a base unless you are absolutely sure you survive it. the commander can take quite a beating. dont go out there alone tho. if you end up behind enemy lines without people around you, get lost, better safe then sorry. for the beginning id advise against frontline commanding in general. rather drive around and build bases and turrets behind your frontlines. and dont forget, one eye on the minimap, the other eye at research times and your third eye in 3d space - yes you need to grow a 3rd eye, im sorry :D eventually grow a 4th eye and read chat, thats also quite nice as not everyone use their mics. but youll get used to all that with time. it shouldnt be all too hard. unless you boomtank it, its not that stressful either. id also suggest you rebind your keys so you can move the camera with WASD. but that might be personal preference. i just find it convenient to not move my hands across the keyboard every time i go in and out of commview. also id say, if you considered the above and if you end up on a strong team, ask people to let you try commanding. i disagree with paradox here. i think bigger teams are better to learn as long as you have a competent team to support you. in the end its field players that win rounds. unless ofc you are put against highly skilled players or the whole team is a circlejerk of vets and its just gonna be rush rush rush. fast vf, apc to main bullshittery. thats something for later. on smaller teams a comm has way more impact than on big teams. you even might want get out and drive a tank then as extra field player (always with research times and building placement needs in mind ofc. also remember secure position for the cv) just some random stuff that came to mind. hope something helps.
@flasche Im not saying a new commander shouldnt get to command. Im saying a new commander AND a new player shouldnt get to command. New commanders with good game experience can have a shot
yes ofc. dont command if you dont know the rest of the game inside out. i think i misunderstood you there.
Lmk if you guys want me to re-post commander VODs from league matches, I think I still have a few stored up.
We used to have a small commander practice server, that's where i learned to play. Is it still there? if not, someone should start one again to let new commanders have a go in safety.
Ill write up a guide at some point though it will take quite awhile ill try and get some other commanders input on it.
remember, i tried writing it but everyone stopped caring maybe help me out with it and not make X more dumb empty guides?
i forgot the most important tip. you will make mistakes, you even will fuck it up for the whole team. admit it, if not public, at least to yourself. mistakes are great teachers and failing is part of the deal. you wont get good if you never push it to a point where fucking up is an option. always ask yourself what did i do wrong, what could i have done better. you will also get blamed a lot, even though it was not your fault at all. dont get into arguments too much, not bc youre generally wrong, but because theyre a waste of time usually.
Thanks a lot @flasche for huge addition of tips, i gonna use them to edit my post to fulfill useful role and maybe add 3rd part, but seeing Spike wanting making his own "tootorals" topic for commanding ABC, makes this thread a little useless. Addition of Paradox's "good game experience" undefined spectrum makes things even more foggy (Expecting new people to be great from start is little a paradox itself. Learning commanding REQUIRES life experience with it and you never gonna gain it without a proper battle. What i see by that is trying to learn for example Natural Selection 2 commanding just with playing as normal grunt doing frags. It could be waaaay more useful when there was occasion of low player count, patient people training ground, like @VulcanStorm had. Additionally i had some matches as commander before (propably 2008 times when even Empires was just SourceMod) ,but it was so long ago i not sure if i remember anything from builds or research tree.)
what patadox meant is that real newbies, not commander newbies, should stay away from the cv - and i fully agree with that. you wont learn the game by commanding. you need to know how stuff performs first hand. same goes for maps, you should know the ins and outs of the maps you command. where people attack from, where hiding spots are, where the enemy builds up, at what positions can you place forward stuff safely, thats all super important. thats all stuff youll learn as normal field player. later, when you are comfortable enough with the game, you may be able to tell all that from just a minimap image, but thats sure only something for people with a lot of experience, both with the game in general and commanding in specific.
I disagree only with 2 things @flasche . 1# Hidding spots. I often run around main fronts and as far i played i saw mostly a corridor maps, that for me isn't hide and seek map. It is more a push game and world war 1 trenching. Brighten me up if i'm wrong 2# Safely foward placing. It depends mostly on how first push goes. If it is total failure or/and enemy does rush foward, then only main could be just called a safe space. Additionally i pretty sure there are still old folk loving doing foxholes and throwing stones (read as eng grenades) at your beautifully constructions. Again, brighten me up if i'm wrong.
Flasche got every useful point when it comes to new commanding. Personally I wouldn't even mind a new person in the cv seat but only on the condition they learned the command interface before hand. The fastest way to lose a game, have everyone mad at you, and never want to command again is taking 5 minutes to drop that first ref. Assuming you don't get vote kicked out first. People can't even guide these folks because they simply have no idea what vets are talking about, and it's just a painful experience for everyone. Big reason why I want a command tutorial that kinda forces you to do the very very basics. What flasche means by safe forward placing is just being able to know when you can drop a building without it getting destroyed instantly. You don't have to completely clear the area to drop a building, but you have to make sure that you have engies near enough to start building it and that the enemy doesn't have a good means to destroy said building. You really only need to get a grasp of how fast engineers can build something to really understand this, 1 engy is going to have trouble outpacing a enemy engy or gren but 2 can definitely get the building up, things like that.
and with hiding spots flasche meant spots/locations/routes the enemy can use to get pass your frontline undetected (sometimes even with vehicles). and dont fool yourself, even if a lot of maps are "chokepointy", there usually are a few places where its totally possible.
@MartinPL Flanking is like the most important part in empires. 1 good flank with 1 squad can decide the faith for the rest of the game. If you can take out the rax they are spawning out of during a tug of war trench warfare style game. You completely change the tide
also bc lazybum casually mentioned it, you should be familiar with the empries terminology, it needs to be like a 2nd language to you. that definately should also be part of a tutorial. "comm im at b4 gimme a rax next to the refspot", "get uml after compo", and "do we have apcr?" should not raise any question.
@Paradox Yes i'm aware of that, but still sometimes cavalry comes in time to aid enemy and make life harder, often steamrolling us so we gain nothing in return. Mostly it is guess game if flank gonna be success and crumble enemy or just bad timed and enemy already got meds/ht or even rushing lights to push. Lack of setup AT makes this reflect flank and in addition create their flanking if they didn't pull back to front line. @flasche Too much time passed from last time i played empires so no, terminology isn't thing i can just pick out from dictonary and just be "alpha and omega". 1st one is info to place barracks next to refinery spot in b4 square. (correct) 2nd is do upgrade missile laucher after composite armor, i'm right? (correct) 3rd this is question if we have armor percing composite rounds aviable, i'm right? (Wrong, it is gren last upgrade)
