Good Commanders vs Good Squad Leaders vs Good Players

It's easy to fault the Commander for any and all losses, but you have to consider where the real breakdown occurred. Sometimes, it's YOU.

Good commanders:
* Have a research plan in mind but may adapt it to conditions
* Are not afraid to get out of their vehicle to help build something they want
* Keep a sharp eye out for ninjas (including, sadly, same-team griefers)
* Place turrets and walls where needed
* Battle the budget -- getting you the walls, turrets and upgrades you need without spending so much doing so that none of you can get a decent vehicle
* Looks for opportunities to place a forward base
* Knows the maps well enough to know what spots NEED to be secured immediately, as well as which spots can hold a forward base
* Assigns targets ("wall hacks") to help people in the field find targets
* Keeps the team updated on the overall battlefield situation

Good squad leaders:
* Know when (and how!) to spend their squad points and when to save them for 0-ticket team revives.
* Are not afraid to direct their own squad on missions of importance.

Good players:
* Know that "yellow dot on map" = "good target" and do not have to wait for their commander or squad leader to order them to go check one out
* Keeps an eye out for opportunities to sneak off and ninja something if it looks like the team is getting bogged down in pointless front line combat (or is losing)
* Doesn't mind doing something boring but important like suiting up as a grenadier and launching rockets at every enemy structure in range, or being an engineer whose life's goal is to look for yellow squares on the map to go build

To win games, it's best to have all 3. Without a good commander, it's damn hard to win. A good commander can try to act like a good squad leader to provide a lot of tactical level direction, but it's a lot better if squad leaders can create their own objectives and let the commander focus on research, turrets and avoiding ninja attempts on his life (I find that the commanders who spend the most time directing squad level combat are the ones who are easiest to ninja). Good players can make or break just about any game. Even if your commander only speaks Japanese and doesn't understand you when you say, "Refinery A6... Refinery A6... Commander? Refinery A6... Hellloooo??", you can still move your team towards victory by going out as a grenadier or engineer and taking down outlying enemy structures, especially refineries. At the same time, even the most awesome commander in the world can't win if nobody builds his nice yellow boxes or takes any initiative to find enemy targets to take down.

Good commanders bring a general plan to the battlefield.
Good squad leaders help coordinate the good players to execute the general plan.
Good players accomplish the specifics.

 

Being com is so much easier when you have functioning squads.
Even if they arn't doing what I would necessarily like them to be doing, them simply doing it together makes battlefield management to much simpler.

 

Sometimes it's pretty hard to order your squad members in pub servers.

 

I was playing emp_money the other day, I researched composite coolant railgun heavies, and the enemy had shotgun rocket tanks. Somehow, my team managed to totally lose the game. People were driving AFVs and Jeeps into missile turrets to save walking twenty feet, utter retards the lot of them.

 

Yeah, sometimes with the squads, people just don't listen. But thats when you kick people out of your squad and only invite people who promise they will listen, and if they don't.. The way of good old Lassie.

 

Squad leaders I dunno... Its doable without em... :p

 

But easier with them

 

Most times squadleaders that direct their squad are some idiots who wants their squad doing some special operation stuff that not really helps the team

 

The only time I've ever seen a squad leader actually be useful is when it's late game and he uses mass revive/health. Whenever I'm squad leader I have noticed the newer players in my squad tend to follow me which can be quite helpful though.

 

I find that even if a commander is totally new to commanding, as long as the team is good and can guide the commander and the commander knows how to listen then it's not too hard to have a good game.

As for squad leaders and players in general...if they at least know how to listen to others then it's good enough. It's players who outright ignore other players which irks me and are IMO the most useless, regardless how good they are at playing.

 

there are squad leaders and then there are the individual good players. and because most people just join for the free skill, these often arn't the same people.

I think having a few good people on the ground that can order your men about is great, but it has nothing to do with whether their squad leaders or not. not in public matches at any rate.

 

True, there's the position of "squad leader" and then there's "that guy who tells Bravo what direction to run" who may or may not actually be in the squad leader position.

I think most (75%?) Empires players respond well to orders (or "suggestions"), if someone feels motivated to give them. I've also seen cases where someone who wants to really lead a squad will head up one and then say something like, "Join Delta for tactics".

Personally, I love it when people do that.

Basically, I've started listing [COM] on my name to signal that I don't mind commanding, I know what buttons to push and I will not, for example, drive the CV into the water, but I'm not one who particularly enjoys lording over my minions and directing their every move. I greatly prefer it when they can intelligently direct their own moves and leave me to watch the overall battlefield, do research, place turrets, watch for ninjas and that sort of thing. I like to give general warnings of what the enemy is up to but I don't think it should be my job to tell people specifically what they should be doing. That much should be obvious to anyone who's sunk more than a few hours into the game.

So good squad leaders make me happy.

 

Yeah slamz I try not to order them around too much just research well, spot targets etc. Problem is a few players can often rush to do the wrong thing at the beginning. I was playing a duststorm match and everyone rushed ruins, which basically wrecked our chance of winning.

Problem is that people only say when they think you commed badly and usually blame the comm no matter what which makes it hard to learn from your mistakes.

One thing I would advise is have a plan for at least the starting phase of every map so that your team doesn't do one of those instant lose strategies.

 

Squad leaders have the ability to organise and direct their squad, which I do if I am one.

Every leader has at least one power which allows him to organise his squad into a specific action, riflemen have charge, grens have arty, engineers have revive, scouts have hide. They can all be used to execute specific attack or defence tactics. The squad aura also gives people an advantage.

Ideally your squad would listen to you, and you would tell the commander what you need, such as wallhacks or turrets, sort of like battlefield when you get a good squad going.

I would like to see some comm powers in the vein of supply drops or something. I'd like to see a squad being able to hold a location without having a spawn there too.

 

Here's a half thoughtout idea that I might aswell blurt onto the forums like every other noob does:


what if squad leaders can revive members of their squad, for free? It wouldn't be as good as engineer revive (it would require you to sit over their body for 10 seconds, yes, 10 seconds while holding E)

 

A bit impractical I'd say.

Although if you're trying to find some way of helping squads stay together simply by being squads, without having to balance the hell out of things like a squad leader spawn point etc, then it's a good start.

 

A spawn point for squaddies, you say?

What about...he's always a spawn point provided that he is currently in the driver seat of a vehicle other than the CV. So a squad leader in a jeep is a spawn point for his squad. An APC is still better since it provides ammo in addition to letting people from other squads join, in addition to being a spawn point even when empty, but I think it would be nifty to be able to spawn beside my squad leader's tank.

Just make it so that when picking a spawn point, your squad leader's point is available as a big star rather than a big circle, so you know what you're in for.



OR (!), give squad leaders a squad ability of "Create Spawn Point". It creates a spawn point at the place where they're standing. Perhaps the graphic is of a manhole cover or something, and can be easily destroyed by the enemy.

We'd need a new mechanic, though: you only qualify to spawn there if you've been in the squad for at least X minutes, to prevent people from rotating people into the squad and spawning the entire team there.

 

spawning has been discussed before, (and shot down)

reviving from squad leaders would be useful, because instead of the "combat revive" that the engioneer has, it would allow squads to bring people back to life after they have won the battle.

for example, you're in the corner of a map, you come up against some enemies, kill them, but lose one of your men. It would be great to be able to bring people back in that position, that would be really working as a squad.

 

As far as I am concerned a squad leader that knows how to spend squad points is the best I can hope for as a commander/player. Typically, everyone just wonders off and whatever people happen to be near a certain area go and do whatever there is to do there.

 

If your in a well organized squad, you probably already have an engine with revive...