How do commanders get their team to listen?

Discussion in 'Game Play' started by [D3]Leroy Jenkins, Jun 30, 2009.

  1. [D3]Leroy Jenkins

    [D3]Leroy Jenkins Member

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    Since I've gotten back into to empires i spend about 70-80% of my time in game commanding. I've learned to love and hate commanding. At its best its a rewarding and fun experience; at worst its you being blamed for any and all problems including the idiocy of the team.

    A problem that I've encountered while commanding is getting people to listen. At first i didn't have a mic so i cited that as the problem since that's what everyone says a commander needs to communicate with their team and that was the only thing i didn't have. So i got a mic it has helped a lot in response time and communication but many times my team still won't listen to me. Example: I tell alpha to go west they don't i repeat for another 5 minutes still no one goes west. Or main base gets apc rushed i tell one squad to fall back or killspawn to base no one listens. There have been countless occasions where we could have won if only my team had listen to me.

    So my question is what am i doing wrong? I mean I'm not being annoying by either spamming, being to loud or hard to understand. What i am telling them to do is not unreasonable. So is it my fault, the teams, or both?
     
  2. ScardyBob

    ScardyBob Member

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    Try to get 3-5 people who know what their doing and will follow your orders. They will basically win the game for you. The rest of the team is just cannon fodder, so put a barracks near the enemy so they constantly tie up the other team.
     
  3. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

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  4. -=SIP=-

    -=SIP=- Member

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    That's empires.
    Fail team doesn't listen to commander. And if they loose it's of course the only fault of the commander.
     
  5. Deadpool

    Deadpool SVETLANNNAAAAAA

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    if alpha wont go west, order the guys who are going west to do what you want, dont fight with them, if they dont want to stick together that's their problem. I find that it helps if you say why you want a particular area, cause ppl might be thinking 'fuck that im goin this way its more important'.
     
  6. communism

    communism poof

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    Just do what I do,
    only command when your drunk.

    1. Its funner
    2. Doesn't matter if you lose, cause your drunk... thats a win win
     
  7. Metal Smith

    Metal Smith Member

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    you could always try and ask your team. Odds are there are at least 3 people who want to win and will go where you ask them to.
     
  8. Killersteel

    Killersteel Member

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    Be a commander, don't take no for an answer :P, might result in a lot of pissed off players but you'll start running your team like a bloody military. You are their highest rank, you know what they should be doing and where they should be going, they shouldn't be argueing with your orders...or at least people who wanna win shouldn't.
     
  9. PreDominance

    PreDominance Member

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    Remember, if they ain't gettin the job done right, you gotta go and do it yerself!
     
  10. [D3]Leroy Jenkins

    [D3]Leroy Jenkins Member

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  11. Nickierv

    Nickierv Member

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    A lot of people think that if they just close there eyes/ ignore a problem / wish really hard the problem will just go away. There are countless times that I have needed 1 or 2 people somewhere to stop a problem from growing, but no one is willing to take care of it. 2-3 minutes later, I need half the team to kill the ninja base that got set up.

    If you are giving move orders and targets, and have a good grasp on a research plan, you are doing something right.

    My personal list of how to win: If the first suggestion is unavailable or not working, go on to the next.

    Make sure that there are at least 1 or 2 people who you know know what is going on and can follow orders on you team. Some people call it stacking, I call it having a decent team. Thats another story.

    Be adaptive. If you tell alpha to go west but delta goes west, use them.

    Google HSM. If the team still is not getting the hint, try the following:

    Annoy the team just a bit: lock the vf to get people out of the VF, recycle walls to get people to move up.

    Don't be afraid to do just a bit of flaming. This one is optional.

    Sometimes, it is best to lead by example. Don't be afraid to do a bit of boomtanking, just watch out for mines. If the team is not listening to you, there is no way that you are going to get kicked from commander.

    /ragespec or /ragequit

    But whatever you do, don't grief. As far as I know, there are no server rules that you cant leave the game. Democracy ends when the command vote ends.
     
  12. OuNin

    OuNin Member

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    I play as commander sometimes, but I don't command. The trick is just guiding the chaos and concentrating it into a spearhead.
     
  13. MiamiHeat87

    MiamiHeat87 Member

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    Check out the tactical threads on commanding from the Project Reality mod. Their game is similiar in being a RTS and FPS hybrid and has plenty of tactical information from battle strategy to the psychology of dealing and working with human players.

    Project Reality Commander Tactica Forum
     
  14. spellman23

    spellman23 Member

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    We may want to add a way to make commander's voice chat and text chat more noticeable. A different color sounds good. It helps identify that this person is important and you should listen.

    Beyond that, it's all about having people that listen and being able to impose your will authoritatively over the internet. Trust me, it's no easy task. And of course there's when you rage that 3 LTs get creamed by 1 AFV and a Gren.
     
  15. harryhoot1

    harryhoot1 Member

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    If your teammates are blaming you (the commander) for their own incompetence. Then you should stress how your team isnt listening to you. That way, at the end of the game, people will say things like, "noobs didnt listen to the commander" or "we had decent comm, but a fail team"
    As oppose to, "NOOB COMM" or "OUR COMM COULDNT SPEAK ENGRISH"

    The way I command, i make it so that it's my team's fault if we lose ;)
     
  16. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    I'm the flip side...I just like to remember that we're all there to have fun. If people want to play it their own way and are categorically ignoring what i'm saying it, I will stress it a few times relatively calmly, and then I will highlight the consequences of what they're doing. I'm usually quite lucky though, people mostly seem willing to listen, especially when I call them by name and pay attention to what they want. I let people sort out where they're going themselves, but I do lay out what they need to capture. They can choose whether it's alpha or delta going NE or SW, I don't need to do that.

    I try and pay attention to the skill level of the person i'm addressing. If they look new, i'll give them more stuff they might need to survive and hold an area. If they're sneaking around the map, I try and take advantage of it to get up a random barracks or some turrets or anything really.

    I have seen utterly terrible teams, so I know what that's like, but I gotta say that's usually 5% of the time, which isn't a large percentage at all. The one thing I would say, is HSM's commanding style is great for rallying a team, but if they're not interested, it gets less and less people to do things. If you use a friendly commanding style, anyone who's not listening still might not listen, but the rest will be happier and more willing to. You can always sideline those guys who aren't listening and give advice and help to those who are, even if they're the newbs, they usually do okay...and people remember if they hate you or not.

    I dunno, that's just how I like to do it. Some people say it may be because I don't mind losing, but that's not really the case. I'm in for the game. I'll be pretty stressed if we're on the backfoot all map, but in the end, I won't mind too much if it's a good game. If it's a shitty game and we somehow managed to pull a win through some gheyness, it's pretty crap...but at least we won :p It's win-win...the only time it's crap is when both I and most of my team aren't having any fun.
     
  17. o_O

    o_O Member

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    Call people by name when you want them to do something.

    People that are new to a game, or games in general, cannot play and listen or read chat at the same time. They just tune out all the "Blabla ref blabla tank" unless they hear their name.

    Edit: Also, pay attention and give people feedback on what they do and WHY its good or bad. If alpha squad takes out a rax, tell them they done good because they took an important location. If Bravo tries really hard to take out a rax but fails, well shit happens they still did good. This goes for bad stuff too, if someone drives a spawn APC into the enemy VF and NO ONE SPAWNS even after you SHOUT at them, tell your team they are retarded because a proper wave of killspawns would have demolished the entire base and won the game.

    Explain things just a little bit. When you tell everyone to ignore city on cyclopean or the refs on crossroads, people might think its stupid and ignore you. Now they don't need a 5 paragraph essay on strategy, but explain that capping city means a whole squad will sit there playing with parashoots and walls and its a deathtrap anyway.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2009
  18. MiamiHeat87

    MiamiHeat87 Member

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    Normally, commanding is using your authority to take charge of a team and set out tasks for your team members to accomplish. You critique, counsel, motivate, and enforce standards. This goes for military, work-place, and any other JOB or MISSION that needs to be done rather it is shopping for food you need for a homeless shelter or trying to secure Fallujah, Iraq from insurgents as a Marine General.

    This also applies in-game. The only thing is you don't have the real authority a military commander in real life does. People do not have to follow what you say and you can't punish people for not following orders as you can in say the U.S. Army. You have to persuade people to follow you and be a diplomat at dealing with different types of persons.

    Have a quick read on this article about persuasion. If your really serious about being a great commander, study sociology. You also should be an expert in your field and a walking (or rather, speaking) human Wikipedia when it comes to Empires related problems and questions.

    If you look like you know more then the person following you, are able to influence them to follow your direction and believe that your the best choice to be commander, and have them think that by completing your orders they will have a more enjoyable time playing the game rather then not, that person will follow you. Have that one person follow you, and you can get the others to follow you as well. You just have to juggle different types of people!
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2009
  19. spellman23

    spellman23 Member

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    Yeah, trying to rule with an iron fist doesn't usually work. Being flexible and considerate and directed if definitely the way to go.

    At the same time, don't let your team run over you. Sometimes they'll whine and bitch but if you know what you're doing to the tech you want and play it out. There's a reason it's not a democracy.
     
  20. McGyver

    McGyver Experimental Pedagogue

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    The commander in Empires is a servant for his team, he has little power to convince the team to follow his strategy.
     

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