Presession - Commanding for dummies

Portions of the ACS curriculum for public consumption.
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Clay_Pigeon
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Commanding for Dummies


Introduction
These are the basics: what you absolutely need to know to barely function in the command seat. We will attempt to cover all of the bases here, including con placement, tech purchases, team organizing and finishing the game. This article doesn't have everything you need to know (that's why ACS is a 9 week course), but it will get you started.

The Stack
Many games are won in the lobby, before the game starts. Don't try to command against someone with a vastly superior reputation than yourself. Ask for a commander of equivalent skill, or hand over command to someone else. You'll learn the other factions later, but for now, pick a strong opening faction (IC, Dreg, Rix, etc) and don't allow whomever has game control to stack the settings towards a comeback faction with lower costs, like Bios.

Passive vs Assertive Commanding
Weedman describes this best
QUOTE
The "Passive" commander. This is the commander who HOPES his players will somehow pull together as a team and do what he wants and he or she will say nothing all game. Nothing. When it comes down to it, Allegiance is a team game. A team can mercilessly negate skill factors when the single uber whore with uber whore tech is faced with 10 so-so skilled people in fighters. Get my drift? Yes the 10 will probably lose some of their pilots to the uber whore, but they should not ever lose once in the skirmish. The uber whore will run. Or be podded.

The "Assertive" commander. This is the commander who COMMANDS. Informs, communicates, advises the team on the next move. What will happen.. if you are lucky.. 50% of the team will have actually understood your intentions. 25% will carry out your orders. The other 25% will ignore them. Even though they didn't do what you asked, the other 25% may kill a Miner, or a Con. And the 50% who did not even respond will do what they want to do and you cannot expect anything from them. Fear not however because the same can be said of the opponent.[/quote]
The Standard Opening
Lykourgos outlines the standard opening for most games
QUOTE
With your opening cash buy a miner, op, tp, and ref, in that order of priority. Buy a third miner ASAP. Buy a fourth miner when you can. 3 miners makes an economy but odds are very good that you're losing one, and a four miner economy is better anyway. Also buy enh miners sometime soonish, or enh cons if you're going to be pushing bases. Or both.

Place your op con two sectors away from your garr. Make sure to get it in the MIDDLE of a sector, 3k away from the enemy aleph but not more than 5k. Place your tp in your home, near the GREEN door of your garr. Place your ref in the sector between your garr and op, as close to the he3 rocks as possible. As your miners dock at your garr, send them to the ref sector. NEVER EVER BUILD A REF BY AN ENEMY BASE. Always call for D on cons.[/quote]That last point is important. There is always a chance that both commanders sent their opening outpost to the same sector. You want your opening outpost to live, and your opponent's opening outpost to die. The best way to accomplish this is to send a lot of defense with your constructor, and ask someone to scout a couple of sectors ahead of the constructor's destination.

Understanding Garrison Tech
Garrison tech IS NOT a techpath, and unless you're BIOS, you can't afford most Garrison tech at the beginning of the game. Nevertheless, it is the only tech tree available to you at the beginning of the game, and there are a few useful items that you could buy. Enhanced miners and constructors are always helpful, if you can afford them, but don't wreck your economy trying to get both. Many commanders will put off purchasing their initial refinery, and instead buy enhanced cons to aid expansion. Just make sure that it finishes researching before the outpost is done preparing. Enhanced miners are a good purchase too, but they can wait a few minutes. If the enemy isn't very aggressive with your miners, you can skip enhanced miners entirely.

The other Garrison tech goodies (gunships, adv/hvy scouts, faction-specific whore ships) aren't available until you upgrade your Garrison. You will not be able to afford this purchase for a while, so do not bother trying. In most cases, you want to wait until you have advanced tech before upgrading your Garrison. There are some exceptions, and we'll discuss them throughout the session.

Bombers are a very popular and misunderstood ship that is available without a Garrison upgrade. Many commanders, not understanding what they are doing, buy bombers at inappropriate times and cripple their team. Accordingly, it would be worthwhile to pause for a second and discuss bombing in detail.

Bombing
The problem with bombers is that they cost as much as a techbase, tie up most of your team, and yield uneven results. Many commanders press the "Buy Bombers" button at the first sign of trouble, only to find themselves out teched and out expanded BECAUSE they spent their early money on bombers. There are some good times to buy bombers, but don't bother the rest of the time.

Lykourgos explains
QUOTE
Buy bombers only under the following circumstances:
  1. You are BIOS or TF [maybe Belters].
  2. The enemy has gone tac.
  3. Your opening ops have planted in the same sectors [or not. Consider skipping bombers, whoring enemy miners and expanding with the bomber money].
  4. You have $#@!ed up, are desperate, and they don't have adv tech yet, so you're going to try to bomb their techbase.
  5. You need to get SBs.
  6. You know what you are doing, have planned a bombing game, and are getting adv/hvy scouts, cm3 (vs tac or sup), hvy bombers, ac3, ab3/xrm2, med shield 3, sm shield 3, tp2
[/quote]
So, now what?
Your initial outpost built and your miners are happily mining in your refinery sector. What do you do? At this stage, you have to balance 3 priorities.
  1. For most factions, you want to buy a 2nd outpost/teleport and claim more of the map so you can continue to mine.
  2. You also want to build a forward base that will impede enemy expansion and mining.
  3. You also need a techbase.
Money is scarce, so it is important to try to combine these goals. Attempt to build your 2nd outpost/teleport in a place (two sectors from home) that will accomplish goals 1 and 2. As that con is preparing, dump all of the remaining money into a techbase (some people reverse this, buying the techbase first and additional op/tele after).

Which tech should you buy? The best place to look is in your refinery sector, but you have to work backwards. At the beginning of the game, look for good tech rock in the sectors adjacent to your home. What's a good tech rock? It is one that is not easily accessible from alephs that the enemy may control. Find a good tech rock, and send your initial outpost forward to protect that sector. Because the sector is protected, that's where you want to send your refinery, and that's where your techbase should probably go.

Understanding the techpaths
Now that your techbase is up, what should you buy?

Supremacy
Lykourgos will buy**
Enh fig, Ship Hull, Dumb2, Gat 2, Missile Dmg 1

Weed Explains
QUOTE
Sup. Hull. Do it. Always. If your opponent is Expansion you better have a plan. If that plan involves Bombers, see above. If it involves Galvs, by all means, get it on. But please, please do not make your men fight with Gat 1. You will lose. Going Sup versus Exp is a losing proposition IF you are not more aggressive than Exp team. You can win by killing what matters. Miners. Cons. Save your own Miners. Save your own Cons. Do that, you may well be able to Galv and 2nd Tech the Exp team to win.[/quote]

Expansion
Lykourgos will buy**
Intercepter, He3 Yield, PW Damage, Mini 2

Weed Explains
When he wrote this, Weed was thinking of how to play against Tac with Exp or Sup, but the principles below apply to playing exp in general
QUOTE
Your opponent is Tac on a relatively normal map. Push a Constructor. Do it. Make your team defend it. Push that Con and be an ass. You can devastate any Tac with a base in their Tac sector and alot of hate. This is an aggressive and smart tactic. Waiting too long versus Tac is like feeding the Crocodile who sleeps in your bed. He will eventually taste your blood... Haha! Bombers up. Bombers go. Hopefully you have people camping their Tac door. Often called SPAWN CAMPING, I call it TACTICS. This will work better in the early game. It will be much more difficult and much more stressful if you wait. Do a Con push early.[/quote]

Tactical
Lykourgos will buy**
Stealth Fighter, Hunter 2, Util 2, Sig 2, Ship Energy 1

Weed Explains
QUOTE
I hate Tac. And I love it. I only love it on huge maps. UTL2. Always. Hunter 1 is acceptable for taking Miner shields down, they will not miss. UTL2, must. Just buy it. It's an investment in actually killing a Miner. That is what SFs do. BUT if you still only have Hunter 1 after 10-15 minutes of Tac, kill your commander immediately. Cut his dick off. Sig 2 is valuable. Ship Energy is valuable. EW Range is valuable. Ship Shield, not so much.[/quote]

Shipyard
Don't. Not right now. Maybe later.
**Please note that all of Lykourgos's purchases assume that the team doesn't find the tech in the field, and that the enemy isn't the same techpath. If you see gat 2 floating in a sector, send someone to grab it instead of buying it. If both teams go sup, hold off on buying Gat 2 and try to steal it (especially if you are already stopping enemy runs).

Advanced tech
Once your enhanced tech is finished, begin saving cash for your base upgrade. Many other purchases will tempt you, but you should be socking away most of your income to pay for the adv base. Once you have it, buy the advanced versions of all of the enhanced ships/weapons/gas you bought.

Be careful if the enemy is the same techpath as you. If you are both exp, buying mini 3 for your team will hurt you as much as it will help, so think ahead. If you don't *need* to buy galvs or gat 3 (for example), don't. Let the enemy buy it for you or make due with the enhanced weapons.

Running your economy
The first thing we discuss in ACS is running your economy, so we don't need to go too deep here. A few principles should guide how you run your economy. Stick to these for now, and we'll flesh them out later
  1. Miners are stupid and lazy. Check in on them every 45 seconds.
  2. Think of your miners when you claim the map. Try to claim sectors that will reduce the amount of time the miners spend backtracking. This is sometimes difficult to do, but if you can do it, it will speed up your cashflow.
  3. Keep an eye on the enemy's probable routes to your miners. If you respond to enemy raiders when they are 1 sector away, your miners will have a higher chance of surviving. Save your miners before they are in peril.
Team Priorities and Communication
By now, you should be sufficiently familiar with the game to understand what needs to be done at various points in the game. Still, it is helpful to remind your pilots as to what needs to be done. A good commander understands the flow of the game. A great commander communicates that understanding to his/her team.

Early game
Team priorities during a game's opening stages include scouting the map, basic probing, and constructor defense/offense. As soon as you decide where your initial constructor should go, tell your team. When the constructor is 60 seconds from building, you should see several ships waiting for the constructor to launch or flying ahead of it. If you don't, tell your team. Call people out and put them on con d. Get someone in the enemy's home so you can see where their constructors are going. Eyeing them early increases your chance of killing their opening cons.

As the initial constructors plant and the map takes shape, inform your team as to what needs probed, and where the enemy is mining. You'll probably be building a 2nd op and/or your techbase, so inform your team where those constructors are going, and once again call for d. Call people out if need be.

Miner hunting/protecting is also very important at this point in the game. Both teams' economies are very fragile, supported by one (maybe two) miners. If a team loses a full miner, it will pose a significant setback to their economy, expansion, and tech. Send a couple of expert pilots to go after enemy miners, and keep an eye on your own. Against an unorganized/non-existent defense, a handful of pilots can win the game by killing a team's initial miners. Even if they don't kill a miner, they can stall a team's economy for several minutes by harassing miners.

Your enemy will try to do this to you. Assign people to miner d (two is usually sufficient against casual miner hunters). Likewise, assign people to do it to their enemy. Economics is paramount in Allegiance. Ignore this truth, and you will be sorry.

Mid game
Once your techbase is up and your enhanced tech is researching, the game revolves around impeding the enemy's economy and watching enemy movements via probes. Scan the minimap for dropping He levels, and send your pilots to those sectors. Assure that all of your border sectors and the enemy's home are adequately probed to spot enemy miners, constructors, bombers, and enemy miner killers. Constantly scan those sectors in f3. The size of your miner d should be in proportion to the enemy's aggressiveness and the miners' proximity to enemy bases. There should be one or two ships with your miners at all times, however. Expect it, and assign people if need be.

As your tech is researching, tell your team about major purchases, finds, and when important tech is about to complete. It will help them decide whether they should launch and raise a ruckus, or stay in base for 45 seconds and wait for gat 2. Again, communication is essential the midgame. Don't let 15 pilots to 8 different things. Make them do a couple of things, by telling them which is which.

Late Game
Once you get sufficient endgame tech, your priorities shift. Miners are still important, but not necessary. Don't keep half of your team on miner d. Instead, focus on probing to eye enemy attacks, deprobing, and organizing your team into 1-3 offensive runs. Don't trust your team to organize themselves. Give the base killing ships to a experienced folks and assign them targets. Call people out by name and assign them to the run. If you are doing multiple runs (or counter runs), assist in synchronizing your pilots. Tell them when to go and when to camp. Don't rely on them to figure it out for themselves. Get involved.

Constantly scan border sectors are evidence of enemy deprobing (or your team's apathy). Keep sectors probed. Information means the difference between a total victory, a Pyrrhic victory (you kill their garr, but lose your techbase), and failure. Get those probes out. If there is one really important sector, get a shieldless scout in there to spot enemy activity.

Booting
Spidey explains booting.
QUOTE
Booting is something that can be done to increase the morale of your team or protect your lofty station as a decent yet fair commander. In my experience the following is considered good booting time:
-Player is actively working against the team
-Player has a very bad attitude(not the motivational anger kind) which is bad for morale
-Player stops donating
-Player is flying in circles or afk and can be replaced with an active player
-Player backseat commands and sends conflicting messages[/quote] In almost all cases, you want to warn before you boot, especially if the player is a newbie.

Ending the game
If you are sup, your endgame will probably be based around heavy bombers, SRM or XRM AB missiles, and TP2. This tech relies on Adv Sup and Starbase. Galvs are usually not an endgame strategy for sup, but will buy you time and slow the enemy's endgame while you buy your endgame tech.

If you are tac, your endgame revolves around stealth bombers. You need Adv Tac and bombers for SBS. Cloak 3 is very helpful, as is heavy cloak.

If you are exp, your htts will end your game. You need Adv Exp, troop transport, heavy troop transport, and srm emp. Sig upgrades are very very helpful.

Despite your techpath, a successful endgame relies on a mix of teamwork, brute force, and distracting the enemy. Multiple runs, con pushes and/or getting every single pilot in the enemy's tech sector will do the trick.

Credits: Weed, Lyko, Clay, Spidey
Last edited by Clay_Pigeon on Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." -2 Cor 12:9
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