Chain of Command based Empire

[sYn pHrEAk]

How big is the possibility of having an empire operate like the typical army we think of today?

As in with there being one main person or group that tells each outfit what they specifically need to do. Then the leaders of the outfits sending their squads out to do what their higher ups got them to do. And the leaders of the squads organizing the actual attacks or defensive setups.

It could be where you have to be respectful to your superiors if you wanted to move up the chain of command. How respectful you'd have to be would be up to them.

BEP's and CEP's could also play a roll in who gets chosen to move up.

I think if an empire successfully pulled this off and used it on a server where the other 2 empires were basically just a few outfits doing whatever they wanted, the hierarchical empire would win.

I haven't heard anything about something like this being automated but do you guys agree that it would work well if it could be successfully organized?

How hard would it be to keep together?

What command structures could be used?

[Enkidu]

I hate to keep bringing up DAoC, but their system sort of worked like you have mentioned. I think it would be almost impossible to get an entire Empire to operate like this, but getting a few outfits to operate in this manner, would be easy. In DAoC they had an nice alliance system where guilds could ally with other guilds. This made it a bit more organized to create massive coordinated attacks from many guilds that belonged to the same alliance. I think something like that would be benifical to PS, it would help corrdinate large groups of people a lot easier.

As far as giving any type of automated chain-of-command powers to players would probably not be the best thing; only if you are refering to these powers to be outside of their outfit. The point is for everyone to play a game and have fun. The minute you start giving the players too much control over other players, shit will hit the fan. Within an outfit, its a contained community and everyone knows the rules and will work with them. Outside of that, It could create problems.

[Hamma]

It is an interesting concept, and i see no reason why outfits could not do it this way if they wanted to. As you accelerate in CEP's you get access to more toys, being able to utilize those better and assign tasks to your squads and lower commanders would seem to work well. Also ofcourse this high commander would have to go out and have some fun on his own too.

We really wont know until people start getting into the game and coming up with tactics, chains of command, etc.

edit: the chances of seeing this happen empire wide are slim, imo

[stick100]

Originally posted by sYn pHrEAk

I think if an empire successfully pulled this off and used it on a server where the other 2 empires were basically just a few outfits doing whatever they wanted, the hierarchical empire would win.


To be honest I don't think the hierarchical empire would have that much advantage over the other empires, and I will explain.


In a FPS game like TFC for (half-life, quake 2) It is very benefical to cordinate your efforts, for example cordinating your attackers to all attack at the same time, to heal each other ect.

It is benefical to cordinate you mid-fielders/harassers, so they can work together to hunt down incomming people, heal each other in downtime etc.

It is also benefical to cordinate your defenders to handling the people that got past your mid-fielders, and to slow them down.

It is very benefical to have good comminication within these 3 groups, and occasional light communication between groups (someone got past, that sniper is annoying me can you get him on the way to the flag... ect.)

But as long as the people with the groups know what they are doing or have a leader, they will do equal to or better then if one person decided they needed to cordinate the whole teams effort.

Of course there are occassionally times when a all powerful commander would be useful, such as when every single teammate plays defense when you are behind. In this case someone needs to kick the lead out of your teammates and get em fighting, but in general I feel that the game systems they have described (less exp for areas that are crowed by your team, and light on the enemy) will take care of this need (need for top commander to get people to do in general the right things).

However I do agree that cordination between several attacking outfits would be helpful (arrive at the same / heal each other / redeloy to more contested spots early in base raiding...)

But I don't think that a total commander commanding defense should ever be needed, I think that game itself will provide enough information / incentive / punishment (informed carrot and stick approach) that people will defend what's needed.

[Hamma]

Dont forget high ranking commanders get access to resources lower commanders dont have.

[stick100]

Originally posted by Enkidu
I hate to keep bringing up DAoC... In DAoC they had an nice alliance system where guilds could ally with other guilds. This made it a bit more organized to create massive coordinated attacks from many guilds that belonged to the same alliance.

Do we have groups of groups (groups of outfits...)? I thought I heard about that once. Wern't they going to call it a fireteam or something like that?

[afex]

i dont think this would work, simply relying on the fact that people, in general, dont like to be told what to do by some stranger.

if i logged on for an hour or so before i hit the sack, do you think i'm gonna do what i want, or am i gonna follow some guys orders who i dont even know?

this would be a "good" system if humans weren't involved. kinda like communism. its a great "idea", but in implementation, it'll never work.

and if people want missions, they get them from the home base, since they are generated for the game.

if i was in an outfit, and we are coordinating a raid, that is one thing, but for the majority of people that just want to log on and kill things, this wont work.

[stick100]

Originally posted by afex

and if people want missions, they get them from the home base, since they are generated for the game.


Well I beleive that highly ranked commanders can create some missions, so if people do this then in some ways it is a chain of command based empire :) .