| Map OIC - A Primer In Veteran Play |
| Monday, 18 January 2010 13:22 |
 Many players want to experience the top level of the game they are playing. Usually they must “level up” or “grind” to get to the top, and once they are there…the game challenge has essentially ended. Here at WWIIOL, there are 3 different games, and only 2 require any ‘leveling’.FNG (usually military slang for ‘noob’): You are training. You go to the Training Tutorials. You work through them (you should – you live longer on the real battlefield!). Once complete, you are equivalent to a player with 3 months of experience in-game who did not train. Veteran: You’ve played 2 or more full campaigns, and know which towns are critical. You can be deadly in the right circumstances. You pwn all n00bs in your sector AND remain alive and tactical (i.e. ‘frosty’). This level goes from the ‘1 trick pony’ veteran who plays one weapon and style, all the way to the ‘salty dog of war’ who can fly, float, drive, run to battle while eating cheetoh’s and still not getting any orange crumbs on the keyboard. This vet may have 3 monitors, Matrox Triple Head and IR tracking, web based FireBase attack notifications and estimates of enemy casualties in all brigades on the map (these all do exist). What level is above Veteran Salty Dog? The Strategic Game. The game of placing AO’s and moving brigades and spending hours playing chess against an invisible opponent on the other side of the map. The hardest part of our game to master: Map OIC. There are 2 ways to move a brigade on our WWIIOL:BE map; Be in the High Command (highly recommended and needed), or you can volunteer to be made an OIC (officer in charge) of a single brigade. The High Command will recommend you, and in a few minutes you will be asked if you wish to be the OIC of the brigade. Now no one but you can move that brigade, and your name appears on our UI to tell everyone that you are the OIC of that brigade. This discussion is about players who are in the High Command and wish to learn the map (I can write another article about how you can actually run a map as Brigade OIC, but it takes longer and requires you to change brigades very, very often). The best part about OIC Volunteer is that it gives you access to the High Command channel – where you will learn that the High Command is really not what you think – neither as good nor as bad as you imagined. You will learn that players like you are doing their best to win, and dealing with the very same things you see on Target or Origin channel. Agreement, disagreement, discussion and new ideas. And some fun. But its really just a game channel in blue. Now, a veteran player who wants more challenge is encouraged to learn one skill before attempting the Map OIC position: A thick skin. Can you imagine if the world's top athletes had to read Side Channel and Objective Channel and receive pm's as they played their game? You will have all manner of players texting you, from the helpful to the decidedly unhelpful. It takes time to figure out who you should listen to and who you should ignore. But this is a needed skill to take command. Let's say you can ignore bad ideas and identify a good idea...but do you know how to learn? Do you remember when you first day you played this game – and how bewildering it was? Your first days on the map are also a new game in thinking strategically and planning ahead. No longer does an individual town matter – now you are playing the map and brigade placement matters. How should you learn? Get an experienced Map OIC and get on TeamSpeak or Ventrilo with them. Have them talk to you about why they are making moves and what plans they have. Listen. Try to see what they are talking about. Ask to be a Map XO (executive officer) to them and ask them to let you make the moves that they recommend, and check supply at brigades for them (it is handy to have pen and paper nearby – there are a lot of numbers and brigades to keep straight). Let's go over some new things that matter more to Map OIC's than regular veterans: 1)Depots in a town that are not spawnable: Every veteran knows to find and watch the enemy's spawnable depots, but depots in a town also tell you which towns link to any town. These links are how you have to move your brigades. Don't think this is hard? Look around Ramet-Huy area. Those links are not what you expect. There are few more around the map that make life tough for Map OIC's. Learn them and you are a step ahead of most other Map OIC's. 2)Movement rules: Brigade HQ's must be close to their daughter brigades, or neither can move without the other moving first. You can easily strand a brigade by moving the HQ and 2 daughter brigades and suddenly your brigade that was left behind cannot follow you. This is the basic trade of Map OIC's and simply knowing the basic rules will help you defend your side against the enemy's break-outs, even when the enemy is over-populated. 3)More Movement rules: You are issuing commands from the seat of command of a brigade: If you leave that brigade before the command has actually been performed by the system, the system will ignore the command...this is a common beginner's mistake and there is no warning about why it happened, so it tends to flummox those Map OIC's trying to learn on their own. Look at the High Command Control Panel (.hccp) and read what it says. The orders issued by you from your brigade are displayed on there with a delay to allow you or someone else to veto a mistaken order. Good news! You can fix your errors before they become real. 4)The Enemy's Moves: What are they moving and why are they moving it? Which FB's are blown or being blown? (Many players use the Orion-X program that gives an alarm when the enemy blows an FB and tells you where it was blown. Where is there EWS going off suddenly? What is the kill/death ratio in a particular area (which allows you to estimate supply of the enemy – and is also available in software programs for both sides). 5)What is the population status of the entire game and my side? Xiper's famous Battleground Europe Toolset is indispensable to letting you know who is capping where and who is moving what brigade. If you see the enemy's Map OIC in a particular town capping a spawnable – you can bet that 99% of the time there is a major offensive planned there). These basics, and the software tools that help you (TeamSpeak, Orion-X, BE Tools, etc.) can be used by any player to become better at the game. Plus, its more fun to know who is capping where and what FB's are going down (you can get in a personal battle of wills around an FB very easily when you start to care about these tools – and that also makes the game more intense). But most of all – you will start to pick your head up and see the larger game that was always going on around, but that you may not have noticed much unless it was impacting the town you were in (Why did that High Command move that Brigade out – are they stupid? No. They understand items I talked about above, and more – and they know that your brigade had to move out – even if it killed your UMS – because supply was tight there or elsewhere and the movement keeps your over-all side in better shape). What you see above is a good start. But its just that – a taste of what Map OIC is. Is it hard? No. It is complicated? No more complicated than what you had to learn to become a Salty Vet on the battlefield. It's just that when you died in your rookie days, few people noticed. When you are a Map OIC, you are Patton. You are Rommel. You are Montgomery. All of these generals had to make decisions, and all of them faced disagreement from headquarters, public failure, and having their every move scrutinized. But they became more than a Map OIC – they were famous – they were the equivalent of: The Senior Map OIC. And if you've played a winning campaign for your side, and there was a Senior Map OIC online – you knew it. You knew it because you trusted the moves – they were online a lot. They got players rallied, and the brigade movements on air, sea and land were amazing. Everything was in its place before you needed it....so what is a Senior Map OIC? A Senior Map OIC is rare. These players are the best of the best. They play long hours. They take over campaigns. Their strategies are implemented because they remain on the map and re-take it again soon. They have learned by their mistakes. They are simply able to do one thing very, very well: They can see the map moves as a movie, not as an individual snapshot of photo's. The CinC's tend to devolve decisions to them. They get a name on their side. When they are playing they are making friends with good players and squad leaders in the air and naval and ground teams. They coordinate, stay positive under pressure and make sure everyone is having fun...and they win. A lot. They can win in underpopulation environments. They minimize losses when the enemy is on a roll. They have decided that they can make things work better if they are in charge. They have a lot of confidence. They are usually fun to be around. There are different Map OIC experts under different conditions. Some are great High Pop Map OIC's. Some are great Low-Pop. Some are great in a group, some must run individually. There is no right answer. There is simply experience – if you try to learn it you will learn it, and then you can “see” with new eyes. Viola! You are a Map OIC. If you really try to master it, and start to understand your enemy, find where the map and your side's population best fit against the enemy's strategic brigade setup – and you suddenly find you place an AO there, and everyone gets excited...you are well on your way to becoming a Senior Map OIC / God of War. This game depends on the individual players volunteering, stepping up and doing more than any other game. We need you to try to become your best, and help us deliver the best war game to the rest of the world. We can't do it without you. S! to those who have given much in this game and are truly Senior Map OIC's. You know who you are. JOKER007 |
Keep rocking and pawning!!
yours
Ereck
Axis CinC
S! all
3 Luftflotte XO
Giggadee
Great post!
thx
MrToad