Theory crafting: names for different scales of gaming and roles on big team games

PA is a game with many levels. It is good 1v1 on small planets and systems but it's real promise is to deliver massive scale with big planets and systems played by big teams. With big teams comes possibility for diversity and making some framework for roles within a team. With this understanding it can be possible to plan UI and mods, specialice and practise certain role with a team and create variety in systems.

What I'm about to tell you is not really necessary consept for games with teams of three or less players each. However, when we get teams of 10 or more players this reading could became very useful for clans to read.

Different roles are prefered by different players and diversity happens already in existing team games to some extent. I remember when player limit was higher these roler were more common to see and distinguish. One reason for differentiation is that when scale comes big enough, it becomes impossible for individual players to marvel in each role. All roles remain however important troughout the game and success in any can archieve the crucial benefit and victory.


Frontier commander: FrontCom (or BattleCom or Fighter Com)

This role is very familiar from 1v1 scenarios in short games and played in small maps when bases are close to each other.

In practise the player focuses on using the units in his command to their fullest. Actions he is giving to his troops are for dodging the incoming artillery and airbombs, retreat to preserve units waiting and craving for optimum confrontation, use number keys to lock combat units and concentrating fire to optimal targets.

Mission objective is often to destroy enemy army, delay enemy army, make progress on hostile territory, destroy enemy buildings, crack a planet or snipe the commander. Includes lots of "micro" focused on combat units in single frontier. Once objective is archieved, player will likefully move to another place where action is happening and takes control of units there. Can be in multible fronts simultaneously if necessary or capable, but doesn't prefetably take active role in building base, eco or logistics. Frontier commander fights on land, air and sea. Take advantage of enemy's weaknesses of base building or army positions or army compination.

Strategical idea of the FrontCom role is to gain tactical advantage on specific battlefront by having a focused player fighting thus giving possibility to other players focus on other tasks. Also advantage is gained in the confrontation itself, becouse FrontCom can devote totally to controlling units and should perform better against opponent who is trying to multitask.

Base commander: BaseCom

Base commander is also very common type to see in existing games. 1v1 which take little longer have this form, as are free-for-all and teamgames where everyone is responsible of their own base. By default everyone strarts as BaseCom.

BaseCom does also control troops in the vicinity of his base, but does not entirely devote in to it. He might be fighting in multible fronts when defending the base and expanding. Trying to eco on a base, create variety of buildings, build factories and gain map control in the vicinity of the base and spead the base and create the army.

Mission objectives of the BaseCom are often to build base with sufficient factories and eco and sending units to frontier. Specially going to tech 2 eco and building necessary defences. Defending the base from raiding and attacking to the close vicinity of the base.

Base commanders often take care of one base efficiently, good players maybe two or three, depending the skill and prioritasation made by the StratCom.

Planet commander: PlanetCom

Planet commanders main objective is to conquer the planet, hold the planet and eco the planet. Most common version of this is when player is to sent off to another planet to inhabit it. Players often behave very different on secondary planets compared to primary ones, since they don't build "base" but build everything where ever everything fits. Planet commander might still be in charge of a planet once it is taken full control of, when objective is to fully eco the planet, build armies to send other planets, defence from planet cracking, building annihilation buildings and new bases.

PlanetCom is mostly the position where one player controls the entire planet. After invasion this role might change to another role in the team, like FrontCom or BaseCom. PlanetCom could maybe alter on be similar role to the StratCom, where his strategical operation area would be one planet.

Orbital commander: OrbCom

Orbital in total is its own sphere and for that reason it might need totally its own player devoted to it. It can be deciding factor when it comes winning or losing the game. OrbCom commands the orbital units in whole solar system. Devoted OrbComs are often seeing in the late game, when action on the surface of the planets has ended, despite the fact that having a devoted OrbCom could be useful also earlier into the game.

OrbCom builds orbital eco, defences, factories and recon. He is also the commander of the orbital fleet and moves them from one planet another and withing the orbits of planets. He will constantly be looking for orbital view and informs teammates for events there and makes request for land-to-orbital defences. He builds teleportest to other planets.

OrbCom has very important missions, especially in the late game. He has to have good recon of the enemy, he has to prevent enemies landings on planets and has to prepare and land on other planets. He also snipes enemy Commanders and strategical buildings.

OrbComs benefit for the team is to gain supremecy in the orbital, thus giving the team access for ultimate recon, possibility for invasions to other planets, orbital snipes of the commanders and orbital eco. These can all be extremely important factors when deciding the winner of the game.

Construction commander: ConsCom

ConsCom is usually seen when team or player is aiming for strategical buildings, or getting access to higher tech. He could also do many other things in the team by being the general builder and consumer of the eco.

His missions are building relater. Builds important general structures and logistics from one base to another, is responsible for teleporter gateway system. Arms the bases with defences and planets in their strategic points when others are busy with battles. Building safeheavens for commanders thus protecting them from snipes. Covering planets with land radars and small resistance bases. Building more bases to all planets and covering them with bases and defences, so that even if planet is cracked, it will be difficult to clean. Can quickly change priorisation and stop production in some places. Responsible for evacuation if facing planetary annihilation or defeat on a planet. Builds nukes, halleys and Lasers.

Strategical role of ConsCom is to make conquered map control safe, protect commanders, build logictics, build reserve factories and build strategic buildings. Strategical purpose of the role is also the use of all eco which is used. No eco should go to waste, but not stall either. Idea is to make that no base alone is vital for continuity of battle; lose of one base or planet won't cause the gg automatically. All bases should be somehow capable to be bases of operation and struggle against the enemy. Tries to eliminate the most obvious weaknesses which enemy could use. Prevents that the enemys has no easy means for victory.


Economy commander: EcoCom

Responsible for maximising economy. His motto is: all the mexes, all them t2, never powerstall, infinite storage, no wreckage shall go to waste! Tries to prevent stall and spread the economy to multible bases and multible places, so that even if some is lost it won't cause economical defeat right away.

Objective is to gain all possible eco available. EconomyCom is succesful, when enemy can be defeated by the sheer economical advantage. By continuasly building also in planets which are not in total control or which are losing thus delaying the total takeover by the enemy while also keeping every little economical benefit which can be gained.

Strategic commander: StratCom

Strategic commander is responsible for overall strategy and overall situational awareness. In practise he will decide about the spawning strategy: which planets and separated or together. He will also deside the changes in the roles of other players and their areas of operations. He will decide the most important areas of battle and moves Frontier and Base players to areas where they are needed. He will also give missions to prevent the tunnel vision of these players.

StratCom will decide the prioritasation when it comes to building constructions, bases and eco. What are the most important places where eco will be spent and from where it will be gained. He will also deside when to give up on a base or planet and where to send reinforcements. Big movements of armies will be decided by him. StratCom is also responsible for desiding where to land nukes and planets and where to shoot with laser.

The most important task of StratCom is to maintain situational awareness. Know where enemy bases are, where they have production facilities, where they have unprotected eco, where their commanders are, how the battle in overall is going on. This information is necessary so that he will know how to give other players opportunities so that they can play at their fullest.

StratCom is also responsible for diplomacy. When will alliances be formed and when broken and when to have cease fires. What is the nature of alliance, should also eco be shared. Also the discussion with other team is essential.

Good theorycrafting you've done there, really cool.

Before I read through the rest of it, just wanted to point out that you missed out on an opportunity here.

Base controller: BaCon

I love playing all types in team games, and am usually experienced enough in RTS games that I can easily switch roles to fit the situation.

Overall I am best suited to StratCom and PlanetCom, But have been knowen to FrontCom for my side's EcoCom's and ConsCom's.


My experience at strategic analysis, and my devious counter intelligence over teamspeak is rather legendary amongst my friends.

Too often have makeshift alliances ended in my favour, and too well have my opponents been coerced into fighting in my favour.

My snakes tongue and ambushes are what make me the best player amongst my friends, where as the second best has better micro and equal macro skills, the others having varying specialist macro talents, making me the best, not because I play better conventionally, but my ability to think outside of the box and surprise my opponent, not to mention my chaotic battle strategy that changes with each battle makes my forces hard to counter even with hundreds of hours of experience behind my fiends, on my side and against it.

Im not a fan of calling myself better, and im not, my macro has been beaten, and my micro leaves much to be desired.

But through cunning and strategy, I don't need to be better directly, and nor am I.


P.S. and this is only through SupCom 2, looking forward to PA to push this into overdrive.

Okay, now having actually read through the details in a little more depth, I feel I should weigh in on this a bit since this is something I've thought about, discussed and tried with others many times.

There are threads in the Realm forums somewhere where we tried to have a similar discussion about compartmentalisation of roles (I think they're in the private areas, because we're not giving away our strats ). A while back when the big games were accidentally possible, this was suddenly a situation we were facing and I thought very similarly to the way you have above, spent hours theorycrafting and drawing up what each team player ought to be doing.

No plan, as they say, survives contact with the enemy.

Ultimately, it comes down to an issue of practicality. What we found to be the best solution was splitting ourselves between planets. Those deemed to be more strategically valuable would have a higher number of players assigned. Because of how players play, this would automatically draw our resources (metal, energy, and the all-important attention resource) to where they were most needed. Whether nominated or organically, there would always be one player who would shift the players around as needed ("x, can you help y on z planet for a bit?").

It's worth noting that teleporters add a HUGE level of complexity where you have multiple players and multiple planets. Having a team-mate largely unopposed on a planet all to himself is a decisive advantage, as not only can he build eco (the pace of expansion dictated by how much eco his teammates need to draw to stay alive), he can also pump out factories and importantly take lots of initiative in the very fluid orbital layer. Nuke spam is also a winner.

The important thing to note in the previous paragraph: that teammate all alone to himself on that planet? He's currently able to pick and choose between no less than 6 of your 7 roles laid out above (FrontierCom being the exception). Restricting him to only one of those roles just isn't a good idea when he has that much spare space to expand to and that much spare Attention to devote to each of those extremely useful activities.

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With all that said, however, what you've compiled above I'd instead suggest would be a useful rating system and metric by which to measure player skills within the game. That would be useful to captains assembling teams so they know the strengths and weaknesses of the players at a glance. I'd probably condense it down a bit:

• Offensive play (Off)
• Defensive play (Def) (includes your BaseCom and ConsCom)
• Expansion (Exp) (includes your EcoCom and PlanetCom)
• Orbital play (Orb)
• Strategic overview (Str)

As an example:

[RLM]TheWrongCat
Off: 2
Def: 4
Exp: 1
Orb: 2
Str: 5

These are hard to measure in isolation, so would be dependent on either frank self-assessment or third-party assessment. Above basis a scale of 1-5.

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Thanks, by the way, I've not had a good theory-crafting session for a while now and you've reignited my impatience for really massive games. Uber pls hurry.

20 vs 20 me bro. ill take all off: 5's and one of each of the others.
specialty teams

See? Now we're already talking team comps. This is fun.

There has to be a neater way to express those though. Off-5?

Actually Ill take PAG, as my Offensive line, gg mate. just used my whole salary cap

PA fantasy sports teams? o_o

You bet, while i'm at I want Godde and Colin in my roster too. throw in some custard and kisel also. and yep. team OP is made

Oh dammed, should I change that? That could be part of the battlecry of FrontCom "Let's make some BaCom!" It could also be mission name when StratCom gives mission "Cook this BaCom" Haha.

That is something similar I have in mind. In this model, StratCom is the person who makes desicions about who moves to which planet and tries to move certain players into them. I also stated, that this is something which is already happening in the games (not right now, but when games become bigger that is). Person who moves from one planet to another to help in different things often does certain role, which could be named and practised.

Some solution or practice just emerges, but I think some model to practise and organize teamplay will give advantage. One reason why it didn't work in the past is propably that game was in Alfa, didn't have so many units and Realm was only organized group. When bigger forms of Clan Wars come in to play experimenting with teamformations might come necessary again.

I also see that this model could be usefull for different UI and mods. For example, not all roles need all UI. Now when UI is pretty similar with everyone, there is not really clear before game preparations you can do for specific role. I believe that this could be future, and you could practise to use certain hotkeys and UI mods to fulfill certain purpose (I have some recommendations in mind).

I don't see either necessary restrict the PlanetCom's activities. I see it more like a generalist role which consist many roles like you said and deciding trait of the role is more like geografic, the planet. I see also BaseCom kind of generalist role and more territorial. Still that role, when you have to fulfill so many roles in so big territory requires some training; when watching replays and casts not everyone marvels in the role of PlanetCom, when there is so much to do.

Maybe I should add some trait descriptions to the roles? BaseCom and PlanetCom are territorial and basic, where as FrontCom, ConsCom, EcoCom are task specific and special, OrbCom is like compination for now (can change once orbital play gets more depth) by being territorial (all orbital) and task specific (micro orbital units in battle) while being special but necessary, StratCom is strategic but basic. By basic I mean that this role has to be fullfilled by someone and is very natural way to play, and special are something which come only once team size is big enough and teams strategy relies in success of that special role's area.

So in every game you need to have someone deciding for overall strategy and someone has to be building bases. So in 10 men team you could have 9 BaseComs and 1 StratCom and win by territorial control as main asset. But you could also have 5 BaseComs, 2 FrontComs, 1 EcoCom, 1 OrbCom and StratCom. I do not believe, that you need all special roles to win the game, becouse success in only one field can give you advantage to victory.