Supreme Commander Talk

I know this is going to sound incredibly obvious, and rightfully so, but it’s still so important that I can’t help but mention it: teamwork is absolutely vital in 2v2 ranked ladder. Unconquerable and Mentel are currently sitting at 47 wins and 0 losses on the 2v2 ranked ladder. It’s not just because they’re individually great players; they also work very well as a team. Download and watch some of their 2v2 replays and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Unfortunately the replay vault has been emptied out with the latest patch, but Unconquerable and Mentel are playing so many games so often that they’re bound to quickly refill the replay vault with their games. It’s just too bad that replays don’t include text chat; it would really be nice to see what those two are telling each other in game, because they’re obviously coordinating lots of different activities.

Let’s look at some examples of good teamwork. In one match on Seton’s Clutch (unfortunately in v3220) Mentel occupied the position by the land bridge and Unconquerable was on the same side in a protected position. Both opponents were on the opposite side of the map. Immediately, Mentel started going all ground to hold the land bridge while Unconquerable went pure economy. Unconquerable trusted Mentel to hold the enemies off, which he did. Unconquerable developed a large economy at blistering speed and went nearly pure air, utterly demolishing the opponents with large rushes of gunships and strategic bombers, and then torpedo bombers when the surviving opponent fled his commander underwater. Unconquerable and Mentel figured out the lay of the land almost immediately upon the start of the game and took on roles appropriate to their positions on the map.

You can very frequently take advantage of your opponents’ lack of teamwork. Many times they won’t even bother to coordinate building units in preparation for attacks, so you might see an air assault on you or your partner’s base that is coming solely from one enemy. In this case it is vitally important that you help your teammate in the defense. Two players’ squadrons of interceptors will easily overwhelm a single player’s air force, putting them at a big disadvantage when they no longer have planes and both of you still do. Be proactive about the game. You need to be more aware of the map environs than in 1v1, because you need to respond not only to alarmed threats against your own interests but to threats against your partner’s as well.

Along with this, it is vital to communicate your own needs. No one is perfect about keeping tabs on the whole map, and if you let your partner know of some urgent matter they will be able to respond sooner than if they have to realize it on their own. But just screaming “HELP!!!!” across the chat channel isn’t useful. Your partner may be very busy with their own economy and enemy problems, and it’s unrealistic to expect that they have the time to devote to figuring out exactly what your situation is and how they can help. Luckily, they don’t need to comprehend the situation, as you should have a perfectly good idea of your situation and exactly what you need. So communicate that need concisely but clearly. For instance, if you’re being overrun by bombers, you’d say “Send interceptors”. If you discover an enemy fire base close to your own main base and you need help taking it out, ask for help and give a good indication what is needed, such as “Attack fire base NW of my base in 5 minutes.”

Oh, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I was playing one 2v2 and my partner was getting swarmed by bombers while I was rather busy trying to fight a ground war. However, I did have an air factory that had been spamming interceptors, so I had a good number of them just sitting around doing nothing, because the opponent that was near me in that battle wasn’t using air. I finally noticed that my partner was being besieged by bombers and sent out my interceptors to take them out, but that was after a good minute or two of my partner’s base being turned into rubbish. He should have said immediately what his problem was and asked for help. Even if I didn’t have any interceptors on hand, it doesn’t take too long to start building them, and it’s worth it if it means life or death for your partner.

And one more thing. At the start of the game, go into the diplomacy menu and make sure that Share Resources is turned on. Remind your partner to do the same. There are no drawbacks whatsoever to turning this option on; you’re only sharing the resources that would otherwise be wasted. It can really help if one player focuses on getting a good economy with enough energy for two while the other player wages full-on war. This is especially relevant with energy. It is a lot cheaper overall for one player to upgrade to tech 3 and build two quantum reactors than it is for two players to upgrade to tech 3 and each individually only build one quantum reactor.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 9:59 pm by Cyde Weys and is filed under Multiplayer, Strategy. Keywords: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.