I've played in a few games with Sarkis as commander, and he does seem to be quite effective at getting artillery in the right general places and ordering up recon etc. This can be very helpful as far as providing support for what people are doing.
I don't think I've ever heard him speak, or give any sort of instruction about which flank or objective to head for. If the team is clever enough, or the map well known enough, to have the rest of the team do the right things anyway, then that's fine.
In my opinion, if the map requires more hands on direction, I haven't seen that from Sarkis when I was on his team. I assumed it was down to language issues, and I'm not going to criticise someone for not speaking a foreign language with confidence (My French is good enough to get around France as long as I can use both hands for gestures, I'd hate to try to give instructions in RO2 in it. )
The thread is about
Station, attacker's ultimate nightmare, not
Sarkis, ultimate commander warfare. Really, guys, cmon, see the difference. I'm talking about the map and you flood me with commander talk. I naively jump into commander talk and now you want to talk about actually commanding people. Give it a break! Choosing the Commander role and doing what is required by the class is one thing, being some sort of strategy dude is another. There are 32 people on the team, everyone pretty much knows what to do alone, and there is plenty of people doing tactic talk. If you really want to hear me give tactical advice and stuff, you can ask nicely. But I don't think that is the reason we are suddenly talking about me as a commander...
It is not about me! It's about the bloody Station One Map and why that is the only map in RO2 that still has big balance issues, after all others were revised to achieve greater balance.
Why is Station hard, even thought attacking victories are possible, happen all the time, sometimes are even easy, why?
Because:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Reinforcements. . . . Defense Reinf.. . . . .Assault Difficulty . . . . .Attacker's advantage*
Spartanovka. . . . . .330 : 280. . . . . . . . . . .85%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Hard. . . . . . . . . . . . .Nothing
Apartments. . . . . . 280 : 250. . . . . . . . . . . 89%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Hard. . . . . . . . . . . . .Only 4 capzones
Red Barracks. . . . . 240 : 240. . . . . . . attack/attack
Mamayev Kurgan . 320 : 300. . . . . . . . . . . 94%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Normal. . . . . . . . . . .Nothing
Commissar's. . . . . 340 : 260. . . . . . . . . . . 76%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Very Hard. . . . . . . . .Nothing
Red October. . . . . .400 : 340. . . . . . . . . . . 85%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Very Hard. . . . . . . . .Extra T-34
Gumrak. . . . . . . . . 130 : 110. . . . . . . attack/attack
Pavlov's. . . . . . . . .280 : 280. . . . . . . attack/attack
Grain Elevator. . . . 270 : 250. . . . . . . . . . . 92%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Hard. . . . . . . . . . . . .Cutting enemy reinforcements at D cap
Fallen Fighters. . . .300 : 300. . . . . . . attack/attack
Station. . . . . . . . . . 330 : 300. . . . . . . . . . .90%. . . . . . . . . . . . .Very Hard. . . . . . . . . Nothing
* Aside from more initial reinforcements, arty timer or type, capzone layout, routes, spawnwave timer, etc..
Sparta is a well know complicated map for attackers;
Apartments is a clear cut deal, the best team wins;
Mamayev is slightly complicated for attackers, attacking is made easy by a very short spawn time, good routes and favoring capzone layout;
Commissar's will make attackers die a lot, but defender's reinforcements run out a lot easier; Red October is generally hellish for attacker's, the extra tank still helps;
Grain Elevator is a very challenging assault, not in anyway easy, but doing well and capturing D forces the defenders into an costly aggressive defensive stance and later all their reinforcements, paying off the attacker's hardships of the begging of the map, Grain Elevator can immediately swing from being hard to being a walk in the park, so winning is very much on the attacker's hands, as D is the forth cap, but servers as staging area for attacks on C as well.
Station has the toughest initial assault of the game, the section made up of caps A, B and C. After that, D and E are somewhat easier but still favors the defenders, naturally, as holding 2 caps at the same time is harder than holding one at a time. If the defenders hold strong in D, taking E is as good as useless for the attackers, momentarily. F, the last cap, is an easy one to cut off, but still can be tricky to attack. Reinforcements for the attacking team don't generally last until F.
Sparta is a hard map, and still we win attacks in it on a daily basis, Red October is harder, but victories also happen, Station also sees daily victories for the attackers. My only point is: Station happens to be the hardest of all, not impossible, not very rare, but really hard, when both teams fight on equal footing in a full server, is damn hard, because the attacking Germans don't have enough reinforcements to get the job done, or something else to make it up for it. As is happens in Sparta, sometimes in Grain Elevator, Commissar's, in fact any map, but Station One is the map where that happens the most.
Nope. Artillery is all about area denial. Getting kills is nice, but it's the fact that you're locking down an area that is tactically important. Whether you keep them from entering or moving through the area because you kill them, or because they think better of walking into the loudly-exploding zone of death, is of secondary importance. The most effective artillery I've seen has been the ones that block off the most secure route the defenders have into the contested area, forcing them to take a much more exposed route covered by MGs and riflemen. The artillery didn't kill a single person, but it lead to dozens getting pinned down or killed by the rest of the team, and let the offense bleed out the defenders in the cap and take it.
Double Nope. The most effective artillery is not the one that will give enemies an uncertain fate, or make them have to wait until the shots are over so they can resume their attacks, the most effective is the one that kills them and makes them into pieces, ending their lives. Area denial plays a major role, but is not permanent, taking away a ticket is. In 20 seconds those mortars will end and will all be a bunch of texture explosions on the floor, you have to align area denial with probability of kills. Make the enemy pay with lives for their attempts to gain or retake ground. Denying them territory alone just makes them dig up and wait, or do something else, it just buys your team time, but reinforcements are more important than time.
Obviously is most down to crazy enemies who take the stupid risk of getting hit. But that's not to say a good commander can't put that to good use, when picking what he believes is the better target. Preferably a place where they need to pass through or fight in, instead of the final place they want/need to go.
The most effective arty call that I've seen was the rocket call that killed 18 german attackers in the Mamayev beta event, months ago, that I called my self.
I'm not "coming to terms" with the idea that Station is a hard map because that's the exact opposite of what I see in-game. I've seen several battles where the Russians put up that coordinated and highly-competent defense you speak of, and the Germans still won (Proper use of artillery and smoke can wreck the defense). I can't think of the last time I saw Station come down to reinforcements. I've seen Germans win it more often then Russians. I've seen the attackers win more regularly on it than I have any other map. Out of all the maps, it is probably the easiest for the attackers.
Artillery cuts both ways, and the Germans are more exposed to it in Station. If you haven't seen Station come down to reinforcements you really have not seen to much of Station.
..I haven't played Red October Factory much
Spartanovka is probably the most even, from what I've seen.
I haven't played Mamayev much..
You're quite an expert... The only game I play is RO2, but certainly, I must not know what I am talking about.
Pavlov has an attacker?
Anyway, to me Commisar's seems a lot tougher than Red October to attack to me and Spartanovka is even a bit too easy for my likening but i also think it comes down to personal impression, server settings and players a lot.
Sorry, I meant Station*
______
Every map can be won easily or be extremely hard for attackers, etc, Station just happens to be the hardest, currently. Its layout is a funnel of death, with many ambush spots and surprises, shots coming from above, or from bellow in a train cart, many windows, too many enemy reinforcements.
