First truly shit OP as aCO, some thoughts as to why things go sour.

General Discussion
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I have just had my single worst OP as aCO… And no this is not some cope thread but chance to look at why things had gone wrong and why such things happen.

First off lets look at the set up… 3 SO and Me the ASO on the map Chance’s Claim during lowpop. Forcon not only lived but also got the sensor tower up while also killing some number of xenos.(not quite sure as to the number.)

Simple by the books plan, bravo on fob on LZ1 the rest of the techs were to move east to take and get comms up while the rest of the squads move on mass north to north east to link up with forcon.

VARY simple by the book plan. nothing of note.

At first the Op had gone just fine the mass of marines pushed into A-blocks and made their way all the way up to BBall and got stalled out a bit… We got a cords from a squad lead i believe the delta lead.

They tell me the cords will need a fallback… so we dial it, give fallback order to clear way for the OB and fire a cluster OB on BBall. The marines got out but it was dangerclose. But with the new ground cleared we were able to push up to the reacters mouth with not too many issues.

Things started to fall apart when issue with req started to pop up. First off both me and the QM had lost the FOB cords so FOB Seemed to be understocked. Next the front line keep asked for front line crate drop but due to issue of communication it was delayed for long time.

Now when i think back about it there was complaints of req being slow from the very start of the round so add that in with the issue that cropped up its clear to me the QM was ether very rusty or new.

Near the end of the round a SO had asked for req clearance… likely to replace the QM or give aid, was not quite sure as to why i simply knew that req needed unfucking, so i give the SO the needed clearance.

Now we had gotten bogged down at the mouth of the reactors the xenos had some warriors and carriers with nice little capping area set up that made it hard to push one side of the reactors. this in the end netted the xenos a quite a few caps.

Now to break the stalemate the squad leads had gotten us OB cords for our HE shell. First squad alpha cords were loaded in. But the OB needed to be chambered as such the a So ran off to do that before i needed to even ask.

But by the time the OB was chambered the Delta lead had gotten me OB cords… as they had gotten me some good cords before i trusted them. i asked where the cords were placed and they said within the reactors. So i had the SO override the old cords and input this new ones…

Only for it to Hit fob…Yes it hit fob…i at least didn’t see any KIAs from it nor heard any over chatter but was told in OOC at the end of the round it gibbed 4 lads…

Now this was infact not the death nail, yes it was waste and may have costed us some lads but they were likely not mainline combatants. Yes it cold to say so but its likely a large part of the lads that were killed would not been on the front anyways. (that being said this is mostly just conjecture)

No the frontline has simply been ground down, due to the being capped and being killed faster then the medics could heal. Add in the wave of burst xenos having had time to grow the waining front was wiped.

I called out a mass KIA on the frontline ordering any medics to get there… only for me to noticed the xenos wiping out the front just as i gave the order as such i called a full fallback to fob. noting that fob could not hold i ordered the evec and for the alamo to take flight to LZ2 in hopes of the remaining men being able to rush to the mass of dead at the reactors.

But the alamo had not followed orders and simply headed up top side. Now in retrospective the bodies were dead for much to long meaning that they couldn’t be saved even had the alamo followed orders.

At this point i knew we were fucked so by the time hijacked happed had kind of halfassed it. resigning to try my hand at RPing going down with the ship… it was anticlimactic to say the least.

NOW WHAT HAD GONE WRONG?

First off it had been a long time since i had played Command and the interfaces had change to some thing i had little use to. This meant i was slow to get things done.

Next the fact i was playing ASO but had 3 SO’s. Now i am not about to just shit on them, as they did in fact try to do their best to get things done. Issue was that I THE aCO thought i could trust them to get things in order they were working on with out my interference.

This meant i left the SO’s to their own devices this was clearly a mistake not because they were incompetent but because there were stepping over each other and me trying to get everything in order.

Simply put the chain of command broke down, leading to increase confusion as i had not properly delegated. while the ground forces couldn’t get what they needed. This was in part due to my rustiness leading me to be slow to issue commands where as clearly some the SO were infact not rusty. This ended up leading to the SOs in effect taking over command as i had little input as they had been getting to matters faster then i had.

All in all i think my problem was that i was too use to doing solo CIC work so i lacked experience commanding SO’s. Next i believe the SO’s where too willing to put themselves at the forefront of commanding the OP while lacking the confidence to fully try to take over overall command. (Not a mutiny mind you just asking for command access and geting me to unfuck req.)

Next off the matter with the OB…frankly i am going to blame it on req. Fact was the cords i was given was with acceptable margin of error with the cords that alpha got me prior. it was with in a 10 tile difference from what i recall. Add in the fact that delta lead had gotten me good cords before things seem all well to fire off the OB.

Now as to why blame req… Fact was we had issues with getting front line cords out also the issue with Req losing the fob cords meant there was a lot of chatter going on about cords in the chat.

Now i think one of three things had happed… first i copy the wrong line cords from the chat log and was in fact giving the SO the cords or FOB. If this was in fact the case that means it was all my fuck up.

second because of the whole issue with supply cords and the pad perhaps the SO had some how loaded the cords wrongly and mixed up crate drop cords with the OB cords… leading to fob being bombed.

Third perhaps the delta lead had some how given me cords that were in fact meant for fob… after all req had needed to get new cords so perhaps the delta lead had gotten them some at one point and didn’t clear their clipboard of the old cords. meaning they had given me the wrong cords… still that would have meant i miss read the cords as then it would clearly not have been with in the 10 tile margin i saw before.

still i will likely never know as i didn’t save the chat logs.

But the fact is the OBing of fob had likely happend due to my inability to unfuck the issues with req, leading to increase chatter about cords.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

There was break down of support due to issue of lack of clear and concise delegation. This likely leading to the bombing of FOB due to crossed lines of communication. The unwillingness of the aCO(me) to step away and deal with matters one at the time leading to issues not being dealt with.

The inabilty of the aCO(again me) to ether assert sufficient control over the CIC or step down and let some one who could. leading to a break down of the chain of command which in turned cause the SO to be unsure what to do or if some one had already got to it.

There was a overall lack of clear and concise communication compounding the matters. Last off… the failures of req had causes a compounding issue with the problems of CIC.

Was command to blame for the lost the round? Yes and no… CIC clearly didn’t help matters but there was clearly other underlaying issues at play along side strong xeno cap game. There was definitely a strong case to be made it was CIC fault but in my assessment even if we had been better CIC that round there would have been still fairly high chance of failure.

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I didnt read a word of that essay above but this is a funny photo

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im not reading all of that
im sorry this happened to you

this is why you kick out SOs from the CIC cause they just make things more complicated

yours truly
-SO Hater

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It’s not worth writing an essay to analyse a round in this much detail
At most you’d ask for feedback on how to do better

It’s not that deep, sometimes shit just happens and everyone eats dirt

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Too much reading. Just call Marines shitters so we can agree next time

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The way to deal with losing in CM is simple:

If you’re a marine and you lose then CIC is shit and incompetent.

If you’re command and you lose marines are shit and don’t listen.

If both marines and CIC both do their jobs and you still lose it’s because Xenos are full of sweats

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perhaps not, but i like doing it. I mean i just do random essays on stuff rather a lot here on the forms. My issue is i have a brooding mind as such things get stuck on my mind for days until i ether forget or sufficiently mull over the matter.

This is just me mulling over the matter with others.

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since i seem to be the only person who took 5 minutes to read this (c’mon guys, reading isn’t that bad…)-

You probably did okay. I wasn’t in this round, but it sounds like a typical lowpop round. Your analysis of what went wrong with the OB is pretty solid and indicates your willingness to accept blame, which I personally think is a good trait in any leader.

Based on your description, it seems like you spent a lot of time watching cams. While I’m a big proponent of keeping track of the team, it might behoove you to give more group commands/announcements. You seem to recognize this.

Overall, you just seem to have stepped into a command role when you haven’t played it for a while and had a little bit of trouble getting back up to speed. I do think you’re overanalyzing the situation considering your self-admitted recent return, and should probably just play more rounds as command before devoting so much time to looking back on mistakes from a round. (HOWEVER!!! : if talking through it like this as a post helped you come to these conclusions, it’s 100% a thing you should do, presuming you have the time.)

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TL;DR for people that cannot read:

game sux and people dont listen to orders (of course we have known this for the last like 10 years anyways)

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Blame the CMP. Works every time.

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I was the Queen this round, and to be honest, I think you’ve totally missed the mark on why y’all lost. Yes, marines do need supplies and whatnot from req, and yes a FOB OB doesn’t help things, but neither of those would have won you the round. And neither of them caused you to lose. The reason you lost was momentum.

The single most important job of command is preventing marines from stagnating. As soon as you’re sitting at a choke, dropping supplies and cading, and not gaining ground, you’ve lost. That’s the real purpose of an OB, not fragging, but to breakthrough on hellchokes. In this particular round, I had built the hive core awfully close to reactor choke to prevent an OB, meaning that sitting at that choke was doomed from the start.

You had basically three options that would give you chances to win:

  1. Hellpush as soon as I ovied. This is very challenging, and if your push doesn’t break into the hive, you will lose. However if it works, it’s the simplest way to solve your problem. We had only 1 t3 and like 3 t2s for a good chunk of that round.
  2. Flank. Again, risky, but probably what I would have done if I was in your shoes. Super effective in breaking hellchokes, especially on LV and Chance’s.
  3. Fall back to FOB. Definitely the most boring choice, but unfortunately, usually the most optimal one. Especially when dealing with shipside issues, ordering a retreat allows you to recover and reset, solving any ongoing issues and more importantly, forcing xenos to go on the offensive.

Every minute that marines sit at a choke is a minute where marines are picking up fracs and organ damage, giving away caps, and letting xenos evolve. Marines are only really accomplishing something when they’re pushing.

Also, if I can offer one more bit of advice, you need to do everything in your power to make marines RUN when they see the queen come out, and then push her after a screech. It was awfully easy for us to cap because marines were pushing when I left cover, meaning my screeches were SUPER effective. Marines don’t always listen, but if you pester them enough, they might, and it’s a massive advantage to deny easy captures and can often lead to the queen over-extending and dying.

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I had very much considered this but had chose not to as first off i didn’t believe the marines would have been willing to try. Second off i was worried about a xeno counter flank cutting off from being able to fallback to fob.

I could see the xenos repeatedly trying to encircle our main forces from the tacmap prior to getting to the reactors mouth. ( in retrospective it was likely just a coincidence that was happening but it sure as hell looked like a try at it.)

I was going to order such a push, but after i saw the warrior and hugger traps i realized any hell will push will lead to a number of caps and may readily get stalled out due to the issue of the traps. As such i was going to wait on the OB to clear the way first before heading in… issue is we fucked up the OB.

Frankly i hadn’t thought about it really but… truth be told it would have been the best option.

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stop being noobs

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I think people kind of overlook general mechanics of marines vs xenos.

Marines win engagements with a large contact surface area (and high depth) vs xenos, and xenos win with a small contact surface area against marines (with low depth).

Marines with flanking positions and high depth win
Xenos with one point of concentration win

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To explain further:
Marines don’t have many IFF weapons, and xenos are tanky with a lot of crowd control; this means 2-4 marines fighting in a choke vs 2-4 xenos do a lot of dying (with a lot of friendly fire) and not a lot of killing. You need high exposure, overextension, and defilade/enfilade fire to kill xenos. This picture, basically:

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The broad goal of the marine force should not be “smash through the chokepoint with an OB”, because that plays into the strengths of xeno game mechanics - Rather you want to flood around xeno positions with as many flanks at once as possible with as much depth as possible.

The trouble is that flanking doesn’t work very well for marines, especially in caves because:

  1. Queen screeches - you do not have the depth nor tools to sustain flanks vs queen screech
  2. LoS blocks - you cannot provide fire support from an enfilade or oblique position in caves
  3. Marines are slow - Caves force circuitous routes to reinforce positions

This tactic of queen players flanking and screeching smaller groups is called Defeat in Detail, by the way, and is how many numerically inferior military forces succeed against much larger ones in battle. The counterplay to which is Defense in Depth (which cadelines are, to some extent, and why there are some big problems with cadeline reworks/removal).

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So given the situation as I see it in most rounds, what you actually want to do as a marine CO is set up defensive positions well outside the chokepoints - not at the cave entrances but much further back. You need xenos drawn out into open areas where marines can actually make use of their numbers and fire support, and you need combinations of bastions, breakwaters, and whatever other tools (OT minefields for instance) for providing a base of operations at the front, while also constraining xeno movement into your killzones.

You’ve lost the second you’re trying to dogpile the entire marine force into a single choke, and you’ve lost if you don’t have 15+ marines + cades on any flanking maneuvers or protecting flanks of the main force.

In other words, keep fights outside the caves as much as possible, until xeno numbers have been attrited enough that the queen moving between contact points and screeching isn’t enough to keep the unga tide back, and when you do commit to a cave assault it needs to be multiple areas at once, making use of your numbers advantage to overwhelm xenos and sustain the flanking manuevers against queen screeches. Morale needs to be high, and marines need to bottle up and pressure xenos as much as possible - they don’t need to kill things, they just need to shoot their gun and hit a xeno and say “no, you can’t just rest for a minute or run through this way”.

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Hindsight is 20-20. The way you wrote it up, I am sure you already know your answers.

What you lacked was ability to predict ahead of time, and reaction speed to problems. If you know how marines react to FOB being destroyed, or what marines will do when you start hearing about req problems, or what happened before when coords were unclear, you could have come up with clearer instructions to hand personnel. For instance, you might have ordered marines to reactor entrance to regroup and halt some deaths while you sent back a medic or 2, and send the SOs to req to send supplies to the front to keep the marines refreshed up there. Would it have been the best solution? I dont know, I dont play XO, but if it didnt work I would try something else next time til it does. How do you get faster at making decisions and figuring out what works and what doesnt? play more.

TLDR: just play more and don’t worry about it.

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My humble not so humble advice.

When you get FOB coords, note them down. Add note exists for a reason.

When your SO dials an OB, make them echo the coords back to you if it isn’t deathly urgent.

And on Chance’s Claim, you don’t want to just unga bunga fast push. It’s one of the only maps this will lead to defeat automatically if a bunch of xenos don’t die in the progress, because reactors is the most xeno friendly turf in the entire game, through all maps.

@Wintermote put it very accurately as well.

Blame yourself only and you will improve, the rest is out of your control. As long as you didn’t do perfect, you have something relevant to focus on.

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The truth of this game is that it is Aliens versus Marines versus CIC.

Marines and CIC are only nominal allies.

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And then a bunch of MPs wake up and now marines have to fight on three fronts

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MT’s fight the battle shipside so their brother marines on the ground do not. The struggle is real.

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