I feel like the most frustrating part of Empires is Commanding:
You do it well, and win, you get no credit.
You do it well, and lose, everyone blames you.
As someone who’s neither new to the game nor a seasoned veteran, it’s a lot of hard work to convince other regular players to let me command, but without meaningful practice I won’t get better. Which is why today’s games were especially frustrating to me, and I want to get this off my chest.
For starters, it was a full Viper server, with teams of about 20 (plus Spectators.) I was on NF in Valley, along with Complete_Lamer, Staxorz, Ishikawa, Mayama, and couple other regulars. BE was stacked with BSID guys, and a few other veterans like TBob.
Game starts up, no NF Comm.
I *offer* to Comm, and we get going. The East chokepoint was going fine, I drop refs, E. Brx, E. Armory etc. West was f*cked. One guy (a Scout, of course) went West. Give targets to eastern squads.
All of the sudden Staxorz starts SPAMMING for targets.
Staxorz: Comm I need targets E, now!
Staxorz: Comm I need targets E, now!
Staxorz: Comm I need targets E, now!
Staxorz: Comm I need targets E, now!
Staxorz: Comm I need targets E, now!
Staxorz: Comm I need targets E, now!
Only problem was, Staxorz was West. Not East. So I give him his targets, no please, no thank you, and drop a VF and Radar, so we get the game rolling.
As soon as I look SW a second time—because Staxorz is bitching again—BE has set up a forward Brx at A3 with a turret farm and Armory. So I give targets and explain the situation....
...two guys go SW.
Meanwhile, Mayama et al. starts asking for targets out E again, and people at main are complaining that I don’t have enough base defenses up. So I drop some walls, and a farm of ML turrets.
Suddenly, though, while I’m still dropping MLs, E. completely drops the ball and lets a BE APC through, which beelines it for the Northern (C5) ref. (Now to be fair to everyone, I should have either walled that area off myself, or demanded someone else do it. I am rusty, or I would have thought of that.) At any rate, the take the C5 area, and wall/turret spam the hell out of it.
From that point onward it’s a slow death. People in the E. lose their barracks, we lose all but two refs, and we’re badly cornered. I do manage to drop two ninja brx, (one in A1, one in D4! ) but both get killed quickly. In sum, my team lost, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story, because the next game on Cyclopean, I have to Comm as BE and this time NF is STACKED. 4+ JPL, 2 BSID, Tbob, and Keef. It was going to be a massacre, which I told my team. Staxorz, some n00b named Marshmallow and Shakura Jolithion start up right away:
Staxorz: OMFG!111 FAIL COMM
Staxorz: gg
Shakura Jolithion: This game is so over.
Marshmallow: WE NEED HEMG HEAVIES NOW!!!111!
Etc.
I think you get the picture. Long story short, I mute a few assholes, and we lose despite my best efforts.
During the game, people kept wanting to Jeep rush, so I locked the VF, and made APCs instead.
...
But—unbeknownst to me—[bd]Ishikawa had been trying to tell me that the VF was only pumping out paper APCs. I didn’t know this during the game because I had muted him (and others) during the game in my deep, deep, raeg. Now he and I had a long talk, and I apologized about that, but my point is that that one mistake (after a long, long list of good ideas) is the only thing anyone that was on my team wanted to talked about for the rest of the day.
In fact, in a monumental display of douchebagger, Youzy joined the tail end of the game and insulted me without even knowing what was going on:
Youzy: Mort is the worst comm ever, you need to vote him out now. You don’t even have a radar.
La_Mort_13: Yes, we do, but I’m recycling it because our VF got sab’d while everyone was playing games in ruins.
Youzy: You aren’t even researching anything right now. FAIL NOOB COMM
La_Mort_13: We have 121 res, and no VF. Why would I research anything right now? Besides, this game has been going on for 20 mins. Our base is surrounded, and we have one ref, and one barracks. And you just joined now, at the end, only to complain about me?
My point isn’t that Youzy is a idiotic f*ckwad, (although that’s true) my point is that I’m frustrated that one mistake in a game that was already lost has ruined my reputation for commanding. I don’t think I’m a great Commander, or even a good Commander, but I’m not terrible, and without practice I’m never going to get better. Now I’ll probably never get another chance.