From: hde+@cs.cmu.edu (Herbert Enderton)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Elements of teamwork (long)
Date: 2 Jan 93 23:38:56 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <1i2qekINN754@agate.berkeley.edu> tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub) writes:
>In article <C05EqG.LuF.1@cs.cmu.edu> hde+@cs.cmu.edu (Herbert Enderton) writes:
>)Roles
>)
>)Tell your team that you'll be playing a certain role, such as
>)scout-bomber, ogger, or escort, and then stick to it for a long time.
>)That way they know what to expect from you, and thus can coordinate
>)better with you.  Roles provide an easy way to manage the division of
>)labor, helping to ensure that everything gets done, and helping to
>)avoid redundancy. 
>
>There are two schools of thought here; most INL teams seem to assign
>roles, but I've never found it to be as effective as having everyone
>do everything.  This worked for the Golden Bears this fall because
>we had 8 dynamic players who could do it all, and we happened to 
>have a good balance of people who liked to ogg, people who liked to
>bomb, and people who liked to scum.  It won't work for everyone, but
>I think the quintessential INL team wouldn't have assigned roles.
>
>I would even disagree that an assigned role is the only way to go in a 
>pickup game.  It is nice to have someone who you know is scout bombing,
>or ogging, or whatever, but I find myself wanting to do everything, so I
>do.  The important thing is to keep your team informed.
>
>Other than that, it's a good overview of a role-defined system.
> -Mojo

Interesting, I didn't realize GB worked without roles.  I tend to agree
that everybody-do-everything is probably superior, especially for a
team that can talk in the room.  Side Salad did it that way too.  If
you always ogg, the enemy learns to avoid you, and if you only bomb and
never carry armies the enemy can safely give you their kill when
they're crippled.  So a role system has definite drawbacks.  But it's
still good to know what these roles are, so you understand what your
teammates are saying.  If the players on your team are naturally
inclined to fall into their favorite roles anyway, then you probably
end up with the same system anyway, just less formal.  "Favorite" is perhaps
not the right word; often I'd rather escort than bomb but thorough
bombing seems to be more important to me than to almost anybody else
out there, so I tend to be the one who starts doing it.

In pickup games I sometimes try to do a little of everything, and that
works okay.  I have more trouble doing that in INL games because the
pace is fast and there's too much going on to keep track of.  I can
usually keep track of all the enemy armies and carriers, or I can keep
track of all of my team's armies and carriers, but not both teams'.  So
in a fast-paced game I'm more comfortable specializing.

I guess that if everybody is doing everything, the way to ensure that
everything gets done and to avoid redundancy is the
nearest-available-ship rule.  E.g. when one of your planets pop, the
nearest ship with a kill should go pick up.  (This works out anyway if
you have a good greedy team.)  Players farther away will see on the
galactic map that they won't get to the armies before their teammate
does, so they hopefully won't waste their time trying (unless they
anticipate that escort at that spot will be needed).  Same goes for
bombing, escorting, etc., the nearest ship or ships (if more than one
are needed) do it.  If the nearest ship is crippled, out of gas, or
asleep then you may have a problem.  (Usually you can tell if they're
asleep because they're not going the direction they're supposed to.)
And I get faked out by my teammates in pickup games all the time.
They'll be charging towards a planet looking for all the world like
they're going to bomb it, clear it, or whatever it is that I'd like
to count on them to do, and then they'll suddenly turn tail and
runner-scum.  This is a source of much frustration.

 -- Red Shirt