Battlefield 2 strategies. Commander mode explained!

Oct 19, 2000
17,860
4
81
Hey guys, I thought it best to start yet another BF2 thread. Yippee, I know. However, this one is devoted to some strategies that I wish all BF2 soldiers knew. I know, the demo has only been out for a couple days now, but hopefully a lot of you will read this stuff and be a lot better off the next time you play.

Squads

First up, squads. Everyone playing MUST know that being in a squad is infinitely better than just being on the team. In order to join a squad, you must bring up the class/spawn select screen. This is the first screen you'll see when you hop into a game, and it's also the screen you'll see most of the time in between deaths. If this screen does not pop up automatically when you die, just hit the Enter key, and there it is.

To join a squad, look in the upper-left corner of the screen, and you'll see a tab that says Squad. Click that, and you will possibly see a listing of some squads that are already going. Each squad will have the number of people in that squad, and the maximum allowed. Right now, it looks like the maximum is 6 in each squad, although this could be changeable and I just don't know. At this time, you are free to join any squad you choose. Assuming the squad isn't full, just click the join button, and you are announced to the rest of the squad as joining.

If you are like me, you enjoy leading a squad into battle. You have the option of starting your own squad, and inviting people to join in. To start a new squad, there will be the option of creating one. I'm sure there are limits to creating squads, so at some point, you may be forced to join an existing one and work yourself up the ranks. Each squad leader has special skills that helps them direct their squad to certain objectives. I will cover this in depth at a later time, once I'm sure I have all my info correct.

As for squad tactics, one of the most important things you need to remember is that a squad is completely ineffective and a waste of time if you don't stick together. At times, this will be difficult depending on spawning points, but one of the coolest features of being in a squad is that you have the ability to spawn next the squad leader anywhere on the map. As long as the squad leader stays alive, the group will stay together. It's often important for the squad leader to stay towards the back, because it does no good for the rest of the squad to be seperated from the leader. In order to respawn next to your squad leader, you can choose them as a spawn point just like any other flag capture point.

I've found that squad leader is often great being a sniper. A sniper is typically hidden (if played right), and that gives ample time to survey the landscape while the battle is going on, and to give orders without the rush to find a safe haven to hide and not be killed. You must still be close to the action, however, as your squadmates will surely die. They must be able to choose you as a respawn point on the map, and be able to get right back in the heat of things within 15 seconds. If you spawn across the map, the other team will have time to drop in supplies, and everyone will be healed and restocked for the next round.

As a squad leader, your squadmates cannot spawn near you if you are either dead, or in a vehicle which is full. They will see you as a green dot surrounded by a larger red circle, which means they cannot currently spawn near you.

UPDATE: To kick a member out of a squad, you must first make sure you are the squad leader. Press Enter, go to Manage Squad, and in the top you should see your squad members. Check the one you want to kick and press 'apply'. He should get booted.

Yossarian states that you can also make a squad private. This helps keep out the stragglers, and keep in your friends who you know will fight for you. Just click the little lock icon, and only approved players are then allowed to join. Another thing I forgot to mention that Yossarian has stated is that you have the ability to invite any member on your side into the squad (provided they aren't already in a squad). You can do this by using the Manage tab, choosing a player from the list, and clicking Invite. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO NOT LOCK YOUR SQUAD ON PUBLIC SERVERS. It will defeat the whole purpose. The only times to lock your squad on a public server is if you have 5 other friends who are joining soon that you want to reserve spots for.

Also, incase you feel the need to sound cool, you can type in your own squad name instead of the default Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta names. Just use the Custom tab on the squad screen, and type in whichever name you want. Does anyone have confirmation on if you can change the name of your squad after it's created?

Commander

All the credit goes towards Dan 41875644 over at forumplanet.com. This is copied and pasted word-for-word from his write-up over there. Not the most literate piece of work you'll read, but it gets the point across.
COMMANDER MODE EXPLAINED!

I'm going to start from scratch as if whoever is reading this never knew about Commander options.

First look over on the right when picking your soldier kit(class such as sniper,engineer,ect). Then on top you'll see a squad tab.Go into that tab and You'll see commander up top.You'll either see an apply button or mutiny. Apply means no commander has been chosen for your team yet.Mutiny is so you can kick your commander if you think he is not doing his job(or if you just want his job).

Now assuming you're voted in, While you're ALIVE,hit the commander key(caps lock is default)to bring up your Map and options. Then on the left you'll see squads separated into groups and you'll see various icons representing the soldier kits within that squad.Highlight the squad you wish to give orders to then goto the map and right click which orders(from a drop menu when you right click)you want them to follow.

Squad leaders can also ask for certain requests such as supplies,artillery or UAV. To see these,on your map you'll see a white circle highlighting the area in which they want these requests. Right clicking them gives you a menu that simply says accept or reject their request.

Now You have other options as well.On the left where you highlight which squad you wish to give orders too, if you right click on that specific squad a different menu drops down. Within this menu you'll find commands such as Watch out artillery coming, Telling a squad that they better listen to you and even being able to Disband a squad if they persist to ignore your orders.

The buttons on the left side on top show Artillery,UAV,SCAN, and Supplies. These are pretty basic.Left click the button then go over to the map and left click where you want these items to go or destroy.
If certain bases are taken by the enemy then the item which is controlled by that base will be greyout. If you have just used the item you'll see an energy bar timer letting you know when you can use it again.

Artillery means just that,to blow up a radius that you or one of your teammates pick. make sure that you tell your squads if they are near that you plan to send artilley where they are.You must tell each squad individually this.UAV is a drone plane that sends a signal to you and your troops letting you see enemy movement in a certain radius.This is especially helpful when picking an artilley target.Scan is what it means.It scans the entire map to show you(not sure if your teammates see this)where ALL enemy movement is for a brief moment.Very helpful when trying to figure out where enemy troops are moving in from.
And finally Supplies. These Supply boxes are much need pieces that help your ground troops survive in the battlefield. They heal you and rearm you and I even think they repair vehicles. I pretty sure I did that once. Make sure you drop these somewhere where they won't get stuck on a roof or drop them out in the open where your troops can get shot.

I suggest practice this by yourself for a few minutes due to people being VERY impatient with people learning commander mode even though we are ALL Still learning it.

Use commands wisely especially artillery as you may need them at a specific time and have to wait until the bar fills up to use it then its too late.

I hope this helps all of you as I think it was a MUCH needed guide. Anything you may want to add is only going to help the next guy and even me if I missed anything. So far I know that commanders only talk to squad leaders and then they relay that info back to their team.So its important to have as many squads as possible to make your team work as a complete unit.
That last point he made about commanders only being able to communicate with squad leaders emphasizes the importance of squads even more.

If you are commander, please do not issue order after order to squad leaders. Just got out of a game with a commander who seriously issued me, the squad leader, a new order every 30 seconds. Had I tried to follow his lead, my squad and I would've been running circles in the middle of the map. Each map will be different, but IMO, the 3 beachfront points are most important for USMC. If you hold those 3, you aren't losing any tickets. If one begins to be taken over, give orders to defend it if there are enough guys around. And most of all, before calling in artillery, if there are more than 1 or 2 friendlies in the area, don't call it. It's possible those 2 can fend off an attack, and if not, it will give more time for enemies to come into the area before the attack starts.

When managing a full team of 32 soldiers on a 64-player server, be aware to issue orders to squads that are nearby the objective. Do not try to get a squad to attack or defend a point all the way across the map. With the sometimes chaotic pace of the game, chances are the orders you gave will not be good by the time they get there.

UPDATE: If you are commander and you have a squad not doing what you say, you can rebuke them and if they STILL don't listen, right click on them on the CAPS LOCK screen and go to 'Divide Squad'. Within about 2 minutes they'll dissapear into the unassigned group.

POINTS/STATS

From my time playing, I think I've gotten the stats 50% figured out. The first column is your overall score. This is supposed to be the deciding number of how well you played overall. I'm sure this will be tweaked over time, but it is what it is for right now. Obviously, the third and fourth column is kills and deaths, respectively. For each kill you achieve, it will add 2 points to your overall score. For each death you incur, you will not receive a score penalty. This may change if you hit a certain plateau of deaths, but this I have not seen yet. You will also gain 1 point for a kill assist if you damage an enemy, but another player gets the kill.

As for the second column, this gives points based on flag takeovers, healing, equipping teammates, and repairing. I'm pretty sure that a flag takeover is worth 4 points. You must be involved for a good portion of the takeover process. You can also assist with a takeover, which seems to be good for 2 points. Healing, equipping, and repairing points are still up in the air. You may get more points for reviving a fallen comrad than you would just healing one, and you may get more points for repairing radars and artillery than just regular armor. I'm not quite sure. Points will be taken away from your overall score if you are not forgiven for a teamkill, and other unknown things at this time.

I'll update this post when I know more, but this should educate many of you BF2 fans to get more from this game from now on. Until next time, over and out.
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
81
Should also mention that your squad should have a medic, special forces guy, and anti tank guy. Well, the special forces is a grey area, depends on what your squad wants to do, but the medic is essential. There is also a guy who drops ammo, he would be good to have on the squad as well.
 

screw3d

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
6,906
1
76
We should start an AT server where someone has a clue on what's going on.. random pub servers suck because there's about zero coordination. At rare moments when guys stick together as a team, it's fvcking amazing!
 

JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
Originally posted by: screw3d
We should start an AT server where someone has a clue on what's going on.. random pub servers suck because there's about zero coordination. At rare moments when guys stick together as a team, it's fvcking amazing!

could't agree more.
 

JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
This is a good post, I knew most of the stuff as far as squads go I've only been commander once and really didn't know what I was doing lat first lol. This explains it pretty well. Any ways good job while a few don't need these tips there are plenty that do lol.
 

Kevin1211

Golden Member
Dec 14, 2004
1,582
0
0


UPDATE: As a squad leader, your squadmates cannot spawn near you if you are in a vehicle. They will see you as a green dot surrounded by a larger red circle, which means they cannot currently spawn near you.

actually, that is false.. you CAN spawn in the same vehicle.. its only when the person is in a middle of combat when you cant... i have spawned in helicopters, trucks, and tanks...
 

naruto1988

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2004
1,028
0
0
last night, i created a squad...black ops...5 good players joined and our squad rocked the hell out of the other team. we still lost because our team net skill wasn't as good.
 

Yossarian

Lifer
Dec 26, 2000
18,010
1
81
you can make your squad private, just click the little lock icon. then you have to approve players before they can join, or you can invite them using the "manage" tab. the squad functionality seems very well thought out. you can also choose a custom squad name if you use the custom tab on the squad screen.

I think a squad of 2-3 special ops guys is key for taking out arty, radar, etc.
 
Oct 19, 2000
17,860
4
81
Yossarian and Kevin1211 updates have been added. Thanks for the corrections and additions. I don't even know everything myself yet, that's the whole point of this thread :D.
 

LeonarD26

Senior member
Feb 12, 2004
826
1
71
This is a great idea. I remember looking for strats when I was playing a lot of BF:V

Any general combat topics? Keep em coming !!
 

suklee

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,575
10
81
A cool tip I learned while reading the thread at forumplanet is that you can repair arty by dropping a supply crate directly on top of it

Should come in handy, will give it a try later :thumbsup:
 

43st

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
3,197
0
0
I'd suggest that people not password lock squads, unless you have problems with a trouble maker. I was playing with a few coworkers the other night and some random folks popped into our squad just to test it out, we ended up getting 3 total strangers that were awesome additions to our group and great people. Question: Can a squad leader boot a troublesome squad member (as opposed to password locking a squad)?
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
81
Originally posted by: Kevin1211


UPDATE: As a squad leader, your squadmates cannot spawn near you if you are in a vehicle. They will see you as a green dot surrounded by a larger red circle, which means they cannot currently spawn near you.

actually, that is false.. you CAN spawn in the same vehicle.. its only when the person is in a middle of combat when you cant... i have spawned in helicopters, trucks, and tanks...

Actually, it is only when the person is either dead or the vehicle is full.
 

Spike

Diamond Member
Aug 27, 2001
6,770
1
81
Thanks for all the tips. I have been playing only single player to get used to everything, now I might have to try some online goodness and see if I can contribute to a squad. See y'all out there!

-spike

P.S. Does anyone have a good link that explains the ranking scheme? Specifically I want to know if it is like AA where your score is kept by a central server and you gain rank slowly or is it on a server by server basis? also, when do you have access to the other guns and such... Thanks!
 

Spike

Diamond Member
Aug 27, 2001
6,770
1
81
Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Stats and ranks aren't included in the demo.

This I know, but they will be included in the regular game so I was wondering if there was anything explaining them so I know what to expect.

-spike
 

screw3d

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
6,906
1
76
ok we really need to start an AT clan or something

i'm getting my ass pwned half the time because my "squadmates" are freaking all over the map doing solo runs :frown:
 

JustAnAverageGuy

Diamond Member
Aug 1, 2003
9,057
0
76
We should start a thread. Set up a game date. If we don't have a server by then, we'll just hijack an empty one. :D

Saturday sound good?
 

screw3d

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
6,906
1
76
Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
We should start a thread. Set up a game date. If we don't have a server by then, we'll just hijack an empty one. :D

Saturday sound good?

:thumbsup: :D
 
Oct 19, 2000
17,860
4
81
I've put in what I know about the stats portion of the game. Please add to it if you know more than what I've listed. Thanks.

And if we want to set up a playtime, post in my other thread about a BF2 server. We'll set up a date for this weekend.
 

larry89

Senior member
Feb 8, 2005
639
0
0
Strategy: You + 2 buddies ride in dune buggy, One person uses all c4 on dune buggy, Drive like madman into enemy outpost with buddys jumping out and driving to ground, Jump out.

Detonate dune buggy, attack :0

Profit.