Nice idea, but I think a) connecting TS with cRPG doesn't work, and b) I wouldn't force players to have to HEAR the others. Only think of all those retards spamming the chat with their shit. Do you really want to be forced to hear them talk, or at least forced to mute them every time you join a server?
Also I think you should keep the chain of command as short as possible, because the longer it is the higher are the chances for failure. Cutting the chain of command down to "Commander -> Players" causes more work for the commander as he can't simply delegate work on the squad commanders, but on the other hand he is not depending on them.
And my last point of critics: I think a commander can never be determined by a fix system like "win/loss-ratio", "K/D", "Amount of XP" or whatever, a good commander is recognized by a) charisma and b) actual knowledge. And he has to be willing to lead his team. So the only way to determine a good commander is an election, where the players contest voluntarily. As this would take too long for each map, I would suggest a forum vote, making commanders some kind of players with "admin rights". Or better: what mods are in the forum, are commanders on the server. The admins are always "above" them, but they keep out of the forum/tactic stuff (mostly
).
So whenever a commander player logs onto the server, autobalance puts him in the team without commander. If more than two commander players are on the server, only the two with the most votes get their commander rights. If only one commander is online, he doesn't get his commander rights, as it would be unfair for the enemy team.
I would give the commander an interface, similar to the one in single player: he can mark the different classes (in SP "Infantry", "Cavalry", "Archers") and assign them orders. I would simply add more orders, classes and other things.
Classes are determined this way by checking the equipment each round:
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login The old batallions turn to those new classes. Players are still able to switch the classes by simply toggling the battalions like before. So some pikemen may decide to protect the ranged fighters this round and switch to the ranged fighters group, while a crossbowman, who is skilled more on meele, will switch to infantry. I made throwers infantry by default, as I think in most cases this is the "righter" decision, and even if not skilled for meele many throwers need the short distance of the infantry to perform well. There is no sense in placing them to the ranged fighters, as those will fight over longer distance in most cases.
Next to those classes there will be a Ninja-group, although I wouldn't call them Ninjas. Perhaps "Skirmishers" or something, every player is free to join if he wants to. Those are the guys who try to flank and sorround the enemy (but in most cases die doing so
). There is no way in creating an AI to find out which players want to play as skirmisher, so those players have to join the right group by themselves.
(We can also have two or three neutral "Squad"-groups, if clan players or so want to join their own group)
I think it is important to make the players join the proper class by default, instead of letting them join on their own will, as it is important to get the "passive" players for teamplay, too. In fact this is the biggest issue with setting up tactics.
The commander can assign flags to the single classes, where to take position like in single player, but also some "rules" of behaviour, like "target: horses" or "target: ranged fighters". Also, of course "Hold your fire", "Fall back!" "Advance!" "Charge!" "Flee!". For example. Of course there are even more orders we could need!
I think those orders have to pop up on the middle of the screen, like the messages about won rounds and the arrow to the flag should be always visible. And the commander needs an extra chat colour anyway. The new patch already showed this is possible.
But now comes an important part of my suggestion: whenever a player reaches an area around his flag, let's say 25m, he gets an additional 10g or so, with a 1 minute cooldown (to prevent the commander of placing one hundred flags within a minute next to the players, giving them 1000g this way). So we can assume most players will actually try to follow the flags, or they get the feeling of abandoning extra money.
