tactics at the beginning of a battle.

[Shigeru]

Like being the NA resident Weabo. 

I'll be honest being known really does help in getting people to listen to you, but once your plan fails the first time the odds of them accepting another of your plans for the next few rounds decreases dramatically.

In addition people respond better if they've been losing for the past two rounds. They want a change and are open to an idea as opposed to the first one-two rounds. Keep in mind I never plan in the first match because of the auto-balance afterwards.

Any plan you use with pubs should be extremely simple, limited to only a direction or a clear goal, and avoid take and hold plans except for lulzy ones like barn, those people will follow. Elsewise it's more likely people get bloodthirsty and run off on their own rather than sit on a spot, regardless of the advantages. It helps to if you've been losing suggest as a plan the exact opposite of what you've been doing, I recall this was my most effective strategies in terms of people actually listening when you had that map with two bridges and the choice to go left or right and engage. If you were consistantly losing left, I'd spam go right while I was dead and at the start of next round. Odds are people listen and it throws the enemy team off balance, contributing to their demise.

It also helps to have a few pals of yours shout out and agree with your plan to add some validity to it.

[Torost]

My main consern before writing this post was to try and moderate the nonsensical running that is in every battle nowadays , the initial mindless running.
I have little faith in trying to make complicated or detailed plans.
I love the magical selforganizing tactics that sometimes appear.
Was just thinking if more players knew the result of the mindless running, that you sacrefice a good portion of you team inorder to get into combat as fast as possible.
The constant running is just viable for hardened melee, softer players or those who have to stop occationally are left to fend for themselves.

Instead of trying to make complicated tactical plans , it would help if everyone tried to figure out how their role could work towards a teamwin by groupwork.
And not giving into to killhunger and ADD.
Then the magical selforganizing would be even more efficent.
When a significant portion just runs off at start, you doom many possibilities for teamwork other than the meleegangbang.
This leave a large number of players just working as decoys and meatshields while they could have been more efficient given some time to prepare.

[CrazyCracka420]

pretty much this

Organizing pubs to any degree is a difficult task.
And often i've seen people i've never heard of trying to organize a mostly clanless team.
They struggle to do so to say the least.

Alot of times pubs will only listen to either spammed commands from well known/ players who top the charts.
looks something like

LEFT
LEFT
LEFT
LEFT
LFTE
LEFT
L
FETL
FLET

we've all seen it
Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
More of a crapshoot than anything

It'd actually be pretty easy to organize a pub if a game (a 2nd generation game at that) included in game voice comm on release.  2009 or 2010 when Warband came out and what?  Like 2007 for M&B?  I can maybe, kind of, sort of see a rationale behind the original not coming with a voice comm, but the 2nd game has no excuse for it.

Make a simple gui that allows you to mute annoying people and now there's literally no reason not to include it.  I've pubbed so many different FPS games from small servers (under 20) to large ones of 100+ that had voice comm and pubbers were relatively organized when they could talk on the fly to their teammates. 

BTW, I agree with the points the OP was making.  And the word to describe the mindlessness is called "mob mentality".  And for the most part you are stupid if you don't follow the mob even if it means walking into a certain death.  If there is one team that has 30 people in a mob roaming around, and you don't have anywhere near that number, generally speaking you don't stand a chance (obviously terrain and the units you have with you matter, just as a general rule though you should stick w/ the mob if you're infantry).

CSB:  I love when your team is losing every round in a pub and they still decide to march across open ground to the meat grinder doing the exact same thing they've done the past 3 or 4 rounds.  As cavalry it's much harder to pick people off if they are grouped up in a crowd (even if they are all non-polearms the chances of me or my horse taking damage or dying are pretty high).  I, and I believe most other smart cav, go after the lone footmen who can't defend themselves.  I try to avoid other cav unless it's to protect my infantry.  It's like a lion or a shark, you're going to go after the easy target before you take on an elephant.  So many times in a round I see what the OP is talking about where 1/4 or so of the team is too slow to keep up with the mob and they are easy pickings for cavalry.

[Bryggan]

When lancing from horseback, I imagine myself as some kind of Spitfire or Mustang, strafing chocolate chip cookie infantry during some long forgotten battle of WW2. The roles are pretty much the same too, the light cav plays the role of the fighter, keeping the other light cav engaged and away from the bomber heavy cav. Horse Archers/Crossbowmen are basically dicks that nobody likes and have a minimal impact on the battle, the best way they can do anything is by assassinating high-value targets, taking out enemy horses, they are basically interceptors, really good at shooting down fighters but not having the firepower to hurt bombers.

Yeah, Cav do act like fighter pilots, but that's kind of stupid.  Some of my best games as a thrower were going on flanking mission with a few pikemen and archers following the cav into the fields- everyone else on foot always went the other way.  If we held back their cav would rush us, and sometimes they would be stupid enough to charge me, which 75% of the time meant they were dead, or at least their horses were, or they would circle around fighting our cav, having a real bitch keeping track of where we on the ground were.  Suddenly they would get stopped by a pike and find themselves chopped or pierced or lanced.  If they were dehorsed they were insta-dead because you can't fight melee with enemy cav around.  If our guys got dehorsed they had an infantry group they could join, increasing their survival big time.

Around cav I'm pretty cheap with my jarids, as I don't want to waste shots or team hit; but it feels good enough to see enemies veering way out of my way when they see my arm raised- maybe making them veer into a couched lance or a raised pike.  Of course I get knocked over by friendly cav quite a bit, but that's ok- I want them to watch the enemy, not me.  I can take several good horse bumps, but not many couched lances.

Point is that by working with foot soldiers the enemy didn't have a chance.  After that we would all attack the flanks, cav running down enemy foot while I and the other infantry would climb ladders and ruins etc and take out the ranged.  So, quit being sky jocks and slow down a bit and work with us (unless you are on the enemy team)!

[PhantomZero]

Yeah, Cav do act like fighter pilots, but that's kind of stupid.  Some of my best games as a thrower were going on flanking mission with a few pikemen and archers following the cav into the fields- everyone else on foot always went the other way.

You might be what some refer to as a "flak-trap".

[Jarlek]

i couldn't stop laughing  at this, i wish i could see only one of them doing this
cav players are the most immature players in this mod, and they are thinking only about them selves, and their hunger for easy kills

You have never seen riding (sober) then I always do that and most of the time it works like a charm.

You might be what some refer to as a "flak-trap".

Crouching thrower, hidden pikeman? I hate those guys xD

[Turboflex]

Although Cyber is right, ofcourse, there is something i'd like to add:
One of the best tricks a commander can use to ensure the group stays together is a very simple one: use the same plan the majority of the mob was going to use anyway.

Sounds silly, but it's key to good commanding on public servers. See (or guess) which way most of the players want to go and enforce that with some caps in teamchat and maybe a few voice commands.

Right. Don't try and change the pack into doing something complicated, they can't. If you have a more organized sub-group (a clan or two, some smarter followers) and want to do some more sophisticated tactics, it should take into account of the public pack and what it will do, how long it will survive with depleted #s (if you are detaching your own soldiers, who are usually the better ones).

[Turkhammer]

You might be what some refer to as a "flak-trap".

LOL, I like it.

[Rhombeus]

The tactic that i can never understand is the barrier/barricade one.

One teams uses its barricades and sets them up, facing one way.

Why does the other team always then set up their barricades facing the other barricades.

Why don't they move round 90 degrees, and set up theirs facing to the side of enemy barricades?