User:MrFreddy7/War commander

War Commander is an Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy tactical wargame on Facebook, designed and administrated by the flash game company Kixeye, formerly Casual Collective. The game, currently in open beta, was developed to target hardcore gamers on Facebook, rather than casual gamers, which are mainly targeted by companies such as Zynga Inc. Therefore, a smaller core of paying gamers could support the game as a whole. Like many other social network games on Facebook, War Commander is a freemium game, so players willing to spend money are able to speed up processes and gain resources quicker than other, non-spending players. As of October 7th, 2012, War Commander has gained over six million monthly users.

Gameplay

Plot

Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape 30 years after civilization and governments have collapsed, War Commander is a game where Humanity is divided into small, warring factions vying for control of Earth’s remaining natural resources – metal and oil. To survive, players must assume the leadership role of an army commander assigned to assemble and train bands of infantry, tanks, and aircraft – ranging from Riflemen to Mega Tanks to Raptors – to defend their base against enemy attacks and to attack and destroy enemies.

In addition to building and managing production and resource facilities, players will be required to assemble tactical air and ground force units equipped with weaponry that will slaughter enemies encroaching on their base. Players are encouraged to form strategic alliances and organize large-scale combat operations and deadly strikes to assert power and gain resources.

Interface

The user interface is simple to navigate with tabs appearing on the left side of the screen to manage production, research and construction. While work is in progress a countdown is shown on the tab with time to completion. Chat is directly under your command tabs, the close window "X" on the chat window as of now only disables chat and doesn't close the window(re clicking resumes chat). Clicking on player nicknames when on the map moves the screen to the location of the selected player. The Silence Option in chat gives you the selected Players ID before confirmation.

Mirroring the chat window is your current objectives (quest log), completing objectives reward you with varying amounts of resources and experience points. Upgrading, constructing, resource gathering, and attacking bases also increase exp. points. Upgrading units, however, does not give you experience points. At the top of the screen from left to right you have your profile picture, current rank name, level, available resources, power levels, current and maximum unit values. To the far right are toggles for zoom, full screen, sound fx, music, and a save button (which saves automatically after every action).

Right above the chat window, sector coordinates are displayed. Directly across from that, there are two new buttons. These new buttons are Find Base, and Enter Base. Beside your name, profile picture, rank and level, are two indicators. These show you the number of resource deposits you own and how many platoons you have deployed. A new update added a pop-down menu when you scroll over them. It shows the location of the deposit/ platoon, its health, and the time the platoon to reach its destination.

Beginning

In the beginning, the player is automatically placed in command of a few soldiers. The first mission is to retake a friendly base that was previously captured by enemy forces. After destroying the enemies at your base, the player is sent to an enemy rogue faction base of which the invading force had originated. There, the player destroys that enemy base. Throughout all of this, as well as later on, the player is guided by a friendly A.I. named R.U.B.I. Once the player has been taught all of the basic functions and process of the game, such as creating new buildings and collecting resources, the player is then left on his own to defend for himself and develop his base and units.

Resources

There are two different attainable resources in War Commander, without which nothing is possible: oil and metal. To collect these resources, there are four different ways: construct oil and metal factories on one's base, which afterward you must click on the factories to collect the resources, capture and maintain control of oil and metal deposits, destroy rogue faction bases, and destroy other player's bases.

The first method is to construct oil and metal factories on the player's base, which produce resources. The player must physically collect the resources by clicking the buildings, then clicking either Collect, or Collect All.

The second method is to capture oil and metal deposits, which provide a continuous stream of oil or metal, so long as the deposits, or depos for short, are under the player's control. There are a variety of sizes, ranging in tiny, small, medium, large, and giant. This way, high-level players could attain large amount of resources by taking medium, large, and giant deposits, and low-level players wouldn't be left out, as they could capture the tiny and small deposits. However, capture of deposits does not signify permanent control, as other players could also send units to capture other players' deposits for their benefit.

The third method is for players could choose to destroy other rogue faction bases to collect resources; depending on the level of the faction, and the level of the player, the player could either collect a few thousand units of metal/oil, to hundreds of thousands of oil/metal. To achieve this, players must attack and destroy metal and/or oil storage units and factories, which together would provide around one-third or one-fourth of resources available at a rogue faction base. Then, to achieve the rest of the attainable resources would be to destroy the Command Center. After the destruction of the base, the base literally disappears once the player returns to the World Map, which then another rogue base identical to the one destroyed would appear at another location.

The fourth method is for players to attack and destroy other players' bases. This is the most difficult, as each players' bases are entirely unique, unlike rogue bases which have some variety, but are mostly the same. To regularly attack another player for resources is termed as "farming."

Defense

For base defense, players have three different categories of defense assets at their disposal: units, turrets, and mines.

Mortar

Mortar towers are essentially defense emplacements that shoot rockets at enemies. These have the greatest range, since, at their highest levels, no unit has ever outranged mortars. Even the Hellfire Tank, achieved through the event, Operation Hellfire, cannot outrange the mortar at the highest levels. These rockets are slow, so mortars are not reliable against fast-moving targets, especially at long range. This is offset by the rockets' explosion range. Mortars fire a volley of rockets upon detection of enemy(s), then must wait for a specified amount of time before they could release more rockets. They are highly effective at dispatching large numbers of ground units at long ranges.

Machine Gun

Machine guns are the most versatile defense asset available. Though they can only shoot and hit one unit at a time, they have vastly greater dps (damage per second) than mortars. The only infantry capable of outranging the turret is the Sniper, and the only two land vehicles capable of outranging it are the Razorbacks and the Hellfire Tank.

Hellfire Cannon

Hellfire Cannons are the most powerful assets a player could have, dps-wise. It has medium range, and within that range shoots numerous rockets against a target, creating a wide damage area.

Flak Gun

Flak Guns are the best assets for defending the base against attacking aircraft. They utilize splash damage to deal the most damage it possibly can onto enemy aircraft. As a result, they are more effective against aircraft than machine guns.

Units

Players can have units to aid in defense of the main base. The number of units able to defend a player's base is limited by two different buildings: the Command Center, and the Storage Unit. Each unit has a specific number of points which count to the total number of points (units) the base could support. The more powerful and effective the unit, the more points it costs.

Mines

If placed correctly, mines could potentially be the most devastating asset a player could have on his base for defense. Mines could serve two purposes, to prevent enemy units from damaging and destroying a player's base, and deal maximum damage to the invaders as they damage/destroy a base. There a total of five different mines, all of which are attained through upgrades. The order of mines to be unlocked are as follows:

• IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
• Flatiron
• Claymore
• Bouncing Betty (also known in the real world as the S-mine)
• Shaped Charge

Offense

To attack, players must first click the Scout button to view the enemy base, then attack. While the attacking player cannot view the location and type of mines the defender has placed, the attacking player has a complete view of the defending base, thereby limiting the effects of fog of war. To counter this, the defender can place units behind various structures large enough to hide the units from view, which could be either the buildings outside of the base perimeter or the base buildings themselves, such as the Command Center or the resource storage buildings.

Units

All units fall under three main catagories: Infantry, Vehicle, and Aircraft. Infantry is produced in the Barracks, land vehicles are produced in the War Factory, and air units are produced in the Air Base. The list of all main units that all players have access to through upgrades are as follows:

Infantry

• Rifleman-the weakest, cheapest unit, wields semi-automatic G36; useful in large numbers
• Heavy Gunner-essentially rifleman with automatic weapon;more expensive, but does more damage
• Rocket Launcher-unit which fires rockets; when used and coordinated correctly, can be used to destroy any land vehicle, including the Mega Tank
• Flamethrower-unit with shortest ranged weapon, the flamethrower, but deals more damage than guns.
• Suicide Bomber-runs toward enemy targets with great speed, then blows up upon contact; deals the greatest damage out of all units; useful only in groups and/or large numbers; an entire platoon would be devastating to any base or resource deposit
• Sniper-essentially rifleman with long range and reduced rate of fire; useful in killing other soldiers, especially when deployed in a group
• Hercules-mechs with two machine guns-most effective against soldiers, lightly armored vehicles, and aircraft (named after the mythological hero Hercules, Roman for the Greek demigod Heracles)

Land Vehicles

• Jackrabbit-drone equipped with a machine gun with slow rate of fire-useful in numbers to quickly dispatch enemy soldiers
• Rocket Buggy-weakest, also fastest land vehicle available;fires a volley of rockets after a few seconds
• Humvee-essentially the same as its real counterpart used by the U.S. military; equipped with a single machine gun; useful in small groups to kill large numbers of soldiers, as well as support for other soldiers and jackrabbits; can also be used to either guard snipers against large groups of enemy soldiers, or aircraft-however, the humvee can be easily replaced by Hercules when acquired; (based off of its real-life counterpart, the Humvee
• Rhino-the first, and weakest tank, but useful in large numbers against enemy rhinos and paladins, as well as gun turrets and enemy soldiers
• Razorback-when upgraded, can have great health and extremely long range; advised against turrets and support for tanks against enemy tanks, as well as against turrets for it outranges turrets; highly vulnerable against mortar towers, certain types of soldiers, vehicles, and aircraft
• Paladin-the next tank after the rhino-more powerful and greater health-can be deployed in small groups to defeat other rhinos and paladins-in numbers, can be used to destroy challengers; can also be used to quickly dispatch enemy soldiers and hercules, as well as defense buildings, especially turrets
• Challenger-the second most well-armed and armored tank at anyone's disposal; can be used in groups to dispatch all units and buildings except mega tanks and high level mortars
• Mega Tank-the best tank at everyone's disposal once upgraded; extremely high health(highest of all units ever introduced, extremely powerful gun; used in numbers, can be nearly unstoppable;near-invincibility can be overcome through mines, aircraft, and turrets; useful against all units except aircraft

Aircraft

• Winged Drone-first aircraft to be utilized; useful only in large numbers, as each drone deals only minor damage and has bad health
• Copter-extremely useful in groups against numerically superior soldiers
• Cobra-essentially larger copters with different design and weaponry; however, are more powerful and can sustain greater damage; useful in large numbers against lightly armored vehicles such as jackrabbits, as well as enemy soldiers
• Thunderbolt-the next non-helicopter after winged drone; vastly superior health; useful against all units except Hercules; deployed only in small numbers due to the amount of space each thunderbolt takes up in the air base (design is near identical to its real-life counterpart, the A-10 Thunderbolt)
• Raptor-the most powerful and fasted aircraft available; useful against all enemies except high level turrets and hercules; (based on its real-life counterpart, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor)

It should be noted that ALL ground units are vulnerable to mines. Only the Attack Dog, attainable through events, is able to purposefully detect and set off mines.

Criticism

Within the War Commander gaming community, there have been many criticism of Kixeye regarding the administrative and programming aspects of War Commander.

Kixeye has been criticized by players for the new repair system. The repair system was intended to repair units platoon by platoon. However, there have been instances where upon the player's signing off of the game, the repairing of units either repairs only one platoon and ignores the rest, or stopping the repairs of platoons all together. This alone has contributed to some players quitting the game all together, as it hinders the player's ability to consistently project power, and increases the time needed to repair units.

It has been noted that Kixeye has seemingly progressed to favor the paying players over the non-spenders. This has caused some degree of criticism.

Kixeye has also been extensively criticized for frequent disconnections. Frequently, players are asked to reload their page with no way of rejecting the order. It is also apparent by the fact that War Commander is easily overloaded with connections at times, especially during the early hours of events. These overloads could extend for hours.

Notes

Nearly all information here was attained through experience by playing War Commander.

External links

• example.com