Gisli's Leadership Guide

Here's the text from the leadership guide notes. Hope this helps! Obviously I never actually finished this, but its got some ideas that should help. -- Gisli

Fundamentals
- People want to succeed, and so want you to succeed as leader. Its in their interest for you to succeed, so take comfort from that.
- People want to feel that someone is in control.
- Fill the space: Make sure you talk enough/keep giving orders
- Don't get overloaded: Delegate what you can (/cg lead, group lead, pathfinder, gate commander, siege commander, etc)
- Ignore the noise, listen to trusted advisors. In any typical chat group, on any issue, no matter how "obvious", you will hear every range of opinions. Ignore it and listen to those you know you can trust.
Mechanics
- I like to try to tell folks what is going on, in advance. But keep the explanation simple.
- Communications structure is crucial, set this up before trying to do anything. Having the army's attention is a prerequisite to accomplishing anything, do this before moving.
- Use Multiple channels: /cg, /br, /as, /y. It helps to be a fast typer.
- Repeat it several times, give folks a chance to be prepared. Especially on a move-out, and a charge. There's an art to successfully moving and successfully charging, and most of it has to do with preparation.
- Charges in particular: Get people prepared, and synchronized. Take long enough for people to prepare, but not so long that they get impatient.
- On a march to engagement, stop and let folks catch up right before the end. That is important, or your army will be strung out. During a march, lots of little (5 second) stops are better than big stops, because you need to keep them from getting lost in the first place.
- Use autofollow, use /target to find the pathfinder. Groups moving in parallel just doesn't work. Only autofollow works to keep an army together, and even that fails sometimes.
Strategy
- Don't do what is "ideal." Do attempt what your army is actually capable of. Know their limitations, and live within that.
- KISS [Keep It Simple Stupid]. Coordination is very difficult. Avoid if possible.
- Splitting an army is nearly impossible. Use alliances if this must be done.
- Be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses. For example, I'm a good defensive commander because I'm a counterpuncher. I know how to sense initiative changes and take advantage. I can wait for the right moment, and I'm good at sensing when the enemy has overextended (and I'm good at sensing what my army can tolerate by way of waiting). But my stength is *taking* initiative, not *maintaining* initiative. For this reason, I'm not a good offense leader, unless I'm executing a pre-determined plan. And I'm only mediocre at coordinating the details of a contested seige. So I try to pick situations in which to lead that fit my strengths. That means primarily defense, and my strategy is usually to dominate the open field and retake keeps only after destroying the enemy's ability to fight. If your strengths are different, then you should lead in the appropriate circumstances, using the appropriate strategy that matches your own skill set.
- Always attack an inferior enemy ASAP. By definition the situation cannot improve, but it can deteriorate.
- Don't ever camp a mile gate (unless you are a stealther). You will die, and everyone with you will die. Unless you are rallying, always keep moving. People fall asleep if they stay still, rendering your army unable to move or to fight.
- Move when the army is ready, not before and not after. Don't wait for more people if you don't need them. Don't move before you have the necessary strength. Never attack a keep you can't take, don't get farmed. Sometimes you can move to attack and have people meet you there, but be careful about that. In general, don't waste time waiting when you don't need to, and don't waste time on hopeless attacks.
- No matter how good you are, it's all a matter of the odds. All commanders lose some fraction of the time. I figure I win about 3/4 of the time.
- If you don't enjoy leading, don't do it.
- If you want to learn to lead, don't do it on defense. Do it by leading attacks on enemy lands. The stakes are lower, so people will be less likely to get upset if something goes wrong.