When I was asked to write an article for NSLearn, it took me less than a minute to decide what my article would be about. The fundamental underpinnings of commanding are something that I feel are lost on many players, if not many commanders. Natural Selection at its heart is a Real Time Strategy game, but most players only interact with the First Person Shooter aspect of the game. To understand the game itself, however, one must also understand the RTS portion of the game, and it's correlation to the FPS aspect of the game. While this article is aimed primarily at the emerging commander who wishes to understand the very basics of commanding itself, I'm sure almost everyone will glean some information from reading this article. This is mainly directed at the marine team, but I do make examples that use the alien side of the equation, and some information does apply to both sides. Also note that many of the timeframes and examples given are for a competitive environment or a pub environment that consists of 8 or less players on a team. While the information applies to all games, the examples are usually limited to the smaller size game. The pronouns "one", "his", or "her" are used to denote the reader and nothing else.

Tactics and strategy are two terms thrown around too loosely in NS, and the reason why is many people simply do not understand what the two mean, and how they relate to one another. Strategy is defined by dictionary.com as "The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations." Tactics are defined as "The military science that deals with securing objectives set by strategy, especially the technique of deploying and directing troops, ships, and aircraft in effective maneuvers against an enemy". Notice that in the definition of tactics, the word strategy appears. The reasoning for this is simple: Strategy is one's overall objective, and tactics are the movements and techniques used to achieve the strategy. They are not interchangeable words, they mean separate things. The reason this is important is that people get confused as to who should be doing what in the world of Natural Selection, and having definitions makes it easier for people to perform specific roles. The Commander should set the strategy he wants to use in the form of a plan, while the marines execute whatever tactics are needed to perform the set strategy, hereafter known as "The Plan". More on constructing plans later. The last part of the introduction deals why any of this is important at all. Many players have spoken to me and made it appear that the Commander's role isn't even important in terms of skill in NS. Some people have the false impression that all the commander is good for is dropping medpacks and upgrading. This is a false impression that many people have, and I'm about to explain why. The Commander is the main decision maker on marines. The commander has to have a complete understanding of the underlying principles of RTS, as well as an understanding of the game of NS itself. If the commander doesn't understand this, it will be readily apparent to the marines, as they slowly wither away under the teeth and claws of the alien team. The core of NS is RTS; however most of the players only notice the FPS aspect of the game. Understanding the RTS portion of the game is critical to becoming an excellent commander, a competent marine, and is a requirement to understand how the alien team functions at all.

Both the marine and alien teams have distinct advantages and disadvantages that help balance out both teams and make them quite unique. As far as I know, NS is the only game that has completely different tech trees for opposing teams. Neither tech tree is even remotely similar to the other, and this shows greatly when one breaks down both teams and analyzes them individually. First a note on some terminology that will be used in the following paragraphs. RTS games are normally divided into three segments, the timeline being when major shifts occur in the game. The first is the early game, consisting of the start of the game until the second stage of technology is achieved. In NS this consists of the alien team acquiring fades and a second hive being under construction, while the marines have some combination of shotguns, phase gates, an upgraded armory, and at least level1 upgrades (or lvl2 in one particular category). Once this point is reached the game is considered to be at the mid-game, which is when the bulk of the major fighting that determines the outcome of the game occurs. This is when marines begin pushing the alien hives, and the alien team attempts to hold them off and/or counter by pushing the marine nodes and base to alleviate the pressure on the hives. Once a decisive battle has occurred, usually being the destruction of the alien second hive or the repulse of the marine team attacking the hive, the game proceeds to the end game, which consists of one team withering away under the might of the other team. Usually this consists of whittling down the losing team's resource nodes and finally ends with the destruction of the marine base or the remaining alien hive. It is possible for the game to shift back from one timeframe to another, especially if the tech abilities of both teams are severely damaged or both teams greatly weaken each other. Another term that's frequently used is pressure. This term means the use of either units, structures, or technology in order to force the other team to respond or lose whatever is the target of the pressure. Aliens frequently pressure marine resource nodes in order to force more marines to focus on defending nodes rather than cutting down alien nodes, or even prevent marines from attacking the hive.

Marines have several major advantages that they can push. First is the Commander role itself. The Commander is an integrated Command, Control, and Communication interface that interacts with the marines in a 3rd person perspective. The overhead view the commander uses allows for moving around a map to guide, assist, and command the marines to victory. Flexibility is another major marine advantage. The marine tech tree allows for many more viable victory paths than the alien tech tree, and each segment is capable of winning the game (Marines start the game with a tech capable of winning, the shotgun). Ranged firepower is the main marine advantage. The power to kill aliens from a distance is the one thing that aliens sorely lack, and it's most blatantly obvious the first four to six minutes of the game, when aliens lack a method of closing the distance fast enough to kill marines. The last advantage is the early game expansion capabilities marines possess. It is entirely possible to cap 5 nodes in the first 2 minutes of the game on the marine team, and can endure node losses. It's a different story on the alien team.

Marines also have some disadvantages. First is the extreme lack of mobility as compared to aliens. Marines have a tough time moving about the map, and once the early game has elapsed, this disadvantage becomes a major one. Fades, lerks, and leaping skulks make marine movement increasingly difficult. Marines are also very individually weak, even at higher tech levels. Marines require at least a semblance of teamwork in order to function; they're not capable of waging a battle on their own. Marine effectiveness nearly doubles with each additional marine that joins the battle, and the effect of multiple marines acting together is very overpowering in many situations. The last marine disadvantage is that if the early game expansion is crippled, marines find it difficult to recover. Once the aliens have map control, it's often impossible for marines to move out and regain some nodes.

The Alien team also has some impressive advantages. Mid to late game aliens are very strong individually, and can take on multiple upgraded marines and not only survive, but do extensive damage. This is exemplified in the 2 Hive carapace fade, which can absorb incredible amounts of damage and deal nearly as much to the marines attacking it. Unlike marines, the alien team is quite resilient early game, and can withstand a difficult start. In fact many will say that's all the alien early game is, an attempt by the alien team to delay the game until the higher life forms appear and the second hive is under construction. Aliens also have the ability to be quite stealthy, and many upgrades to enhance this intrinsic capability. The main alien advantage is their incredibly mobility. While basic skulks have only the bunnyhop as a fast mode of transportation, the fade and the lerk are capable of fast movement at even the most basic level. Once the overall alien tech level increases with the addition of more hives. Skulks that have a second hive can leap about, moving at incredible speed and distance, while a third hive onos can charge around and cover great distance. While aliens lack an equivalent to the commander, they do have a basic integrated communication method in the Hivemind, which through Hivesight allows for aliens to know both where other aliens are and what aliens or structures are under attack.

The Alien disadvantages are a bit more daunting than their marine counterparts. Aliens are the exact opposites of the marines in terms of firepower, being that they have to get up close to deliver damage, as opposed to the marine's ranged abilities. This flaw is most apparent in the alien early game, in which the marine strength of ranged firepower is starkly contrasted by the weakness of the early game skulk. Barring incredible skill by the alien team or complete lack thereof on the marine team, early game aliens simply try to drag the game out until the higher life forms appear, while marines try to gain as much of a head start as possible. The early game alien economy is also very easy to whittle away at, but as long as one node remains up the alien team can usually withstand resource node losses. There is also a lack of flexibility in choosing which tech path to follow, in that it's not as easy to win with one chamber type versus another. The same goes for life forms, all of the life forms available early to mid game are fairly weak until the emergence of the second hive, when they finally become able to counter marine technology. The main alien disadvantage is that their expansion capabilities are directly tied to their technology level. That is, the main alien expansion, the second and third hives, are a requirement for alien technology to grow. This doesn't seem like a major concern, but it will be examined in-depth in a section later on in this article.

A fundamental concept in a strategy game is how to manage one's resources most effectively. To manage them well, one must first know what the resources themselves are. Natural Selection boasts two resources, one obvious and one not. The obvious resource is of course resource points. Resource nozzles located all over the map are capable of being "capped" by a team's resource tower, which harnesses that resource nozzle's points for the team controlling the nozzle. The second resource in NS is time. Time works in opposite directions for both teams. Aliens normally want to hold the marine team off, while the marine team wants to move out as fast as possible and take control of the map. The longer the game goes on, the more likely it is that the alien team will come out on top. Now that we have an understanding of the resources, let's move on to another important aspect of strategy, knowledge of the map.

Most NS maps consist of rooms connected by corridors of varying length, with a duct system connecting many rooms together. Understanding each team's strengths at varying times in the game allows one to know which room is advantageous to which side. Using ns_tanith as an example, there are several rooms that are easily marine dominated, while aliens excel at combat in other rooms. Cargo is a large room that is easily held by marines due to its large size and open construction, while Acidic and Chemical Transport are both more alien-biased rooms due to the small size of the rooms and their cramped confines, as well as the vent access the aliens possess. It is far more difficult for marines to defend Acidic than it is to defend Cargo, so an intelligent commander would force an engagement in Cargo versus Acidic, because marines would possess a greater advantage in defending cargo. This type of knowledge comes with experience and can be transferred from one map to another. Once one knows the type of terrain marines can defend easily, one can find that same type of terrain on another map fairly easily.

Strategy is a dynamic art, meaning that it changes over time and varies in every instance that it is used. One cannot use the same strategy in every situation, nor can one always use the same strategy to approach the same situation. Every action one makes will result in a reaction from the enemy. An action by one's enemy requires a reaction by one to counter it. This continues, from the first action to the final reaction. The strategy is how one acts and reacts to his enemy. Now I will define several basic strategies, and how one should use them. Do not confuse the following with tactics. Strategy is in WHEN to do these maneuvers, tactics are HOW one performs these maneuvers. First is the advance, which is simply moving one's forces from one point to the next. Use this when one's enemy is either not present or retreating. This is one method to gain ground or at least to deny that ground to one's enemy. The reaction one should look for from his enemy is that of a counter attack or ambush.

One should hold the current position when either gathering forces, waiting for an opportunity, or forcing the enemy to exhaust their strength before one attacks. An example of holding position would be camping in the entranceway to Cargo on ns_tanith. The alien team will mostly likely respond by immediately attacking the marines and as the commander can keep them alive while the aliens attempt to take them down. This is extremely effective against fades, as they feel the need to attack marines instead of allowing the marines to approach them, and they usually die in a feeble attempt to dislodge marines from a position that's advantageous to marines instead of either preventing them from reaching that positioning the first place, or waiting for them to leave it.

A retreat should be performed when holding one's position would result in the complete destruction of one's forces without any significant gain to counter the loss. If a siege position is impossible to hold for example, pull one's marines back and consolidate further back, then press forward with a fully equipped squad and retake the position. Do not waste resources on a doomed attempt. A retreat will usually result in the enemy following the retreating force, which can be used to one's advantage. Pull back as if retreating, then set up an ambush and prepare for the enemy. This is highly effective against aggressive aliens that over-extend themselves. Bait them into an ambush with "fleeing" marines, and gun them down before they can react. Closing off their retreat path is highly effective, be it with marines or a structure.

One should use offensive maneuvers when the enemy is weak or time is of the essence. A competent commander won't allow his marines to stand by idle while the aliens are capping resource nodes, the commander should aggressively attack alien nodes instead of allowing aliens to hold them without any resistance. Be wary of pursuing a "retreating" enemy however. Often that fleeing alien is simply baiting for another alien that lies in ambush. Always keep a clear objective in mind when being offensive, and be aware of dangers. Have a clear escape route if things get too dicey.

Defensive maneuvers should be used when one is either gathering strength or needs to hold onto a position at all costs. Siege outposts are a great example of when one should be defensive. Marines should hold down the fort against the aliens while the siege cannons do their job. When the alien forces are sufficiently thinned that most of them are dead or incapable of attacking, switch to the offensive and push into the hive. Often the firepower of the siege and one's marines will overwhelm even the mightiest of alien life forms and force them to flee or die defending a lost cause.

Marines have great firepower in groups. There are times, however, when one should split his marines up instead of keeping them in large groups. Small teams of marines that are moving about the map in a fashion coordinated by the commander are capable of both covering a large amount of ground and of keeping the enemy team in the dark as to both the marine team's objectives and their overall plan. Aliens also have a hard time covering the map as well as marines. Marines can easily spread out and defend the entire map, whereas aliens normally lack the communication ability to counter this. Once one's forces are split up, the enemy will have a difficult time deciphering one's plans.

Often marines cover the entire map and discover a weak spot in the alien team, often being an unguarded hive. A phase gate may be built nearby. This is the flexibility of the marine team in action. A beacon brings all marines back to the marine base and from there directly to the alien hive. While one's forces were divided and confusing to the enemy, now they are one and moving on an objective. Often the alien team cannot respond in time to defend the hive. This is the Art of Strategy, of when to use one maneuver and when to switch to yet another.

The art of feigning is one that is lost on many commanders. All that needs to be done to use this is to simply trick the enemy into believing that one's objective is A, while in reality one's objective is B or even C. Make a fake attack on one place, then suddenly switch and attack another. The aliens will begin to gather at A to defend it, and then suddenly B or C comes under attack. In the confusion they will often simply run around and do little to nothing. The more one switches targets, the more confused one's enemy will become. The rest of the team needs to be aware of one's strategy, otherwise they may be as confused as the enemy. Let one's team know the plan, and they will most likely help achieve it.

In the game of Natural Selection there are 3 major aspects for each team that everyone should understand. While most other RTS games have 4, I say that NS only has 3, and now I'll explain why. The first is economy. This is how many resources one can acquire and how fast one can acquire them. The stronger the economy, the more it can withstand a loss. A very strong marine economy can withstand multiple failed assaults, whereas a weak one will collapse after one failure. The next is expansion. Expansion is the movement around the map and the construction of resource nodes. The holding of these nodes allows for the economy to continue pushing forward, and is generally thought to be an indicator of how much territory a team controls. Marines normally control more nodes because of their superior expansion capabilities, but this is not always the case. Aliens also have a unique way of expanding that is probably the single largest liability to the alien team. This is the point from several paragraphs above that I stated would be reviewed later.

In order for the alien team to increase its technology level, it must expand to another hive location. This leaves a 3 minute window in which the most expensive structure on the alien team is vulnerable to attack. Marines don't even have to really scout to find this structure, because there are only 3 locations on each map one can be, and the first one should be known right away. That leaves a 50/50 chance of just guessing the right location, and adequate scouting by the commander should reveal a building hive. If the alien team never gets a second hive up, then they're unable to progress further along their tech tree, and are locked at essentially a Tier1 technology level. This is a severe disadvantage that only a few people seem to really recognize that should be glaringly obvious to everyone. Marine success hangs on preventing the alien team from advancing technologically, which is the final of the 3 major aspects of NS.

Technology differs on both teams, with Tier1 technology being shotguns and phase gates for marines, while Tier2 would require an Advanced Armory, which unlocks the Heavy Machinegun and the Grenade launcher. Tier3 would be the highest level of technology, which for the marine team would be the Prototype Lab, which allows Heavy Armor and Jetpack research. For the aliens the Tiers respond to how many hives are active. Aliens are limited to 1 chamber per hive, so failure to get another hive up prevents them from expanding their tech beyond that one chamber and beyond Hive1 abilities. While upper life forms are available and should be considered part of the tech tree, they are quite limited at the Hive1 level, and really don't reach full potential until Hive3, but are capable of forcing the end game at Hive2.

The fourth aspect that I neglected to include that's in other RTS games would be units themselves. I don't feel that this is applicable due to NS' unique gameplay method, in which the units are freely available, but require resources to upgrade. The units themselves are free, which is a gameplay method few, if any, other RTS games employ. Upgraded units would be placed under technology for my purposes, because the upgrade costs money, not the unit itself.

Tactics are less of a concern to a Commander than strategy is. The commander can only influence or suggest tactics, and not directly perform them himself. This is the nature of 3rd person viewing, one can't experience things directly. The main thing the commander should keep in mind when suggesting tactics is to know the alien dispositions. IF one knows aliens are going to attempt to hold a specific area, then giving marines an adequate idea of what's about to happen would allow them to be ready to counter the alien ambush. The commander should be ready to give his or her marines suggestions as to how to go about something, and not leave them to their own vices. Often marines will simply ignore an order if they aren't told how to go about accomplishing it if they're confused. An aware commander will notice this indecision and help the marine out, so that they can move out and accomplish the objective.

Often marines will understand what the commander wants to accomplish, but fail to accomplish it in a way that the commander wanted. While this is a tactical failure, it is a strategic success. The objective was accomplished, but not in the fashion expected. This can sometimes be a bad thing, but often is beneficial simply because the strategic goal was achieved. A commander may want his marines to go to cargo on ns_tanith and take out alien nodes along the way. Instead of going through Chemical Transport and Acidic and killing the nodes there, the marines may simply walk through the double resnode area and Central Access Tunnels into cargo, thus accomplishing the strategic goal of reaching cargo. However the RTs in Chemical and Acidic are still up, so therefore the marines didn't go about their task in the correct manner. However, not always doing what was intended can have benefits, the outcome isn't always negative. A weakened fade may be in cargo at the time, and is killed by the unexpected arrival of several marines. Such things happen commonly. Use whatever success one can achieve to one's advantage, don't get hung up on the failures.

The opposite is also true; it is possible to have a tactical success and a strategic failure. Assume that satcomm hive is going up on ns_tanith. A fade blocks the path the marines intend to take through chemical. This fade merely stands in the doorway from Chemical to the paths leading into Satcomm hive. Eventually the marines move on after much goading, and slowly attempt to bait the fade into attacking. Eventually the fade attacks and is subsequently blocked by a marine, which results in his death. While the tactics used to kill the fade were successful, which was an objective that needed to be met to reach Satcomm, the fade was simply delaying the marine team until Satcomm hive dropped. Now not only can that alien re-fade, but all aliens have second hive abilities. Don't assume that a tactical success is an overall success, because it will be one's downfall.

The final note on tactics is when to switch them. If a particular tactic is effective, keep using it until it's no longer effective, or one believes that it will no longer be effective. If it works, use it. If it doesn't, don't. If a specific tactic didn't work once, don't discard it. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts to perfect or effectively use a tactic, so keep at it until it's either not effective at all or is proven totally ineffective.

The core job of the commander is to set the pace and the objectives for the marine team. Often the commander will set a plan, a set of guidelines by which the commander plans to achieve victory. The first step in planning is to outline it so that one can understand it one's self. The commander does no good for the team if he doesn't understand his own plan fully. Once it's defined for the commander, he can at least explain the basics to his marines. Next is to flesh out the plan. This is the point that one finds out whether the plan is workable at all. This is where most plans fall apart, because they're either far too complex or not complex enough. The simpler the plan, the easier it is to accomplish, but it must have defined roles for at least groups of marines, if not individual marines. Everyone should know their role, otherwise marines are either under-utilized or simply do nothing at all. Also one should factor in the difficulty of executing the said plan, and if it's possible for the commander to even do it him or herself. If one is a new commander, a six minute jetpack rush is near impossible to achieve because of the coordination required for such an effort.

The most important and overlooked part of planning is knowing the alien counters to one's plan. If the marine base is very vulnerable, in case of an early Advanced Armory, make sure to mine the armory and get an observatory up whenever possible. If movements or sensories first can counter one's plan, be sure to check and see what chamber the alien team went for before making a decisive move. Some teams will use 3 or more fades against the marines instead of the standard two, which allows them to bring more firepower to the table before the second hive goes up. Be prepared for this. Also be aware of the many uncommonly used alien strategies, which include but are not limited to all lerk, all gorge, or even all fade strategies. These strategies can be lethal if one doesn't notice them early enough and alter the plan accordingly. Never be so set in a plan that one refuses to change it to accommodate an alien strategy that counters it. Flexibility is a marine strength, use it accordingly.

The commander's plan should also be effective against the three aspects of NS I talked about above. A commander should always ask her or himself these questions when formulating the plan itself. Will this plan be able to take out the alien economy? Early resource denial to aliens can be crippling if applied liberally. Will one's marines have enough stopping power to kill the aliens? If the plan calls for early HMGs or a shotgun rush, then the answer is yes. A strategy lacking in larger weapons will often run into failure once fades appear. Will the plan have staying power? A lack of armor upgrades and/or welders will not allow marines to survive the war of attrition that many alien teams play with their hit-and-run style attacks. A gradual weakening followed by a hammer blow from a fade will often result in the death of every marine at a location, and should be watched for and countered if at all possible. The last and most important question a commander should be asking him or herself is whether the plan can take down alien hives, or deny their construction in the first place. This is by far the most fundamental aspect of the plan, because if it's not answered, then the plan will eventually fail. If the aliens get up a second hive, even if they have 0 nodes they will be a force to be reckoned with. Nodes can be built eventually, but a second hive is difficult to get up, and once active is difficult to remove.

NS lacks many things that other RTS games possess, but it also has one thing almost no other RTS has: a morale factor. Units in NS aren't just units, they are actual people. That fade is merely a person in the role of fade, and is susceptible to morale changes like any other person. Morale by definition is "The state of the spirits of a person or group as exhibited by confidence, cheerfulness, discipline, and willingness to perform assigned tasks". What a perfect definition. Marines require high morale to function. Marines that feel like they're winning are more than likely going to win. They will continue to perform the tasks assigned to them as long as it's clear that the task will result in victory. This topic distinguishes the great commanders from the good ones. A great commander will alter the morale of his marines to his benefit.

The commander is the #1 influencer of morale on the marine team. One must instill confidence in one's marines. This will make them both trust and have faith in one's abilities. This type of cohesion will result in marines doing whatever they're told, even if it means their "death". On this note, never allow marines to see that as commander, one made a "bad" decision. The commander is always right, and cannot make a "bad" decision. The commander's role is to direct marines on the battlefield, not explain his or her reasoning. That's not up to the marine to question, and never allow them to do it. Marines that question the commander like this should be ignored if at all possible, and do not allow them to influence other marines. Make it clear that as commander, one is in control and will be capable of securing a victory for the team, and the rest of the marines will listen. If a marine accomplishes a great feat, single them out for doing so. Stroke their ego a bit, and others will strive to get a compliment as well. The human ego is something that drives nearly everyone.

The role of commander is a role that many people simply have a modest understanding of, and I hope that this in-depth article helped some people understand exactly what the commander should be using to play the game. Some of the concepts are general and aren't particular to NS, while others were very specific to this game only. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this, as I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. If anyone would like some help understanding the concepts I tried to put into words, or has any suggestions or complaints, feel free to post on the forums.