Kick player on commander death (and other commander-player bond ideas)

(Have been lurking here for a while, played SC, bought PA, love it, etc, etc.
searched forums, couldn't find this idea in another thread, so here goes ... )

Looking at ZaphodX's POV team videos got me thinking. In smaller games, it matters which commander is yours. You use him a lot. In larger games, they just get passed around or parked somewhere. Soon everyone forget who's who. There should be ways to make this more exiting.

What if there's a game mode for team matches that limits what a player can still do when 'their' commander dies? Would be interesting in a team match with a lot of players. For example, make them spectators: able to see (and thus still help the team) but not give commands to units/buildings anymore? Or kick them out completely.

Otherwise, a game mode where you can only build (or control units within orbit of) the planet your commander's on.

Commanders is part of what gives the TA family of RTS its special flavor, but in PA they don't inspire that much yet. There should be more exciting ideas making players think more about/with their commander, but I don't see them yet.

Would be an interesting game mode.

I've actually been thinking about this kind of game mode for weeks now.

I think it would be a great immersion / roleplay mod, but it SHOULD be a mod. There are too many fundamental problems with it to be a proper first class game mode shipped with the game (player elimination in long games is just frustrating, and it communication constraints are unenforcable):

1) Each commander has a player nametag hovering over it.
2) Each player cannot send commands to allied commanders. Your commander can only be controlled by yourself.
3) Once you die, you can no longer send commands to any units in your army; you're booted into a spectator group along with all the other dead commanders.

Those 3 game aspects can be coded in via a mod, but these last two can't:

4) When a player dies, he can no longer communicate with his allies. No more text chat, exits out of the voice chat channel.
5) The game won't be entirely zero sum; there'll be some mechanism for surrendering and achieving an 'honourable victory' (where you win buy basically everyone is still alive) versus a pyrrhic victory (where you win but everyone is dead).

Why 1,2,3,4? Well, I want players to feel like the commander is really 'them' in the game. I want players to not just treat commanders as assets for anti-rush defence and 'team hit points' before the players lose (or worst of all, treating them as glorified explosives). I want commanders to feel like you and your allies; you should really worry when one is in danger, and sacrificing your commander should potentially be a really dramatic gesture.

Why 5? Well... this is more a lore thing. The PA setting is one where the commanders are the last sentient creatures in the known universe (we're ignoring Progenitors), and are completely irreplaceable. The setting is a post apocalypse where the last few remnants of some infinitely apocalyptic war squabble and scrabble for resources on what's left of the galaxy.

There may be as few as 100 commanders in setting; commanders are a really big deal. Commanders shouldn't be dying willy nilly in every single conflict in the galaxy, they should probably be able to get away or get captured.

(Also a neat benefit about #4 is that it's unenforcable and basically forces the game mode / mod to be played between close groups of friends or clans who can just generally have a lot of fun together and not take the game too seriously.)

It's been suggested before.

You should voice your opinion over here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/what-game-modes-should-we-start-with.43223/

It kind of makes sense, since according to the game world you are the Commander. When you die, it's over.

Kicking players out will also limit their desire to suicide charge into an enemy base. At least in theory they'd rather play a full game.

Isn't this inherent to Alliances?

Off topic and lorewise, I am really confused about how every battle ends in destruction. . .



How do the faction leaders survive? They must just order their sub commanders to their deaths all the time.