Question on teams

[Childress]

The ability to split squads up into teams adds a lot of subtlety and flexibility to the game. Love the new Scout team. But is there a downside? Greater fragility, slower responsiveness? The manual's mum on the subject.

In other words, I don't want to feel compelled to use teams on a continuous basis. Because of the busy work and resulting micro-management. It's clear what the player gains by using teams but what's the trade-off? I hope there is one.

[Broadsword56]

It's clear what the player gains by using teams but what's the trade-off? I hope there is one.

One trade-off is less firepower in a team, so if it gets in a firefight it is quicker to lose fire superiority and become suppressed. Very important to keep teams covered and mutually supporting, so they don't get isolated and destroyed in detail.

[YankeeDog]

One major difference between a unified squad and split teams is the sharing of info (esp. spotting info) via the C2 chain.

AFAICT, info sharing between the individual soldiers in a unified squad is pretty close to instant. Individual soldiers within a squad may not be able to fire on a given target due to LOS/LOF issues, but once one soldier in the squad spots an enemy the whole squad will at least be aware of that enemy's presence. Not so with split teams -- the speed of sharing info between split teams depends on the usual C2 factors, and seems to work more or less the same as info sharing between two squads in the same platoon (that is, usually pretty quick, but not instant, and you have to worry about maintaining your C2 chain connections).

Whether or not a team has a Leader also matters - note that "Leader" is a soldier specialty which you can see in the info panel. From what I can tell, teams without a Leader don't pass info along the C2 chain as efficiently, and are also more brittle under fire (i.e., more likely to go Pinned or Panic). Since there is only one Leader per squad, splitting teams means one team has to do without a Leader. There is usually another soldier in a squad with the "Asst. [Leader]" specialty, which I assume conveys some (but not all) of the benefits of the full Leader.

There are probably other differences as well, but these are two that I have noticed.

[womble]

Your team leaders almost universally have lower "leadership" scores than the leader of the squad would. This makes them a bit less effective and a bit less resilient. for my money though, it's well worth the extra micro needed, and the downsides are slight.

[Childress]

Your team leaders almost universally have lower "leadership" scores than the leader of the squad would.

Really? I find that nine time out of ten the scores are exactly the same.

[womble]

There's definitely some variation, but it's not as bad as I'd thought; I had obviously only noticed all the -2 team leaders

A very quick poll of a platoon in the scenario I'm curently playing gives A and B teams the same scores, with C teams less. But not by consistent amounts. One of the B teams doesn't have an Asst. leading it. All the Leaders are still alive (miraculous, that, at this stage in the scenario!).

[Statisoris]

Just one observation on splitting, I have found when splitting off the 2-man Antitank team their leadership scores always seem extra low compared to the 4-5 man Assault/Scout teams.