The fact is that an officer can clear out vital areas on his own in many cases is ridiculous. It doesn't matter what the ticket cost of his personal loss. If he breaks through a defense in one place himself and causes a huge distraction then he did his job. The team not using their officers as close range rambos is not competing right. In what historical situation did this happen in the American Civil War? Where are the accounts of "As we closed in to the enemy line we saw a number of officers and we targeted them quickly for fear of their deadly pistols." Officers should get reloads, it's just silly not to give them reloads. But they need to lose something first...
On my morale thread (Morale thread 2.0 coming some day soon), I mentioned "autosurrender" as the most extreme solution to lone wolves in close proximity to larger numbers of enemies (3:1 - 4:1). I now believe more than ever that this is a totally suitable and realistic solution to dealing with these rambo officers and rambos in general. The fact that an officer has a pistol should be an aside to his role. Any player on either team caught in close quarters and outnumbered 3:1 should face a by-the-second chance of autosurrendering, a "missing" casualty who puts his hands up, turns his rifle upside down, "offers" his sword, whatever. I don't even feel like this is a radical idea at all. It's quite normal for individuals to be bagged in the Civil War when cut off. Fighting alone and outnumbered is an absurd, and even dishonorable, concept for soldiers trained to fight in close formation and yet here it is, all around in every round on every map. You can't solve rambos completely, nor should you. But they should at least be mitigated to keeping their distance. That's a basic safety that a player should have in this game, not to have Johnny Banzai come up behind his line and start stabbing guys in the back one-by-one.
Do we want rambos or not? Do we want a game that works or not? Do we want people to retreat and reorganize or fight to the death to the last man because they can? Close combat should be a gamble best taken with heavy odds not at a whim like it is now. And if you take a gamble and fail you deal with the consequences, you either run away or you are eliminated without requiring the opposing team to tango with you as long as you can drag it out. I'm all about the individual players pushing the limits. But there should be limits. The rambos should be tip-toeing just outside of autosurrender reach and not hanging out on the other side of a fence all alone 2 yards away reloading his musket to kill one more enemy for the emperor.
As it is I'd heavily prefer there just wasn't an officer class than what we have now. It's more than misused and misrepresented as it is. The class is a major detriment to the gameplay right now. I'd upload more footage than just from 90 minutes tonight (and these weren't all the officer deaths either) but I don't see a point because anyone playing for more than a couple times can see it as plain as day. You can't rely on structured events to force people to adhere to some accepted practices in a role like the officer. Somehow tying the officer class to status in a clan or unit (as some desire) is a horrible, terrible idea while accomplishing nothing against that undesirable use of officer roles.
And, whether you all agree with that or not please guys can we agree to get rid of the Confederate officers with blue uniforms, at least until the greater issue with officers is resolved? I'm literally finding myself checking the player list at times to make sure an officer is our's. I've literally killed my own officers before on accident thinking they were enemy. That would be a funny Easter Egg for April Fools day, not cool at all on an everyday basis. Can I get an amen from the Union players? It's doing wonders to promote misuse of officers. I've even got footage of rebel officers trying to lead union troops into traps. I don't get why anyone, no matter how fanatical with their history, would let that slip into a first person shooter.