The special class activated by the Happy Stick, "Soldier and Commander," wasn't a combat class. If you wanted to get technical, it was actually more like a special "life skill."
The Commander progression was the perfect counterpart to the administrative players, creating a balance of "civil and military." It was the greatest way Murphy could show his little players that he respected their freedom.
Just as his "development team" declared, no matter what plans you had for your life, and no matter what had stopped you from achieving those plans in the real world, you had the chance to start over in Transia!
Of course, when Murphy designed this class system, he'd taken some very practical factors into account.
Ordinary people, no matter how talented, would struggle to develop a complete understanding of tactics and strategy without professional training. So most players who became Soldiers in hopes of indulging their general fantasies would probably end up as sergeants, leading ten NPC grunts into battle.
In fact, most players' poor instincts for warfare and untrained command skills meant they wouldn't even be qualified to lead a squad of ten. Even so, that would be enough to satisfy many people's fantasies about war.
Besides, Murphy hadn't come up with this class progression on a whim.
The complete commander progression—"Soldier, Commander, General, Supreme Commander"—had been prepared in advance for the Paradox Interactive war criminals who would inevitably flood into the game later.
He figured those guys who spent all day shouting, "Flatten Gaoping, military tribunal! Neutron annihilation, tear the earth apart!" would love this class system. Once they arrived in force, they'd surely use their genius ideas about warfare to show Murphy how to get yourself surrounded, then tear your way back out again.
Of course, that was at least two months away.