Best war RTS game?

[tortuosit 485]

I would say it is Wargame Airland Battle.

I'm interested, but I want to play SP pretty often. And I read a lot of negative commends about poorly developed AI (which basically cheats) and which makes the gaming experience an exhausting clickfest. And you would have no time for enjoying the good graphics engine. Also, the developers seam to be completely deaf on listening to easy to implement feature which seems to have been asked 1000 times for: a possibility to pause the SP game.

What do you think? Buy only if you are interested in MP?

[Tonci87 163]

I'm interested, but I want to play SP pretty often. And I read a lot of negative commends about poorly developed AI (which basically cheats) and which makes the gaming experience an exhausting clickfest. And you would have no time for enjoying the good graphics engine. Also, the developers seam to be completely deaf on listening to easy to implement feature which seems to have been asked 1000 times for: a possibility to pause the SP game.

What do you think? Buy only if you are interested in MP?

Well I did enjoy the SP too. The campaigns are failry interesting, I just hope that they remove the 20min timelimit at some point.

But the real fun is in the MP.

How can you say no to something like this?

[amx225 1]

Has anyone played Company of Heroes 2 ,if so then write your opinion/review.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Amx225

[myshaak 0]

The Conflict Zone RTS game had a nice twist where one had to win the information operations/propaganda war as well as do good on the battlefield. The two sides had to fight in an asymmetric conflict, so one could either pursue a decent fight in line with strict ROE or be a conniving bastard using underhand methods.

Regards,

Sander

That's what I was about to suggest too. I think the strongest aspect of this game was handling civilians - transporting civilians to refugee camps for the "good" side and recruiting militias in civilian clothing for the "bad" side had incredible impact on gameplay. In one mission there was a ton of civilians gathering around a small group of my tanks (seeking protection) and I knew that some of the civilians had to be armed and that only a handful of armed militias could wreak havoc... and when I started weighing the options of facing the consequences for killing civilians versus trying to help everyone and losing a lot of your troops in a surprise attack of armed civilians, that was when I felt an actual immersion I didn't expect from an RTS.

This was very intense and I wonder whether this armed civilian aspect, when you simply do not know whether a civ is friendly or if he's about to shoot you in the back, could be used in Arma games.

Now that I think about it, it's pretty much what DayZ is built upon :D

[Tonci87 163]

http://www.clicktop10.com/2013/05/top-10-best-real-time-strategy-games-of-2013/

Has anyone played Company of Heroes 2 ,if so then write your opinion/review.

That list is pretty stupid. It only lists games of 2013, even the ones that haven´t been released yet.

CoH 2 doesn´t seem to be as good as 1

Has anyone played Star Wars Empire at War?

The Space Battles were pretty good.

[tortuosit 485]

Well I did enjoy the SP too. The campaigns are failry interesting, I just hope that they remove the 20min timelimit at some point.

But the real fun is in the MP.

Bought it and started, in my break, reading this fantastic guide by SandyGunfox.

Tonci87, do you know good Youtube standout broadcasts where you can learn a lot from, especially tactics?

[Tonci87 163]

Bought it and started, in my break, reading this fantastic guide by SandyGunfox.

Tonci87, do you know good Youtube standout broadcasts where you can learn a lot from, especially tactics?

Very good guide, have started with that myself. Don´t know about YT channels

[NacroxNicke 11]

I think there are no definitive tactics, at most you need to know what works against what and how you can coordinate an attack, the rest is pure experience.

For example, you need to know how to smoke a zone, and how to micro it, but there isn't definitive tactics on how you can do an attack, you just need to know that the smoke is good to neutralize some defense platforms (ATGM's)

You should know that ATGM's are used for defence, and most vehicles that have them play a role in line defences, just compare the stats between a T72 Jaguar that has not ATGM's, and a equivalent Russian tank with atgm's, you will see how the T72 Jaguar is more fit for shock roles and the other one for defence roles (since the ATGM's have a horrible accuracy, you should amass them, and a shell is faster than a missile =P.). And smoke is exactly for that, to inutilize some of the ATGM's to overpass a zone. Though you can do this in a lot of ways, with Rocket artillery to shock their units, or with a pincer approach to confuse.

You should know how the morale affects the troops, a tank in shaken status will not fire accurately his gun, you should see what units are shaken and support or retire them between skirmishes or you could also see if the enemy has shaken troops or you could do something to make them lower their morale (For example, a way is massing ZSU Afghanskii because if they fire their autocannons at a target, even if they don't penetrate for shit, they will make shaken and after that you can push without problems).

But I think the most important thing in the game is to have the speed to deploy, if you deploy correctly in the first 2 minutes you will have much more advantage than the other guy (since you will have more reinforcements points per zone captured).

You should give a try the Category B decks with no nationality, since they have more troops per card you can literally a mass tanks and stuff with them (but use Cat B, since Cat C has too weak AA defense), and it will make your experience less frustrating since you will not lose the match if you lose a long-range AA (because you will have at least 3 more of them because of Category B).

Also, you should really plan your AA defences, since if you aren't protected against planes or helicopters you will have a bad time. You should have a first line defence with AAA guns and short-range IR missiles (like the Igla o Strela mounted on BRDM), to shaken ground and air helicopters. A second line defence with long-range IR seeking missiles (like the Tunguska with the AAA radar guns desactivated, or the OSA if you are using cat B decks). And a third line with long-range radar missiles with their radar desactivated (like the BUK), you need to have this deactivated because there are anti-radar missiles that will never miss, because they auto-detect radar missiles and are autolaunched from the planes (this is historical accurate, search for SEAD ARM planes), even a shaken plane will fire them and destroy your radar AA's, but if you desactivate their weapons on the HUD, they will be not detected as radars.

And the other thing, most guides show you that you should buy expensive t80 stuff and roll with them, but they are very bad advices to beginners, because first you will not know how to use them, sending them to be eaten by ATGM's. You should buy medium-class tanks (if they are Category B decks you will get more of them), and take Veterancy with them, why? well because with that a cheap tank like the T72 first edition will have more accuracy than the same point-tanks without veterancy, and since they use Kinetic rounds, at very low ranges even a T55 can penetrate a M1Abrams without problems.

Don't forget Recon, recon is the most useful thing in the game, since it gives info about everything that you can't see, you can plan what to do if you see it, like if you see a massed zone of AA you can plan doing a rush to try to kill them, or giving arty and then doing a raid, or whatever you think of.

When doing attacks, use all assets at disposition, pair the tanks in groups of two and not four (since when they are in group of four they fire at the same objetive the four tanks, that's highly ineffective). Plan your attack, see if the enemy has AA, wipe the AA (I think if you wipe the enemy AA you can win for sure), send smoke, send infantry to the woods and deploy them, send planes to napalm some forests near your troops, if you see high cost tanks, smile and send an MIG with Cluster bombs to take it (but first take the AA!, that's why it's important to recon), cover your tanks with choppers, and AMASS your attack in a flank, don't try to attack all the parts of the map at the same time, you will not have enough troops to make for it.

That was long, well, it's a good game, and you can learn a lot from it. When you know what thing is what and for what it's used, you will quickly improve. I suggest playing in 10vs10 matches since they tend to be less frustrating than losing in a 2vs2, but you should know that those 10vs10 also doesn't show what wargame is about.

PD: I suck at this game, those Tips were given to me from a guy that I know that is experienced on this game (he plays since European Escalation and participated in the Beta of Airland Battle), when I started and I followed them with good results.

Edited October 31, 2013 by NacroxNicke

[mistyronin 1181]

Has anyone played Company of Heroes 2 ,if so then write your opinion/review.

I bought it on the release date. At the beginning it was completely awful, so full of bugs and crashes that was impossible to play. Nowadays it's stable enough to be playable. Some of the missions are quite nice, specially with the new graphics and the snow, but IMHO not as fun as the first one.

[Laqueesha 474]

C&C Generals (+Expansion) was the last good C&C if you ask me.

A lot of sleepless nights were had back in 2003, playing that game. Good times... :)

[tortuosit 485]

(but use Cat B, since Cat C has too weak AA defense), and it will make your experience less frustrating since you will not lose the match if you lose a long-range AA (because you will have at least 3 more of them because of Category B).

Thanks for sharing :) What's this about, is CAT B = pre-1980 and Cat C = pre-1975?

EDIT: Answering my own question - yes, it's about this.

BTW, a very good description about what the game is and about the game mechanics:

http://www.tacticalgamer.com/strategy-games-strat/193205-wargame-air-land-battle.html#post1786240

Edited November 2, 2013 by tortuosit

[Caselius 94]

I play mostly RTS-games so it's hard to choose the best one, so i'll just list my fav ones here.

For smaller/medium scale I would take Men of War: Assault Squad, Company of Heroes 1 or World In Conflict. Depending on the realism. For Company of Heroes 2, i enjoyed it, but i hate it doesn't have modding support as-of-yet. Vanilla tends to get boring in most games for me, I need mods to keep interest. Wargame: European Escalation (Don't have Airland yet) is fun too and has bigger scale, you really have to think carefully what you must do in different situations.

As a fan of 18th & 19th century warfare I also usually play Empire & Napoleon Total War, nothing is more epic then 40-unit-stack Darthmod battle.

[froggyluv 2130]

Had Shogun 2 on my HD forever and finally got around to investing some real time in it -I love it. The scale, the joy of upgrades and watching them play out on the battlefield in meaningful ways, the element of surprise...what a game. Half way thru a full Domiation Campaign and pretty sure Ill jump right into another one maybe with this mysterious Darthmod I keep hearing about. Money well spent. Almost tempted to buy the new Rome and also let it age on my PC for a year before diving in if it's half as good as this - honestly I prefer the Rome motif more so chances are good.

[Game__On 10]

Definately Empire Total War. (set in 18th century, the "golden age" , with "ship of the line warships" and other cool stuff)

Gets a little complicated though as your empire expands. Super fun though.

[Tonci87 163]

Definately Empire Total War. (set in 18th century, the "golden age" , with "ship of the line warships" and other cool stuff)

Gets a little complicated though as your empire expands. Super fun though.

Be sure to play it with Darthmod and 40 Units per side enabled. That makes for some glorious epic battles!