Tips for newbies

[bartbert]

Originally posted by SamF7:

Yeah yeah yeah: A "You're Dead Card" = "2 hits: Destroyed". Heh. I was on the receiving end of THREE of those last night (it was not a good night for my pilots)......

I was like you, Jim, early in my DiF experience => I just didn't see much "skill" in the game. I was winning about 40-50% of my games against evently matched planes.

But then I started to REALLY watch how the AI was playing - I REALLY started to analyze why the AI always seemed to have 5-6 cards, while my pilots only seemed to have 2-3 at any given time. "Strategy", in the game, really comes down to just a couple, simple concepts (IMHO), most of them based on always having more cards than the enemy. Examples:

1) Learning when NOT to play a card. If the AI is plinking you with a simple 1 hit burst, don't plop down your ACE or vertical roll to cancel it. Take those tinks, and save your "avoidance" cards for when it matters (to save your bacon from being "flipped" to damaged or dead).

ACE cards and Vertical Roll (VR) cards are the ONLY cards that can stop those hideous "Out of the Sun cards" - hoard them like gold.

Note the devestation to be had with a "Target Destroyed" card AND an ACE card in your hand. The ONLY thing that can save the AI is another ACE card. Don't be so quick to plop down that ACE card to avoid an enemy move/shot, especially if it gives the AI just a modest advantage.

Have a scissors card? Let him burn cards to get in a maneuver. USE your cards to prevent him from TAILING you. On your turn you go from being advantagED to HAVING the advantage. 1 successful scissors = 2 maneuvers.

Likewise, those half loop cards are GOLD. The computer can burn a LOT of cards to get on your tail and get some shots off. If you have effective "dodge" cards, one loop card on your turn puts everthing back to normal.

I guess what I'm saying is watch for situations where you have a hand where the enemy has to plunk down 2 or more cards that can be countered by just one of your cards.

2) Know the intricacies of the cards:

* Scissors trumps Tight Turn, but only TT's can dodge shots.

* Ace trumps everything

* Barrel rolls are the most common card and counter each other.

* Maneuver, Half Loop, Bursts => Attack Cards

* TT, BR, ACE, VR => Defense Cards

* VR, ACE => VERY special cards. ACE trumps everything. VR can dodge, but also be used during your turn to change elevation.

Let me give an example: the computer pops you HARD (3+ hits). You have a BR, TT, Scissors. Do you play the BR or TT? Both BR and TT will "dodge" the shot, but BR is easily countered (very common card), while a TT, even if the AI matches your TT, you can always trump it with SC. Essentially, the computer has to have BOTH a TT and SC to stop your TT. It's the better play.

3) Strategy : I don't claim to be an expert here, but there really are some interesting situations that can occur that can be capitalized on.

Hand full of DEFENSE only cards, no maneuver or burst cards? Then LET the AI get on your tail and blaze away. DON'T counter his maneuvers, but let him just flail away with valuable burst afer valuable burst. This is when I have my Wingie go for his wingie and just let his Leader waste cards on my leader, who can't attack ANYWAY! I've had a hand of 2 ACE's, 2 Vertical rolls, and all the rest of Barrel Rolls and tight turns. Defense time. Time to target his wingie with your wingie and just let your leader bear the heat.....he's got the cards for it and he can't attack ANYWAY.

Got a hand of "Target Destroyed", ACE, Half Loop? Yah, you can pop the enemy leader with this hand, but if his leader has a bunch of cards (lets say 5+), then why not use these three cards to target his wingie with his MUCH smaller hand? The ONLY thing that can save his wingie is another ACE card. Especially deadly against Japanese planes at high altitude (1 def card)! It's most likely a free kill.

Advantaged? Tailed? Change altitude. A lot. Climbing forces him to lose a card. If you have a worthless card, this is a no-brainer. Diving MIGHT give you a card to save your bacon (a SC when you are advantaged, ACE, VR, HL any other time). Realize that the following plane ALWAYS loses an "extra" card when you are only advantaged. The evil VR forces him to lose an ADDITIONAL card. Climbing, yet another!

Note that you should NEVER discard cards UNLESS it will get you more cards. Example; planes with -1 for damage find 1:1 cards worthless. I was ALWAYS discarding them at the end of my turn, even if the discard DIDN'T free up a draw! It took me a few games to realize that 1:1's are PERFECT cards to discard when climbing or following a baddie, even if my dinky guns carried the -1 penalty!

In short, it's always good to have the AI burn more cards than you!

Sam_F7

[bartbert]

Originally posted by Inigo Montoya:

Sam,

That was outstanding! It nailed it entirely. One thing I'd like to add is skill selection. The reason so many people get into trouble in the "middle" game (where the planes and pilots really start to get good) is that the AI will punish you for earlier errors. If you've made bad choices about skills, it will come back to haunt you now. I really admire people who pick Aggressive or Stay With Him! instead of Evasive or Shake Him Off! The first two skills are going to be difficult to survive with in the middle game, but the later two are crucial, IMHO. If you look at Sixxkiller's skill set, you have to admire how he has got his pilots to such high levels with such offensive-minded skills. In order to get to the high levels like that, Sixx rode a very narrow and much more dangerous line than I did with my defensive skills. If you look at Black Mamba's medals, she's flown a ton of unscathed missions where she never took a point of damage. That's because of my (The Bride's) skill selection. Offensive skills are great for killing, but they make you more vulnerable to getting shot down. On the other hand, Sixx will tell you the best defense is killing the other guy!

Consider the *order* you purchase your skills too. I plan out the 10 skills I want to eventually have, then purchase them in decreasing order of cost. This is due to the fact the skills get exponentially more expensive. If you ever want to have my favorite skill, Quick Reflexes, you really must bite the bullet and save for it to be one of the first three skills you buy because it gets outrageously expensive. Delay that gratification!

Another angle is mission selection and parameters. Black Mamba flew probably 75% dogfight missions where it was 1v1. Flying escorts or 2v2's just puts that much more risk into the system. For this reason, I very much admire Stalin's O for his ability to consitently fly escort missions and kill all 4 opposing enemies over and over. Again - risky, but revealing how skilled the guys who can do it and get away with it.

It's not a game of luck! There's so much depth to it. Man, I am so addicted!

[bartbert]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

Sam's post is very good - I'd add a few points.

This is a game about resource management - the resources are cards, and managing them is what you're trying to get good at - maximising the number of things you can do with your hand, minimising the things your opponent can do with his.

1/ Discarding - only ever discard enough cards so that you get your full draw. Eg if you have 6 performance and 2 horsepower and 5 cards in your hand, then only discard 1 max so that yuo can draw 2 cards.

Of course if you have 5 GOOD cards then by all means do not discard any!

2/ Which cards to discard? Some choices are easy - AS Sam saif if you have a 1:1 with an a/c with a -1 modifier then that's a no-brainer.

But what if you have several 1:1's, a 1:2, a couple of 2:2, and a 2:3?

Well you probably want to discard some and are hoping for some defensive cards for starters!!

I discard cards with equal bursts/damage before those that have a damage bonus - eg I'd get rid of the 1:1's and the 2:2's - that shouldn't be any surprise.

I'd probably get rid of the 2:2's first, because 2 x 1:1's require more defence cards from the rarget than 1 x 2:2 does.

For manouvre and defence cards - I get rid of cards that duplicate an effect, and keep those that have more than 1 function - eg if I have a half loop I'll happily get rid of manouvre cards as they do the same thing.

If I have a hand of tight turns I'll get rid of barrel rolls because TT's do 2 things - they protect against being shot, and they counter manouvres - barrel rolls only do 1 thing.

I'll ditch Scissors if I have a few of them and no tight turns and I have the advantage - but I'll keep 1 or 2 as a counter to TT's being played against my shooting.

If I'm shootign at someone and I have a choice of OTS or IMS cards I will usually play whichever I can counter the defence agaisnt if the enemy has a decent sized hand - eg I won't play an OS card unless I have a Vert Roll or an Ace - and even then I wouldn't play the Ace to hit him unless it was goign to smoke or shoot him down.....and sometimes not even to smoke him.

I ALWAYS buy an Ace card first.

Redraws are cheap and oft overlooked - get a couple.

Draw an extra card are useful, but get expensive if you buy a lot.

Skills that give you cards or take them away from the other guy are always better than skills that do not.

[Zanadu]

One comment I'd like to add to the really fine advice above.

At low levels, resist the tempatation to get a kill at the expense of running youself out of defensive cards. His wingman will eat you before you can recover. In early type a/c you don't get to draw enough cards to have a reasonable chance of getting what you may need to survive the next turn.

Better to gain credit for a 'damaged', or even just the points for surviving the mission, than get a kill and lose the pilot.

[SamF7]

and NOW Zanadu tells me....

I've been learning this the hard way of late. I'm learning that when the enemy "dodges" your shot with a TURN/BR/VR card, it's not always so wise to plop down YOUR TURN/BR/VR card to cancel his. It depends...

- How much damage is the fire card causing?

- More importantly, how many defensive cards will you have left, and how many cards will his wingie get next turn?

- What altitude are you at? How many cards do YOU get at the beginning of the next turn? If you are only drawing one card, don't "count" on it being a defensive card. "Hoping" for the right card WILL get you killed.

Remember....ALL fire cards are playable by the enemy Wingie. I lost my BEST pilot, Suzuki, to a DEVESTATING Wingie OOS3:4 card last week.....the turn AFTER I used my last VR to GUARANTEE getting in a 1:2 fire card on his leader (which didn't even kill him; it only damaged him).

Stupid stupid stupid.

And NOW Zanadu imparts his wisdom.

[ June 24, 2006, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: SamF7 ]

[lakespeed]

Another point I'd like to make about ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENTS.

If you have advantage on an enemy, and he dives, take into consideration how many cards he will have, and skills such as POWER DIVE and SHAKE HIM OFF, as it may cost you more to chase him instead of letting him go.

And the same is true when you are disadvantaged and changing altitude.

[SamF7]

I hear ya, lakespeed.

When I'm in an "Agile" plane, and/or I'm holding a Scissors card and I'm advantaged, EVERYTIME I climb, I always seem to chuckle and say to myself:

"Come on UP, said the spider to the fly".

A Scissors/Burst combo is SO much easier when the NME has had to discard a few more cards....

SamF7

[ June 24, 2006, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: SamF7 ]

[Zanadu]

In the real world, the problem of a pilot becoming so focused on getting a kill that he leaves himself vulnerable it called "Target Fixation" and it is a genuine problme that is the subject of a good deal of a pilot's tactical training.

That part of the game is accurate, and it never altogether goes away not matter how many kills your pilot has, or how many skills he's collected.

[Paul]

All of the above is great reading and excellent information and I have soaked it all in. But it looks to me that you are all flying good planes. I'm starting out in US P-35 in 1939. Boring and frustrating you say? Perhaps, but I'm learning a lot about escaping and what horsepower means. I have found out that you don't get any cards above medium altitute. And by starting at the very low altitute I get two extra cards. I have found out what that burst = 0 means. I could not figure out why I could not shoot head on until my son pointed out to me that my burst = 0 and that to use that 1:2 card I have to be advantaged. So, to all the noobs out there like me, I would recomend to start with the worst and work your way up. You may still get a major victory even without shooting anybody down. Lot of times I don't even get a shot off. But what surprised me about this game is that there is a lot more strategy than I thought and is not all just luck. The decisions you make during the heat of combat will decide the outcome most of the time. I'm glad that I have finaly made the purchase and I'm looking forward to unlocking a little better plane.

[iplaygames2]

Paul, my friend, sounds like you and I are the 2 resident newbs around here. Welcome!

[Sixxkiller]

Paul,

It was never intended for you to fly the P-35 for a huge length of time. The intent of flying such machines is actually for you to learn to defend yourself. If you had to fly the P-35 for say 2000 experience points, people would most likely be very bored and quit before they got there.

But may I also suggest you also fly rival nations planes such as Japan too. Gives you a better sense of what to do to shoot one down if you can see all the little tricks one can do from the other side of the coin.

But once you get to the Corsair, you will enjoy this game much more.

Originally posted by Paul:

All of the above is great reading and excellent information and I have soaked it all in. But it looks to me that you are all flying good planes. I'm starting out in US P-35 in 1939. Boring and frustrating you say? Perhaps, but I'm learning a lot about escaping and what horsepower means. I have found out that you don't get any cards above medium altitute. And by starting at the very low altitute I get two extra cards. I have found out what that burst = 0 means. I could not figure out why I could not shoot head on until my son pointed out to me that my burst = 0 and that to use that 1:2 card I have to be advantaged. So, to all the noobs out there like me, I would recomend to start with the worst and work your way up. You may still get a major victory even without shooting anybody down. Lot of times I don't even get a shot off. But what surprised me about this game is that there is a lot more strategy than I thought and is not all just luck. The decisions you make during the heat of combat will decide the outcome most of the time. I'm glad that I have finaly made the purchase and I'm looking forward to unlocking a little better plane.

[Paul]

iplaygames2

Thanks for the welcome. Let me know when you are ready for online battle.

Sixxkiller

I will heed your advice. The only problem to fly all of those planes is enough time. I'm up to Wildcat now, but it looks like I will be forced to spend some xp on skills to stay alive

[ August 29, 2006, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Paul ]

[Stalins Organ]

Bump - I don't know how many newbies there are these days, but this is all still good advice!