How do you manage RT?

[Tank Hunter]

Being WEGO player for years I recently started playing Real Time due to having much less time to spend in front of the PC. I started playing the Russian campaign and the first mission went fine but I'm struggling with the 2nd, there is only some 35 min left and I'm not even close to the beach objectives. It seems like even if I would run for them it would still be hard to achieve.

Do you have any tips for playing RT? How do you manage time and troops? Do you pause a lot? I occasionally pause to evaluate the situation.

What I struggle with is not having some kind of notification tool that tells you if your forces are under attack. I might micromanage one flank when coming under attack only to have the other flank slaughtered just because I did not pay enough attention. This often leads that some of the forces are just standing still while I manage whoever is involved in combat at the moment.

I would appreciate hearing from some other RT players on how you deal with the time constraint.

[VladimirTarasov]

I have never played one non-real time match, I have always played Real Time. On the 2nd mission for the campaign, I reached all objectives with 10 minutes to spare. Just remember to keep a good line of contact between your units, So if one unit is under fire the other one can help in a short notice, Or help right away. 

[Kinophile]

A simple tactic is to stagger your unit contact with enemy (when/where possible).  

Even if it's just by a few minutes,  it gives you a mental breathing space. 

Generally, I'll identify my schwerpunkt,  quickly finesse it and work out along its supporting flanks. 

The discipline is to shift focus after about 1-2 minutes. It becomes a habit eventually and you develop your own pace. 

What's very interesting is when a human opponent gets inside my decision loop and you can feel the disjointed nature of your fight.  It's unnerving.... 

The primary, red line,  no negotiation point us to have sufficient prep time after unit selection:

For a 45 min game,  30mins.  

1 hour to 1:45 game - 45mins prep. 

2 hour game,  1 hour prep. 

Edited April 20, 2016 by kinophile

[Currahee150]

I thought this post meant "how do you manage RT (Russia Today)," and I wanted to see how nuclear this thread would go. 

I was disappointed. 

[Tank Hunter]

 

Thanks for the tips.

I broke through on the left flank and rushed the beaches and few other objectives. Resulted in a major victory for me which I suppose is good enough. Had they had more troops in the back I would have been in deep trouble but it worked out.

Mission 3 is a big one, we'll see how it turns out.

 

As for Russia today I usually manage it with care and caution

 

 

[grunt_GI]

I think you hit upon the key to enjoying RT...which I play almost exclusively for the same reason you do, I (sadly) have limited playing time....I pause A LOT, especially with larger scenarios...kind of my own version of WEGO...but it does allow me to at least get the troops moving in a coherent fashion...until they contact the enemy, of course.

I also think RT adds a bit of realism that you can't manage everything at once...which is not good if you're in a time crunch to reach objectives.

[cool breeze]

Also Target Briefly and Pause are both very helpful in RT.  Same with the box select, and the various double clicking on units and clicking in the lower left to select larger units and give group orders  (like area fire target briefly with a company;).  So if I need to move a platoon of tanks or infantry up to a ridge along a specific route through defilade, I'll use the group move to give waypoints up to just shy of the ridge crest, then move the final waypoints around to get em hull down or whatever.  I also sometimes give much longer and more complicated orders in RT.  In Wego Ill usually not do more than 1 or 1.5 or 2 turns worth of orders.  But in RT I try to start the battle with most of my guys having orders to cover substantial distance.  Pause helps give long orders during the battle to multiple units with different orders, you can give a long pause to the first unit to give time to finish the rest.  And some really long legs of 16m assault orders.  And what everyone else said.  Its normal and good to just let half your forces kick it on one side of the map while you do stuff on the other.  Its actually usually a lot more realistic than constantly using everyone as happens with WeGo.

Edited April 20, 2016 by cool breeze

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, cool breeze said:

Same with the box select, and the various double clicking on units and clicking in the lower left to select larger units and give group orders  (like area fire target briefly with a company;).  So if I need to move a platoon of tanks or infantry up to a ridge along a specific route through defilade, I'll use the group move to give waypoints up to just shy of the ridge crest, then move the final waypoints around to get em hull down or whatever. 

Wait, what box select? Do you mean double click on unit icon? 

[cool breeze]

nah click n drag just like an RTS

[cool breeze]

Oh and while on the subject of area firing with multiple units I'll note that since units ignore target orders to places they can't see, you can get more of them to shoot by targeting around a few times to target places that more of the guys can see  (since some obstructions will block some of the guys view of the first spot you target). 

Edited April 20, 2016 by cool breeze

[womble]

3 hours ago, cool breeze said:

nah click n drag just like an RTS

It's hold-shift-click-and-drag for a selection box in CMx2; click and drag tracks the view across the map.

[Kinophile]

2 minutes ago, womble said:

It's hold-shift-click-and-drag for a selection box in CMx2; click and drag tracks the view across the map.

Ahhhhhhhhhh Thank you! 

[cool breeze]

Oh yeah, muscle memory, shift just fell out of my awareness   thanks!

[womble]

Aye, it's one of those things that's easy to forget; almost every time someone helps out with suggesting it as a control element, they forget the "shift" bit

[Tank Hunter]

Also don't forget the CTRL+1/2/3 command to create groups. You can then use ALT+1/2/3 to jump between the groups quickly.. 

These are unfortunately not saved if you reload the game so you have to recreate your groups every time. Maybe BF can fix this in upcoming engine upgrades.