Expert Advice

[Vladinir Schotitov]

As a gamer but really quite a novice when it comes to RTS I am curious to hear how the experts tackle a battle. Do they meticulously assess their assets and then formulate a detailed plan? Do they pause frequently to check what is working? Or do they just "let battle commence" and intervene when things seem to bechanging for the worse? I realise there will be personal preferences here but for any of us bovices it would be very interesting ti listen and learn.

[Sturmmann]

Your answers are going to vary widely from player to player. I play all my RTS games pretty much the same way. I make a plan and assign roles to all my units at the very start. I try to rely on realistic tactics as much as possible and never pause the game once the battle starts. If some thing doesn't work out I try to fix it on the fly, but if it all goes wrong I will start all over again after I lose the battle. I'm sure after playing a few missions you will get a feel of what works for you.

[FinnN]

In ToW (I don't play RTSs generally, the only other series I have are the Total War ones and they play very differently to ToW) I think a lot depends on if you're on the offensive or defensive:

If you're on the defensive a lot rides on picking out good positions. Key to this is not getting picked off immediately, and that means gauging where you'll be in cover. In general you will want to be in (or behind) a bush with at least one or two bushes in front of that between you and the enemy. This isn't that intuitive if you judge from the graphics, but once you've managed it a couple of times you can easily tell from top-down view if you're likely to be spotted or not. Also bear in mind that buildings block LOS 100%. Ideally you'll also want to find a position that you can withdraw from and redeploy as multiple flank attacks are common in the campaigns. Don't try to defend clearly indefensible areas unless you have no other option. This all requires looking at the terrain carefully.

If you're on the offensive then I generally try to pick out areas which I can attack which aren't under fire from the rest of the map - this may mean attacking places which aren't in the mission goals list. Start with a recon, sneaking men around using bushes as cover (see above). Once you've identified what's out there then it's time to make your attack plan. So again you need to look at the terrain, but I think if you're going to go over it in minute detail you're probably better off doing it after the recon than before. Again be prepared to restart multiple times, this gets less frequent as you gain experience. If you can cope with the high frustration level you're better off restarting than saving/reloading constantly - I managed it in all but the Polish campaign and I think it was a big help.

I think it's worth your while reading through these articles:

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?cat=71

The detail might not be 100% applicable to ToW, but the generalities certainly are.

Have fun

Finn

[Pandur]

hm, well

i normaly dont play RTS games. also this game has nothing to do with the "S" in "RTS".

for me its a RTwP(realtime with pause) tactical game.

and so the pause feature get heavily used. i press pause for nearly every little task or klick.

in real time thats all unplayable, i never play realime so i suck bad at that.

youhave to think of it like that; a player can effectively controll about 50% of his force and to about 50% effectiveness as when oposed to a player wich uses the pause button heavily.

when there is pause onthe other hand you are given AI like abilities. you can issue orders to as many ppl as you want in 0(ZERO) seconds. this ofcoures lets you, for example, order the whole front to advance EXACTLY at the same time...and if oyu wish, you can abort that 3 seconds later and send em all at the same moment to the ground and crawling back.

id like to see how a realtime player wants to do that.

i suspect that the most pople wich are thinking its to hard for them just dont use the pause button. i mean its a priceless feature in such games. i wouldnt have bought the game when it didnt had pause, would have been a usual RT chaos than.

so, when the end screen shows a play time of an houer it took me 2-4 houers to play it when include the times of pause.

EDIT:

I don't play RTSs generally

LOL, i think i wrote that about to the same time

[Nikki Mond]

Its normal to constantly hit the pause bar while playing this game. Once you adapt to this your victories will occur quickly and each winning game will be shorter.

[Sturmmann]

Pausing is for the weak

[R33GZ]

I generally only play the 'pause' game when things start getting out of control and hectic, for example, being attacked/flanked simultaneously from differnt directions, or reinforcements arriving in the heat of battle... other than that I try to play in real time as much as possible.

Are there any female players out there? their superior multi tasking powers should come to the fore in a game like TOW

[Vladinir Schotitov]

To pause or not to pause - that is the question. More fun on the fly especially if you are attacking but until my reactions improve as I get accustomed to the camera moves I'll pause now and then to relay new instructions. Otherwise its is definitely more realistic especially with such a competent AI to let battle proceed.

[War RaVeN]

I only pause it when my eyes turn away from the screen or when I do need some plenty big modifications (micromanaging) on the battle for saving my ass.

All the rest I doing in real time.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I pause a lot simply so that I can issue different but simultaneous orders to my units.

[Rapier]

I pause regularly to check if, for example, the target's turret has been knocked out. I normally aim at the tank's turret initially until they start getting close.

The game doesn't have a "attack current target until turret disabled or target destroyed" command. Therefore, to micromanage my troops to the necessary detail I use pause.

However, don't for a second believe that I am trying to tell anyone else how they should play their game. I'm a firm believer in playing the game whatever way thats fun for the player.

[Vladinir Schotitov]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Blücher:

I pause a lot simply so that I can issue different but simultaneous orders to my units.

But in real life the war will not wait while you issue orders nor can you realistically issue orders simulataneously. Having said that I agree that you should play the game the way that gives you the most rewarding experience. My problem is that I have never been in a real war (except for dodging the buzz- bombs) so I am having to learn the hard way so as not to lose and lose badly.

[Fifty Cal']

The first thing is where to place your units, if defending the briefing map gives good info on the likely routes the enemy will come from and thier unit types. As new orders are given to you new "direction arrows" are shown on the briefing map, just put the mouse over the envelope. This can give you time to put troops in place for a counterattack etc.

After that my simple plan is get as many guns firing on a "killing zone" as I can preferably with mutual cover.

.50

[Firebird76]

i started the game recently and i finished the polish campain but i had to resolt to help on the 3rd battle in this forum, i only pause when their are lots f things going on and i find it necesssery to use pause to better manage thing at that time but i prefer not to use-te because i like the real-time decisons u have to take,like it was used in real life and that gives me more fun at the cost of having to repeat missions to better evalute my previos errors.

As for stategys in defence palcement of the unis is crucial as u must evaluate the terrain and the unist ur using and its adviseble to put units behind bushes to have first shot capability, and on the atack send a few units as scouts to recon the terrain and then go for the main atack with full forces if the situation is favourable. Snipers are exelent at recon as they have goood scouting abilitys wich makes them harder to see and having better spoting than regular soldiers. tanks have low recon capabilitys but that fdepends much on the tank commmander scouting capabilites and lidership i think

[ June 30, 2007, 12:51 AM: Message edited by: Firebird76 ]