Anyone got tips on RT?

[noxnoctum]

So I played my first RT multiplayer game today. Pretty challenging. I pulled out a draw, despite falling into ambush after ambush (I was attacking as BLUFOR) but I took so many needless casualties from just not being able to watch everyone, and have everything perfectly synchronized. My force size was about 2 companies strong.

Yet I see these claims of people getting lower casualty rates in the campaign with RT (as opposed to wego) and I'm kinda amazed. Any tips?

[Ryujin]

Don't do more than you can manage. Launching a 3 pronged attack may be a lot more than you can manage. Also take advantage of your ability to micromanage a squad. In turn based, 60 seconds is waaay to long, too much can happen. You can now react very quickly.

But mostly it just takes some getting used to, since you can't pause you have to give orders very quickly and constantly be watching your units. So it just takes practice to be able to react at a real time pace. A lot of people find that difficult, especially if your used to turn based where you had tons of time to think and review your status.

You can also use this against your opponent, by keeping a higher tempo than they can manage (as long as you can handle it). If your working faster and in more areas than they are, you may be able to overwhelm them.

[tyrspawn]

So I played my first RT multiplayer game today. Pretty challenging. I pulled out a draw, despite falling into ambush after ambush (I was attacking as BLUFOR) but I took so many needless casualties from just not being able to watch everyone, and have everything perfectly synchronized. My force size was about 2 companies strong.

Yet I see these claims of people getting lower casualty rates in the campaign with RT (as opposed to wego) and I'm kinda amazed. Any tips?

I haven't played RT multiplayer yet, but I think im pretty proficient at battlefield management. You should only do one localized offensive at a time. Establish a base of fire in an initial movement, then once it is established, launch a flanking attack with another movement. Zoom the map out far and just take notice of where all the icons are and think "how could the enemy attack me right now" and you should do better. The micro AI is actually pretty good at managing itself, i.e. your troops will pop smoke and withdraw to a safer position if they are fighting an impossible fight, and vehicles not equipped to engage tanks will take evasive manuvers and traverse into cover when they spot tanks. The biggest thing you need to be aware of is when your guys are in the open running, don't do any movement commands and look elsewhere if you think you are about to run into enemy contact.

[MikeyD]

I advise short hops from defensible position to defensible position, so if you forget a unit for a couple minutes they won't wander to the far side of the map while you're not looking. If you direct them to behind a nearby wall then forget about them they'll be waiting safely behind a wall when the unexpected attack comes!

[Apocal]

Yet I see these claims of people getting lower casualty rates in the campaign with RT (as opposed to wego) and I'm kinda amazed.

The AI is not nearly as smart as me.

Initially you had it right, pre-emptive fires on suspect buildings, bold movement across open areas, overwatch established, etc. The big thing is that you kinda slacked off on the application of firepower. Before your infantry enter a building, hose it down with 25mm or 40mm or 50cal or a SMAW or two. You'll suppress hidden defenders, allowing your riflemen to waltz in and murder the cowering survivors. And it'll force your opponent to adopt a second-door back defense (which I did from the beginning anyway). The vehicle losses... eh, you did relatively well with the use of smoke, especially to cover dismounting troops. You left some in incredibly open areas, including one AAV I took at the end with an RPG team from a position your 2 LAV overwatch couldn't see.

Typically, I'll take a squad or two and establish kind of a 'bastion' for vehicles, where I can park the non-fighting types and they are covered from RPG sneak attack and (ideally) observation from prying eyes. If I'm short on infantry for the task, I'll dismount the vehicle crews and do it.

I couldn't believe my eyes when you actually drove down the bridge leading with AAVs without lighting up every building on the other side. I only noticed two mortar missions, the initial smoke mission to get a foothold into town and the one that collapsed my OP. Saved your helos for the end, where they did good work against my parked technicals.

The constant vigil of your two LAV overwatch kept my counterattack from coming out. Or else things would have gotten really interesting

That being said, it was a tough fight for me and I didn't manage to attrite your infantry nearly as much as I'd hoped to.

[phil stanbridge]

This is a very interesting point. I have tried both RT and turn based but I see myself going back to the old faithful because it feels like I can spend more time micro-managing, even though RT is far more responsive. For instance, I moved one of my AFV's too far forward, in RT I would have been able to move it back quickly, but in turn based I screwed up and I lost the AFV before I could instruct it. But trying to keep an eye on everything - well, you need a degree in Combat Mission. :-)

[Pandur]

Yet I see these claims of people getting lower casualty rates in the campaign with RT (as opposed to wego) and I'm kinda amazed. Any tips?

thats simple, you use pause. to get a perfectly managed and coordinated battle in RT in singleplayer is only up to you hitting pause as often as it is needed to archiev this(think about how it would be playing total war series without pause ).

if you do this you can micromanage single RPG teams and similar stuff to great effect while you can keep control over the rest.

this way you can beat WEGO in terms of "contolablilety".

drawback is its a single player only thing. no pause in MP, so you suffer in MP for takeing the easy way in single player.

My force size was about 2 companies strong.

for my taste, this is exactly twich as much as is my limit. i consider a company as the "absolute" maximum i want to handle in RT. when i say handle i mean i have total control about what these guys do without the side effects you described.

now, what is makeing or brakeing youre game in RT multiplayer is the "input", you need to know the key shortcuts and you need to be able to input the things you want the pixelsoldiers to do "as fast as possible" without failure as this costs much time.

thats why i go with "absolute" key mapping, and i dont see any reason to not use the absolute keys as the new system doesnt hold any advantage other then beeing new. the mouse is only to point at places i need waypoints, select units and turn the camera, allmost everything else i do with shortcuts.

2nd to this, is the camera controls. you cant see youre force, you cant give it orders, you cant have it controlled.

i have a 1920x1080 resolution, wich works out great in this reagard, as i see quiet a lot at once, but as with the command input you need to have the camera controls worked out to be a natural thing for you. if you fight with the camera you can not fight the enemy or give orders input to youre force.

everything else, wich tactics, approach, coloures of youre units, is secondary here. if you have the edge in the input department you gona out-input your oponent pretty fast, the bigger his/your force the faster he falls into chaos and anarchy while you keep contol and are destroying the eny force. if your opponent is on the same level and skill of input as you are, then you can talk tactics but not earlier in RT MP.

really you can pull off manouvers in RT wich would be suicide in WEGO and perfectly getting away with some casualtiys just becouse you can order around everyone all the time, its just your speed of input.

here you go, hope that helped you.

[Apocal]

The mission was Rahadnak Valley Search.

[noxnoctum]

Yeah I was mainly nervous as hell about ATGMs and losing half my transports before I had a chance to dismount my infantry in/near the town which is why I rushed in there.

Guess I've been playing too much Pooh .

Anyways good advice, thanks.

Out of curiosity, how is that that we manage to keep such low casualty rates in Iraq? (overall I mean)

IIRC the entire battle of Fallujah amounted to about 50 US deaths.

Do we just literally bombard everything with CAS before moving in?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Yet I see these claims of people getting lower casualty rates in the campaign with RT (as opposed to wego) and I'm kinda amazed. Any tips?

You can pause in RT single-player. I think that's the reason for it.

[Apocal]

Yeah I was mainly nervous as hell about ATGMs and losing half my transports before I had a chance to dismount my infantry in/near the town which is why I rushed in there.

Guess I've been playing too much Pooh .

That was actually my specific intent I had in mind when I planned that engagement area. Nice to know it actually worked after a fashion.

Anyways good advice, thanks.

No problem. Another thing, you can hold your units in place with a pause command, then issue detailed orders. Double click a Platoon HQ, hit pause (everyone in his platoon paused), then issue orders as needed. If nothing else, you should be able to have your men stop outside each building and "Target Light" inside, so they throw grenades in first, then rush in and murder the survivors.

Out of curiosity, how is that that we manage to keep such low casualty rates in Iraq? (overall I mean)

IIRC the entire battle of Fallujah amounted to about 50 US deaths.

Do we just literally bombard everything with CAS before moving in?

-They don't have many ATGMs and they use RPG with a lot of OG-7Vs, so even uparmored Humvees can shrug off multiple hits. They have some newer gear, but for the most part the stuff would've been outdated against an M60 Pattons and steel pots, let alone our guys these days.

-Weapon effects are maybe a little overmodelled (opinion), morale effects are deliberately undermodelled (BF statement).

-That kind of action would have been broken up into multiple phases, instead of being one long continuous battle. You could have kinda done it by first devoting a platoon or so and clearing all the hills, then at least getting overwatch established.

-You'd have likely had tank support and additional supporting fires provided from Bn Weapons atop all the hills, once they'd been secured, not just one or two.

-Body armor, battlefield dominance allowing for speedy evacuation for most of the wounded, and money spent on medical capabilities. I think there were eight battalions involved in taking the city and they took about 80 KIA and 600-900 WIA, which, when you control for reduced KIA ratio, comes out to just about right for taking down a city in the 'proper' fashion.

-It's a campaign, all the time. There is no single scenario selection in real life and you always fight tomorrow or next week. People talk about casualty aversion and gnash their teeth at victory criteria simulating such, but it's reality. Of course, the reverse is true as well. Insurgents who blew up two packed AAVs for a cost of six of their own (the initial movement into the city) would feel zero shame in putting their RPGs back in the tree and calling it a day.

[Vinnart]

I haven’t played RTS multiplayer yet since I am too used to playing this game WEGO. I think the situational awareness system needs some improvement to make it a bit easier to see what is going on at a glance. I think adding RED/YELLOW indicator bars to the icons is what is needed from my experience with other RTS games. Another aspect that is missing is the team effort part of RTS that makes multiplayer a fun social event. If the possibility to play at least 2v2 were added that would be great.

On a side note, as a veteran of RTS league play of other games the best advice I can give is to improve your SPEED by improving your equipment. In RTS SPEED is a key element to success. The best way to improve speed of control is to invest in a mouse with as many programmable buttons available such as the Logitech MX Revolution, and a mini speed keyboard such as the Nostromo Speedpad, which I highly recommend.