Forbidden Donut

Pff plenty of quality games have been released. Company of Heroes & World In Conflict! but yeah other than that nothing good. I'm currently in the QuakeLive beta, web based quake3, other than that not a lot of gaming getting done here.

Warhammer online soon, is that meant to be any good? It's EA published so plenty of potential for it to be fucked up.

I haven't played Company of Heroes or World in Conflict. I'm assuming that's a personal recommendation for both?

Previous warhammer was pretty cool. Nice combination of risk-like unit management, wc3 hero management, and starcraft-like micromanagement of units and builds.

Diablo 3 makes my belly warm in winter, and can cure genital herpes.

When you say "starcraft-like micromanagement", do you mean it is all about not micromanaging units?

Oh absolutly. Both games are very different to the C&C model of building bases & turtling

I did sit here typing out very long posts for both games, detailing how they are different. Then I decided against it and deleted them for fear of "tl: dr" comments. I noticed fdassault is a place of fewer words these days and a lot more lol cats.

I will say a few things;

•World In Conflict is definatly dying out so unless you can pick that up for a bargin I wouldn't bother, you've missed the train on that one.

•Company of Heroes though is very much alive, the game is all about map control the more of the map you have the more income you get. You control 2 of the 3 victory points to make your opponents score tick down. I'll also point you in the direction of a fraps game with a shoutcast over the top, the shoutcast is directed more to an experienced player but it will still give you a good idea of how the game plays out. Its 200+ mb but in the days of fast broadband I figured that wouldn't be a problem.

http://files.filefront.com/WehrvsAmi+0001w...;/fileinfo.html

Oh and isn't Spore released in less than a week? Surely thats on your radar Gov?

EDIT: If there is anything you want to know about the games feel free to ask or wiki /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

I would have loved to read your summaries. But thanks for the info anyway.

Yeah, spore is definitely on my radar. I didn't realize its release was so soon, though.

Company of heroes & Opposing Fronts

Company of Heroes is a WW2 RTS game and so its very grounded in reality. Most of the maps are names of places in france. Angoville, Lyon, Semois etc.

You still build bases and upgrades to tech up and build better units but you don't really build base defences and turtle, if you did you would certainly lose the game.

Company of Heroes (COH) has 4 factions.

•America (Allies) Company of Heroes
•Whermacht (Germany) Company of Heroes

•Panzer Elite (Germany) Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts
•British (Allies) Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts

Both games are stand alone, if you own just COH you can only use the first 2 but play against all 4. If you own COH:OP you can only use the last 2 but play against all 4. Obviously if you own both you can use all 4 factions.

Gathering Resources

All income is measured per minute so, +260 per minute for example or if you lose some territory +200 per minute. The three resources you have are;

•Manpower is always around +260 per minute and its not a resource that needs to be gathered you just get it for free. Its used to build everything in the game from rifle squads right through to tanks.

•Ammo is used normally for upgrades & special abilites. For example if you want to give your rifle squad mp40 machine guns to increase their firepower that might cost you 50 Ammo as a one time cost per squad. Or if you wanted to call in some off map artillary that would be 200 each time you use it. You are typically given a 50 munitions start to upgrade a unit of your chosing but you won't start with any +income you must increase your income by controlling the map.

•Fuel is used to tech up, typically a new building will cost some manpower + fuel, all units that are vehicles also cost some manpower + fuel for example, 400 manpower + 60 fuel to build a Sherman Tank. You are given a +5 fuel start and must control points on the map to increase that income.

Map Control

The game is all about map control, you have to control 2 of 3 victory points on the map to make your opponents score tick down and you have to control various sectors of the map to improve your income of Ammo & Fuel.



The above image is of the map Semois, its the same map played in the video link I posted.

The first thing you will notice is the map is split into sections, some include amo dumps marked by the bullet icon and some include the fuel dumps marked by the fuel drum, some don't include any and are there to connect the various income points to your base.

Looking to the base on the right and two points directly above it, if you own the point circled green but not the point with a red x through it you will not receive any aditional income. Every sector you own must be connected directly to your base or you will not receive the +5, +10 or +16 bonus income. This means fights take place litteraly all over the map trying to control amo & fuel dumps while trying to cut off your enemys income by decapping a connecting strat point, all the while trying to control the three victory points in the centre of the map. There is very little base rape goes on in COH, this means you nearly always have the freedom to advance/tech up providing you have some of the map.

Unit preservation and the Cover System are an important part of COH.

One of the first units you are likey to build is a 6 man rifle squad at a cost of 280 manpower. Should one of these soldiers in your 6 man squad die he can be reinforced from your base at a cost of 25 manpower

The maths is very simple 6x25 = 150 manpower, so its very much in your interest to keep your full squad alive. You do this by retreating before all 6 men die and reinforcing at a much lower cost than replacing. Also keeping your units alive will help you gain veterancy. The health of a squad and the number of men in the squad is not directly linked. If a man in your squad dies sure your health will go down but it is possible to have a 6 man squad on half health, this just means they will all die much much quicker. Obviously there are ways to put the health back up aswell, I just thought that was worth mentioning.

Because unit preservation is such an important part of COH you won't ever be controlling a mass of units, probably no more than 15 at any one time. That said its very important to micro them well. Tanks for example will take more damage from behind and less from the front because their frontall armour is stronger. Rifle squads will take less damage while in a house or behind a wall or behind sandbags.

There is a full cover system in COH, red, orange and green. The map is also entirely destructable, so if someone lays some artillary fire down and it leaves a ditch throwing your men in there will but them on green cover or if a vehicle blows up you can throw your men behind the wreck.

Another thing that goes hand in hand with cover is a field of view or a cone of sight on certain units. For example a MG42 is a 3 man machine gun unit, the machine gun takes about 2 seconds to set up because its a belt fed rapid fire machine gun and has to be placed on a stand, once set up it has a cone of view, if anyone enters in this area they will be shot at. This means you can tactically flank units on the game providing these units aren't covered behind by another unit. The same goes for Anti Tank guns and most weapons or weapon teams that need to be deployed.

The range of units you can build is very diverse and quite different for each faction. I'll give you the run down of America.

HQ
•Engineers (used to deploy other buildings and field defences eg mines, sandbags, barbed wire)

Barracks
Rifle Squad
Bar upgrade (costs mp+fuel and will be placed on all rifle squads once researched)
Hand grenade upgrade (cost mp+ fuel and all rifle squads will have the ability once researched)

Weapon Support Centre
Mortor weapon team
30 cal weapon team
sniper

Supply Yard
Doesn't really do much, just required to tech further

Motor Pool
Armoured Car
Quad Canon Truck
Anti Tank gun

Tank Depot
Sherman Tank
M10 Tank Destroyer
Sherman Crocodile Tank

What other factions can build at certain stages will normally be quite different. For example a Whermacht player doesn't need the second building for a Sniper or Machine gun team, these can be built from the barracks.

Anyway yeah, check out the video a linked, its a very very tactical RTS, its about build orders and this to counter that and good micro on a small selction of units and a lot of thought into positioning of weapon teams and making sure they are covered etc.

I realise what I've wrote is a sprawling mess but hopefully you can pull something out of it, its very late at night and I'm very tired.

It's insanely micromanagement heavy. As in starcraft you want to diversify your units and you need to be able to control many small groups of them if your gonna play online.

Warcraft = Micro. Starcraft = Macro.

And Court, Spore is out Sunday! *giddy

Hopefully it and D2 will hold me over 'till D3.

Yeah, as Erling said, micromanagement is the management if individual units (pulling a single unit slightly out of range of fire so an enemy is either forced to push after your unit which would leave them vulnerable to attack or simply switch targets which takes time). Once you start controlling units in groups, you're macromanaging.

Thanks for the detailed summary, neocron. That really sounds like something I'd be into. The controlling of the map aspect seems very similar to rise of nations which really appealed to me.

If I buy Diablo III I will always be playing it and there goes school /unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":unsure:" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" /> /sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />

Macro has nothing to do with the direct control of units. It's used to define how a player utilizes his or her resources; either to make a more effective army (which is, in turn, micromanaged to be truly effective), expand the existing economy to gain increased income, or generally put yourself in a better strategic position (teching, base-building).

Micromanagement still pertains to the control of grouped units (mainly for movement over a large area; groups are only really used to keep formation outside of combat in preparation), and where you really see MAPM (meaningful actions per minute) increase is the control of very isolated units or small groups. I.E., mutalisk or dragoon dancing in Starcraft.

Thanks for the textbook definition of macro management in video games. Starcraft was more about macro managing your base(s) until your army was at 200 and swarm your enemy (Not to say that's all that ever happened, but if you tried to micro manage too much in Starcraft you would lose since there's too much to do at the same time). Warcraft is more about micro managing every little supply, resource and unit you have. You lose a Grunt in Warcraft at the beginning of the game you could lose in minutes. Can't remember the last time I cared if my zealots died. You have to get every last penny out of everything in Warcraft to be good; in Starcraft there's too much going on to micro everything properly.

And of course there's the good ol' argument: Macro means large scale and micro means small scale. And I hope you're not going to say Starcraft is on a smaller scale than Warcraft.

to throw in a geographer's knowledge into the fray large scale maps cover a small area and small scale maps cover a larger area.

It's sort of hard to call. Losing early units does make a difference in SC, but because it usually takes longer to move across the map and hit an enemy base , they have more time to recover and restore lost forces. Repeated losses are still going to get you destroyed, of course. In Warcraft 3, the macro and economies ends up so close that, yes, losing one or two early units is fatal if your enemy times an attack properly. They have different and separate challenges, and I like Starcraft because of an emphasis on quick decision-making and timing with your build, and how effectively you can manage your economy and income. I was always better at that than microing.

Not to say WC3 sucks; I play it too. But they're different games.