Control of troops?

[vonduus]

Hi guys.

I am kind of new to this particular game, Men of War. I played a lot of Soldiers back then, but when I went from XP to Win7, Soldiers refused to load, due to some lame DRM. So I thought that was the end of a great game. I hate DRM, especially Starforce drivers.

But then I learned that Soldiers lives on, now the game is called MoW. Yippie, I thought, but then I wondered if MoW was as hard and unforgiving as Soldiers? Or had the developers succumbed to the cry of the arcade-loving masses? I bought the game anyway (from GamersGate, to avoid giving any of my money to DRM-developers - and the game was on a sale). Imagine my joy, when it turned out that my very first experience with MoW was getting all my soldiers killed within 30 seconds. On easy, that is.

So I am a very happy gamer. One of the best games ever is back on my computer, under a new name. The interface is the same bloody mess I remember from Soldiers, half the time I loose because i fumble with the controls. But this is only a question of time before I remember it all by heart. And to be fair, a lot of quirks has been ironed out (I just love the new one-click repair routine).

Now my question to the hardcore gamers:

One of the big differences is the scope of the game. In Soldiers most of the time I had control over 4-6 infantry units, and/or 1-2 tanks. That was difficult, it took a long time to master. In MoW it seems that half the scenarios are mega-monsters, where you control 20+ units. How do you manage this amount of units during the game?

I am using control groups. I am using the squad control features, but I cannot decide on which mode I prefer, Standard mode is nice, because it does not mess up your preconceived squad structure, but on some of those mega-monster defensive scenarios I shift to Alternative mode. In these situations it is better to just create ad hoc squads from whoever survives and pull those back in reserve, while a former reserve squad takes over the sector. Or is it? Mostly it all ends up in chaos. And just when I am sure this is it, now I have lost, I get the message: Mission completed.

It is nice to win, but I prefer to win/loose consistently, ie. because I am the better/worse tactician, not just because I was having a lot of lucky mouse-clicks that day.

So what do other people actually do, when they control 20+ troops? This is a question of organisation, not of tactics. I hope some of you will share some of your managerial wisdom with me.


PS Bonus question: Is there a way to quickly select ALL units and tell them NOT to move around the whole map on their own?

[KnightFandragon]

To keep your units from moving on their own you select them 8 at a time..seeing how thats the max you can get at one time and set them to Hold Position. As for how I control a heap of guys, I dont haha. I get like 1 decked out squad that I focus on and the rest are my guinea pigs and I kinda let them do as they please or use them when I need to do a suicide run. Or else I get a single tank and DC it most the mission and let the Ai run the rest....this is only in SP though. I always have my guys on Hold Position though and move them as I see fit.

[Parkaboy]

It does change from mission to mission, but yeah there are quite a few where you have a raging battlefield dumped into your lap. In the large battles its easy for troops to run out of ammo so its important to keep that in mind.

Focus and support with your high cost units and keep the others in defensive positions.

The multiplayer you control tons of troops so the battlefield missions are quite important to get to grips with if you want to expand your gaming experience.

I'm loving RedTide at the moment which most of the missions you control no more than 10 men so is much more spec opps vs the world.

[kane1]

Before I started tweaking the game I used to slow the game speed. I also use to let the mission play through so that I could see what I was up against.

[Crni vuk]

you know in multiplayer it can be beneficial if you set most of your troops to return fire only when the enemy has spoted them and is shooting at them. At least that way I managed to keep more men allive even when I loose a control point for example as some might hide somewhere. And you can use them to eventualy attack the flank or rear from approaching units. With very expensive units like assault infantry and paratroopers this helps to not simply waste them all the time. Of course if I fight next to a team mate I set them to a quite agressive style so they support the other troops. So one has always to keep in mind what his target is. With defence it might be better to set some troops (not all of them), to a defensive role. And when you are attacking you should anyway do most of the things by your self.

[vonduus]

Thanks a lot. It seems I have not overlooked anything very important in the interface. So the basic problem is probably not the game, but the fact that I am a control freak.

And what you suggest is basically what I am doing: Using slow motion in the early stages of an SP game, refraining from having full control of more than a few units throughout, letting the rest of the guys get killed, hopefully taking a lot of enemies with them - and playing on for recon purposes, even after I have lost a game. The suggestion with return fire is also a good one, I didn't think of that, it may also be useful in SP, I'll have to experiment with this.

Conclusion: The name of this game is situational awareness.

Another thing: Does this game have a memory leak or something? In SP everything is smooth, but when I am the server in an MP game my computer seems to change to slideshow mode in the very big scenarios (most notable the one with the flares). If I quit and shut down the computer (all the way down to a cold restart) the stuttering goes away and the game plays (almost) as in SP. My computer was built to be well beyond the recommended specs for Empire Total War, so it is not because my hardware is obsolete or anything. Will it help to buy more RAM? Right now I have 4GB, should I put in another 4GB next time I can afford it?

To the designers of the game: A nice feature to implement in future games, if possible, would be either to allow players to organize the troops and give them orders while on pause, or making slow motion an option in MP. As it is now you have to unpause and repause all the time, this is ok in SP, but a pain in MP.

And yet another totally unrelated thing: I have read almost all I could find on the internet on this game, and one critique that seems to be consistent in almost all reviews, is people complaining over the voice acting. I must say that I disagree with this. The broken english in the game is imho very much to the point: The russian guy is speaking english with a very heavy russian accent, and that helps a lot with immersion. The best would be if he spoke his native language, but my russian is very rusty, so I think broken english is the best compromise. I would hate it if a russian company commander begins to speak with a yankee or a cockney or an Oxford accent.

[Crni vuk]

yes it seems that the game sometimes has a few issues with the visuals and load times. As sometimes a battle with 16 people would run more or less fine while other times it starts to become a slideshow. I think it has something to do as well with the configurations of the players. Even if you have a good PC if the other ones dont they will eventualy lag and you with them. Something like that. Programming stable networkcode is a pretty hard thing. And not many games achieve that.

Actualy games based on the unreal engine for example are very stable. Some mods managed to push the limitations from 30 people on a server to 50. And with a good computer and very strong server you can play it pretty nicely. But thats pushing the engine to its limits. Thing is even with quite high pings (over 200) you can still enjoy a mostly lag free and good game in Unreal and its modifications. Something which I cant say from many other games.

[Korsakov829]

For me, when I was starting I just slowed the game now. It just comes naturally.

[vonduus]

Originally Posted by Korsakov829

For me, when I was starting I just slowed the game now. It just comes naturally.

You are right, it all comes naturally. I have dropped my ambition of being in total control all the time. I go on easy, in slow motion, concentrating on my most important troops, like tanks and heavy squads. It is all slowly coming back to me.

Someone recommended RT for a semi-newbie like me, and I found this approach particularly useful. I have only played the first scenario so far, but the handling of the troops is very cool, with all your squads nicely organized from the very beginning.

This is a great game, perhaps the greatest ever.

[KnightFandragon]

Lol fail...but what is RT? Is it Arty just spelled different? As for the slowing time down I never do that...for one im to impatient to play during a slower paced game. Always normal speed here..2nd I dont even know how to slow the game speed lolz