World in Conflict

[Stark]

To be honest, people who don't move their spawns regularly deserve to fail. If your spawn is far from friendly units, fucking move it, don't constantly pull air assests out of the real battle to save you from a few medium tanks. Bah, artillery players.

The only downside to medium arty is the lack of appreciable splash. It's definately worth the points, but it's not as 'satisfying' for the pussies who like to sit at the back. When playing infantry, I've only been on the recieving end of medium-arty WP once, which is pretty sad. Heavy arty players seldom use the smoke shell, either.

[Alan Bolte]

Just finished the single-player campaign. That was some awesome shit, there. Very good bit of story telling, regardless of how plausible it is (I'm honestly not sure). The mission on the island was probably the most memorable in terms of gameplay, trying to secure and hold three sets of command points by myself was a bit of a stretch, especially with the available selection of units. I finally ended up calling in lots of airdropped infantry directly onto the positions and using choppers to repel attacks.

Spoilers: Thought it was funny how little ground the Russians made in the end. I guess their main objective was to take out the SDI (I thought of Stewie), thinking we had working ABM. They clearly didn't have the capability to finish the invasion without extensive strategic nuclear attack. I guess we weren't preempting them because that'd force them to launch theirs in response, and we didn't have said ABM. Still, the invasion was a big gamble on their part, given that as far as they knew, we could respond to the ground assault by launching on them, and their response would be seriously depleted by our ABM.

It's really too bad I have to play on low detail...

[Uraniun235]

To be honest, people who don't move their spawns regularly deserve to fail. If your spawn is far from friendly units, fucking move it, don't constantly pull air assests out of the real battle to save you from a few medium tanks. Bah, artillery players.

The only downside to medium arty is the lack of appreciable splash. It's definately worth the points, but it's not as 'satisfying' for the pussies who like to sit at the back. When playing infantry, I've only been on the recieving end of medium-arty WP once, which is pretty sad. Heavy arty players seldom use the smoke shell, either.

People are probably taking the little unit descriptions seriously. Heavy artillery is labeled as good against "all ground units" (which includes tanks) whereas medium artillery is labeled as being merely good against "vehicles, infantry," and something else (forest?). Dollars to donuts says a lot of heavy arty players want to be able to be effective against tanks.

As for staying close to everyone else, that's reasonable for medium artillery but impossible for heavy artillery; the minimum range is just fucking huge for heavy artillery.


Conclusion: heavy artillery is worthless

[Stark]

No, you don't need to be 'close' to everyone else, just in their rear areas. I'm talking 'close' as in laterally, across your side of the map: you want to be on the same side as everyone else for security. There, you're far more likely to be in striking distance of faster friendly forces, and you're more difficult to flank due to shared spotting range (or at least ti takes longer for them to do it). If you're on the other side of the allied spawn to everyone else, you have NO spotting, NO support, and you're the ONLY target for a flanking force.

Heavy arty is VERY useful, especially the NATO one. Heavy arty players just don't pay any fucking attention to red dots moving towards their TOTALLY DEFENCELESS shit and then complain that air guys like me should have stopped defending the armour (ie winning the game) and go and save their stupid asses from their own fucking stupidity.

I don't do it anymore. Fuck em.

Medium arty's lack of splash makes it significantly less useful against point targets like heavy tanks: anything but a direct hit (quite rare, worse when they're moving) will do nothing. Most players just don't adapt: heavy arty is a good start for arty players, but if there's heaps of infantry on the other team, switching to mediums is a good idea but it never happens. Just like most people don't move their spawn in response to changing situations.

[CaptHawkeye]

Personally, I just feel that heavy arty isn't worth the cost. I mean, 1900 command points? It's the most fucking expensive individual unit in the game. I don't doubt its usefullness, but I really just do not like to part with that many command points for one unit. Even if it's really strong.

Heavy arty is VERY useful, especially the NATO one. Heavy arty players just don't pay any fucking attention to red dots moving towards their TOTALLY DEFENCELESS shit and then complain that air guys like me should have stopped defending the armour (ie winning the game) and go and save their stupid asses from their own fucking stupidity.

I love air dropped tanks. You can just drop one near the last known position of the arty and pretty much stalk it all the way accross the spawn zone. The dumbshit arty players end up spending more time trying to escape my Sheridan/PT-76 than actually using their units for support.

Very good bit of story telling, regardless of how plausible it is (I'm honestly not sure).

Pretty much not at all? No one in the US took the time to wonder if a massive armada of unidentified cargo ships pulling into the west coast might be a problem?

It's also rather difficult to support an invasion without any kind of real warship. Especially carriers. But this isn't really something I hold against the game. Since WiC doesn't take itself THAT seriously. Even if they are often wierd, I get a kick out of "zomg invasion USA" scenarios anyway.

[Alan Bolte]

No one in the US took the time to wonder if a massive armada of unidentified cargo ships pulling into the west coast might be a problem?

It's also rather difficult to support an invasion without any kind of real warship.

It seemed to me that their real fleet was right behind the cargo ships. Your first point is a major weakness in the plot, though, it's hard to believe they could depend on us dropping the ball that badly, even with our Pacific naval assets destroyed. Those cargo ships should have been sunk from the air before they even hit port.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Well I finally got myself a headset for teamspeak today. If anyone is up for a game my name is JSF of WT

[AniThyng]

No one in the US took the time to wonder if a massive armada of unidentified cargo ships pulling into the west coast might be a problem?

It's also rather difficult to support an invasion without any kind of real warship.

It seemed to me that their real fleet was right behind the cargo ships. Your first point is a major weakness in the plot, though, it's hard to believe they could depend on us dropping the ball that badly, even with our Pacific naval assets destroyed. Those cargo ships should have been sunk from the air before they even hit port.

I don't know why it was necessary to even nuke seattle at all if the Chinese fleet made it to port - just nuke the chicom fleet at sea, just as it crossed the territorial limit if we need to maintain the "no nukes other then on our own soil" spirit.

[Uraniun235]

Does anyone else get a special thrill out of dropping chemical weapons?

[Laughing Mechanicus]

Does anyone else get a special thrill out of dropping chemical weapons?

Is that a euphemism?
But yes, they are fun, although I have always found them a touch too expensive to use often.

My favourite thing is playing infantry for the whole match skirmishing back-and-forth on the peripheral capture points away from the main battle, then suddenly noticing near the end I have a shit load of TA and drop a carpet bombing right along the enemy front line.

[Stark]

Sadly, they're expensive and basically useless. They drain infantry health very slowly (so slowly they can walk out and not be dead), being in a vehicle makes it totally ineffective, and they cost more than a napalm Mark of Zorro.

Once you can place napalm effectively, it's far more cost effective (kills instantly on impact, persistent like chem strikes, works on non-infantry units a bit, clears forests permanently). Arguably chem strikes have a psychological effect on the target, but all I do is press R and right click... oh look I lost like 7 guys. When playing as vulnerable infantry I enjoy adding up the cost of all the TA people throw at me, but people seldom use chem strikes.

A useful thing to do is to fire a chem strike, and then wait 3-4 seconds and fire a heavy arty smoke shell at the same point. It will land first, and make it much more diffcult for the infantry player to tell... unless he looks at his health bar.

[Uraniun235]

Do napalm strikes work against buildings?

[Stark]

Not in the slightest. Chem strikes work to get guys OUT of buildings, but it's unlikely to kill them due to the slow 'poison' rate. AT strikes across the roof fuck building up pretty good in the latest patch too, so they're a cheap way of dealing with them.

[Uraniun235]

God damn it. Chemical strikes should be k-rad but instead they're made of suck and balls.

DAMN YOU MASSIVE ENTERTAINMENT!!

[Stark]

Yeah, they're 'area denial' weapons really, rather than 'kill dudes' weapons. They only affect one sort of guy and work so slowly it just makes people want to avoid the area. JSF tells me they're only 12TA for an armour player though, so that's not too bad to scare a bunch of infantry out of a heavy-cover area (ie, scare them out of buildings then WP them to death).

[Thunderfire]

Who knows? Artillery is boring as shit. Most arty players don't know the meaning of 'rear area security' either, so they just get constantly blown up by JSF's tanks or my choppers.

I learned to hate artillery players when I played the game alot after the release. They keep shelling points I want to capture. I played as a tanker or close support player most of the time. The light tank horde of doom was a successfull strategy at that time - but I am quite sure that this tactic no longer works after a balance patch.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Who knows? Artillery is boring as shit. Most arty players don't know the meaning of 'rear area security' either, so they just get constantly blown up by JSF's tanks or my choppers.

I learned to hate artillery players when I played the game alot after the release. They keep shelling points I want to capture. I played as a tanker or close support player most of the time. The light tank horde of doom was a successfull strategy at that time - but I am quite sure that this tactic no longer works after a balance patch.

No, this strategy does not work; turns out when I have 4 Heavy Tanks and you have 8 Light Tanks I win?

[Stark]

JSF also hates arty guys who don't pay attention: he's been prevented from seizing points in his outrageous flying column activities by constant shelling or even people dropping cluster bomb TAs just as he approaches the point. Way to ensure we can't take it for 20s, dumbass.

[Losonti Tokash]

How effective is an air+infantry combo online? My friend and I recently started trying various tactics in skirmishes against CPUs, with various results. I usually build 4 transport choppers, 2 heavies, and a scout chopper and shuttle him around the map. It's allowed us to capture and fortify points pretty quickly. The biggest downside beyond my significant drop in firepower is that I don't get many tactical aid points, but it's balanced by my friend getting way more than usual. Oh, and it's tricky as hell to coordinate.

But as useful as it is offline, we haven't tried it against actual players yet so I was curious if anyone has tried it or seen it for themselves.

[Thunderfire]

No, this strategy does not work; turns out when I have 4 Heavy Tanks and you have 8 Light Tanks I win?

It is more like 4 heavies vs up to 24 light tanks. You can get three air dropped light tanks for 18+ TA and a full team contains 8 players. This get pretty ugly very fast when there are several light tanks hordes on the map.

[Stark]

It is more like 4 heavies vs up to 24 light tanks. You can get three air dropped light tanks for 18+ TA and a full team contains 8 players. This get pretty ugly very fast when there are several light tanks hordes on the map.

Eh? 4 heavies can defeat 8 lights without losing a single tank. Even if many enemy players were ordering light tanks (and even wasting TA to get more), the heavies are STILL going to rape them, even more so if there's parity in armour players. They just might actually lose a tank doing it. God help them if choppers/arty/infantry/TA get involved too, as is unavoidable in a match.

Frankly, saying it's effective when there are multiple light tankers who spend TA vs a single heavy tanker who doesn't is actually an admission of how useless it is. A whole team buying light tanks with TA would be up against an enemy team that could bomb them to dust. A single heavy air support would wipe them all out - hell, a well-placed arty strike would wipe them all out.

Light tanks are so useless that if I have 3 heavy tanks and someone spawns 2 heavies and 2 lights in front of me, *I win*. Even if my tanks are damaged. They're defenceless vs air, can't engage heavy armour with any hope of success, get raped by infantry (god forbid AT squads) and even light arty damages them. Their only benefit is speed, and unless you're working to a plan or the enemy is disorganised that's basically useless. JSF regularly beats light tank swarms to the front line, and god knows they can't kill him.

Air assaults are useful, but they are less useful once the enemy cottons on. Hopefully by then you have your infantry swarm well behind the lines causing trouble and the air guy can go back to regular choppers. A few infantry squads salted around the map can slaughter enemy choppers and provide unlimited TA, and well-positioned snipers can killed unlimited enemy infantry for unlimited TA.

[Nephtys]

I just played the game's SP through. It seems like it'd be fun for some multi, but I have a few observations/questions. The game seems pretty neat with it's range/damage model, instead of flat 'I do X DPS if I shoot you' RTS stuff...

1. Tanks. For the last half of the game, all I built were Heavy Tanks, an engineer or two, anti-air vees and Helos. Is there any reason to get Light/Med tanks? Rifle Infantry? Light/Med AA?

2. TA. Pinpoint Artillery is great, Heavy Artillery is Great, Tank Buster is nice if you can actually hit (that delay sucks). Laser Guided Bomb is okay. Napalm is specialized.

What's the point then of Airstrike? Or Med/Light Arty bombardment? Or even Carpet Bombing, compared to Heavy Arty Strike? Also, how the heck do you use 'Air Superiority' when it requires enemy helicopters to stand still for 10 seconds?

3. Half the special powers. Popping smoke and fast repair are great abilities, as are most of the 'Antitank missile' powers that lighter vehicles have. But what's the point of WP/HEAT shell (which don't seem to do much of anything), or dropping flares from your helicopters (which require ridiculous reflexes)?

4. Directional damage. Tanks are supposed to take more damage from the rear, right? How much more?

5. Unit Artillery. They're so unresponsive! It seems that as long as the enemy is moving, you'll never hit them. Are they only for killing forified positions?

[CaptHawkeye]

1. Tanks. For the last half of the game, all I built were Heavy Tanks, an engineer or two, anti-air vees and Helos. Is there any reason to get Light/Med tanks? Rifle Infantry? Light/Med AA?

I haven't finished the game's SP, but rifle infantry are great because they can attack anything. They're also the only infantry unit in the game that can attack choppers.

Light tanks are worthless for everything except air drops. Medium tanks are cool by me. They're supposed to have the same firepower as heavy tanks, but less armor. I personally think they have the best unit/value in the game. Their WP special ability also slaughters infantry, even in forests.

2. TA. Pinpoint Artillery is great, Heavy Artillery is Great, Tank Buster is nice if you can actually hit (that delay sucks). Laser Guided Bomb is okay. Napalm is specialized.

The tank buster's delay is somewhat made up for with its small TA cost. It is kind of a weapon that calls for a bit of future prediction though.

What's the point then of Airstrike? Or Med/Light Arty bombardment? Or even Carpet Bombing, compared to Heavy Arty Strike? Also, how the heck do you use 'Air Superiority' when it requires enemy helicopters to stand still for 10 seconds?

Light artillery is great against infantry. Again, it's cheap, and can cover a wide enough area. It's not meant to kill enemies though as much as it is to harass them.

3. Half the special powers. Popping smoke and fast repair are great abilities, as are most of the 'Antitank missile' powers that lighter vehicles have. But what's the point of WP/HEAT shell (which don't seem to do much of anything),

WP does all sorts of nasty things to infantry at range. HEAT rounds are supposed to be used by heavy tanks to kill lighter vehicles. Preferably heavy AA. The point is to kill the heavy AA with the HEAT rounds so friendly choppers can come along and help you out with the now exposed armor.

or dropping flares from your helicopters (which require ridiculous reflexes)?

The missiles fired by heavy AA will pursue your choppers for some time. You increase the likelyhood of a miss with the flares.

4. Directional damage. Tanks are supposed to take more damage from the rear, right? How much more?

They take a little more. Most of your rookie starter tanks will be pretty piss-poor shots. So they'll miss a lot.

5. Unit Artillery. They're so unresponsive! It seems that as long as the enemy is moving, you'll never hit them. Are they only for killing forified positions?

No, you just need to let it cool down. The longer a break you give it, the faster it will begin bombardment the next time you call for it. It also matter what they are doing prior to your command. Are they already shooting at something? What direction are they facing?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

1. Tanks. For the last half of the game, all I built were Heavy Tanks, an engineer or two, anti-air vees and Helos. Is there any reason to get Light/Med tanks? Rifle Infantry? Light/Med AA?

Sometimes medium tanks are handy in a pinch, if you can't quite afford the heavies at the moment and you need armor support now. Infantry is god; worship them. Medium AA is debatable and probably dependent on your playstyle.

2. TA. Pinpoint Artillery is great, Heavy Artillery is Great, Tank Buster is nice if you can actually hit (that delay sucks). Laser Guided Bomb is okay. Napalm is specialized.

What's the point then of Airstrike? Or Med/Light Arty bombardment? Or even Carpet Bombing, compared to Heavy Arty Strike? Also, how the heck do you use 'Air Superiority' when it requires enemy helicopters to stand still for 10 seconds?

Airstrikes are fairly cheap and good for evenly-spread area damage, as opposed to the more random and unreliable artillery barrages. Light artillery strikes are for cheap anti-infantry work, but all in all probably not that useful in practice. Carpet bombing is for sheer Awesome Factor. Save up the points for a triple run and call them all in side by side. It's worth it.

3. Half the special powers. Popping smoke and fast repair are great abilities, as are most of the 'Antitank missile' powers that lighter vehicles have. But what's the point of WP/HEAT shell (which don't seem to do much of anything), or dropping flares from your helicopters (which require ridiculous reflexes)?

Willy-Pete is for anti-infantry work - it'll shred infantry in seconds. HEAT rounds are for lighter vehicles like trucks and APCs. Flares, well... I guess it's down to uber-micro, but they're certainly useful for dodging air-to-air missiles.

4. Directional damage. Tanks are supposed to take more damage from the rear, right? How much more?

About 150% extra damage, or thereabouts, in my experience.

5. Unit Artillery. They're so unresponsive! It seems that as long as the enemy is moving, you'll never hit them. Are they only for killing forified positions?

Sort of. Heavy artillery is for long range, sustained bombardment of a given position. Medium artillery is more mobile and for close fire support. Neither are really intended to hit specific, individual moving point targets; artillery is an area-saturation weapon.

[Stark]

Jesus, go play some multi. SP is massively different from multi, in unit choice, power, and flow.

That said, heavy tanks are heavy tanks: they're tough as all shit but die like sluts to choppers. Rifle squads rape choppers, rape AT squads, rape light armour, etc. Heavy AA is the only thing that will save your pathetic tanks from instant destruction. All these things have been mentioned already.

PS, the single player campaign is nothing like multi.

Flares are the only chance you have to survive near heavy AA, and are thus utterly essential. HEAT allows you to add an extra shot that does double damage vs light vehicles. WP kills infantry. This has all been mentioned in this thread already, and is even in the manual.

It's worth remembering that single player is a totally different game from multi.

If you can't hit moving targets with artillery, don't play artillery. Let those who can, do. I mean, MLRS not being able to hit a single jinking tank? ZOMGPOPCORN!

Why don't you just play some multi? You're not an idiot, so you'll even rape all the mouth-breathers in most servers. Don't be intimidated by the rank insignia either: JSF has only been playing since Xmas, and he's better than guys who have played 800+ games.

EDIT - BCG, JSF believes that the airstrike spreads it's damage over the number of targets in the area. He has had a single heavy tank almost destroyed by one (as a sole target), but we've both had many heavy tanks survive with damage (with many in the zone at once). Can yo uconfirm this?

And rear hits with AT missiles appear to do at least 2x damage to heavy tanks, sometimes it seems more like 3x. As we've discussed, AT missile to front of tank = basically no damage, AT missile to the rear of tank = maybe 1/3 damage.