Men of War: Assault Squid, I mean squad

[xthetenth]

Did anyone else decide to get this? I've been playing it for a while and it's a really neat WWII real time tactics game with a few neat concepts. First, it's relatively simmy, so infantry are weak, explosives are devastating and machine guns are brutal if they set up. Also, tank duels are decided as much by concealment and positioning as tank uberness, which comes to one of the best things in the game. If you pick any unit, with a tap of a button, you can control it, which means that for tanks, you can drive them to fight the tank duels yourself, or you can control that AT gun to take out a tank in a critical bit of a battle. Unfortunately this gets really clunky sometimes because it just points the gun at what you point your cursor at, and the two are far from being on the same axis, so you'll find yourself trying to keep a gun steady for an ambush and then the thing jumps horribly and you miss your shot, or you find yourself unable to lead your target with a bazooka. Still, I think it's generally well done and very useful, and the hilarity of taking control of a machine gun, or better yet a maxson or similar AA weapon more than makes up for any small oddities, plus the action is generally well done. Plus, you can make ad-hoc groups of infantry by drag selecting, so splitting a full squad into fireteams or making a specialist unit is really easy. The game only has one mode for computer play, but luckily it's a pretty good mode where you attack and get progressively heavier equipment and the enemy counterattacks. The multiplayer modes also seem good

Does anyone else have this and have opinions?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Heh, you're a little late to the party. Assault Squad is the 3rd iteration of Men of War, which in turn is the 3rd in a series of these games. Good fun though. The tank combat is particularly good.

[xthetenth]

Oh I know Men of War is a previous game (but not about MoW being the third in the series, which were the predecessors?), it's just that assault squad is rather different from what I can tell. I've been playing the assault squad beta for a while and got used to the manual control and I can't say I noticed that in the previous ones, or for that matter nearly as much multiplayer focus and streamlining. The tanks also seem to be a little less armored steamroller of doom than the high level ones in earlier games felt like. I never really got into men of war, but assault squad is great fun.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Manual control has always been there.

The previous games were Soldiers: Heroes of WWII and Faces of War.

[wautd]

So I guess the final version is out then? I'll check it out for sure. Loved the previous version and played the beta for Assault Squad. Good fun if you like tactical games with high detail and realism. Single player is OK (lots of scripted action than actual AI, but it has enough variation to make it fun), but it really shines in multiplayer (although at times it could be hard to get a good game going). Which other game allows you to take over manual control to shoot AP shells trough a wall, loot the ammo from fallen corpses, capture enemy tanks and gun posts, crush infantry under falling rubble, allows you to plant minefields and boobytraps, plant dynamite to fuck shit up etc...

It's also pretty damning that a strategy game is being a better tank simulator than World of Tanks.

[Steel]

I had a quick play of it yesterday.

Seems like a nicely polished iteration of Men of War.

There seem to be a few changes to the interface which annoy me though. For instance, when a tank gets damaged and unusable now, it becomes impossible to select even if the damage is repairable. In previous games, if your tank was damaged you could select it and see the extent of the damage and watch the progress of repairs as your guys were working on it. Is that a bug/feature/option to disable it?

[CaptHawkeye]

It's too bad these games have shitty presentation because the material for the best RTS ever is there. Like wautd said you ain't seen nothing till you taken out a Panther by shooting an AP round through a fucking building into its side.

Pound for pound it's a totally better RTS game than Company of Heroes is. It's just got a clunky UI and control system.

It'd be cool as shit if they had more early war scenarios and powers like Poland and France.

[wautd]

I also like the many factors that will affect penetration. Muzzle velocity, shell size, AP or HE, armor tickness, slope and even distance will all have their affect. In rare occasions, that fast, light tank can still make a difference if you know where to hit that enemy heavy at point blank range.

you ain't seen nothing till you taken out a Panther by shooting an AP round through a fucking building into its side.

I once had a shell ricochet of the side of a Panter which then flew on to destroy a light tank that was standing in its 5 o'clock.
I can't remember if it was luck or intentional, but lets just assume it was the latter.

and powers like Poland and France.

It's pretty impressive they've included Japan as a faction though (well, it was in its predecessor so I assume it'll still be an option). Apart from Sudden Strike II, I can't think of any WW2 RTS game that had them as a playable faction (after all, they're kinda gimped in the armor devision bit).

Regarding Assault Squad, how's the voice acting in the cutscenes? The voice acting of its predecessor was so terrible it became hilarious.

[Steel]

It'd be cool as shit if they had more early war scenarios and powers like Poland and France.

The Red Tide expansion dealt with quite a few early scenarios. Was quite a fun change to have the frankenstein tanks of the early war and the second rate powers to play with.

Regarding Assault Squad, how's the voice acting in the cutscenes? The voice acting of its predecessor was so terrible it became hilarious.

Voice acting doesn't seem terrible so far from the hour or so I've tried. What is strange is that the voice acting was excellent in the original Soldiers: HoWW2 for the voiceovers in the campaigns and the men sounded good as well, but somehow became fucking terrible for FoW.

[wautd]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but light tanks are underrated. Tanks with sooped-up machine guns like the T-60 are great raiders or infantry support tanks.

[Steel]

I'm torn on whether or not the skirmish mode works.

There basically comes a stage in every fight when no matter what, everything gets fucked. You'll be there with a shedload of tanks, guns etc and then a new wave of enemies will come in and just due to random chance your max range shot bounces and theirs penetrates, and suddenly they've broken through and are wiping out all your guys.

By the way you're always restricted to same tier or shitter everything than the enemy it means that whenever a new wave comes its a total crapshoot if you'll avoid massive losses as even if you're really careful and lure tanks into firing HE and then popping your tank out to shoot it while its reloading or whatever, they'll still get some shots off at you from somewhere over the course of the exchange, and then its all luck who takes crippling/stunning damage first.

There are some maps where the entrenched AT guns are virtually unassailable. They have LoS on the width of the tiny thin map so theres no flanking, and outrange all weapons you can bring to bear (including your one hope of mortars to kill the crew at the early stages), and are dug in with so many infantry that a direct assault is pointless. Barring dubious tactics like aiming for a haystack so the shell passes through and hits things beyond 'maximum' range theres little you can do.

Normal is doable (eventually), but on hard and above literally any losses at any stage have eventually doomed you to failure. I'm less keen on the inifinite reinforcements, I vastly prefer fixed forces battles in this type of game.

Hopefully there will be alternative scenarios coming out in patches or mods...

[xthetenth]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but light tanks are underrated. Tanks with sooped-up machine guns like the T-60 are great raiders or infantry support tanks.

I agree here, but I have a near perverse love for the M-16. That thing pulps infantry like there's no tomorrow and has pretty good range doing it.


My general feel on the skirmish mode has been brought to a head by Khalkin Gol. Generally I've been playing that mode just by slowly moving up and getting two or so AT guns on the front because they can at least semi-reliably take out a tank, as opposed to tanks, which just sit there and get popped. So it's mostly push up, consolidate and set up the mortars to try and take out the AT guns so you can move up. It should work a lot lot lot better on higher difficulties if you have multiple players when you can actually get tanks and trust them to do their damn job.

[Steel]

I did an attempt on heroic of the introduction mission. There were 10 players. We had 3 mortar teams, 2 AT guns and 3-4 heavy MGs set up, but their tanks still got us.

It just takes one wave getting lucky and removing your AT cover and they're all over you. We couldnt get forward any faster as there were too many infantry, and just as we took out the defenders another wave of tanks was coming in.

I think hard might be possible, but heroic certainly isnt without absurd luck

[xthetenth]

I can see that. I definitely can see that. I'd love to get in on a 10 man game though, that sounds hilarious. Did you need all that stuff to deal with infantry? I think a tank might be really useful to lend a mobile gun to support whichever AT gun is under attack at that moment, but naturally I wasn't there, and knowing the difficulty scale, both were under attack constantly. Tanks are absolutely brutal, they're easily capable of deciding a game on their own if left unchecked. Shame the AI gets enough defenses it's never your tank that's unchecked.

[Steel]

Unfortunately we couldnt have had a tank, as we were going for the point that gave us tanks. We had lost basically nothing getting to that stage as well, maybe half a dozen infantry or so. Then one more wave of tanks pops over the hill and somehow both the AT guns bounce shells off the paper thin japanese armour, at which point the 2 enemy tanks instantly destroy both guns and we're left holding our dicks.

I'm not sure what we could have done. If we'd pushed up earlier we would have taken more casualties and still wouldn't have been able to get the AT guns in position over the new hill to provide cover on the next point, so we'd have been horribly vulnerable and probably shoved out.

[wautd]

My main beef with skirmish is that all CP's are added in a comon pool and it only takes one idiot to keep buying the wrong units. The second beef is that you can't chose which player gets which reinforcements.

[xthetenth]

My main beef with skirmish is that all CP's are added in a comon pool and it only takes one idiot to keep buying the wrong units. The second beef is that you can't chose which player gets which reinforcements.

Oh yeah, it took a while to break a friend of his habit of buying halftracks (fine on its own) and driving them places where the AT guns hadn't been cleared out (and losing the elite infantry in the process to maximize the annoyance). That was annoying. I'd say cps in personal pool and keep the give units thing might be ideal.

Other notes, the end-map stronghold is even more painful than I remembered it being in beta, especially when you don't have a solid long range bombardment capacity (looking at you Japan). I finally decided to finish Khalkin Gol, and first I got my rockets nuked by their howitzers at extreme range, and then my spg wouldn't back out after firing a salvo in time to avoid getting decrewed. I wound up slipping the lightest tank around their left flank to take out all but one AT gun and howitzer. Amusing, but annoying. At least the reinforcements on that map aren't bad.

[wautd]

Yeah, I still havn't started on the single player yet (ditto for red tide, which I also bought). For the original game, I preferred the one where you had to be sneaky with a handfull of troops (ah bit like the old Commandos game). Favorite level was were you had to sneak into a German base in some desert town at night, and raise hell once inside.

[wautd]

Tales from the multiplayer front:

- Heh, last night I had a multiplayer match (in which me and my team got horribly curb stomped) but it was hilarious to see a Daimler scout car break trough our lines, but due to his enthusiastic driving he bumped against a goddamn rock and flipped over

- Is it me or are German tanks more expensive than their allied counterparts? In another match (in which my team got horribly curb stomped - but at least I made them bleed), for every tank I blew up, 2 new one took its place. That said, the game can be really unforgiving at times. Losing a lot of units in a short time due to bad luck or bad tactics and it's hard to get on your feet again, especially if your teammates don't give any support.

- The 2vs2 Bocage map is brutal .

- What are good ways to counter snipers? Last night I try to hold a hill full of sandbags and barbed wire, which would have been easy was it not that my oponent had at least a duo of snipers hidden somewhere.

- How the hell do you reload your tank using a supply truck?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

- How the hell do you reload your tank using a supply truck?

IIRC it's rather fiddly. You have to open the truck's inventory, and move the correct shell types over to the tank's inventory. I don't remember if you need to get a dude to do this, or if it will let you do it yourself as long as the truck is close enough.

[xthetenth]

Just get close enough IIRC. Use the Eye thingy and it should show both's inventories.

[wautd]

Just get close enough IIRC. Use the Eye thingy and it should show both's inventories.

OK, got it.

[Steel]

Tales from the multiplayer front:
- Is it me or are German tanks more expensive than their allied counterparts? In another match (in which my team got horribly curb stomped - but at least I made them bleed), for every tank I blew up, 2 new one took its place. That said, the game can be really unforgiving at times. Losing a lot of units in a short time due to bad luck or bad tactics and it's hard to get on your feet again, especially if your teammates don't give any support.

German stuff is more expensive, but also better than other countries stuff on average.

If you send out some units and they get toasted then you're screwed, but a good team that gets enough expensive units to be effective will absolutely ruin the enemy. It depends strongly on the players which comes out best.

- What are good ways to counter snipers? Last night I try to hold a hill full of sandbags and barbed wire, which would have been easy was it not that my oponent had at least a duo of snipers hidden somewhere.

Well as even the shittiest tanks are invulnerable to snipers thats a good place to start.

If not, blind firing a 20mm or at gun or something at where you think they are will smoke them out. You'll know if the gun is facing the right way when the crew stop dying randomly...

You can normally gauge the direction the shot came from by where bodies go and guess where he could be. Snipers are really expensive and easy to kill, so taking one out is as valuable as getting a tank really.

[wautd]

Man, playing Japan is hard. Perhaps it's doable if you're willing to try less conventional means, but once the enemy tanks start rolling in you're in a world of pain.

[xthetenth]

Khalkin Gol is doable, you just need to be relatively together with your tanks until the enemy tank waves peter out when you've taken the town. Then it's a matter of getting the fortress in the back, and it seems to me that a light tank flanking down the river on the left then up can get some pretty good shots on the enemy AT guns if it gets the first one. With one tank, I got three AT guns and a howitzer and then a banzai charge cleared the remaining AT and howitzer out. What I really hate is that the tanks in the banzai charge are spread out so they die separately rather than coming in as one and maybe getting at least one AT gun. Singapore looks like the land of the AT rifle, AT nade and relatively light tanks so I don't think it'll be too bad, but Iwo is probably going to be a nightmare, especially if it takes after Battle of the Bulge, where you don't get anything that can really take on a StuG or Pz. 4 until well after they show up. Good times, although damn if it doesn't make getting the WOLVERINES!!!! in sweet as could be.