StarDestroyer.Net BBS

My brother had borrowed DoW from a friend of mine last year and had played it and finished it- I didn't get the chance, but then my brother bought the GotY edition complete with Winter Assault a few weeks ago.

Since then, I've started playing it- I'm up to Mission 8 or 9, I can't remember which.

That said, while it's a damn fun game, I'm surprised at the lacklustre quality of the AI as far as pathfinding and attack orders go.

Take, for example, when you have a cluster of troops- let's say Dreadnoughts and Space Marines in the mission where yo uhave to kill the Ork Warboss and they have that huge, takes ages to die, armadillo type ... thing.

If your troops are clustered in front of the Dreadnoughts on the little land bridge leading to the Ork base, your Dreadnoughts will not budge. They'll just sit there, even if it should be a fucking simple matter for them to walk through the Space Marine squads- you have to create retarded, unecessarily wide artificial corridors. Haven't we outgrown this idiocy in games?

Then there's when you order say, five squads to attack a single target. Watch as the front two squads (if you're lucky) open fire with everything, while the retards in the back just sit there and watch, forcing you to babysit them by ordering them closer even though your attack order *implicity tells them* to move up and unload with all their weaponry.

Is this stupidity fixed in Winter Assault, by any chance?

I've not seen the same level of bullfuckery in Winter Assault. This doesn't mean it's over. When things get clogged, my squads tend to try and pick guys who'll move out of hte way.. And sometimes they'll need someone else..

Pathfinding is an issue, definately.

You'll find thousands of threads over at the Relic boards about the horrible pathing in DoW. You guys will love the jump-lock that occurs in MP if your opponent manages to jump right in the middle of your HW sqauds, they can't move and promptly get horribly slaughtered.

Squads getting stuck together, heros getting stuck in squads, Squads getting stuck by vehicles, VEHICLES getting stuck by-ect....

Its enough to drive one mad. Atleast the grav tanks have a slightly easier time of it.

I've seen the occasional annoying weirdness, particular in relation to transport vehicles, but nothing like you mention. Are you patched up to 1.5? In addition to fixes, 1.3 (IIRC) overhauled the unit stance mechanics to be more balanced and better-behaved. Speaking of stances, what do you have them set on? I find the best results for your average ranged-fire squad come from the Stand Ground and Ranged stance and behavior, respectively. For a CC squad I simply change Ranged to Assault - so the squad will stand and fire their pistols (or whatever) with a reasonable level of intelligence and then charge on my orders, but that's just my preference.