Anyone here play Dawn of War?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-02-04 08:25pm

Urgh. Sorry. AIM decided to make Dawn of War minimize. I've never seen it freeze that long before after being interrupted. Dammit.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-02-04 09:28pm

Ok, I saw some people doing this during the last couple matches, so here we go.

Stand Ground stance is pretty suicidal unless you know what you're doing. It's okay for heavy weapons that have to deploy (so the unit won't move around), but units on Stand Ground will not retaliate in hand-to-hand combat - they'll shoot instead, but their accuracy is reduced to 1%! So, word to the wise: Stick to the default Hold Ground stance.

NOTE: I'm not talking about Ranged/Versatile/Assault combat stances, that's something different.

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2005-02-04 10:33pm

So who's available right now?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-02-04 10:44pm

I will be in a few minutes when this download finishes.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2005-02-04 11:02pm

I usually stick with Stand Ground so my marines don't run away from their positions to go melee. They're always better off shooting rather than knifing, so I do that (plus, moving around forces them to have to setup their missiles and HBs again).

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-02-05 12:22am

Shinova wrote:I usually stick with Stand Ground so my marines don't run away from their positions to go melee. They're always better off shooting rather than knifing, so I do that (plus, moving around forces them to have to setup their missiles and HBs again).

They won't go into melee unless they get charged. And if they do, it's better to fight back in hand-to-hand. Don't underestimate a Space Marine, even nerfed as they are in the games.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-02-05 12:53am

Rogue 9 wrote:Say, how fortuitous that that particular saying was at the bottom of your screen. I was looking for it to confirm something earlier and now I have it.

The Emperor's will is contradictory.

"Foolish are those who fear nothing, yet claim to know everything."

"Brave are those who know everything, yet fear nothing."

"It is better for a man to be afraid than to be happy."

"And they shall know no fear..."

Oops, I questioned the Emperor. Guess I'd best start playing Chaos now.

A couple more.

"Ignorance is a virtue."

"Be strong in your ignorance."

"Brave are those who know everything, yet fear nothing."

Knowing everything yet being ignorant is an... interesting dichotomy, to say the least.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-02-05 01:05am

You're assuming that in order to be desirable, they must be mutually exclusive.

"I'm ignorant."

"Good!"

"Just kidding, I lied. I'm actually a scholar."

"That's good too! Welcome to the Imperial Guard, grunt!"

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-02-05 02:41pm

JediNeophyte wrote:Ok, I saw some people doing this during the last couple matches, so here we go.

Stand Ground stance is pretty suicidal unless you know what you're doing. It's okay for heavy weapons that have to deploy (so the unit won't move around), but units on Stand Ground will not retaliate in hand-to-hand combat - they'll shoot instead, but their accuracy is reduced to 1%! So, word to the wise: Stick to the default Hold Ground stance.

NOTE: I'm not talking about Ranged/Versatile/Assault combat stances, that's something different.

Uh, wouldn't the Versatile combat stance make it so that the marines would engage in hand to hand if enemies charged into them?

Azazel · Post by **Azazel** » 2005-02-05 02:52pm

InnocentBystander wrote:Well rogue and I played out many an early game senario of the 2 mostly full groups of banshees plus a farseer versus a variety of different things an early space marine group might include, the Space Marines always lost, once he got my farseer early, and once at the end he got a banshee squad.

I just don't think there's any way of stoping that rush, other than turtling, hiding behind a turret, etc.

I guess we've proved that Space Marines suck

Glares.

Azazel · Post by **Azazel** » 2005-02-05 02:55pm

I'm sorry I haven't been in the thread for a while but I have been extremely busy with classes.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-02-05 03:18pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
JediNeophyte wrote:Ok, I saw some people doing this during the last couple matches, so here we go.

Stand Ground stance is pretty suicidal unless you know what you're doing. It's okay for heavy weapons that have to deploy (so the unit won't move around), but units on Stand Ground will not retaliate in hand-to-hand combat - they'll shoot instead, but their accuracy is reduced to 1%! So, word to the wise: Stick to the default Hold Ground stance.

NOTE: I'm not talking about Ranged/Versatile/Assault combat stances, that's something different.
Uh, wouldn't the Versatile combat stance make it so that the marines would engage in hand to hand if enemies charged into them?

No. Assault/Versatile/Ranged merely affects AI behaviour and what the unit will do when you tell it to attack. Who puts a heavy weapons squad on versatile anyways?

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2005-02-05 08:00pm

Aynone up for a Dawn of War party tonight?

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-05 08:06pm

I'm WoW'in it up tonight - Guild Stratholme Raid

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2005-02-05 08:10pm

I've just come back from a meal and drinks with friends, so im to drunk to play. Though i may be availalbe for a game after work tomorrow.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-07 10:34am

Not to bump the threat or anything

but will anyone be around tonight at 7:30/8 (est) for a game or two?

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2005-02-07 11:25am

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-07 11:56am

Anyone have some tips on how they manage to build + control their armies? I often find myself with 500+ resources sitting around after the first engagement because I've been commanding two squads and a farseer for a couple minutes, rather than... you know, building stuff. Any tips, tricks, etc?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2005-02-07 03:01pm

InnocentBystander wrote:Anyone have some tips on how they manage to build + control their armies? I often find myself with 500+ resources sitting around after the first engagement because I've been commanding two squads and a farseer for a couple minutes, rather than... you know, building stuff. Any tips, tricks, etc?

Go put your barrack buildings and stuff under a control group. I like to put my Machine Cult into group 0, my Barracks into group 9, Orbital Relay at group 8, etc. So whenever you see resources, hit that number and build another squad.

That's one thing you could do. Or leave a barracks on overwatch so that it keeps producing one unit continuously.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-07 05:16pm

That doesn't help too much, considering at this point in the game I have an apsect portal, a power generator or 2 and some listening posts. I'd like to be able to queue up buildings, but I when I go into combat I basically have no money, and the next minute or 2 of fighting most of the cash goes to reinforcing squad members.

I guess I just have to pay attention to my base... perhaps queue up my Farseer to run around in a circle for a few seconds

Eldar Roundup! My thoughts on their units, flame away

Banshees - From what I can tell they are honestly great. They don't do the kind of uber damage that things like marines with heavy bolters can do, but they have the speed and abilities to screen your troops, even late game 2 or 3 squads can give you the couple seconds you need to get your Prism cannons into position and start "stunning" enemy squads. Being smart w/ fleet of foot is important, they are fairly fragile units, so they need to get into melee combat as fast as possible, but once there you want them to be able to hit

Banshee Exarch - Very important, that warcry they have kills morale instantly!
Rangers - Honestly, I don't know what to do with them. They seem to down units like Orks at a reasonable rate for their price, but I just don't like them. Anyone have info to add, aside from spotters (which they are great for...)
Dark Reapers - These guys are nice, long range, high RoF, good damage against heavy infantry. In a firefight they tend to last pretty long, though it seem to me that they don't do significant damage to most of what gets fielded. For me, I use them as my grunts to absorb fire, letting my vehicles and platforms do the REAL damage.
DR Exarch - Err... he's rather expensive, and his upgrade isn't really all that special. DR squads are, however, generally rather small, so one extra memeber is a worthwhile purchase.
Warp Spiders - These guys are, in my opinion, good and bad. They do huge damage against things like orks and banshees, but they have rather limited range and are rather slow, not having FoF. The teleport is nice for combat, but they just can't get across the map like most other eldar units. Also they cost a lot of energy for early units, so I tend to stay away from them. I dislike their lack of FoF and short range, I like their anti-infantry damage and combat teleporting.
Warp Spider Exarch - Not terribly special, just boots the group and adds an extra member, certainly good to have around, but he isn't required for the bomb, so... he's only so useful.
Guardians - They are okay. With a Warlock a full squad isn't bad at drawing fire while your line forms up, but they die too fast middle game onwards.
Warlock (exarch) - Painfully important, I think he has about 10 times the hp of any one of his guardians and is the only competent meleer in the group. He has some nice upgrades... but they aren't worth it unless your army is all Guardians...
Seer Council - Just a group of those powerful Warlocks. They are great to have around, they can take some damage and do plenty. The down side... they are painfully expensive to fully reinforce (like 15 of them, from 3) and equip (expensive blade, I'm not sure how much better it acutally makes each one). I end up finding it hard to spend the money on them when banshees are cheaper and generally do almost as good of a job.
Avatar - He's good and bad. On the one hand he's a LOT of resources, on the other hand while he's around, your units never break and produce faster (a huge bonus). He's got a lot of HP to be sure, but I find he ends up dying first always because he's just THE target, sometimes never getting a chance to unload his 1000 damage badassness. Generally, I don't like to get him because of the price (which includes getting all 6 aspect stones, which in itself is somewhat costly...)
Farseer - A very nice character. She doesn't acutally do much damage unlike the other 3 starting heros, but she is a great psyker, tossing around squads of enemies all the time. Guide is nice, though I honestly don't know how nice, Mind war is useful and the low level AE she has is.. well.. not spectacular. Eldrich storm is nice to have and not hard to get, but just pales in comparison to orbital strike. I don't even think it hurts vehicles. Mostly, it just tosses infantry all over the place (which is good of course).
S-Cannon platform - I didn't think much of them until recently. They acutally kill marines quite well. They are easy to get, inexpensive and you can very easily get a good number of them. Against orks, they are good, but they seem to kill orks as fast as Space Marines... only a SM squad has 8 guys, an ork squad has twice that number

Still, they are definatly worth having around!
BL platform - The brightlance is a pretty nice weapon, superior range, good rate of fire, not expensive, they are nice. Against things like dreadnaughts they are great, they lumber slowly towards your line and get punked very easily. They are small and tend not to get destroyed very fast. All in all I love them, though I don't use quite as many as I used to, since they are too slow at killing infantry, mixing in a few S-cannons really help with that.
Eldar Vehics-
Flacon - The flacon is... well I don't use it, let's put it that way. It's not painfully expensive, but I just don't use it. It doesn't seem to have a brightlance from what I can see, rather it has a scatterlaser (is that the right name?) and can be given a starcannon on the turret, plus the 2 underslug S-catapults. Nice anti-infantry, plus it can jump in drop say... a squad of banshees than jump out. It doesn't have quite enough HP to pull this off late game, but I'll wager that against orks or mid game they are pretty useful.
Vyper - Fun but not all that great. The turret is kinda slow so what happens is when it stops it turns towards the target to get it w/ the underslung catapults, and the turret has to then turn to compensate, which sorta stinks. It's plenty fast, can jump and it's turret is good at taking down infantry (though again, more useful against SMs than orks...) or a very nice, long range rocket launcher. I think 2/4 of these could be great for hit and run tactics, however even w/ the holoshield upgrade they are very vulnerable to all anti-vehicle weapons, which seriously weakens them.
Wraithlord - These guys are the eldar heavy melee units. Their Brightlance is quite nice against vehicles, and, unupgraded, the starcannon is pretty nice, though I'll admit, I think it misses a lot. Their only real problem is they don't really have the hitpoints to get into close combat late game, so a BL or S-cannon platform is sorta a better buy. They aren't terribly fast compared to FoF'ing eldar, and are just generally not so great when you can really start fielding them. I admit that if you can get them early enough they can be good, but honestly, I think your money is better spend elsewhere.
Fire prisms - I love these things, but also dislike my lack of control I have over them. The one thing I cant' seem to get them to do is to focus on vehicles, they do nice damage to vehicles, but they never want to fire at them, half the time they shoot in the middle of MY ranks. Any suggestions on how to get Fire Prism's turret to shoot at what I want, rather than the nearest infantry squad? They also have over 4k hp w/ the upgrade and as such are about the only thing the eldar have which can take real damage, they can also jump... though only once now, so it's of somewhat limited use (mostly getting into position or running away). The important thing to note about them is that they won't really kill anything, they just knock stuff around so it can't fight back. I don't think you really need more than... 3 or 4 of them.

Usefulness of upgrades -

The only ones I end up getting are:
Fortune, Eldrich Storm, vehicle upgrade (name escapes me), Holoshields (+vehicle HP), Exarch research, FoF and that's basically it.

Can anyone point out the actual amount of gain some of the other upgrades give, because I really can't see it from up here. Even with exarchs which "improve squad damage", WHAT does that mean? Do they each do 1 extra damage? What exactly is my reaper squad getting for 110 resources, besides another, slightly stronger, soldier? I'd like some numbers

If you know a good linky, that'll, of course, work too

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-07 07:31pm

I'm now in Ultima Segmentum, anyone around?

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-02-07 07:51pm

I'm here.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-07 08:32pm

Anyone else?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2005-02-07 08:44pm

InnocentBystander wrote: Can anyone point out the actual amount of gain some of the other upgrades give, because I really can't see it from up here. Even with exarchs which "improve squad damage", WHAT does that mean? Do they each do 1 extra damage? What exactly is my reaper squad getting for 110 resources, besides another, slightly stronger, soldier? I'd like some numbers
If you know a good linky, that'll, of course, work too

For example, the Warlock gives its guardian squad and any attached platforms about 20% damage increase, I believe.

Reaper exarch isn't all that useful, but the War Spider exarch with its dual deathspinners does great damage, last I heard.

And the Banshee exarch gives war shout, and it's got that Executioner blade, which does tremendous damage, IIRC.

And exarchs improve squad morale also, I believe.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-02-07 10:51pm

AND platforms

Well great, now you've given me a reason to use guardians

Where might I find this sort of information?