Men of War: Condemned Heroes

[Random Word]

Killing heavy tanks with tiny little tankettes is hilariously fun, but can only be done if you're much better than your opponent or you get really lucky. Medium and heavy tanks can easily kill tankettes from the other side of the map, and tankettes have a very hard time penetrating in return. For real heavy tanks most tankettes can't even penetrate their rear armour at point blanc range. Anything heavier than a Panther is completely immune to tankettes, and even it is only vulnerable on the rear at short range. That video was just an example of really bad play on all fronts from the team recording, they were probably fairly new to the game when they made that.

 

[sser]

Should I get Assault Squad by itself or do I need the others as well?

Amusingly, I bought MoW for like $3 from somewhere a long time ago, but now I can't remember what damn platform I got it from.

 

[Berekän]

sser

Assault Squad is a standalone, you don't need any other game to play it.

 

[sser]

Anyway to get it without SecuROM?

 

[Berekän]

Only in Spanish afaik

 

[sser]

Bah. Well I picked it up anyway; the GOTY edition.

Full of DRM-wrapped DLC. I am now part of the


EDIT: Jesus Christ either this game has fucking terrible controls or I am just shit at it. Can't even get close to beating the first mission. Says crouch low and approach through the bushes, but the enemy AI sees right through everything (including smoke) and mows everyone down with HMGs. Doesn't help that the friendly AI soldiers just chill on the beach like a bunch of fuckwads while I solo some MG-nests. I mean, I understand the game wants tactics, but the fucking map is a damn corridor in itself. Nobody is realistically gonna "flank" an MG position by going twenty meters to its left. Goddam frustrating.I did play one game in multiplayer and got totally fucking owned with some other guy; at least I had some fun there, though.

 

[Berekän]

I get you haven't even beat the first part of the first skirmish, from what you describe you seem to be stuck at the second line of defense, with the two MG's one at each side of the map, right? Maybe you're not using all the tools that are at your disposal, the amount of options can be a bit... 'intimidating' at the beginning, your sniper can use aimed shots to take down enemy soldiers from a great distance, and all your soldiers have tools to place sandbags whenever you want. If you're trying to send your 4 soldiers together you're going to get stomped, try baiting their fire with two or three of your soldiers whilst your other soldiers flanks the position and either throws there a grenade or takes them with his weapon. Then you can take the MG and proceed to mow the other MG position for shit and giggles.

Once you've gone throught this 'tutorial' the map will open and you will be able to recruit troops, giving you a lot more of tactical options. Anyway, Assault Squad is the multiplayer option, and the skirmishes, while they certainly can be fun, are not the meat of the game. Also, you'll have a though time trying to beat them alone, I couldn't beat them until I managed to gather two bros to play with me

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

The skirmishes are kind of lame, tbh, the missions in Vanilla are way better.

 

[sser]

The game is good, just frustrating in that single-player aspect at least. I was wondering, in multiplayer there aren't "pictures" for the recruitment options. I had been watching videos of the game that had these, but they're not there for me. It makes it a lot easier to see what you're looking through -- text is small on my screen, nevermind my bad vision. Is there an option hidden somewhere to return the little pictures? In the videos it was easy to tell the difference between rifleman/assault squads/etc., but in the game ... not so much. And I was wondering about unit control in multi, should I be telling tanks what to do a lot of the time? One tank tweaked out by rotating its turret left to right and almost got blasted by a Sherman for his retarded troubles. I sometimes feel like you don't want to give too many commands or else the engine can't keep up or something; it's not as intuitive/responsive as most RTS games I've played. The action is very intense, though. Got tank-rounds blowing through houses and soldiers running around with AT-grenades knocking the tracks off vehicles and all kinds of shenanigans. I'm not sure if smoke actually works or not, though.

 

[Random Word]

Yes, you probably will spend a lot of time manually controlling tanks. I'm not sure if you know about manual control yet, but when toggled on you drive the tank with WASD/the arrow keys and target its guns with your mouse like a TPS - you can do the same for infantry if you want, useful for Officers, Snipers, Artillery, and AT guns. Smoke works very well, it completely blocks vision and units will only autofire at units in smoke if they saw them before the smoke went up, and then they'll only fire at the last known position. You can manually control your units to fire blindly into smoke, which is still fairly effective with a HMG or HE rounds. Don't worry about the engine keeping up with orders - I've had other new players complain they feel the engine is somehow unresponsive, I've never seen it myself and they all say it goes away with as they learn the game better. I'm not sure how you managed to remove purchase icons - that's not an option you can toggle, it sounds like a bug. Could be something to do with your hardware setup or installation, try getting tech support on it or asking on the forums.

 

[Berekän]

Yes, micromanaging your troops is key to victory, especially tanks as they're very prone to get fucked up if left unattended. The engine being unresponsive it's just a matter of getting used to it, as sometimes it will look like your units aren't obeying your orders of firing someone, it's not that they're ignoring you, if you just right-click once they will shoot them once they're in their LOS, staying in their position until this happens. If that's the case, you can move them to another location or double right-click, which will make them move and attack (though they will disregard cover while using this, so try to avoid it if you don't want your troops to do a suicide charge.

Also, the manual control, as Random Word pointed, is very useful. You might want to use it a lot with your tanks, in urban environments you can use it to better navigate the streets, blow up the buildings to get a shot on the enemy tank... also, you can do things you wouldn't be able otherwise, like cooking the grenades before throwing them.

Avout the "pictures" in the recruitment options, could you provide a screenshot? I'm not really sure what are you talking about.

 

[Erzherzog]

I look forward to it. I apologise for the misunderstanding, I had attributed to you an opinion you clearly don't hold. I still think Combat is a terrible game mode, though.

And I'll grant you that, since at this point it's pretty clear you dislike extreme tactics that you will tend to see in combat. I'll admit that in a game mode where "anything" goes you can see some strange or annoying tactics.

I do apologize for my lack of clarity at any rate.

 

[Random Word]

And I'll grant you that, since at this point it's pretty clear you dislike extreme tactics that you will tend to see in combat. I'll admit that in a game mode where "anything" goes you can see some strange or annoying tactics.

Using dynamite is 'extreme' now? I guess I must be a master of 'extreme tactics', then :D. Combat gives you the 'freedom' to ignore map control and hide in your spawn - it doesn't magically open to door to 'extreme tactics' like using dynamite. Real game types force you to actually hold the field for the majority of the game to win - y'know, actually play the game - rather than saving for heavy armour. I'm of the opinion that if the other team holds most of the map uncontested they ought to win, you can always opt to play better next match.

 

[Erzherzog]

We're talking at least 5 heavy tanks to dynamite, and crap like Nashorns are thrown around often enough, or lines get stuck and you see a couple sturmtigers. Battle zones tend to have much more small units, but it's far less satisfying than killing the enemies beloved kingtiger that he felt he could just sit with and win.

 

[Cassidy]

EXTREME tactics is to attempt beating a Tiger with an armored car by outmaneuvering its own turret and shooting its rear at point-blank nonstop while circle strafing around it.

Once I did it, but it was against the AI, in the final mission of the Allied campaign.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I want to know, am I the only one who hates the profusion of tungsten/HVAP/HEAT rounds that AS has? Every tank and AT guns spawns with them, it's fucking ridiculous. It makes mid tier tanks much less useful, as much lighter guns, cheaper guns can destroy them far too easily. Example being the Sherman vs. the Pak38 or comparable 50mm gun, normally Pak can't do dick to it, but with every single one of your guns having 10 or so tungsten shells, it becomes pointless to build them.

 

[Random Word]

Not really - remember that in AS the special AP rounds all have much shorter ranges than traditional AP. They do have much better penetration values, but loading special rounds makes it even easier for tanks to hang back at range and lob HE rounds until the gun is dead. Special rounds are only effective if the gun surprises you at short range, which won't happen if you're scouting properly/have an Officer.

My favourite EXTREME tactics are stealing enemy artillery/rocket artillery by killing the crew before towing them away with an armoured car and killing Panthers with Daimler Armoured Cars, which I do against humans on a regular basis :D. Dynamiting heavy SPART is fun too. Harder to do in AS, though - can't buy scouts anymore without special points.

 

[sser]

You can see in this video how the infantry-tab is not very detailed. Mostly empty space with small text to distinguish the squads. In older vids of Men of War (not AS) there are huge icons that clearly profile the differences between the infantry. Not a huge deal, it's just that with the resolution high the text can be hard to see.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

They changed the UI at some point, I guess. It was much more similar to what you are describing the last time I played. Seems like they've made the unit cards smaller and bunched them together quite a bit more.

Odd that they didn't put an option to toggle between the different styles.

 

[Father Walker]

Guys, are the tanks modelled any better than in earlier titles? You know, a little semblance of realism instead of HP attrition?

 

[Random Word]

Guys, are the tanks modelled any better than in earlier titles? You know, a little semblance of realism instead of HP attrition?

I guess you skipped the rest of the thread to ask your question? Regardless, if you missed it elsewhere it has a full ballistics model which incorporates the KE of the round, the slope and thickness of the armour, the angle of impact, and the type of round. Once penetration is calculated, depending on where the vehicle is struck it can take out the tracks, disable the turret, take out the main gun, disable the engine, kill crew members, strike the magazine, strike the fuel reserves, crush the hull, or destroy the hull. All of these are modelled individually and with the exception of hull destroyed can be repaired. Tanks have no health.

You can see in this video how the infantry-tab is not very detailed. Mostly empty space with small text to distinguish the squads. In older vids of Men of War (not AS) there are huge icons that clearly profile the differences between the infantry. Not a huge deal, it's just that with the resolution high the text can be hard to see.

I still don't understand. You mean you can't tell the difference between say the SMG Squad and the Rifle Squad in the purchase list? I admit, I don't really look at the icons anymore, I just have the positions memorized, but if your interface looks like that video then everything is working correctly.

 

[Father Walker]

I guess you skipped the rest of the thread to ask your question? Regardless, if you missed it elsewhere it has a full ballistics model which incorporates the KE of the round, the slope and thickness of the armour, the angle of impact, and the type of round. Once penetration is calculated, depending on where the vehicle is struck it can take out the tracks, disable the turret, take out the main gun, disable the engine, kill crew members, strike the magazine, strike the fuel reserves, crush the hull, or destroy the hull. All of these are modelled individually and with the exception of hull destroyed can be repaired. Tanks have no health.
.

Oh boy, downloadan asap then.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I still don't understand. You mean you can't tell the difference between say the SMG Squad and the Rifle Squad in the purchase list? I admit, I don't really look at the icons anymore, I just have the positions memorized, but if your interface looks like that video then everything is working correctly.

The unit cards for infantry have been switched around. I think they used the old squad cards for the single infantrymen and made new ones for the squad tab. They've also made them quite bit smaller at some point and bunched them together more.

 

[sser]

Yeah it's not gamebreaking or anything, just difficult to read sometimes. I don't understand the change personally as the image graphics were quite clear, but whatever. I beat the first skirmish mission finally so I guess I'm improving.

And yeah the tanks are modeled fairly well. I mean it's not super realistic as all the combat tends to be very close range, so it's not going to be Combat Mission, but it's close enough. Kind of like an improved Close Combat, but without the morale system.


EDIT: I did just have a really dumb incident in a game with a vehicle, though. It was a Russian vs Germans, no-medium tanks game. I was Soviet and a German, mobile AA gun ran up along my troops. An AT gun shelled its side, at point blank range, about ten times before the dumb player I guess realized his shit was getting shot at and turned and mowed my people down. That, along with the general nature of that game (the other team just holed up and shelled everything with heavy arty; also early Soviet vehicles suck ass) almost made me uninstall the game immediately after it was over. Also, the community kinda blows. Can hardly ever get a game since I get kicked for having a low ranking; but how the fuck do you get a ranking when everyone kicks you? Meh.

 

[Haba]

Oh god, how do I suck at MoW:AS... But then again, so does everyone else playing casual matches.

All the maps I've played were a bit too tiny and a lot too fast-paced to my liking. And damn... Combat sure does turn into massive clusterfuck real fast.