Real Time Strategy: Micro 101

[Jason McCullough]

I'm playing the Dawn of War: Dark Crusade campaign on hard and it's pointing out just how terrible my RTS skills are.

Traditionally, I always won at these things by babysitting by worker units and just burying the opponent with my economy. Doesn't work so hot when mostly they remove the worker units, like in this and Company of Heroes.

So what's the trick to effectively micromanaging your fighting units? I mostly just get angry at the guys for going the wrong way, or the fast ones outrunning the slow ones, or watch them get locked together in an immobile mass of 100 units all trying to figure out how to get around each other.

I'm not looking for high-speed clicking like that APM (http://www.everything2.net/index.pl?node_id=70726) mess (http://www.mongabay.com/external/pro_video_gamers.htm).

[Sebmojo]

there's that great speed hack thing you can do - it's a autoexec.lua line that assigns keys to speed controls - so you can change speed on the fly.

Here. (http://forums.revora.net/index.php?act=Print&client=printer&f=478&t=42522)

Sorry, I know that's not exactly what you're asking for, but DC pretty much owns me on normal so you'll get no tips from me.

[Pod]

I haven't played this game, but via your description I can see one thing:

You're clicking to far ahead. If they're going the wrong way, it's because you're not taking baby-steps along the way, you're puttnig a giant's stride in there. "Move from this side of the map to that one" is usually a bad way to go about things, pathfinding issues aside. Along the way a million and one things can happen, and if all your units aren't quite close to each other to help each other out, you're going to get pasted.

Which brings up another point: Learn the counters. Then, as you're baby stepping your way along, once you spot the enemy (another point: scout well), figure out which geezers are best against them, send them in first, and follow up the rear with the other guys in support.

[TomChick]

I can't recommend that speed hack enough. All the unit powers and the tactical interplay Pod is talking about are much more practical for us non-hardcore players if you slow things down. Plus, Dawn of War is a glorious game to savor at a less frantic pace.

-Tom

[McBain]

DoW is all about your troop selection and positioning. You can't really micromanage effectively due to the terrible unit pathfinding and grouping behavior. That and the narrow maps that are easily clogged up by vehicles and stuff.

Micromanagement in DoW basically has three forms:

- Dancing
- Focus-firing
- Retreating

Dancing is simply moving your units in and out of attack range. Most effective with Eldar units that have no setup time. If you're not playing Eldar, dancing really isn't even worth mentioning, IMO.

Focus-firing is selecting targets for your control groups. The only thing to remember here is range. Target shit that's already in range of the units you've got selected. Any time you issue an attack-move type command in DoW, you can rest assured that your unit AI will find some way to fuck it up.

Retreating. For when your attack-move AI fucks up and sends a guard squad set to ranged stance directly into a hail of bolter fire.

[Jarmo]

Plus, Dawn of War is a glorious game to savor at a less frantic pace.

Yes, I've always played all of the Dawn of War games as turn-based tactics (on normal difficulty). I mostly give commands in the paused state. The game clock can say 13 minutes and I've been playing for two hours. I've never tried playing the single player game in real time. Works splendidly for me.

[shang]

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks Dawn of War has atrociously bad unit AI and path finding. I just recently picked this up as I got a great deal on the DoW: Complete Collection, so I'm a couple of years late to the party. The game engine just feels horribly antiquated at this point. Sure, the animations and knock-back etc. make it looks nice, but baby sitting all the units is really aggravating because of the crap AI and lack of formations (even basic stuff like matching the speed of slowest unit in a control group). And what's the deal with having to constantly click "Reinforce" on every company? Why can't the right-click auto-reinforce just stay on till I toggle it off?

I really want to like this game, but Company of Heroes, Kohan etc have really spoiled me. The DoW mechanics feel like going back ~10 years in RTS design.

[moromete]

Come on, 10 years is hars, very harsh. The concept of squads and reinforcement is central to the game, so that little bit of micromanagement is not really to far fetched.

I do agree that the pathfinding is hellish.

[metta]

I can't recommend that speed hack enough. All the unit powers and the tactical interplay Pod is talking about are much more practical for us non-hardcore players if you slow things down.
-Tom

Who are you? What have you done with Tom? :o

[Enidigm]

I'm not trying to scare you off, but a more traditional RTS like Age of Empires 3 might be a better ice breaker than Dark Crusade. Part of the schtick of Relic RTSs are very, very hard unit counters. In Dark Crusade, 3/4 of your strategy vs. the AI is trying to tech asap to vehicles and anti-vehicle weapons, as your AI opponent is doing the same, and vehicles will simply dominate your infantry. In many ways vehicles are even more dominant in DC than in Company of Heroes.

Without understanding the fundamental balance juggling that goes on in Dark Crusade, it's hard to elaborate on your lack of "micro". Because, frankly, it doesn't matter how much you micro if you don't have the right units.

Basic DC strategy, with every race-

Build a Commander as soon as you have a barracks (which should be the second building you build after a reactor). S/he can be used either as a "tank" or an anti-commander unit, which is somewhat mutually exclusive, as if you tank for several minutes against squads, you probably wont have the HP to win against the enemy commander. Either way, you HAVE to have a commander asap.

Don't fully uprade your infantry at the detriment of you teching times. No matter how many upgrades your infantry have, even basic vehicles can demolish all your perfected infantry in moments. The only exception to this rule are the iconic Space Marines, whose basic marines have access to anti-vehicle missiles. But you still need to be in Tier 2 to have access to them.

Aim to get the Tier 3 super-vehicle first. If you can afford to wait a bit longer, it's almost always a better deal in Dark Crusade to get your unique super-vehicle than waste time getting your Tier 3 tanks. With the Imperial Guard, for example, Leman Rus tanks aren't that much cheaper than the Baneblade yet are, at least, a factor of several times less effective. Against the AI, getting your relic unit is almost 99% of the time a guarantee on victory.

[unbongwah]

Who are you? What have you done with Tom? :o
He's just in denial.

[Jason McCullough]

SelfishGene, I'm no RTS newbie, this is just the first one I've felt like I can't keep up with. Is it just me, or has the genre been getting faster over the years? Or am I just old?

The short version of my problem is "battle degenerate into a huge pile of my units wacking into their huge pile of units, and I can't tell what the hell is going on enough to apply the right counters in focus firing, or keep the ranged troops from falling into melee."

[Jab2565]

I think I'm the same way, I have a hard time playing any RTS that requires you to "Dance your units " as a required strategy, which I know Age of Empires 3 had in spades. The last 2 recent RTS titles I enjoyed were Company of Heroes and Sins of the solar empire as that degree of micromanagement was toned down from other RTS games. The newest Command and Conquer game was too fast for me .

[Quitch]

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks Dawn of War has atrociously bad unit AI and path finding.

It has nothing on C&C 3. NOTHING.

Anyway, the economy is fire and forget, and the maps aren't big enough to be like TA where you played in the base. You make sure you're expanding (but not beyond your means), harassing early, and never floating resources.

Remember a squad breaks based on morale, not numbers of troops, so always hit your squad limit before bothering too much with reinforcing. Note too that this makes it easier to defeat H2H units as well.

The game is about shooting, hand-to-hand is simply to stop things shooting not to kill things (which is why Tyranids would be ass).

Never move your units long distances in unsafe territory, keep it to small jumps. Group them according to weapon type, etc. etc. There's nothing too complex here, but it does require more of a focus on the fighting than the base. So hotkey the buildings so you don't need to go home and can keep your mouse with the troops.

[Enidigm]

SelfishGene, I'm no RTS newbie, this is just the first one I've felt like I can't keep up with. Is it just me, or has the genre been getting faster over the years? Or am I just old?

The short version of my problem is "battle degenerate into a huge pile of my units wacking into their huge pile of units, and I can't tell what the hell is going on enough to apply the right counters in focus firing, or keep the ranged troops from falling into melee."

This will get you killed online - i've given up RTS online more or less anyway - but i don't even bother targeting units* unless they are anti-vehicle specialists or are vehicles themselves. It's much more important to have the right units in the right place with the right upgrades, than focus fire on their Huntresses. For example, with the Imperial Guard, sometimes grenade launchers are better upgrades than Plasma rifles, sometimes not (more often they are unless the infantry enemy in question is immune to knockdown). And because setup time is a big deal, it's often detrimental to keep moving and setting up if focus-firing from one squad to another with heavy weapons teams; best put them in the right spot and let them do their thing.

Your micro should be as was said above to keep your units out of melee. For that you need some melee yourself to keep the badguys busy. Ergo, your commander in the early game, and some melee specialist in the late game.

Once you peg the unique melee/fire ratio for each race, the game is pretty straightfoward.

The game i cannot play online is Warcraft 3 in 2on2 or 3on3 games. 1on1, i can handle somewhat. But visually and aurally, there is so much spell spam crap i honestly cannot see what the hell is going on, espcially in a game that demands focus fire to have any chance at all. Hell, i have a hard enough time just clicking on the right unit amid the chaos, not to mention most of my units are getting out of position to do this. 1on1 games are somewhat more managable however.

Company of Heroes is a much more micromanagement-y game than the Dawn of War series, imo, because the computer AI is generally smart enough not to simply walk into your fire. Each map ends up devolving into a war on two or three fronts and it's very hard for me to play "perfectly" on all three fronts at the same time, in real time. You can't just set up some guys behind a wall and not worry about them for a couple minutes, every squad has to be danced around. Especially on that default map, uh... the mid-sized 1on1 map with the church tower in the center of town (starts with an "S"? Semois?)

*and i mean this generally, not in the absolute sense. Of course i target units constantly, but i prioritize a few and let the autogunners in back do their thing without obsessing that each and every squad is always focus firing.

[Alan Au]

Warcraft 3 is the prime example of new-school micro-heavy gameplay. The game revolves around micro-ing a small number of units and using their abilities to offset natural hard-counters. I never quite got the hang of it, mostly because I'd forget to harass.

I haven't played much DoW (I'm waiting for the "Complete Collection" to show up in North America), but I seem to remember it was all about morale in the early game, and vehicles in the mid/late-game.

Company of Heroes ends up being a bit of an attention-management game. My limited experience is that it rewards aggressive play, with the caveat that you should try and set up some defensive positions to limit the number of fronts you have to monitor. That is, a well-placed MG and AT gun will keep enemy skirmishers out of your backfield while you focus on micro-managing your main assault force.

- Alan

[RepoMan]

Why the fuck is Tom in denial about being a hardcore player? Is it just because he doesn't want to scare off what remains of Shoot Club from ever playing RTSes with him again?

Anyway, I couldn't agree more that pause key = joy. Company of Heroes single-player also benefits like mad from rampant pause key abuse, especially if you use AutoHotKey to remap it to space bar or something else incredibly easy to pound on like a spastic weasel.

[Jason McCullough]

Thanks for the comments, I'm already noticeably better. I improved that LUA script for changing the speed a bit:

bind("F8","simratetemp = getsimrate(); if simratetemp > 2 then simratetemp = simratetemp - 1; setsimrate(simratetemp); end")
bind("F9","simratetemp = getsimrate(); if simratetemp < 100 then simratetemp = simratetemp + 1; setsimrate(simratetemp); end")

I'm a little surprised that I couldn't find this sort of guidance before; everything's on faq on trickery, build orders and unit stats, but no meta-stuff like "Relic makes really heavy countering games and the pathfinding is terrible so don't even bother with micro."

[Alan Au]

So yeah, when rebinding keys in Company of Heroes, people might want avoid remapping F1-F6, which are normally hotkeyed to buildings. Also, the default simrate is set to... I think it's '8'?

As for Tom claiming he's not a hardcore RTS player... IT'S A TRAP!

- Alan

[Matt Perkins]

what is the simrate?

[Quitch]

Company of Heroes...ends up devolving into a war on two or three fronts

Which is why it's more interesting than Dawn of War... in theory. Alas, the vanilla game is pretty predictable, so I don't spend as much time with it, but it has so much more potential. It fixes most of the stuff that was broken with Dawn of War (the map design for one).

[Jason McCullough]

The set/get simrate functions change the game speed from the console, as described in Sebmojo's link is post #2.

The default is 8. I find 5 is refreshingly non-panicky to play, though I still pause occasionally.

[salwon]

Pausable order-giving should be a standard in all RTSs. Or at least an adjustable speed setting.

Hell even let pauses in multiplayer - make them like time-outs, where everyone gets one ever X minutes.

Or we could all just play Combat Mission, I guess :)

[Matt Perkins]

I find Company slow enough already. Then again, I only play it multiplayer.

[Pod]

Pausable order-giving should be a standard in all RTSs. Or at least an adjustable speed setting.

Hell even let pauses in multiplayer - make them like time-outs, where everyone gets one ever X minutes.

Or we could all just play Combat Mission, I guess :)

All I see to do on this forum is go "Rise of Nations does this...", but, well, it does!
It's called Cannon Time. You get x number of uses, depending upon the multiplayer settings.

[Jason McCullough]

Ok, trying to play through the Necron campaign on hard again. In the first mission I stomp them so badly they never get out of their starting base, I get both the 1st victory and the 3 to 1 kill ratio. Oooh, now I can get both the Skinning and Reaping (http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Kronus_Necron_Lord#Skinning_Blades) blades.

The second missions ends up hilarious. I had to restart a couple times to get my defenses just so, but it's easy - when my Lord hits a imperial guard squad he does so much morale damage they break on a single hit. The Immortal (http://wiki.reliccommunity.com/Immortals) squad I picked up in the first mission not only does lots of long-range building damage, they slaughter infantry when you micromanage them into melee.

It's fun again!

[Pod]

With regards to those links you just posted:

Gauss Blaster
Damage Per Second Values
blahlbahlbahl


Things like that make me cry.

[salwon]

Wait, you were having problems with NECRONS?!?! I think the problem was that you were overthinking it. Or thinking in the first place. Remember: Robot zombies :)

[salwon]

With regards to those links you just posted:

Gauss Blaster
Damage Per Second Values
blahlbahlbahl


Things like that make me cry.


I'm glad I'm not the only RTS fan who feels that way.

[Sebmojo]

Wait, you were having problems with NECRONS?!?! I think the problem was that you were overthinking it. Or thinking in the first place. Remember: Robot zombies :)

Now Jason's sorted, can someone enlighten me as to the Necrons' weakness, if any? Is it just their slightly slower start and dependence on power?

[Quitch]

They're all heavy infantry so it's easy to setup a counter.

They're very, very slow.

All their resources are in one easy to find location, though difficult to attack.

They are predictable IMO, their research tree is like early DoW Chaos, it doesn't offer much in the way of possibilities.

[RepoMan]

OK, so I just picked up Rise of Legends for cheap-ish at the Microsoft company store. Can anyone give me the "50,000-foot-view" on Rise of Legends? e.g. like the one presented for Dawn of War in this thread? What's the one-sentence (or one-paragraph) how-to for single-player Rise of Legends?

[Pod]

Don't play a modern game straight away :)
Infact, just play a bunch of games that only use the first two epochs. Oh, and do the tutorials. They tell you all you need to know.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Epochs? In Rise of Legends?

[Jason McCullough]

I was having a hard time because I wasn't doing the melee/not melee thing correctly. Silly me, thinking melee troops could do shit for damage.

On a related note, Hello Kitty Warhammer 40k (http://www.metafilter.com/71750/Warhammer-40K-meets-Hello-Kitty).

[Pod]

Epochs? In Rise of Legends?

HAHA what a fool. I apologise! Tottally Misread! I thought it was RON.

Yeah, I agree with you though. Just play the campaign. I got really bored of it once it hit the second phase. Mainly because it was always race v race. I should have been given the option of continuing on with the Humans. But oh well! I might go back to it after my finals...

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Yeah, RoL's campaign is not as good as RoN's, and the exquisite progression and balance of the game are completely boned by the conditions of the campaign maps, but it will damn well teach you the units, the cities, and the interface.

[McBain]

It has nothing on C&C 3. NOTHING.

I don't think anyone at Qt3 shits on C&C3 more than I do, but there's no way it has worse pathfinding than DoW.

Have you never played Imperial Guard on any of the terribly twisty new Dark Crusade/WA maps? The unit pathfinding is more dangerous than opposing armies.

[Matt Perkins]

I don't think anyone at Qt3 shits on C&C3 more than I do, but there's no way it has worse pathfinding than DoW.

Can we stage some sort of contest? I'd suggest C&C3 isn't even an RTS. more of RTA (Action) game. It is literally everything that is generic about RTS games these days all bundled together.



Side note from that:
I started playing some of the expansion pack single player for some reason in Company. Not too bad really. That story is boring, but the missions are kinda fun...if not overly easy and way too scripted. I do find it interesting that they have the PE spending so much time on defense where as in multiplayer you'll hardly ever find someone playing them defensively.

[Enidigm]

I actually find the Imperial Guard one of the more difficult adversaries in skirmish as Necron, probably because i literally never use Wraiths. Necrons are somewhat short ranged, and they lack a really heavy unit in the middle game to soak up damage with. Pariahs are interesting because, at least the way the AI uses them, they are almost unkillable because of their insane reinforcement speed.

OK, so I just picked up Rise of Legends for cheap-ish at the Microsoft company store. Can anyone give me the "50,000-foot-view" on Rise of Legends? e.g. like the one presented for Dawn of War in this thread? What's the one-sentence (or one-paragraph) how-to for single-player Rise of Legends?

Expand your wealth/energy income, capture or buy neutral settlements, grind your opponent down.

Rise of Legends is actually an easier game vs. the AI than the Dawn of War series. Basically, keep expanding your income, trying to prioritize Wealth as soon as possible (as Wealth is more rare and harder to generate, and Wealth buys the best units/upgrades), capture nearby cities to prevent the AI from creeping you. Use forts to build your best units, and push your borders. Then grind your opponent down city by city.

Really, that was my biggest dissapointment about Rise of Legends. IN THEORY, there are enough mobile/flying units to make raiding viable. In practice, flying/raiding units are not cost effective enough at either raiding or dealing damage as part of your main army. So the game, elaborate as it seems, always comes down to building a big generic group of stuff, with some seige equipment, and slowly - very very slowly - grinding your way, city by city, through your enemies' lands.

[Alan Au]

Really, that was my biggest dissapointment about Rise of Legends. IN THEORY, there are enough mobile/flying units to make raiding viable. In practice, flying/raiding units are not cost effective enough at either raiding or dealing damage as part of your main army. So the game, elaborate as it seems, always comes down to building a big generic group of stuff, with some seige equipment, and slowly - very very slowly - grinding your way, city by city, through your enemies' lands.On the one hand, I think Rise of Legends is great. On the other hand, I thought the strategic-map portion of game was pretty tedious. Maybe I was supposed to simply make a bee-line for the enemy capital? Otherwise the 3-on-1 respawning AI generals make the strategic map feel a lot like an elaborate game of whack-a-mole.

- Alan

[Quitch]

I don't think anyone at Qt3 shits on C&C3 more than I do, but there's no way it has worse pathfinding than DoW.

I've seen an incoming harvester get stuck trying to get past an outgoing harvester, grinding my economy to a halt... several times.

I've issued move orders to large groups which several members of chose to ignore completely and not budge an inch... several times.

I've seen troops taking retarded routes because they bumped into someone... all the time.

All Dawn of War has is the odd bad direction decision. That's nothing to what C&C 3 has. Since when did your troops plain out ignore a move order while offline? Try never. With C&C3 this is a fairly regular thing.

And I like C&C3, it's good, if unimaginative, fun.