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"the British Army's 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps fired their ten Vickers guns continuously for twelve hours. Using 100 new barrels, they fired a million rounds without a single failure" That is a lot of dakka.
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Apr 28, 2014 05:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q4e0pXjUaA Sorry for the timer in the corner, that's from me trying to record the opening cutscene.  The seemingly unstoppable German juggernaut has stalled, and the Soviet forces are gradually pushing the Germans back.  One of our protagonists, however, has suffered a light concussion, and was brought to Shithole Peasant Village as a prisoner of war.  Prisoner of War. November 26, 1941. Sinyavskoye village, Rostov region  The end of the last mission replays, just so you remember how your character got here.  The cutscene fades to reveal two unfriendly looking gentlemen.  Sinyavskoye village, November 26, 1941 They are quite set on pushing us around.  drat, these five days as a prisoner were not kind to us.  An Important German Officer arrives in a car.  In a thick German accent, he attempts to persuade us to betray our country and work for the Germans.  An explosion distracts the two soldiers for just a second, but just a second is all we need.  Stab!  Shoot!  Flop. Looks like they...did nazi it coming.  YEAHHHHHHHHHH!  Ahem. Comrade Disembodied Voice tells us that while we were playing action hero in this house, partisans have attacked the village.  Their goal is the German HQ in that house.  This house contains other Soviet prisoners of war, and it would be nice if we could free them.  After freeing them and recovering documents from the HQ, we should clear out.  More Germans are bound to arrive from a nearby garrison any minute.  Aleksei Kuznetsov: I am very fortunate that the partisans decided to add some worries for the Fritz. I should help my brothers, I cannot run like a coward.  Here we are, in our wonderful mixmaster officer's uniform. We are down to just one man for this mission. Let's take a look at our arsenal, it is surely fearsome enough to compensate for this.  Huh. A pistol, 14 rounds of ammunition, a knife and a shovel. Not very impressive.  Our partisan buddies are pinned down by that armoured car! We should help them, but we are not really in a position to do so. It is a much wiser move to obtain some more weapons first. Besides, they are going to be fine until we trigger an event by coming close to them.  Even though we are walking away from the partisans, we can still hear them. Vasiliy Kuznetsov: Hold on, guys! We have to bait the Germans to come at us so the second group has a chance to capture the HQ!  This area is guarded by a handful of Germans. It is very possible to sneak by undetected, but they are still troublesome. In a few seconds, an alarm will sound, and they will run off to the north.  Coming in from the south of the village, I pick off some wandering Germans with a single shot of my pistol.  I sure hope you remember how to use the inventory system! We need as much equipment as we can get, so grab everything.  The German dropped his gun before dying, so we must pick it up separately. Note how our character equips a helmet automatically. Helmets are very important and will allow your infantry to resist some bullets and shrapnel.  All this commotion has alerted two more Germans, but we are more than capable of taking care of them now that we have guns. If you use hand to hand combat, the Germans will not be alerted, but killing them is so easy, I don't bother.  All right, now we're talking! Time to storm that house and rescue our comrades.  Hm, there are a lot of Germans here. We must be careful.  Taking out this guard on the outside is easy.  However, this machinegun starts shooting at us! I barely had time to loot that guy's body.  Meanwhile, a PzI tank comes to help his armoured car buddy. Not good. However, you will see that our inventory has four anti-tank grenades! Time to put them to good use.  We flank some Germans that were firing on our allies.  Once you get close, the tank and armoured car start running around like crazy. However, that just makes it easier to catch one of them on their own.  Kaboom!  The tank did not even notice me.  Kaboom!  All that's left is to pick off the handful of remaining Germans.  Once we join the partisans, they automatically run to a new position.  Vyacheslav Yudin: Take my men and make a run for the HQ. We will cover the road to the village so there are no surprises.  Don't take too long to pick your men, or the Germans will come at you. There are a lot more of you than of them in this place, so you shouldn't be too pressured. As always, there is a limit to how many partisans you can recruit (five).  Once you take your five, the rest run to join the other group. Let's see what we have here.  I tried to pick some interesting looking ones. My favourite is the old guy with the kickass beard. Since we will be fighting almost exclusively indoors from now on, I'll need to loot more automatic weapons. Those rifles just will not do.  Much better! You can see that the rifleman stowed his gun away for later use. This is good, as odds are you won't have time to micromanage ammunition, and he might run out of it for his captured gun.  We run up to the house where our allies were kept and take it by storm. The three men inside do not count towards our troop limit, and any extra help is welcome. The Germans in this house are all armed with machineguns and grenades, so it's hard to not lose any men here.  Objective complete: liberate the imprisoned Red Armymen. Oleg Petrov: Thanks for rescuing us! Now if we can only find some weapons, and I bet my tooth, there won't be a single Fritz left in this village!  Oleg Petrov: I saw a pile of crates in the neighbouring yard. I bet there's all sorts of weapons there. There is no need to go anywhere, as all the weapons we need were kindly donated by the Germans that used to occupy this house. You should restock your partisans too.  Since our allies are drawing the attention of the men guarding the HQ, let's go back to where I was before. Nobody is looking this way, and we have a lot more guns, so this should be easy.  Be careful, as there are Germans lurking in these houses on the approach to the HQ.  As we move up, so do our partisan buddies.  Objective completed: Capture the SS HQ in the village. The partisans can get to the HQ on their own, but you need to be in it to trigger the objective.  Objective added: Aleksei Kuznetsov must leave the village. Leonid Chernov: drat, they are coming from all sides! Retreat to the forest! What the game doesn't tell you (unless you look at the objectives list) is that there is one very specific place that counts as "not the village". I managed to do two laps in a captured truck looking for it while being shot up by Germans.  Boris Nikolayev: Retreat! We will hold the Fritz off!  You should retreat, and retreat fast. A shitload of Germans is coming from every direction.  And they brought armour, which I really don't feel like dealing with.  Making a beeline for where we first broke out, we find a handful of Germans guarding the exit. Hopefully you are not too low on ammo, since you have to fight your way out.  After a short firefight, we head for the forest.  Objective complete. We captured quite a find. As it turned out, I was delivered to a recruitment camp. The Germans had a whole network of them on occupied territories. The partisan attack happened to coincide with the visit of an inspector from Berlin. This Aryan gentleman had enough papers on him to roll a joint for an entire division, and there would be enough left for letters home. Among the cryptography equipment and camp organization instructions were papers that revealed the existence of a secret center in Germany that coordinated the whole intelligence network in the USSR. This information will certainly be interested to the comrades from counterintelligence. Grabbing the papers, I headed for the front lines, hoping to get to my people. Enemy losses: 72 men, 3 vehicles Allied losses: 22 men, 0 vehicles." Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 17:43 on May 12, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 20:11
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For a moment I thought our literal (long lost?) brother was leading the partisan squad.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:38
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Ensign Expendable posted:
A note about the knife: It's not actually a melee weapon, as you might expect. It's a throwing weapon, using the same UI as grenades, extremely accurate, and a one-shot kill if it hits an enemy anywhere on their body. (Though the range leaves something to be desired.) Takes some micro to use, as the AI will never throw knives on their own (as they will grenades), but a very very good weapon in the right circumstances, and completely silent. e: also, I just realized I forgot the most important thing about the update: the intro cutscene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lQ8Dm_11LE Skip to about the halfway mark. It... it's so beautiful... 
PleasingFungus fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 21:59
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Wow, they really went all out with the English version, even the German voices are worse. Also my version of the game doesn't have that music.
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Apr 28, 2014 22:32
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*butt rock action scene* I CENNOT JUST RUN AVAY LIKE A CUPBOARD. One thing to note, is that at the beginning right outside the building you start in you can find dynamite in one of the crates. Dynamite is funny as hell and probably one of the stupidest items in the game. Dynamite next to anything will obliterate it, whether it's buildings, guns, tanks, entire squads of infantry, etc. The thing with dynamite is that it has a long fuse and you can only throw it about eight meters, or you can use direct control to cook it off in your hand and run at things. The way I would do that mission is planting the dynamite inside of the building right next to the armored car, which would usually blow it the gently caress up. If it didn't, I'd be able to rampage outside and throw an AT grenade at it. I'm also disappointed you didn't steal a german officer hat and steal the fancy car to ride away to victory.  Speaking of the VA's, I love the english version because it's just so hilariously terrible that it is adorable. The american/british voices are particularly hilarious because the voice actor's voice constantly cracks while he's doing his lines.
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Apr 29, 2014 06:02
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Haha, seeing that James Bond stuff in motion made it ten times more hilarious! In other news   E: Okay, this game is definitely a little akward to control. Highlights of my first mission include one of my soldiers running to his death, despite me telling the whole squad to attack a single soldier, and my tank constantly refusing to shoot soldiers with the MG. Do I actually have to reload it by hand all the loving time? Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 15:47
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If you want to enhance your gameplay experience play multiplayer. There is nothing like carefully sniping dudes out of a trench when you suddenly find out that your teammate has stolen a supply truck and is crashing through a minefield with the rest of your men in the back of it. Another fun thing that you can do (or at least used to be able to) is to order your men to punch friendly infantrymen to steal their poo poo while they're unconscious on the ground. This includes things like helmets, body armor, ammunition, and special weapons like flamethrowers or rocket launchers. I like to imagine that it properly reflects the method of soviet weapons requisitions as well. E: Remember to order your men with single clicks. Double clicking makes them sprint at full speed in a direct beeline while ignoring everything else including enemy bullets. You could always tell the new players in MP games because you could buy a single machine gunner, put him in a bush, and repeatedly and mercilessly mow down their rifle squads. If you single click they will take the time to take cover if they're being shot, suppress the enemy, and slowly and safely move to the position. Your guys will manually reload when their weapons run out of ammunition. Micro control is definitely one of the harder things, but you can horrifically destroy your enemies in SP and MP when you start to understand the stuff. The skill ceiling is really high. Commoners fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 18:28
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A very stupid thing is that, say, if you click on the target's feet when his in a trench or behind a wall, your soldier will literally try to target his feet (which is in a trench, so they can't target it, so they will do nothing). That might be what happened.
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Apr 29, 2014 18:44
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Thanks for the tipps. I'll dig into the manual and see what I can learn from it. The thing with my soldiers was kinda weird. I had a whole group selected, but only one of them actually moved after my click. I saw that a couple of times. I clicked a lot to confirm that it was happening. And after the game played a cutscene, the group moved like it should, but a little later it was broken again. Maybe because I had one of the leaders in that group? This also led to one of my guys getting owned. I told the group to kill a lone rifleman, but only one of them moved out and got shot while his pals kept sitting in their cover. They probably made jokes about him too  However, the fact that my tank was very picky when it comes to MG shooting was weird. Do you really have to reload the MG all the time? Because that seemed to fix it. vvvvv Thanks, I'll give that a watch later. Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 19:22
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Auto targeting is kind of unreliable, but if you order a tank to fire on something, it usually follows order with good reliability. Unit automatically reload when out of ammo (actually, they sometimes reload automatically in the lull of fighting when their weapons are only partially full, don't rely on it though) Infantry control: I recommend moving infantry into position in range of target instead of issuing attack order. While it is true there is some kind of unit AI that allows your infantry to kind of fight automatically, it doesn't work very well (especially on the offensive) because the AI is very slow at reacting to battlefield condition. Instead, order your unit to move behind a piece of cover, they'll automatically start shooting at enemy in range. Then you can control individual soldier to maneuver around or throw grenades. Tycho made a bunch of decent shoutcast for MOW back in the days. You can check them out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48S8WmRBxFM pedro0930 fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 19:46
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Were you manually shooting the MG or just mousing over targets and letting the AI open fire on them? If you're in direct control and you right click you'll change between your primary weapon (tank gun) and secondary (your coax machine gun.) If you click on the weapon box in the bottom right you'll also be able to select between AP and HE rounds for your main gun, or which machine gun you're firing from in your alternate slot. The KV has a coax, a hull, and a turret rear MG to fire from. The individual soldier AI is actually pretty smart at performing overwatches and firing at targets when it is sitting in place. The only time it really struggles is when you're expecting it to move blindly into an area. Just because you as a player can see it in SP mode doesn't mean your AI are able to, which can cause some pretty funny bad things to happen. Multiplayer actually teaches you better habits in regard to this, but unfortunately almost everyone is playing MoW: Assault Squad instead of just vanilla MoW now.
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Apr 29, 2014 23:08
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I was letting the tank do it, and that surely had some problems. However, I tried it again with direct control and that is much better. Seriously, the first mission is set up to let you have some fun! But now I'm trying to figure out how to supply the tank with ammo. I have a guy with a ton of MG boxes but I can't figure out how to get them into the inventory of the tank? And in the same vein, I also don't know how to transfer stuff between soldiers. I'm forced to dump things on the ground atm. And regarding infantry, yeah they are actually pretty clever. Even throwing some nades and healing when they get the chance. However, I'm still seeing the squad bug. Like, when it happens, it makes it so that only the leader(yellow triangle) will move when I click on open terrain, but the whole squad will only move when I choose a cover spot. Breaking the squad and remforming seems to fix it most of the times, still kinda annoying though. Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 23:26
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I'm noting with some disappointment you didn't steal the ridiculously fancy german staff car after you stole the ss documents. Shame on you, that's absolutely what it's there for. I remember when I did this mission I hooked up with the partisans right away, but then I couldn't find the exit and the german counter attack crushed my poo poo.
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Apr 30, 2014 00:08
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Tin Tim posted:I was letting the tank do it, and that surely had some problems. However, I tried it again with direct control and that is much better. Seriously, the first mission is set up to let you have some fun! But now I'm trying to figure out how to supply the tank with ammo. I have a guy with a ton of MG boxes but I can't figure out how to get them into the inventory of the tank? And in the same vein, I also don't know how to transfer stuff between soldiers. I'm forced to dump things on the ground atm. Hit 'x' while selecting one unit, then click on another. (There's a button in the bottom-right for this, iirc.)
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Apr 30, 2014 00:29
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pedro0930 posted:Auto targeting is kind of unreliable, but if you order a tank to fire on something, it usually follows order with good reliability. Unit automatically reload when out of ammo (actually, they sometimes reload automatically in the lull of fighting when their weapons are only partially full, don't rely on it though) I just move infantry into position and click once, then they start attacking the target (if they can see it), peering over cover but not doing any idiotic suicide rushes.
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Apr 30, 2014 00:29
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You have several options for resupply. For squads, if you have everyone selected then the person with a yellowish triangle under them is kind of the 'leader.' When you open up an ammo crate and start pulling supplies they will be evenly distributed to each person. Like if you pick up 20 grenades and have 4 dudes, then each will get five grenades. If two of them have SMGs and three have rifles, the ammunition will be evenly divided between the appropriate weapons carriers. If there is machine gun ammo in that pile, it will be distributed evenly between all of those guys since there is no one with an MG in that squad. If you notice on your control panel you have a little eyeball, that's what you can use to cross inventory to inventory between infantrymen or vehicles. Loading vehicles with ammo can be a bitch, though. If you're doing it tank to truck, you need to make sure your tank doesn't go into crush mode and destroy what you're transferring from. This is the fastest because vehicles can stack ammunition that is put into them. Infantrymen are different. They can only carry individual shells in their inventory so the ammo transfer is a pain in the rear end. If you move all of the infantryman's inventory into the vehicle it moves quick, but you also transfer all of his gear into the tank. Sometimes I just have a bitch ammo boy that crawls around with no weapons and dozens of shells so that I can quickly transfer ammunition using that button instead of going shell by shell. For your squad motion- Are you sure you're not just selecting that one guy in the squad? There are a few forms of selection when it comes to selecting units- Click and drag will form a new squad with everything that you drag into that box. You can split units or pick off individual men from a squad by clicking and dragging. You can also mix vehicles/guns/infantry, and your fastest unit will move as slow as the slowest unit when you have this mix going, so it's great for making infantry screens. In MP this absolutely rocks with the british because you get their infantry support tanks and just roll your tanks forward with an infantry screen. If you just CLICK on a unit, then you will select that individual within the squad, but you will not select the entire squad and will not break that squad up. If you use the squad buttons that form whenever you click and drag in the bottom left of the screen then it will select the entire squad for orders. It's definitely clunky and unintuitive, but it absolutely rocks to be able to quickly compose your own squad compositions on the fly in MP. One time I stole the staff car and a tank ran it over. The staff car exploded and set the tank on fire.
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Apr 30, 2014 01:09
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Again, thanks for the tipps, folks! This time I can even give out a tip in return. This game does not have to be played in RTS mode all the time. You can pause the game, and several simple commands will still register while paused. Like move or attack orders. It's a bit finicky though, and sometimes you have to pause again so that the game allows you to select your units.Commoners posted:For squads, if you have everyone selected then the person with a yellowish triangle under them is kind of the 'leader.' When you open up an ammo crate and start pulling supplies they will be evenly distributed to each person.  Commoners posted:For your squad motion- Are you sure you're not just selecting that one guy in the squad? There are a few forms of selection when it comes to selecting units- Also  I almost beat it on my first try, but then a bunch of Panzers killed everything  This mission really is something. You have to play it for yourself, to really get how ruthless the German assault is. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and in hindsight I made a few mistakes. The tanks that come from the top of the map mostly broke my neck, because covering that long road with AT is hard due to the soldiers that can easily flank your guns. Should have mined that, instead of the right side. My T-34 also blew up halfway through the mission, because I had it duck in and out of the alley next to the DS 39 to snipe panzers. This MG also becomes somewhat useful if you crush the gate next to it. It can then kill some of the soldiers to its right. And don't ask about how early the BT-7s got destroyed, those are literally made out of paper. Placing your AT guns also is a bit more tricky than I thought. For the most part my plan worked, but eventually they caught too many HE shells and couldn't return fire fast enough. Especially the Pz4 tanks are a bitch to take out. And it also didn't help that my AT guns often switched to HE while I wasn't controlling them. On top of that, the AI also made some cheeky moves. Like, a few of its tanks just kept hanging out at the spawn, and sniped my troops with HE, while being out of the FOF of my AT. The only thing I could do against that, was sending out lone guys with AT grenades. Lots of heroes were made and killed during those moments. Still, I had some good fun! Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Apr 30, 2014 14:08
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Historical Notes: Mission 3 There really wasn't any new technology to talk about in the update, so I'll talk about the people. Soviet Partisans  Russians have a tradition of not putting up with your poo poo, and for hundreds of years (earliest mass organization that I am aware of was in the Patriotic War of 1812) that meant taking up arms against an invader as a part of an irregular army if you, for some reason, as not in the regular one. In the 1930s, Marshall Tukhachevskiy envisioned a "bedbug war", combining powerful defensive fortifications with a large amount of soldiers trained in covert and guerilla warfare past those fortifications. The armies of the enemy will stall at the walls, and trained instructed and saboteurs will establish a network of partisans in their rear, destroy their communications, sap their supply lines, and ultimately disrupt the enemy's ability to overcome Soviet defenses. Once the enemy army ran out of food and ammunition, the Red Army would counterattack and sweep them back to their homeland in a series of strategic offensives. Then Stalin had Tukhachevskiy accused of espionage and executed, along with many of his guerilla instructors. The new Soviet strategy was the opposite, entirely offensive, aiming to fight a somewhat outdated war. Upon declaration of war, the border forces of both armies would skirmish, until the main forces could deploy. The Red Army, and Soviet society in general, was built for extremely rapid mobilization, resulting in earlier deployment, and a swift victory, fought exclusively on the offensive. This managed to work out exactly never, since in both the Winter War and the Great Patriotic War, the enemy began preparing for war much sooner than the Red Army did. Specifically in Barbarossa, that meant the Germans swept through non-mobilized Soviet forces, easily encircling and destroying entire armies. Of course, many soldiers seeped out through the cracks, but with the chaotic atmosphere of the summer of 1941, they had no way of knowing if their forces were 50 kilometers away or 500, or even in which direction. The only remaining thing to do was to hide in the forests and fight in a less conventional means. The Communist Party attempted to run the partisan movement like an extension of itself. Local party chiefs became leaders of partisan cells, but since the Germans were fond of executing them immediately upon occupation, this was not very productive. As German atrocities mounted, the numbers of partisans swelled with civilians, a ranging from devoted Communists to those that were against Stalin, but realized that the fate of the country was at stake to those that didn't care about anything but figured their chances of living were higher in the forests. Still, the actions of partisans were chaotic and disorganized, until a Central Partisan Headquarters was established in 1942. This HQ was tasked with supplying the partisans with the most vital things: radios, medicine, food, and perhaps most importantly, explosives and explosives experts. A partisan attack on a train destined to counter a Red Army offensive would spell certain doom for the Germans on the front lines. The success of the partisans had two effects: increasing the prestige of the partisan movement (leading more people to join the partisans) and causing the Germans to enact punitive measures against the civilian population (leading more people to join the partisans). By 1944, the Soviet partisan force had over 250,000 members. Collaborators  The German invasion was almost immediately met with collaboration. Those living in the borderland regions recently retaken from Poland or annexed in the Baltics had no love for the Soviet state and saw the Germans as an avenue for independence. While the Germans destroyed any independence movement they could get to, auxiliary police were raised from Western Ukrainian and Baltic populations, which shocked even the SS with their brutality. Eventually, the ranks of the collaborators were filled with more and more collaborators, partially of those that hated the Soviet Union, but mostly with those that wanted to escape the horrific conditions of German POW camps. Initially, the Red Army was ordered to execute any collaborator that is re-captured, but Stalin eventually gave in and issued an amnesty. The majority of the collaborators were so called Hiwi (Hilfswilliger, "one willing to help"), serving the German army in noncombat roles. SS divisions of collaborators were raised, but with very poor results. For instance, the Russian SS division executed its German commanders and crossed the front, fighting the rest of the war as a partisan unit. One of the most famous collaborator groups was General Vlasov's ROA (Russian Liberation Army). Hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoner volunteers were formally a part of this army, but only a handful actually participated in combat, and even then towards the end of the war. Nevertheless, their banner was treated the same as that of any SS division, dragged down Red Square and burned during the victory parade. The flag "bearers" then took off their gloves (black, of course) and burned them also.
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Apr 30, 2014 20:23
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Ensign Expendable posted:
I don't think I ever beat this game, I'll definitely be following this and maybe taking a second swing at the series. One thing though, is that what you refer to as the SdKfz 250 is actually a SdKfz 251. You can tell by the number of wheels it has on its tracks (The SdKfz 251 has 6, the SdKfz has 4). More specifically, it would be the SdKfz 251/10. The armoured car next to it is an SdKfz 232. The 232 used 2 seperate mudguards, while later types used 1 single mudguard, as well as having a closed turret with an autocannon, but distinguishes itself in the SdKfz 231 family by the aerial antenna that surrounds the body of the vehicle. Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 02:43 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 02:39
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I've started playing assault squad MP, and have been having a blast. If enough people want to we could do vanilla MoW multiplayer (which I honestly prefer over assault squad, even though AS has some cool ideas.)
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May 1, 2014 03:54
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The partisans are the most successful resistance movement in WWII history (with the arguable exception of the Yugoslavian resistance)*. They also had some really good songs. The interesting part about the parties attempts to run the partisan movement is that the very moment the authorities in Moscow managed to establish a secure connection to the major partisan armies and demand that the start following a centralized plan (circa 1944) is the moment the effectiveness of the movement dropped considerably. Obviously enough - even if we assume that the proper authorities received absolutely full and correct information of the local conditions, formulated a brilliant plan and related it back to the locals, by the time the information filtered back and forth the conditions were likely to have utterly changed. That's why the Viet Cong's (coincidentally cooperating with Russian military advisers) military doctrine emphasized the independent initiative of local troops, even while striving for a common strategic goal. * Reading various relevant 1950's American literature is kinda adorable. "What's the a good example of a resistance movement from the last few years? Err... the French and the Italians. Yeah, can't think of anyone that did more than those guys to free their country from the Fascist menace." ... Part of the issue with POW collaborators is that according to Stalin's Command#227, "Not a Step Back", any Soviet soldiers who surrendered to the enemy, regardless of the exact circumstances, were classified as traitors. So someone risking life and limb to escape from a prisoner camp and make it back to the Russian side may well continue that trip all the way to Siberia - possibly accompanied by their entire family. Not the most enticing of prospects. Nevertheless, units recruited from POW's / local population were generally kept behind the front lines. Not only were they much better suited towards policing the local population than fighting on the frontlines, but when posted to the front, the desertion rates would skyrocket (despite everything I said a moment ago). The Idel Ural Legion, a (primarily) Muslim Tatar army composed with the help of the venerable Mufti crossed over to the Russian side almost in its entirety. Even police forces posted behind the front lines, like Gil Rodionov's infamous "Druzhina" could well massacre their German officers and start helping the partisans.
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May 1, 2014 03:55
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Order #227 wasn't particularly original, a Red Armyman was considered a traitor for surrendering before it.
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May 1, 2014 04:08
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The train mission reminds me of Company of Heroes 2 which had one like it, how does COH2 match up to this game historically? (and accurately for that matter)
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May 1, 2014 08:53
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Samuel posted:The train mission reminds me of Company of Heroes 2 which had one like it, how does COH2 match up to this game historically? (and accurately for that matter) Men of War is clearly intended to be an arcadey experience, with the 'four dudes vs the German army' missions, and all that tank and hat stealing. COH2 is intended to be more edgy and realistic. However, honestly I think Men of War captures the historical sense of things way better, despite this. Ultimately Men of War just better captures the sense of chaos of the battlefield, the stress of the first-shot-wins tank battles, the porous nature of front lines, the desperate scrabble to achieve ridiculous objectives with limited forces. It captures well, I think, what are the strengths of each army. COH2 is crippled ultimately in terms of historicity by the fact it is designed to be a classical base building RTS first and foremost. Much of it follows a model for battles that transplants, ridiculously, US vs German dynamics of COH1 to the eastern front. The end result is a laughable situation where the Soviets are strong in the early game and weak in the late, roving packs of flamethrower trucks roam the map, tanks slug it out until their HP depletes, and later T34-85s finds themselves outnumbered and outgunned by hordes of Pz IVs, and players prefer to attack with SU85s instead because they are plain better....
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May 1, 2014 12:41
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Samuel posted:The train mission reminds me of Company of Heroes 2 which had one like it, how does COH2 match up to this game historically? (and accurately for that matter) Historically, COH2 is absolute poo poo, both in terms of the plot and unit balance.
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May 1, 2014 16:51
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOz07_23Yn8 While Alex does his thing with the partisans, we go back to Viktor. After successfully evacuating the factory at Rostov, he is transferred to a defensive line at Istra, only 50 km away from Moscow.  The ambitious plan to capture Moscow in a single sweep has failed. The Germans are in for a prolonged and brutal fight.  A Soviet scout plane flies low above some forests.  It spots a German armoured column!  Forces are deployed to stall its advance.  The newly arrived platoons rush towards the unprepared defensive lines.  Moscow is behind us! December 8th, 1941. Volokolamsk highway, several kilometers from Dedovsk  Moscow region, December 2nd, 1941  Viktor inspects his troops.  The disembodied voice is back to outline the situation. The Germans are moving in, sooner than we anticipated.  A large Red Army force has been sent to counter this attack, but it will take hours for it to arrive.  We must move up to the village and stall for time until the second line of defense is established, where we will await reinforcements.  When the line is done, we fall back here.  There will be minefields and artillery to aid us.  Here is where we hold back the main German advance. If the first line of defense fails, we will have to fight the Germans in an open field.  When the reinforcements arrive, we will be able to push the Germans back out of the village.  Objective added: hold the enemy at the front lines while the main defensive line is prepared. Estimated time until enemy arrival: 2:51 "Intelligence reports that the enemy is very close! The defenses are not ready, hold the Germans for as long as you can!"  Presumably these two submachinegunners are my reconnaissance squad. I'll send them back to join the others, I will need every man I can get for this fight.  We get four platoons of infantry, two machineguns, a handful of snipers, and a single AT gun. This is even worse than the second mission. At least there are trucks, so we can tow the gun to the front lines quickly. A truck can also transport a squad of infantry.  The enemy doesn't respect our estimates and decided to come early. Afanasiy Spiridonov: I see motorcycles! They spotted us, but I bet they don't know how many of us are here. To battle!  Nikolai Yudin: Take up defensive positions, get ready for them! These troops are under our command, but are playing their digging animations. I will leave them in the trenches for now, they can be my second line of defense in this stage.  Our anti-tank gun makes short work of the motorcycles.  APCs! Lots of infantry! Indeed, the Germans are sending two halftracks full of men at us.  What the game doesn't tell us is that German armour is moving in on the left flank. This is a Flakpanzer I, a 20 mm AA gun on a PzI chassis. It is less dangerous than an armoured car, as its crew is not fully protected, but our infantry would have to flank it to kill them.  Ilya Zaitsev: Enemy tank group spotted! The bastards are coming straight for us! Hold on guys, stand until your last breath!  Thankfully the Flakpanzer decided to sit still just out of range of my infantry. It's not bothering me for now, and I have more important things to worry about. For example... Ilya Zaitsev: Air raid! ...now we're being bombed!  Plop. Thankfully nobody was in that blast radius, but having a bomb fall on a group of your soldiers really fucks you over at this stage.  The Germans are bringing in a heavy FlaK gun. I want it! Two guns are better than one.  Yoink! Now I have a pretty good defense against German armour.  I send an infantry squad to defend the gun so the Germans don't pull the same trick I just did.  The gun can rotate 360 degrees, which makes it easy to pop pesky vehicles that make it past my lines.  Bagdan Yegorov: Now thing are going to get hard. Looks like this is their main force. Do not retreat, hold your positions! Our sappers have not yet finished laying the mines! Wait, what? That wasn't their main push? Oh balls.  If we move down, we can see the defenses being built. Go faster you lazy bastards!  My gun crew and its infantry did not last long when the Germans attacked in full force.  A bomb got one of my trucks, not that it was much use to me at this point.  poo poo, there really are a lot of them.  Lots of tanks! The remainder of my infantry hides behind the wrecks from the previous waves in hopes of throwing a grenade at the tanks that pass by.  The second defensive line can keep up with the units that have made it past the scraps of men I have left in the village, for now.  They won't be able to for much longer. Come oooon, sappers, work faster!  The Germans are starting to break through my second line, but they can still be contained. On this flank, at least. If you look at the minimap, the other one isn't doing so hot.  Objective complete: hold the enemy at the front line until the main defenses can be prepared. Finally!  German tanks are coming out from behind the bushes!  Our men are filling the trenches!  Our own tanks are coming in! Now we're talking!  The camera pans back to the village. The Germans are regrouping for another attack! To the trenches, quickly!  We get a pretty healthy force here! A half-dozen AT guns, more than enough men, and something new: reinforcements! We can call in a T-26 tank, a 45 mm gun (plus a truck), a BT-7A tank, A BA-10 armoured car, or an infantry squad. You have limited amounts of each unit, and they will take between 10 and 45 seconds to arrive (the amounts and times are written on the reinforcements icon), so use them wisely. The men from the first round (if any were left) are transferred over to the AI. There are also a few AI controlled soldiers in your trenches.  In this game's fine tradition, just because the Germans are regrouping doesn't mean they stop trying to kill you. Thankfully they will run into the minefield and explode, so they are not a threat for now.  Oh look, two T-34 tanks! I won't be calling in any tank reinforcements for now, they should be more than enough.  Objective completed: get into position at the second line of defense.  The Germans aim for the hole in your mines, which results in them running into tank wrecks that had the same bright idea.  Another FlaK gun. Thankfully it's way in the back. For some reason the AI isn't bringing it up this time around.  Hey, what's going on here?  Oh, now the cutscene tells me the Germans are flanking me through the dam. Thanks, cutscene.  The pileup grows higher and higher.  Looks like that Flakpanzer went the road less travelled. Unfortunately for him, that road also ends in mines.  The Germans brought a mortar with them (a Soviet one, but details, details). Thankfully I got them before they managed to do too much damage with it.  I send in a BT-7A tank to help hold this flank, since the Germans aren't getting any tanks over the dam, and it is pretty good against infantry.  Here's an example of an AT rifleman. They carry two weapons, an SMG and an anti-tank rifle, and you get one or two with every infantry squad you order in.  That's something we need to take care of. It may look silly, but that's a 150 mm gun capable of indirect fire. The first time I played this mission, I lost a T-34 before I noticed it was there. I won't be making the same mistake again.  The Germans occasionally send in a squad through the dam. My BT-7A will make short work of them.  Yes, your tracks still break, although in this case retaining mobility is not all that important.  Another cutscene shows our tanks advancing. The main force is here!  Objective added: counterattack and knock the enemy out of the village. We waited long enough! Our main forces are here. Now the Germans will sing a different tune. Let's show them Russian hospitality. Kill the enemy!  Here is the German defensive line. It's not as impressive as mine.  The tanks we saw in the cutscene are added to our reinforcements menu. We can now call in a T-34, a KV-1E, and a tank we haven't seen before, a KV-2.  This is our answer to that German indirect fire gun, except much better! This side reads "from Chelyabinsk farmers".  This side reads "Strike the occupants!"  While we are building up our tanks, the Germans keep attacking. Their attacks are repelled as easily as before.  Here's an example of the firepower of the KV-2! Sadly, its accuracy leaves much to be desired. But when it does hit...  Kaboom! I'm going to have trouble shoving all these wrecks aside.  Ah, Men of War AI, as amazing as ever. Some creative work with direct controls, and I was able to free this tank from the trench.  drat it, missed again. That is a PaK 40 75 mm cannon, and it is a menace to even our most thickly armoured tanks. There is another such gun on the other side of the map. Ironically, moving straight up the road is the safest path of attack.  While my KV-2 bombards the enemy from afar, I send in some armour to get up close and personal.  Stalemate! The anti-tank gun can only hit my highly angled side from behind the truck, and its rounds ricochet. On the other hand, my tracks are broken, so I cannot crush it, and my gun does not depress low enough to shoot it directly.  This is the power of the KV-2! Even though I hit behind the tank, the shrapnel from the shot kills the infantry behind the gun's shield.  Mission complete We did not let the Fritz get to Moscow, no matter the cost. Our capital is not just a city. Moscow is the heart of our nation and the cornerstone of its stability. By this time, Field Marshall von Bock had no reserves left. Army Group Center pushed too far forward and bared its flanks. They had no time to take up favourable positions. Favourable conditions formed for a Red Army offensive. On December 5th, elements of the Kalinin Front shifted into an offensive, broke through the German defenses, and, along with forces of the Western and South-Western Fronts, began pushing the enemy further and further from the capital. Enemy losses: 612 men, 55 vehicles Allied losses: 92 men, 15 vehicles Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 17:51 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 18:56
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You didn't show anyone joining the polar bear club out by the dam! Did no vehicles try to roll over the ice?
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May 1, 2014 20:19
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The ice can carry tanks just fine. I can only imagine the clusterfuck that would ensue if everyone had to go over that tiny bridge.
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May 1, 2014 20:31
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Try rolling one of your tanks over the ice nearby the dam. Hilarious things happen. But yeah, on the left side of the bridge the tanks can go over easily.
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May 1, 2014 20:47
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It'll be exciting when we get to the American missions. The first one can be a bit of a bitch, but it has literally the most racist French caricature of any video game.
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May 3, 2014 07:30
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I am le'tired, maybe it is better if we surrendór!  I can't wait for this to happen, and all Americans to wear cowboy hats into battle.
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May 3, 2014 13:01
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The Americans and British have some of the best warcries and voice acting for movement/getting shot at/etc. FOR UNCLE SAM! 
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May 3, 2014 14:40
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Commoners posted:The Americans and British have some of the best warcries and voice acting for movement/getting shot at/etc. FER THE MUTHERLAND! That's not a joke, they really shout that. And almost all of them have thick Texan accents.
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May 3, 2014 17:39
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chitoryu12 posted:FER THE MUTHERLAND! My favorite is ENEMY IN THE REACH ZONE! What is the reach zone, and what is the significance of the enemy being inside it? The world may never know.
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May 3, 2014 17:44
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FelistheIdiot posted:My favorite is ENEMY IN THE REACH ZONE! I legitimately wonder exactly who did the American voice acting. Some of them (like the Russian guys) sound like local voice actors who are just barely capable of speaking English coherently. But the Americans actually have proper accents and inflection, just with terrible acting talent and bizarre scriptwriting. Were they Russians who could do perfect American accents, or did they hire some random amateurs in the United States?
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May 3, 2014 19:24
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FelistheIdiot posted:My favorite is ENEMY IN THE REACH ZONE! This feels like the result of an over-literal translation. Like, maybe it started as "Enemy in Range" and at some step along the telephone game a compound word snuck in.
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May 3, 2014 19:33
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My favorite british line is whenever you buzz them with a machine gun or hit them with artillery. Everything that the brits yell is ridiculously peppy. "I hate it!"
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May 3, 2014 20:01
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FelistheIdiot posted:What is the reach zone, and what is the significance of the enemy being inside it?
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May 3, 2014 20:16
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I really shouldn't install any more games on my computer until I beat a few because I'm running out of space. And this thread is making me not care about that limit. Edit: Goddammit you made me install it. Goddammit. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:49 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 21:16
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