Steel Division: Normandy 44 - Say hello to 3rd Armored

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steel Division: Normandy 44 - Say hello to 3rd Armored

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

What is Steel Division: Normandy 44? (SD44)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_RoLSSRe5Y

SD44 is a new baseless RTS game from the French developer of the successful Wargame series, Eugen. It looks to be shaping up as a worthy successor that has taken all the good things from Wargame and removed many of the frustrating negatives. It's probably going to be the most interesting RTS game for the next few years. The game is of course set during the Normandy campaign of World War Two and features many of the divisions and their equipment that was used. At the moment it's :911:

(with free :france:

and

divisions) versus :hitler:

divisions, but this is likely to change later with DLC's.

So what's different from Wargame?

While impressive looking, this bombing run probably didn't kill much, however, the town is now ripe for the taking from the demoralized defenders

Morale Based "Soft Kills"
I've put this at the top because it is simply the biggest difference and is quite literally a game changer. Now a big focus is not on annihilating your enemy to the last man, but instead upon destroying their organization and morale that will then cause them to become pinned, to fall back or to even surrender to you! If there is a big scary Panther G menacing your Sherman's, you can send in an air-strike to rout it, and then keep it "out of play" by having your Shermans shoot at it with suppressing fire. If assaulting a town or a hedgerow, having fire superiority and/or artillery to panic the defenders will allow you to take ground with minimal losses.

The morale of a unit can vary. Some units like Ersatztruppen are "disheartened" and will take more than usual morale damage, while seasoned veterans and elite troops can withstand much more stress than their regular comrades. The morale of a unit can be enhanced by a level by having a nearby command unit, which makes them much more effective, and much less likely to surrender while under attack. A platoon of 3 rifle squads with a commander will hold out much longer than 4 rifle squads. Infantry can become pinned by overwhelming firepower, which prevents them from shooting and removes them from the "frontline" measurement, if a unit gets close enough (100m) to a routed or pinned enemy that doesn't have an unbroken ally (100m) or a command unit (200m) nearby, it will surrender and be immediately removed from play. This even applies if a unit couldn't normally hurt them, goons have made pubbie Panthers surrender to squads with just rifles already. Also, command squads are not immune to this, so if they surrender the rest of their platoon will quickly follow suit.

The Front-line
The front-line is a new dynamic that shows how the battle is progressing and also determines who is winning the conquest game mode where the team with the most territory will accrue victory points. It provides a passive source of recon on where you can expect to find the enemy. Units that become encircled take greater morale damage. Some units, such as scouts, paratroopers and leaders are not effected by the front-line and fight as normal behind enemy lines. Cutting off vital roads with these troops may prove invaluable. Some other units however, such as Panzershreck teams don't effect the front line, but are still effected by it, so they need protecting by other squads if they are to be anything more than a speed-bump.

You should zoom out every so often to see how the battle is going outside of your sector. If the other flank is making progress when you are doing badly, it may be a better idea to switch to the defensive and stop the enemy from breaking through instead of trying to retake lost ground and potentially loose even more to a counter attack.

Deck building, Divisions and the Battle Phase System
The deck building of Wargame returns, but now you are restricted to the TOE of a particular division instead of having access to everything that a nation has. This is a good change as it removes the many chaff units from the deck system, allows for more developer control of deck balance and so on. The categories are all self-explanatory. Each division has a different allotment of slots that units can be put into. Each division also gets a different income at different phases of the battle. The pictured 3rd armored really hits it's stride in phase C, while a lighter paratrooper formation will start off strong but get weaker as the battle goes on. This notionally will lead to some divisions being better at the start while others can counter-attack later in the game and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The phase system also restricts the type and the quality of the units you can bring in, so you cannot start off with a King Tiger in Phase A. This is a big improvement over Wargame as now you can have some idea as to what your opponent will possibly bring and build your own deck/opener accordingly. Some units can be bought "early" but will be much more restricted in availability. You can see that in Phase-B 3rd Armored can take the M4A3(76)W for one a card, but in Phase-C this goes up to 3 per card.

List of currently confirmed divisions

Gameplay
There are two game modes. The first of our gamemodes is Conquest. Conquest is the core game mode, but who knows if pubbies will "de_dust2" destruction into being more common. Teams set out to capture territory which gives victory points and whichever team controls more of the map will gain the difference in points for their victory point total. This gamemode leads to more free flowing back-and-forth battles as the units you send at the enemy doesn't directly increase their lead when they are destroyed.

The second is Destruction, it is the classic gamemode of Wargame that we all know. The goal of the mode is to appease Secretary McNamara back at headquarters. He wants you to kill as many of the enemy as possible and to destroy as much of the enemy's equipment as possible. For every unit you destroy its value get added to your teams victory point total. The team that reaches the victory point limit wins, unless it was too close to call, then it's a draw.

The scale of battle is now also much smaller than wargame, where a single half-track with an MG can be difference between victory and defeat.

Or an AT gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyWIbZD7vg

Help, my units are pinned and won't run away from the approaching death wave!

fuf posted:

Units that are pinned down don't respond to orders but you can press "R" to force a retreat, kinda like the Company of Heroes mechanic.

How to find Line of Sight

Press and hold C and this should appear where your cursor is. You can also press the eye icon on the unit panel on the bottom right when you ahve a unit selected (even an enemy!) too, which then has the rangefinder locked to them unless you override with C. Very handy for setting up ambushes or keeping up on something.

So what's the spergin' maths stuff I should know?

Hubis posted:

Numbers in white experimentally confirmed. Specific data was a bit messier, but we noticed everything seemed to be hitting right next to even multiples of some basic factors so I rounded them accordingly.

Numbers in red are extrapolated based on trends we noted. We could use to experimentally confirm the model (especially visibility of regular infantry in woods/hedgerows).

Here are some key discoveries/take-aways:

Green Cover (woods) Is 2x As Good as Yellow
Units in dense trees (green cover) were consistently visible at half the range from which they were visible in yellow cover.

Infantry Hides Better In Buildings Than Woods
We noticed a trend of units inside buildings being visible from 1/3 the distance they were visible inside Yellow cover rather than 1/2. A M8 Scout (High Optics) was able to see a recon team (Very Good Stealth) from 80m when they were in a building, 120m inside woods, and 240m inside yellow cover.

Recon WILL see your AT guns from outside firing range in Yellow Cover
AT Guns (Medium) are visible from 960m for units with High optics (vehicle recon) and a whopping 1440m for Very High (infantry recon). Yellow cover is essentially worthless for hiding anything but infantry from enemy recon.

Even in Green Cover, AT Guns must be screened from enemy scouts
In Green cover AT guns are still visible to VH optics recon from 720m away. That means that if you want to be able to ambush anything / not lose your AT guns to artillery and air strikes you have to cover potential spotting positions at least 720m from the gun's location. Conversely, if you're pushing forward you can be confident there are no AT guns in any locations within 720m of your advanced scouts.

Recon infantry can sneak up on infantry in buildings
Recon infantry (Very High Optics, Very Good Stealth) can spot regular infantry (Normal Optics, Good Stealth) inside buildings from 240m. Meanwhile, regular infantry can spot recon in hedgrows from 120m away. This means that if you can scout out towns with confidence if there's a hedgerow you can move along that gets within 240m and not worry about getting popped. On the other hand, recon infantry can spot approaching recon in yellow cover from 360m out so incorporating scouts into your positions is important.

Note: The game is not good at keeping your moving units inside cover! I was able to approach the defending town successfully, but I had to move the recon down to line up with the hedgerow out of LOS first, otherwise they would be seen popping out of cover going between the woods they were in and the hedge row.

Vehicles are not going to see anything but other vehicles
Most* non-recon vehicles have Low Optics. Those aren't going to spot Medium Stealth units (AT Guns, light vehicles) inside yellow cover until 320m out. I'm missing a lot of numbers for movement in the open, but I expect that's where Bad/Very Bad stealth differentiate themselves -- there's not any apparent difference in (yellow) cover.

Recon is hard to spot when it's hidden
Very Good Stealth units (Recon and AT Infantry) in green cover cannot be seen by regular infantry units outside of 60m. That's hilariously close. Even recon vehicles (High Optics) will only spot them 120m away. Double that for Yellow cover and you're probably best leaving them in cover (or moving along hedge rows). I think that this is also a big part of why AT infantry is so hard to use -- the gap between where you are within AT range but not immediately visible is really, really narrow.

Tulip posted:

So I've been posting about this in the official forums, and I felt goons should have this.

First, accuracy proceeds on a 1-12 scale. 1=1/12 chance to hit, 5=5/12 (42%) chance to hit, so on, up to 12 = 100% chance to hit. One star veterancy adds 1/12 chance to hit, one level of suppression subtracts 1/12 chance to hit, and each 100m closer than max range adds 1/12 chance to hit.

Second, this turned up on reddit: spreadsheet of spotting distances.

Finally, I got this via this thread, but I might as well consolidate: penetration chance.

I used the penetration chance table above to make this graphic:

From there, I calculated how many hits to kill you need on average in a tank on tank fight if the weaker tank is at its max engagement range (50 hits to kill) and expressed it as a ratio:

TV refers to Tank Value, which is using AV or AP interchangeably. So if tank1 has 12AP/10FAV and tank0 has 10AP/10FAV, TV1-TV0=2. If tank1 has 10AP/12FAV and tank0 has 10AP/10FAV, then TV1-TV0=2. In either event, at max effective engagement range for tank0, tank0 will have a 2% pen chance, or 50 hits to kill, and tank1 will have a 16% pen chance, or 6.25 hits to kill, for an HTK ratio of 8.

I'm still trying to figure accuracy and ROF into this analysis.

Playing with goons

:siren:

Discord

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SD44Goons

power crystals posted:

It's time to get random with it

The first two I generated:

I have yet to actually play this game so I have no idea if these are any good! The good news is that because there's way less garbage you have a vastly less chance of getting an absolutely unusable deck. The bad news is, well, the same as the good news. I think it loses some of the charm, personally, but I know some people just liked this thing for the variety so it's not like I was going to not do it again.

This game's deck format is actually pretty much entirely sane compared to Red Dragon's 13 (later 14) bit number nonsense, I managed to write that entire thing this evening after I got home from work. The main query went from an unholy entire page long thing (which was almost entirely driven by the naval tab, gently caress boats) to like, two lines, because of the changes they made to the internals. I am very happy about this thing that literally nobody else will ever care about.

Because it's so much simpler it has even fewer moving pieces than the last one but if you somehow manage to break it let me know!

e: also could I get this added to the OP please like the RD one was for that thread?

Xerxes17 fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 23, 2017

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:04

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# ? May 3, 2024 04:51

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

Contributions to the OP are welcome and encouraged. I'll use this post to put in division overviews from goons. Quotes are the intro, follow the link to the post to read the full text.

Xerxes17 posted:

So, I'm going to post about 3rd Armored. Can anyone write up about the other divisions?

Overview
This division is very strong and flexible, which makes it perfect for beginners and veterans alike. You have solid, dependable options across the board which if leveraged in a true combined-arms fashion will lead you to victory. Don't be fooled by the name, as you can play this as a mechanized infantry deck until later when you get your real tanks unlocked.

Infidelicious posted:

2e Blindee

2e.DB is a No-frills Medium Armor deck that relies on a high phase A income to bully opponents; it has access to the Standard Allied Armor Toolkit (Shermans, Upgunned Shermans, 105mm SPG, Mortar Carriers) starting in Phase B. With access to Stuarts and two Phase A M10 Tank Destroyers, it has an advantage in either Quality or Quantity over opposing Axis Armored Divisions. It's high Phase A income makes it great for experienced players because it snowballs easily into an overwhelming advantage in Phase B, and it is a good deck for beginners because it can recover more easily from a failed opener than most Divisions.

Paingod556 posted:

Guards Armoured has a bit of a soft-spot for me, as they formed the backbone of XXX Corps during Operation Market Garden, and thus I experienced their battles through Close Combat 2 and in the Flames of War tabletop game (specifically Irish Guards, with All The Sherman V/VC) Formed of a mix of veteran Guards units (Scots, Irish, Welsh) who saw action in France and Africa, and newly recruited tankers originally trained to defend England during the dark days of 1941, it arrived in Normandy in late June but was held in reserve until it's entire strength could be brought across the channel. Once it did, it took part in the debatable disastrous Operation Goodwood where it suffered badly from dug in Germans with FlaK-88s and Tigers, though they were the first Allied unit to defeat a Tiger II in combat (first by ramming, then bringing up a Sherman Firefly to finish it)

In Steel Division, they function as an Armoured Division, with the 80/125/130 point spread as is standard, meaning they need to be conservative at first to take some territory and hold off the enemy, until late game when they can overwhelm them with en-mass tanks.

OctaMurk posted:

116. Panzer Division �Windhund�

Did you see this division during the previews? Excited by the opportunity to unleash 50mm Pumas backed by inexpensive Panzergrenadiers and an affordable, effective air force in Phase A? Well guess what! Tough poo poo! All of that has been taken out.

But nonetheless, Windhund remains the most mobile Axis deck. Lightly armored, Windhund hits hard and fast in Phase A with 20mm armored cars , elite Panzer IIIs and Panzerwerfers, albeit with very limited infantry choices. Windhund follows it up in Phase B with Jagdpanzer Ivs (awesome), Panzer Ivs (awful) and swarms of truck-mounted Panzergrenadiers (yay!) before closing it out in Phase C with the excellent Panther Gs backed by Hummels and heavy bombers.

Mazz posted:

Anyways, here's the actual 2ID post

2nd Infantry, "Indianhead"

2ID at it's core is an infantry/artillery deck that excels in the early game and in built-up/wooded areas due a good combination of strong, specialized infantry and very good early game mortars and support weapons. It maintains it's strength through B and C with the addition of plentiful artillery choices, a great ace fighter, and decent tank and AT support through phases B and C. It does not stand up very well in open country to a strong Axis tank deck as the game progresses, but it can hold it's ground well enough to solidify gains made in the earlier phases. It should be played relatively aggressively, leveraging your infantry/mortar combos to push through forests, hedgerows, and through towns in a methodical, unrelenting fashion.

It is also a deck that can be heavily reliant on smoke, command units, and combined arms to really excel, so it can be leveraged as a learning tool to really comprehend those concepts and how they shape your gameplay. Those are all things extremely critical to the game though, so learning those properly will pay dividends no matter what deck you might play.

Arglebargle III posted:

Let me write up some good divisions because they're good and I'm a terrible procrastinator:

2nd Infantry Division "2ID"

Argle your guide is way less informative than Mazz's :colbert:

Xerxes17 fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jun 6, 2017

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:04

Shanakin: Mar 26, 2010; The whole point of stats are lost if you keep it a secret. Why Didn't you tell the world eh?

The game looks way better if you remember to turn unit scaling to none. The default has them quite oversized, which not only makes them look silly but seems to interact with the tracer SFX to make ugly oversized tracers. Also it makes your units appear to move slower than they are through illusion.

Other than that, looking pretty good. Curious to see what decks people are using so far.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:13

Enjoy: Apr 18, 2009

Remember to use your troops to screen the movement of tanks and where possible strap them to the sides as improvised armour

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:15

Dynamite Dog: Dec 12, 2012

All of the confirmed divisions are listed here, may be good for the OP

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steel_Division/comments/640z4t/confirmed_divisions/

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:24

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

Enjoy posted:

Remember to use your troops to screen the movement of tanks and where possible strap them to the sides as improvised armour

In close in territory, infantry AT has surprisingly long range. I'm still to used to the Wargame ranges where you have to be practically point blank to be in danger.

Dynamite Dog posted:

All of the confirmed divisions are listed here, may be good for the OP

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steel_Division/comments/640z4t/confirmed_divisions/

Added.

Xerxes17 fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Apr 9, 2017

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:27

working mom: Jul 8, 2015

Good game so far, can't wait for more decks/maps though

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:37

Paingod556: Nov 8, 2011; Not a problem, sir

Hold C for Line-of-Sight intel should definitely be elaborated on. I've only just started using it, gotten some nice ambush kills and zero casualty withdrawals thanks to it.

Also someone mentioned in the WG thread about 'fast move and unload cargo'. How is that done, and can orders like that be issued during setup? I've seen conflicting information all over about that ability.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:52

fuf: Sep 12, 2004; haha

What's the key to see the current orders for all your dudes at once? I'm sure I saw it on the streams.

Xerxes17 posted:

if a unit gets close enough (100m) to a routed or pinned enemy that doesn't have an unbroken ally (100m) or a command unit (200m) nearby, it will surrender and be immediately removed from play.

This is super useful, I wasn't sure why my guys would surrender.

Paingod556 posted:

Also someone mentioned in the WG thread about 'fast move and unload cargo'. How is that done, and can orders like that be issued during setup? I've seen conflicting information all over about that ability.

You can queue up a fast move and unload order by pressing "F" for the move order then holding shift and pressing "U". Works during setup.

I don't think there's a way to get reinforcements to unload automatically - I call in the reinforcements, zoom out and wait for them to spawn, then select them all and press shift and "U" - kinda annoying.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 15:59

Splode: Jun 18, 2013; put some clothes on you little freak

Selecting multiple units and holding shift will show all of their orders, not sure if there's a better way.

"Y" is the new "move here and unload command", so you can tell a halftrack full of dudes to put them in a building in one command by hitting Y and clicking the building. I'm pretty sure the move will be a fast move, but not 100%.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 16:02

Dynamite Dog: Dec 12, 2012

Alexis confirmed in one of the streams that the new 'unload at position' is a fast move + unload command.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 16:06

3 Action Economist: May 22, 2002; Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

I've been enjoying the beta a lot. I hope this is really successful (I'm sure it will be) so we can get an Eastern Front version (either standalone or as DLC).

# ? Apr 9, 2017 16:35

Communist Bear: Oct 7, 2008

How is the AI for this? Is it a good single player experience?

# ? Apr 9, 2017 16:39

Generation Internet: Jan 18, 2009; Where angels and generals fear to tread.

WMain00 posted:

How is the AI for this? Is it a good single player experience?

Noticeably better than Wargame, I personally feel like on Medium I'm actually fighting a mediocre player instead of the weird conga-lines from the older games.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 16:42

DatonKallandor: Aug 21, 2009; "I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Dynamite Dog posted:

Alexis confirmed in one of the streams that the new 'unload at position' is a fast move + unload command.

It is, you can tell by selecting the units and holding shift to show their current order. Fast Moves actually tell you exactly where it'll follow roads and where it'll cut across fields - and the unload-at-position command uses the fast move logic. One interesting command that I don't think we have access to is the Fast-Move-Hunt command that units have when you call them in during the match. They get a road-following movement order that also stops when they see enemy units to engage.

And important to remember you can give all these orders during setup (and check if they're correct with shift) - and that you can give orders then drag your units around and they'll remember the orders.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 16:54

Popete: Oct 6, 2009; This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs; Grimey Drawer

I finally tried out the Luftlande division last night against the AI. Whats up with the Flak 88 and it's super short range? It seems to have less range than a standard PaK gun.

Also I am very bad at this game, my RTS micro skills are terrible.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 17:07

Wooper: Oct 16, 2006; Champion draGoon horse slayer. Making Lancers weep for their horsies since 2011. Viva Dickbutt.

I had hoped we would not split the community over different VOIP client but I see you went along and did that.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 17:45

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

Xerxes17 posted:

At the moment only , and divisions are present but this is liekly to change later with DLC's.

Poland and France will be in before DLCs too

# ? Apr 9, 2017 17:46

fuf: Sep 12, 2004; haha

Units that are pinned down don't respond to orders but you can press "R" to force a retreat, kinda like the Company of Heroes mechanic.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:07

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

Wooper posted:

I had hoped we would not split the community over different VOIP client but I see you went along and did that.

OK, I'll just remove mumble from the OP.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:12

apseudonym: Feb 25, 2011

I loved EE and ALB but hate botes, will I like this game?

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:13

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

apseudonym posted:

I loved EE and ALB but hate botes, will I like this game?

Probably!

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:18

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

fuf posted:

Units that are pinned down don't respond to orders but you can press "R" to force a retreat, kinda like the Company of Heroes mechanic.

How does this work in practice? Do they try to move for cover?

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:19

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

Wooper posted:

I had hoped we would not split the community over different VOIP client but I see you went along and did that.

We already were. I never showed up on mumble because I don't remember to go spin up another client just to see if there's a wargame. I'm on discord.

Xerxes17 posted:

OK, I'll just remove mumble from the OP.

Niiiice.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:20

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

Everyone hates botes. That's like listing 'listening to music' as a hobby.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:21

apseudonym: Feb 25, 2011

Mukip posted:

Everyone hates botes. That's like listing 'listening to music' as a hobby.

I just miss playing ALB with goons :smith:

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:23

Dave47: Oct 3, 2012; Shut up and take my money!

Xerxes17 posted:

OK, I'll just remove mumble from the OP.

What's wrong with Mumble? It seems to have worked fine for all previous Wargames and for Steel Division games as recently as last night.

EDIT:

Mukip posted:

Everyone hates botes. That's like listing 'listening to music' as a hobby.

Yeah, hating boats is a great reason not to play naval maps on Red Dragon but is a pretty silly reason to have avoided / hated Red Dragon, seeing as the rest of the RD community also hated boats and rarely played on maps with naval call-ins.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:25

Lumpy the Cook: Feb 4, 2011; Drippy-goo-yay, mother-gunker!

Pretty excited for this- I liked RUSE and the Wargame trilogy, rough edges aside, and this appears to be a happy medium between the two. We'll probably end up getting expansions set in the usual locations (North Africa, Eastern Front) but I'd like to see fronts that don't get as much attention, like Burma or Italy or New Guinea (maybe even 30s stuff like Spain and Manchuria, but I think the relative lack of variety in vehicles/arms may make that less feasible)

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:47

pedro0930: Oct 15, 2012

Stairmaster posted:

How does this work in practice? Do they try to move for cover?

Your unit will attempt to back away from whatever's attacking it for 30 seconds. It's pretty useful if you are somewhere that can easily break visibility or fighting with a lot of friendly units nearby who the enemy will prioritize shooting instead of your fleeing unit.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:52

Wooper: Oct 16, 2006; Champion draGoon horse slayer. Making Lancers weep for their horsies since 2011. Viva Dickbutt.

xthetenth posted:

We already were. I never showed up on mumble because I don't remember to go spin up another client just to see if there's a wargame. I'm on discord.

The discord server didn't exist until 4 hours ago.

Instead of having a nice overview of all the games you are interested in playing you have to check each of a dozen of discord servers for all the games you play.

Never mind the fact that discord is strictly worse than mumble in every way.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 18:55

Deptfordx: Dec 23, 2013

Well, played two games so far. Easy victory on, well easy. Tried Medium and the AI kicked my arse with 15 minutes left on the clock.

Gonna have to play a few more games to get a feel for combined arms and synergies before I want to venture online.

Very pleased so far however. I'd give the game a solid 8 out of 10 grogs on the grognard scale and that's before the Campaign, extra battlegroups, etc etc are added.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:15

Popete: Oct 6, 2009; This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs; Grimey Drawer

Deptfordx posted:

Well, played two games so far. Easy victory on, well easy. Tried Medium and the AI kicked my arse with 15 minutes left on the clock.

Gonna have to play a few more games to get a feel for combined arms and synergies before I want to venture online.

Very pleased so far however. I'd give the game a solid 8 out of 10 grogs on the grognard scale and that's before the Campaign, extra battlegroups, etc etc are added.

Same things been happening to me on Medium, feel like there is a sharp difficult bump in the AI.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:16

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

FLX said they were pretty proud of the AI advances. I imagine that's having the dynamic frontline and unit availability being staggered help alot there.

Definitely going to buy this game once I finally get a PC.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:20

Deptfordx: Dec 23, 2013

I really like the Frontline. Even in my brief experience, every time a red bulge starts to develop along my line, and I don't have line of sight at that moment, my brain immediately conjures an entire armoured division sneaking through that gap, rather than the bold infantry squad it actually is.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:26

3 Action Economist: May 22, 2002; Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

Wooper posted:

The discord server didn't exist until 4 hours ago.

Instead of having a nice overview of all the games you are interested in playing you have to check each of a dozen of discord servers for all the games you play.

Never mind the fact that discord is strictly worse than mumble in every way.

Except I can chat about the game on Discord while I'm at work.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:31

Acebuckeye13: Nov 2, 2010; If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling
1-800-GAMBLER; Ultra Carp

Personally speaking I prefer Discord because I already always have it open on my laptop (And have the app on my phone), so it's a lot more convenient to chat or see who's doing what.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:35

pedro0930: Oct 15, 2012

I think the main reason people find medium AI hard is because they are playing 1v1 against AI, thus require managing multiple groups of units. Try 3v3 where I think the player density is the highest. It'll make the game much easier to manage.

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:49

wins32767: Mar 16, 2007

The much shorter ranges than Wargame are really messing with me so far. Anyone else having to adjust to that?

# ? Apr 9, 2017 19:58

HannibalBarca: Sep 11, 2016; History shows, again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.

wins32767 posted:

The much shorter ranges than Wargame are really messing with me so far. Anyone else having to adjust to that?

Yeah, I'm having a tough time making infantry work considering that one vehicle can pin down an infantry squad and basically make it useless because the man-portable AT in this game is so short-ranged. I don't know how to do much besides park them in tree-lines or towns and hope for the best, which sort of makes playing infantry-heavy decks suboptimal because I don't know how to push. probably need to get better with timing artillery combos. How do/can you drop smoke in this game like in WG?

# ? Apr 9, 2017 20:14

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# ? May 3, 2024 04:51

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

Generation Internet posted:

30 pt command vehicles are great
park them next to AA and AA can suddenly shoot down a plane

# ? Apr 9, 2017 20:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steel Division: Normandy 44 - Say hello to 3rd Armored

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