Artillery...

[Dúnadan]

Seriously, what? How in the world does Allied artillery outrange the V2? This makes no sense and needs to be fixed. As it is now, there is basically no counter to artillery + rocket infantry spam unless you have cruisers or missile subs, and that's a dubious counter at best.

[r34ch]

Are you sure they out-range V2s? That really is OP taking into account their RoF as well

I hope they buff the yak guns to be area of attack (like in the original game) because I am still struggling with arty / rs / hind spam. Mowing down a single soldier in a mob of infantry seems really UP. Flak trucks are ok but without the LoS of the yaks my forces get creamed.

It would be nice for soviets to get a ground unit with good LoS. It was mentioned in another thread that grenadiers should be swapped so that allies have better early anti inf. If that's the case I think soviets and allies should share the ranger.

[noobmapmaker]

I have to admit that my only solution atm is to suicide a plane or to drive up to the Artillery with a V2, launch the missile and retreat (basicly suiciding as well).

[zinc]

Yes it can be difficult to deal with. You have the suicide planes option. When you get iron curtain then you can IC various units to deal with them, whether flak truck, or v2 or tanks. But that means getting the tech which comes later in the game.

I have said before that I think with 1v1 game allies have the advantage over soviet on a smaller map at least.

I will just play soviet sometimes to give myself more of a challenge against some players.

[Kriess2]

I have to admit that my only solution atm is to suicide a plane or to drive up to the Artillery with a V2, launch the missile and retreat (basicly suiciding as well).

Why is it a suicide? The only thing an allie can do is trying to kill it with hinds or having luck and hitting it with arty. Furthermore he should move the target arty away to not letting it get killed.

There are really strong strategies with v2 that would get even stronger if we would increase the range of v2, i.e. the early v2 rush or one I discovered myself recently: you go early for 2-3 flak trucks and then v2. If you have good control you can manage to take out enemy hinds and yaks before they kill your v2. With the left over v2 you can take out critical structures like the war factory or the construction yard. If its on low health you can take it out with a yak.

Now to your scenario that you face an allie that has arties and rocket soldiers. I would suggest to take out the rocket soldiers with v2, spreaded rifle men and/or flak trucks. Then take out the arties with yaks. If some rocket soldiers survive then you maybe lose some yaks but that war eh?

I think the much more difficult scenario is the one when you face an allie that has support by defensive structures like turrets and aa. In this case you have to take out the aa or directly the artys with your v2. For that you have to get vision and thats a real problem. How do you get the vision? I solve the problem with a yak. If you do that you need really well control to not lose the yak. If you have spot an arty you can strg + right click at the area with a v2. Don't waste too many v2 shots on one arty.

One way to stop allies basewalking is with walls. Teslas shoot over walls but turrets don't.

To summarize:
- Soviets are because of v2 + flak truck + yak strong on big maps where you have no base support when you face the enemy (early/mid game)
- Allies are strong on smal maps where your bases spawn basicaly next to each other (vegetation, pressure). They can simply rush for hinds + aa + arties (mid/late game)

There is one more thing you have to keep in mind. The balance of a game should be oriented towards a 1v1 or 2v2 game. If you balance those games it doesn't mean that a 3v3 or 4v4 is balanced. If you are 2 Soviets against 2 Allies on a smal map then don't blame the balance if you lose because a. it can't be balanced or b. it was your decission to take Soviet.

[noobmapmaker]

Good info and nice strategies. I was thinking about a new unit for the soviets. One that could shoot a couple rockets (5?) within seconds, then takes a while to reload. The individual rockets are inaccurate and dont cause alot of damage. The buggy has a long range, perhaps even 2x the range of a V2.

Here's an image of a bunch of them in live action:



Specs:

- move speed: fast
- range: 2x V2rocket
- ammo: 5 rockets that move fast (like rocket soldier rockets) but they are inaccurate
- reloadtime: slow (V2 like)
- strong/weak vs: medium versus everything (inf, tanks, naval, buildings)[/img]?
- cant hit air units

[PersianImmortal]

Good info and nice strategies. I was thinking about a new unit for the soviets. One that could shoot a couple rockets (5?) within seconds, then takes a while to reload. The individual rockets are inaccurate and dont cause alot of damage. The buggy has a long range, perhaps even 2x the range of a V2.

Here's an image of a bunch of them in live action:



Specs:

- move speed: fast
- range: 2x V2rocket
- ammo: 5 rockets that move fast (like rocket soldier rockets) but they are inaccurate
- reloadtime: slow (V2 like)

- strong/weak vs: medium versus everything (inf, tanks, naval, buildings)[/img]?
- cant hit air units

Already suggested it in another thread and the idea got rejected because they don't want to "deviate" from the original game.

As for allies. The arty is not OP and extremely easy to counter. Well microd yaks can do take down 3 of them before they go down. Flak trucks with infantry support can make short work of them. Late game mammoths etc

Base walking allies are stoppable too. You've got to take advantage of your strengths (longer ranged tesla coils) and exploit the allied weaknesses (turrets cant shoot over walls, Artys aren't 100% accurate like v2s etc) and you can also use your yaks superior speed to get deep into the enemy base and attack their radar or wipe out refineries hurting their Eco.

[BaronOfStuff]

The lowly Flak Truck is indeed your saviour when it comes to Artillery aggravation.

Flak Trucks smash the shit out of Artillery through superior mobility and the ability to fire on the move, they outrange and outrun any supporting Rocket Soldiers, and they can make short enough work out of Hinds/Longbows. Their biggest downside is the obviously pitiful armour/HP, but what were you expecting? For a unit that's pretty cheap to produce, rushing a bunch of them at an oncoming artillery column usually pays off well enough to put a sizeable dent in any enemy offensive relying largely on such tactics.

All that being said, to get the most out of such a counter you'll probably have to have several of them scattered around readily available as an early warning against an oncoming raid. It's no good having FT's ready by your WF when the enemy Artillery is already dropping a load of 155mm HE shit on your base.

As for the new unit idea, I'd have to go against this on the basis that it would open the gate to 'lazy' rebalancing further down the line. Hurriedly adding new things instead of refining what already exists to keep an even enough field is simply terrible design.

[PersianImmortal]

The lowly Flak Truck is indeed your saviour when it comes to Artillery aggravation.

Flak Trucks smash the shit out of Artillery through superior mobility and the ability to fire on the move, they outrange and outrun any supporting Rocket Soldiers, and they can make short enough work out of Hinds/Longbows. Their biggest downside is the obviously pitiful armour/HP, but what were you expecting? For a unit that's pretty cheap to produce, rushing a bunch of them at an oncoming artillery column usually pays off well enough to put a sizeable dent in any enemy offensive relying largely on such tactics.

All that being said, to get the most out of such a counter you'll probably have to have several of them scattered around readily available as an early warning against an oncoming raid. It's no good having FT's ready by your WF when the enemy Artillery is already dropping a load of 155mm HE shit on your base.

As for the new unit idea, I'd have to go against this on the basis that it would open the gate to 'lazy' rebalancing further down the line. Hurriedly adding new things instead of refining what already exists to keep an even enough field is simply terrible design.

So no WT-AUF E-100 for the german Allied faction? That's a real shame.

[BaronOfStuff]

Jesus Christ no. No Waffletraktors.

[JOo]

[zoidyberg]

I don't recall seeing too many arty rushes these days. They're not terribly fast, maneuverable, or tough. There's the issue of them blowing up in groups too. You also have to keep a pile of support units nearby to ensure they aren't quickly wiped out.

When two allied players rely solely on building arties and shelling each other, ugh, boredom.

[Murto the Ray]

The main problem with arty rushes is that they use all of your income and production to maintain; the war factory is occupied making arty, barracks making rocket soldiers, helipad making hinds and your base making buildings and turrets to fill the space arty clears. When playing as soviets you should take advantage of this by attacking harvesters at the rear of their base whilst maintaining steady resistance at the front to prevent from being overrun; as said by several others, use flak trucks. Use your navy as its likely an ally player will be unlikely to maintain a navy whilst doing an arty rush and finally, use high tech options such as nuke trucks to clear the field every so often.

[rooms]

Allied artillery are overrated in my opinion. They do form the backbone of the Allied army but they are only truly powerful as part of a good base crawl.

The best way to defeat the Allies is to attack hard with tanks early. 2-3 heavy tanks supported by flame-men/rocket-men/snipers/riflemen with a few suicide yaks to take out the occasional artillery (he won't have many because it's still early game) and you should be fine. If he repels your attack, you should still be OK because with 3-4 flame-men in your attack you should be able to take out a decent amount of the enemy buildings and set him far enough back whilst you have 2-3 MCVs and can start taking out spamming him.

Late game bring out the migs and discard the yaks (never see anyone do this but you really should because migs are really strong) as soon as you tech up.

If you just sit around and wait like I see many players do, then yeah you're going to struggle. Whatever the case, flak tracks are overrated against artillery spam, because allied artillery shits on buildings (not base defenses so much because they are quite small and the allied arty is inaccurate) and infantry. They get shit on my proper armoured supported by aeroplanes. If they build helicopters, doesn't too matter too much because apaches are shit against tanks.

tl;dr: have a good mix of units but make sure you build TANKS, not flaks because flaks have no real pressure... great you took out his artillery but now you have zero siege pressure because flaks are shit against buildings and harvesters.