One more go.
Updated: Infantry, Airborne, and Tank Doctrine, some clarifications/spelling.
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Ah, thought I'd overdone the post, but if there's *still* interest I'll add a bit more. Yes, the Relic Online service is terrible at this point. Just an FYI, but they've asked that you include your ISP service and location (I would assume state if nothing else) with crash reports so they can better track down the issues. I forget most of the time, hopefully they'll sort the nasty connection issues out before retail. They have improved the situation somewhat, but massive dropping in game instead of not being able to join a game isn't much better.
It's even possible to be dropped from the pre-game chat/news/search areas as the connection to Relic Online is very shaky. It's also annoying to see people kick others because their ping rating is one red bar instead of full green or the like. I find that somewhat ironic as I've played a 3v3 once where the only person to drop was the one green ping player, on my team unfortunately.
It's not that unusual for the players with "good" pings to ironically be the ones that lag most. The real issue though is Relic Online, it's new and still in beta so while there's a good excuse for the issues there will be no suprise if they carry over to retail.
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I've neglected to mention this, but one of the more cunning things you can do is cut off the enemy's "supply" line. All strategic points have a territory they control. If the point(s) you've captured does not connect back to your HQ through other captured territories it will not give you any resources. Therefore if the enemy were to have a straight line of points heading to your base, if you took the one nearest their base they would lose all resource income from those points.
Naturally there isn't just one point you can capture near an enemy base that would cut them off from resources further out on the map. However if you were to capture all the points near their base, and manage to hold them, you would cut off the resource income provided by any points held beyond your line.
An Allied Armour commander could easily take advantage of this since an ability allows all light vehicles to capture points in addition to infantry. Armoured cars can deal with observation posts fairly easily and are reasonably hardy once upgraded with armoured skirts. Snipers and MG nests bounce off the cars, and can be safely ignored.
Side note, Armoured Cars are a very useful unit once upgrade with both armoured skirts and an MG gunner. It isn't hard for that gunner to be "killed" as people quickly notice, but they do tend to last long enough and add quite a bit of anti-infantry firepower. In addition fully repairing a vehicle will replace lost gunners and remove critical hits to the vehicle's engine, treads, main gun, and so forth.
The Axis Armoured Car is quite a bit different, and I haven't played with it much yet. However it seems to be quite a bit less effective against vehicles of any sort initially, but you can pay 75 munitions or so to upgrade to a more powerful main gun. I hear it's rather good, but Armoured Cars are rather light vehicles and the Allies tend to excell at blowing those up.
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First up I'll cover the Allied Doctrines, and a little note on all Doctrine powers by and large. Manpower costs are usually quite high, enough to give you pause early in the game and take some time to build up later on. However in truth the price is very worthwhile, although the single infantry squad powers can be seen as a bit more than they're actually worth. For Allies the Riflemen with BAR makes a joke out of the cost of a Ranger squad that tries to be anti-infantry.
The later Manpower abilities that call in multiple units however are always worthwhile for the cost, no doubt about those. Munitions powers are tricky the 100-125 munition powers are among the best, 200 Munition powers are quite expensive, and must be used to great effect or the cost is rather wasted. The 300/350 Munition powers are essentially unseen and I can comment little on those.
Doctrine Trees are split into two branches, this puts some pressure on to choose your abilities wisely. However unless you're losing due to being quickly overwhelmed in each fight it shouldn't be a problem. Denying your enemy command points can be very hard, but is possible and can shut down a player's plans.
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The Infantry Doctrine's left branch is your backbone, Rapid Response is a passive ability which reduces production times for infantry and heavy weapons teams. Basically your first two structures build units faster, except for the Jeep as it's a vehicle. It's a modest improvement for one point, but required to get the next ability.
For two command points you can get the ability to call in Rangers from a predetermined map edge. They will march to the location you click when you call them in, but other than basically giving them a waypoint it doesn't matter where that is. They cost 400 Manpower, which is fairly expensive.
Rangers are better than your standard riflemen, but more so initially versus tanks. Unfortunately the Bazooka is one of the most innacurate/least deadly infantry AT weapons around. The upswing is that you pay nothing for it as they come with two Bazookas for free. You can replace them with Thompson SMGs for 100 Munitions.
It makes them far more effective against infantry, but they become quite weak to tanks. In the end they're marginally better than regular infantry in my mind, once they are upgraded with BARs. That particular upgrade adds so much to Riflemen squads it's worth it's weight in black gold.
Quick numbers comparison, Rangers are 400 Manpower and take 100 Munitions per to become anti-infantry. Riflemen cost 270 Manpower and for a 200 Manpower/60 Fuel upgrade they all get a universal free set of BAR guns. I'll have to see how much better Rangers are with Thompsons, but they just don't win the price wars when compared to Riflemen for all around use as an Anti-Infantry unit.
The third and final ability of the right branch is the Off-Map Combat Group, requires four command points as I recall. This ability's effect seems to be a bit randomized. It calls in three vehicles, which can be either an M10 Tank Destroyer or an Armoured Car from what I've seen. In addition you get a free Mortar Team, and it's the only time I'd ever have one of those.
They come in from the same location as the Rangers and move to the location you clicked, on an attack move command. All for the low, low, extremely low price of 800 Manpower. Seriously, for all you get that's ridiculously low, the lack of fuel is what really makes it worthwhile. For a comparison a Mortar team costs around 280 Manpower, Armoured Cars 280 Manpower and 30 Fuel, and the M10 is 300 Manpower and 60 Fuel. Even without the fuel factor, it's cheaper and faster to call them in with this power than to actually build these unit.
I only learned this after I was caught in a 3v3 match that devolved into a 1v1 match. While you don't gain your allies Command trees or powers, you do get their income in addition to your own. A 3v3 match that turns into a 1v1 is something else as both players suddenly have three times the normal income and every point is now Triple the normal value to you alone.
Frankly it was like having another player fight with me, I was able to just spam that button and I didn't realize anything was happening until I noticed the left side of the other player's base was overrun with troops that were attack moving through and blowing everything apart on their own. This power is huge, get it, use it, love it.
Now for the right branch of the Doctrine Tree. Defensive Operations allows infantry to build light defences and speeds up how fast engineers build them to boot. It only costs one command point and comparative to Rapid Response is very useful. Your infantry can quickly build a few sandbags anywhere to hide behind for the valuable heavy cover, green shield indicator at that location. Mind you it only works one way and if you're flanked it's no good.
However it allows you to seal off areas with barbed wiring and gives great cover to your infantry with sandbags allowing them to easily hold positions that would otherwise be very hard or impossible to keep. It all depends on how well you can micro, of course, those who take the time to do so will reap great rewards. Aside from Mines which cost a heafty 25 Munitions, they're also free so it's worth the time it takes to set up these defences.
The second ability is the Off-Map Artillery Support for two command points. It's a 200 Munitions Artillery barrage, although I don't think it's actually as powerful as the barrage from an actual Howtizer on the field. Not to mention those are free, so this power is something of a stepping stone choice. It can be useful if you have excess Muntions, which you might. Otherwise it's rather pointless. One note, as with most command powers there is a "warning" given before the location is hit. In this case three red flares are thrown down, then after a period of time the location is shelled.
The last ability is the Howitzer itself, which also costs two points. This is hands down the best artillery piece in the game. Once you pay the 450 Manpower and 75 Fuel required you get an extreme range unit, several screens, that utterly bombards an area with heavy shelling. Two Howitzers and you can keep up a constant barrage if you wanted to time it. As mentioned before, this is all free of charge making the previous power almost redundant. Also it gives no warning before it hits.
It's not hard to shell an enemy base from safety with a Howitzer and it can decimate any fortified position with ease. The only issue is the artillery is infantry crewed and has all the vulnerabilities that go with it. I also don't think you can turn this gun, which is good because if an Axis player got their hands on it the tables would turn quite dramatically.
All around the infantry tree is fairly solid, although I think the late game is stronger than the early game for this tree. The thing is to diversify your troops as the Rangers can't be relied upon to tackle any and every target. So long as you keep the pressure on the Germans early and last long enough to get a Howitzer off to soften them up for the final assault with your Off-Map Combat Groups you should be good to go with this tree.
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The Allied Airborne got a lot of attention as it used to be the easiest tree to beat Axis with. The Paratroopers recently got nerfed all around, and to be frank they dominated only because many German players just didn't last long enough to learn what worked against Paratroopers. Light Vehicles are mincement against Paratroopers with Recoiless Rifles, which also used to one shot snipers with 100% accuracy or some such as I recall. They don't do that anymore, among a few other things.
There is one exception for light vehicles as Halftracks upgraded with Flamethrowers can take on a team or two of Paratroopers and deal out some damage before dying or retreating. More halftracks makes that easier and they're your best early game bet outside of Grenadiers with LMGs.
A few things to note about Paratroopers, they can reinforce anywhere in your territory. Normally infantry squads can only reinforce near your HQ or production buildings, however Paratroopers can drop out of the sky anywhere in your territory to replace lost troops. The ability itself can be used anywhere you can see, but to reinforce the must be in your controlled area. The Recoiless Rifles still are potent AT weapons, and aren't useless in an Anti-Infantry role either.
They get Stachel Charges which are quite powerful and can be used against buildings as well as vehicles. This makes them excellent bunker busters, they cost 75 Munitions per use though which is pretty darn expensive. Paratroopers also have the Fire it Up, or whatever it was called, ability. Rangers share this as well, for a limited time they move faster and are harder to hit/kill. They've got a number of advantages to use here and are still good infantry to use. They are however prohibitively expensive, especially to reinforce.
The Paratroopers are the first pick on the left branch, they require two command points to activate. After that you can call them in for 375 Manpower, and get the rifles for 125 Munitions. They're still the toughest Allied troop around I think, but not quite so clearly as before.
Seond up is the AT Gun Drop, which also costs two command points. For 320 Manpower it drops down a gun and a crew to go with. That used to come without crew, but now it comes with. NOTE: The crew is *not* automatically manning the gun even though they have the marker over their squad saying they are. You must manually have them crew that AT Gun to get it firing.
The Allied AT gun is a fantastic weapon and the Airborne can drop it anywhere making flanking a snap. Also note that the regular AT gun costs 310 Manpower, the air dropped gun is a steal since it comes down immediately where you want it, right then, right there.
AT guns are your best friend with Airborne, you'll want to consider scouting with your infantry and letting your AT guns hang back and fire from range then move up when all's clear. If a big tank shows up you can always use the AT gun drop ability to flank'm and activate the AP Rounds ability to quickly punch holes into it. It's fairly expensive at 75 Munitions, but the effect is very noticable against tanks. (Maybe it was 25 as my eyes are getting tired, but that seems far less likely.)
The last ability, Supply Drop, is easily the best power the Airborne tree gets. It's the most expensive in the tree at four command points, but it's well deserved. The ability calls down two crates which give you a random crewed weapon, with no crew, and one crate always gives +100 Munitions and the other +75 Fuel. It's free naturally, and you want to take advantage of this as often as you can which is three minutes.
You'll have so many free HMG/Mortars from the crates you'll never have to make the actual squad. Just make some Riflemen to take the gear up if you want and then reinforce the squad. It's a great boost for the allied economy, but you must micromange it well, and don't call it down in the middle of a fight if you can as the Germans can take it instead.
This boost works out incredibly well for the Allies, they can recon any spot on the map for 50 Munitions, then send down a strafing run for around 150 Munitions or a bombing run for 250 Munitions. Frankly those powers are rather cheap for how good they are, the right side of the tree is very useful.
Air Recon is incredibly useful for the cost, one command point to purchase and 50 Munitions per use. Among the better uses is spotting deep in enemy lines/their base so you can bomb it, or drop in troops and an AT gun and just lay waste. The havoc you can cause behind enemy lines with the Airborne is second to none.
Strafing Run takes 2 command points to unlock and costs 150 munitions per use. It call in a fighter to chew up any infantry in a line you draw. It's only effective against infantry and it's power seems to be a bit random. However it's fully capable of killing an entire clump of German infantry in one go, and that's when you really love it.
Bombing run takes 3 command poitns to unlock and costs 250 munitions per use. That'd be a bit expensive to use often but with the extra munitions and fuel from the supply drops it's a lot easier to bring to bear. It can tear up tanks, but Panthers and Tigers are likely to survive the run. Again it's a bit of luck as to how damaging the run is, but you can tear up the light and medium German tanks with great ease. It's fantastic against bases and it's not that bad against infantry that get hit either.
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Lastly the Armour Command tree, if you want to try going toe to toe with the Germans this may be your best bet. The left branch starst with Raid, which costs 2 command points, the ability to enable your light vehicles to capture strategic points. It's a great pick and you can put it to good use at any point in the game. Jeeps are an excellent unit to decap/capture points that aren't guarded or have observation posts.
As stated before, Armoured Cars are an excellent step up for taking down points as they can remove observation posts given enough time and then take the point. This also lets you rely more on vehicles now that you don't have to rely on infantry to capture points, Jeeps can move between points quickly and Armoured Cars stand up to fire better and are more dangerous overall.
The second ability costs 3 command points and calls in a Calliope Rocket Launcher on a Sherman Tank. This Sherman costs 600 Manpower compared to a normal sherman which cost 420 Manpower and 90 Fuel, otherwise it's not different except for the rack of rockets on top. The Calliope can launch a barrage of rockets for a whopping 125 Munitions per use. However the barrage is so devastating that it can easily tear up tanks, although it really only does that to the bigger tanks if you use it in their face due to spreading.
The recently enforced a minimum range on this as it was possible to destroy a Tiger in one barrage by getting right next to it and firing off the rockets. Still it's fully capable of taking out a bunkered building and heavily damaging whatever gets hit. Unfortunatley due to the cost and the lack of a supply drop to keep munitions high you'll likley end up using this sparingly or in a concentrated burst to try destroying a large group of troops.
Lastly for four command points you can call in the M26 Pershing Heavy Tank, and it costs 900 Manpower per use. This is the heaviest Allied tank around and the best bet you have of taking the Axis tanks on head to head. You'll still want to use everything at your disposal and flank, sticky bomb, etc. that Tiger as best you can, but the Pershing is a great Anchor that can deal out some serious punishment when upgraded. It's also got good frontal armour, just don't expect to roll over the heavy Axis tanks with it.
The right branch starts with Fast Deployment for one command point. It's a passive reduction to vehicle and tank production times. Other than the Jeep it won't have an effect with your early structures, but since your latter two are both vehicle depots that's where it really kicks in. It's a modest bonus, only a stepping stone as far as use goes.
Next in line is the field repair ability, for 200 munitions you can have all your vehicles repair themselves over time. Expensive, but if you can afford it also very useful. I'd rather repair with engineers for free, but for an emergency fix or to keep a tank alive while taking down a Tiger this'll do. It lasts a modest amount of time enough to get some repairs done, but you really don't want to rely on this as it's not an efficient use of your munitions.
Honestly this whole branch reeks of mediocrity, however the Allied War Machine could be rather impressive. For a duration of 45 seconds, recently increased in a patch, any vehicle that is destroyed is immediately replaced back at your HQ for free. The ability itself costs three command points, and 250 Munitions per use. Once you get this Field Repairs becomes very redundant. If you have a lot of tanks you can just throw them at the German line, activate this power, and destroy whatever you think needs blowing up most. The cost is high though, and you won't be able to do this very often.
This is probably the latest blooming tree, and might even need a bit of help. Can't say yet really, it's quite strong if you can get to the end though. You'll definitely want to take an early lead with the light vehicle point capping, and never let up the pressure. The Pershing is what really makes this tree, no question about it.
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This post is getting pretty long again so I'll wrap up in a second post. I'll cover what I know and think about the German Command Trees and the commentary I was going to put into this post, but that also ran a bit long and I'd rather break it up.
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- Anolis, "Oops I-"
- Anolis Mk.II, "Finish that quote and I'll kill you."
