Multiplayer - an excercise in frustration :)
Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:38 pm
Afternoon everyone,
well, here we go - four multiplayer games in, all of them horrendous losses. Played various scenarios as both the Axis and the Allies, but had my a** handed over to me all the times. From my observations:
1) When I picked Axis, the Allies usually had an absolutely huge surplus of tanks that just rolled over me. Even when I grouped my Panzers and Stugs together, my opponent would simply roll in with his M4 and *gasp* M5 and shoot the c*ap out of me. The game seems to particularly enjoy insulting me on top of the defeat, since Stugs end up shot by M5 from a huge distance (two at a time) while my armor does absolutely nothing. Also, I'm not so clear on the mechanics of opportunity fire, but while my opponent's tanks are usually quick to fire back when I move or attack, mine only seem to do so when they're "in the right mood".
2) The random number generator is seriously, seriously screwed. Superior German firepower cannot hit a measly armored transport from a short distance while it gets itself blasted from afar by light Allied tanks. On full frontal armor. Mine of course won't even manage to shoot down a transport from a short distance.
3) When picking the Allies, I got screwed twice - once in the battle for the central village and once in a desert city fight scenario. The village scenario makes it especially difficult for the Allied player to make any meaningful advance and group his forces, while the German player can waltz in across open fields and shoot down anything that tries to move nearby, because there's usually enough space to only squeeze in one or two tanks. Still, I think this one was lost largely by my strategic mistakes. The other one, however, I really don't know what to think about - it's mostly transports for the British, they start way, WAY off the city itself so the Germans are already happily established when the German player finally arrives, and they have laughable armor. So troop deployment via transports is practically impossible, since these get shot down, and the player has nothing to shoot the enemy armor with. For some reason, the two anti-tank guns, even though in range and with visibility on targets, didn't give me the choice to shoot the armor either (they were not suppressed).
EDIT: Actually, it was three times - there is a scenario where the Allied player has to old off an incoming German invasion. The player has access to mobile AT guns, stationary AT guns and some tanks, yet for some reasons, they refuse to shoot at the enemy. Properly positioned on top of a hill, or with a very nice view of the advancing armor, they just sit there and wait until all the armored transports and tanks shoot them down, 2-3 tiles away from them. Only once did a mobile AT gun remember to shoot (it should have shot before, but it didn't), and even then it almost looked like an accident. What the heck am I missing?! This certainly didn't happen in the single player desert campaign.
4) The "style" of gaming - I've just had an opponent who, coupled with extremely, extremely lucky dice rolls on his part, uses this tactic - swarm me over with tanks, using the super-duper random number generator, pop a few tanks from a distance with the swarm, then add insult to injury by driving his tanks right up my a** and shooting the rest of my tanks down. Once done, he retreats with his tank. This is just so annoying it's beyond description.
Yes, I am fully aware that I suck in this game. But the scenarios I have played so far seem grossly imbalanced to me, almost always favoring one side over the other, and I tended to pick the unfavorable one. But even then, having the enemy mow down your armor one by one while you don't even score a hit (even a deflected one) has currently drained me of any enthusiasm for the multiplayer part of this game. At least when playing the campaigns, the computer gets access to an equally s*itty random number generator as I do.
And apologies for this rant - at this moment, I'm kind of looking for other stories of how people get screwed up by the game and how they cope with it, and possibly how to avoid some stupid mistakes, but I just had to vent. Kudos to my opponents, though, for outplaying me (even if large doses of luck may have been involved)!
well, here we go - four multiplayer games in, all of them horrendous losses. Played various scenarios as both the Axis and the Allies, but had my a** handed over to me all the times. From my observations:
1) When I picked Axis, the Allies usually had an absolutely huge surplus of tanks that just rolled over me. Even when I grouped my Panzers and Stugs together, my opponent would simply roll in with his M4 and *gasp* M5 and shoot the c*ap out of me. The game seems to particularly enjoy insulting me on top of the defeat, since Stugs end up shot by M5 from a huge distance (two at a time) while my armor does absolutely nothing. Also, I'm not so clear on the mechanics of opportunity fire, but while my opponent's tanks are usually quick to fire back when I move or attack, mine only seem to do so when they're "in the right mood".
2) The random number generator is seriously, seriously screwed. Superior German firepower cannot hit a measly armored transport from a short distance while it gets itself blasted from afar by light Allied tanks. On full frontal armor. Mine of course won't even manage to shoot down a transport from a short distance.
3) When picking the Allies, I got screwed twice - once in the battle for the central village and once in a desert city fight scenario. The village scenario makes it especially difficult for the Allied player to make any meaningful advance and group his forces, while the German player can waltz in across open fields and shoot down anything that tries to move nearby, because there's usually enough space to only squeeze in one or two tanks. Still, I think this one was lost largely by my strategic mistakes. The other one, however, I really don't know what to think about - it's mostly transports for the British, they start way, WAY off the city itself so the Germans are already happily established when the German player finally arrives, and they have laughable armor. So troop deployment via transports is practically impossible, since these get shot down, and the player has nothing to shoot the enemy armor with. For some reason, the two anti-tank guns, even though in range and with visibility on targets, didn't give me the choice to shoot the armor either (they were not suppressed).
EDIT: Actually, it was three times - there is a scenario where the Allied player has to old off an incoming German invasion. The player has access to mobile AT guns, stationary AT guns and some tanks, yet for some reasons, they refuse to shoot at the enemy. Properly positioned on top of a hill, or with a very nice view of the advancing armor, they just sit there and wait until all the armored transports and tanks shoot them down, 2-3 tiles away from them. Only once did a mobile AT gun remember to shoot (it should have shot before, but it didn't), and even then it almost looked like an accident. What the heck am I missing?! This certainly didn't happen in the single player desert campaign.
4) The "style" of gaming - I've just had an opponent who, coupled with extremely, extremely lucky dice rolls on his part, uses this tactic - swarm me over with tanks, using the super-duper random number generator, pop a few tanks from a distance with the swarm, then add insult to injury by driving his tanks right up my a** and shooting the rest of my tanks down. Once done, he retreats with his tank. This is just so annoying it's beyond description.
Yes, I am fully aware that I suck in this game. But the scenarios I have played so far seem grossly imbalanced to me, almost always favoring one side over the other, and I tended to pick the unfavorable one. But even then, having the enemy mow down your armor one by one while you don't even score a hit (even a deflected one) has currently drained me of any enthusiasm for the multiplayer part of this game. At least when playing the campaigns, the computer gets access to an equally s*itty random number generator as I do.
And apologies for this rant - at this moment, I'm kind of looking for other stories of how people get screwed up by the game and how they cope with it, and possibly how to avoid some stupid mistakes, but I just had to vent. Kudos to my opponents, though, for outplaying me (even if large doses of luck may have been involved)!
