THE RUSSIAN WALL (how to beat the russians if they know what they\'re doing)

[seq13]

The EF mod is great... the dev team puts a great effort to add all those new units, sounds, maps, etc. I really appreciate that but the balance team is probably worse than the relic ;] I was watching those videos on easternfront.org featuring new units/maps with an excitement of something new but with the fear of the possibility that it's not going to be well balanced. The fact is that it's not balanced at all... soviets are not weak early game the whole no retreat/suppresion/death sequence seems like a joke... the production time and capping speed are insane, they don't have a starting unit but when your 1st mg is out they've got 2 engis, 1 conscripts and a command squad already on the field capping all points with incredible speed (more in queue)... so without the starting unit they can send the 1st engi to your high resource point on the middle of the map (lets say fuel on rails and metal) and they're going to beat your pios even if they run into them (so the pios can do something to them) and be on "your" side faster delaying you from getting the high fuel. After the heroic charge being available they can break the suppression you're probably trying to relay on (as they can't retreat so it's a reasonable thought but in a matter of fact they don't have to). The free arty soon makes things ever more complicated for the germans. The outcome of the early game is that if you somehow manage to take and hold "your ground" you're suffering high manpower drain as your units costs some real mp cost not 15 (if they manage to build an outpost near some green cover like onmap trench system its extremely hard to kill them until the mortar, nades, comes in, I'm not sure but the small arms fire seems to do shit to the outpost) anyway if you survive the 1st wave that might mean that you killed most of their units so you better go and cap something fast before the upgraded spam and support roll in...

Since you relay on infantry the worst thing is probably the mortar I've noticed that it's better to just run into russians and chase them until you can't than retreat so their mortar fires up on their troops as well. That thing makes any static defences useless. Once again the soviets are not based on any tactical playstyle they're based on spam. So you're going to see snipers team spam, zis2 spam, PTRD spam just in case you would like to try how some light vehicles works against them... they won't and in a matter of fact its the germans who should be prepared for some fast t34. The mortars usually gets high kills vs russians and the nebels works great but they're not going to kill them while they're moving and they're moving preety fast and what's worst from all directions... Probably the worst things at this point are the upgraded Ingenery (EF dev team probably never been burned with hardpiospam) if your opponent took the street warfare and a 1cp close combat so they've got double flames you're screwed... with all the early game disadvantages you've experienced it's really hard to fend them off as they're spamable and with the command squad blobed with them can just run over all you've got.

If you still managed to survive this there is more coming your way. Let's start with the IS2... well if you're not lucky to have TOV and gwagons you have to relay on your vetted grens blob (not sure how to survive until that point without them) the 150 fuel cost isnt that much if you don't have to spend it on anything else. The best thing to counter the soviets is to recrew their weapons like heavy mortars or ZIS2 they could work miracles against soviets lol especially the captured heavy mortar ;] anyway the game turns into spam vs spam type of game now as you can finally start to spam your shit (well it's a spam vs spam since the begining it's just that your spam can really do something to them) so the vet3 grens blob running around the map fighting the russian blob. The worst part is that for another 200 munis (if you think it's unbeliveable amount of munis think about 3 shreks) the soviets elite infantry with some ridiculous abilities are going to fight back to your unstoppable vet3 green spam and you have to chase every unit to kill it as the reinforce cost are low/production is fast. Imagine you play us and suddenly all grens got elite armour, 2 of them got lmgs and the others 5 got mp44... how about that (yeah they got the squads increased as well, why not? now think about it for a while if you could have a gren squad with 4 weapon slots, and you want to give them shrek, shrek, lmg, lmg that would be 75x4=300 so how's that looks compared to global upgrade for 200?)

If you still refuse to surrender to 2xIS2 driving around the map owning your tanks (marders/p4/hetzers those are now light tanks, and they double shot most of your other mobile forces like wibers that you just called in to control the infantry spam) there is more things that is going to convince you that you're wrong... the soviets final cps and more spam will work well... have you ever cried about op strafe or getting pwned by a bombing run well you're going to be strafed/bombed to death it's good that there isn't the version of the soviets henschels circling the field... on the other hand you could be artyed to death by the "god of war" which seems to have tendency to hit random targets in a large area (you should move all you've got half a map away or it could be hit... the soviet's shoudn't came while this is active as it probably fall randomly) but imagine what that's not the worst part ;] The ISU-152 is an interesting thing, the panthers, tiger, KT, 88, shreks got problems to penetrate it's armour and it could one shot the whole squad of infanry (let's say double shreked grens) it also do a massive dmg to any german armour if this thing is used wisely (you can't just run them into the germans as they could be circle strafed easily) it will devastate all the armour the germans can get up to this point and the joke of the day is that you can call more than one (I've seen 2 those things on the field at once). Anyway the outcome is kind of a panthers start acting like they were m10s... don't forget that the is2 can just digin... I've made a test where 1 tiger and 4 panthers all vet3 fights with 1 isu and 2 is2 (just 3 of the panthers cost more fuel not to mention the vet) anyway it took a while to take them down (with blitzkrieg assault on almost twice) but by the time the soviets tank were destroyed they manage to take out 2 panthers that were running around them so there was time when only axis armour shoot at it's targets they also manage to almost took out the tiger (like 50hp left) as it's speed allows him to circle strafe them only when the blitzkrieg is on... that might not be a good example as such situations will not occur in real game but it shows some resource spend imbalances... The conclusion is that after 2 days of playing the EF I didn't manage to beat the double soviets team who knows what they're doing, I can win against the players that figureing out what's up, but the well executed russian spam seems to be unbeateable... I know that we should give it some time so the people can came out with some strategies but I'm not sure if I can handle that long and the game turns out to spam as much imba shit as you've got so that's not the good direction for sure.
Post Merge: January 23, 2010, 09:21:44 AMso I'm looking for suggestions, build orders, general tips etc. about how to defeat the spam.

[ElitistJerk]

TttttttttL; Dr

[seq13]

look at the bright sides there could be "soviet winter" ability so all your troops will be immobile for 10minutes...

[LeRagpicker]

ill attach a replay with a tactic working against most russians.

at the replay:
lol at isu-152 2-hitting hetzer O_o
lol at katyusha damage to vehicle O_o
lol at spammable is-2
jagd <3

[seq13]

thx gonna watch it ;]
Post Merge: January 23, 2010, 12:12:27 PMI supose I've seen it at gr... although have you watch the replay from the russian pov? or at least without fow? look at one of them he build 3 engis don't cap anything on their way to the middle of the map and use all of them to cap vp... the 1 soviet engi can probably beat 2 pios or at least keep them bussy from captureing point, those are really important moments for the soviets as they have such great early game advantage with all those super fast cap / cheap / produce in no time units... the russians you've played against in that replay haven't really know how to abuse their shit.

[LeRagpicker]

i dont think this game is at gr.org
at least we didnt post it there

[Marcus]

seq don't worry, on rails and metals you were playing vs me and Ra11 and we both learned "well" how to play russians 

A good Russian player imo can't be stopped actually, that's all..maybe only in very large maps where u are still able to get tanks as axis, or on very small maps with bridges like leningrad or scheldt, where u can at least secure your side and close it waiting for wehrmacht vets and big tanks...

[seq13]

well I've noticed that I played against somebody good as I feel like I can do shit about anything the whole game ;] The problem is that at the confrontation with the players on the same level I got beaten all the time and I can survive only with some noobs who probably trying to figure out what's up...

you're marked as a developer so are you a member of a balance team and was involved in beta testing or you just learn the game "well" within 2 days? ;p
Post Merge: January 23, 2010, 02:17:17 PMhttp://www.gamereplays.org/companyofheroes/replays.php?game=25&tab=popular&show=details&id=107888

isn't that the same replay u posted?

[LeRagpicker]

nope its not..

[seq13]

lol so I watched the other replay doesn't the names some kind simillar ;/

[Marcus]

i am in the translation team, actually my partner (RA11) was a beta tester so he already knew the game, but defintely it wasn't hard to understand the easiest strategy to win, almost every unit u want to spam and upgrade = win

We saw also that, when u have 3-4 snipers on the field, just upgrade their artillery and you will be able to use exactly the same "1sec arty" of brit lt, but with a long cooldown...but np u can spam as many snipers u want so basically u can destroy enemy base without building even a tank or a flamer..

[ElitistJerk]

i am in the translation team, actually my partner (RA11) was a beta tester so he already knew the game, but defintely it wasn't hard to understand the easiest strategy to win, almost every unit u want to spam and upgrade = win

We saw also that, when u have 3-4 snipers on the field, just upgrade their artillery and you will be able to use exactly the same "1sec arty" of brit lt, but with a long cooldown...but np u can spam as many snipers u want so basically u can destroy enemy base without building even a tank or a flamer..

Wait, let me get this straight, you and your beta testing friend saw this coming and didnt do anything to stop it? There should defiantly be a munitions cost for the sniper teams artillery or they should be the same price as other factions snipers. retreat or no retreat.

[Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.]

i am in the translation team, actually my partner (RA11) was a beta tester so he already knew the game, but defintely it wasn't hard to understand the easiest strategy to win, almost every unit u want to spam and upgrade = win

We saw also that, when u have 3-4 snipers on the field, just upgrade their artillery and you will be able to use exactly the same "1sec arty" of brit lt, but with a long cooldown...but np u can spam as many snipers u want so basically u can destroy enemy base without building even a tank or a flamer..

2 Words:

E
P
I
C

F
A
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L

What's the point of beta testers finding out glaring imbalances and not telling them to get those fixed?! This will cost this mod a LOT of players, so you're at least partly responsible for them to leave this awesome mod.

Good job.

[BlackMensa]

As i said in another thread. Don't put this into the betatesters. We had regrets and we said what was wrong. More then once but nothing happened. My first thought was: "fuck!!! those at rifles do fucking much damage to buildings, it has to change"

I wrote it in the forum and nothing changed. And its not an epic fail. make your own mod moron. Yeah it needs some patches but CoH ToV is bugged as hell too and they do nothing!


BurroDiablo:

I'd like to also point out that our Lead Developer, Apex, has left us. Now, I have much respect for the guy, but he was basically lead balancer and did the majority of the balancing. This is serious shit because he has left the rest of the team to pick up the pieces of his glorious imba. I pointed out major balance problems a few days before the release, but all were ignored and I predicted this sort of stuff would happen.

On a good note, this means we as a TEAM can now fix this mess without having to consult almighty god first, it also means we can balance the Soviets as they should have been in the first place.

[CerealKiller]

Yeah don't blame beta testers that's not helping shit. Give them some time to balance things out.