Humiliated by the Russians Options

[stukaju87d3]

Hello.

I used to play this game some 10 years ago or so, and back then I loved it. My recent revisit left me disappointed with the state of multiplayer and the horrendous singleplayer AI, but life was good again once I found this mod! It's a gem - everything about this mod is top-notch - the GFX, SFX, models, voice, all beautiful.

My problem is that I get humiliated by the AI when I play with the ECA. I'm not talking Brutal AI here, I'm talking plain old Hard AI. This is a bit of a shock to me, because I'm conceptually partial to their playstyle (turtling, right?). I don't have any problems when I play with the other factions, but i never turtle in those cases - I'm often the aggressor - I either rush, or push in mid-game, or go for map control and then just spam my enemy to death.

Somehow, I don't think that's how I'm supposed to play with the ECA. When I play with the ECA, I feel like a prisoner. My units are slow and surprisingly squishy (mostly because I can't repair). My defenses are awesome, at least against anything in range. The idea I guess is to stay in my corner and take whatever comes my way. So, I build defenses in depth - frontline anti-tank guns and guard towers, backed up by multiple mortar and anti-air positions. Helicopter squads wait in the back to counter artillery wherever it appears. A few of my defenses fall every now and then, but no worries.... Then things start to turn bad. The AI builds enough GP to start bombing my base. At some point there's a gaping hole where my RD center or solar pp was, so I send dozers to rebuild my unique buildings, the AI continues rushing with artillery and I lose a few more defenses. My choppers are sent to intercept, but are killed by supporting heavy AA. Another AI assault is beaten, but it takes out a few more of my defenses in the process. Dozers trying to rebuild destroyed defenses are themselves destroyed by constant assaults or bombardment. All is lost. :rage:

tl;dr: How do i play with the ECA? I seem to suck at turtling

[X1Destroy]

Against AI as ECA, you should use more fortifications. Have 2 Panzerfaust and 1 Felin inside.

Don't build too many turrets, when you're low on power it will hurt alots. Use more Wotans for AA defenses.

Use commando drops to intercept enemy artillery, AAA......but if you're fighting against Russia then you will have to use choppers and harriers since conscripts can detect them.

Use minedrops at certain points where the AI are comming from. Use them wisely, for they can delay and reduce the AI strike forces well.

Have as much secondary economy buildings as possible.

When you think you have enough cash and want to attack, just keep building Leopard, Wotan, Gepard and your Protocol unit. Just send them right at the enemy base, but watch out for GP strike and artillery.

If you're fighting against China AI, don't ever use Manticore protocol. Use Pandora instead. Those nuke cannons and nuke Hans are not to be underestimated. Against China AI, war attrition tactic is unavoidable.

If you're fighting against USA, be sure that the sky is always clear. Build more Wotans to prevent suicidal choppers.


This post has been edited by X1Destroy: 6 Feb 2014, 9:09

[MARS]

Engineer Pandurs are also a top priority in most situations.

[Casojin]

What you need is not just turtling at your corner, but turtling at various expansion sites.
Even Hard AI (which is not the plain old Hard AI for sure) uses resource cheat on you.
You need multiple supply bases (and some good number of secondary income later on).
While expanding, you need to prevent the AI from expanding (if possible).
Then you can continue to bombard the enemy from the safety of your own forward bases.

[SirLaserPaladin]

Welp. So that's why I suddenly get tank rushes on 10k start income on hard.

[Knossos]

Extending to what X1Destroy said, you could forego the 1 felin have three fausts per bunker and build instead guard towers, and use engi-fortifications with starstreak felins inside. Use wotans for AA; they're more effective anti-air than those twin-gunned monstrosities, and mix their fire modes for best effects. In most cases. Also, it is generally a golden rule to always keep a dozer of two near your defenses for any quick repair.

For greater effect, use bulldog/cerberus turrets just a few meters before your main line to beef up against Sentinels, unless you prefer dishing it out the hard way, as well as for any Mstas that draw near your base.

Don't let the AI kill any of your units as much as possible; it's better to destroy a pop-up ass rapist turret manually than letting it fall to the enemy.

Hope that helped you somewhat.

[PiratesYarrr]

Apart from expanding, it does depend how you set up your defences. I always have at least 3 Gun turrets to every 1 guard tower in my defences, right behind those a line of mortars, interspersed behind those ammo fortifications to increase the damage dealt. To top it off, engineer pandurs deployed so every defence is covered. Then you need Howitzers, making sure any blob that comes close or even just any artillery gets pounded before it can start to attack your defences. I'd also skip the Tigers and go for Harriers, purely because the flare ability launched just before they get into range means with a bit of micro you can take out the weak artillery units then run away, whereas Tigers have no way to avoid damage.

[stukaju87d3]

Thank for your help, guess who won last game

I went with Prepared Defenses, Commando Insertion, Bulldog Turrets, Grand Slam, and Battlefield Prototypes.

I started pretty well, this time though I built Eng fortifications to help heal my frontline Dozers, intermingled with arsenal fortifications for more firepower. Deployed Engineer Pandurs helped minimize frontline maintenance.
For AA, I used Wotans, which had the added benefit of freeing up some space for more Mortar Pits, half of which I tasked with Tear Gas mortars. I used Commando Insertion for scouting the map, and hidden Bulldogs for dealing with enemy Grumbles, allowing my Tigers to deal with enemy Mstas and Sentinels.

Went pretty well, though my micro is still horrible. Once I went on the offensive, my Leopards were slaughtered and my Manticore barely escaped alive from 2 Sentinel, some Golems and a few Mstas. Question - are Jadmammuts better tanks than Leopards? I mean the cost difference is $100, yet my Jagdmammuts seem to take more and do a lot more damage, while if their MG is mounted they perform decently against infantry. Additionally, while the Leopards have a rotating turret, I am not sure how to get it to fire automatically on approach (like World in Conflict). In the end I won with Manticore, Jagdmammuts, Wotans, Engineer Pandurs and large amounts of Mortar Tracks, but I suffered a lot of casualties.

A few questions:
Do tanks have more armor at the front?
Do healing effects stack, i.e. Manticore + Eng Pandur, Eng Pandur + Eng Fortification?

Thanks for the help

[Maxner12]

yes

Check your inbox, I sent you a message a while ago, might help you minimize your losses and have a more efficient defense line. If I remember right, Leopard and Jagdmammut have the same HP, and I don't think there's difference between front armor and such, I don't even think you can code something like that into SAGE. And Leopards, Jagds, Flakpanzers and Lynx apcs all have mannable machine guns, so in group they can deal quite efficiently with infantry. Jagds are really clumsy and slow compared to other vehicles, either you have them on the defense, or around a manticore. Protip: usually it's not necesarry to rush into the middle of the enemy base with your task force (for me, usually a manticore, 4 leopards, 4 mammuts, 3-4 wotans if the AI is anything but GLA). I tend not to use mortar tracks or Mole minelayers for artillery purposes, but have the Jagds use penetrator rounds and force fire them near a structure. The shells go further in penetrator mode than the location where you force fired, making them have nearly artillery ranges and deal huge damage to structures (this is due to coding, there was a thread around explaining how this is possible). Slowly eat the enemy base away, don't let the AI get too much kills, go for the dozers and Command Centre if possible and use your GPs to the best effect (grand slam, smart bomb and eurofighter tier 3 bombing can level a sizable amount of structures if used correctly). If you want to go defensive first, or your opponent is China and you are afraid that nuke cannons will obliterate you, mine drop tier3 and bulldog tier2 can help you a lot.
Also, healing effects don't stack, only the strongest one applies, in this case, Manticore's healing effect applies to all vehicles in that combo.

[scorpio]

one trick i use with mortar pits is that i build a line of them as the forward most wall, and another line of anti tank turrets and a look out post right behind it. having the mortar pits at the very front gives them the maximum range to counter the enemy long range weapons such as Russian MSTAs, US tomahawks etc.

also as for the Ass Rapistsâ„¢, rather than deploying them on the map as soon as they become available, i tend to keep the general power in reserve and use it when the base is coming under attack.

[Jam Hacker]

I remember there was someone in this forum complaining how ECA defense were specialised. this does creates a problem when you decide to dig in because instead of building three general purpose turrents you will have to build like nine specialised turrents, tend to block the route competely after you finish, and impossible to repair.
this reminds me of playing stronghold, when you decide to build a wall or tower, you should always think about covering flanks and leave some area for troops to negotiate.
for this purpose, I like the bulldog turrent a lot since it can either create a buffer or flanking enemy.
also the tiger's icarus mine can be used as an early warning outpost since they are expendible and stealthy, tiger itself is sort of fire brigade which can be used to deter massive tank assault, their major weakness is heavy anti air.
motar pits are sort of a soft counter for artillery, they can make some slow artillery units think twice before attack, but for some fast moving light artillery units like rocket buggy and BDRM it's not really that efficient. motars are certainly very annoying to any ground forces, but you should not rely them to wear down enemy forces, remember a direct hit of motar cannot kill a basic infantry.

[Shiro]

instead of building three general purpose turrents you will have to build like three specialised turrents

That's more like it.

[Spejjarn]

It's a gem - everything about this mod is top-notch - the GFX, SFX, models, voice, all beautiful. My problem is that I get humiliated by the AI when I play with the ECA. /.../ tl;dr: How do i play with the ECA? I seem to suck at turtling

Amen! I LOVE ECA but SUCK at playing them, in particular on the OFFENSIVE...

Engineer Pandurs are also a top priority in most situations.

Amen!

For greater effect, use bulldog/cerberus turrets just a few meters before your main line to beef up against Sentinels, unless you prefer dishing it out the hard way, as well as for any Mstas that draw near your base.

Insha'Allah! Yes, Level2 Bulldogs are wonderful counter-battery (artillery) units!

Against GLA AI early rush your saviour is the Regional Command: build your first buildings BEHIND it from the enemy's point of view. Yes, you heard me. It's a bit counter-intuitive since you are used to keep your CC far away from harm's way but your Regional Command is also a highly-armoured bunker. Load it with 4-5 Panzerfausts and 1-2 Felins and place a Dozer behind it. This only works for the 2-3 earliest rushes but should be enough to get you going.

[Maxner12]

Against GLA AI early rush your saviour is the Regional Command: build your first buildings BEHIND it from the enemy's point of view. Yes, you heard me. It's a bit counter-intuitive since you are used to keep your CC far away from harm's way but your Regional Command is also a highly-armoured bunker. Load it with 4-5 Panzerfausts and 1-2 Felins and place a Dozer behind it. This only works for the 2-3 earliest rushes but should be enough to get you going.

Wrong. I begin the skirmishes with the same turtling tactic against any faction's brutal AIs and GLA brutal never gave me trouble with early rushes. When you start with 40 or 50k (don't see why one should start with less than 20 anyways against AI), just churn out 4 more dozers and use two to build some bunkers fast and train PFs meanwhile. By the time the AI have access to toxin tractors, you should have the bunkers reinforced and building mortar pits of you are fast enough.

[X1Destroy]

I won against Brutal Russian AI as ECA just a few mins ago, with 10k.

The trick is simple, first get at least 2 supplypiles from the start. Have some bunkers and quickly tech rush as fast as possible. Then start spamming second eco, tigers and use commandoes to scout and hit theirs force when they're still far away from your base. Do not let the AI kill too much of your units, or you will face a god damn Backfire strike.

Use bulldog for support and watchout for Boris. His MIGs can destroy your entire defensive line in one strike. Get rid of him whenever you see him. Harrier is the best for this.

As always, build 5-6 Wotans to stop heli spams.

When you have a nice army, don't attack foolishly. Always try to destroy the AI's Industrial Plant first to make sure that it won't pop out any more Golem and Sentinel. Then you can steamroll over them, slowly with MG Leopards, Manticore and Wotan. Use Jaeger to shut down the base defenses, but watchout for conscripts.

Not a single Howitzer battery was used, and the result was only 99 dead units.

This post has been edited by X1Destroy: 10 Feb 2014, 21:43

[Rohan]

This is how I generally play as ECA :-

1) Build a Barracks. Then follow this Build order- Two engineers, Three panzerfrausts, starstreak upgrade, four felins. Put the panzerfausts, two felin with starstreak (anti-air) and one felin inside the command center.

2) As first general point, I recommend prepared defences as this will onlock upgrades for your fortifications. Build fortifications in front of the command center where you expect the enemies to come from and fill them with panzerfrausts, felin and starstreak felin. You can use ammo fortifications to increase firepower.

3) Always use your command center as your first defense line and build your buildings behind it. Put a guard tower and panzerfrausts near your supply center to prevent rush attacks.

4) Make a war factory and a lynx. put one felin and two engineers and grab all tech structures. Make gepards to protect your base early on.

................................................................................

Now here's the most important part :-

5)a) The two most important buildings for the ECA- the SOLAR REACTOR and the R&D COMPOUND have to be protected at all costs. Losing these structures means losing the game.

5) A common mistake most players do including me is constructing both the above buildings very closely making them very vulnerable to rank 5 general point powers.

5)c) Make both the Solar Reactor and the R&D Compound on the two halves of your base. Surround them with Gaurd towers at three points in a triangular fashion. This will make your tech structures immune to attackers. (Still remember boris. In this case use attack dogs)

6) Build up secondary economy. Fill your base with Mortar Pits for long range damage, Howitzers and Guard Towers. Use tank traps to block areas. Use mine layer to litter areas with mines.

7) The Deployment zone should be built near the frontlines to instantly call in reinforcements. Never build it inside your base to reduce travel time.

8) If you want a tank rush, take manticore protocol, if you want to turret push take Pandora protocol and if you want to play hero style take venom protocol.

Hope this helps.

This post has been edited by Dylan: 11 Feb 2014, 19:03