Can someone give me advice on how to use different unit types?

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Every unit type I try, I have very poor effectiveness with it.

Attack with infantry? Cut down by tanks
Defend with infantry? Blown up by MLRS
Attack with tanks? Destroyed by ATGM's
Defend with tanks? Blown up by MRLS
Attack with helicopters? Shot down by AA
Defend with helicopters? Shot down by infantry at close range

And so on and so forth. How do I allow my units to actually kill enemies rather than uselessly die?

[Urk_da_WAAAGH!]

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

Attack with infantry? Cut down by tanks
Defend with infantry? Blown up by MLRS
Attack with tanks? Destroyed by ATGM's
Defend with tanks? Blown up by MRLS
Attack with helicopters? Shot down by AA
Defend with helicopters? Shot down by infantry at close range

Defended with tanks? Use ATGMs
Blown up by MLRS? Use Counter Battery
Destroyed by ATGMs? Use smoke
Blown up by MLRS again? Counter Battery again
AA shot down your birds? SEAD or Artillery
Infantry closing range on your helicopters? Order them to go back and mainatin distance

The trick is to use all of it at the same time better than your opponet is doing it against you

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Urk_da_WAAAGH!:

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

Attack with infantry? Cut down by tanks
Defend with infantry? Blown up by MLRS
Attack with tanks? Destroyed by ATGM's
Defend with tanks? Blown up by MRLS
Attack with helicopters? Shot down by AA
Defend with helicopters? Shot down by infantry at close range

Defended with tanks? Use ATGMs
Blown up by MLRS? Use Counter Battery
Destroyed by ATGMs? Use smoke
Blown up by MLRS again? Counter Battery again
AA shot down your birds? SEAD or Artillery
Infantry closing range on your helicopters? Order them to go back and mainatin distance

The trick is to use all of it at the same time better than your opponet is doing it against you

I tried using artillery to perform counter-battery and counter-AA, but it never seems to have any effect. Not every NATO deck gets MLRS, and those are the only artillery that seem to do anything.

[Sturmtruppe]

Your success depends entirely on your ability to efficiently micro manage combined arms while using that efficiency to outperform your opponent.

Key phrase; "micro manage"

[Big Boss]

I'd recommend watching youtube videos of good players, you can learn alot of tips and tricks from them. Also you can take note of how ridiculously fast the really good players play the game

I also like to rewatch my replay videos of my games, its a good way to take some time and see what happened during the match and learn where you need to improve.

Like everyone is saying above this is an efficiency game at heart, that means you have to constantly be looking out for where you can tighten your gameplay up and improve your efficiency.

[Kampfkekskrieger EXP Folk Master]

read frederick the great prussia king;) (frederic le grand)
thats now my advice. germany has waaay better knowledge than game industry.
why is that?
because game industry scatter all the different branches and loose the all-in-complete head behind the purpose of their doing: the original king task from which everything derives.

once scattered into the different branches: if you read them one by one, the synergy never comes up. you can feed one topic after the other and get beaten one by one each, even if you would master them all, but not combine.

infantry is the first thing you need. you must scatter everywhere, for every purpose it must be ready at hand. every important forest or fortification MUST! be occupied by infantry. also when the terrain is unstable, has mountains or cut vision of any kind.

you differ main forces, and different types of infantry for patrol and scouting purposes, and also to avoid cirvumvations. before those happen, your approaches must retreat and you must get informed about that AHEAD of happening, and light units are being your ears and eyes for that.

when the main purpose is to have a watch: a cheap scout is sufficient. but when its the main defense line, scouting is not easy. you must evade the opponent position, get flanks and so on, but those must be connected with the main forces or u must retreat when this is not possible.

if you attack with infantry, this is usually because to storm forests or fortification. smoke is vital, artillery and support, either. let support vehicles or artillery or air support pin down the opponent, before you go in with infantry.

---
frederick the great has good experience with artillery (which isnt too different on modern warfare) because it is a DOMINANT weapon and it was common to waste them not only in theory, but in actual history it was meant to spam. received it? more guns means win, less guns means loss.

when movements are going on, artillerey is bad, when stagnation comes up, artillery is your choice.

attacking with tanks CAN work actually, because i DO have seen impressive pushes into forests and even urban environments, but it all depends on support, if you can save their flanks (very important)e.g. with "bodyguard" infantry, and only move forward or backward, dont turn it in a battles. tanks can ONLY perform ONE target after the other. that takes time. in this time the escalation happens and reinforcements you can calculate they are going to move up.

when its just a single atgm infantry, you can just rush them. when there is fortification, use smoke.
when surprise attacks are not possible, just make them show up shoot once, go back, get anti air units by.

using helicopters and planes ALONG is a good idea, but that requires so much micro, and the controls are not good for this yet. in theory, there are options to survive ALOT of trouble.
but when you must control that ape game with a boxer glove and try to micro a complete frontline with clunky one by one, because group oders create a lot of overhead you dont intend to command; that was one of my biggest grains in the past to touch the game anymore.

---
but it does not suffice to know the counter units to counter a good player.
Also dedicated one by one-knowledge does not suffice. before you get lost into the lies of the game industry, handing out only common but not actual vital warfare information (also very dependend on culture or religion of the authors)...

and as you are going to play RTS games like this for YEARS, get out the laziness and read a good field manual from a famous person.

---
Frederick has NOT frauded even a single person in his whole life, was king and marshal and covered all sorts of professions HIMSELF and in a SINGLE head, that moves everything smooth as a single body, and has the best commonwealth moral and is a honorful man.

when reading him, you will notice, he is faar more advanced (300 years ago) than eugen systems and the complete game industry even NOW. AND he is HONEST. he doesnt trick the reader... only few people did tell the truth when writing history down remember.

good night general

[Bananaman of Azkaban]

Typically I utilize the battle groups the minimize the micro i need to do for combined arms assaults. If every unit has a weakness, you need to bring another unit to cover that weakness.

Youre going to want to start building up a force that consists of ATGM's and recon on your frontline with inf and tank rear support. AA and mortars should be behind them with arty in the rear. Any SpecOps units or flanking units are personal preference. Once you have enough units overflowing your area, you are ready to push.

Micro SEADs parallel to your frontline (within your AA zone preferably) so it doesnt suicide to detect any radar. I will use arty to soften up any AA. While their AA is being suppressed ill begin a heli/bomber/mortar/arty assault (EW helis and planes are good for soaking up initial AA fire) on their frontline to take care of any atgms inf recon or tanks. Using Smoke arty on their frontline is a good way to push as well.

Once their AA is suppressed and ATGM's/RECON units suppressed and smoked, use your more expendable IFV's and tanks to cover ground fast and take the enemy position. Maneuvers are key here as enemy artillery is bound to hit their lost position (you should already have counter-fire arty ready), so pushing them back and spreading out will lower potential losses.

After the initial assault you want to move your main force and AA units to start pushing the enemy back. Keep your helis and atgm inf and tanks rotating attacks and resupplying while using your arty/mortars to suppress the enemy and smokes for cover to have the best chance of killing and surviving. Recon units should watch for any flanking units.

Hope that helps put into perspective how complex combined arms attacks can play out and they are very heavily dependent on the maps and enemies and units available. Viewing LOS for units will help you find a good hiding spot as well. Sometimes an ambush is better than firing at the enemy at the maximum range .

TLDR: Your post lists single units and their weakness. There is no way around that other than bringing units that compliment each others weaknesses and do more recon.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

How do Battlegroups work? I experimented with them, but it seems to just call in units as a group, not simplify micro.

[Bananaman of Azkaban]

So any units you want to keep together, Scout heli, Manpads, ATGM, or maybe IFV INF, Tanks and Recon IFV. It helps you bring in a unit you want and the units they require to operate safely. Instead of ordering/selecting them all seperately. It saves a lot of time and lets you command more units at a time so there is a macro command then you can select that group and issue micro commands by clicking on the individual unit cards in that group

[Urk_da_WAAAGH!]

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

How do Battlegroups work? I experimented with them, but it seems to just call in units as a group, not simplify micro.

Well, going forward I think it is important to ask, you are mainly talking about PvE or PvP?

Because on PvP you really need to have at least equiparable apm to your adversary.

On PvE not so much, as long as you know how to use correctly the units you can do well even with lower apm, me for example rarely get a lot over 10 apm on a match

[Sneaky_Beaky]

Think about how a clock works. Each gear is dependent on the gears surrounding it. So too is combined arms maneuver warfare in the missile age. Infantry need tanks and AA to protect them from enemy armor and aircraft. Yet, tanks and AA have threats of their own, which need to be mitigated. So, you wanna reach a state of equilibrium, where all your assets are working for each other and protecting each other from their respective counters. Like an upgraded version of "rocks paper scissors" with more choices.

Also, I suggest changing your icon style. In the options tab, go to "Do not aggregate (show name only)" and "show name." This changes the bubbles into static name tags that don't connect to each other, eg, [M1A1] [Su-25(HE)].

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Urk_da_WAAAGH!:

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

How do Battlegroups work? I experimented with them, but it seems to just call in units as a group, not simplify micro.

Well, going forward I think it is important to ask, you are mainly talking about PvE or PvP?

Because on PvP you really need to have at least equiparable apm to your adversary.

On PvE not so much, as long as you know how to use correctly the units you can do well even with lower apm, me for example rarely get a lot over 10 apm on a match

I've pretty much exclusively been playing 10v10 PvP. Would playing the singleplayer teach me better micro and unit composition?

[Urk_da_WAAAGH!]

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

Originally posted by Urk_da_WAAAGH!:

Well, going forward I think it is important to ask, you are mainly talking about PvE or PvP?

Because on PvP you really need to have at least equiparable apm to your adversary.

On PvE not so much, as long as you know how to use correctly the units you can do well even with lower apm, me for example rarely get a lot over 10 apm on a match

I've pretty much exclusively been playing 10v10 PvP. Would playing the singleplayer teach me better micro and unit composition?

Better micro is more experience than anything, the more you play the better is your micro, but to learn proper composition PvE is good enough.

Also, the fact you are playing 10v10 should be mentioned from the start, on that mode the sheer chaos can leave you with some unusual situations like attacking or defending against two or more players at the same time, what is impossible on 1v1 and less feasible on 2v2, 3v3, 4v4. On that case there's really very few you can do, having enough luck to find better teams or exceptionally bad adversaries has about as much impact as you improving your personal skill on microing your units.

[Sneaky_Beaky]

Originally posted by Urk_da_WAAAGH!:

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

I've pretty much exclusively been playing 10v10 PvP. Would playing the singleplayer teach me better micro and unit composition?

Better micro is more experience than anything, the more you play the better is your micro, but to learn proper composition PvE is good enough.

Also, the fact you are playing 10v10 should be mentioned from the start, on that mode the sheer chaos can leave you with some unusual situations like attacking or defending against two or more players at the same time, what is impossible on 1v1 and less feasible on 2v2, 3v3, 4v4. On that case there's really very few you can do, having enough luck to find better teams or exceptionally bad adversaries has about as much impact as you improving your personal skill on microing your units.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKpGddmArs

[Korpse]

I recommend NOT watching youtube videos. They are mostly high-level players and I think its counter productive to emulate high-level play in any RTS without forming your own style and skillset first.
Instead, go to multiplayer and spectate a few 10v10 matches from start to finish. Find whichever player is using your preferred Division, then follow his every move.
If he does well then make note of the different tactics he used to overcome the enemy. You'll also notice other people using your preferred Division get wreaked too. its not just you.

[[6thAL.I] Pfc Emperror steve]

really you need vehicles with atgms and tank hunters with tanks with aa support aswell as recon for any type of defence or attack preferably in a defence in a sort of spread out fashion in a way where everything can support eachother
when it comes to enemy artillery always look to counterbattery ussually i have half of mine doing that while the other half on attack anything
idea in both is combined arms
look at terrian is always good too