Tutorial #3

[NimrodX]

I can't seem to win this "tutorial" no matter what I do. I thought tutorials were supposed to teach you something, not just say "here you go!" and tell you nothing.

I do know how to unload humvees into urban areas where the riflemen can get heavy cover but that doesn't seem to be good enough and there's some limit on the number of units I can produce. I can't seem to figure out how to tell the little idiots to get back in the humvees though. (Seems like once they unload they never get back in.)

Is it just me or does the UI for this game kind of suck? The way units are split seems to make no sense.

[Didz]

I was complaining about the lack of tutorials, but I had only tried European Expansion and Red Dragon so I didn't realise that for some reason ALB had a tutorial even though RD only has this wall of text thing.

The 'Active Pause' problem is in some respects more important as you need that to slow the pace of the game down so you can think and strategize. Red Dragon has 'bullet time', but I don't think the earlier games have anything.

Anyway, I've tried the tutorial now, but couldn't work out how to rearm my tanks.

On a positve note I survived eight minutes in combat, destroyed what looked like over a dozen enemy tanks and everyone survived. Except the guys in the Forward Operating Base of course.

On a less positive note I don't think I made very good use of cover, in fact I just sat in a field and blazed away at everything that moving, and try as I might I couldn't work out how much amunition my tanks had left. I was kind of aware that I must be using a lot of AT rounds, but in the end the only way I knew I had run out was when everyone stopped firing.

I then managed more by accident that design to reverse out of danger from the four T72's opposite thus avoiding getting any shots in my engines, and the T72's got distracted when they discover the FOB so I was able to withdrawn back to into the woods. That was about it really I seemed to have run out of options at that point. There was no obvious way to rearm and the tutorial wasn't providing any further guidance so I quit the mission.

[Frisko [VL]]

you have supply vehicles, or if you have a base, move them nearby. You'll see a yellow circle, and it will resupply your units.

[Didz]

I knew about supply vehicles because I watched a 'Lets play' that used them. So that was the first thing I looked for, but according to the reinforcement thingie in the top right all I could bring on were more tanks.

I also assumed that the FOB was capable oif resuppling my team although it was green and so not part of my team, which were blue. But I moved my tanks close to it and nothing happened, although it was under attack at the time so perhaps there is some rule that says that resupply can't happen under fire.

I suppose I could have bought more tanks, which would have arrived with ammo. I think by that time I had something like 486 points.

[Frisko [VL]]

Yep, FOB should resupply, but i dont know the rule about being under attack. Its not normal your FOB is under attack anyway :-p. Bad placement, or you let the enemy come too close. You use recon?? There might be an enemy recon unit who has spotted your FOB

[Didz]

There are no supply units available in the production tab.

However, I managed to complete the mission though this time I lost two tanks. The solution seemed to be to push forwards to the crossroads so that the Reds were kept away from the FOB, and then to call in extra tanks to relieve the first troop before they ran out of ammo.

That allowed me to withdraw the first troop to the FOB where they rearmed, and then I could send them back to the crossroads to relieve the covering force. This worked except that the first two relieving tanks got overwhlemed and destroyed by a fresh company of T72's before the first troop could make it back to support them.

So, that was a bit sad but eventually I managed to build up a complete second troop of four tanks (8 in all) and that made it much easier.

After that it was just a case of using standard fire and maneourve tactics to move forward until i spotted the enemy command vehicle and secured victory.

So, thats the first tutorial done, the next one is apparently more difficult. I had a bit of difficulty with unit facing but I think I worked it out in the end. Also I managed to work out how to group units into teams and how to assign control keys to them which was not bad under fire.

[Frisko [VL]]

ah it was in tutorial. Because it concentrates on 1 specific aspect of gameplay, it's possible you were not able to spam supply vehicles

[Didz]

Yeah! I've completed the second tutorial now, which concentrates on reconnaissance and enabled me to practice the movement and deployment of vulnerable recon units.

In this case what looked like an unarmoured unit mounted in jeeps (but once again the unit cards could have provided a bit more informaiton). I lost one during the tutorial which was the result of getting too cocky and trying to move too far forward in a single tactical bound.

However, what I've come to realise through playing these tutorials and even more so by watching 'Lets plays' of other people playing them is that they aren't really teaching the players very much.

What they are basically doing is providing a relatively low risk sandbox in which players can experiment with tactic's and unit behaviour.

For example in the first tutorial the Abram's tanks are so over powered compared to the T72's opposing them that you really don't need to use much tactical skill to win. In fact, some of the lets plays show players simply blasting their way through to victory without using any tactics at all (or even leaving the road in one instance).

Its interesting because at the time there was a lot of debate in real military circles about the relative performance of NATO v Warsaw Pact tanks, and this game seems to go with the optimistic view that NATO tanks would dominate a european tactical battlefield.

But thats a seperate debate and the game designers obviously made the choice to stick with that optimistic view rather than explore the more pessimistic argument that over dependence on technology made NATO weapons vulnerable and less battlefield resilient. Whilst greater numbers and a lower meat to steel ratio meant that the Warsaw Pact units would quickly overwhelm any NATO defences.

To make the best use of these tutorials I found that it was best to ignore the fact that your units are overpowered and to use them as an opportunity to practice tactical deployment and experiment with small unit tactic's.

Unfortunately, in that respect the tutorials are not very helpful as they don't actually teach the player very much at all.

For example: There is no mention of how to group units into tactical fire teams, or how to assign them hot keys for ease of selection.

Had I not been a long standing RTS player I probably would never have thought of trying to group units by CTRL+Left Click or assigning them hot-keys by clicking CTRL+[Num]. I just tried it and it worked which meant I was able to form proper tactical teams for ease of movement and deployment.

But if I had never played games like Command and Conquer I would never have learnt that from playing the tutorial, and in the lets plays you can see that a lot of players are trying to use drag and drop by default which is way too imprecise.

Also, there is no guidance on how to change the formation of your tactical units, and I noticed that a lot of players are simply using the MOVE FAST command to rush units into the middle of fire fights with no thought of line of fire or tactical dispersion and just relying on the units over powered specifications to compensate for their tactical situation.

In fact the only way I discovered to control deployment and tactical facing was to use drag and drop at TU level.

But that isn't the ideal method as once the mouse button is released the unit immediately begins to respond even though at the time you may not have got the positioning right.

So, for instance on one occassion when trying to deploy a tank section along an line of thick hedges I accidently released the mouse button when the ghost unit was facing to the right flank, and the entire unit instantly burst tthrough the hedge into the open field beyond to respond to the change of direction. Which would have been a disaster in a real tactical situation. Presenting the enemy with a perfect side armor target for their AT weapons.

I was trying to find some formation buttons somewhere that would simply get units to deploy properly but apart from split, spread and group I couldn't see anything.

I was also less than happy with some of the unit behaviour that I would have expected to be handled by the AI. So for example tanks didn't seem to behave sensibly when ordered to deploy.

I ordered one unit to move forward and deploy behind a dense hedgerow, partly to reduce their visibility and also because I assummed that the the bank under the hedge line would afford them a small degree of cover (a sort of weak hull down position). But for some reason the AI interpreted this as, move along the road at high speed and burst through the hedge, before turning round and facing the enemy. Even though I had deliberately NOT used the Move Fast command.

So, rather than moving up behind the hedge, hopefully unobserved, and taking up overwatch positions. The unit announced its presence to anyone with an eyeball, and actually destroyed its own cover by driving through it, exposing both its side and rear armor in the process, before taking up position behind a ruined hedge that have made a perfect aiming point for every artillery spotter in the area. Not very clever.

Again there might be a way of avoiding this sort of AI behaviour but without any guidance from the tutorial it would be a case of trial and error to find it.

So, first impressions are a bit Meh!

The game seems fun to play, and visually attractive, but just lacks the polish one would expect from a properly designed RTS. The tutorials aren't really that helpful, and the lack of an active pause means that players are forced to muddle through and rely on superior unit specifications to compensate for lack of tactical refinement.

If I hadn't played a lot of other RTS games I would have been completely lost trying to play the tutorials, and as it was I found myself having to fall back on assumptions based upon the way other games like Totalwar, Command and Conquer and Star Craft worked in order to guess how to do things in ALB.

Anyway Urban Warfare next...which should be interesting as even US soldiers weren't issued with Max suits in 1989. So, in theory they should die if hit by a bullet. Which might level the playing field a bit.

I've already watch one 'Lets play' of this tutorial in which the player simply charged his entire platoon straight down the road into the middle of the enemy base without having them dismount from their humvee's. The good news is I think they all died horribly, which is what one would expect, so +1 for the game on that score. I'll see if I can do a bit better.

[Frisko [VL]]

cool man!
you want to play 1v1? just for fun, i'llexplain gammechanics, and you explain me tactics :-)

[Didz]

As predicted the Urban Warfare tutorial proved to be a lot more challenging.

You start with 4 x battalions of US Infantry (which I think must be a misprint as what you actually get are 4 x platoons of 40 infantry in four humvee's, which must be pretty crampted even so), a FOB and a CV.

The Red Force seem to have access to the full Warsaw Pact deck including T55's and T62's. So not a balanced siutation at all, especially as the Humvee's are completely unarmed.

I discovered after the first attempt that I was allowed to recruit 1 x Abrams Tank, which definately helped but couldn't be everywhere at once, and more worryingly I found out that there is a limit on how many re-supply vehicles you are allowed. I think you get about four but after that your stuffed.

Anyway after an repulsing an initial armored assault on my FOB, I used the lull to get one platton into the village at Bravo supported by my tank., and they successfully drove off the next assault, and I moved a FOP into the town to give me eyes on what was happeing in the direction of Charlie.

That seemed to trigger another major assault on Bravo, during which my infantry ran out of ammo (AT rounds mainly), and I tried to get a supply truck through to rearm them but every attempt triggerred another assault during which the supply truck seemed to be the primary target.

In the end I was forced to buy more infantry platoons just to get a fresh supply of ammo. Whilst every attempt to withdraw units to rearm seemed to trigger another AI attack. The worse was when u tried to withdraw the tank, as that led to another major armoured assault which cleared half the town.

The Abrams was quickly rearmed and supplied and sent hastening back to stop the rot, which was a fatal mistake as it got bounced by a load of T55's at close range in the town and destroyed, after which I had really run out of options. Most of the Humvee's were wrecked, and most of the infantry out of ammo, and I still had two towns to capture.

But with no more Tanks, Artillery or Logistic's in the production menu it really didn't seem prudent to keep pushing against a major armoured force, even though I had nearly 2,000 production points by that time.

So, I quit.

[sierra_one_]

For that tutorial, you have to rush into Bravo straight away and secure the flanks with infantry, and then try to sneak infantry in to kill their CV as fast as possible. It makes no tactical sense, and is incredibly risky, but there's no way of having a decent pitched battle with highly restricted options. Totally agree that the tutorials don't teach much, they're mostly gradually less limited skirmishes.