Dynamic Campaign Defending is hard af

[Sgt G 294]

I'm playing this on easy with the smallest campaign possible and I get destroyed on my first defense mission, which then sets you up to fail the rest of the campaign. The enemy just keeps coming non-stop and the AI is dumb so your dudes no doubt eventually die from just being outnumbered. I know the devs say the enemy does have limited numbers, but I don't believe that and neither do you guys. Do you have any tips for Dynamic Campaign?

[Sgt G 294]

Wow!! Awesome guide, thanks man

[Graf Erik]

Oh, the ai has limited resources. I guarantee it. 100%

You see, I play these battles until they are all done. There is no fun in winning because I have 1000 points, but thats just by preference.

If you want to can go to Documents\My Games\gates of hell\log\game.log and see which units the ai bought, how much they paid, and how much they have left.
Just search for "dbg: spawned"and you'll see all these entries that look like this:
[01:19:20] dbg: spawned squad_border(rus) with cost 36. budget 3617.49->3581.49. totalAdd: 11939.8, totalSpent: 8856

(and yes, ai budget scales with your own MP, factor depends on difficulty)

The issue with enemy manpower in early conquest is simply:
-They can only recruit mostly infantry due to tec level
and
-Infantry is dirt cheap

And therefore the ai can recuit seemingly(!) endless amounts of infantry and when you run out of ammo, they'll overrun you.

I have over 500 hours in that game, and I consider the first defensive battle in a new dynamic campaign the hardest.

Plenty of good advise has been posted, I'll just add two very simply things (I hope noone else mentioned it)

a) You don't have to defend all objectives. You have to defend exactly one objective.
b) If you just deploy a single man and he dies, you'll lose the battle but just a single man.
Live to fight another day

[Izalith]

You are most likely setting up in terrible positions, and not bringing enough ammunition.

First and foremost you want an Officer, or a Spotlight. Use the binoculars / Light to actively search for incoming mortars, tanks, MGs, or AT cannons. Keep a few men off to the side with grenades, hidden, on do not fire for stealth missions to QUICKLY clear out those high value units. A single AT cannon can screw your entire mission.

Put units not just in cover, but behind it. If there is a hill, shelter them so units can't just bombard you from range. Force them to turn corners to get to you, or walk over hills, or into ditches etc. Do not make it easy for them to spot you once you are firing, especially in open field maps. If you can shoot them, they can shoot you.

If you haven't gotten an ammo truck, you'll need at least 2 Ammo boxes, and don't just place them near your units. Every time a unit fires, the box will replace their ammo, at full cost. IE 1 bullet costs 1 point, or a full clip costs 1 point. You waste tons of ammo by just letting your units attack while sitting near an ammo box. Tuck it nearby in cover, and rotate units to reload as needed, or when you get a lul in the action.

Spread your units out around a SINGLE point. Early on, you don't have enough troops to properly deal with pushes in multiple areas. While you can send a squad or two (or vehicle) to defend a point, to buy time while you dig in, pick the most defensible point, and start setting up there. You get points for killing the AI, you don't need to hold all the points to win. Just a single one.

Early on playing on Hardcore I like to take 1 Officer, 2 Sicherungs, 1 Medic, 1 Engineer, 2 Ammo boxes, and 2 AT. Capture any equipment you can in the first assault (Don't end the mission right away, play it out to collect more gear) and either sell or utilise it on the defence.

A Single MG might not seem like much, but it can help you rapidly mow down infantry in choke points. Likewise the Troop trucks with the .50 cals, or a tank with an MG turret can help tons.

The AI does in fact run out of manpower, and it's not hard to do such to them, so long as you are killing things QUICKLY. Getting into long, drawn out firefights at range, just means the AI is going to call in more reinforcements, to either Overwhelm you, or outshoot you.

If you are positioning as mentioned (Corners, ditches, behind hills) then the enemy will only see you for 2-3 seconds while your guys cheapshot and blast em the second you see them.

If they are dead, they can't spot you. If they can't spot you, all the Tanks, MGs, AT cannons push forward to much closer positions, where it's easier to flank, kill and capture their equipment to then turn on them.

If they are alive in long range fire fights, it's only a matter of time until they roll up MGs, or a Mortar, or Infantry gun (early artillery) and start blasting, causing you to rage quit. So do your best to kill them as fast as possible in ambush locations.

Later on, you'll have resources to just sit back and blast away, but early in, it's very important to adhere to the above rules. Not every map will allow this, and in some missions, you may be forced to retreat. Taking a loss is not the end, and I find having comebacks to be more fun.

[Andy Mil]

I have problem with dumb ai. I using F5 for inf but they literally running to enemy and face each other to the point they shot all my guy first to dead. my Panzer 2 L also too. They not shooting enemy literally infront of them til AT nade throwing range. I literally using my cap zone as bait now instead of defending cuz they wont attack enemy unless I saying so. Sooo I keep everyone group up together

My anti tank gun too. They never load HE even enemy dont give them single care and run pass them
and AI aim...I told them to shoot hull but they shot turrent literally fire over head enemy
my tank also keep changing mind bout engaging enemy squad at front. They keep wanna shoot other enemy that my flank protecting squad are engaging on and literally out of that tank engagement range
even medium tank...if I not told them to shoot that jeep they not even know there jeep infront of them..and they only stare...til I press E for manual aim...it soo annnoying
and some of the map not telling where enemy is attack and I gotto defend wrong side then there also my tank refuse to shoot enemy... urgh
Men of war AS 2 is better than this AI URGH

[Sgt G 294]

I am happy to report I took the advice listed here and won a couple defensive matches. I know winning some easy maps aren't much of a feat but it is certainly teaching me the mechanics better and sparked more enjoyment from the game, rather than rage quitting for one final time and running back to Graviteam lol

[Saxhorn]

Playing Skirmish matches against the AI can help you learn the game without the "pressure' of losing units in the permanent campaign.

"Early war" units are the same as the units you'll see in the early Conquest matches.

The maps though are changed. Some are totally different but a few will be familiar. Glushkovo for example. That's the map for the first two missions in the German Campaign so you'll probably recognise it.

It helps you learn the maps. Terrain, roads, good buildings to setup a medic station or ammo box, dead zones etc.

It's also worth running a USSR Conquest so you understand the units you fight against. The BT-2 DA and the T-37 have very poor fields of view and once you know what they can see and where they can't it's easier to deal with them.

[Saxhorn]

Izalith

I also play hardcore.
I spend the 5 RP to research the rifle squad, the 75mm infantry gun and the officer.

So my initial army is

Call in stage 2
2 rifle squads
75mm infantry gun
ammo box

Call in stage 1
medics
tank crew

This uses every single MP of the 800 you get to spend.
The army strength is 486.

The goal here is to get as many of the infantry up to 3 or 4 star vetearncy ASAP otherwise they just die so fast later on :(

Pull the crew off the field gun and put some of the infantry squad on it. Nowhere near as accurate but it's early on so you can sit it back and let it bang away from a safe range.

Do you play with Fog of War on or off and what do you spend the other 2 RP on?

Sorry to OP as this is a bit off the original topic :)

[Saxhorn]

Mil

The AT gun needs to be manually loaded with HE for it to fire at soft targets like infantry.
It won't automatically switch to HE. (There are mods that do this though)

This was a deliberate game design change (the devs actually changed this in a patch) to stop them from shooting at infantry and giving away their position when you just want the AT gun to hide and ambush armour only.

That 75mm field gun I choose in my army will auto load HEAT to attack armour but then won't change back to HE when the armour is knocked out so it sits idle and watches as the world burns down around it (Insert sad panda face here).

[Izalith]

Originally posted by Saxhorn:

Izalith

I also play hardcore.
I spend the 5 RP to research the rifle squad, the 75mm infantry gun and the officer.

So my initial army is

Call in stage 2
2 rifle squads
75mm infantry gun
ammo box

Call in stage 1
medics
tank crew

This uses every single MP of the 800 you get to spend.
The army strength is 486.

The goal here is to get as many of the infantry up to 3 or 4 star vetearncy ASAP otherwise they just die so fast later on :(

Pull the crew off the field gun and put some of the infantry squad on it. Nowhere near as accurate but it's early on so you can sit it back and let it bang away from a safe range.

Do you play with Fog of War on or off and what do you spend the other 2 RP on?

Sorry to OP as this is a bit off the original topic :)

I always take the Officer and Stage 2 Army for every start.

From there it depends on how I want to approach, and I have a couple starts.

Officer, 2 Sicherung, 1 Medic, 1 Engineer, 2 AT, 1/2 Ammo boxes (can't recall what you can exactly afford on hardcore right now, been a few weeks).

Officer, 1 Medic, Sd.Kfz 250/11, Ammo Trailer, 1 Engineer and Sicherung (if you can afford any)

Officer, 2 Pioneers, 1 Engineer, 1 Ammo box, 1 Medic.

Officer, 2 Sicherung, 1 Medic, Ammo Truck and Pak 36.

My goal isn't so much to level up my Sicherung, as even leveled they die pretty easily, but to capture equipment. I often set up in ambush locations and try to disable vehicles, which is why I take AT Rifles over the Pak Cannons, as they tend to just outright blow up or kill the vehicles.

Once I have a vehicle or long range weapon (unless the map allows for sneaking up on a point) I will assault a position, take out the MGs, put the extra ammo into my Ammo boxes/truck, and just dig in, until the 30-45 minute mark to kill as many enemies as I can and get more equipment.

I generally sell all the Russian equipment, but if the map is very poor, I will keep a tank or two. I use most of my research points early on to get Defence 1, and Engineer trucks. Sometimes the Panzernests (they are near invincible early on) or Flak Halftracks, as they serve as very good AT / Anti infantry weapons early if positioned safely behind cover.

I don't do much Tank research, as I find that makes it too easy, so I hold off on those until 3-5th attack mission, and just enjoy the early war halftracks and infantry, but once the Kv-1s start showing up I'll start going deep into Panzer research (and keep a flamethrower or 2 on standby until the tanks are ready).

[Saxhorn]

Use APCR if you want to capture the tank.
The APHE rounds will "blow up" inside and that's not a good way to capture it.

APCR will mostly just kill the crew. You can however be unlucky and totally write off the target with an ammo explosion or engine fire but the chance appears to be a lot less.

APCR seems to "bounce" a lot more and is near useless at longer ranges. Falloff seems to be really bad for that round in this game.

I usually hit the tank in the turret with an APHE round to take out he turret crew an hopefully diasable the turret (fingers crossed no big booms) then let the tank driver move closer. Once the tank is "close enough" I shoot APCR at the hull where I think the driver is.

I agree the AA units (particularly the German 37mm) really do shine brightly early on.

[Captain Eierstock]

after some month i started again to play this game and yes its now hard af. Back in the days it was pretty ez to defense

[Rancorusia]

Originally posted by Sgt G 294:

My guys are getting killed with AT/Infantry guns, mortars, tanks, and eventually other infantry when they start to run out of ammo from wave after wave of enemies. I usually have enough points to put 1 infantry squad, ammo box, and either an AT gun/tank/artillery per defensive point. This is literally the 1st defensive mission in the campaign too. My battles are about 30 minutes before I lose, because they eventually capture one point and the points slow down

I know this is an older thread, but its easy to miss that at the very top of the research tree, call-in-sage 2 is a free upgrade, which gives you more than double points you can bring it, its a game changer for the early missions

[HandOfDoom]

It seems hard at start but it gets easier.
Get AT mines early and mine main routes leading to points.
Usually you have sandbags facing direction where enemy will attack. Also Engineers to build Hedgerows to block is important. U can play it in COOP too