Steel Division 2 Brings Single Player Strategic map campaign similar to totalwar

Started by Destraex, August 25, 2018, 04:43:33 AM

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Destraex

Quote from: Moreb on February 17, 2019, 11:57:02 PM
Quote from: Destraex on February 17, 2019, 10:41:23 PM
Moreb I am sure plenty of people do not like steel division here. Because it is less of a pedestrian paced game unless you pause a lot.
However if you want a more stand up defensive battle set points to max and closed combat mode. This starts you close to be enemy like you are fully deployed with all of your phase a troops.
I'd be playing battlefront's combat mission but unlike this game I cannot play with multiple friends coop.
There are also stand alone missions that require you to attack or defend I steel division since you played I am betting.
For the record the game does not seem very tower defence in nature to me unless you are playing ai on medium which can spam units. Steel division is a meeting engagement and played in proper frontlines mode requires both players to attack to win. You have to take the ground to be able to defend it and win.

Well I've reinstalled to see if I was hasty on my impressions. I do need something to play in this period that isn't so heavy so maybe I give it another go.

Nice. When you try closer combat mode with max points. Remember that you can deploy your troops unloaded and already out of their vehicles. I think I posted a bunch of tips somewhere.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Destraex

Found them:

Tips for you when playing skirmish vs AI:

a) In skirmish always play conquest not annihilation. So that your aim is to take ground rather than kill the enemy. Set more conquest points if you want the battle to last longer. It can be fun to experiment at the end when you have beaten the enemy enough that they are a little more sparse on the ground. Additionally if you play germans you will get time to bring out those expensive big cats with a long game.

b) Start by putting enemy AI on very easy

c) In phase A for a new player a good starting configuration is to race to the front and put a team of recon, officer infantry and a 6pdr or 57mm AT gun in good firing positions covering most of the field. I usually use 3. Moving them up the main roads using the move fast command.

d) Remember that before you start the battle you can queue up movement commands. Always deploy your units on roads and queue the move fast command to where you want them to end up.

e) Make sure you hold down C to show the distance circle and look at the maximum range of your weapons by selecting the unit and pressing on the guys name in the bottom right. This will bring up his stats page and show you the ranges of various weapons. Remember these are maximum ranges and it is often better to let the enemy close before opening fire.
The distance circle ALSO shows whether a unit can see through cover from the where your cursor is.

f) To let the enemy close press Z on your units. They will hide as indicated by a lightning symbol to indicate they have no power on their unit symbol. When the enemy get too close they will still be seen. When they are seen they may not get the first shot in if they are hiding so be wary of that. This is especially good to do with bazooka teams.

g) Make sure you press U to unload troops if the enemy are firing on them. If the truck gets hit the whole squad dies in a lot of cases.

h) Press the R key or retreat button if your men are pinned (i.e. the red bar is full) and they will retreat for 30 seconds. This is often enough to get them back behind cover. You will have no control of them while they do this.

i) Remember that recon is very very important in this game. You must make sure you have recon in good forward hiding positions relaying enemy movements to your forces. Otherwise they will be firing at you and you will not be able to see them or if you can you will not be able to identify them. Once your scouts are forward and deployed. Press Z to hide them so they do not reveal their position.
Do not worry if they are in enemy territory. Unless they are found they will do fine.

j)Use aircraft bombs especially to suppress the big tank cats the germans have that you cannot kill at range. I have had games where we have had nothing to kill the German Konigstiger with but could suppress it with arty or aircraft all day. Keeping it from engaging and forcing it to retreat constantly.

k) On the unit icons the yellow circled number is the AP power of your main weapon, the lower silver shield number is your frontal armour value. THey are directly related. 8 yellow AP will beat 8 silver shield armour at the weapons maximum range. Additionally for every 100m of closure from max range you gain 1 yellow AP. So a weapon with 800m max range and a default AP of 8 that closed to 700m would have a AP of 9. Thus beating a silver shield of up to 9. Flank when you can as flanks and rear are obviously much less silver shield in value. This can be shown by bringing up the unit diagram.

l) Do not bother trying to destroy enemy aircraft with flak. Only fighters do this effectively. FLAK will only suppress the enemy which is good enough if you can have enough flak to do this before they drop. However enough flak batteries will take down the enemy. Flak combined with fighters is a good combo. Fighters will be able to strafe troops as well. Which is especially useful for pinning AT guns. Half the game is about taking out hidden enemy AT guns.

J) Keep officers near your important units in each sector. Units within the officers circle will be more accurate and have better moral. Which makes the difference often in long range engagements. Keep your officers hidden if you can.

k) Pay special attention to the number of rounds and range your artillery units have as well as the rate of fire. The reload speed for artillery can be a killer. Especially when the first shots are being calculated. By that time the enemy can be gone and your artillery will still fire. Adjusting fire I do not think takes as long but is still not effective at following anything units that are once again stationary.

l) Use your infantry to take and hold ground but keep them in the trees or in cover. Buildings are excellent for this and taking towns with them is great. They are very hard to dislodge from buildings. But retreat them from outer buildings of a town if their are enemy heavy units approaching. Let them fight house to house from the inner buildings rather than getting hit for no reply in the outer buildings. Use your scouts to find weak points in the enemy line and push into them with infantry if they are only lightly defended. This can be an easy way to take ground. Which is the aim of this game... not to sit back and take out enemy units. (unless you play annihilation which I think is pointless).

j) Open topped vehicles can be easy targets for aircraft if you are lucky. Marders are very effective AT weapons but very weak from the top.

k) With regard to aircraft. If you notice the enemy bring on fighters or think the flak is too heavy. Press the retreat button on them rather than lose them. I actually set the game to "do not auto retreat after dropping bombs", so I can have the aircraft hang around and I can use their machine guns to strafe after the bombing run.
Also just before retreating its a good idea to tell the arcraft to swing the way you want to retreat. Because otherwise they can turn towards rather than away from the enemy to turn around and retreat.

l) When using fighters they will attack nearby enemy if you leave them circling on the field.

m) If you see one of your tanks listed as abandoned. You can resupply the crew with a supply truck.

n) Always watch for out of ammo symbols on your units. This may just mean an MG is low on ammo rather than the main gun, it may mean a weapon is just out of HE and therefore will no longer fire on infantry. It may mean an infantry unit is out of AT rocket ammo and
can no longer stave off enemy armour. OR it could mean that a unit has been ammo racked, is strangely alive BUT has literally no ammo for any weapons. Of course it could also mean a unit has simply run out of ammo.

o) After units reach the front, I think it is better to then us the Q command to move. Which is basically a movement command that insists on units stopping and firing upon contact. If you do not want the unit to stop, for instance if it is moving between cover, just use a normal move command. Then of course move fast command just uses roads.

p) SPACE bar will take you to the location of the last message. But I do not use it as it is disorientating.

q) There is a command to stop your unit from AUTO HIDING. I sometimes use it to stop AT guns moving to silly positions so I can manually place them properly.

r) When you unload infantry. watch as they enter cover like trees, buildings or vinyards etc. They will gain different coloured shields which indicate what kind of cover they are in. Learn which cover is best or if something you think of as cover is doing anything at all.

s) Remember that infantry carried in vehicles with NO weapons will dissappear as soon as you unload the troops. This is a big change from previous games and confuses some people. Weaponised vehicles like half tracks stay and you can reload your men onto them. This is especially a big trap for placing AT guns. Because you unload your AT gun to find your position is no good and you have no vehicle to hook back up to to move again. Thus having to push the gun slowly to where you want to go.

t) Remember that weapon ranges in this game are maximum effective range. The men will only open fire to those max effecive ranges. However they may not match exactly to maximum real physically possible ranges in real life. For instance rifle ranges will often only be 300m for something like a garand. This is the effective range of the average soldier but some may say it should be longer. Some tanks can fire 1200m and the usual in this game is max effective of 1000m. Same for AT guns and infantry support guns. So be wary that you may find a wolverine shooting at your mkIV from a little further than you can hit him at. This comes down to playing the game from both sides and knowing what each unit can do.
Often the MG in the unit has the longest range. So be wary as I mentioned above that if you open up at max range it will likely just be your squad automatic weapon firing. Bren, BAR or some such. I think I will try with allied units to let them close because I realised writing this that the allies advantage relies on all soldiers firing. Where the german infantry units often carry one or more of the very effective mg34 or 42 guns.

u) Most maps are flat. It's normandy after all. But some have elevation. Elevation in borked in this game. Their is no way of telling how far your guns can depress or raise to fire up hills and the hills are the same wierd all or nothing sharp inclines wargame do. I do not think they have really developed hill mechanics properly. I don't think their is a fatigue factor. In fact infantry never get tired in this game. But then they are so slow anyways. There is also no fuel limit in this game like their was in previous wargame games. They simplified the resupply mechanic to ammunition and basic field repairs only. If you have a track blown a supply truck can fix it. Same with ammo.

v) Some AT guns especially in phase A DO NOT have HE capability. So will NOT fire at infantry. Just be aware that if they are not firing it may be because of this. Often AT guns that do have HE will only have a limited supply. Some German divisions especially though are flush with infantry guns. Which are excellent with HE. Although they do not seem to be able to fire except in direct fire roles.

w) Mortars in this game are very close range. Therefore they almost have to be on top of the enemy to fire. 1200 or 1600m for instance is normal for the max range of mortars in this game. It's only of the unrealistic things in the game I do not like. but it does give the feel that you have close indirect fire support. Remember that a BAR in this game is 400m range and a .30 cal is 600m where a .50 will fire 800m. A squad mg42 is only 400m as well. But a tripod one is 800m. So I guess mortars will outrange most small arms.

x) Remember paratroopers will not surrender just because they are surrounded where other troops that are will surrender under a little pressure if you get close enough to them. If you get surrounded you can fight your way out, but be careful of the enemy getting too close to you.

y) With each shot taken against the enemy the next will be more accurate. This is a game mechanic that simulates learning the fall of shot and adjusting. So be aware if the enemy has been firing at you for some time he is bound to land a shot soon, not only that but a critical one if he is already hitting you will be more likely over time. The more gold stars your crew has the more accurate and the better moral they will have. I think though if you move your tanks position or tell them to fire at something else you have to start this process again.

z) You must stop you tanks to fire. It's ww2 and a lot of units will either not fire well or not fire on the move at all. Well maybe not at all?

a1) NOTE that units under stress (the red bar) do not fire as well. The more stressed the more likely they are to miss. This is why it is good to move stressed units. It is good to stress incoming aircraft with AA for this reason. You may not force a retreat or kill the AC but you may make it miss.

a2) Some shock units have a high proportion of SMG weapons and almost no longer ranged weapons. There is no point putting them in long range defensive positions. I sometimes do this by mistake and wonder why they are not firing. But close in they just win right away really.

a3) The allies vehicles have a tonne of MGs they can use for AA purposes. The germans have comparatively few organically. Thus the germans always need at least a little AAA. The allies organic AA while not good at least will not let a german aircraft loiter at will.

I hope this helps.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Moreb

Appreciate the tips. I'm going to give it a try and base it on the genre it falls into. I think the thing that really put me off was the phases. It just seems weird that pieces are not used unless the game lasts long enough.
When dongles fly? - mirth

Destraex

Consider it like a civil war meeting engagement where it took hours to get the whole army on the field. Also consider how attacks were often organised by armies into phases anyways or waves. In addition recon and lighter units would often be out front. I am reading about bagration atm and about an opening attack that's. Was arty first to a 6km depth, the. Assault infantry with subs, then kv1s and is2 tanks followed by t34 minerollers followed by t34 flame tanks followed by the first attacks from the actual rifle divisions in the assault. The Russians have separated the waves no doubt so they do not have traffic jams and are not tripping over each other. In normal front lines recon and light units would probe first I reckon.
In some running battles like battle of the bulge did it not sometimes take hours to get the main elements into battle?
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Destraex

 Steel Division 2 adds "commanders" on the field that will be higher than leaders in steel division 1. In steel division 2 you use leaders as per sd1 but add a commander unit that then uses a leaders connected by chain mechanic to give even greater veterancy. Break the leader chain and you lose the commander bonus. I like the idea but the micro sounds crazy hectic. So sd2 basically has command posts now. Who knows what other bonuses commanders give. But I'd like to think divisional off map artillery and such to those leaders who are linked with him\her\it.
BTW Devs answered my question on German AT weapons used by the soviets rarity in SD2 decks.

"The Soviets did use German equipment under two conditions:
* they hadn't something similar themselves or through lend-lease.
* they had captured it in large numbers to have enough spare parts or ammos.

Based on this, the Soviets salvaged and used a lot of:
* Panzer III (as T-3), they even built a version of SU-76 on it.
* half-tracks (250 or 251)
* Panzerschreck
* Panzerfaust

Regarding the latter, there was even a standing order in the Soviet army to deliver any captured Panzerfaust to special engineer units which used them "en masse". They even had a name for those troops: Faustniki.

Ingame, you'll find Panzerschreck in some Guards units (ehence the "Gv." before the name), one division has a few T-3 & half-tracks, and Faustninki are a dedicated unit."

https://steamcommunity.com/games/919640/announcements/detail/1800782940955149447
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

HoodedHorseJoe

Just caught up on the recent dev diary myself, noticed someone in the comments mention there could be a potential danger in offering a +2 level bonus in a game that only offers three experience levels to begin with.

Would definitely influence division builds in online MP, a why would you go above level 1 when you can manage leaders and commanders to get everyone to 3 without much effort? Will be a fun mechanic in single-player and co-op, but I wonder how it will impact the PvP environment.
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Destraex

I still don't believe that, like in the current game, you can cover much ground with squad leaders that may be connected to the commander anyways. In other words, to concentrate units so heavily near a commander to get ceterancy bonuses is to expose them to artillery and aircraFt and also leave the front bare where you have no squad leaders. It's also going to be a lot of work keeping your blobbed units together. If you attack like you are supposed to you will probably outrun your commanders anyways. Defensively though we will see.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Destraex

Finally some gameplay footage. Release and BETA dates too
Beta Start Date: March 27th ✅
New Release Date: May 2nd ✅
Gameplay Video: Just below ✅
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Pete Dero

Beta keys are released ...

The Steel Division 2 Beta starts Tomorrow at 3PM CET! Check out this link [ https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Steel+Division+2+Beta+-+Phase+1&iso=20190327T15&p1=195 ] for the exact time in your time zone. Players who have pre-ordered the game can now preload the beta and get ready to fight!

https://steamcommunity.com/games/919640/announcements/detail/1812043205767546383

sandman2575

It sounds like this Beta is only playable for a few days?  Then they'll open another Beta 'session' in a couple of weeks?  Hmmm...   ???

Game looks fantastic nonetheless. Though not sure I want to pre-order just to be able to play in random, limited intervals between now and the release...


Destraex

This will be a beta in the real sense of the word I think and is he same format they followed for steel division 1.
So if you just want to play with no issues I would probably stay away. If you want to help or are just mad keen like myself. Then the 48hr time window is worth it.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Destraex

Loved the beta. Looking forward to the next one. Problem is people aren't complaining about somebody of the changes that I think make it much better. Sd2 will Ben much more like wargame with a lot of old feature brought back and new ones added.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Jarhead0331

I enjoyed it too, but thought it was a very stupid decision to end the first phase on Friday...you know, before the weekend.  :idiot2:
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SirAndrewD

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on April 01, 2019, 09:32:56 AM
I enjoyed it too, but thought it was a very stupid decision to end the first phase on Friday...you know, before the weekend.  :idiot2:

Yeah, that was kinda weird.  I actually missed playing it almost entirely because of that.  I wasn't paying attention and was going to dig into it over the weekend.
"These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable. Last week was my birthday. Nobody even said "happy birthday" to me. Someday this tape will be played and then they'll feel sorry."  - Sgt. Pinback

Destraex

Yeah I agree. I had a couple of mates who missed it or even who did not read and were annoyed they could not just come back and play it 56hrs later. But to eugen this really is a beta and not a pr excersize it seems. They are focused on polishing and debugging rather than the customer at this stage.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"