Steel Division 1944 (by wargame red dragon devs) in game trailer and unit stream

[Destraex]

Yeah, the AI steps up is significantly at the medium setting.

[MengJiao]

Good feedback guys.

   The "realism" can be surprising.  I was skirmishing with the 2ieme Blindee through the Bois de Limors when I heard some of the armored infantry speaking Spanish -- Which is as it should be since one of the battalions in that division was a Spanish battalion.

[Destraex]

You also hear what sounds like Italian for the German Italian units.

I played a multiplayer game with random humans last night. Was a lot of fun. However I was responsible for holding a large swath of the map on the far side while one of the three players on our side was only allocated a narrow frontage so he could push effectively. I held for the first phase fairly well. But when those german big cats came on the field my division just had nothing that could respond effectively. The opposing player must have been building up to phase B\C by saving his points. We won in the end. But I needed significant help from the middle player when my front started falling mid B phase.

[acctingman]

Hey folks

I'm going to start playing this game (for basically the first time). I've watched Quill's Let's play videos, but I'm hear to ask for any tips/tricks/advice from the professionals here  :bd:

Thanks

[Destraex]

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.

[acctingman]

WOW

Destraex.....seriously, thank you!

[Destraex]

no problem. :)
I forgot to mention you need turtle wax for your tanks and cups of tea if you play the British.

[JasonPratt]

As an alternate to one point of Des' list: play annihilation on skirmish instead of conquest. But, make sure your deck is prepared to set up and defend killing fields on the map.

The enemy will gain some extra income by pushing down beyond the halfway point, but you'll be killing him from prepared positions and forcing him to spend his cards and income recovering from this; whereas on the other hand if your units die, you'll be able to reinforce your positions more quickly than he can bring back force against you.

Relatedly, good defensive squads and vehicles are more cost-effective than assaulters, and yet assaulters often make fine defenders, too (especially if you have scouts helping spot for them). So you can pump out more defenders more quickly to start with, and then stiffen your line with any assault units in your deck.

As the computer runs out of options, you can start creating task forces to advance upward to cut off and bottle in his lines of reinforcement.

Against a human player on annihilation, things get more complex of course.

[Destraex]

The thing I don't like about annihilation mode is that the AI can run out of units with you just sitting back with enough ammo trucks to kill them. Kinda defeats the point of SD1 in general with it's front line system.

[JasonPratt]

Of course! -- but for a beginner, that's good practice.  O0

[Destraex]

I am interested though to see how you go accting man

[acctingman]

Well, it will be a week or so before I start. I have a couple platoons of Sherman's that need painting before I can jump into anything else!  :bd:

[Destraex]

Just spray them green. Five minutes done. Then move on to pre painted steel division Sherman's. American 3rd division is a great division for starters. Well balanced and has the best allies tsnks in the game for armour protection. The Sherman jumbo. Which in this game at least can stand up against German heavy armour  and at guns at long ranges.

[jamus34]

I played a 3v3 skirmish with very easy AI the other day and "won". I say that because though I did the most damage I also suffered the most losses and my losses were greater than my kills / damage.

I picked a point in the middle early on to defend to hopefully allow my AI teammates the ability to pincer either side. I used a combination of scouts in stealth in the woods, lots of infantry and some AT guns set on long crossroads. I also did not slow the game down at all so I guess I did ok. I did manage to hold the spot I initially planned well (main road had a bridge so I wanted to keep control of that at all costs) but I couldn't really get any push further. I did try to help out the flanks a bit but I didn't want to spread my forces too thin and get overran.

[acctingman]

Necro'ing this thread!

I tried asking on Steam (their forums are so toxic and wasteful and Paradox which seems to be dead for this game) and since I have no response, I'd thought I'd ask here.

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips on how to set up solo skirmish battles? I pick an ally (usually easy) and then I'll pick 2 to 3 random German AI opponents set to very easy or easy and I've noticed I can rush all the way toward the German side only to catch them barely set up and I usually just bull rush in and wipe them out.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I'd like for it to be more of a challenge. Trying to improve my tactical awareness a bit more so I can adequately take on the campaign game and I thought using the solo game would be the best way.

Is it as simple as setting the German's to medium AI? Tried that once and I still cleaned house.

Thanks for any tips/suggestions.