Fustration with RTS games

Some players just get a little worked up over a game.

More Screens from F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R. The Best "Forgotten" Shooter

The best "forgotten" shooter of the past decade is FEAR.  Lost in all the Call of Duty franchise hype, FEAR is a very polished game with incredible balance of suspense and combat.  The story is intense and evolves deeper as you play, aided by great environments, enemies and unique weapons.  FEAR is high on presentation and has innovative gameplay elements that are used in current FPS titles. A classic for many years to come and it does not require a beefy CPU and GPU.  I have played dozens of games and this comes highly recommended.

Burn a British Rush

In a 1v1 automatch game last night I played a equally ranked (around level 7) British player on Langres.  My opponent tried a very interesting approach, one I have not seen in the roughly 100 online games I have played. He didn't bother to capture any territory but aggressively tried to skirmish right away with infantry sections.  If I had not been prepared to be aggressive as well I would have been in bad shape.  Instead I met him with Volksgrenadiers.  I was also able to gain the entire map with Pioneers while he quickly tried to dig in on the middle of the map with 2 MG nest and a slit trench.  Normally this would have caused me to panic but I could tell he was over extended without grabbing any resource sections.  I made a MG squad to cover my flanks and took 2 Volks squads and Pioneers with Flamers around to flank his MG nests.  In little time his forward positions were toasted and I was outside his base.  The game lasted only 9 minutes.

Just 3 Minutes in he had MG nest and slit trench

I flanked his position with 2 Volk and Flamer Pios

Burned

I moved in on his base leading to quick resign

Rough Company of Heroes Notes

Rough Notes before I make a nice print-out in Photoshop.  Can add some images and other graphics as well, will publish finished product when done.  Making one for Wehrmacht and later American Armies.

COH: Panzer Elite Press Build Order

Lately I have been exploring the RTS game franchise Company of Heroes. I have been playing with the Panzer Elite Army, they seem to fit aggressive play-style in early stages of a match. I have a basic build order that allows me to capture a good area of the map and then quickly save up resources for armor units. This allows me to press the map in my favor. Micromanagement is key with COH since there is no basic resource gathering or finite amount of resources like in other RTS games. Holding munition and fuel sectors on the map gives you more resources quicker, the key is to control the map, but also press the enemy into spending what he has.

You begin the game with a Kettenkrad, a fast moving ATV type unit that is fairly cheap. (165 man power) I build another Kettenkrad and then a Panzer Grenadier Squad in the waxing moments of the game.I use the Krad vehicles to quickly grab a large area of the map, giving priority to fuel sectors. Fuel is important early so I can build a Kampfgruppe Kompanie (220 man, 20 fuel) and a Panzer-Jager Kommand. (220 man, 30 fuel) If the map is large I will use my first Panzer infantry squad to claim territory in front of my HQ while the Krads cover the periphery. On a small map I try to immediately build a Kampfgruppe. Sometimes I will build a Logistik Kompanie at same cost first, but for this pressing strategy I prefer to wait.

The Panzer-Jager Kommand is key to produce a couple Armored Cars as early as possible. (225 man, 25 fuel) Having a Armored Car and a grenadier squad rolling out to the front lines before 6 minutes into the game is good. This vehicle can press enemy infantry and most any other vehicle you will encounter this early in the game. The Kampfgruppe Kompanie will allow you to support Armored cars with Half-Tracks or Mortar Half-Tracks to siege enemy fortifications as the game progresses. It all depends on the situation and to make appropriate units that counter what the enemy has.

With gained experience I select the Luftwaffe Commander for off map support. Luftwaffe Infantry are very useful in an early offensive. The come in squads of 5 troops for 260 manpower. They have the ability to repair vehicles rapidly and can build defensive structures, like sandbag walls, barbed wire, or Flakvierling. Kettenkrads can also use a camo ability that helps scout ahead of the front lines. Later in a game Luftwaffe troops can build Flak 88 cannons, causing further chaos.

Fallout 3 Character: Tennison

During her early days in Vault 101 Tennison was a Daddy’s Girl. She devoted all of her free time to study science and medicine. Being stuck in a Vault facility presented little opportunities growing up. The Overseer was dictator over everyone’s actions in her eyes. Even though her best friend, Amata, was the daughter of the Overseer, it didn’t help change how she felt about him.

Her peers called her a “goodie-two-shoes” because of her willingness to help others. This label was soon broken once a citizen of the wasteland. Upon hearing about her father’s “escape” from 101 she initially believed that someone in the Vault discovered something in his research and that he was executed by the Overseer. Tennison returned the favor and shot the Overseer in the head 3 times with his own 10mm Pistol.

Escaping was much easier than what she thought it would be. A big part of her was frustrated that she had not gotten out of that dungeon years ago. Some raiders tried to kill Tennison with knives and pipes. They didn’t know she had a gun. She killed them and took everything they had and was quickly becoming a “gun-slinger” during any moment of tension. She wisely gave up her Vault 101 gear to blend in with the other citizens of the Wastes.

Tennison quickly became a victim of the cruel reality the wastes consisted of. Only hours after being out of the vault, being scarred and confused, she agreed to use her science skills to rig a bomb to explode for some caps. The catch was the bomb was the center of the settlement town of Megaton. It didn’t stop her. She didn’t care what happened to all the people that lived there. She wanted attention, but not the “you’re the stray from the vault” type that locals gave her the first time she walked into Megaton. She wanted to give them the finger, but not just the gesture of fuck you, but to actually wipe them off the map.

Helping blow-up Megaton gave Tennison the opportunity to live in the penthouse of Tenpenny Tower, a massive building in the Southwestern wasteland. It also gave her affiliations with Alistar Tenpenny and his henchman Burke. She would do favors for the residents of Tenpenny. Most of the time it involved murder but it was justified because she was dealing with threats to the tower and residents. After all she now lived there too.

Overtime she began to steal things. Just little things like water or food, but soon she stole to sell things for money. She later started to steal just for the thrill of it, just to take something and get away with it or she would steal to feed her addictions.

Drugs and alcohol were not something widely available in the Vault. Tennison quickly wanted to try everything the wastes could offer. Since she had a very educated background in science and medicine she quickly was able to replicate any drugs she found. She became a drug chemist and was able to develop a nice tolerance to most substances giving her the maximum potency from anything she took. During any skirmish while exploring the wastes, popping a few pills and sticking a few needles helped things go more smoothly. She didn’t think it was to serious, just some Jet or Psycho could go a long way. She also sold ingredients to other drug makers.

As time passed she started to encounter lawmen Regulators who wanted to kill her. Apparently there was a bounty placed on her head. She quickly decided to prove to everyone that the bounty was a joke. She became a Contract Killer. Anyone who tried to kill her would have their ears removed and she would sell the ears for caps. In her adventures she was quickly becoming very proficient at lock-picking, sneaking around and repairing and maintaining guns. She collected a wide variety of guns and later found her science skills helpful with energy weapons.

At the end of her travels Tennison made permanent enhanchements to her body. She became part cyborg. This gave her increased survival skills in the Wasteland, but it would not save her in the end. After stummbling into her father and his former research team, Tennison had a new vision on life, help him finish his work, or die a fiends death in the wastes. She decided to help finish his work and resist any corruption from the Enclave. At the very end, in the atrium of the Jefferson Memorial Tennison initiated the grid sequence on the project purity console, thus giving clean water to everyone in the Captial Wasteland. With this, her own life was lost as she was exposed a leathal dose of radiation in the process. In legend, no one in the wastes would forget the lone wanderer from 101 named Tennison.

Excerpts of Stalingrad [ 3 ]

"...the fighting at Voreonezh was part of a phase for the Red Army of concentrating defence on cities, not arbitrary lines on the map. The new flexibility had allowed Timoshenko's armies to pull back, avoiding encirclement, but they had already been so badly mauled that on 12 July a new army group command-the Stalingrad Front - was established by Stavka directive. Although nobody dared voice the defeatist suggestion that the Red Army might be forced back as far as the Volga, a suspicion began to grow that this was where the main battle would have to be fought." page 75

"These seemed glorious days for German front-line regiments. "As far as the eye can see", wrote and observer, "armoured vehicles and half-tracks are rolling forward over the steppe. Pennants float in the shimmering afternoon air." Commanders stood fearlessly erect in their tank turrets, one arm raised high, waving their companies forward. Their tracks stirred up dust and propelled it outwards like smoke clouds in their wake." page 75

"Struck by the limitless horizon and expanse of sky, and perhaps also influenced by the sight of vehicles swaying crazily in and out of potholes like ships in a heavy swell, the more imaginative saw the steppe as an uncharted sea. General Strecker described it in a letter as "an ocean that might drown the invader." Villages became the equivalent of islands. In the sun-backed steppe, they also offered the most likely source of water. But a panzer commander might spot and onion-domed church tower in the distance, then on arrival, find beside it the rest of the village destroyed, perhaps with timbers still smouldering. Only the brick chimneys remained standing. The carcasses of horses and livestock lay around, their bellies swollen in the heat forcing their legs grotesquely in the air. Often, the only sign of life would be the odd cat, miaowing in the ruins." page 76

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943. Penguin Books: New York, New York, 1998.