DoW2 beta infos!, INFOS! Options

[Oddies da Nerfed]

Toying with DoW2 beta, played for a bit last night vs computer. (online though, stupid mp only beta!)

First: graphics are fucking amazing, however beta is about as rough as crysis when cranked, you need a monster machine for ultra. I am hopping release will be a little more refined and fun better, but shall see.

First part two!: Forget what you know about DoW 1, this game is way way different. DoW2 is designed around tactical infantry fighting with some vehicles thrown in. It is also heavily designed around 'instant action', as in you are going at it from within a minute in game till one side wins. A main change beyond this, no base building. You start with a Fortress in MP with 1-2 turrets defending it, and that is it. No rebuilding it, no lil factories it does everything. You have 3 tiers, starting in 1 with upgrades to 2 and 3 unlocking more upgrades and more units. Heroes upgrades can be changed at any time for most things, certain ones like Force Commanders Terminator wargear is not reversable.

Races: Orks, SM (and IG in camp not sure if playable), Nids, and Eldar.

Base: This thing takes a fucking beating, 15khp with the omgwtf elite units like avatar packing 6k and its armored out the ass. Turrets have around 500hp and will mow down infantry or at least suppress them (more on this later). This thing is your baby, it dies you lose. It produces everything and contains the 2 tier upgrades. It can be repaired, however what units repair are limited per side. ie for SM the scouts repair, or the defensive Tech Marine Hero can repair.

Heroes: Unlike DoW these things are not walking machines of death, they go down decently fast though do unload some sever ass beating before dying. There are 3 to pick from before starting the map, and you CAN NOT CHANGE during the map, so pick carefully. Each has its own specialty like front line killing, back line support, front line support/healing and so on. Force commander for SM is offensive and has offensive 'calls', I'm not sure wtf they are truly called more on em later. Like all heroes he has 3 upgrade slots, usually wep, armor, and misc. You can alter these at any time for cost of new upgrade based on what you need him to do. The exception is the terminator upgrade, which is perm. You can however as term change from auto cannon or flamer for dug in units per what you need and for cost. When they get bitch slapped, if you are not on a team a counter shows over em counting down cost in requisition to revive them. It continues to drop as you wait. If you are playing team games you can run your hero over to a friendly downed hero and revive them.

Squads: Bread and butter of the game. Squads are handled much like CoH with reinforcements only being allowed at certain heroes, hero deployed stations, or at HQ. Size varies on race and squad type. SM have 2 primary heavy squads 1 airborne squad and 2 standard. The heavies are heavy bolter, 3 man squad 1 with the heavy bolter which requires setup and take down time. Heavy bolter suppresses units amazingly well. While suppressed enemy infantry have issues attacking, move very slowly and are easily mowed down. To counter this from enemies you have assault squad with jump packs, used much the same as DoW, drop em on entrenched bolter style squads and rip em apart. Heavy squad 2 is the plasma cannon, long range slow firing own machine this is. Splash damage and will take a chunk out of vehicles and flatten buildings. Standard infantry is tac squad with assorted weps ala DoW1, and scout squad. Scout squad this go can only have 1 sniper, but its nasty. For more pop cap you can add a sergeant with frag grenades and of course they can infiltrate (costs energy to use and energy over time, attacking breaks) as well as repair. They also get shotguns as opposed to snipers, nasty close range with knock back for dislodging people from cover.

Vehicles: Chew up pop cap like nothing, can chew up unsupported infantry like nothing. T3 ranged for SM is predator, rails infantry very badly, will roll over most types of object cover (trees etc) destroying them. Anti vehicle units and melee vehicles trash em quickly. SM also get razorback transport tank, this can be used to reinforce units in field. Melee vehicle is of course the dreadnought. Slow, melee primary (can be upgraded with an auto cannon reducing melee giving it suppression abilities), will 2-3 shot ranged vehicles and chew up infantry if they can get a hold of em. Infantry watching dread kill things gain boosts to their damage. Most vehicles are immune to small arms, meaning standard bolters and what not do no damage. Heavy infantry weps will damage them, but not very fast. Anti vehicle weps or other vehicles are needed.

Resources: Req is handled same way, just no listening posts to defend the point, so guarding areas either with turrets (certain heroes can deploy for pop cap) mines or units. Power is handled differently, these are now also points like Req points that must be captured. These can then be upgraded with 3 or so generators added on to expand production. These can be destroyed or stolen, so guard them as well. Resource points are shared in MP, does not matter who got it you gain the resources from it like you took it.

'Calls': Nifty little toys to turn the tide of battle. These require an additional resource type which is gained by killing and only killing. Additionally they may require req power or even pop cap if its a unit call. Offensive SM consist of things like orbital strike, termi assault, reg termi, dread, goodies like that.

Leveling: Everything levels up if it stays alive, leveling improves units health and damage. Reinforcing is also cheaper than replacement. Between those two keeping units alive is a must! Fall back makes the units haul ass back to HQ while taking reduced damage. Know it, love it, use it.

Terrain: Some weapons have firing arcs, some are flat trajectory, keep this in mind when shooting at shit behind stuff. Cover is used like CoH, no cover, light cover (trees, small objects), heavy cover (large stones, walls, even vehicles). Heavy wep teams in cover will slaughter any frontal assaults. Infiltration, jump units, vehicles etc must be used to dislodge them. Most heavy units have a limited firing field, so flanking maneuvers will force the heavy wep unit to pack its wep up, and turn it then unpack it before firing. There are also buildings on some maps, these can be garrisoned by 2 squads which will move around and fire on people as they can. Snipers and a heavy bolter make short work of any infantry that gets close. Vehicles and units with flamers or other 'anti cover' weapons will butcher the occupants however. Flamers ignore cover dmg and units inside take additional dmg being burned alive in a building. Most types of ground cover can be destroyed with vehicles, keep this in mind if you need to deprive your enemy of some good cover. Just be aware you deprive yourself of it as well.

more to come!



Overview: At first with me not having a clue wtf I was doing nor not realizing they went with such a different style than both DoW and CoH the game took me off guard and I view it rather dubiously. However the more I play it and pick up how things work, strategies and what not, the game has grown on me. Now that I have gotten in to it some I am enjoying it. This game is no your traditional RTS, they were certainly trying to do a 'unique' style game with it, and they did well. It has all the violence, killer sounds, and 40k goodies one would expect from a Dawn of War title. The AI even on easy is pretty nasty, there is a bit of a learning curve to the game as a whole. It uses MS live stuff like Xbox to track stats, easy invite friends to games and what not. All in all it currently gets two thumbs up.

content note: I have read, and need to verify their attempt at anti piracy. It appears the game as is, and as will be at launch will be a 'striped' down variation. You register on the website and download a patch which adds/unlocks a good chunk of units maps and what not. Current there is 4 races, all of 6 or so maps, and what appears like a lot of missing units and abilities. This could be just due to beta or part of their content control anti piracy gig. With that said, still enjoyable.

[Oddies da Nerfed]

THE STRIKE CRUISER
Planetary travel
Today we’re going to be taking a look at the Strike Cruiser and the role that it will play in the Dawn of War II campaign. The Strike Cruiser serves a number of purposes in the campaign: it’s a place to take a breather between missions, to customize your squads with war gear, to spend attribute points to enhance your squads, and to strategize and plan your next move.

Space Marines are the ultimate mobile strike force. They strike without warning, and take the fight to the enemies of humanity throughout the universe. They have access to a variety of spacecraft for launching and supporting their operations, and this is reflected in Dawn of War II with the Strike Cruiser. The Dawn of War II campaign takes place over multiple planets, and you will use a Blood Ravens Strike Cruiser to transport your strike force between them. This ship is designed for close combat support of planetary landings, and it is from the Strike Cruiser that Space Marines deploy for missions to the planet surface. The Strike Cruiser can also be called on for bombardment as well as for reinforcement.

Gearing your squads
The most exciting feature of the Strike Cruiser is the ability to customize your squads between missions. In Dawn of War II, you’ll get to choose your weapons and equipment before each mission. You’ll start the campaign with a very basic set of equipment, and, as the campaign progresses, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of war gear that you can use to enhance your squads. These items include armor, weapons, and squad-specific tools like frag grenades and med kits. Equipping a new piece of gear is a simple drag and drop system. The number of slots that you have to fill with war gear depends on the character that you are equipping and their level.

The leveling system in Dawn of War II is another way for you to enhance and customize your squads, and you’ll get to make all kinds of cool decisions on your Strike Cruiser between missions. As you use your squads in campaign missions, they gain experience, eventually reaching a new level. Every time your squad gains a new level you are granted attribute points to spend in one of four areas, Health, Ranged Damage, Melee Damage, or Energy. The most exciting part of the leveling system, is that you get to unlock cool new abilities when you invest in an attribute. Each of these abilities adds a whole new dimension to your squad.

As you can see there is a lot to explore on the Strike Cruiser between missions, and the squad screen is vital for truly utilizing the full potential of the experience gains and gear in the game. Your strategic planning will also be done here as you fight through the campaign, and we’ll have more on that in future updates.






DISTRESS SIGNALS
The Dawn of War II campaign puts a lot of control in the hands of the player. The leveling system lets you to customize your squads’ abilities, war gear let’s you further specialize their combat role, and the distress signal system let’s you choose which missions you will accept. You’ll often have several choices when it comes to the missions available to you. We’re going to take a closer look at distress signals and how they come into play when planning your next move.

Distress Signals
We’ve previously talked about the Squad Screen where you level and equip your squad leaders. This is done between missions aboard your Strike Cruiser, the Armageddon. Selecting the missions you’re going to deploy on is also performed aboard the Armageddon via the planetary view screen. It shows the big picture view of the campaign, including the surface of the planet that your ship is currently orbiting, along with any provinces that are sending out distress signals. Answering a distress signal will deploy your squad on a mission in that region of the planet.

A variety of information is available to you before you make your decision on which distress signal to respond to. A mission briefing will display all known intelligence information on the specific nature of the distress signal, such as whether you’re being called in to assassinate an Ork war boss or to defend a location from attack, and the rewards that you’ll get for achieving this objective. If there are any Stratagems located in the region, this information will also be displayed on the planetary view.

Since the Dawn of War II campaign takes place over a number of planets there is also a Star Map that allows you to travel between planets. As the campaign rages on you’ll likely have distress signals coming in from multiple planets as the enemy moves to capture regions you’ve secured. You won’t be able to answer every distress signal, you’ll have to decide when, where, and how you strike at the enemies of humanity.







STRATAGEMS
While you are rumbling through a campaign scenario you are going to encounter a variety of different points on the map that you can capture with your squads. Among these are Stratagems, valuable points that give you advantages in the scenario that you are playing and beyond. You might have to go out of your way in a scenario to capture a Stratagem, or tackle a nasty pile of Orks defending it, but they’re generally worth the effort. Here’s a look at how you capture Stratagems, the different types, and what they offer you.

Stratagems are captured like standard rally points, and offer the same basic benefits. Rally points and Stratagems all offer you a safe place to retreat your forces to as well as the ability to reinforce your squads if you’ve taken casualties. Instead of retreating all the way back to the start of the map, having a rally point or Stratagem secured near the mid or end points of a map will make things a lot easier if you run into a tough fight and need reinforcements. To capture a point you just need to task a nearby squad to the rally point or Stratagem and after a short time you will gain ownership.

Stratagems come in three flavors, Imperial Shrines, Communications Arrays, and Automated Foundries. You can only capture one Stratagem per mission, so you’ll have to choose which will help your tactical and strategic situation. Here is a closer look at what each provides you with:

Communications Array – Capturing one of these Stratagems gives you the Signum war gear accessory. When equipped on one of your squad members that’s taking part in a mission, the Signum allows you to call in Artillery Strikes that rain fragmentation shells down on the enemy. The number of times that you can call in artillery during a mission depends on the number of arrays that you hold on that planet. Communications Arrays will also unlock additional intelligence information for you during mission briefings, perhaps warning you of enemy movements or letting you know of weaknesses in their lines.

Imperial Shrine – These holy structures may be well guarded, for the enemies of the Space Marines know of their value. If captured, these Stratagems grant you the use of the Rosarius war gear accessory. The Rosarius allows its user to cast the Blessing of Fortitude which grants several seconds of invulnerability to your squads. If timed correctly, this can certainly be a mission saving maneuver. Controlling Imperial Shrines also reduces the rate at which a Tyranid infestation grows on a planet, and increases bonus experience earned at the end of missions. The experience goes towards leveling your squads, making them more powerful at a faster rate.

Automated Foundry – The foundry produces weapons of war. Capturing it will grant you the Locator Beacon war gear accessory which allows you to call in automated Turrets to add to your firepower in a given area. Very handy for quickly adding firepower where you need it most. Just like the other Stratagems, the more foundries you control the more times you can call in for a Turret while you’re on a mission. Lastly, Automated Foundries will also reduce the requirements for allowing you to make an extra deployment during a day. This allows you to potentially run two missions in one day in the campaign, allowing you two moves to the enemy’s one.

Stratagems are a way for you to have a lasting impact on the planet you’re fighting on. If you hold two Communications Arrays on Calderis, as long as you’re deploying for missions on that planet you will be able to call in two Artillery Strikes during a mission and gain bonus intelligence during your briefings.

Control of Stratagems and their bonuses can be lost however, if the enemy retakes the sector of the planet that holds it. A territory that you control on a planet may become disputed if the enemy moves into it. If you don’t deploy on a mission to defend it, you can lose the territory. You may be forced to choose between saving a territory that contains a Stratagem from enemy attack or dealing the enemy a decisive blow elsewhere.






STRIKE CRUISER - WAR GEAR
We previously talked about customizing your squads on the Strike Cruiser in Dawn of War II., Now we’re going take a closer look at war gear for your squads, what it is, how you get it, and what it can do.

One of the most exciting things you’ll get to do in Dawn of War II is equipping your squads with better weapons, better armor, and a variety of devices to aid you during missions. This is your war gear and it is stored on the squad screen in the Strike Cruiser. Equipping your squad involves simply dragging an item from your inventory onto the squad of your choice. War gear comes in all shapes and sizes but can be broken down into four specific types: armor, weapons, accessories and commander items.

Heavy Bolter warming up
Armor is certainly the most noticeable piece of war gear that you can equip your squad with. In addition to reducing damage taken by your squad, armor can also grant other benefits such as an increasing movement speed or making your squad more resistant to being suppressed by enemy fire. This all adds up to increasing the general survivability of your force, letting them stay in the fight longer.

Weapons are also incredibly important, not only in how much damage they do but also in how they work together to get through a mission. If your Devastator Marines are equipped with a Heavy Bolter to suppress enemy units, you might want to compliment that with a squad of Tactical Marines with a Flamer. If your mission has you re-taking a village, you better put something like a Missile Launcher in the hands of one of your squads so that they can quickly deal with enemy units holed up in buildings, unless you’d prefer to use explosives.

But accessories are the items we’re most excited to show. Accessories always grant an ability and each accessory equipped adds an entire new dimension to the squad you equip it on. Demolition charges, frag and flash grenades, and mines can all be used in a variety of ways to deal with clumps of enemy units that are either holed up in cover or charging your position. It’s also a good idea to have one of your squads equipped with a Stimulant Recovery Kit to heal wounds taken on the battlefield, and if you have spare slots you might be able to fill them with a purity seal that can grant additional bonuses.

War gear is a big part of the tactical side of the Dawn of War II campaign. With the right tools at their disposal, your Space Marines realize their true potential and can deal with just about anything the enemy can throw at them. In upcoming posts we’ll be taking a look at more of the Sergeants that you will be equipping to help you lead the charge in the campaign.