How to deal with massive Pak+Puma+Stug/Geschultzwagen Spam VS Expert/Hard Wehr

I find it very hard countering these sort of units as the soviets.  My AT guns may kill a bunch of tanks, but then eventually gets decrewed (which is very hard to recrew) and it almost always seems no matter how many tanks or vehicles i kill, the computer just manages to spam tons of them to the point where its stuck to either a stalemate, very slow advance, or pushing me back.  Any tanks i get will be vulnerable to the massive amounts of cloaked paks, or stugs/geschultz, there will no matter what always be atleast a few of these even though i take lots down, they just easily get rebuilt again.  I hope im not the only one whos having a very hard time with them.  i would also like to add the AI builds a MG bunker guarding lots of the important fuels early game.

Last edited October 30, 2012 at 4:23 PM by 132

Either kill the AI early game or get IS-2s backed by SU-85s. That usually works

It's at this moment that I abandon all chances of outnumbering their AT and tanks with my own: consider that the AI at those levels get at least a manpower boost, and will always be able to outproduce/outgun you.

Usually I resort to ambush tactics with Tank hunters and Naval troops. Focus on munitions and manpower and arm up for light-at weapons. Paks and Stugs struggle against single infantry, and being cheaper, you can outproduce them.

or the easiest way to fix this
stop copm games and play pvp :P

I find just rushing them early game is the easiet. I tried playing a game today (I got my mouse working again :D) against hard AI. They might have more stuff on the field but they're still as stupid as before. So I rush armor and ROFLPWN them

Sure hope i'm not out of place. But let me switch this around and ask(wasn't going to make new thread for similar topic) how can i stop mass Russian army. I play Wehr on Leningrad with 1 normal cpu on my team vs. 3 Russians on hard. They quickly swarm the map with conscripts and red army. So i turn to defense. How can i push back against it all when they got all fuel and mass tanks and tank hunters as well the ATG(or whatever the Russian one is called) Thanks friends  ;D

ApeMen wrote:
or the easiest way to fix this
stop copm games and play pvp :P

Unfortunately when ever I go on multiplayer almost all games are multiplayer compstomping or requires a password so it is very hard to find one.  Even then when I get the chance for a decent 2v2 that doesn't have an AFK host, I get the host may randomly kick me to the lobby for no reason  :P.

Last edited November 1, 2012 at 11:27 PM by 132

Then you should bait your friends to play CoH too and especially Ef mod.

Well, the AI expert was outgunned by me, so I think you can too. Try my way: sniper abuse :P

Last edited November 2, 2012 at 1:51 AM by Dann88

Dann always abuses snipers :P

Tehcumseh wrote:
Sure hope i'm not out of place. But let me switch this around and ask(wasn't going to make new thread for similar topic) how can i stop mass Russian army. I play Wehr on Leningrad with 1 normal cpu on my team vs. 3 Russians on hard.

Well first off you have an uneven number of teammates so that could be a reason why you cant seem to fight back AI. Second you play on a bridge map which promotes camping and static play. And if you must play on this map just abuse mortars and MGs and snipers. Basically support units

Dann88 wrote:
Then you should bait your friends to play CoH too and especially Ef mod.

Well, the AI expert was outgunned by me, so I think you can too. Try my way: sniper abuse :P

But what happens when hes got snipers of his own?  ;D

You counter snipe ::). Although I think the AI sometimes hacks with its snipers

Bread wrote:
You counter snipe ::). Although I think the AI sometimes hacks with its snipers

I've got to agree. Cheeky little bastards are always waiting where my snipers relocate to.

AI snipers are somewhat easy to bait. They always fire anything in his range, even tanks :P

Hi guys!
Here are some ideas to try when dealing with AI. First I generally play at hard AI levels or at expert but only with 1v1 or 2v2. The AI gets different bonus rates for MP then from Mt and Fuel. IIRC the MP bonus is 1.5/1.75/2.0 and the Mt/Fl rate is 1.25/1.5/1.75. I might have it just backwards. Anyway at humanand normal vs 3x hard you are looking at a resource imbalance of 2.5 to 5.25 and 2.25 to 4.5.  This basically means you have to generate 2x the resources the enemy does. So aim for 67 to 75 % map control.

Map control is one way. Denying the enemy map control can be even more effective. The two ways I approach this are Defencing, and Strategic Decapping.

Defencing requires you to block areas so the enemy has no access to large or strategic areas of the map. Wire is good early game but you need to come back and place tanktraps when T3 becomes available to the enemy. You can always funnel your enemy with appropriately located wire and traps. Laying proper minefields is good to. Jojorabbit is were good at this. Of course when you have limited the enemy approaches you need to bushwack them when they come a calling.

Strategic decapping is fun. If you use Scorched Earth or Urban Combat CTs it is easy. If not There are several considerations. When capping look for the cut off points. Those strategically located areas that when decapped deny the enemy resources enmass. Two areas decapped on the Kalach map can deny the enemy ALL on map resources. I find it unwise to cap areas I can't to hold. Decapping however is another thing entirely. It takes half as much time to decap and the enemy loses the time in transit to recap. In frontline situations decapping is effective as well.

All this is relatively passive. On to the combat options.

Do you use the three ping buttons located above the tactical map? With practice you can move your "allied AI blob" to preoccupy the attention of the enemy AI. If you get really good at it (or maybe just lucky) you can trap the entire AI blob in a pocket. Difficult but very very satisfying when you accomplish it. (You have to be the one to seal the pocket though. Then pound the pocket with artillery While you decap or take map control. It doesn't take long to deplete the enemy resource advantage this way.

Are you using your squads effectively? Volks with MP44s in cover on defense most always, Ingeneri dicing with pioniers do so at long range. When planning your OB, figure you require two squads of an equivalent type to do what one squad could handle in PvP. The reason for this is the comp has an inherent reaction time advantage. It can react to your moves 4x faster then the most agile 17 year old. You need local superiority. Also be aware of the range differentials in enemy indirect fire weapons and take advantage of them. Capture enemy weapons don't build them. Ingeneri and volks are much cheaper to reinforce then building your own AT guns.

There is more to be said but this is enough for now.

Thanks, I will now try and play games WITH popcap instead of infinity (no wonder they had tons and tons of spam) and get some MG pits and focus on harassing points more often.

Also, you said earlier that pings on the tactical map affect AI attract attention and distract, correct me if I am wrong

Yes, those ping will attract your AI allies and they will follow your pings to rest of the match :P

I find tanks traps to be semi useless, AI or not. They take too much time to build when you could be doing other things. Except against PE when it really screws them over. For example on the map industrial riverbed (i think that's the name) where the only med. fuel is a small passage way in, you can stop all vehicles with just 2-3 tanktraps and it makes it uper hard for them to take and hold. But laying out a  long string of it is a waste IMO

Dann88 wrote:
Yes, those ping will attract your AI allies and they will follow your pings to rest of the match :P

Wow, I didn't know that.  So capture ping will make squads capture the point, attack will make AI send squads to attack, and Defend makes squads defend?

I'm not sure if the AI can differentiate between what each one means... Whenever I use them, they just seem to blob everything to that area, regardless of what ping you gave them.

Also, I'm not entirely sure why, but there are times when pings won't work. Usually this happens if you ping a location that you don't currently have revealed through the fog of war (this might be just me), or if you try to ping enemy base sectors. The best thing you can do is progress with the AI: reveal territory, move your units up, and ping for your ally to reinforce you.

You do  have to be rather fastidious with pinging the AI. As Bacon suggests. I think that if you draw a line thru the bulk of the AI blob you wish to maneuver and ping at points that are perpendicular to it you will get better results. You might have to go backwards to go forwards sometimes. I believe this technique releases some of the roadblock congestion inside the blobs. There may well be something to pinging into fog of war as bacon suggests; but the AI does differentiate ping type.

If you want to get a ping capture to work better you need to ping the location after the "AI" capper has starts to cap an area. It seems to work as a que for capture purposes.

@ Fish: If you find tank traps less then effective than you would like you probably aren't building them fast enough. Send three or four of your ingeneri or pios to block an area. A line of barbed wire to pre-empt early infantry advances followed by a Line of traps to block wire cutting vehicles and then another line of wire behind this to seal an area will allow you to seal 25 to 33 percent of the front the AI advances upon. On Some maps you can seal more then 50 % of the front this way, (Kalach for example). AFAIK it takes 5 seconds to build a section of barbed wire or TT. If you use 4 engineers (or volks for wire), you bring this down to 1.25 sec average per. It doesn't take too long and then you have built up a mp reserve to build outposts/ bunkers/ MG nests for a defense in depth after the wire/TTs are built.

Yet another aid to quickly block a front or build incendiary traps is to work in areas the AI has passed thru already. (ie capped). Build your defenses before you decap the enemy points. The AI is working elsewhere! when they come back in response to your decapping ops a bunker/MG nest or an MG or two in buildings will really cramp AI style. Meanwhile you can shift to the areas the AI has been working on.

Otto wrote:
@ Fish: If you find tank traps less then effective than you would like you probably aren't building them fast enough. Send three or four of your ingeneri or pios to block an area.

Who has that many engineers in a normal game to send to just build tank traps? Maybe if you are playing on a bridge map I can understand but in a normal game idk why you would have that many. Unless you are just camping and building MG nest and wiring everything. But that is bad gameplay (IMHO) and in a PvP it won't work at all.

Bread wrote:...
Who has that many engineers in a normal game to send to just build tank traps? Maybe if you are playing on a bridge map I can understand but in a normal game idk why you would have that many. Unless you are just camping and building MG nest and wiring everything. But that is bad gameplay (IMHO) and in a PvP it won't work at all.

Ah Fish come on! We are talking about compstomping here. Three or 4 pios or ingeneri are not unreasonable in such an environment. Pios with flamers and vet 1 or two melt early conscript starts. The Wehr Support strats have been acceptable for a long time. In the case of Ingeneri 3 or four is about right too. They are cheap and though needs must retreat against volks without mp40s, they are not too bad against volks/mp40s at long range. You still need to get the Sovs up and running and ingeneri allow this. Plus they lead to early Heavy Infantry Stormovie. Whatever flavor of ings or pios you use, they are good at bunker busting, but in this case it takes two to tango, (tackle a bunker).