Letting the game come to you - Slowing the game down?

I'm sure any of you that are sports fans have heard of the concept of an athlete getting to a point to where the "the game slows down for them", or, "the game just comes to them".

In other words, they are able to make the right decision in a game quickly, fluidly, with confidence knowing that its the right one, and 9 times out of 10, they are successful, and become good players.

If you follow American football, its the Tom Brady vs. Mark Sanchez syndrome. Brady rarely makes a mistake, and well Mark Sanchez throws an interception at the worst possible time.

If its a new player, you hear, "The game has really slowed down for them, and they are really coming into their own."

Now for a COH2 example, and I don't have a replay...

But I watched a 2v2 last night where L E M O N (a.k.a. LemonJuice), was playing.
Lemon was OKW and he had another OKW teammate vs. 2 US (I think).

Lemon's team won hands down, and he built 1 Luchs. 1 Luchs!
He built all three buildings, zero vehicles (except the Luchs), zero support guns (you get the idea).
He didn't even pick a commander, or use any commander abilities (not one).

And... he lost a Sturmpio and the Luchs to an AT gun (after the luchs had wiped about 4 squads).
His team won 499 to 100 (other team surrendered).

Now I've read most of Lemon's guides to OKW, and I'm fairly new to ranked play in COH2 (maybe 20 games under my belt if I'm lucky), but, I know I'm not at that level (build one Luchs and win the game- and not just win, dominate).

I know this because I've lost about 6 or so games Random 2v2 games in a row with Ostheer and OKW.

Clearly, playing, practicing, and learning from mistakes is key.

And now for the point of all this:

How do you slow the game down, and let the game come to you?
(And please don't say- play the game on a Celeron with 1.5 Mb/s DSL).

Unit preservation.
Know the time to get AT.
Recon before mass attack .

Clearly, playing, practicing, and learning from mistakes is key

It really is that simple.

Watch your replays. Honestly, that's step one. Also you have to be willing to look for your faults before you blame game balance and bad RNG for your losses. If you do both of those things, while watching streams every now and then to see how good players manage their armies, you'll improve in no time. Also, consistently playing people better than you will help you improve much, much faster than stomping randoms on the ladder. Find a partner who is a better player than you, and square off against him.

Game seem to slow down when the game reaches its most chaotic state with houndreds of possible decisions to be made and you have to make the correct ones at every moment.

Only way to get there is to be in that stressful situation countless times until you feel totally comfortable in it, actually it makes you only focus better instead of distracting or stressing you out which makes you do stupid and slow decisions like it does to average players.

Well thats my experience from being a very good counter strike players maaaaany years ago but i guess its the same for coh2 =)

Watch your replays. Honestly, that's step one. Also you have to be willing to look for your faults before you blame game balance and bad RNG for your losses. If you do both of those things, while watching streams every now and then to see how good players manage their armies, you'll improve in no time. Also, consistently playing people better than you will help you improve much, much faster than stomping randoms on the ladder. Find a partner who is a better player than you, and square off against him.

+7

-Unit preservation
-Reading the flow of the game. How much resources both you and your opponent have. What did he spend his muni/mp early on? What about fuel?
-Build your own flowchart of actions: while this isn´t SC2 where you need to mechanically do repeating things, it helps to have in mind a certain routine.
-SLOWLY start improving your micro: start to slowly add hotkeys and control groups into your play.
-I like to compare some situations with Poker. You need to know when is it worth it to take calculated risks and if it´s worthy or not. This mostly comes with experience.
_________________

-I guess this isn´t directly answering your question on "how to slow down the game". If you do this flawlessly constantly, you slowly start getting used to it without requiring so much effort. This put you on the "zone" where you mechanically do things without even thinking of it.
Putting a mine which 30s later helps you destroy a tank, repositioning an MG prior to see the flank coming, putting some units for an ambush, etc.

-Avoid distractions such as discussing with other people ingame, music (while i like to play with it, it makes me miss audio cues), look at how fancy a unit is attacking or moving , etc.

-Take breaks. After a long game or during a session, take a couple of minutes to move, drink/eat, do something else. Fatigue is something that affects us all, newbies and pros.

Thanks everyone.

Piss off your opponent with pychological insults about his mother.

Piss off your opponent with pychological insults about his mother.

? (If so,please bear in mind that irony does not work well on the web w/o emoticons )

Something I have found important as well is to be able to gauge how your opponent feels.

Does your opponent feel off balance, or are they preparing to attack? If offbalance a critical placed push could break open the line, if they are preparing to attack a single mine could mean a loss or a win.

You should also get a feel for how quickly your opponent can respond to pressure. How long will it take AT units to arrive at a vulnerable portion of the line? How likely am I to run into a mine?

As you get better you will find that even before your opponent attacks your mgs are faced into the units, the AT guns are already looking over the mine you placed exactly where the now injured tank was to come.

I find in my mind replaying encounters over and over again but subtly altering some condition helps me improve on my game. If a conscript had been closer would I have lost my tank? What if that air attack was not available to me? Could I have brought up a second gren squad? How many units are in reserve? What is my MP situation? Did I let my allies know? What if I had a flame thrower? etc, etc.

Ultimately getting better requires you to play a lot, and to be able to critically evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. You should be able to say "I did this well", but also be able to say "I did this poorly" and the same of your opponent. Even terrible opponents offer you insight. You should be able to say exactly why their build order failed.

Also I would suggest starting off with versus Expert AI.
The recent patch had made Expert AI has a income of 500 manpower and extra bonus fuel.
(Before WFA it only has 300 manpower income along with 2 bonus fuel income)
Which means it's likely against an Expert Ostheer AI will result in you facing against endless wave of grens. (Or even a Kingtiger at 18 min mark facing OKW)

Despite the AI can still makes stupid mistake.(Such as throwing off their vehicle into AT guns recklessly)
But it has the advantage to ensure an endless routine of attacks that almost seem never gonna end and unlikely to lose squad due to the computer instantly retreat their squad under half strength.
It's a great test for a player's ability to micro their unit when outnumbered in every early engagements.

That flow state (the zone) comes from high skill level which is pretty much only achieved through practice, despite individual aptitude. Everyone needs practice to get there.

I hope you are building a medic bunker in your base as Ostheer. As people said, unit preservation. If not you have little chance to get those vet3 units running around massacring people late game.