Help me improve.

Hallo Kameraden!

I'm a little antisocial and usually stick to fighting against AI or picking a game from the public list, but recently decided to foray into automatch, and actually won.(I guess the fact that I wasn't trying to stave off a pair of 3 prestige lvl 100s like usual made the difference, ha!)

Anyway, I usually play as Ostheer but decided to go USF because 7/10 people play Axis and the automatch times are ridiculous. I'm looking for some feedback, general tips, whatever. Tell me what I'm doing right so I can keep doing it, and what I'm doing wrong so I can...stop doing it.

Thanks in advance, here's the replay for your viewing pleasure:

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  VS

  Old wolf 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking"

  TomoyaOkazaki wehrmacht

  USF 2v2

  by: Anonymau5 map: Semoskiy

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Observations, though I am by no means that good:

You should probably move faster in the early game

You built a second REL after your first rifle, then waited til over 350 MP before ordering your next rifle

Ditto after your first rifle capped he was static for a bit before moving on


I don't like to build obstacles first, you had double RE building on the right. I think capping the VP and the Munitions point would have been much more important. Munitions because income, VP because VP and US are usually best early game so you want to get that ticker going down ASAP

The wire you built didn't block off the ford completely and you retreated right away rather than capping


Your rifles then went static in the middle for some reason, you need capping power and field presence anyway. Especially in this situation as your opponent has gone Soviet Industry very quickly so probably won't have much of either

Taking out the MG right went well, but would have been easier with all 3 squads, you were split up rather a lot which meant you took higher casualties then you needed to and had to retreat 2 squads.

You were floating 600MP at this point, Amublance would have been good at this point rather than 2 more rifles.

Picking up the MG42 with RELs was good but should have been sooner


I recognise here that you are doing what I used to do when moving to real opponents rather than AI, which is building early fixed defences. This often works against the AI, however real opponents are much better at adapting, by-passing or destroying them and will exploit the fact you dig in first then cap.

With 5 Rifles + LT you should have been able to consolidate and push them right off the map, instead you are a bit static and spread out with 3 on the right not doing much. Your teammate was capping the middle so you didn't need to.

Ambulance would have let you reinforce the MG on the field

LT + CPT together is not that common, usually you do one or the other + MAJ


Nice flank left, but with all your force that would have been over quick and you would not have lost a squad

Armour Company at 3CP? Seems odd choice as one of the best things about that is Assault Engineers and they come right at the start


The opponents I note stand in Red cover and have dug in heavily on the left without securing the bridge. Moving the MG42 up to cover the bridge would have made it very hard for them to get back across.

I think you've built one rifle unit too many, as you now don't have the MP to reinforce the ones that retreated, and you now have fuel to get armour on but no MP (not sure what your plans are here but with MAJ instead of CPT and one less rifle you could be working on Sherman)

Your howitzer ended up positioned so that it shot the church a lot, which apart from not being the enemy took out your ally's squad in there. Then it did get hit and taken out, would have been better with the MG in front or around it

Would have been better to use the full squad to cap and the guys with 3 drop back to the Amublance to reinforce, ditto after you recrew the howitzer.

Once you get MAJ, moving him up closer and setting a retreat point with the Amubalance is a good idea

You get completely pushed off when they come at the howitzer with 4 Grens

Then have not produced any real armour yet, which means they are hoarding for heavy stuff, I shall be interested to see what happens then

No I'm wrong, they bring out two PIVs and a Puma

You really need to set MAJ retreat point and work on fixing your Sherman (remember the crew can exit to do that you don't need RELs)

Bit late to get Bazookas here, you have a CPT and Vet rifles for infantry AT.

This also means you have to go back to base and get them.

You have 600 MP and 175 fuel, you can build another tank and reinforce everything


They aren't playing well by any extent, but they understand the importance of attacking en masse, not of capping anything or repairing mind you, but they are able to get enough force together to push you off

Jackson should be behind the infantry, you might have got all 3 PIVs then

You could have split up to cap the VP and the point


One of your enemies is floating 2000MP now and has no infantry except Pios. There is also an abandoned Puma and T70 he is not bothering to re-crew

AA halftrack is not a good choice here, more armour not that + BAR

Spending on another tank is a better use of fuel

Your teammate keeps not switching to the AT-GUN on his KV-8 when tanks turn up

Yeah! Finally set MAJ retreat point

Not another AA half track, good you cancelled it

Your infantry are there and healed whilst the mid is being attacked

So:

No one there played well, but you made fewer mistakes so that's what matters. Had you consolidated more and pushed harder you could have won in 20-25 minutes, conversely had they gone Tigers and Panthers rather than spamming P-IV and PUMAs you would have been in a lot of trouble because bazookas and dozers aren't going to help against that.



General Observations:

You need to build and cap faster in the early game, real players are a lot less susceptible to fixed defences than the AI.

Build Order and Commander selection needs some work, but that's a question of familiarity.
Both Bazookas and BARs were late here, the fuel would have been better on more tanks and the munitions would probably have bought you at least two P-47 strikes had you gone airborne.
LT+CPT is generally a waste, do one or the other.
AA halftrack is an early impact unit, not something you get when PIVs are already around

You do need to get MAJ up with retreat point and Ambulance, it cuts off a lot of time retreating


Hope all that helps

Also have question
If in the opening he builds several fuel things on MP points. What should I do then?
Destroing them with cons take ages.

Also have question
If in the opening he builds several fuel things on MP points. What should I do then?
Destroing them with cons take ages.

3 options:

1- Be aggressive! If the enemy builds early caches then that's manpower not going into building units. You should outnumber him (especially as soviets) and should push him off the map.

2- Go for the cutoffs. If you can't destroy the caches themselves, then try to get the cutoff points so that he doesn't get the resources. This won't always be possible depending on the map and his placement, but it's good to keep in mind.

3- Wait for some munis and get flamethrowers on your engineer. Flamers clear caches relatively quickly.

The basic USF opener is as follows:

Rifle-Rifle-Rifle-Tech

*"Tech" being a grenade, ambulance, or LT+m20 - depending on what your opponent is doing.

be sure to build these first 4 units as soon as you can, keep your eye on your manpower and build the moment you can. as USF you shine the best in the early game and you dont want to waste even a single second of your early game advantage. Get your rifles out and apply pressure.


On larger maps, it can sometimes make sense to replace your first rifle with a RE- this gets you more units on the field faster and helps you capture points faster- This is only a smart choice on larger maps where early on there is mostly capping/harassing and very little actual fighting. A second RE is usually a bad idea, but if you do build one, build it first not second.