turbotortoise: Commrade_General

Sounds like a hectic time. If you're ready, our lesson could start then, no problem.

Hey man, just wanted to let you know my flight got delayed. I'll be ready closer to 10/1030 PM PST. Sorry :/

Hey Turbo,

Here's a pretty interesting replay from today!

http://www.coh2.org/replay/41860/for-turbo--2v2-with-commrade_general-as-cbf

Thanks for those tips yesterday! They really came in handy for this match.

I'm glad. I've poured over it, and have taken some notes. It's pretty succinct and straight forward, I identified some areas where I don't think you made the... "most optimal" strategic decision, sort of situations where I don't think you considered or misjudged the advantages you had, or sort of misread the flow of the game. I'll have an analysis ready for you in the next couple of days. I don't mean to be a tease or what have you; however, this delay isn't isolated. I'm afraid I've fallen behind on my exam preparation and will have to cancel this weeks session. I hope you understand. I'll reply to the thread once I'm clear, likely Wednesday evening, and we can get back on track then.

Cool, thanks for the update! And, haha, please, by all means...pass your exams! Totally no worries

Hiyah CG, Wednesday huh? sorry for the tardiness. I feel derelict in my duties of a mentor, but I’m here now, we may as well get down to business.

It will be tough to go off memory, but in case you forgot. You did well to take the north VP and munitions point and dig in. Now, this lead into a really important sequence at the 4th minute, which we’ll have to discuss, but before we go into specifics I’ll just outline a little bit of theory again.

Whenever you make a tactical decision it needs to do three things, firstly: be in line with your overall strategic vision, the overall plan, secondly: turn an advantage in economy or army composition, i.e. achieve one/two not mutually exclusive things, squad wipes or denying resources, naturally this is not independent of the first principle, (also, advantage meaning not at comparable or greater loss) and thirdly it must: preferably utilize any edges generated, and pick on your opponents inefficiencies, whether that be team work, over extension, poor army composition etc.

The third point is where a gap in our tutoring currently lies, and is really my fault that I haven’t been narrowing our focus on a faction per faction basis, and has also has been suggested to me by other strategists:

I haven’t quite built an understanding of the different factions and their dynamics.

Each faction play very differently by that I mean, they will excel utilizing specific types of strategy, and some doctrines and tactics will better suit these overall strategies and thusly be more applicable to certain factions over another. Knowing where your edge lies, and where your opponents struggle will help you make tactical decisions and inform your overall strategy, again, something that has been lacking in our program thus far.

For instance the UKF are very defensive to begin with and then find an edge in the late game and burst out on the battlefield. The OKW are fairly similar, both the antithesis of say the USF who will swarm and push and play very mobile and pacey, trying to find flanks, eventually wearing down unless they're able to break down their opponent, the USF struggle when forcing frontal assaults.

So we need to decide what factions we want to focus in order to build these better understandings because again, going back to the example at the fourth minute, you were dug in on the north side, not much at this time is going to be able to uproot you head on, but you made the decision to push the centre, not only is this really incongruent with the early game UKF doctrine, but it also left you exposed for a lack of scouting information. Really quickly one infantry section was facing up to six, count it, six oncoming squads, and your Vickers was caught repositioning, not good. I think not recognizing the UKF’s strength in defensive posture also lead you to make a few assaults in the centre as well, at very inopportune times, when your cut-off was being assaulted by both players. I think if you had recognized the defensive strength of the UKF you would have made an easier and more effective decision to shift, stop your team mate from yelling at you, and defend the cut-off, because those pushes into the middle VP did not achieve any of our three, key tactical principles.

Now I say this in as best faith as I can, because I too make the same errors from a lack of understanding the faction, very evident in your midgame transition, I do the same things. For five minutes you were floating nearly a grand in manpower, this is… one of the most preposterous things I’ve ever seen xD but I’m glad it worked out for you, forget the wasps, one word, Commandos. I think if we can work on building an understanding of one faction at a time, we can start to recognize 1. how we want to play, what sort of overall strategy do we want to implement, and 2. what are the most efficient ways we achieve this.

So, as I think about how we advance, we need to address the one major trend, and stumbling block that has become sort of the epitome of our struggles: things are harder than they need to be due to a gaps in faction understandings. Even in earlier replays they’re sprinkled with, good but not great strategic decisions-- not quiteeee the most efficient play being made. Just to hammer it home, I feel you make things harder on yourself than they need to be, and I think I’m certain now, it’s because we haven’t developed an overall sense for how the factions should be behaving.

Unfortunately, I haven't really been on top of things going on in my life. I don't foresee being able to even discuss when our next session is until next Wednesday. If you wish to be transferred to a different mentor, I understand, and will try and expedite that process, but if you can bare with me then with OCF and SCC4, there are a lot of replays that you could overview. I will upload a replay later tonight when I get on my desktop in particular that I think really highlights just again, how different tactics suit different factions. It's UKF vs. Ost, pay particular attention to the UKF and ask yourself why is he using the Tommies the way he is, and what would be different if they were say, riflemen, or Volks, how would he be using them, and why? What makes the UKF different. These I think are the questions we need to be asking.

Damn, that match was insane. Again, your analysis is on point though in regards to my lack of faction knowledge. Like, in watching that match, I thought "OH, he's building a bunch of bunkers; definitely seems like a good place to put an mg." But nope, not a single mg built ever from paula. Already an error there in regards to build order as I usually like to get an mg out early.

But another area where I lack is in map experience as well, as I wouldn't know the best spots to place an mg or put down an emplacement (none of which he placed, either).

Another element I noticed is how heavily he builds infantry fortifications to ensure his Infantry Sections have green cover for engagements. Certainly the yellow/green cover buff is amazing for them. But I have never built anywhere near that many bunkers in fear of them getting destroyed and wasting manpower. But he didn't lose a single one (not to any fault of your own!). And when a bunker wasn't available, he made it an extreme priority to get in the nearest green cover/building. I think my micro in that area isn't near as on point; but that seems to certainly help him considering he had enough manpower to build two snipers.

But yeah, I would still say you are right about my main issue being faction knowledge because I would have had a completely different build order given the same situation. Especially given the early field advantage paula had. As you know from our previous discussions, I generally fret when I have the advantage and don't always know what to build. But I'm still working on that!

And I can easily say, if we wanted to focus on certain factions, my choice would be OKW, then UKF after that. If you don't feel comfortable with either of those, I'd be willing to switch because I really do enjoy playing as all the factions. But as I'm a natural turtle player when it comes to RTS, both of those factions easily fit my playstyle.

Also, there is totally no worries in regards to your speed/schedule. Honestly, us working together couldn't have worked out more perfectly as I too am generally busy, haha. So by all means, please take your time and focus on school! But know that I'm always down to play if we happen to be free at the same time, haha. OR, if you come in-game and I'm playing one currently, feel free to watch my broadcast through steam!

Thanks so much for the reply! Hope to see you on next week!

-Commrade_General

p.s. I enjoyed your map of where all the UKF units are from - as a standard ignorant American (haha ), it was nice to see where each unit's accent is from.