I am ready to stop sucking......

Brothers, comrades.....
I have played this game for many a year now, and many brave Grenadiers have lost their lives to Riflemen blobs, many Sherman's have been gunned down by quadruple packs, and countless t34's where annihilated by the Volks scum. This is a time of self reflection and self improvement. But in all seriousness how do you guys practice? Because I'm still in the same place I was when I first started playing and I'm ready to stop being a lower form of trash at my favorite game.
Thank you.

After you end a match, lost or win, you need to see the replaus, and then you need to be really critic when analizing your tactics to know what units shluld have never be done, what upgrades should have been purchased, what mines should have been placed, what walls would have been wired to avoid enemies to get green cober, were you should have build some cover for your troops, etc.

Aswell, if you won the match this part may not be necesary, you should check your enemies tactics, mine emplacements that reckt you, moments that outflanked you to avoid it on future times, what time he got the first tank with X map control to be prepared for it, places were he denies cober so you can expect in other matches, were an mg locked you down and study how could you countered it, etc. You wont imagine the things you can learn from your enemies.

Other tips will be to get a good control of your economy, try to get the troops you need the faster you can and know when you should tech or build some caches; or try to not blob if you dont want to find yourself in "sticky" situations, if you have problems to micro troops start using only part of them while you leave the others safe behind green cober or into a house, thats not something you cant doin a day and certainly its easier to do for some people than others.

This maybe some basics but im sure it can help you to improve, but only of course if you stay frosty and dont just think "its not my fault, the game is unbalanced, nerf X thing. I hope this helps you, comrade

Do whatever strat you want until you lose. Copy the strat & faction of the guy you lost to until you lose. Repeat as necessary.

What game modes do you play? Do you play every faction?

I recommend a few things:
1) Always be 100% focused when you're playing
2) Play more 1v1s to improve your micro skills/independence
3) Use hotkeys (if you don't, use grid keys; can be changed in options in game)
4) Use control groups (hold control, then a number to select any number of units you want in a control group. Then, when you press the same number, you will select all of those units).
5) Get at least one decent, all-around buildorder
6) get capping orders (I have none set in stone and it's often painful for me.)
7) When you're losing, make sure to talk trash to your opponent because he/she is a no-life loser who spends too much time playing videogames. Don't tell them that you're crying though. It will make you appear weak.

Control groups, capping orders and exploiting cover(not ghosting, although I do ghost if im interrupted in the building process) were the biggest changes I made to get better.

Brothers, comrades.....
I have played this game for many a year now, and many brave Grenadiers have lost their lives to Riflemen blobs, many Sherman's have been gunned down by quadruple packs, and countless t34's where annihilated by the Volks scum. This is a time of self reflection and self improvement. But in all seriousness how do you guys practice? Because I'm still in the same place I was when I first started playing and I'm ready to stop being a lower form of trash at my favorite game.
Thank you.

The best way to get better is obv playing the game but play WITH a friend or teammate.

I say this bc you talk with your teammate and get tactics down.

It hard to get better if your teammates are bad and you always lose and you think its yourself.

But I assume you're talking team games.

If you're 1v1, then its honestly watching replays and live streams of the game and "copy" good players and see what works.

Each patch will change the game, and also this game is huge on commanders, certain commanders will be better than others in certain game modes.

Chose wisely.

What game modes do you play? Do you play every faction?

I recommend a few things:
1) Always be 100% focused when you're playing
2) Play more 1v1s to improve your micro skills/independence
3) Use hotkeys (if you don't, use grid keys; can be changed in options in game)
4) Use control groups (hold control, then a number to select any number of units you want in a control group. Then, when you press the same number, you will select all of those units).
5) Get at least one decent, all-around buildorder
6) get capping orders (I have none set in stone and it's often painful for me.)
7) When you're losing, make sure to talk trash to your opponent because he/she is a no-life loser who spends too much time playing videogames. Don't tell them that you're crying though. It will make you appear weak.

Thanks to all for the replies. I use the grid hotkey setup but how do you use your control groups? This is something I am not familiar with this. Also I try to play all the factions and I only play 1v1.

Thanks to all for the replies. I use the grid hotkey setup but how do you use your control groups? This is something I am not familiar with this. Also I try to play all the factions and I only play 1v1.

Well, for control groups you simply select a unit, hold control, and then press a number key. I usually organize the unit list in the upper right by engineer (1), infantry (2-5), Sniper (5), MG (6), armor (6-8), artillery (0).

I never use nine for some reason. I prefer keeping my infantry squads on individual control groups and double up the same type of armor (P4, Comet, Panther) on 6 or 7.

For me, it helps because I am used to the same general layout of the upper right, and if I hear "ahh mines" from my rifles, I can look up on the right and see who is in combat or who is losing models and just hit the unit icon and press r and make them retreat immediately. Also, if I see a unit is on low health or models, I can just click in the upper right and press R. The control groups help because I have the unit icons laid out how they usually appear to me.

Well, for control groups you simply select a unit, hold control, and then press a number key. I usually organize the unit list in the upper right by engineer (1), infantry (2-5), Sniper (5), MG (6), armor (6-8), artillery (0).

I never use nine for some reason. I prefer keeping my infantry squads on individual control groups and double up the same type of armor (P4, Comet, Panther) on 6 or 7.

For me, it helps because I am used to the same general layout of the upper right, and if I hear "ahh mines" from my rifles, I can look up on the right and see who is in combat or who is losing models and just hit the unit icon and press r and make them retreat immediately. Also, if I see a unit is on low health or models, I can just click in the upper right and press R. The control groups help because I have the unit icons laid out how they usually appear to me.

Thank you I will give that a try and I will also start going over my replays as well.

About control groups, you just need to find what works for you, personally I don't use more than 4 control groups, 1 - Inf, 2 - support weapons, 3 - high value units (snipers etc), 4 - tanks. This is something I got used to use.

Take some time to understand what units are good at what, either by testing or reading/watching guides, this will help you know when to fight and when to retreat from a fight and what units you should use against certain types of build and/or units

I am in the same position as topic starter. At the moment, I hope the following approach will work for me:

- Always watch the replay of my own game, whether I win or lose. Try to see why different parts of the match went well for me (so I can repeat that) or went badly for me (and think what I should've done differently)

- Watching live games or casts or reading guides is quite entertaining and fun, but I find it hard to actually learn something. I do learn some stuff and see common build orders, but it doesn't really offer insight on why I lose certain matches.

- If I don't really see what went wrong or have specific question I use this forum.

- And, maybe, just acceptance that I am a lousy player. The ultimate goal is to have matches that I enjoy/feel good about. No matter what my level is, I think the matching system will try to get my win % around 50%. So looking at it from that perspective, it doesn't really help to get better since your opponents will also get better. And the mere fact of a high rank would be great, but I can also play perfectly enjoyable games without it.

Most important thing, like in most life situations, is the will to improve, to win and eventually to sacrifice some of your "feeling good/relaxed while playing" attitude. If you are too lazy to learn using hotkeys you won't improve on that level, no matter how many hours you play. Same for everything else (mostly).

I am in the same position as topic starter. At the moment, I hope the following approach will work for me:

- Always watch the replay of my own game, whether I win or lose. Try to see why different parts of the match went well for me (so I can repeat that) or went badly for me (and think what I should've done differently)

- Watching live games or casts or reading guides is quite entertaining and fun, but I find it hard to actually learn something. I do learn some stuff and see common build orders, but it doesn't really offer insight on why I lose certain matches.

- If I don't really see what went wrong or have specific question I use this forum.

- And, maybe, just acceptance that I am a lousy player. The ultimate goal is to have matches that I enjoy/feel good about. No matter what my level is, I think the matching system will try to get my win % around 50%. So looking at it from that perspective, it doesn't really help to get better since your opponents will also get better. And the mere fact of a high rank would be great, but I can also play perfectly enjoyable games without it.

Give that we are in the same spot I wouldn't mind if you added me on Steam (same name as on here) that way we could practice together and give each other feed back on areas to improve and what we did well. Let me know if you'd be interested.

From the three things you mentioned to begin the thread, it sounds like your probe and attack are the same thing. Since you know quadruple paks are bad for Shermans, you must've assumed there were no paks. I there is a reasonable possibility that there is a pak on the feild, don't lead with armor. If you want to save your grens, make sure you are aware of where you are sending them, and when they find combat.

I feel I'm a pretty well rounded player if I get a solid teammate who can pull his weight. I prefer 4v4's because they're more "casual" than 2v2's or 1v1's, put me on a team of 3 other good players and we do nothing but rack up wins.

Anyways I do a lot of probing. If I'm going to attack don't send the units in piecemeal, send your whole force. infantry leading the way, with tanks/assault guns close behind, and mortars on attack-move in the rear, and a couple AT units (I prefer panzergrens) to guard the flanks.

But a lot of what I do is probing. I get a line of sight on what's giving me a problem, and then bring up my counter to it. mg/mortars, have my mortars take them out, same thing with emplacements. Run into tanks, send in my AT units. Run into Infantry, send in my Anti-Infantry units.

This has all the potential to be better if you can coordinate with other teammates who have faction/doctrinal abilities to supplement your main force to make this process faster and easier.

Usually as OStheer, I'll set up a forward heal/reinforce bunker in the rear so that me and my teammates can heal and reinforce on the battlefield from to make this less time consuming and maintain more of a field presence. No sense in having to retreat all the way back to base just to heal and reinforce you know?