Advanced Emplacements help

This seems like a weird question, but when is it appropriate to build emplacements with this commander ? In 3v3, 4v4, I feel as if building any emplacements immediately tips your hand, which prompts the enemy to start spamming mortars and ISGs. This pretty much spells your doom, unless your allies can take out the enemy support weapons. Thus, I feel like this commander is fairly easily countered by any Axis player who knows what they're doing. Kind of a one-trick pony.

Well that is what counter-barrage is for...so goddamn strong on maps small enough for it to hit the opponents mortars but totally useless on maps where it is out of range. Mortar pits right behind bofors to shoot back at them, forward headquarters tents for repairs and to give garrison bonus for faster mortar pit shooting+bofors volley fire ability.

So yeah its very map dependent, but the game is horrendously badly balanced for 3v3s and 4v4s anyway...

If you think of emplacements as merely a speedbump which you will lose eventually it helps. Mortar pits especially so, in my experience they will be coming for it almost no matter what so plan accordingly.

At some point you need to break out to win the game, which I find very difficult with this commander. When they do go for the pit capping the territory behind and building a bofors on the retreat path can be fun. Anvil engineers can put one up pretty quickly.

Only use for the 17pdr I've found is distracting the opposition long enough to build one withing range of his Schwerer to wreck it. Sometimes losing defensively placed emplacements is a blessing in diguise, they take up a lot of popcap and assuming you have gained some map control sometimes they'll be doing you a favour.

Of course the commander gives you nothing that can help you hunt for ISGs and you've probably locked out the AEC... Don't really have any answers to this. Sticking some engineers in a UC and going happy capping around cutoffs etc can be fun, trouble is even if you find an ISG and kill the crew you can't destroy it, and generally this is just a quick way to lose 420 MP. Can place a mine next to it, again fun, but generally they just get recrewed.

This seems like a weird question, but when is it appropriate to build emplacements with this commander ? In 3v3, 4v4, I feel as if building any emplacements immediately tips your hand, which prompts the enemy to start spamming mortars and ISGs. This pretty much spells your doom, unless your allies can take out the enemy support weapons. Thus, I feel like this commander is fairly easily countered by any Axis player who knows what they're doing. Kind of a one-trick pony.

It's only good on a few maps, and even then needs a word of caution. Emplacements don't seem to live long unless you have effective counter battery to help. Even then, the counter barrage has a 250 range, so you'll need smaller maps for it to be effective. If counter barrage isn't effective, then your emplacements will be just the speed bump that Spinflight said that they are.

Early emplacements get rekt easily because you likely won't have enough to defend the emplacement. IMO, they're better when you have the cp's for counterbattery

Even if you are successful in keeping sim city alive, there is still the tactical problem that your sim city isn't mobile. If you lock down one VP and camp there, while the rest of your team is outmatched on the other two points then you'll lose anyway.

Thanks for the info , everyone who responded; it pretty much confirmed my suspicions. At the very least, I suppose it forces the enemy into building units they might not otherwise build.

Yes, very much so.

Those 3 ISGs ( 27 popcap) or mortars might seem like a great idea until a couple of Cromwells appear from nowhere or vetted infantry finds them with Brens.

Think of emplacements in a resource orientated way. That bofors guarding your fuel and VP cost 30 and 280MP. It lasted maybe ten minutes? Bargain. for gawds sake let it die. You got 80 Fuel in those 10 minutes. Anvil engineers can repair under fire, engineers just get wrecked and barely postpone the death of the emplacement. How much manpower did it save you though? If then answer is more than 10 Tommys then profit.

Pits too, annoying some crappy pios or Volks early game is one thing, late game when infantry is thin on the ground because armour is taking up 50 popcap, and the pios are needed to repair, he has to use vetted death dealers to cap. Is it worth 400 MP to take out a single Vet 5 Ober? To weaken them enough that your infantry can take it out? Absolutely. Late game small arms do less, mortars though still wreck. A late game mortar pit is an excellent way to farm rage quits.

If the opp is mounting an armoured assault supported by IDF and offmaps to take out a piddly Bofors for gods sake just let it die. Repairing under fire is something only Anvil engineers are designed for, otherwise you are just bleeding yourself in a game you can't win. Not to say targeting his inf is unhelpful, just retreat before the big guns turn on them rather than the emplacement. If he is dedicating that much force to one place it should mean opportunities elsewhere so research grenades, buy a UC and take out that annoying MG42 or whatnot to take his cutoff / fuel while he is at it. You can then build a Bofors there and rinse repeat, probably in a better position where he doesn't have the depth to comfortably use ISGs etc. Don't think you have to stick to one side of the map.

Also don't forget the best emplacement of them all. The humble trench. Time is another resource and the number of times the opposition will stop to take out an empty trench is amazing. Course a sniper in one every now and again will keep him wary... The best thing about them is that some of the many counters against emplacements suck arse against them. Paks and tanks in particular. Also you can happily build them out of sight providing you stay away from a capping point.

All emplacements are a fixed cost, and none really give anything really useful in terms of vet. Don't get attached to them and stay mobile.

Thanks for the info , everyone who responded; it pretty much confirmed my suspicions. At the very least, I suppose it forces the enemy into building units they might not otherwise build.

I do sometimes build LefH's to counter them, and it is about the only time that I build those. I kind of agree with Spinflight about the use of emplacements. Once someone gets a counter up (like LefH), then hope that you've got your money's worth out of the emplacements. I've had games where my LefH got 40+ kills because someone tried to keep his simcity going, and ultimately lost the game.

In most games, I'll either build no emplacements or a defensive mortar pit that can barely reach past the VP (or other point) that it is guarding. Any more than that is normally a waste.

Hm, good perspective supported by cogent arguments ! Thanks, I'll give that a whirl !