In retrospect I'll admit that this was by no means my finest moment in gaming, as I had not played soviets for almost a month and was quite tired after work.
I don't have much experience facing off against such a hunkered down version of OKW so I suspect I might have gone about it all wrong.
so if any veterans have some time on their hands and are willing to give me some tough but fair feedback, then it would be much appreciated
You asked for it and thus I will not play the complimentary hogo-fogo around and go directly to the review. Images are in spoilers, for faster page load time and shorter post.
Commander Loadout
Your commander loadout was good, basically as long as you have Lend Lease in your roster you will be fine, because this commander is currently a tool for every occasion. What was wrong though, was that you went defensive doctrine instead of different commander (lend lease). There wasn't point to go defensive doctrine and it didn't add anything to your army composition or game plan. You had enough fuel to get T70 to counter luch once it showed up, so the lil AT gun (will never learn its name ) wasn't needed at all.
You spent too much manpower on various team weapons. This set you back because you didn't have manpower to tech and buy tanks. It is almost always better to spend your manpower on tanks if you have the fuel needed for them.
The Early Game
Remember the early game is the most important phase of the game. Most is decided in first 15 minutes. If you play exceptionally well early on you wont have to worry about lategame at all because you will simply snowball into victory and break his line with masses of tanks and vetted infantry
-start capturing points with your first engineer and build tier1 with second engineer, not the other way around. You will capture points sooner this way and so you will stockpile more reasources. There is no point in building tier1 with your first engineer because you will not have enough manpower to acquire penal battalion the moment you build tier1. On the other hand, if you build tier1 with second engineer you will be able to train penal battalion like 5 seconds after the tier is constructed.
-always look at the map and cut-offs. It is nice that you have captured munnition point but it is good for nothing as long as you do not capture strategic point near it which connects the munnition point with your base. (look at image)
- try to pic favourable fights and do not lose hitpoints unless you have to. You want to minimase the bleed early on so you can spend more manpower elsewhere and not on medics in first 5 minutes of the game. Staying at long range in a green cover (even better in garrison) against any squad (especially against sturms) with penals is a good idea. Always try to pick favourable fights and run away when you are outnumbered. Stay on defense when some of your squads arent present in the battlefield and attack with full force. This way you will save more manpower and also give less vet to your enemy. You never want to feed OKW with vet, becuase of their 5 vet squads. The later they get vet5, the better.
NOTE: Cover is directional (except craters), you only benefit from it when it is in between your and enemy's squad. Also cover is negated when the range between squads is lesser than 10 (molotov max range is 15, min range is 5). Red cover is always applied. Flamethrowers negate cover, explosions only deal 50% damage to squads in green cover.
-always have a good capping order and play with a plan in your mind. For example you ignored your fuel cut-off and garrison near it for a long time. If you enemy was clever and rushed the garrison with his Sturmpioneers, he would have given you rather a hard time
-Play with a plan in your mind. Do not pick a fight if you gain anything by winning it. Try to fight on your terms in the early game and always try to capture key locations like garrison near cut-off (and cut off) or fuel. If you cannot break the stalemate, hold your side and wait for clowncar - it will give you an option to turn the battlefield into your favour.
-Do not attack with empty M3. Without flamer engineers in it its rather weak and you are only giving your enemy a warning before the strike.
Mid Game
As I have already stated, rushing t70 (and su76 afterwards) is better than getting little AT gun if you have fuel to do so. Also only upgrade your penals with PTRS as a last ditch effort. They turn into useless AI squad with the upgrade.
Be more agressive, build tanks and focus on key objects like fuel of cut off. Do not let your enemy to build big forward HQ, use your fuel to snowball.
Late Game
Your poor army composition resulted into big manpower bleed which resulted into inability to acquire tanks. You had 200+ fuel, yet you wasnt able to deploy T34 horde because you´ve lacked manpower for it. Next time focus more on tanks and less on shitty lil at gun if you have the option to do so.
Also you was only bashing your head against his fortified sim-city. If you look at tacmap you can see that his simcity wasnt protecting any of VPs nor his fuel. Strike where he is weak - simcity means he wont have manpower for strong mobile army.
So basically thats it. Your poor mid game army composition (many weapon teams, floating fuel) and inability to adapt to his strategy - getting su76 to bombard him sooner and focusing on less defended areas cost you the game. Also if you have picked different doctrine (lend lease) and spammed shermans you could have won, but this way not.
Hope I helped you,
if you still have any question, feel free to ask them
Hector
Sorry for late reply, I though I posted it here a day ago, but I have actually posted into one of my PMs with myself
Thanks for the feedback hector.
You gave me some very sensible advice, and I must admit that my knowledge of the westwall map is clearly lacking as shown by my many faliures to capture cut-offs.
The tip about the second engineer building t1 and saving the scout car until I had a flamer engineer is certainly something I will think about in the future.
The reason I picked the defensive doctrine was partly to get complete alternatives for t2, especially the dshk and 120mm mortar combo, but also to try out the AP-mines as I've seen VonIvan using these on twitch. The last point failed completely however, because they seem to behave strangely when I try to build them by using the que-order and several times the engineers simply didn't do as I asked. Not sure if this is a bug or I simply messed up somehow
Either way I really appreciate the feedback and might try to mix up my doctrine composition a bit, perhaps swapping in reserve army if I should meet a defensive OKW again some other time.
The only downside to it was that I was called a retarded turbo-autist by my opponent who also told me to uninstall my game :/
Just ignore guys like him, the coh2 community is full of them. I once started an argument with one guy like him and ended up with "high.community.member" nickname in whole SB
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