Profile of Inverse

You should be using a completely different DPI for CS compared to an RTS. When I play CS I use 400DPI with a sensitivity of around 1.5, but RTS games require more frequent large movements and less pixel-perfect precision. Your arm is going to get tired as hell trying to play at RTS at 400DPI with any amount of speed. You should be able to play using almost entirely wrist movements, which is very different from a game like CS where arm movement is encouraged because it leads to greater precision.

I use a Sidewinder X3 at 2000DPI with no mouse acceleration (default 6/11 in Windows settings with Enhance Pointer Precision off and the MarkC acceleration fix applied, which I don't think really does anything but I do it anyways because I always have). I'd have to check what my in-game scroll speed is, but I try to set it to the highest speed possible for myself while still being able to keep control. Scroll speed is really personal preference though, as you practice more you'll find yourself using edge panning less and less, and you'll get a feel for whether your scroll speed is too fast or too slow, and you can adjust things to your liking.

I'd say gridkeys are more efficient simply because it requires less hand movement since all of your hotkeys are on one section of the keyboard. It also makes switching between different factions a lot easier because you only have to remember one set of hotkeys. I use gridkeys in pretty much every single game I play these days because I find the muscle memory translates nicely between titles.

Tactical map is one of the most useful control elements in CoH. It's unfortunate that CoH2's tactical map is so crowded with extra information, but it's still an invaluable tool. I usually use it to position units before engagements and set up capping after fights, while reverting back to the regular minimap during combat because it gives you the overview of the tactical map but with better precision and slightly faster movement around the map.

Control groups are great, but they're not nearly as vital in CoH as they are in other games. When I started I put every single unit on the field into a control group because it made keeping track of things easier for me, but as I got quicker and more comfortable I cut back to only putting vital units in control groups, things like vehicles, snipers, AT guns, and artillery. Something I like to do is rebind my 0 control group to the tilde (~) key, which gives me an extra easily accessible control group right beside the cluster of keys that are used for hotkeys. My usual control group setup is:

~: Scouting vehicle/secondary vehicle group
1: Primary vehicle group
2: AT guns
3: Sniper
4: Second sniper/artillery
5: Artillery if I have a second sniper, or mortar if I have artillery
6: Mortar if all other groups are in use (2 snipers and artillery on the field)

It's not a "different styles" thing though, because one approach is objectively better than the other. If it was a "different styles" thing you'd have some professional RTS players using WASD, yet none do. In a hypothetical fairy world where you could compare two players who are otherwise identical with one using WASD and the other using traditional RTS control, the traditional control player would have faster reaction time and better mechanical control over his units. It might take a little more time to reach proficiency for the traditional control player than the WASD player, but once he gets there he is going to have an advantage in every single game going forward.

Throughout this whole conversation I've said repeatedly that if you don't care about trying to compete with the very best I couldn't care less how you move around the map. Use whatever method you enjoy the most and don't change because someone says your method is inferior. But if you're trying to compete in tournaments or just trying to be the best possible player you can be, it doesn't matter if you're competing for money or just competing on the CoH ladder. I played college baseball, and I knew I wasn't good enough to go pro, but that never stopped me from always trying to find an edge. Why would you voluntarily choose to play in a way that is objectively inferior? If the answer is "I'm more comfortable like this" or "It would take too long to learn", well, I don't really see you improving very much, and I doubt you're the kind of player I'm talking about anyways. The best player in the world is going to recognize that even for him, comfortable doesn't necessarily mean most effective, because that's the sort of mentality that drives constant improvement and innovation.

CoH as a franchise has a lower APM requirement than many other RTS games, this is true. But that doesn't mean lessons from those games cannot be applied with similar effectiveness to Company of Heroes. Micro efficiency is micro efficiency regardless of the game you're playing, and in CoH2 it's especially important because micro is really the only way to differentiate yourself from others. Half a second can be the difference between dodging a grenade and losing half a squad, between reversing away from an AT gun in time and losing a tank, between losing only one squad to artillery and losing three. These little interactions happen countless times every single game, and they're going to affect your ladder win rate, your tournament advancement rate, and ultimately your success against players who you cannot simply out-think and out-maneuver. Being a consistently good RTS player is all about giving yourself the statistically best possible chance of winning any given game. Improving your mechanics improves your baseline chance of winning every single game. Why wouldn't you want that?

There's a reason a player like HuK could walk into CoH1 and make it to a tournament semifinal with less than 6 months of experience. When you have impeccable RTS mechanics, you're going to be pretty damn good at all RTS games, not just those that emphasize mechanics more than others. Watch other top CoH1 and CoH2 players and pay attention to just how many silly little unforced errors they make because they're distracted elsewhere or overwhelmed with necessary actions, especially late in games. These are tournament winners and ladder leaders, and they all fuck up a ton because they're too slow and too inefficient. Imagine a player with that knowledge and the speed and efficiency to completely eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum those unforced errors. Imagine how incredibly difficult they would be to beat.

The myth that CoH players don't benefit from playing faster and playing with higher APM is just that, a myth. You can't find someone who plays at 50APM and who isn't overwhelmed lategame in Company of Heroes, it doesn't matter their skill level. Watch a tournament finals and count the number of times grenades don't get dodged, or manpower gets floated unnecessarily, or vehicles take extra AT gun hits, or mines don't go down the second they should. Look for these little errors and you'll be amazed at how often they occur. You can't improve on these problems with game knowledge or strategic skill; you need to improve your mechanics, improve your efficiency, improve your raw speed. In order to do that you need to start with a fundamentally sound foundation, not a gimmick that no serious professional RTS player would touch with a 100 foot poll.

So what you're saying is using WASD has the following advantages over using traditional minimap movement:

- Easier to make minor adjustments to the position of the camera.

That's it. That's its one advantage. And it's an extremely minor advantage when you consider that improving your minimap precision means minor adjustments should be required less frequently, and that even when necessary minor adjustments with the mouse are relatively low-impact compared to the vast array of advantages minimap control gives you over WASD control already, and that the scenario you describe (chasing an enemy unit) is a complete wash regardless of control style because you still need your mouse to follow the unit in order to issue move orders to follow, so having that same mouse also pan the camera costs you nothing.

Compare the above list of advantages with the advantages minimap control has over WASD:

- A full hand free for ability and building hotkeys, which are more important in CoH2 than in CoH1 because units have more individual abilities than they did in CoH1.
- A full hand free for control groups. Say you have 6 control groups and you want to issue commands to all 6 as quickly as possible. With WASD control, this means completely sacrificing map movement while your hand is busy selecting your control groups.
- A more intense focus on the minimap, which is the absolute most important element of the user interface in an RTS.
- Quicker and more efficient access to unit control shortcuts such as attack-move and halt. Tapping a key is a whole lot quicker than moving your mouse and clicking a button when you want to quickly halt a unit or issue multiple attack-move orders to multiple control groups of units in quick succession.
- Allows your mouse to always be as close to your units as possible, which means you're going to have improved reaction time for when you need to micro squads, reverse vehicles, dodge grenades...the list goes on and on. What do you do when your mouse is doing something you could be using a keyboard shortcut for and your opponent throws a grenade? You're going to be a little less prepared than you would have been otherwise. These little moments add up over the course of a game.

Like I said, people will use what they want to use, and it's completely up to them. And ya know what? If you just fuck around and you play with friends and you aren't serious about being a great player and practicing a lot and all that crap, do whatever the hell you want. The vast majority of people who play this game are never going to take it seriously enough to care about mechanics like this. But if you're grinding out 1v1s and analyzing your replays and seriously trying to improve as a player, there's really no reason why you would use WASD control. It may be slightly more difficult to master minimap control and require slightly better mouse precision, but when done correctly it is objectively the quickest, most efficient way to control camera movement in an RTS. And when combined with other mechanics best practices, like minimizing box size and creating boxes in such a way that your mouse at the end of the box is where you plan on issuing your command, it really makes a night-and-day difference in the speed and level of control you have over your units.

But don't just take my word for it. There are a lot of very good instructional videos out there of professional RTS players explaining how they get the most out of their time and their actions over the course of a game, and most of their tips and lessons apply equally as well to Company of Heroes. If you're trying to be the best player you can be, why wouldn't you try to be as efficient as possible mechanically? It's the one aspect of your gameplay over which you have complete control. If one method of control gives you even slight benefits over another, there is no reason not to use it.

Nobody's going to sign up without a date. I definitely won't. You set the date in advance and people who can play on that date will sign up. Literally the only way to run a tournament.