I've been owned by Llyranor.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Old Llyr suggested me to acquire two games, Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday and Soldiers: Heroes of World War II. I'm currently trying to play Soldiers, but I'm finding out the hard way I suck.

 

Soldiers is a classy game. The engine is very fluid and features very interactive environments, with great animations, has several fun interaction possibilities, allows players to shift from automated to direct control of any unit, and there are multiple ways to go across levels.

 

But it's kicking my groin hard. It's got to be the hardest game I've played on account of the seemingly impossible odds of each mission. Of the four available campaigns - which follow a Russian, British, American and German perspective - I've only tried the first missions of the British and Russian campaigns. It was only after a 5 hour stint of frantic loading and saving that I managed to get through the first level of the British campaign.

 

On the Easy difficulty setting.

 

I don't mind a challenge, I actually enjoy it. I also appreciate games which require a fair to high degree of patience to be played, or else I wouldn't be investing in games like this or Hidden and Dangerous 2. But when your very first mission is to control one single character and send him to an enemy encampment and:

• Destroy search lights;
  
• Deal with armed guards;
  
• Deal with batteries;
  
• Scuttle a patrol boat;
  
• Off any resistance you encounter to allow the rest of the team (which is only comprised of 2 other soldiers) to reach the shore, and said resistance includes:
  • Armed guards, both patrolling and reserves in nearby barracks or bunkers;
    
  • Watchtowers with guards using automatic fire, stationary machine guns
    
  • Half tracks;
    
  • and cannons
    

You immediately know Llyranor has to be a gaming god to proceed without much hassle. Or he expertly handles the interface. Or both. This isn't some firstperson shooter or anything, it's a thirdperson realtime strategy game so imagine controlling one weak unit against all these others in that framework.

 

The other mission I couldn't get through in the Russian campaign also pitted you against unsurmountable odds. You have to wade through German troops in a town called Chepel and liberate it with a small force. If this was Hidden and Dangerous or Commandos, you'd get an idea of how the odds would be. Now imagine the odds in those games and multiply them. By ten. You'll have two infantry units, one tank with four infrantry units, and a small vehicule with a mounted weapon and controlled by two additional units. Sounds fair, until you notice the enemy has like 100+ infantry, more than a handful of 88mm antitank guns, and like ten tanks. And there's a minefield of sorts there as well.

 

When you factor in that even in Easy mode the difficulty is high and that you have to switch across these few units to fight against all of that, you're in for a challenge. And from what I gather pretty much every level is like that.

 

I feel your stares Llyranor, and I'll make you eat that grin of yours when you read this. I can't even imagine how Doomsday is going to be.

Edited May 1, 2006 by Role-Player

[alanschu]

Doomsday sounds much more straight forward, and if you want any help or tips with it, just open up a thread and I will be there!

 

It's done at the division level, so you'll never have just "one guy." At worst, you'll have one last division of men (which still means you're probably screwed, but you can build more!).

Edited May 1, 2006 by alanschu

[Nick_i_am]

http://roleplayer.justgotowned.com/

 

But yeah, both awsome games, I used to play a lot of coop Soldiers with Llyranor, good days.

 

Doomsday i'm completely addicted to.

 

You'll get used to it though. Hard is a challange, but easy allows for rambo mode without that much risk.

 

For chapel, the tank you start with is more powerful than anything else on the battlefeild, so just keep that alive, use HE shells to level the village and roll through slowly and gently.

 

Learning to make libral use of direct control is a must.

Edited May 1, 2006 by Nick_i_am

[Llyranor]

First question: did you PATCH it? Apparently, the game is impossibly hard without the patch.

 

Second: do you make use of pause and slowmo? Press backspace to set up gamespeed, so as to be able to control multiple characters.

[alanschu]

I particularly like the methodical singing in that link.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

http://roleplayer.justgotowned.com/

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ha ha.

 

I (unknowingly) bought this Sold Out range version (I thought I had purchased the original version) and these versions have the latest patches either already applied to the executable or are automatically installed right after the game has been. However since I don't recall it having been installed that may be the case - for reference, the version I currently have is 1.0.28.0. I'll look around for possible patches.

 

I did use the pause and slow motion. They really help but the problem is that sometimes the characters are destroyed by a combination of death by superior firepower (cannons against one puny soldier? oh dear) to enemies being somewhat resistant. However I did manageto finish that Lighthouse mission yesterday (unsurprisingly thanks to having captured the main cannons in the camp, hah ha!) so we'll see what's up next

[Llyranor]

Wait, also, do you use Direct Control? One tank is all you need in the first Russian mission to pulverize the enemy camp to bits if you play your cards right. The rest is for backup, or for acquiring a second tank, etc.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Doomsday sounds much more straight forward, and if you want any help or tips with it, just open up a thread and I will be there!

 

It's done at the division level, so you'll never have just "one guy."  At worst, you'll have one last division of men (which still means you're probably screwed, but you can build more!).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks for the help, I'll be sure to ask for it when the time comes. I'm not even saying "if" it comes because I'm sure it will

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Wait, also, do you use Direct Control? One tank is all you need in the first Russian mission to pulverize the enemy camp to bits if you play your cards right. The rest is for backup, or for acquiring a second tank, etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup, all the way. I realized it was a necessity when I noticed AI-controlled units aren't as responsive or accurate as when they were controlled by me.

[Llyranor]

Do you take advantage of cover? That's one gripe I have with the game. You have to be in RTS mode if you want to deploy your guys behind cover. In Direct Control you can't do anything of that.

 

Remember about going prone, crouching and such, too.

 

You can set the AI to be aggressive, defensive, or to not shoot back at all. You can also set them to move at will (not actually recommended, sometimes this is set as default, so be careful) or to not move at all.

[Nick_i_am]

Yeah, if your dudes start running all over the place for no apparent reason (except when there is a grenade around) then switch off 'move at will' because they usally get themselves killed like that.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I noticed that too about cover not working in Direct Control. That's something I really like about the game, the ways in which soldiers can interact with the environment such as sticking to a wall and ocasionally looking to the sides to exchange gunfire.

 

The very way in which I handled that small lighthouse area was very cool (if not cinematic for some): after swimming up to the small island, I whiped out the Welrod and shot the guard then quickly went prone and took his machine gun from his corpse. When the other soldier came by, I also killed him with the Welrod. After that it was a pretty tight gunfight with the others patrolling then I made a break to the house. I had the soldier provide distracting fire against the two men mounted battery until I readied a grenade. He then threw it at them, killing them off. I eventually went prone again and headed for the battery, all the while looking at the movement patterns of the two guys on the boat. When they turned their back I mounted the battery and just killed them off.

 

Of course, the nightmare began when reaching the shore. But thankfully that's gone now.

[Llyranor]

Haha, that shore battle is one of my favorites in the game.

 

Don't be discouraged by Easy being so hard. It's supposed to be that way. The harder difficulties are more suited for coop, if anything. Though, once you get more used to the game, you'll find that the next difficulties are actually possible - only, much more punishing in terms of making mistakes.