Dawn of War II: Golly gee willikers!

[Zykon TheLich]

Not to shit in your cereal but nobody in Warhammer is a hero. That's the entire point (I've felt) is that when war reaches its pinnacle there will be no question that all sides are evil. As opposed to modern war where we insist that someone is the good guy.

I mean the closest I can see to heroes is 'maybe' the Tau and even then its only because they seem to be the only race that would be really friendly to you (supposedly from what I read in a codex) if you were willing to go down on them.

I know, grimdark, exterminting whole worlds to kill one heretic yadda, yadda, yadda. Looking at it from your average gamers perspective as opposed to a 40K fanboy you have the 'good guys' imperials, eldar, tau, etc and the bad guys orks chaos etc.

Having eldar, marines, guard and tyranids gives you 3 'good guys' and 1 'bad'(maybe order and chaos as they put it in DoW would be a better description).

Besides, 40K without orks would be like a WWII game without Nazis.

 

[Nevins]

Snip

Grah! They're synonymous you fool.
I might concede to it being labelled a tactical RTS.

No, they are not synonymous, you fool.

My take on it is that its a mixture of the Space LOLZ ALIENZ setting of DoW with the gritty realism of Company of Heroes, and I love it. I want to KILL things in my game, not tell my servitors to build the armory.

Ultimateend, I have a feeling that you wouldn't be satisfied by anything other than a carbon copy of DoW in the essence engine, something that would have let down a great number of people, myself included. I am incredibly interested to learn about what they have done with the single player component.

 

[Lunar Shadow]

I personally don't find the way they went with the gameplay, I just don't like the camera. It just feels...off.

 

[Inquisitor Slayde]

A build order is not the only way to have a strategy.

I am willing to concede that DOWII is a little simplistic in comparison to most RTS games. A few more units per race would have been nice.

The game has been moved out of the base and into the field. This is not going to appeal to everyone, but don't try to tell me that because you can't build some buildings there's no strategy. Like fast building jump infantry to rush the enemy base in the first 4 mins of the game in the first DOW was so great.

DOWII goes in a different direction from DOWI and I like it. Quite a few people like it. If you don't that's fine, go back to DOWI. It's still there you know. You can still play it.

Your dislike of the new direction does not make it a bad game.

 

[Flinchy]

I like it, it lends more tactics to the actual fighting in a game then the usual, build best building to research and mass build best troops and then mass attack.

Also isn't this in the wrong section shouldn't it be in the gaming section

oh hi, you must be new to RTS
...
you've never played an RTS before have you?
theres no such thing as a best unit. EVER.
Age of empires? sure, tech up to the highest, but you're still building EVERY SINGLE unit available
Starcraft (*heart*).. each strategy requires a different unit, yes, but even the basic worker drone can be used for victory
CnC/RA/Dune. sonic tanks say, are super powerful yes, but they destroy your own units too... a well micro'd army of soldiers and rocket troops can take down anything. (orbital strike notwithstanding)

 

[Dealin Burgers]

No, they are not synonymous, you fool.

Perhaps you too need a dictionary, if only to look up the word "synonymous".

 

[Wyatt]

Perhaps you too need a dictionary, if only to look up the word "synonymous".

perhaps you need a simple dose of common sence, if they were the same we wouldnt need two different words now would we?

the person who said that "Actually dispite the dictionary the other guy is right. Tactics are generally used on a smaller scale, aka Micromanagement to victory. Strategy on the other hand is on a grand scale, aka Macromanagement." is right.

using nuclear weapons in the real world as a prime example. there are tactical ones, small yeald weapons of the moment used by generals for battle field situations, and there are the big wopping ICBM's used by the political leaders to destroy the entire nation. one is ment to be used like a really big bomb on battle field targets of moment, to break up bridge heads, too smash armor formations, to destroy bases, the other is used as a political threat, and as the end result to simply destroy the entire enemy nation.

in the real world Military's there is very much a clear difference between the two, in fact OCSs the world over spend time teaching their students the difference between the two.

tactics is your plan to win the battle, strategy is your plan for wining the war.

as for the new DOW, i played and totaly LOVED the first one, i even liked the first expantion. i stoped buying them after that since i didnt think $40 was a good deal for a new set of units and some lame game play changes. im however pretty anal about expantion packs at all ever in any game. im very much against being milked $40 at a time to maybe someday eventual get a whole game. the second version doesnt excite me at all. if i wanted to play a shooter id buy a shooter (wich is all taht 'tactical' games like this really are, a simple shooter with the ability to controll more than one unit at a time). i want a RTS, and RTS means at its heart and soul you STARTING by building a base. now if your ADD cant be brought under controll long enough to spend 5 minuts ploting an actual strategy for a given senario thats too bad, but there IS a difference between what an RTS is supposed to be and an Caffeine Fueled twitch fest like this new DOW is shaping up to be.

strategy means you think about something besides the battle of the moment, tactics means you dont think at all you just shoot.

 

[bue519]

I play 40k, the board game sort of thing, and on no occasion have I ever needed to build a building to deploy my armies and whatnot, so therefore, since the video game and the game-game should be based off the same system, they took the buildings out.
Note: I have NOT played Dawn of War or the Dawn of War 2 beta.

It certainly feels much more like board game. With a little bit of company of heroes. But I love the new commander system and being able to swap out gear, feels like an rpg.

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

If you don't like it get on the StarCraft 2 boat with me! Plenty of room.

 

[bue519]

I played the beta but have mixed feelings about it but one thing I don`t understand is putting the Orks and Tyranids in since basically they play the same both CQC focused armys with large amounts of units.I think maybe Imperial Guard would have been a better choice than Orks.

I've found that I actually used the orks as ranged force alot. I think that relic managed really strengthen the orks ranged wise even though they do have some pretty good close ranged units. Although they still seem like a race that relies on numbers almost as much as the tyranids.

 

[Dealin Burgers]

perhaps you need a simple dose of common sence, if they were the same we wouldnt need two different words now would we?

You are so right, correct, impeccable, precise, unmistaken, true and veracious.
How could I have been so wrong, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact and false?

DOW2 is an RTS, I defy you to find any legitamate source that calls it an RTT.

 

[magicmuffinman]

Meh, I find DoW2 fun, but the beta actually made me not want to buy it. The tactics are fun, but get stale after a while. The fights follow a formula (If opponent does X, respond with Y). And really, even though Tyranids and Orks are in, the armies feel cripplingly small. But most of all, I have another game that really reminds me of DoW2.

I have Company of Heroes.

For those of you who don't know, Company of Heroes is an RTS that is almost the EXACT SAME as Dawn of War 2. Made by the same company even.

It's little surprise that Dawn of War 2 feels like Company of Heroes with Walkers and Melee Units.

In fact, I think CoH actually had more emphasis on pumping out units than DoW2 does. How sad is that? Apparently the Nazi's out-produced the Tyranids.

 

[sanzo]

I personally never liked the base building portions on DoW1, it was just so tedious. So, it's a welcome change

I just gotta ask though: Why are people so hung up on calling this a sequel, just because the game mechanics are different? I mean, it's an RTS, and it's set in the 40k universe; that seems about enough for me. I mean, they change the rules and mechanics of the tabletop game as well, but they don't rename the game

 

[JohnSmith]

If DOW|| manages to remove the buildings without introducing a vertical difficulty curve then it will have achieved the secondary goal of the DOW series, (the primary goal obviously being to make an assload of money) that is to portray with special effects what table top gamers see in their imaginations anyway. For me the best part of the franchise has to be the awesome kill animations particularly the dreadnoughts.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

My only grips with the BETA are:

1.) Vehicles can just walk through like....EVERYTHING, come on, if you want them to be unstoppable beasts without making the environment feel empty, make it an ability or something.

2.) Enemy AI spams vehicles past Easy.

3.) Some units have been taken out (but new AWESOME ones have been added)

4.) For fucks sake why can I hardly zoom in?!?!

5.) Power should be a constant resource, because when your enemy has the entire area captured and is base-raping you with vehicles, you won't have anything to counter with and just have to click "forefit".

----What goes without saying

GFWL needs a massive improvement.



(BTW, why do I get the vibe that TC played the beta for only 10 minutes and never even bothered looking at the commanders ability to BUILD things?)

 

[MaxFan]

If only I could get the demo to run. The promise of playing my Tyranids sounded so good.

 

[GloatingSwine]

(BTW, why do I get the vibe that TC played the beta for only 10 minutes and never even bothered looking at the commanders ability to BUILD things?)

Not all commanders can build things. The Techmarine can, but the Force Commander can't, his powers are all buffs, attacks, and unit summons.

 

[Saskwach]

Forgetting the whole base-building argument (I've said my piece on that long ago) it should be noted that any genre that requires 20 minutes to get to the goods every single time you play will stay relatively stagnant in player numbers - and even new ideas, since the only people playing and developing anymore are veterans who eat base building up. Neophytes will give up long before that zen moment when the base-building makes sense (if they ever find it fun is another matter) and there will be no more than a trickle of new players. Count me among those neophytes.
I play turn based strategy all the time; the Total Wars are great; and yet this is the first RTS that has excited me in years. Years. For years while RTS makers have been sitting on their hands I've been buying Defcon, the Total War series everything that comes from the Divine House of Stardock - and could have returned to my old sweetheart Civilisation. Some of that money could have gone to anyone who wanted it by just losing the Sim City game. Let's leave out the arguments about what's strategy, what's challenging, what's deep and what's teh hardcore; let's talk about money. Any RTS developer that makes a complex base building system I will take weeks to know well will never get my money, or any of the cash from players like me.

 

[Simriel]

Dow2 Is a real time tactical, Not a real time strategy

Tactic:
?noun 1. tactics (def. 1).
2. a system or a detail of tactics.
3. a plan, procedure, or expedient for promoting a desired end or result.
?adjective 4. of or pertaining to arrangement or order; tactical.

Strategy:
1. Also, strategics. the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.
2. the use or an instance of using this science or art.
3. skillful use of a stratagem: The salesperson's strategy was to seem always to agree with the customer.
4. a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.

Kindly read a dictionary good sir.

Im aware of the Dictionary meaning. Its just what this different kind of RTS is being referred to as. Tom Clancys end war for example. Don't blame me. I didnt start it. Also. Dont question my intellect