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[Katusha]

I'd say around 500 games to grasp the basics, between 1000-3000 to become a all-star master. haha

Dont worry katusha about that game, I was just raging because it was a Stomp-Gone-Wrong. Hilarious in retrospective

haha looks like i'll grow an old man in EIR, what happens after 3000 though? you start building ganja gardens? 

haha Stomp-Gone-Wrong is a 100% fitting name, although i feel bad for kainhall and that other british dude that built trenches

[Smokaz]

At 3000 games the Matrix opens to you in EIRR, and you realize its never about the units, just about you.

[Katusha]

haha smokaz you're epic

although i see deep meaning in what you said

[Smokaz]

Another good tip would be to play all factions and try to stop looking for the differences between them, and start looking for the similarities. What's good in all situations, for all factions? That's the common denominator. There's so many base concepts related to infantry micro that must be made rules in your brain and when you look at the units the lack of conforming to your rules must be seen as a mental task waiting for you to do it.

Do I prefer to just immediatly stop all my unupgraded grens, panzergrens, g43s and semi action rifles with good long range accuracy standing still, or do I decide to make that short dash for cover? If he's going to charge me, is it more important for me to start dealing damage immediatly - or be behind cover as he charges? For instance against a tough squad its better to get in cover since you'll only damage it over time, not in the short run (ab, rangers). Against a rifleman you might as well gun them down now while they charge.

Will not shooting for 5 seconds force him to move if I move this grenadier squad into a angle that ignores his directional cover? Does this benefit me or should I stay put?

Do I throw the grenade at the window, or at the door? If he's generally very good at avoiding nades, the door's always the good pick. (Where's the door? Is there two doors?)

Sticky is always thrown from the guy closest to the tank. So the entire squad doesn't need to be within range.

Do I have two squads in a infantry halftrack? Why? Only 3 can shoot out. Do I have some very reduced health squads with few members? Call on a roo or a infantry halftrack to get more use out of their upgrades.

[Smokaz]

As for vehicles - is there vehicle cover to park behind - do I suspect mines here? Is this a obvious and normal place for them to have mines, given the amount of time they have had to prepare this part of the map?

Stop shoot. Stop, shoot. All vehicles are more accurate standing still, but they can move between attacks.

[Smokaz]

Perhaps people who used to be mentors could start up again. The only people who I remembered being mentors were me, Smokaz, and Wind. Perhaps some sort of reward point incentive to people who participate.

One problem I see is how do you make people faster? Paint them red? If he can't manage two squads at once, its a type of intutive practise that you can't really learn from having another guy talk to you.

And being fast and swift - and adhering to the mental rules you've made for yourself based on your knowledge of the game - isn't easy to transfer. That's just practise. You can set up a company - tell them that cover and flanking and moving correctly in relation to your fire cycles is IMPORTANT, but you can't actually click for them. You can tell them what unit's are generally good against others, but realizing that it's never that simple and that you sometimes need to control units very uniquely and realizing when a rule is a good and when it's not is just split-second decisions made on a feel for how things will play out.

Its usually good to set more things in motion than you expect to manage - if you have given good commands ingame, it's up to the other guy to make the correct response (turn at gun, activate supression ability, target fire with mortar, grenade you) before you have to make the counter-response.

[bbsmith]

They still need guidance on what they would need to do. You can't just throw someone in there without any sort of prior training.

[Katusha]

smokaz i appreciate all this you have written, some of it i have already realized, some of it is new

for example, what is vehicle cover?

the grenades.. wow i just thought you click on the building and it targets the guys inside automatically

great tips smokaz, thank you again

also i agree with you on this latest post that you cant teach everything. however focusing attention to important things helps a lot, which is what you've done in these posts, the swiftness and mental rules, or automatic reactions come with practice i agree with that

but for a player like me, i need to be pointed out what to focus on, from there on i'll just practice and get better, right now im just playing blindly not really learning anything new

again thank you for putting your time to give me tips, very helpful and much appreciated

[Smokaz]

Make rules for yourself. When A happens, I will always do B.

Example: Independant of what type of infantry is moving up against me, the good basic choice is to put a squad in cover before you make a evaluation of whether you can win or not. Its the foundation of any "being attacked by infantry with my infantry" situation. At the point you do this, you shouldn't even have considered if your tank buster squad can beat his flamer. So what if his rangers move up and rape you, you maximised the performance of the defending g43 squad or fg42s. Because making calls take time.

Once that's second nature, a foundation is there. Now you'll start to advance. Your rules expand, your automatic responses seamlessily happen based on your experience. Flamers going up to my g43s? Slow, fall back. Flamers going up to my fg42? They will die before they do any signficiant damage to my FSJ. 3 rifles? Shit, that's too much for me. Where is my supression/goliath/vehicle to destroy or hinder them?

A lot of people utterely and severely underestimate cover in EIRR. Especially against shermans, cover makes a huge difference. Shermans do not 1 hit anything in green cover at full health, normally. They miss or do some splash but they don't kill. So if its forced back he took damage on his tank and I'm free to heal up or load up in a halftrack, no resources spent for me and he's either repairing or dead.

Is his strategy dependant on crocodiles? Good, because I have a ATHT in my company which nullifies crocodiles entirely. Shreks can just kite the sherman during its reduced speed or permanent engine damage.

There's also the trick to mass axis infantry. Axis infantry depend on range superiority a fair amount of the time. Allies like stuff like riflegrenades, grendaes, and flamers and powerful assault weapons that screw you up at short range. Because of the sheer amount of stuff he will send, you must meet him in force. But you need to spread out - have 1 to 1 1/2 "squad size" lengths between your FSJ or grens or whatever you have. He will be unable to focus fire you while moving up while you safely can focus fire him. Blob back but force him to run up to each squad in a frustrating manner. Just the turning itself can reduce his DPS.

More than for brits the above is true for americans. With brits its a more frustrating game because their infantry is so tough. Eliminate any officer support if you can, and try to counter his vehicles and tanks with your infantry AT (when its possible, stags to some degree and churchill crocs to a large degree require smart infantry play if you're going to fight them). Let your ostwinds, halftracks, ISTs, PIV's munch up his tommies. They are priced as grens after all.

About focus fire, that's something I usually gnore. I find that giving attack orders directly by right clicking enemy units usually spells AI disaster. Being in cover and reacting to the distance between him and you consistently seems more important to me. So I rely a lot on the great target priorties we currently have in EIRR. Shreks will shoot shermans within range independant of whether or not the rest of the kar rifles are shooting some nearby rifles. Units are usually more confused by your commands than what they will do if they already have been placed in a good situation. Right clicking on enemy units will usually cause stuff like mortar halftracks to MELEE the enemy, shermans and p4s to go way to close, or infantry to jump out of cover. I almost never right click enemy units, at all.

Vehicle cover is a 25% less received accuracy bonus for a number of tanks and vehicles which they get from having a haystack for instance between themselves and the firing weapon. Not sure how close they have to be but a yellow crater seems to give this omnidirectional based on previous testing with the -12% received damage in cover with Pumas using the old blitz T2.

[Smokaz]

There's also the fact that in 3v3s etc, not everybody can be a hero guy. Some guy is the meatshield. But he can be a immense frustration for the opposing team if he refuses to let his infantry (the map holding force) go down fast. Sometimes all your units will be doing is dying in cover and giving just cost-effective returns instead of stuff like 25 kill mp44 squad etc.

The way to evaluate if the game is going good then - is to look at your teammate's units. Is BallerBlitz having a puma with 30 kills? This is going great. Is your infantry retreating off the field with 4-5 kills (which is a kind of average for a axis squad to at least have somewhat paid for itself) but your friends are getting lots of kills? The role as the meatshield could mean that you just specialize in making your units pay for themselves and nothing more, while delaying and opening up as much opportunities as possible for your teammates.

Good "tanks" are invaluable against both aggressive axis and allies spammer, because it frustrates them to no end that this obstacle cannot be removed quickly and ties up their attention.

Of course its largely dependant on your teammates realizing that you are front man. If they are weak players they won't see openings even if you are playing great, and it will be all for naught because they simply didn't put their own units to good use.

[Katusha]

This is great smokaz

I also never click on enemy units, i find my units do some weird crazy ass shit like you described, so i resort to just placing them in cover and letting them do their thing

I have some of these rules as you've mentioned, but most of them are basic, and not advanced, like I never thought of funneling blobs by spreading out my squads so they cant focus fire on all my squads

this kind of information is what i've been looking for, thanks man!! must take quite some time to make these informative long posts, be assured that i DO read them, so they are not in vain

[Smokaz]

Another extremely valid and tentative tactic that you'll will see all stompers/good players start doing 0.1 seconds after they realize that their forces are losing and that "middle isnt going down any time soon" is to backcap. All backcapping takes is that hero 1 man airborne to do, and it diverts attention from the main battle. Seen from the other side a lot of strong players will hide 1 man squads in large sectors which are held but far from the main fighting.

Against some immobile but strong strategies (way too many ATGs, way too many wehr support weapons, way too well-defended flak88) the entire team could leave a "dummy defense" or "dummy" attack outside this centralized effort of the other team, and just seek out the sides of the map. on the sides of the map, atg's wont be. It will be their mobile forces against yours. If their strategy sacrifices mobility for persistent attempts to have a super strong core of units, a move like this could end up owning them completely.

If you're PE you can stroll around with a armored car and a shrek clowncar following behind some forward backcapper (after all you'd rather lose the backcapper than the actual units, and leading with the backcapper allows you to choose whether or not to engage). For americans its the classic light vehicle capping itself or a light vehicle with at least some AT/tank stalling ability to distract stuff that tries to bother your backcapper.

Generally it's a hallmark of the super strong player that he screens with inexpensive units and immediatly responds with a good counter if the opposing player tries to take out the crappy capper or the inexepensive squad. He has a core of expensive and good units and a surrounding units that doesn't matter much if they are taken out, and he uses whatever hand the enemy shows in taking this out to overpower them there and then.

You could even say that that EIRR Superman is always bluffing. He's never showing his hand. His units are always perfectly positioned temptations for the enemy. That lmg in cover baiting the t17 over is just doing his thing for the storms or the clowncar that's ready to pounce. He always pretends he is weakened by kryptonite, but he's actually about to spring the trap. Whenever you call him and raise, he just raises himself. But he makes you show your intent first.

This does not mean you have to be inactive with your "screen" or your crappycappers. You can seek him out. But the key information is what the guy has, what he is likely to send against you based on what you show him.

The uber gosu even cares about these crappercapper volk+medikit units because every little thing helps so he will run around buildings, jump out and in of it, sacrifice it to get off that sticky etc.

Strong units in EIRR make you lazy and they are elevated by lots of kills by mass support and being surrounded by friends. EIRR Batman makes puts his unupgraded 1 man volk in cover against the sherman, knowing he cant win, but he wants to stall and waste as much time as possible for the sherman player hoping the sherman will miss and spend more time killing that volk. Every second counts when that cloaked pak is moving up or the blocking vehicle outside of the sight of the sherman will make that locked down marder kill it.

[NightRain]

The easiest way to Learn Europe in Ruins.

Step one.

Forget about VCoH.

- VCoH Team games are often spam of elite infantry and other crap which makes you want to puke. Don't forget Artillery and Offmap spam because that's quite often too. In VCoH The tactics count more or less ONLY in 1vs1s and that's where you learn to micro your units- use cover and other similar tactics. In 2vs2 or + you know that you can just blob and hit retreat when HMG suppresses that BAR blob of yours. Or just spam kangoroos and 1 sec FOO.

Step two.

Learn the Metagame.

- EIRR is a constantly changing form of ultimate trollage. Certain people go for interesting gimmicks (usually shockcoil and pals) that actually works and counters perfectly the allied/axis current tactic. For example. Allies are currently spamming either hordes of tanks or infantry or both while Axis are spamming assault infantry and marders (no one likes playing blitz due to how crappy it currently is).


Step three.

Find a bro.

- Finding a bro to play with is actually very teaching. I certainly suggest you to find a player who not only knows the gameplay of EIRR and has experience but is as well open minded and friendly no matter how much you fuck up. In these cases I don't recommend most of the people out here. So far the only one I can recommend is WindCriesMary and Mysthalin. Usually the experienced bro will help you and teach you the basics of your company and tactics.

Step four.

Learn to micro.

- When you start learning the gameplay you also start to learn the strenghts/weaknesses of certain units and know how to make the most out of it. You should learn how to use key structures, cover and flanking manouvers to your advantage. Both tank and infantry micro are recommendable things to learn and as well the use of support weapons.

Step five.

Learn the basics of Allied/Axis tactics and Company builds.

- For example when you hear an 88 shot you should immidiately realize that it is well defended and you might need artillery to take it down. Charging it blindly (Like most people do) only makes the damn thing cost effective. Trying to cap it for yourself is the wet dream for 99% of the allied players as they think that 88 will be useful. Forget it. Axis players always set their 88 so that it points YOUR lines and NOT theirs so capping it gives no advantage to you other than a disadvantage. Second example. If allies has gone for heavy infantry spamming (rangers/Airborne) it is wise to be cautious with vehicles and your surroundings. The best unit to take care of heavy infantry is the sniper. It will reduce the number of vet 3 rangers one by one. Sure they try to kill that sniper by sending nearly unlimited ammount of jeeps to get it so be careful. If you know that one of them is focused on heavy infantry you should try to get rid of ALL their healing centers. Triage, AB Medic squad, Casualities Clearing Station. Once these items are out of the game, you can watch the elite infantry lose health and eventually die after every engagement. 80% of Axis players (Not including PE) uses at least 1 Panther in their companies. When you see it on the field you should have to be more cautious about it. While panther is a beast versus tanks and one of the only reliable at platforms Wehrmacht has your best bet is to call out at least Anti tank guns or heavy infantry. Panthers usually have KCH/other source of assault infantry near them so it is wise to be careful.


Step six

Learn unit strenghts.

- Yes Tiger looks nice, its powerful and has absolutely terrible fame among the allied forces but I'm sorry to break it to you. In EIRR environment- it sucks. Any good allied player can counter a Tiger with 2x M10s or with just a single M10. Tiger's 40 Range is no match to M10's 45 Range. So a jeep and M10 often results a dead tiger. No Elite infantry is not bullet proof no matter how many times Rangers say: "We are practically bullet proof!" they will take damage and if you see a flamethrower or MP44 squad you should already disengage from it as both those weapons will pretty much tear the elite infantry down. Etc.

Step seven

Have fun.

[Spartan_Marine88]

You forgot,

Step 8

-people will start countering your companies, so change it up a little every now and then so there is always a little surprise waiting for them.

[Smokaz]

Kinda trollish to suggest the sniper as a counter to elite infantry. A better tip would be that for wehr and american snipers there's a sniper guide and that one of the key support units you can bring for it is a wehr or ami HT to hinder the quintessential super bike gang callin from raping it.

If it's mass infantry either mass elite or elite and regulars mixed they will either make a all-in push for the sniper (if they are good) or just call on some gay counter to kill it. Arty, bikes, storms etc. The latter is particulary true for games where the popcap has reached 40.

At 25 pop calling on a sniper is already a huge stretch because of how frail they are and how experienced and knowledgable most players are in terms of knowing how to kill one before it pays for itself. Snipers are EXPENSIVE in EIRR. You need a lot of kills on them (20-30) depending on what you are shooting before you can start talking about cost-effective use. And even then you have to look at the possibility that your use of the sniper gave up some map control.

While sniper usage can be do-or-die for some type of companies in terms of taking out strong axis infantry or allied at gun spam, its a type of unit that you will master the use of very very slowly. Conditions must be ideal, support must be present and the popcap must allow for it.

Imo as a new player the general rule should be to never call out on anything above 12 pop that cannot defend itself before you have a firm map control. Hummels, priests and calliopes are somewhat unreliable without buffs that add to their capabilities. Many games are lost on allies or axis calling out too much indirect fire or artillery pieces (time for my priest to own that 1 bunker they had) without being able to really support it.

Howitzers and nebels are the arty pieces you can bring out around 30 pop. Anything above that fires too slowly - and takes up too much pop to allow you realisticly afford any mistake or misses with them. If you bring out these units early you'll have to money shots with them every time and even so that might just make the other team more hell bent and focused on taking them out.

Also it might have been mentioned already but its considered essential to good play to maintain as close to 100% of your popcap on the field at all times. The very MOMENT you are able to call in more stuff - thats when you have to do it. Not 30 seconds later when its less hectic. You need those units asap.

[Spartan_Marine88]

Also it might have been mentioned already but its considered essential to good play to maintain as close to 100% of your popcap on the field at all times. The very MOMENT you are able to call in more stuff - thats when you have to do it. Not 30 seconds later when its less hectic. You need those units asap.

especially late game, as a unit with a 20 + second call in timer may arrive just in time, while waiting till its a little less hectic may leave you screwed

[NightRain]

Yes, I left sniper and panther guide out from the suggestion while I know that they both exist. Any player WILLING to learn EIRR will definantly read and check them out before actually starting to play the mod 100%

And no, its not trollish I tell you what. Snipers vs Elite infantry is just pure win. Think about it, nothing is easier than reduce your problem 1by1 by every shot. Ranger blobs? No problem! You know that when you snipe 'em down one by one, just getting rid of 3 squads with full kits and that jeep blob made your sniper cost effective. I can already feel ranger spammers rage when he constantly gets "Unit Sniped!" icon and sees that his precious rangers are loosing men one by one. If they use fire up they will run to that HMG You've set to cover up your sniper. Sending in a tank there'll be that pak and that HT to take your sniper to safety

[Smokaz]

Kinda trollish still 

Anyways, a trick which back in the day I told my eternally long list of newbies which is so easy to do and so meaningful, is to try to start a couple of games with a bike or two instead of calling on a 25 pop core.

Start with a bike or two, send it down. For a lot of players their 25 pop preparations are good but they often assume some form of politeness or gentleman mix from the enemy. Kill any doubt by starting with 2 bikes. Just send them down and find out what the crucial weakness or the general composition is of your enemy. Cat's out of the bag immediatly. Some noobs I've seen are so scared of R and ME mode that they start with stuff like 2 mp44 squads and a panther which for reasons which over time will become clear to any new player, isn't a very good starting core. It can win a first engagement (though its not overly likely) but then the long-term use which the panther is so good at is immediatly lost and you're sitting there with 15 pop of panther being negated by two extra at guns.



You lose some time in terms of moving up against middle. If they are already a lot better than you, it wouldn't have mattered much. But you get to test out the rules in your mind for what counters what and see where they are correct given your use, and where they fall short.

Scout them out, see what the have, make a judgement call. If it fails either the units you called out were wrong - or you didn't use them correctly. Technically you will always have played "well" on paper doing this because you used whatever information you were able to get to the best of your ability.

[panzerman]

my favorite as LW blitz was double shreck stormtroopers and triple flammenwerfers and charge down the road with them and has the storms cap and get into a good position.

soo many times if they started with the standard hmg, mortor, atg and riflemen or perhaps m18 or sherman and clean up the support weps...usually it did ok most of the time sometimes they would start with double armour, as long as i had LW i could run away lol.

[Unkn0wn]

Since I am with EIR since day 1, I guess I was never really a noob