Dawn of War II

[TinCow]

I'm surprised I haven't seen any threads on this game since it's recent release, given the popularity of the first. My wife bought it a few days ago and started playing. While reading up on it, I discovered that the entire single-player campaign could be played cooperatively; this was enough of a reason for me to shell out another $50 for a second copy. We had heavy snow yesterday and my wife and I both used that as an excuse to stay at home and DoW2 all day. Even though we're still just working through the single-player campaign and haven't even touched the regular multiplayer stuff, my conclusion is that it was worth the $100 expenditure.

First, while it seems obvious that the game includes the usual DoW style construction system, so far the single-player campaign has had absolutely none of that. It's a strange mix of the old RTS system with RPG-style character building aspects. You get a set number of specific units (up to 6 eventually, I think) but you can only take 4 on any particular mission. This means you end up swapping units in and out, depending on which abilities are better suited to the task. The units operate like typical DoW units inside the game, but they also earn experience and pick up 'loot.' As you level up, you select which skills your units develop, which makes them better as time goes on. The 'loot' takes the form of better weapons, armor, and accessories, all of which have a direct and significant impact on the performance of the units.

My wife and I both started playing the single player campaign solo to get a feel for it before playing cooperatively. That was fun, but with so many different special abilities to use, I was definitely not getting the most out of my units. Four units are a surprisingly large number to take care of at once when micromanagement of their special abilities makes a significant impact on the game. However, this difficulty when playing solo transformed into great entertainment when playing the campaign together.

When playing coop, each player gets 2 units to control (you can select who gets what before each mission). This allows for superb control over the units, and with good communication with your partner, your tactical moves and attacks become things of beauty. My wife and I have our computers in the same room, and I simply cannot tell you how much fun it is to play through this (very long) campaign with another person the entire time. We split our units up so that my wife took the main ranged units, and I took the main melee units. We have our own specialties in combat and after a couple hours of play, we react perfectly to any scenario.

Well, almost perfectly. There's still plenty of dying... or pseudo-dying. You don't actually lose any units. Each unit is led by a commander, who gets all the special abilities and most of the great loot (though some does affect his lesser minions as well). When all other members of the unit are killed and the commander is reduced to 0 health, he gets incapacitated. He can be revived by other units that are still alive in many ways, but most of these take time or require limited resources. It can be hard, but it's entirely possible to have 3 of your 4 units go down, but save the day with the 4th unit, who then is able to revive and eventually restore all the others. If all 4 units go down at once, you lose the mission and have to refight it. There is no saving in the middle of a battle, which I actually like. This was a surprise to me, as I usually HATE check-point save systems. However, in the DoW2 campaign, it works well. It encourages caution and good tactics, and none of the missions take so long to complete that re-fighting them becomes a chore.

The graphics and sound are very good. The animations are better than the stuff in DoW1, though you rarely get to see them in any detail because you're zoomed out managing your units. The terrain looks great, and is highly destructible. The covering terrain is varied, and there are always numerous buildings to occupy for better defense and whatnot. The games DOES require Steam and multiplayer requires a Windows Live! account. This is horribly annoying when it isn't working right, but if everything works properly it is tolerable and doesn't impact the game too much.

As noted above, I am still working through the single-player campaign. This means I haven't played any faction except the Space Marines, and I haven't experienced the construction system or any of the mechanized units except for the Dreadnought. However, based exclusively on the coop single-player campaign, I am already ranking DoW2 as one of the most entertaining games I've ever played. If you know someone that you could play this game with coop through the entire campaign, I highly recommend that you buy it.

[pevergreen]

First off, quite a few of us played the MP beta, but I'm glad someone has something good to say about Single Player.

There is no construction system! Everything is done from the HQ. Only things that can be added are turrets from a few commanders.

All I can comment on is MP stuff, and limited at that (beta was 1v1 or 3v3) lag was non existant, but it uses Games for Windows Live, the same as XBOX et al, so finding a match takes some time.

The balance is a major issue, and from what i've read (i stopped in the last week or so) the release day patch just caused MORE damage.

The Ork Kommando Nob has a wargear option for mines to lay down, before release, two of these mines would blow up your hq. And since he could also have energy free infiltration, he could do it cloaked.

I dont know if the unit roster was full in the Beta, but you would think so...its just so...small. SM have 1 tier 3 unit? Tyranids have 2, Eldar have 2. Its just not as fun or as varied as DoW 1.

Even if they get balance in check eventually, its just not big enough. In multiplayer, you can only get 5 units out max, if you are lucky. and thats with the OLD req. system. They over-nerf and over-buff things.

Since when was a tactical squad 3 marines? Thats not even legal tabletop!

Plus the sheer number of things you miss out on by not pre ordering all 30 versions (colours, weapons skins, armour skins etc) and the rather hard prospect of unlocking the in game armour upgrades for each race (i played quite a few games [at least 30 ranked games, i was top scorer in about 15], I got to rank 2 in 2 races.

Too many things that just eat away at me. It doesnt get gaming time, when L4D and ETW are here. Soon SF IV as well. I would not pay the $100 for it.

[TinCow]

There is no construction system! Everything is done from the HQ. Only things that can be added are turrets from a few commanders.

Really? In the SP campaign, there are Ork, Eldar, and Tyranid structures absolutely everywhere, and they spew forth units and provide upgrades just like they did in DOW1. I have not seen any structures for the Space Marines other than Generators and turrets, but they definitely exist for the other races. Are you playing the full game or just the MP beta?

[pevergreen]

I have only played the MP beta, but there is no building part to the game. It has been stated multiple times pre release.

Perhaps you should try an AI skirmish and see if there is or not?

edits to follow:

In the skirmish mode, you can participate in 1 versus 1 or 3 versus 3 matches online

Guess thats it. There were two modes, annihilation (kill HQ's) and Victory Points, both teams start at 500 and first to 0 loses, make the other team lose points by holding victory points. VP was the only ranked type.

There is nowhere near the level of customisation in MP as in the SP campaign.

In skirmishes you do have one base structure, but that's pretty much it and it exists right from a match's beginning. A few of the units can erect defensive or reinforcement structures of their own, but the majority of your success in battle is being able to quickly move out into maps and capture resource points to fuel unit production. It's a system that encourages combat and makes turtling, the process of building up base defenses in order to tech up and raise an army, essentially impossible, so that even within a minute or two of a match starting you can expect to be in combat. And with the low population cap and smaller number of unit groups moving around, it makes every troop on the field that much more valuable.

Combat starts very fast, if you play, make good use of 'x' the retreat button. You take a lot less damage and move a lot faster back to your HQ.

IGN review: http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/954/954749p1.html

[TinCow]

Perhaps you should try an AI skirmish and see if there is or not?

I'll take a look this evening. I would be very confused if there was no base building. They sure went through a lot of effort to create a variety of nice looking structures for the various races if they aren't used in the MP.

[pevergreen]

They arent, though it seems a lot of work has gone into the single player campaign.

[TinCow]

Wikipedia agrees with you on the base building. It also says that the main complaints are the small scale of the combat. That I can comment on at least. In the single player campaign, while you do manage a small number of units (max 4 units, with maximum manpower of 11 if you take the largest units), the combat is very fun. It is definitely designed towards small scale, fast paced tactical combat. Use of cover and special abilities is critical. If you simply do move-attacks like in other games, you will die quickly. DoW2 is all about keeping your units alive and in utilizing them as a group to accomplish limited goals, before pushing on to new ones.

In the SP campaign at least, the combat is also massive. Your fight against hordes of enemies, particularly when battling the Tyrannids, and it's not unusual to have to cut through literally hundreds of individual enemies before you complete a mission. This keeps the game interesting, as the sheer size of the enemy force and the power of the 'boss' creatures are such that a few mistakes here and there can result in a lost mission. (For the record, I am playing on Captain difficulty, which is one above the 'normal' setting.) As your units get more powerful through experience and 'loot', you can unleash some truly devastating moves, and it's very satisfying to unleash a well-coordinated assault on a large enemy force.

I can see how people who were looking for a larger scale version of DoW1 would be disappointed. This is not Starcraft, it is far more like Brothers in Arms than Company of Heroes. Your units are not disposable and they need to work together as a group to accomplish their goals. I can't fault Relic for this decision though. Starcraft 2 is also coming out this year, and it will likely dominate all other base-building games. DoW2 will probably be able to remain popular once that King of all RTS is out, simply because it's a different kind of gameplay.

[pevergreen]

Theres a good chance of that, yes.

I started off the Beta as a SM player, but switched to 'Nids, as an early game rush with 'Nids will win. T'Gaunts under synapse of Warrior Broods with Barbed Stranglers. 100% Knock down from 16 gaunts combined with two supression guns. Easy win.

As long as you get supression going, you will win. It took me a few days to adjust to the small scale. It was fun at times, but also got a bit boring. Quite often its whoever can get a dreadnaught first.

I'd consider buying the game for the SP campaign, but the attraction of DoW will always be MP for me. Maybe because the first clan I was ever in was a DoW clan.

[Meneldil]

DoW1 was a decent RTS, mostly because it offered huge battles based on W40K setting.

DoW2 is a watered-down CoH with boring combat, a pseudo-hero customization and a half-arsed gameplay (yay for runing around the map taking strategic points that you can't even defend with your 3 squads). Oh, and no unit variety, a lack of W40K ambiance, unbalanced factions and heroes and what not. The list goes on.

Hope the game will be a flop, so Relic goes back at making real STR. If you want to make a tactical game, it should have neither base nor unit building, and should be turn-based, period. In the beta stage, DoW2 was even more of a clickfest than Starcraft.

[Papewaio]

Have one of the many versions of collectors edition. I would have preferred that there was one version not like thirty. I'm not sure if the MP map exists outside of Australian EB Collectors Edition... as I don't play MP.

The campaign is strong and the characters have persistent leveling up, which in IMDHO makes it a lot better then DOW1 where your units started out all over again (yes the commander could get loot, but it was far more limited and that was the only form of persistence).

Before playing online the game suggests playing against bots. In there you will find that there is no base building, hence one very valid tactic of turtling is gone. It does add momentum, which are special global abilities that you unlock as you destroy enemy units. In essence these games are focused on tactical skirmishes not IKEA base building. Makes for relatively short games.

Back to the campaign.

The campaign has a feel very similar to Total War. You have the strategic turn where unfortunately you get minimal choices of where to attack. I was hoping to see an entire world with garbled intelligence coming in. Not two at most provinces that need attention. It is very much a linear storyline... much like the first two sets of DOW1... something rectified with the Necrons.

As for the squad size... it is perfect for gameplay, makes the Space Marines very much like they are in the books, and makes each Sgt. and Commander valuable. Also for those who haven't tweaked yet, the entire team is the same size of a table top squad with IC attached. There are 10 Space Marines plus Force Commander (9 SMs if the Tactical marines are left out).

Very enjoyable, would be nicer to have a more open ended campaign. Some more persistent base building would be nice, as would semi-permanent destruction of buildings on the map.

[Major Robert Dump]

I bought the day it was released and didn't post anything because I was so pissed off.

The box i bought said it came with free gear and extra maps, but apparently that was for the first 10000 people to register, so people who lived farther west were screwed. I don't really care about the gear so much as the extra SP campaign stuff, but the fact is the box said it was "included" not that it was limited availability. Not only that, but apparently there was a way for a single purchase to be used 5x over to get the different sets, so thats shaves the 10000 number down significantly.

Then the game not only requires steam, but windows live. So I gotta be running two applications just to play the game. Sigh. I got people sending me steam pms and windows pms and my head is about to explode.

MP: streamlined. HQ builds everything, except the power stations you put on conduits. And engineer classes can build turrets.

The units are also streamlined as far as number of vehicle variety, etc, which I also think is an improvement.

There is a max squad limit and an overall population limit, which means usually about 6/7 max squads out if you are mixing infantry with vehicles. No more zerging shoota boys by the 100s.

Bosses can level up to 10, at which point they are fairly uber, and units can level up to 4. The retreat button comes in hella handy here as u can have 1 unit left in a squad, send him back, reinforce him cheaply, and save the time and money of having to buy a fresh level 0 unit. Also, retreating units run faster.

I also like how allied bosses can revive each other for free.


SP: Campaign is way cool, as the characters and their stat/level up abilities kind of reminds me of the old XCOM standard. The level cap is 20, so mid-maxxing seems the way to go.

I'm not too thrilled at the thought of MP co-op because I hihgly doubt I'm going to find someone to play out a full campaign with me in multiple settings, and that being said, I don't want others leveling my dudes. I can see it now, my friend stops playing and I want to continue, I log on to find out that he's been making a melee scout and a heavy weapons crew that uses flamers. Oh boy.

I may enlist someone to help me towards the end, when the templates are set, but to me the best part of the campaign is specializing the teams and swapping gear around as needed. I have 6 squads to choose from, one of them I hardly ever use, and my commander and HW squad are level 20. I still have to fight the farseer and locate the big hive, so not sure how close I am to the end.


HINT: If you want to get your squads some levels then on the campaign maps where you have to destroy multiple troop making bases of the enemies, then set up a defensive near your drop pod and go afk. The hordes will come and come and come. I recommend Tyrnaid maps because they don't throw grenades.

I did this on accident on caldaris where I had to take out 4 or 5 hives, left all my units by the pod while I went to take a shower and thought I paused the game. I came back 20 mins later to find loot all over the place and my ranged units all went up 2-3 levels. If anyone died, they would just respawn at the pod.

another note about the campaign: aborting a mission counts towards a deployment, u keep your experience and loot. So if you get off to a bad start and you were shooting for a high mission score, you might as well fight it out and try to get to the boss before starting over. You can actually kill the boss, get the loot, and start the mission over.

Also, if you have extra deployments saved up from uber mission scores, you can go in, claim a strategic asses, abort mission, come back and claim the other strategic asset. I found this out on accident, too, but didn't use this method because I don't really like the stategic asset powers and would rather use other gear in those slots.

I've played lots of MP coop vs AI but havent played any vs people. The one thing that irritates me about the control points is that a unit taking a point can be under attack and the capture won't be interrupted, which makes the tyranids and the eldar swarms of little fast troops really irritating to play against. You will literally take a point, walk away, and 30 seconds later its gone even though you parked a tank there to defend it. yay.

[Meneldil]

Oh yeah, I might perfectly try out the campaign. My brother is also a W40K hardcore fan, so we might actually enjoy the game, but then, the whole point of DoW1 was its multiplayer, and DoW2 MP doesn't seem attractive at all.

[Monk]

Here's a question for all you DoW2 players. I played with the MP beta and hated it, i just didn't like the smaller scale in an MP fashion, however all I am hearing is that the small scale works quite well for SP.

Is this the case? Would you recommend a buy for the sole intention of playing the campaign?

[Papewaio]

SP rocks enough for the price of the ticket.

I think MP needs more maps, and styles.
I would love to see a defend vs horde without numbers map.
Also a persistent version of MP based on the SP campaign could be pure gold (particularly if they took a look at Necromunda and used the experience system from that... ie an Uber army fighting noob would get a win + minimal xp, the nood would probably loose but get an xp bonus).

[TinCow]

Is this the case? Would you recommend a buy for the sole intention of playing the campaign?

If you like RTS games, yes. The character-building aspects and wargear (guns, armor, etc.) make the SP campaign very entertaining. It's paced well so that there's always some new piece of loot that you're excited to use or a unit that has gotten a new special ability to try out. The SP campaign is also pretty long; it seems longer than most of the SP campaigns I can think of in other RTSs. There are lots of 'optional' missions, but I've been doing all of them and so far I think I've completed about 30 missions and I'm guessing there are at about 10-15 more. Some are a bit repetitive, but I haven't gotten bored with them yet.

[Major Robert Dump]

i would recommend the game for the campaign, especially considering the level cap means there will be lots of skills/tactics you never use, which will add to replayability down the road if you choose to up the difficulty.

started on normal setting for a few missions, realized it was too easy, and currently working through on Captain. Think I'm near the end. I have Force commander, tactical marines (my faves), scouts (second faves), heavy weapons, assault marines and a dreadnought.

Once the scout gets the ability to use accessories from stealth it is on, baby. I use stun grenades + detonator charges, and fill my third slot with either remote detonators or grenades. And once the scout learns to resuscitate instantly from stealth you don't have to worry about losing to any bosses ever again.

I also tend to make my heavy weapons crew my medic, since they are usually in the middle of my formation, move the least and have hte fewest active offensive skills to use. I use my commander as my tank, so making him the medic (he does have rally, tho) can be disastrous since he's the most likely to go down first.

I'm curious how well a ranged heavy bolter/artillery force commander would work, which would mean I'd need a new tank for early game. I'll probably make a ranged FC on replay

[Papewaio]

Playing Captain level as well.

From the abilities, Tactical Squad can go Bolt Pistol and Chainsword with their first melee skill (~lvl 3) add that to the Assault Squad and you could have two hand to hand squads, Devastators and a Heavy Bolter FC.

[TinCow]

In my campaign (also on Captain) I've found the Assault Marines to be the all-stars. I focused them entirely on melee, and while the Force Commander could dish out more damage in hand-to-hand, the assault jumps are a game winner by themselves. Once you get the low level assault jump improvement skills, landing in the middle of an enemy group does significant damage to them, throws them all to the ground, and suppresses them. Anyone that survives the impact (which can often be surprisingly few) is easily finished off with a bit of shooting while they are out of cover and suppressed. The skill that makes the Assault Marines temporarily invulnerable after a jump is just icing on the cake. I would guess that my Assault Marines are responsible for 40-50% of my kills. I've completely avoided using the scouts, and found the Assault Marines were a good substitute for structure killers. I gave them the demolition packs and it's very effective to have them jump in, toss a pack at the target, then run out (or run in, and jump out, as per the demands of the situation).

The situation changes a bit when you get Terminator armor for them. This massively increases their survivability, but it removes the assault jump ability in favor of a teleport. The teleport does not do any of the damage, stunning, or knockback of the assault jump. For this reason, I eschewed it for a while and considered taking the Terminator armor off of them. Then I discovered that the teleport recharges MUCH faster than the assault jump, and it's also near instantaneous. Once I realized this, my Terminator Assault Marines became pure death machines. They're only level 17-18, but with their armor and the hammer/shield weapon thing, they dish out upwards of 700 damage per second in melee and have about 100 armor. Since they can teleport right into the middle of any enemy formation, they simply don't get hit by ranged fire and nothing but bosses pose a challenge for them. They alone can keep 4-5 enemy groups engaged while the ranged units pound them down, with most of the kills still going to the Assault Marines.

I highly recommend them.

[drone]

Then the game not only requires steam, but windows live. So I gotta be running two applications just to play the game. Sigh. I got people sending me steam pms and windows pms and my head is about to explode.

Even to play single player? Egads. Hopefully they patch that out, like they did the CD check with the original.

[TinCow]

Even to play single player? Egads. Hopefully they patch that out, like they did the CD check with the original.

If you are just doing single player, you can put Steam in offline mode. This allows you to play without any internet access and it avoids all annoying notices.

[drone]

If you are just doing single player, you can put Steam in offline mode. This allows you to play without any internet access and it avoids all annoying notices.

For Steam, I would assume that would work, but what about Windoze Live?

[TinCow]

You still have to have an 'account', but there's an offline account as well. I'm not sure whether that's built into the game or is run as a second program, but I haven't noticed any performance issues due to Steam or Windows Live. I do find it immensely annoying to have to use it, but once its set up properly, you can pretty much ignore it. It seems to be increasingly common these days due to the popularity of 'achievements.'

[Papewaio]

I played Chaos Gate and in that I had a strategy of leveling up the worst troops as tactical marines, my best leaders as sgts, my best shooters as heavy weapons and the worst shots as tactical bolter marines... my better ones (bar the Sgt/Heavy) were in reserve, so even if I lost the bolter marines, I had better replacements. Once I got access to Terminators, I did the same format, Best Sgt with Crux got the Squad Sgt role, then the best shot Terminator got the Assault Cannon, and the worst shots were Storm Bolters... again my better ones (bar the Sgt/Heavy) were in reserve, so even if I lost them, I had better replacements.

So I follow a similar strategy with this in keeping everyone leveled up. Although for the last couple of missions I went all out to get to the Terminator Crux... then found out that only gives access to Terminator Armour that you have found, not to an armory with it (which fluff wise is a bit dubious, given that the TA is treated like holy relics, much like the holy hand grenade of Antioch).

I treat my Tactical Marines as my command squad and all rounders. They are also my tanks so they have gone all out endurance at present. They are a mainstay and go on every mission. I swap out all the rest and have found that of the rest the Devastators are very much my next all rounders in that they do a lot of damage to everyone once they are setup (Tactical using taunt, and Scout using suppression often give the time needed for this to occur). I didn't think much of my scouts until I saw how effect the sniper rifles were against tyranid big 'uns... the special shot from that kills a Carnifex in one shot. I like Assault Marines and they are fantastic against shooty Eldar, but as I have focused purely on Melee, they don't quite have the energy to hit and run... and I don't yet have the micromanagement skills for them.

I don't get much time to play. The home PC runs the game wonderfully well... but it is my wife's work PC first and foremost. So I have only got to level 6 so far. Really want to see how flamers work.

[Major Robert Dump]

Never leveled my assault marines, they are still level 9 while everyone else pushes 20. They were very weak early on and it made me mad, plus I was having too much fun playing ninja-killa with my scouts. Unfortunately, scout assasination methods ruin the speed score on mission complete.

the explosive rounds for sniper rifle are incredible, for shotgun they are okay but if you are in a situation where you are using your scouts for general ranged damage than I suggest you bring another unit. Shotgun doesn't really trump suppression with a good bolter, unless you can get an uber shotty with some good +kill and +AOE effects.

Nice to see various strategies here, good inidcation the SP aspect is a winner.

[Spino]

The Assault Marines and their landing AOE dmg and knockback are ridiculously overpowered. Combine them with a melee spec'ed commander sporting a teleporter and it's pure OP pwnage. Seriously, all you need to do is get just within range of a group of baddies, initiate a jump jet assault then port in the commander. The commander typically arrives first, aggros everything (initiate Warcry if necessary) and then the Assault squad lands to flatten the rest. Rush in the other squads to assist; Avitus on Focus Fire, Tarkus for general fire support and the occasional 'nade. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is particularly effective against the Tyranids since it immediately negates the effectiveness of their swarm style units. I have to force myself to use Cyrus and his scout team against the Eldar and Orks just to spice things up.

I have mixed feelings about the SP game.

I love the way the story and mission progression is structured. Even though the writing is lacking and stilted I'm still sucked in by the whole affair. I love having to put out fires and stem the Tyranid tide on each of the planets. I also love the rpg aspect to leveling & kitting my squad. The gorgeous graphics, spectacular effects & animation and the overall excellent presentation help a great deal.

The maps get old... quick. How many times do I need to fight over the same ground? At least in DoW: Dark Crusade & SoulStorm even if you fought over the same ground the traditional RTS build & battle design meant each battle was never the same. In DoW2 each time you're forced to fight for the same region the enemies are found in the same exact areas. Eventually you find yourself following a pattern which ultimately becomes boring the nth time you've done it.

I hate the boss battles... BOSS BATTLES?!? What is this, a PS1 game? I outgrew boss battles back in the late 90s. I hate them. I hate having to run around like a ninny and wear down an uber enemy with a ridiculous amount of health. I hate having to figure out the special strategy and then do it over and over. Shoot the generators and when the boss breaks into song kick him in the family jewels! It's tired, dull and it smacks of lack of imagination. Enough already. What's worse is DoW2's boss battles are pretty much the same regardless of the type of boss you fight. Quickly clearing out the same map for the umpteenth time and saving the boss battle for last just so I can max out the XP rewards and gain an additional deployment pretty much sucks the immersion out of the game for me.

MP & Skirmish modes

I'm not an uber-micro skill RTS player so I avoid the pain and anguish that accompanies playing MP games vs. kids & geeky teens on sugar highs. In fact I'd go so far as to say that despite the smaller scale DoW2 requires far more uber-micro skills than CoH & DoW combined! Just to give you an idea of my likes/dislike the Total War games are about the only kind of RTS MP I enjoy playing.

The skirmish AI blows, it's worse than Company of Heroes and alot worse than DoW:SS. That alone kills this game's long term place on my hard drive. Annihilation mode was a blast in DoW and CoH but it doesn't cut it anymore in DoW2, it's clear the gameplay and maps simply aren't geared towards that mode anymore. I don't like Take & Hold style games because I find the notion of holding onto x number of nodes for x period of time too artificial, gamey and seriously un-warlike.

Where is the war in WARHAMMER? This feels more like SpecOpshammer 40K than Warhammer 40K. I love small unit actions as much as the next guy but there is a glaring lack of 'epic' in this game, much moreso than Company of Heroes which already scaled back the 'epic' in contrast to the original Dawn of War games. I can deal with the small scale action in the SP game but I really want to fight giant battles in skirmishes vs. the AI.

Oh, and the music? Well, it's... there. I have every DoW & CoH track on my mp3 player and I rarely tire of listening to them. Inon Zur did a great job scoring those games! But with DoW2 most of the music sounds like it's sole purpose is just to provide some background noise while you kill everything. I can't believe this stuff was composed by Jeremy Soule, it sounds like he just 'mailed in' the entire soundtrack so he could get a new addition to his house.

Despite my larger list of dislikes I do like the game... but it just doesn't have enough meat to keep me coming back for more like the original DoW did. Once I clear the SP game I do not see myself loading it up for repeated skirmish games vs. the AI. I'll take a heavily modded DoW campaign or skirmishes battle anyday (DoWXP and Skirmish AI = pure joy). Company of Heroes didn't offer the same challenge or longevity as DoW and sadly it appears DoW2 is simply more of the same.

Overall I think DoW2 ranks below DoW & CoH. I think Relic needs to go back to basics the winning formula that made DoW & CoH such huge successes. Keep DoW2's rpg aspect and random campaign missions and ditch the rest.

[Meneldil]

As much as I agree with you (from my beta experience, I think I'll try the campaign just for the heck of it), it's true that releasing a basic RTS would have been suicidal with Starcraft 2 coming soon.

We all know SC2 will rock the house and pretty much destroy any concurrent. I don't really know how, as I don't think SC1 was awesome, but it will anyway.

[Spino]

As much as I agree with you (from my beta experience, I think I'll try the campaign just for the heck of it), it's true that releasing a basic RTS would have been suicidal with Starcraft 2 coming soon.

We all know SC2 will rock the house and pretty much destroy any concurrent. I don't really know how, as I don't think SC1 was awesome, but it will anyway.

Well you're right, a basic sci-fi RTS would be hard pressed to distract people from SC2. But what I meant is that Relic needs to return to the formula that made DoW & CoH such addictive hits. Relic took a gamble with DoW2's new design and it appears to not have gone over as well as they'd hoped. They clearly didn't test this design enough before unleashing it on millions of DoW/CoH fans. Anyway I would hate to see Relic make another old school style RTS. I'll amend my post.

[Papewaio]

There is actually an version for WH:40K called epic... now that would be great... even with RPG elements... I for one would love to manage an entire chapter from serf to vehicle to space marine with dow2 and chaos gate levels of detail.

Love detail on the strategy level, hate micro managing on the real time level.

[Meneldil]

I vaguely remember an Epic 40K game released quite a while ago. I think it only had Orks and the Imperial Guard, and unhappilly, only vehicles (no standard troops). It was a turn-based game, and me being an impatient teenager back then, I didn't really appreciate it.

I'm not sure I would like a real-time one either to be honest. The main appeal of DoW was zooming in and watching a dreadnought smashing a squad of Orks, or a Banshee squad cutting something to pieces. Watching two Titans shooting at each other from miles away wouldn't be nearly as interesting imo.

Now, if said game allowed to zoom in to the level of detail of DoW, I'm all for it (Basically, a mix of regular W40K and Epic40K).

[drone]

I vaguely remember an Epic 40K game released quite a while ago. I think it only had Orks and the Imperial Guard, and unhappilly, only vehicles (no standard troops). It was a turn-based game, and me being an impatient teenager back then, I didn't really appreciate it.

It had all the races, and there was infantry as well as vehicles and titans, but the infantry was by squad, not individuals. Decent game, but painting those miniatures was a royal pain.