What's your Achilles Heel?

[AchillesHeel]

I'm sure we all have things we need to improve on. Some more than others. And there are probably certain "bugaboos", be they units, types of terrain, or strategies that our enemy can employ against us, unknowingly (or perhaps knowingly) sending us into fits of rage or terror.

What puts your stomach in a knot? What are you kicking yourself for after a loss (or even after a win)?




Being a relative newb, I've got a few things on my "could be a bit better" list, but I'll just give the highlights (or lowlights, as it were):

- German heavy armor. For some reason, I never have enough anti-tank capability on the field in time to meet the inevitable Panzer IVs and Tigers. If I concentrate my forces, my build order, and my attention sufficient to disable them, I inevitably neglect something else. One way or the other, these things give me fits.

- Micro. Probably the one aspect of this game that is (a) most intriguing, (b) most different from other RTS games, and (c) most difficult to learn. No other RTS requires so much attention (or, really, any attention) to units' facing, terrain, angles of attack, line-of-sight, etc. This certainly compounds my problems with German tanks, as my own Shermans and Wolverines are driving around like drunken morons in a demolition derby, pinging un-upgraded 75mm rounds off the Tigers' frontal armor. I like to believe that I occasionally confuse my enemy into fearing that I've "got something up my sleeve" and am cleverly lulling him into a false sense of security.

[theBlind]

My achilles heel: I prefer playing axis.

[ugordan]

theBlind, is it you who played a game posted on GR.org a while back vs. Sepha on Semois with some über-hardcore BAR rifle, nade spam and then AWM with M10s? Including the ever favorite M10 "Stormtrooper steamroller".

Man, that was some hard shit to counter.

[Pyro Paul]

my vices:

I depend on the most Inexpensive And expensive things. i have no inbetween. Often i will use Volks purely, using Assault Grenades or zeal to make them counter everything untill i get tanks and i will use Tanks purely supported only by pioneers.


i Build a reserve. often i don't contribute my freshly produce powerful units, like a panther, quickly into the fray, i will sit them back and use them to react to an enemy attack rather than initate one.


i use traditional combat tactics. Make a line, defend the line, probe with infintry. the focus on making a line in the sand often leads me to use too much resources on unnessary things. as a bunker over here with MG never shoots a single round.


i Use out of the box tactics. things which people think are stupid or not good i will use simply because they are unused as well as unexpected. 6 Flamethrower Pioneers rushing your forces early game, a StuH assault on your base, or using the Right hand side of tree of Blitz. things that players often don't see or do. often it leads to mixed results because some of the tactics Are failures but only succede simply because it was unexpected.

[lion]

My deficiencies:
-micro
-build order axis & allies
-ignoring things that I cant see right in front of me
-retreat, goes with above
-support units together ala rifles & MG or rifles & AT.
-2 small children


My Strengths:
-i paid cash for CoH.

[>Rubberduckie<]

I tend to get really caught up in battles, espicially after I take a coh break of a week or so. I just pour everything into that battle, or forget about everything and then suddenly floating 900+mp

[Laz4rus]

My greatest problems is keeping my babies .. uhm, I mean my troops and tanks alive. It's especially bad with the light/medium vehicles. I nearly lose these faster than I can build them

[tedman109]

getting too involved in micro and forgetting to field new units. forgetting to tech up for the same reason. not retreating units early enough.

[Warnstaff]

Games lasting more then 25 minutes without a pause (thats one reason why you probably haven't seen me online either ). I start tuning out after that without a break and start doing stupid things (I once charged a line of 57mm with a PZIV and was shocked to find that my tank died while tuning out).

[Unkn0wn]

- Handling multiple units at the same time, as in above 5 units.
Usually I end up not getting to one unit as they're both under attack/attacking and I have to make priorities.

- Allied comebacks after I have won early game.

[Ace40k]

late game

[QuixotesGhost]

I have real problems handling allied mortars as axis.

[Ecthelion]

This is going to sound silly...

But for me it's a will to fight.

This game has really no slippery slope so you can go back and forth... but when I'm on the down side, I find it very hard to pull myself together to push back, even when I know I can.

Vast majority of my losses probably had my opponent go "well that was easy lol"

When I win games it's because I was winning beginning middle and finish.

[ZeroThreat]

a lack of desire to play 1 of 4 maps every day. ..zZZ

[Ashmole3110]

Not getting tanks fast enough.

I hate it.I always feel pressured to get tanks.Or I build too many non-tank anti-tank equipment and I can't build tanks.

I guess its balancing manpower thats my problem.

[Jrichi]

As an axis player. Mine is the same as Ecthelion I dont have the will to fight back once I loose map control or most of my army and what not. I just feel if you are not on top of the allied player and forcing him fight back you have already lost the game.

I have lost more games to late game allied combacks than I care to admit. I cant ever recall coming back from loosing 3/4 of any map. If riflespam gets the best of me. Its on to the next game.

[Ravenous]

I tend to get really caught up in battles, espicially after I take a coh break of a week or so. I just pour everything into that battle, or forget about everything and then suddenly floating 900+mp

This is my biggest problem as well. I get so rapped up in the micro and intensity of some battles I sometimes forget to tech, make more units, or expand my territory.

[Tantalis]

when i play (axis) i seem to tech slow somtimes im to busy just having fun with infantry haha

[Brat_Boy]

1. When I'm on the push late game, I often forget to get out any good AT to take care of a croc or something. My other is that when I'm on the advance and doing well, I get excited and do more micro'ing than building stuff. I sometimes notice, "holy crap! I have 700 MP and 60 fuel sitting in reserve!" Then a croc comes.

[Fast$cash]

The thing with me is that I am usually so into the micro that I forget to tech up. Following my riflemen around all game until Axis tanks start rolling and thinking to myself "Crap! I need anit-tank guns" is no way to win.

[Nerdinheimer]

Buying WAY too many panzershreks. LOL.

[chechen]

mg spammers early game.. by the time i have something to clear out the MGs.. a big tank comes rolling out =(

[TankHunter678]

This is going to sound silly...

But for me it's a will to fight.

This game has really no slippery slope so you can go back and forth... but when I'm on the down side, I find it very hard to pull myself together to push back, even when I know I can.

Vast majority of my losses probably had my opponent go "well that was easy lol"

When I win games it's because I was winning beginning middle and finish.

That is my problem in every RTS, my morale is almost as easy to break as a GM sometimes.

Still I fight to the end, best thing to do. If I am to go down I go down fighting.

[Rithrin]

As Axis, I find my major trip-up is tank battles when each player starts having 3/4+ tanks in the fight. Even if I back up my tanks with small armies of pioneers like I see all my opponents do, the pioneers tend to disintegrate followed soon after by my tanks. Often my opponent won't have even taken casualties.

And like others have said, once I've lost a lot of my army/75% of my map control I have a hard time getting the will to fight back. It all seems so futile then. When I play Allies, I tend to have a much easier time coming back from that.

[Ashmole3110]

If I'm losing,I'm happy if I can make it a pyrrhic victory.Theres a joy imagining the other guy thinking to himself "man...this guy doesn't shit around". I like making it so the victory isn't a cake walk for him.

[Lunar100]

Seeming to always get bad partners against good players online. Nothing kills your game faster than a guy who says he'll go blitz then go defensive on a dense urban map.

[Hell-Fox]

Yeah my morale is easy to crush too like several people here have said, thats why I end up not playing online very much unless its with friends. Even then I am a poor loser, I'm pretty down on myself in a loss in an RTS game. Yet I ain't like that with FPS games, I'm weird like that.

[Skeletons777]

mine are shrecked storm spams, i can never really find any good way to wipe storm spams aside from sniper spam

[McGibs]

Well microed snipers make me blue. I play primarily as axis, and with heavy infantry.

Nothing is worse then fighting a guy who knows how to use a 2 man sniper team effectivly...

[LordZon]

Allied Artillery on any river map.

[Stokes52]

My achilles heel is when the enemy does something unexpected. I play primarily Axis, so I'm always expecting Riflespam followed by a Quad or a Croc (Which happend ALOT around 1.5-1.6ish). So when the enemy goes with a strategy that is a little more unexpected, it usually kills me.


Just today I lost to an unorthodox strategy on Beaux lowlands. The guy went Airborne Doctrine, but instead of the usual rifle spam to Paratroopers and AT guns, he went Barracks > WSC and he got quick strafing runs. I had my side of the map locked down, untill he sent in a strafing run which wiped out an entire flank of my defense in one run since I wasn't expecting such an early strafe and wasn't looking for Airplanes on the mini-map yet. I had no reserves on that side, since they were engaged elsewhere, and he was able to steamroll my flank and capture the Victory Points with Rifles and the captured MG from the Strafing run until he teched up to tanks. Great game, but yeah... I'm not used to Allied players thinking out of the box, hehe

[Ecthelion]

Oh yeah! Allied Snipers and Mortars!!!

Oh man, I always get this terrible feeling when I see those, especially if they're firing from their base where they're covered by their MG nests.

It makes it very hard to maintain a position within 100m of their base because then they're in range to snipe and shell you from relative safety.

And personally I hate using snipers myself so I have to rely on a bike to counter.

[EvolutionNK]

Nothing.... but just my overall skill.

[Ashmole3110]

Another one of mine is not having fun(being a sore loser).Its not fun when the guy just sends 50 BARs.Then he says "GG".

No it wasn't a good game,it sucked but I'll still say "GG" just to be polite.


It is a GG when theres an actual...you know...fight?

[Rimsey]

My achilles heel: I prefer playing axis.

Yep .... exactly.

[DDX]

I agree with Ecthelion. When im pushed back into my base at the beginning of a round or after losing a major battle, my morale plummets. I know that if i tried and actaully built units to counter the enemy, i might stand a chance, but after beeing outplayed very shortly into the game, its a question of if i WANT to keep playing.

[Brat_Boy]

My achilles heel: I prefer playing axis.

I know it was just a joke, but at this point the game is actually pretty balanced. Riflespam can be dealt with fairly easily using MP40 Volks+MG's and doctrine powers (Assault, Fortify the Perimeter, Firestorm, StuH).

[iaguz]

My achilles heel? I always play Infantry as Allies. I don't wanna play armoured, and pre 1.6, I didn't touch airborne cuz I thought they was so overpowered, it would be cruel to go around Noob bashing with it.

[Eben1987]

My achillies heel: Playing Infantry doctrine always

[Bonnet]

Love of doctrine's that just don't work late game.

[Sn1tch]

Definietly be not watching over my most important units, I sometimes prefer watching fights than moving units towards it to help.

[Becool]

A sniper....if one shows up i'll lose my whole earlygame to it.
Maybe thats the reason why I lost my Level 9 :/

[TigerPhobia]

My achilles heel? Well, I just love to play Terror Doctrine (Tiger Ace... mmmm )

[Deathscythe61]

Mortar, or sustained assaults early game.

If the fighting is nonstop early game, I forgo my macromanagement and fall behind techwise (because I just don't remember TO tech) and focus too much on micromanagement).

Allied Mortar, because by the time I notice it, the MG is already dead.

[kippcasper73]

over focus on snipers, both my own and enemy.

[roflmao]

I don't know what my achilles heel is. Maybe I am perfect (muahahah).

[kingofshao]

The worst weakness to have is to believe you have none...

[SturmKartuffel]

I play Axis.

[Bohmeester]

In 2v2 games, I have a hell of a time playing against an allied player who goes combined arms with rax and wsc. Mortars drive me fucking nuts! I just wish the axis mortar could actually counter it (fucking bugged damage tables)

[zellyman]

Not having any fun when ZeroThreat makes negative, harsh comments about my sexuality.