Company of Heroes

Well, I've been trying to work the VH into my builds a lot more often than I once did and ran across an unsuspecting british player who doesn't know his PE opponents all that well. There's a mixture of decapping the desired british sector using scout cars, blocking the HQ truck with a ketten, killing the FST with ACs, hetzers to deal with churchhills, and as usual me floating some MP while I'm trying to figure out what to do next.



However, this isn't really a pride post as I'm wondering if there's any other active PE players regularly working the VH into games (opportunity provided, of course) especially in mid to upper level play. If you have any good examples post em in here as I'd like to see this unit in action.

Tried to use it and worked rather well in 1vs1 due to the more obvious cappings.
I only have one replay of it, though. Will add more in the future. Interesting thread!



To recite me of another thread: "I still don'T get how the Vampire steals resources from the british... Can't find the Vampire guide, it seems lost. Can somebody repost it in the PE strategy section and sticky it please?"



Greets
Schepp himself

EDIT: put the replay a couple of posts down into this post as well to make it easier to access.

This post has been edited by schepp himself: Jun 9 2011, 23:25 PM

Schepp, the short and easy version is this, and it is the simplest way to approach the VH.

Your opponent captures in this order:

0. Base Sector (5 fuel)
1. 10 muni
2. +3mp strat point
3. 10 fuel
4. 5 muni
5. 16 fuel

You place the vampire down on #5. You get roughly 8 fuel, you deny your opponent 8 fuel and half of anything captured after the 16 fuel point (chronologically).

You place the vampire down on #3. You get 5 fuel, and deny 5+8=13 fuel and 2.5 muni and again, half of anything he captured after that sector.

So, you see the simple pattern there. But there's a great trick that can be used.

Let's say you place your vampire on #3. If you decap the #1 10 muni point and the #2 strat point to disconnect the supply chain to 3-5. You will for a short period receive no income from your VH. Your opponent will not be receiving any either. However, as soon as your opponent recaps #1 and #2, they're no longer #1 and #2, they're #6 and #7. This means that instead of 2.5 muni and 13 fuel, you're up to denying your opponent 7.5 muni, 1.5 mp, and 13 fuel, while receiving 5 for yourself.

That's how a vampire works and how you can use careful decaps to leave your vampire in a safer and less obvious position, but you must have the vampire connected to other territories in order to steal their resources.

Damn, thanks for explaining that one to me!
I always thought you would get more resources when you park it in the first sector, but you only deny it for him. So the first sector of the brit IS a good place to park the vampire!

Greets
Schepp himself

Yurdle's Vampire Guide

And was that first replay really worth posting. It just sat on his command sector all game.

When do you guys suggest to build the Vampire?

If you build it really early the effect will last longer but you're sacrificing early field control.

But if you build it too late it won't have any effect.

I'd suggest mid-game, but what do you guys think?

Sincerely onrAArno.

Well that's actually the optimal place to put it as you're sure to deny your opponent half of everything they cap, period. So no, you don't get the extra resources from stealing, but you do have maximum denial for the map.

Arno, it's always a tough call as to when to build one. I think you have to look at it as to what you're hoping to do. If it takes 140 fuel for the M8, then if you get a Vamp halftrack out and deployed around 80 fuel (it only takes 20 fuel total expenditure, it's more the manpower at this point in the game) then you may very well have bought yourself a couple of minutes before the M8 can come out.

Another good example is if you see early BARs on an American, then if you can squeeze a vampire into play you're going to massively delay T3 or T4 if you can keep it alive. So it's all about timing with the vampire and delaying the time to field a given tier or unit. It's awful hard to spam tanks if your income's so low that you can't keep rolling them out of a TD or Armor Command.

HOLY SHIT THATS BLOODY BRILLIANT

i have to try it

This post has been edited by twinArmageddons: Jun 9 2011, 21:54 PM

I played someone not too long ago that plunked their Vampire down in my original base sector w/o me noticing. I did see his HT breifly when it was driving across the map, but wasn't sure where it went. Next thing I knew, my income was next to nothing. I knew vamps stole resources, but did not know the mechanics. From now on, I will always check my original base sector first for one if I notice it out there.

Pretty awesome unit that was rarely used.

Another 1vs1 on Ango, with me loosing. I was worried when I saw the "reloaded" in the name but on the other hand was exiting to try out the superfast AC against a good player.
But as this thread is about the vampire:
This game also features the vampire in the mid game sneaking some resources away. Enemy was too good not to notice. Didn't see the Goliath coming, though

Anyway, just to give you guys an impression how I try to use my vampire... Enjoy!



Greets
Schepp himself

That's why I posted the first replay with it. It's definitely entertaining.

wow after watching the replay at first i was like, "WTF IS HAPPENING!?"

but then after re-reading your explanation i finally understand, all this time i thought the supply chain was connected to the brit truck, not i see its still connected to their first territory


i thought you had your Vamp HT on the same territory as his HQ truck

well this unit might be a lil bit unbalanced agaisnt the brits , how many detecting units do they have?


the vamp is still a situational unit, but atleast it can now be used in realistic situations

also nice looking map

This post has been edited by twinArmageddons: Jun 10 2011, 03:58 AM

Brits have one detection unit, the recon section.

Which is completely incapable of actually killing a vampire, so if you get found out you can run away. Yes, this works stupidly well against brits AND amer. Playing south on semois I parked one on in the top corner of the north fuel point relatively early. That was effectively gg from the moment I did it.

Truth be told, this is going to work VERY well up until the point more than a handful of people start doing it, because it only works at the moment because people don't know how the vampire works because it was never used in 2.601.

IT WORKS, IT FREAKING WORKS

it took me some games (more like loses) to get this experiment right but Acousticry was totally right about how the Vamp HT works



the game is really short, only 7 minutes long, but it shows an intelligent way to use the vamp (as Acousticry explained)

in this map there are 3 territories connecting to the main base but the resources only go through ONE of them, the first one you captured, to make sure the experiment went as planned i only decapped 2 enemy sectors, i left the rest of his territory intact

since i captured 2 of the 3 territories connecting to the enemy HQ, the 3rd one becomes his first capped territory regardless of the order in which it was captured or if the other territories are captured back, as shown in the video

the fuel point my Vamp secured was the 2nd to be captured however after i decapped the other 2 sector connecting to his base it became the first

before i decapped those 2 points the resource income of my enemy was the following

manpower - 269
munitions - 27
fuel - 15

after he recaptured those 2 territories and my vamp was in place this was his income

manpower - 244
munitions - 16
fuel - 10

but wait twinArmageddons, if you were blocking half of his resources why is he getting 10 fuel instead of 7.5, 16 munis intead of 13.5 and 244 manpower intead of 134.5?

easy, the HQ produces resources by default, some manpower and 5 fuel, i cant block those, i can only block the ones comming from his territory

regarding munitions, i believe the game calculates the overall munitions income by halving the income from each individual point rather than halving the overall income




well actually almost anything has the ability to kill the Vamp HT

This post has been edited by twinArmageddons: Jun 10 2011, 20:02 PM

Well anything can kill your Vampire if you don't move it when it is attacked, but if you do you can give your Vampire a fighting chance (well not a fighting one but you get what I mean ).

And I'm interested to watch your replay, unfortunately I can't watch replays or play COH until Sunday or Monday.

Sincerely onrAArno.

This post has been edited by onrAArno: Jun 10 2011, 20:27 PM

Just wanted to correct ya quick, but it's a great example and I appreciate you working at it to show it off. The reason the munitions was off was because he capped in this order:

1. 10 munitions
2. 5 muni
3. 5 fuel
4. 3 mp strat point
5. 10 muni
6. 5 fuel

You decapped 4 and 1, and set up on 3. This meant he was still receiving the full +5 munitions even though it ran through what was 4. Remember, it's all based on a chronological order of capping, not what's connected to what, except that it all has to be connected to the base sector.

So, you got half of 20 denied (10ish, because +10 points are slightly more than +10), +5 for muni giving him a recorded income of 16. He had 2 +5 fuels, which would give him +5, and +5 from his base sector once you had the vamp down for a +10 overall. The manpower gain is miniscule due to his heavy WSC play. However, it should be noted that the VH does effect popcap as well, so keep an eye on it.

Just a quick note for ya!

oh yeah you are right

i assume the capping order remains the same in team games, i mean the capping order is taken globally rather than a capping order for each player



holy shit this guy put a really good fight despite the fact he was playing with only half of his resources the entire game

ANOTHER ONE



i... i think im in love

yeah my micro sucks, deal with it

This post has been edited by twinArmageddons: Jun 12 2011, 03:08 AM

hmmm what is the resource reduction for a vamp HT in a for example an OP'd +18 Fuel pt? I'm seriously will be trying to test the Vamp too w/ T1-T4 opening

Well the resource reduction is dependant of the cap order and your opponents resource income, but de stealing from a OP-ed point is half of the income your opponent would get from that sector I think. OP-ed or not.

Sincerely onrAArno.