Company of Heroes

I've been stuck in a level 7/8 range for a while with an 1:1 win ration.
These are my 1v1 stats:
US 68/67
Wehr: 32/21
Brits:21/20
PE: 20/22
Its extremely frustrating to be stuck and unable to improve. I figure I must be making some fundamental mistakes or using some poor strategies.
I would suppose I would want a US mentor but after playing it twice as much as any other faction and still having the same win ratio than maybe Americans aren't for me. I still have trouble with wehr and OF factions so I do't even know what faction I should be mentored in but I suppose US or wehr.
My profile name is PvtPrivate84 and you can contact me on steam with {HRD}PvtPrivate.
I live on the east coast of the United States and I'm available on week days and weekend in the evenings. Sometimes I'll get on around 3-4 on week days. On weekends my playtime is very random.
I have a mic and can use stuff like vent or ts or even skype if you want to use VOIP.

This post has been edited by Iamatyourfrontdoor: Mar 12 2012, 03:08 AM

Tell me your time zone, maybe i can help you out.

Eastern Standard (GMT -5)

Ok so we got really different times so no live mentoring... but you can send me a replay of you where you lost, and i will try to analysis it and fix your play.
You can send with any faction really

Here is a long drawn out game.
Loss to VPs after being unable to control the center. I think I failed mostly in the early game
http://www.gamereplays.org/companyofheroes...s&id=258231

Can you send a shorter game, it will be easier for me to analysis and i dont have the time to look carefully about every detail for an hour and 4 minutes....

A loss as US on ango:
http://www.gamereplays.org/companyofheroes...s&id=258350

I didn't know this was possible but I'm getting worse at CoH. I have more losses than wins in 1v1 now.

I will mentor you with three four conditions

1) You will remain active (unless IRL issues come up)
2) You have a mic and ventrilo. I will do written reviews from time to time but I think its more enjoyable and beneficial to discuss replays.
3) You can do reviews or play practice games at a time that is convienent for me. I also live in ET so I don't think that will be an issue. I'm usually online when I get back from school (3-5pm) and I get back on later most nights.
4) You create a nickname, I need something easier to say in vent

Reborn vent info

This post has been edited by sgtBasilone: Mar 19 2012, 02:49 AM

hey, just watched the start of your game after having downloaded it on friday...

there is a lot you can improve on, but first things first:
your first pio stands idle for about 5 seconds, try minimizing idle times by using hokeys for building stuff (wehr start: "F1": select hq, "P": build pioneers, ",": select idle pioneer (or just click him) "V": base building menu, "W" : wehrmacht quarters... you'll probably want to learn all the hotkeys in case you dont know them already).

first volks: i dont want to get into the cap order too much, apart from the fact that your volks didnt actually connect anything. getting into the house got you some free dmg on his rifle squad, which can be crucial in early engagements, so far so good. now to the implications of seeing a rifle left hand side: he went tier 1, your mg is just crossing the bridge, so his second rifle will probably be around the same place on the other side of the map. he sent his first rifle left side, so he probably still has 1 engie left that you should try to scare off, yet your volks stay in the house for what seems like an eternity to me. when you see his rifle soft retreating, get out of the house. you can still get back in if he decides to come back.

your mg: it come out, wanders around, doesnt set up until a rifle squad gets into a house. usually a fight mg vs. rifles in house would not be going your way without other support, but it works out because they just have 1 window to shot out of. next, your mg gets flanked by another rifle squad, that you pretty much knew had to be in the middle (you encountered an engineer on the far right that scared off your pio to which you werent paying attention (on top of that, it looked like his capping queue ran empty, give your pios longer capping queues, no harm in that). it was okay to soft retreat your mg, because you had two volks coming in to help you defend the flank, but the place you set your mg up in was bad. also, that whole engagement was pretty bad, since for almost the entire engagement your volks are not in cover and your mg does no damage. and then, the worst part: you start capping your cutoff with two rifles firing at you, NEVER do that...its okay to be cut off for a few seconds more, especially when all you connect by capping it is a +5 fuel. also: the pio left side should have been capping the +16 ammo instead of the vp... you need the ammo for mines/schrecks/sweepers.

as for every tier 1 unit you get, his tier 1 unit will pop at approximately the same time, you should mentally note that he probably has 4 rifles by now, one just having popped around the same time your 2nd mg did. you saw 1 rifle retreat, you see 2 rifles approaching left side (one full health, one down to 4 men). so one rifle is probably approaching middle by now... try to get these things in your head, like anticipating where your enemy might be now.

your pioneers at around 5 minutes: one pio sits idle left hand side, being no use whatsoever, because you neglected to give it some more capping orders, the other one is just exiting your base to a place where you know for a factat least 2 rifles are at. with now 3 volks and 2 mgs, you can easily force off the remaining rifles from the lfet side, and back cap with 1 pio on right side.

5:50: again, you cap under fire in the middle and fight a rfile in the church with an mg, this time theres 4 windows facing you. on left hand side 3 volks try to fight a rifle thats in green cover while having no cover themselves. also: 1 volks is bareley participating. because you failed to retreat or soft retreat your pio, you lost it. the fight against the rifle you lost too, because he just soft retreated (he wouldnt even have had to, he was fighting one volks without cover from green cover). the mg/rifle in chruch fight isnt exactly going your way either until you send that one volks over there... AGAIN without using cover (theres plenty of green cover around the church, use it!).

7:00 your 2nd mg is guarding your cut off... from what? if you really ARE afraid of a flank that might come from that side of the despite having a volks over there, lay a mine, you have plenty of ammo for that. you just started getting your kriegsbarracks when you saw him getting bars. this means you can get a schrecked gren before you need a pak. also: you have 3 volks squads and no medic bunker... having a medic bunker might have given you a free gren already.

7:10 one rifle retreats, the other gets into the chruch... now FINALLY one of your volks is in green cover... whil the other one is on the wrong side of it... cover wins you not only engagements, but games, use it ffs! then you get mp40s for the volks squad in cover and start charging the church.... srsly dude, STAY IN COVER. 1 rifle in the church managed to force retreat 2 volks and the mg too (with the help of another flanking rifle).

8:00 everything you have is in your base, your cut off is being capped, leaving you with just your +10 ammo and +10 fuel... basically only because you neglect to use cover. normally at this point in time you would probably want to have a med bunker up and probably have vet 1 infantry teching already after you saw bars, also you could possibly already have a schrecked gren that, combined with some mines could most definitely could hold its ground against an m8 until a pak can hit the field.

9:30 you again charge rifles in buildings without using cover appropriately, choosing yellow cover over green cover (and having a bar rifle flank you too). also you again cap while under fire... first push off the rifles, THEN go cap.. or cap with a pio or something you do not necessarily need to win the engagement. getting the flamer i wouldnt mind so much if you would have held either +16 ammo point for a significant portion of the game, you held neither. you would probably need the sweeper against a decent player, because with the amount of map control he had, a decent player would have mined the whole effing map.

11:40: you reveal your pak by trying to shoot a mine you dont even know 100% is there. again: get a sweeper, at least when you SEE him planting (or trying to plant) mines.

12:30 you actually managed to kill a rifle, because your enemy has dumb enough to keep fighting there ... yet you are about to more than make up for his mistake...you have two bar rifles on your tail, and you decide to "soft retreat" a pio and an mg squad that is basically at 1/3 or 1/4 health anyway, losing both squads in the process... your enemy could have even killed the pak and stolen it from you.

12:55 i'm not 100% sure, but i think i just saw the first rifle getting suppressed... remember, you have had 2 mgs for almost the entire game...

13:30 you see the m8 hitting the field, you have a pak and a gren thats about to get a schreck.unfortunately you have no mines, but the schrecked gren and the pak are enough to hold off the m8 for a while.

14:00 get the gren into the house, schrecks in houses are incredibly accurate.
14:20 you had a chance to kill the m8, yet you move your pak... why? because of that one rifle? bs... now the m8 got away
14:40 both vet 2 and nades hit the field... he should now backtech to tier 2 and get snipers, so you should get at least 1 sniper or a bike too.
15:00 he got a medic tent, kill the medics... also, still no med bunker from you.
16:30 again, losing volks to rifles in buildings because you run around and dont use cover. actually you gave him vet too.
17:30 yay! you kill a medic. also you managed to kill another rifle, which is good, but was more an oversight on your enemys part than actual good play on your part.
18:00 ...he does the same mistake you did: capping under fire, and he loses a vet 2 rifle... he has lost 3 rifles now, 2 of them vetted... this actually is a severe blow to him and should hinder his tier 2 tech, if he ever wanted to go snipers.
18:20 scratch that, he got an mg :-) at this point in time, even though you played pretty poor so far, i would say you are ahead at the moment
19:30 be aware of nades like the one he threw down south at the +10 ammo... also: finally some use of cover, yay!
also: tier 3 tech with pumas...i guess i would have gotten a nebel first against his tier 2, but puma is fine too i guess.
20:00 FINALLY a med bunker. and terror doc LHS, which is okay i guess... zeal is pretty good, prop war can be an ass saver and KT is beast.
20:45 m8 finally dead, no losses... actually i dont know how that guy still wants to win with the amount of losses he suffered the last few minutes
21:00 two mgs, a mortar, a rifle and an engineer are in the middle... that propably is almost everything he has left... unfortunately your puma hits a mine (sweeper!) that you probably even saw getting planted. oh how handy would a nebel be right now with all those clumped up forces in the middle? or a sniper to snipe the mgs...
21:40 nebel hits the field, yay!
22:00 move your stuff around more if he has a mortar... you're just sitting there taking it.
22:30 you killed a fourth rifle... are you sure you are losing this game?!
23:00 oh shi..... you lost a gren and a schreck, and HE managed to pick it up, because you didnt dodge the nade... watch out for the nade throw animation, and if you cant react in time, just retreat your squad before the nade explodes... the received damage modifiers already work and help save your squads.
24:00 vet 3 infantry AND your teching tier 4, instead of getting more units... he basically has almost nothing on the field... just cap right side (you could have done that 3 minutes ago, when all his stuff was around the church) and kill the mgs in the middle (nebels/snipers)
25:30 floating around 650 manpower, but not saving up for anything as far as i can tell...would be okay if you think you had everything you think you needed, but still not a single sniper that would help you BIG time against his tier 2... also he got a fhq, which is another unit less on the field for him. and the building he did get it in is almost done... just pak it to death.
27:00 inf doc and tier 4. your pak got decrewed, you also got a new one, which is okay i guess... you probably always want to have 2 paks. the hellcats actually dont really counter anything you have, since your one puma died to a mine (you STILL havent placed a single mine)
28:00 ouch, lost the med bunker, got tier 4 up and building a panzer 4... why? your pak (the one that is just sitting in your base, doing nothing) would have been more than enough to doe with the hellcat alongside your infantry until the KT hits the field in half a cp. nebel lost too....
29:30 panzer 4 killed hellcat, fine... but then you just let it sit there with its rear armor facing a ranger squad...
30:45 ...those mgs and mortars are actually killing you... you neither are flanking, nor did you use your nebel appropriately, nor did you get snipers (which would have helped you by far the most)
32:00 kt almost dies to offmap arty because you let it get stickied right when it hit the field....also: the ghq is still there, you could have killed it a thousand times already at least.
33:00 haha! his mg spam is actually working :-P
37:30 always have your tanks face their front armor to the enemy... also PLEASE kill the fhq in the church?!
38:00 you did NOT just recrew a pak with a three men schrecked gren that dropped his schreck and got killed immediately by the mgs you refused to kill for over 15 minutes now? srsly dude... why would you want his AT gun in the first place? you got a pak, a p4 and a kt as AT... if you dont want HIM to have it, kill it, or place a mine under it...
39:30 FINALLY the church goes down...
40:20 he his probably getting another free rifle out of his medic tent soon because you neglect to kill the medics (or the ten, for that matter)

after that you just repeat earlier mistakes: getting vet for your one p4 (vet 1 is okay, but why vet 3 just for that one tank instead of getting units that would actually help you?), spamming kch and losing them while capping under fire, basically throwing away your manpower to give him free veterancy, getting an officer for no apparent reason, neglecting to kill the mgs, neglecting to kill medics, not using all your units and so on and so forth...

hth

Ok i can see few mistakes that you have made in that game.
at the very beginning you sent 2 of your engies to one side of the map. and then a rifle to the same side, i believe it would have been better for you to send 1 engie on each side to cap faster, the point of amis is to stay as much as spread out on the map and make the wher split out across the map, they are weaker when they are not in a group which makes it easier for you, but when you face a good player he will keep his units together no matter what, but then you will have as much points as he has, or more which makes it better for you.
First of all you got grenades... i saw you throwing two good grenades on the mg's but nothing more then that. i think that early bars would have been much better then those grenades.. but on the other side you managed to get that m8. When i saw you building that first m8 i was thinking that it is too late already. when you want to go fast m8 you should waist any fuel on anything at all.
But when you got that m8 you played with it pretty well. i was against you rushing the wehr base with it, it could have died real fast and not do any damage, when i saw you escape it i was suprised and i was thinking that you have learned your lesson not to attack the base ones again, i was wrong, you pushed on the base ones more and lost it doing no damage at all, i believe it would have been better if you would have kept it on the field and preventing the enemy from capping points with it.
As well a triage center. you got it pretty late and i believe that you should have gotten it faster.
When i saw you get stickies i was thinking"why" he didn't have any armor on the field and you had the fuel most of the time and you kept on cutting him off and taking his fuel away, he didnt have the reasorses to get armor.
And they didn't really help you when the guy got stuhs.
Now you got an at gun and that was pretty good but you didn't move it with your units as one and the at gun was at the back when your rifles where in the front fighting which gave the stuh's an easy target. then you decided to get t4, i think it was completely useless due to the fact that he has an at gun and 2 storm squads with shrecks.. and then you didn't group up the hell cats and attacked as a big group of 3 or 4 which would have done much better for you, you sent out 1 at a time, they are totally useless as a single unit and they died fast.
What you should have done is to get more at guns and keep on the presure with infantry.
When you got the rangers it was too late, they rangers should come much earlier, if not, not at all. when you got them it was really late you should have gotten at guns or a blop of hell cats instead.
Or wait for an off map group.
you did choose infantry, you dont really need to get t4 when choosing infantry because you can get tanks in the off map group.

Ow and that sniper survived all the game, you couldn't kill him because he always was at the base camping. you should have gotten WSC to deal with that sniper, after you have dealt with that sniper you have a sniper of your own to run around the map and kill those annoying storms.

Here is a game, not against mg's or anything but you might get the idea of where the units need to go in the start of the game.

Should I post some OF gameplay or just focus on vanilla factions for now?

i guess focusing on one faction for the time being would be best, which one is your choice (dont expect much help for brits though :-P).

This is a loss on Langres vs a US players who was quite a bit higher level then me.

this replay was easy to analyse: you just seemed to lack the appropriate apm to execute the strategy you were trying to carry out and thus failed miserably. after the flank at around 13 minutes the game was basically over. you had almost no mines the entire game and were floating LOADS of ammo, partly because you lost a pioneer you shouldnt have lost (trying to finish capping while being shot at). everything after that was pretty much predestined to fail. i assume you watched inverses VVSMG buildorder breakdown. i advise you to watch it again, especially the parts where he talks about a) how important mines are b) how you cannot hold a well executed flank c) how you should rather retreat than lose all your stuff (as you did at 13 minutes) d) how very very very very very (i might have missed a "very" here) important mines are for this strat ;-)

just go watch the replay again from your perspective and see how many times you have units idling around or doing stupid stuff because you arent paying attention (like the volks sitting in front of your hq when your sniper tries to bum rush the rifles capping your cutoff).

my advice: try to get your apm up, your average for this game was about 35, your opponent had almost double your apm.

A loss on lowlands with terror against an infantry heavy player.

first off: deselect blowlands... as wehr you'll probably want to deselect blowlands/ruins, whereas ami will probably want to deselect blowlands/WT.

now to the replay itself:
where you away at the start? takes you 5 seconds to select your pio, and another 10 seconds to start doing anything with it :-P
i only skipped through on times 8 and was watching it almost exclusively from the tac map. and the most important thing you probably did wrong was to go for the middle... the middle only has a vp, whereas the corners have a vp and all the ressources. major mistake not going for the ressources (you pretty much never had any). tier 2 gren spam was okay i guess, maybe a halftrack or two to keep your army mobile (blowlands is big as fuck, switching sides takes ages, halftracks help with that). he teched to tier 2 with snipers, a move you should always anticipate when going grens with vet. also: going t3/t4 would have helped tremendously i think... t3 with pumas/nebels or t4 with osts/kch would REALLY put the hurt on an infantry heavy playstyle like this.

just remember that a campy playstyle like yours does not really work on blowlands (at least where you tried to camp) and that howitzers pretty much counter a campy playstyle.


pls note: you should probablygo watch the replays you're posting here first and try to analyse them yourself. then post them with your thoughts. also, try to get on vent/teamspeak with some guys that can teach you and also maybe play a game or two with them. basilone already offered you help, i am on the gr.org ts3 most of the time. live mentoring is a whole lot more effective imho.