Whats the point of contemp arty rocket arty

[matthew patton]

they seem totally useless

 

[Dursland]

They are useless. I don't know what inno was thinking when they made them.

Just take it as another advantage you have in CE over the AI and move on

 

[xivarmy]

They're usable on manual. And pretty fun! When dealing with "fair" fights, and not relying on a rogue crutch (i.e. "normal" fighting, which almost noone does anymore), they are the best option in contemporary to counter assault tanks.

2 strike teams + 6 missile artillery works wonders

1) The strike teams run to hide in trees out of range of the assault tanks to hold their position. their job is cleanup.
2) One by one you move a missile artillery forward as far as it'll go so that at least 4 assault tanks are in range and fire.
3) You will on balance kill 6 of the 8 assault tanks while despawning your 6 artillery - which if you win the battle you'll get back. Sometimes it'll only be 4 or 5. Sometimes it'll be all 8!
4) Cleanup time. carefully focus on killing off the remaining tanks while doing your best to stick to trees and staying out of range of as many tanks as you can

If at any point your luck isn't working out "well enough", you can retreat and only lose the missile artillery that have already fired. Mainly I only found this necessary for "map does not have suitable tree positions for my strike teams" which loses nothing.

Why not 8 strike teams? There's seldom 8 suitable trees. And it's harder to kite when there's so many tanks still alive.

But if you're running around with 1000%+ bonus on both attack and defense for your attacking army and rogues, no there's no reason to use the artillery. In OF they brought back the idea of artillery hitting multiple targets without the despawn that makes them challenging to use in CE. And those are downright OP! So what they were thinking in CE is that a downside was needed to counter it.

They don't usually go back and revise old ages, but if they did, dropping the despawn from the CE artillery would be high on my list of changes to make to earlier eras. (There's both flying units and rapid deployment units that will hit before they can move that they wouldn't be remotely OP in CE without the downside. Edit: I believe my specific thought was to replace 1-shot with reload from the FE rail gun so that there'd still be a downside, just less severe).

 

[matthew patton]

well If you ask me real world we are there. Those assault tanks look like m1 Abrams. the heli looks like an apache. shouldnt the heli be the anti tank weapon

 

[matthew patton]

the map has a carrier with f117 on it

 

[xivarmy]

well If you ask me real world we are there. Those assault tanks look like m1 Abrams. the heli looks like an apache. shouldnt the heli be the anti tank weapon

Gameplay trumps realism Every unit in CE has two advantages and two disadvantages.

The heli can't be anti-everything. It's antiartillery and anti-strike team. Which both seem quite reasonable.

The logic I guess is that the tank can take "some amount" of helicopter fire

 

[matthew patton]

I do the rogue thing if they have 6 of the same unit. 2 counter units and 6 rogues. Bestides with battlegrounds auto battle rules. Manual battle would take forever

 

[xivarmy]

I do the rogue thing if they have 6 of the same unit. 2 counter units and 6 rogues. Bestides with battlegrounds auto battle rules. Manual battle would take forever

Yes, we all autobattle these days.

But when contemporary was designed, 100% boost was a lot (there were no event buildings that gave attack boost yet - so it was just GBs + the shiny new CE barracks), we didn't all have level 60 trazzes + countless other sources of unattached troops (no Arcs yet; SoKs were the best FP buildings - your average player was lucky to have 20; Having even level 10 GBs were a *big deal*, no GE for years to come still), and some fights required manual combat if you didn't want to hemorrhage the precious unattached troops you did have.

And AAV+rogues doesn't work well on continent map - the continent map AI tends to hit non-rogues first a lot of the time unless you hide them at the back. So if you say hide your AAV in the corner and march forward your 7 rogues, they'll turn 1, the next 2 shots will kill it, then they'll turn the next one. I used missile artillery a lot on continent back in those days. And they were awesomely fun

That missile artillery don't fit in well with the current paradigms of people trivializing GE, and doing hundreds of brainless autobattles in GBG doesn't mean they were a poor concept when they were created. They just haven't aged well.

---

The last place I used it was when ~150% boost was still decent, but not enough to make AAVs super-durable against assault tanks in GE3 (pre-sentinel outposts). GE Fight #34 with a wave of 8 heavies followed by a wave of 4 more heavies. AAV + rogues had a habit of losing the AAVs before the second wave leaving me having to surrender and try again.

Missile Artillery + Strike Teams only used units I wasn't worried about anywhere else, and would get me through the vast majority of the time without having to restart.

 

[matthew patton]

Ok it was much harder back then

 

[MJ Artisan of War]

Use 8 helos and auto battle gbg and Cont Map with ease....

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Use 8 helos and auto battle gbg and Cont Map with ease....

*if your boosts are high enough. (Everybody always leaves that part out. LOL)

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

they seem totally useless

If you always auto battle, they may seem that way to you. They are actually fun to use on manual in the right situations. They can allow you to win many fights without taking damage, or taking minimal damage, if used correctly. As @xivarmy stated, they are the best option to counter Assault Tanks. The multi-hit of the Missile Artillery (not rocket arty) offsets the Reactive Armor of the Assault Tanks. You just have to make sure you either destroy the enemy army with your first turn, or have a unit or two other than the Missile Artillery to finish them off. In CE I mostly used one or two AAVs with Rogues, but if the enemy army didn't have Attack Helicopters but had multiple Assault Tanks, 6 Missile Artillery with a couple of AAVs was very effective.

 

[Mor-Rioghain]

Ok it was much harder back then

Challenging might be a more appropriate word. There are still many players who choose to manually battle and play on the Era-specific maps on the GvG map and knowing these stats on the previous era's units (and what their capabilities are/are not) is one of the most interesting parts of a game, often referred to as learning the "art" of war rather than just choosing the best "Bash-N-Crash" units, pummeling your opponents into smithereens by sheer force of power and uber-high ATTK/ATTK-D.

I have always preferred to auto-battle mostly because I am very bad at manually battling with any measure of speed. I still toy with manually battling and like to relearn my previous era units and what their capabilities are and enjoy finding new (to me) ways to utilize their unique sets of skills.

If there is one true beauty to this game it's that it's diverse and as it's grown and developed over an almost 11 year period, there's a bit of something for virtually every style of play and it's really just up to the individual player to find his/her own way to what they find interesting or unique.

 

[Orius Maximus]

Missile artillery is mostly useless. Terrible for attack, terrible for defense with the one attack and die feature. Their biggest use is to wipe the floor with very weak units with the MIRV area effect, but even then you want 1 or 2 other units in case 8 missiles isn't enough to kill everything. I've found that the Assault Tank's Reactive Armor really blunts whatever advantage you're getting from MIRV, because needing three hits to kill tanks unless you get lucky with an AO is too risky for the missiles.

Missiles are fun with players who foolishly use rogues on defense though. If they have no more 3 or 4 units that aren't rogues, I'll take those out with Rail Guns and Rocket Artillery first, then wipe the rogues with a Turturret and missiles. If it's all rogues on defense, MIRV is really fun.

Then again too I'm lazy, and I prefer to just fight through GE and GBG by blindly autobattling with AAVs and rogues unless I have a lot of tanks to fight and I switch to my own tanks. I could probably destroy 2 waves of 16 tanks with an AAV manually, but it would take time I don't like to spend.

My top 5 CE units are as follows:

1: AAV
2: AAV
3: AAV
4: AAV
5: Assault Tank

With a big enough attack bonus, 1 AAV and 7 rogues easily wipes the map against anything on autobattle. Contact! is one of the best unit abilities in the game, and AAVs combine it with speed and mobility. There are few cases where you want to switch to tanks, usually against other tanks because tanks have an advantage against AAVs and can soak damage. Interestingly enough, missiles are actually a little dangerous to the AAV + Rogue combo if they hit the AAV with enough MIRVs on the first turn, but that's also the result of relying a little too heavily on the AI in autobattle.

Strike Teams are okay, but if you don't have enough forests on your map, the Rapid Deployment can be really good at getting them killed. They're basically an upgraded Paratrooper from ME that's a light unit instead of ranged.

Attack Helicopters aren't as good as they could be, because while they have Flying, their counterpart artillery unit is the Missile Artillery. In addition, their advantage is only aganst Strike Team, AAVs have a bigger bonus vs. Strike Teams, and AAVs eat Helicopters for breakfast. It's fun to send 1 helicopter in against 8 missiles though.

Champions have become a joke too in most ages. I dumped my Retreat back into my inventory. Don't need them, and I win plenty from GE/DCs/events anyway.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Missile artillery is mostly useless. Terrible for attack, terrible for defense with the one attack and die feature. Their biggest use is to wipe the floor with very weak units with the MIRV area effect, but even then you want 1 or 2 other units in case 8 missiles isn't enough to kill everything. I've found that the Assault Tank's Reactive Armor really blunts whatever advantage you're getting from MIRV, because needing three hits to kill tanks unless you get lucky with an AO is too risky for the missiles.

Missiles are fun with players who foolishly use rogues on defense though. If they have no more 3 or 4 units that aren't rogues, I'll take those out with Rail Guns and Rocket Artillery first, then wipe the rogues with a Turturret and missiles. If it's all rogues on defense, MIRV is really fun.

Then again too I'm lazy, and I prefer to just fight through GE and GBG by blindly autobattling with AAVs and rogues unless I have a lot of tanks to fight and I switch to my own tanks. I could probably destroy 2 waves of 16 tanks with an AAV manually, but it would take time I don't like to spend.

My top 5 CE units are as follows:

1: AAV
2: AAV
3: AAV
4: AAV
5: Assault Tank

With a big enough attack bonus, 1 AAV and 7 rogues easily wipes the map against anything on autobattle. Contact! is one of the best unit abilities in the game, and AAVs combine it with speed and mobility. There are few cases where you want to switch to tanks, usually against other tanks because tanks have an advantage against AAVs and can soak damage. Interestingly enough, missiles are actually a little dangerous to the AAV + Rogue combo if they hit the AAV with enough MIRVs on the first turn, but that's also the result of relying a little too heavily on the AI in autobattle.

Strike Teams are okay, but if you don't have enough forests on your map, the Rapid Deployment can be really good at getting them killed. They're basically an upgraded Paratrooper from ME that's a light unit instead of ranged.

Attack Helicopters aren't as good as they could be, because while they have Flying, their counterpart artillery unit is the Missile Artillery. In addition, their advantage is only aganst Strike Team, AAVs have a bigger bonus vs. Strike Teams, and AAVs eat Helicopters for breakfast. It's fun to send 1 helicopter in against 8 missiles though.

Champions have become a joke too in most ages. I dumped my Retreat back into my inventory. Don't need them, and I win plenty from GE/DCs/events anyway.

As someone who has camped in CE for long periods of time in multiple cities, I can only say that your assessment of CE units is way, way off.

 

[Orius Maximus]

Whatever, pal. I can frequently auto at least 3-4 battles in a row without even bothering to change units relying mostly on AAVs the whole time.

Probably it's simply the result of having a 500% attack bonus as well as the defense bonus to attack units and support from other combat GBs like the AO and Kraken before even entering CE, and being able to steamroll everything. Yeah, that happens. How many long established players just brute force whatever they can these days? I'm not ashamed to admit to it. And in previous ages, I did pay closer attention to unit matchups and terrain because my bonuses were lower and I needed to survive. After seven years though, combat in this game is nowhere near as interesting as it used to be.

But there's no real advantage to me to switch out to any other units. I don't like spending more time on the game then have to so I'm going to go with easy autobattles where I can for the simple speed. I'm not spending the extra time to swap units out or fight manual when there's no risk. I've got better things to do.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I don't like spending more time on the game then have to so I'm going to go with easy autobattles where I can for the simple speed. I'm not spending the extra time to swap units out or fight manual when there's no risk. I've got better things to do.

Ah, so you don't actually like playing the game. Got it. Don't know why you bothered responding to this thread since you don't actually fight anymore. You have no way of knowing the relative strengths and weaknesses of units if all you do is auto battle for speed.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Ah, so you don't actually like playing the game. Got it. Don't know why you bothered responding to this thread since you don't actually fight anymore. You have no way of knowing the relative strengths and weaknesses of units if all you do is auto battle for speed.

You've been playing for what, 7 years? Bunch of towns, none beyond SAM, none beyond 90K points, none beyond 39K battles, no guild participation. Hardly a curriculum vitae worthy of tossing grenades at another player. From the look of things, you don't much like playing the game either.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

You've been playing for what, 7 years? Bunch of towns, none beyond SAM, none beyond 90K points, none beyond 39K battles, no guild participation. Hardly a curriculum vitae worthy of tossing grenades at another player. From the look of things, you don't much like playing the game either.

A) 8 years.
B) 5 semi-active cities, 7 Diamond farms.
C) I believe all are well over 90k points, although I pay little attention to that. Edit: Even my lowest level city is at 266k points, so I don't know where you got this misinformation.
D) I don't farm GvG or GBG, so guilty of "not having enough battles" for your approval.
E) Again, guilty. Solo guilds all around. That way I don't have to play by someone else's rules.
F) There are many aspects of the game I thoroughly enjoy.
G) The other player posted opinion on relative unit strengths then later admitted he doesn't even bother manually fighting because he "doesn't have time for it", which means he has no idea on the subject.
Now if you have an informed opinion on the thread subject, please feel free to comment on that.

 

[Orius Maximus]

I know very well how fighting works, as I did plenty of manual fighting from BA up to PME. I still fight manually when I don't trust the AI not to screw up, or if there's a particular strategy I can pull off to quickly and efficiently end things. But most of the time, autoing is the most efficient strategy.

And points don't really mean anything anymore. It's impossible to judge actual skill from someone who just farms several hundred easy fights in GvG and/or GbG a day.