Compliments & Suggestions About Blitz Ii

[BlitzIIFan 0]

Hi all,

 

I've been following and playing Blitzkrieg II as long as it exists (publically ;) ). After not having seen any updates in a long while I was very, very excited and grateful for the December release.

 

Good stuff!

 

I really, really like the background music, a combination of news reports about the front, epic battle music and I'm glad you've kept the 'old' tracks as they bring back memories and have always been good music. Same goes for the ingame sounds, but it has always been great.

 

As for the units, well, what can I say, it's over-complete! The build 'II' and 'III's are a really nice addition and save me a LOT of clicking. I also like how you can receive new unit upgrades with your promotions and it's simply very exciting to be able to access newer and stronger units!

 

The gameplay itself is very good - how you the tanks have longer ranges than other - specifically when the enemy is firing out of your range you can still see where it's firing from. The effects also seem to have vastly improved and are balanced with their effectiveness, just take a look at the Sturmtiger, KV2, etc. not to mention the Hummel!

 

AI

 

I've never played online and always with AI so I have a lot to tell about my experiences. The AI has improved incredibly much and I'm enjoying it very much. One thing I noticed was that the German AI is incredibly weak. They always produce small numbers of very high quality tanks, and too often they just let themselves get killed, I wonder where they're attack point is supposed to be. So it's not exactly a formidable ally or enemy to play with.

 

As for the Russians, they are excellently programmed and rush with all types of material almost exactly like they did in WW2. So they are always a dangerous opponent and must not be underestimated. The allies also have some problems as, especially later in the game, they only seem to build Comets, Fireflies and those ridiculously huge T-28's, which just sit at their base, by the way. It would be nice if the Allies operated like the Russians and like in real life built quantities of Shermans and Cromwells, and ofcourse Churchills, M10's, etc. Both Germans and Allied AI need to build tanks in a larger quantity and larger variation.

 

Air combat

 

What I really, really miss in the AI battles is the lack of airfighting. I remember a few years back you could build airfield and pwn the map with those IL2's and FW's. That was just so totally awesome! I would have them guard ground attack to support the ground troops from attacks. Moreover, the enemy AI actually started to fight in the air which required me to have fighters as well - that air action was just so awesome!

 

I rarely make use of the airfields now, I only build and use fighters as recon planes, I like how they circle for a long time! However, the Germans don't seem to have ground attack planes other than the Stuka's, which drop their bombs and leave. I'd just like to have them circle around for a while like the fighters do attacking ground targets. The only aircraft bringing back the ol' air action are the IL2's, I don't really seem to get much use out of the Allied aircraft either.

 

Aircraft are expensive to build and take such a long time, and once put into action they're only there for a few minutes, so I think why bother using them? I've read one topic and read the explanation of why this is better, but if you want to hear the opinion of one of your hardcore fans there it is! I really, really, REALLY miss the airfighting, finally when the ground combat has been perfectionized the air aspect is being turned around! I'd do ANYTHING (well, almost) to see it back as it would truly complete the mod, I'm imagining that epic air and ground action every time I play the mod.

 

Ofcourse, the ordering of bombers and such should remain at the airfield tower. By the way, the bombers drop their load totally OFF their target! About 5 centimers X and Y. So I'm not using them since I don't know how to aim them, or perhaps you could simply adjust the marker's coordinates. I'm also surprised the bombers can't destroy vehicles, just disable them for a while, or damage them minimally. It would be nice if they could blow ground targets to pieces.

 

AI Maps

 

If you play the mod as much as I do, you'll notice there is a severe shortage of high player amount maps. I really like to play massive battles that last for 1-2 hours with whole armies clashing so I need space and many players! Also, the higher player amount maps allow me to adjust the AI skills better by in- or decreasing enemies and allies. Are there any AI fan maps or perhaps official map packs I am unaware of?

 

One thing about the AI gameplay, is that the battlefield seems very 'empty'. The only one deploying and building defensive lines is me, such as pillboxes, AT guns and using artillery fire - which the AI doesn't at all, if they did it would make them so much more challenging! Speaking of which, the Hummel is WAY overpowered. Now they come in really handy if you want to defeat the constant and massive russian attack waves but they're just too powerful as you can obliterate whole armies in mere seconds with just a handful of Hummel's.

 

Any way, right now you're just battling for empty land or houses, but they serve little purpose to the map but for human players to earn money with flagged houses. I don't know where the AI gets its money from, is it still unlimited? It would just be really awesome if there were vital objectives in the AI maps to fight for, right now it's just conquering land and then destroying a base that exists of factories. Adding 'objectives' and/or control points would give the gameplay a totally new dimension and the mod simply more awesome than it already is.

 

Music

 

The allied background music is nice, but could sound a bit more optimistic. A little bit of the same goes for the Russians. I'd love to see songs like those used in the Lonest Day and such, those were awesome and would really fit the American/British advance well. I don't know, that sorta music just fits with the allies. The German music is perfect by the way, just PERFECT! I actually play Axis more often because of it, really! Combination of march songs and speeches are just epic. And also, very appropriate - as if you're right there in 1942 - the news reports about the front, it just feels awesome when the news is reporting the happenings on the battlefield while you're in the middle of it - giving you the impression YOU are making the report!

 

In conclusion

 

My biggest wishes are the oldschool aircraft combat, improved German and Allied AI, more high player maps and 'filled' control point maps.

 

Whatever you will do, keep building the mod as I'm just really, really, loving it! I tell you, there is NO better strategy mod out there anywhere for any game. Big applause for you guys! :)

Edited February 19, 2010 by BlitzIIFan

[Comrade Raptorkov 0]

The AI is too retarded to use air, it's a shame really. Also, you've seemed to miss the part where if your air units don't die you get 90% (I think) refund for the ability, like if it costs $1000 for a fight of fighters, and neither die, when they exit the map you will be refunded $900. This is true for all air units except recon I think.

 

The Allies are way overpowered right now, but the ai doesn't show you their true brutality, in fact the ai doesn't show the true power of any of the factions. Their only real power is unlimited money and they tech up faster than you could ever hope too.

 

You should defiantly try a few online matches, all your wishes sum up the PvP rounds. Battles lasting a couple hours with huge tanks battles, lots of air support for some players. I miss a lot of things from the older versions myself, like the fact only a few buildings give money or how the factories are limited now. But all the features of R3 easily make up for it.

 

By the way, germans have Hs 129 and those speedy bomber things, forget their name. As far as ground attacking goes, russians can easily defeat large formations with their IL2 strafes and PE2 wide area of effect. Germans can easily knock out heavy units with precision hard hitting weapons. And the Allies are right in the ladder, good area of effect and nice damage.

 

The bombing runs are supposed to simulate strategic bombing, such as knocking out logistics and disorienting command forces, not so much close air support or tactical bombing like the PE2 or Stuka.

 

That reminds me, you have no idea how long it toke me to get korona to give the russians AAA. So be thankful for that :lol:

 

Hummels are nice, but overpowered? not at all. The SU-100 can torment forces just as much. I love hitting an enemy column just to watch them turn to the flank and drive right into an army I have sitting there. Good times.

 

But yeah, give online a try, most of us have msn and xfire. Just give us an add and hit us up man. I'd be happy to play a game anytime.

[Neo 0]

Thanks for your comments BlitzIIFan, we appreciate it!

 

In order:

 

1) We're happy you like our mixt of ww2 news and music. Tbh it took a huge amount of time to find these radio reports for every period of the war and make it fit with the tech tree upgrades.

 

2) About the AI so much was said about it during the last months including comrade raptor's post. Like he said the best way to feel the new air system is to be playing against human players. Another way would be to try the missions. Many of them having the AI using specific scripts to attack your troops (over 20 missions maps). Btw there should be a new patch release soon with new coop maps (some from Dirty Harry, some from me) or new missions maps with AI using air.

 

3)AI maps: In the next patch the AI will be implement on some of the maps, it wont resolve the AI problems you underlined but...

 

4) In conclusion thanks again for your comments, they are very useful for our crew. Korona, Dirty Harry, Raptors, myself and others are always open to moving forward suggestions

[DirtyHarry 0]

Thanks !

 

Big maps are comming. More coop maps aswell. The air stays the way it its, try mp like neo suggested.

 

If you want to sink your teeth in an ai challenge, try Operation Desert Sun or The Great Patriotic war - both available as single map downloads. See news / official blitz site.

 

Gr. DirtyHarry

[BlitzIIFan 0]

Thanks.

 

Yesterday I played with the Russians against the Axis, and I noticed the German AI also produces a lot of Maus tanks. Those tanks are, IMO, just too hard to kill and too quickly and cheaply built. It'll take 20 T34's to kill one Maus. Moreover, while you're trying to kill it the other enemy tanks have plenty of time to pick off your tanks so at one point I just decided to ignore the Maus tanks and win the battle that way. But I'm just illustrating that the Axis AI tactics aren't exactly nice. I'd rather have the Maus entirely out of the game because of these reasons.

 

Also, the Kingtiger seems very, very strong and I always thought the IS2 could easily take it on? The IS3 has only stronger armour but still gets pwned by the Kingtiger. Perhaps it's correct this way but I'm just comparing price vs strength between units. I did notice you can easily kill off the Maus with 10 SU152's but you know.. the presence of the Maus itself still bothers me since it never saw real action. Always when they bring the Maus into production I start losing control of the map since your forces focus on the first sighting of the enemy, and when it takes a long time to kill it, your forces get killed because they are distracted for such a long time.

 

Btw, the Russian music is fine and atmoshperic, however I did notice the songs abrubtly change, and very often repeats the same song right after it abrubtly ends. I only get this with the Russians. Is it one long track that's being played or does it play random songs?

 

Anyway, keep on building the mod I love it!!

[DirtyHarry 0]

About the Maus:

 

Blitz goes beyond what happened in ww2. The player is in command, and so prototypes that awaited production like the maus and yet fighters can see action, if the player is succesfulll enough.

 

The maus is very very slow, and doesn't fire very often. You followed the right tactic, ignoring it. In typical blitz games. the number of tanks produced is huge, and they can easily take care of a lone maus. 20 t-34 isn't alot. The few maus a player might field serve as little more than bulletsinks, in defence of the base. Attacking with the maus means throwing something at the enemy that he can see comming from a mile away. Also maus take industrial power to maintain. They are such huge and wastefull investments that they have a crippling effect on the economy. You can't build more that 6 orso before running out of power (while having 6 factories, they produce power). This means you can build less barracks and airtowers to enhance your war effort.

 

 

Kingtigers are very strong, they have heavy sloped armor. They were superior to any enemy tank, in range firepower and armor. Not in mobility. They are vulnerable to inf. Also they cost 3000. 3000 = 10 su76, roughly 4 su100, 6 t-34/76. Try those for size.

 

Russians have tank killers, su76 for mediums, and the long range su100 for big tanks. The isu152 and is2 add punching power to the russian army to clear bunkers and other heavy objects.

 

 

.....

 

You play versus the ai. Try a human.

 

The ai is not supported beyond rudimentary performance. The zh ai was shit to begin with, and it can't use the new blitz techknowledgies like the air system - hence no ai air.

 

Thank you alot for your comments, we appreciate any suggestion input and player evaluation of blitz. Do note your current experience is based on skirmish. Try mp, the new SP standalone maps, and regular singleplayer :)

 

Neo - is there a bug in russian music?

 

 

Greetings, DirtyHarry

[Comrade Raptorkov 0]

The russian sound thing is at the end, like after you've been playing for 3 hours and all the music starts looping and playing random tracks. I've noticed it a few times before but I was to focused on the fight to care.

 

Anyways, you really need to try on online match some time, it's so much better than vs the ai. With the ai you only get 10% of the overall experience I'd say. Just the fact we worked a very long time to enhance just PvP gameplay, to make it fast fluid and most importantly, fun. In fact most of the beta playing was just to experiment with gameplay to refine and polish it up. Then the ai was thrown together in a week. Really the ai is just there to to help the newer players get some experience before he ventured into the real matches.

 

I never play single player unless it's to look over a map I'm working on or something, I'm into the standard PvP, total unscripted and unpredictable action. Neo can take his challenge maps, and shove 'em.

Edited February 22, 2010 by Comrade Raptorkov

[BlitzIIFan 0]

Hey I have a question and a remark,

 

what good is the Katyusha for? I've used it in masses but like the Panzerwerfer, it's very inaccurate and it never seems to do much harm to stronger units like tanks or buildings. The Hummel however, is devastatingly effective in comparison with the Katyusha and only a bit more expensive, and incredibly accurate.

 

Also, the bulldozer/engineer units repair ability is too strong, multiple times I have to destroy them first before attacking factories, because they can repair the damage done to a 100% while 20 tanks are shooting at it. Seems a little overpowered to me. ;)

 

Thanks!

[Comrade Raptorkov 0]

Hey I have a question and a remark,

 

what good is the Katyusha for? I've used it in masses but like the Panzerwerfer, it's very inaccurate and it never seems to do much harm to stronger units like tanks or buildings. The Hummel however, is devastatingly effective in comparison with the Katyusha and only a bit more expensive, and incredibly accurate.

 

Also, the bulldozer/engineer units repair ability is too strong, multiple times I have to destroy them first before attacking factories, because they can repair the damage done to a 100% while 20 tanks are shooting at it. Seems a little overpowered to me. ;)

 

Thanks!

 

 

First off, you need to use a lot of katyusha on large targets such as bases or large armies. If you've just been playing the ai then you will have no need for the kat, however when players are thrown into the mix the katyusha is more than just a mass attack weapon. It will strike fear into your enemy and he will either try a push just to kill them or or back down for a while. Also, the kat can kill a panther in 2 hits, provided of course it actually hits it, which is why you need a bunch of them, 2 factory ques of the multibuild is not only extremely cheap and quick to build, but it's almost a superpower in its own right. The allies have nukes and tall boys where the germans have v1 and v2, but the russian super weapon is pretty much the katyusha. On that point, the hummel is an amazing unit I agree, how ever it,s a precision unit, making it good for pounding small groups of slow moving units. But a mass of katyusha just fill the screen with rockets.

 

And I'm sure harry can tell you the effect even a couple of them have on a player, it's really only one of the units that make a player start to worry and rethink his approach.

 

the next thing is, you're only using 20 tanks, I rarely find an instance where an engineer can do nothing more than slow down the destruction of my factories.

[DirtyHarry 0]

Thank you comrade raptor for your excellent reply.

 

 

First of all; clearly you only play the ai. Only then really comes to play the repair problem, the ai does that automatically. Use more units, or, kill the dozer… :)

 

The kata is not intended for what you might think it is. It’s not a rocketlauncher like in Zerohour. It’s an artillery weapon, intended for area bombardment. It is meant to soften up an area by shell shocking the enemy troops, producing a seemingly hellish environment, and by forcing them to hide. It softens the enemy defenses, with as much morale damage as physical.

 

The weapon is not accurate. A direct hit will damage or destroy tanks up to medium level. Bigger tanks might get damaged by a single hit.

 

The intended use of a kata is on enemy defensive lines, or large formations of infantry and tanks. Things you will see in mp. Any troops and weak units caught out in the open will be destroyed.

 

Typically one uses 20+ kata in a single attack.

 

Kata's are cheap, fast and replacable, hummels are not.

 

Like raptor said, it makes enemies worry, kata's are a real threat to any offensive or defense line. Hummels are nice expensive tank/bunker killers.

 

I never worry about hummels.

 

 

Gr. DirtyHarry.

 

[revenant 0]

I just love the fact that hits by shells on tanks can sometimes just bounce off! very realistic, the damage system, compared to msot games :P

 

It's more like warhammer 40,000 really.

I love flak shells exploding in the air, and tracers going for planes. It is simply awesome. Oh the rockets are fantastic too!

 

This is hands down the best mod I have ever seen and probs will ever see. Thanks so much for your efforts and time, it truly paid of in terms of playability and accuracy.

 

and a BIG thanks for heeding my plea for a mac release!!!

soundtrack is really cool.

If only I had a human to play this with :/

 

 

PS. Respect for whoever had the Idea of taking the sample for the factories from the NIN song 'Reptile'. One of my favourite tracks for sure, I love Industrial music. (I know NIN aint true indust, but that song sounds it!! :D

 

My only suggestion would be to make infantry more usefull somehow, I suppose in large amounts they are, but they just die so easy. It just must be the cnc generals engine.

Edited March 3, 2010 by revenant

[DirtyHarry 0]

Thanks for your compliments.

 

Human? Well if you get a ..real.. wink wink pc, there are a few for the pc version.

 

Infantry are usefull early on, as decoys and in bunkers and cities. Especially flamers are good early, rocket inf later in bunkers.

 

 

Gr. DirtyHarry.

[BlitzIIFan 0]

Hmm I guess I will need to play human vs human matches then to see what the Katyusha packs. Still though, the Hummel may be expensive, but it's incredible long range assures the enemy won't even get near it. The Hummel though, is just utterly devastating and I wonder what would happen if I would build 20 of those instead of Katy's.. :P They reload longer, but then again you need far less to hit anything. I just love this piece of artillery, it's utterly devastating. Also, I feel like the step from the portable artillery to the Hummel is a big one, shouldn't they have like the Wespe or something? It takes many upgrades to get the Hummel, or it feels like it.

 

Also.. will there be any new updates soon? E.g. maps for example? I'm dying for big player maps!

 

Thanks.

[DirtyHarry 0]

Yes there will be.

 

The expansion patch update add on is coming soon. Soon as in when we say it's done, which should be soon. Ehm.

 

 

You will be able to choose between:

 

-Free patch-only $0.00

-Patch and multiplayer maps: $5.00

-Complete add on featuring new SP and MP content: $15.00

-Complete add on with add-on added pictures of Neo: $25.00 (age 16 and above)

 

 

All purchases are final.

 

 

Gr. DirtyHarry

[Neo 0]

Good joke brother Harry :lol: :) ...well... :huh: i mean .... :mellow: ...whats the meaning of the last sentence? :unsure: :o ...ok i think i got it

Edited March 14, 2010 by Neo