RTS Multiplayer - Do you prefer Online or AI?

I just recently got into RTS games - dawn of war, age of empires 3, and company of heroes.

but when i play them online i get destroyed. I enjoy the campaigns but i find the computer AI in multiplayer to be more fun for me. perhaps after a few more weeks i can be competitive in online play.

Does anybody have any advice on playing online RTS games?

And do you mostly play AI or online multiplayer?

 

It's not multiplayer if you play against the AI...

Anyway, it's usually a good idea to play some team games to have someone to lean on in your early games. Also make sure to save the replays of your games so you can see what you did wrong (or what your opponent did right). That's an excellent way to get up to speed. (It's the only way to get reasonably competitive online)

In Dawn of War, in particular, the campaign AI is downright ridiculous, and you're probably even worse off in multiplayer battles after trying the campaign. It forces a playing style that has nothing in common with multiplayer games, and will only make you lose.

I almost always play multiplayer. It helps that I've got a group of friends I can usually play with.

Much more fun when you know people won't get mad at you if you suck, and where you can laugh together about the game afterwards

 

RTS is all about online. They tend to usually have a weak single player although there a couple of exceptions (CoH single player is wicked).

Once you get timing/build order/strategy down you can survive for awile. After that it comes down to APM and macro/micro.

 

Yeah, online is where it's at.

Single player is fun at first, but it gets old fast. Multiplayer is a more long-term entertainment solution; a greater initial time investment is required to get up to a more competitive skill level, but once you get better it stays fun for much longer. With single player, the AI is always somewhat repetitive and predictable; once you master how to beat it, it's no longer a challenge. Online each game is different.

 

how long do games usually last for you guys online?

i know my cousin plays one game for hours and i'm not sure if i can hold the fort down for such a long time... not sure if some games can be relatively quick or not since i usually get pummeled in 5 min

 

Depends on the game. I play Warcraft III usually; games last about an hour on average. For Age of Empires it's probably longer, since people tend to play more defensively.

 

Wow thats a long time. my average was normally 15-20 minutes although i quit playing a long time ago.

 

I play Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne religiously.
The average game time is about 20-30 minutes or so, depending on the number of players involved.
For me, nothing beats Wc3 in the RTS category.

 

God don't get me started on Dawn of War AI in skirmish. You've barely built one squad of guys and they rush you with everything they have.

Me, I prefer playing with friends in lan either against each other, or us against a larger computer army.

 

I always start with the campaign then usually goof around in skirmishes vs. the computer then move on to online play. I can't stand 1v1 games, I just hate competition and they are so much less fun than team games in my opinion. In WC3 I used to play 3v3 and 4v4 all the time because the battles are much more fun and it's easier to counter someone being an asshat and tower rushing or something similar with people backing you up.

Though I haven't played online in a while because I took a break from RTS's and was heavily into FPS (which I play exclusively online) and I completely skipped online play when I picked up Dark Crusade because I just never made any friends to play team games with though I still do comp stomps with my brother.

 

Dawn of War and Company of Heroes are great RTS games, and thats saying a lot since I'm not a huge RTS fan. Last few RTS game I played a long time ago were Starcraft and Command and Conquer Red Alert 2.

 

me too!!! altough now i play DotA All-stars a lot more....
Campaigns have good story but arent meant to raise your playing level...

Multiplayer/Online games are
if you know that you are going to get pummeled in the first minutes start building deffenses from sec1, you can last longer and get the grip of the game. thats my advice for you.

 

Ah yeah, my WCIII games lasted so long cause usually I play FFA, which tend to last longer, especially with my crazy strategies.

 

In Dawn of War, even the biggest 3v3 match (I rarely play 4v4) takes maybe 40 minutes, occasionally an hour. It feels much longer though. That game can get so intense with so much happening everywhere, you feel like you've spent hours on a single game... Then you look at the time, and realize you've only been playing for 30 minutes. Great stuff

 

well ia is ok but online is better though you going to get own at the beginning specially if the game is older like starcraft in which you well get your ass kick if you dont know what are you doing lol

 

Yeah I tried to get into starcraft a while ago after having not played for like 5 years. Everyone online is way too good.

 

the only down side of online game is that many times if you dont have friends to play with you are likely to have noob ally and that realy suck

 

Its the opposite with me. I feel like matches are really short because of all the action. But then I look at the clock and then I'm like "Wow, that was an hour?!?"

 

WarCraft/StarCraft, multiplayer definitely vs people. Vs AI there just isn't a challenge.

 

Ever heard of Dawn of war advaned AI mod?

 

i tried dawn of war skirmish versus AI on hard.... impossible for me

i don't know how to fathom how to beat it

do most of you use the hotkeys? and do they help at all?

 

i could beat 1 hard... but it is pretty fast paced play the tutorial then you kinda learn how to defend and armor. i normally just click but hot keys let you do more faster

 

When you play multi-player.If you set the difficulty higher mostly the AI doesn't get smarter.But rather.The computer resource gaining rate gets multiplied by 1.5~3 and they get 2 or 3 bases.(in case of Dawn of war,two different players,which means everytime you fight a Necron,AI gets 2 Necron Lords!)
Also, AI always knows your weak points.Meaning they will directly strike exactly at the weak point even if AI has not scouted it yet. (this case is extremely annoying with Starcraft)
But you can see AI doing extremely stupid things like getting trapped in their own base due to the stupid positioning of the structures.
So, usually playing multi-player is much more fun and sometimes extremely difficult.Meaning that if the game is balanced you cannot tell who can win.While when you play at the "Hard" or "Hardest" difficulties.Since computer gains resource 4x more than you so...

 

I hate in Dawn of War when you join an online game, and you see the guy next to you building an army of scouts or something equally dumb. Within the first 2 minutes you always know if your team is going to do well or not, and the worst thing is that if you leave a game before its over its negative result for you! Another thing that really grinds my gears is when you start a game, and then someone on your team leaves straight away, again, pretty much meaning you're going to loose, but if you leave you loose out. Grrr!

I don't play DOW online anymore but I think I had an 80% win rate, or thereabouts, but I only played a handful of games (maybe 12).

And is that true about resource rate going up? I always assumed it was true, but I get people saying don't be ridiculous, the computer doesn't cheat! But I am honestly sick of being attacked by Pumas and Stugs before I can even build any AT guns, let alone armour, in Company of Heroes fighting the enemy on expert...

And dawn of war on insane is another kettle of fish altogether, by the time I've built maybe two squads I've swamped with dozens of enemy units....beating off the first attack actually means victory, but beating it off is the **** problem!

 

Dawn of War AI in skirmish is fairly stupid. You can pretty much beat any difficulty with a quick supported commander rush. Even if it lasts until the final tech tier you still have the advantage because the computer just rushes while you can use every trick in the book to beat them down. The Dark Crusade Campaign is a whole other matter, I rarely play it above medium difficulty because otherwise it's just ridiculous. You end up having to sacrifice yourself to kill a single base with your first attack, bring you honor guard back to life then attack again and rush their base again. It's just not fun for me if I can't play a game for 15-20 minutes and get some of the more fun units.

Company of Heroes, on the other hand, is a pain in the butt. I do still suck at the game since I've only been playing for a week but the AI is crazy even on a lower difficulty level. They get tanks in no time, spread their units out everywhere at once and I swear they garrison every building with a sniper...

 

Go play AI mod for dawn of war ffs...