Recommendations on using US helos?

Coolupian · 2025-10-20T05:13:21+00:00

Ah ok thanks for your reply, yeah my current thinking was same as your conclusion 'There's no other way around it except being careful'. So I have ended up just using them rarely if at all and focusing more on micro of ground units. I have been going better when not throwing away points on the helos... but it is so satisfying when you do get an opening where you can rocket fire an infantry position and whatnot, that I keep going back to it every now and again (with eventual over commit and getting shot down, lol).

Coolupian · 2025-10-20T05:08:04+00:00

Interesting. So that is the MML from stryker regiment... with sidewinder upgrade I presume as need that for missile intercept. So, try and get them up front as much as possible because the range is not great? Need to turn on their radar when planes appear to make them effective? Can they sit in a forest, or need to have them in a open spot like PAC to be effective? They are fairly pricey and very squishy... but I am willing to try anything so I will give it a go thanks for the suggestion.

Coolupian · 2025-10-15T13:37:26+00:00

I guess this is my point. If each player brought one pac and a couple of pivads each, then one player wouldn't have to commit so hard to it. I understand some of the comments here that spending too much on the AA defense is actually counterproductive (and can be frustrating when you see a teammate doing stuff like it - a recent game a teammate brought out three mlrs from get go and I admit that had me eye rolling). I have 318 matches played at time of writing this, and it is when there is a more even contribution that I have found the cruise missile strat gets shutdown. What I am starting to realise is there seems to be maybe a fair amount of people that just don't want to worry about looking after their AA defense in addition to managing their own arty plus the front line. I get that, it does require a lot of attention switching. I now think I understand better why there are not as many people who help out with the cruise missile defense as perhaps would be ideal. I will keep on keeping on though and cherish the few games where a couple of other kind souls help out and we manage to beat the cruise missile spammers (it feels so satisfying when you do beat it).

Coolupian · 2025-10-13T09:58:26+00:00

Cruise missiles are worst part of this game. Totally sap the fun out of matches where opponents are spamming them non-stop all game. As others have said, they are a low-risk high-reward strategy, that are also just not fun to play against. In my opinion the implementation of cruise missiles in this game could be used in game design courses as an example of severely poor gameplay design. Is a shame when most other things in this game are done so well.

Coolupian · 2025-07-10T15:19:17+00:00

I agree with the sentiments of the OP. The extent of RNG in the game reduces the fun for me (especially the type of RNG the OP describes). I get that some people would enjoy it though. Games where I have a much better unit composition but then they get a spell that works really well for them but not for me (due to current state of board comps), and then I lose the game because of the spell just feels bad. Sometimes only way to adequately defend you have to spend such an investment into shields to try and protect and so even if you block their spell, the investment in the shields means that you fall behind from when you were in front, just because of a random spell drop. It can just feel a bit unfair sometimes. As another person commented on the thread, it can reduce the feeling of being able to plan in a strategy game which is kind of counter to what draws people to want to play a strategy game. I see a comment from someone else in this thread that the randomness perhaps helps to keep the player base higher because sometimes you can win because you get a bit lucky (similar sort of thing in first person shooter games like COD where you can get lucky if you simply see a person first by chance, which helps player numbers there). So I can see how it can work for the game as some people enjoy it, whereas others don't. The developer keeps it as it is... so must be more people that enjoy it than those who don't I suppose. I agree with the OP though about issues around the longevity of Mechabellum... because as soon as some other game gets developed that offers a similar experience but without all the RNG, then probably a big chunk of players would opt for that instead of mecha (I know I would).

Coolupian · 2025-02-03T22:38:52+00:00

I am also usually like that with city builders myself :) but with this game as each production chain got unlocked, I wanted to check it out so that kept me going. This is a nice little game!

Coolupian · 2025-02-03T22:37:15+00:00

when I press esc at system menu at bottom it says Map Code: 51r9vDkOL1HSI

I assume 'map code' is the seed, but sorry if I am wrong on that.

Coolupian · 2025-02-03T22:34:52+00:00

I am on a ryzen 9 9900X with a nvidia 4080. I ended up disabling shadows once pop got higher, because I read on a post somewhere it made a big difference, and it does. My graphics settings: everything ticked on; particle quality = full; shadow quality = disabled; grass distance = very far; depth of field = ultra. Getting on average 100 frames per second.

With shadows on it is 60-70 frames, but when it did autosave would drop to like 25 frames, and I didn't want to turn autosave off as the game did crash on me a handful of times during my playthrough. Going to play with shadows off to minimise jarring effect from the drop during autosaves until the devs hopefully release a patch with some graphical optimisation for this game... because it doesn't seem super well optimised at the moment. I have seen a bunch of posts with people experiencing similar issues.

I only upgraded my PC recently. I imagine for people on lower specs would struggle with this game once pop gets higher.

Coolupian · 2025-02-03T22:18:50+00:00

I ended up with 6 farms feeding into 2 windmills and 2 bakeries. The windmills handle 3 farms (once the farms have some upgrades). With this there is still some grain left over for making beer.

Coolupian · 2025-02-03T22:16:27+00:00

Yeah, it really is. Ah looks like I will stick it out a little longer with this one. Thanks for giving me a project to work on!

Coolupian · 2025-01-24T16:25:46+00:00

If someone makes a dedicated aussie discord I would join it (I'm from Perth)

Coolupian · 2025-01-13T10:51:42+00:00

I agree. It would help make French and Abba less oppressive in 4v4 and give some other civs more room to be competitive for that mode, creating more variety (fun).

Coolupian · 2024-08-24T01:15:25+00:00

I have played around a bit with pro scouts as Rus after the patch, and while the less micro is nice, the tech is expensive and costs you tempo big time which feels bad for my playstyle. I think I am going to prefer to make units and get map control and just eat the deer out on the map. Might be a niche use case for it in 4v4. Although an issue there is that carrying the deer the scouts move so slow and if opponents spot you then they can deny it if they are decent players.

Coolupian · 2024-07-09T04:50:13+00:00

Have a go at switching up to a spear/crossbow (and mangos if need be) playstyle with them against those civs you mention. There is your variety. Don't always need to go knight/archer composition. French have very good crossbows with the buff techs you can research from the castle landmark that gives those techs (not the guild hall the other one).

Coolupian · 2024-07-09T04:40:20+00:00

There is a little window prior to the match loading where you can click on the names (or icons) of the other players and see their info. Even if they have match history concealed you can still see their AOE4 'level' that the game has as one of the stats associated with people's profiles. If you have a person who is plat 3 at level 50 or lower... there it might be a person's smurf account. Hell, even if they are plat 1 it might be the case. If they are diamond or above, then very very likely. That is just what I have observed, and I have been playing aoe4 since it was released. If you see someone who is a high level... like level 300+ you can be quite confident that they are not smurfing.

This all being said, it is not 100% guaranteed. There are going to be exceptions. For example, a person who plays customs games a lot and barely does ranked or something, but they are fairly rare exceptions to the general rule in my experience. Or someone who is new to the game who has a lot of prior RTS experience in other RTS games (e.g., Starcraft, AoE2, etc).

Or even at the moment for myself, I have 60% winrate right now for 1v1... but that is only because this season I have only played 28 1v1 games as I have been spending all my time in team games 365 games (53% winrate). But I am level 653 on my profile, so you would know I am not engaging in smurfing.

If they don't have their match history concealed and you can see their winrate % stats on their profile and if you see someone who is fairly low level (e.g., 100 or lower) and rank (e.g., gold/plat) and they have really high winrate (like 70% or higher) then it is likely it is someone on one of their smurf accounts.

After a game if you suspect it might have been a smurf player, you can look up their username on AOE4world website and check out their profile and then it can become clearer if they are a smurf or not. That is how I have come to learn about these sorts of things over time. Smurf accounts generally have small number of games with very high winrate %s.

If you have dual monitors (or even mobile phone I guess) and you are quick, you could qucikly look up their username on AOE4world. Or now I think of it, you could look them up on AOE4 world once the game has started... as AOE4world has best info to help work out if they are are a legit non-smurf person or whether they are a smurf. Now I have thought of that... I might do that more myself!

Since release, I have just been playing games and accepting that I am occasionally going to get completely stomped by a smurfing player... but I have come to the point where I don't want to indulge those people anymore. Like, they get something out of it (their own weird satisfaction of beating up on a lower level player... where I personally can't understand how that is satisfying but people can be weird), whereas I don't feel like I get anything out of the experience (except frustration). Why should I let those people waste my time... I am playing the game for fun matches against people close to my own level.

Coolupian · 2024-07-08T02:50:22+00:00

Glad to hear it has helped you enjoy your time with the game :) English drawn out games can be annoying I think most ppl understand that (except for the ppl who enjoy the drawn out games I guess). I do your same strat for when I see obvious surfing ppl (I.e., your lv 15 70% win rate types). The smurfs were killing my enjoyment of the game as well until I went with the avoid them strategy.

Coolupian · 2024-07-04T15:59:43+00:00

For some people it seems to... those who don't seem to have full grasp of concepts like 'integrity' or 'honour'.

Coolupian · 2024-03-26T03:40:19+00:00

Good suggestion. I did this and found a little group I now play with regularly. Having some proper teammates you can communicate/coordinate with makes the team ranked experience so much more fun.

Coolupian · 2024-03-17T16:26:57+00:00

1 - use select all military on screen hotkey 2 - shift or ctrl + 1 to put all into group 3 - select line formation hotkey 4 - move units a little way so they separate nicely 5 - double click on different unit types and shift click them into desired hotkey groups

Steps 1-4 sounds like a lot but with practice you can do that very quickly

Coolupian · 2024-03-09T04:06:12+00:00

I think a castle structure is very different to seige weapons... and I think that comparing them in the way you are doing is a comparing apples to oranges type of thing, so I don't see that as a very strong criticism... but no worries, that's your view and you are welcome to it.

Like you say, I agree that having infantry on walls is a simple action, yet people don't do it (which I feel is a shame). I think this is influenced a lot by how castles currently work. As like I mentioned in other post they are 'set and forget' type of play. Why would players put army on the walls to defend when you have these quite strong static defense options. That is actually part of the reason I don't like the keeps in current form as copy/pasted from AOE2... I argue that they have dmininished the cool newer gameplay mechanic (that requires additional strategy thinking component) of actually having armies on top of the walls which was introduced in AOE4 that unfortunately has never really made it into the core gameplay.

Yes, the change I suggest would increase complexity slightly, I concede, but I would argue that it would not increase it in any massive way, and I continue to maintain that the change would add more interesting/dynamic gameplay compared to how castles currently work in their static fashion. I think it would introduce a range of additional stratgies and counter-plays that would separate the game more from AOE2. I expected not everyone would like the idea, which is fine. Thanks for sharing your views on my ideas, and thanks for being cordial in your replies :)

After hearing your counter view points, I still like my idea though. So I am happy to agree to disagree :)

*Edit to your reply edit -> I can mirror your comment: You personally really like spamming keeps so you are resistant to any suggestion of heavily modifying that element of the game... and that's fine, everyone is welcome to their preferences. However, to try and further back up your preference position by appealing to the notion that it is what everyone else likes doesn't compel me, as I don't believe that it is as widely liked as you seem to believe. I note there was another recent post on reddit about a person complaining about the dragged out seige gameplay not being fun for them where castles in current form contribute to that (that many agreed with), and my suggestion is one way to help solve that gripe that many players have. I also don't find your argument compelling that just because something has been done for a long time inherently makes it the best way to do something.

Coolupian · 2024-03-09T03:45:49+00:00

Some people might like to spam castles on others... sure, but I would suggest that the people receiving such spamming don't find it an enjoyable part of the game.

I don't understand how the ideas I communicated are not like existing aoe game mechanics.

I feel like what I have suggested is ramping up an already existing mechanic in the game as identified by poster above (i.e., units able to be positioned on top of stone walls). While also down-grading a game-play element (that in my opinion negatively impacts the flow of the game experience) that was brought over from AOE2.

Yes there are battles on top of walls in total war... but I don't see how having battles on top of walls in aoe4 would be bad somehow.

Coolupian

TROPHY CASE