The next day, I decide to do it properly. Erase all my assumptions on what DoW 2 should be, on how an RTS should play, and read every single word of the tutorial like I was a noob.
In the first singleplayer mission cum tutorial, I'm only given two squads to manage.
Ignoring the unhappy voice in my gut that says "I don't really like to micromanage individual squads and why can't I clump crap up?" I press on dutifully. I learn how to right-click move. And left-click attack-move. Ok, that much is still standard.
I learn how to throw a frag grenade to take out clumps of enemies, and clear enemies out of cover/buildings. Alright. I had earlier assumed it just to be one of those castable 'spell' things units get. Seems there is some tactical function to these devices, which are limited use, and can only be renewed by clicking on 'supplies' which are found dotted about the map in strategic locations or dropped by enemies killed.
I learn about the use of cover for my own squads. Now this is new. It reminds me of Company of Heroes on steroids. In that world war II game, there was some tactical benefit to using cover. In this game, hiding behind heavy cover (green shield) meant your armored marines are almost practically invincible and can shoot stuff with impunity. Light cover (yellow shield) gives less bonus, but still a noticable one.
Now that I was actually paying attention, my tutorial game went from charging around straight ahead, letting the computer path for me, to actually staring at the map, looking for opportunities for cover. And then I had to use the squad hotkeys to say, ok, squad 1, go here and hide behind this rock. Squad 2, go here behind this barbed wire fence. Basically, I started leapfrogging the two squads from cover to cover, while they flanked numerous orcs and shot the greenskins to hell.
Hey, this is pretty cool after all. The next few missions introduced one or two other squads, like a squad of stealth-using scouts and jumppack-using assault marines. The campaign turned out very story-oriented, and focused on upgrading your limited squads with wargear and levels in an RPG-esque fashion. You're limited to four squads deploying at a time, so you have to pick the weapons/squad types you want to use. A very tactical sort of thing.
I settled on making my Force Commander an invincible melee tank. The plan worked out well, as missions went by, he turned into the point man bullet sponge.
Behind him came my tricked out Devastator heavy weapons squad - the uber put-tons-of-bullets-into-the-air ranged decimators. Slow to get anywhere, but once they set up, look out. I was also amused to see that a mechanic known as 'suppression' was in play. Too many bullets fired at you from certain units (like my Devastators), and your unit freezes and moves very very very very SLOWLY.
(In retrospect, I suspect this is why a good part of my tyranid game turned out slow as molasses. I didn't use any cover whatsoever. And simply marched my swarms straight into hails of bullets, and they got suppressed. I just happened to have a lot more swarms than there were space marine squads firing, so they were overwhelmed in the end.)
The utility part of my team came in the form of the scout squad. Normally, space marine scouts are pretty boring. Wannabe space marine recruits. The writer had cleverly given this scout squad some personality by writing in a veteran Space Marine sergeant as the leader/teacher of the recruits. This grizzled eyepatch veteran was so likable, I found myself accommodating a stealth unit (which I do not normally use) and learning how best to apply one. I did like snipers, so I gave the sergeant a sniper rifle, and used the squad as a important unit killer, cum sneaky demolitions squad (when you need a building with a sentry sporting a heavy weapon blown up). It helped a lot that the game maps made it almost essential to have such tactical options at one's beck and call.
The last squad originally was the simple Tactical marines squad as ranged support, frag/melta bomb holder for clumps of enemies/vehicles respectively. But after picking up an assault squad, plus Terminator armor to equip them with, I swapped them for teleporting heavy armor melee tanks that do a horrible number on vehicles/buildings and infantry too.
I can see a few other ways to play the campaign. To my regret, I can't field a dreadnought with my gruesome team. The dreadnought is upgradable too to be a melee or ranged specialist. The scout team can actually hold flamers and shotguns if you upgrade them the right way. The terminator armor can actually land on both the assault marines (melee), the devastor marines (ranged) and even the force commander (for ultra invincibility, presumably. Except my commander already seemed invincible enough by boosting his hitpoints.)
To me, the Dawn of War II singleplayer campaign is a lot more faithful to the tabletop version of the game. The focus on tactics, on cover and suppression mechanics and so on. It's enjoyable once you get used to it.
However, I think in their haste to make a nice singleplayer campaign focused on the Space Marines, they may have fubared the multiplayer aspect.
The campaign WORKS because the maps are nicely designed to complement this focus on tactical choice, and the enemies are all placed. I can see a future Eldar or Imperial Guard or Chaos campaign working well in similar vein. I'm not sure how much tactical choice Orcs or Tyranids have, but presumably Orcs could use tactics, they're humanoids after all... The tyranids though... Maybe if you presume the Hive Mind was clever enough...
I think it ruins the feel to have shooty tyranids hiding behind cover though. I did see some 'burrowing' options for tyranids to simulate vanishing into foliage with camouflage and so on, but I'm not sure how it would play out in a campaign. Stealth strikes from a lictor would work. A Carnifex would charge straight ahead as a tank. To have hormagaunts and termagaunts move in squad-like fashion wouldn't be very true to cannon though. Tyranids don't do squad-based combat very well. They zerg, dammit. They zerg with cunning and stealth, but they zerg.
The multiplayer maps are also rather boring. A lot of resource nodes to walk around and capture. No important placed buildings to decimate like in the campaign - except the base. I can forsee a lot of dancing around resource points and skirmishing, to no real conclusion.
I hear the balance between races also is exceedingly broken. Perhaps it's because of how the players are using them - I'm willing to wager the majority of people will just rush in a style they are accustomed to. Perhaps the balance really is broken too.
For a singleplayer game with a nice campaign story, it's not half bad though. I've been staying up late nights just to get "one more mission" under my belt. So that's testament enough.
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