# Dawn of War 2



## Teco (Feb 6, 2009)

Waaaagh! Itsa coming up soon and if you bought SoulStorm or preorder it you've already sampled the beta I would hope. 
     They've remodeled it, sorta blending CoH and DoW together but without base building for a fast paced, more unit focused game.
   I've been playing it non stop over at my friends house on the weekends. I found all the races and commanders fun to play as so much that I usually just pick random, so thats always a plus. Anyone thinking about getting it?


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## Zeraio (Feb 7, 2009)

I would get it if my computer could run it... I do think their intro's are awesome, especially the Eldar introduction where the space marines kick their asses.


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## Internet Police Chief (Feb 7, 2009)

I haven't played any RTS seriously since Star Craft. I don't see the point, because Star Craft is about as perfect as an RTS can get, and I have a ton of friends who play it too.


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## Blaze Cheetah (Feb 7, 2009)

I want a Windows machine.  Dammit.  I'm sick of having to game on a Mac.  Seriously.


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## Teco (Feb 7, 2009)

Attorney At Lawl said:


> I haven't played any RTS seriously since Star Craft. I don't see the point, because Star Craft is about as perfect as an RTS can get, and I have a ton of friends who play it too.



Well like I said they changed DoW2 to be unit based, no base building and such. So Starcraft and DoW2 are two different types of RTS if that counts as a point.

Also. Yeah I'd be playing it at home if I owned a computer that could play anything. This laptop manages to barely play Soul Storm.


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## Bambi (Feb 7, 2009)

Zeraio said:


> I would get it if my computer could run it... I do think their intro's are awesome, especially the Eldar introduction where the space marines kick their asses.


 
Word of Warning:

AMD Athlon Processors cannot apparently run DoW2, nor were the system specifications designed with a 3 or 4 year old technology in mind.


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## Teco (Feb 7, 2009)

Bambi said:


> Word of Warning:
> 
> AMD Athlon Processors cannot apparently run DoW2, nor were the system specifications designed with a 3 or 4 year old technology in mind.



That explains alot of "So and So's system settings are too high and lagging the game." Messages in the beta.


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## Aestuo (Feb 8, 2009)

I own all the Dawn of Wars except Soul Storm and I have downloaded and played the beta, so I can say that seeing the Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks in modern graphics is amazing.  I have also noticed that the vehicles, buildings, and units are all in proportion.  The addition of the Tyranids is amazing, as I have heard about them and was awaiting to play them.

As good as the beta is, I can say that I do miss base building a lot though.  It tends to change my stategy, for I like to build up a massive base defence, and then amass my army safely within it.  I also miss the Chaos Space Marines not being in the beta, for they are the Space Marines arch enemies, and I was assuming that they would at least be there for that very reason.

I have also read that Soul Storm introduced aireal units to the battlefield.  If this is true, I am wondering why there are not any in Dawn of War II?

Even though the base building is not prominent, I am still planning on buying it because I am a fan of the 40K series and I am interested in the campaign story.  Overall, it lives up to the 40K reputation.


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## Zeraio (Feb 8, 2009)

Bambi said:


> Word of Warning:
> 
> AMD Athlon Processors cannot apparently run DoW2, nor were the system specifications designed with a 3 or 4 year old technology in mind.



I DO NOT use AMD, I HATE AMD. The school nearby here decided to buy up a pile of AMD junk to build up computers quickly... I am not in school anymore FYI... And they went through about 100 of them in the first week because they kept melting or burning out upon startup. 

I am a windows XP who uses Nvidia or ATI. Nvidia prefered... But oh well this ATI was on sale and it works just fine for my uses.

Aestuo: Remember it is BETA, not FULL yet and also they will probably have many expansions to it later on to add more of the species as time goes along as well as options. I think right NOW the biggest problem with having aerial battles in DoWII is that it would take MORE Ghz to run the game due to graphics being so much more advanced. In about another year or so of computer development though we should have an idea of what the overall idea though is.


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## Zeraio (Feb 8, 2009)

Oh and another thing: I also prefer to build up base defenses then launch attacks with near impunity rather than leave my base undefended.


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## Aestuo (Feb 8, 2009)

> Aestuo: Remember it is BETA, not FULL yet and also they will probably have many expansions to it later on to add more of the species as time goes along as well as options. I think right NOW the biggest problem with having aerial battles in DoWII is that it would take MORE Ghz to run the game due to graphics being so much more advanced. In about another year or so of computer development though we should have an idea of what the overall idea though is.



Yes, I was taking into consideration that it is a beta and not the full game, but many times the betas tend to be almost exactly like the full games themselves.  I was also thinking the same thing about expansions, for they had many expansions for the first Dawn of War, so I would expect the same for the second.  With a total of ten factions (nine from the original plus Tyranid), more expansions are almost guaranteed.


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## Zeraio (Feb 8, 2009)

Considering how POWERFUL the tyranids are supposed to be it should be rather interesting to see how they "balance" the game out.


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## Mikael Grizzly (Feb 9, 2009)

No Imperial Guard?


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## Kommodore (Feb 9, 2009)

First off, what you are seeing is the "full" game, it has already gone gold and the beta is for balance purposes. 

If you look into the LUA files in the game, you will see there are files for imperial guard units, they are likely going to be cameo in the SP. 

I HATE THE PATCH. Not only does it make my game crash every time now where it didn't before, I have been hearing terrible, terrible things like Power fists getting a hella nerf against vehicles and general space marine underpowerage. (Although, to be fair, the nids were pretty left int he dark before the patch, so...) 

Assault space marines are eh win in every way, I loves them very much, although they are really expensive now and they lost a huge edge now that they can't jump as much. 

I LOVE the way they portrayed Terminators in this game, they did it perfectly. Flawlessly, dare I say. They are extremely expensive, like, bankrupt you expensive. In a game where 900 req can get you a teir 3 vehicle and 2 infantry squads, and all you get are three dudes, it really lives up to the fluff. It also takes forever to get them, you will never see them in a 1v1 and only very late into a 3v3 game, again, very fluffy. They also will pee over EVERYTHING else in the game, bar none. Win. 

I am very excited about this game, I just want them to balance it better.


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## Zeraio (Feb 9, 2009)

I can see one major problem with the Imperial Guard though... They used numbers to add up damage like the orks... Then consider how powerful the Tyrannids are... So how are they going to work that one out if they are playable without REALLY upping the power of the imperial guard...


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## Kommodore (Feb 9, 2009)

I would think that the IG would by far be the easiest race to implement, it would literally be Company of Heroes in space, just make the high damage low health (relatively speaking) and your golden. 

I just finished a game for the first time since the patch, and have to say the the nids are way OP now. Hive Tyrant + venom cannon= wtf? That and I think the carnifex has gotten too strong compared to other walkers, dreds don't do nearly as well as they used to against them. I think the nids need to be nerfed damage wise and increased numbers wise, Ii am just not getting the swarmy vibe from them at all.


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## Aestuo (Feb 9, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> I would think that the IG would by far be the easiest race to implement, it would literally be Company of Heroes in space, just make the high damage low health (relatively speaking) and your golden.
> 
> I just finished a game for the first time since the patch, and have to say the the nids are way OP now. Hive Tyrant + venom cannon= wtf? That and I think the carnifex has gotten too strong compared to other walkers, dreds don't do nearly as well as they used to against them. I think the nids need to be nerfed damage wise and increased numbers wise, Ii am just not getting the swarmy vibe from them at all.



I agree.  From what I was hearing before the beta, the Tyranids were supposed to be a "swarming" faction, like the Imperial Guards - strength in numbers, but I knew they were also going to have some very powerful units here and there.  I wasn't getting the "swarm" vibe from the Tyranids, either.  What I would do was just get two or three Carnifexes with venom cannons, spend the rest of my population points on random infantry units, maybe two or three more squads, and I could have an easy victory.  That's not really a swarm by my standards.  Well, if you really _really_ wanted to, you could just fill your population with the basic infantry - then you would have a swarm.  The only thing is, all you would need was a Space Marine with a heavy bolter, and he could rip right through the swarm.  All I'm saying is it's not what I heard it was supposed to be.  Either way, it's still a great game and I'm definately going to buy it.  40K always has amazing story lines and fun gameplay (a Dreadnaught ripping through an Ork is always an inspiring sight).  XD


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## Teco (Feb 11, 2009)

IG also used garrisons. What might happen is they'll have a power like the Eldar's webway gate that sends down a garrisonable building to protect your units from melee attacks which might balance out orks and nids.

Speaking of buildings, anyone find that units in building are actually less protected from units in heavy cover a bunch of wtf?


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## psion (Feb 11, 2009)

Teco said:


> Waaaagh! Itsa coming up soon and if you bought SoulStorm or preorder it you've already sampled the beta I would hope.
> They've remodeled it, sorta blending CoH and DoW together but without base building for a fast paced, more unit focused game.
> I've been playing it non stop over at my friends house on the weekends. I found all the races and commanders fun to play as so much that I usually just pick random, so thats always a plus. Anyone thinking about getting it?



I am seriously considering getting it, even with the Space Marines as the only representation of the Imperium.  I've just been having a blast playing as the Iron Hands and for the most part the removal of base-building hasn't been THAT big of a deal.  I find I've actually been doing better this way.



Zeraio said:


> I can see one major problem with the Imperial Guard though... They used numbers to add up damage like the orks... Then consider how powerful the Tyrannids are... So how are they going to work that one out if they are playable without REALLY upping the power of the imperial guard...



Off screen artillery barrage?


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## Verin Asper (Feb 11, 2009)

=3 I'll wait to play with the Tau again, in Soul Storm me and my friend use the IG and Tau teaming up, RANGE AND DEFENSE


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## Kommodore (Feb 13, 2009)

Its official: the powerfist ubernerf needs to go, now. I can understand normal termies not being able to destroy every vehicle in game for balance reasons, but there is no excuse for the bloody _assault terminators_ to lose a squad member, and half of the health, to a walker one on one. These guys cost 700 zeal, 900 req and 24 pop, they represent a HUGE investment and I would expect them to be able to take a t2 walker a little easier than they do now. This patch is fail, and sadly I do not see any cc buffs in the update for the day 0 patch.  At least there will always be mods.


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## Teco (Feb 13, 2009)

Pfft. What about the Commando booby trap. Oh the fun of killing bases in two bombs... I guess when your base loses half its health you should start paying attention and set up some unit that detects infiltrated units around your base, but even then 2 bombs, jeez. Maybe 3... or even 4 at the max. ...SOMEONE SET US UP THE BOMB!


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## Kommodore (Feb 13, 2009)

That sucks, but it is getting patched, along with the other game breaking bugs. Day zero ftw. 



			
				DowCommunityBlog said:
			
		

> The following are the patch notes and version information for Dawn of War II...
> 
> (These notes are for the first retail patch for DOW II)
> 
> ...



These, however, is not the complete list. Some of Relic's employees have stated this, so I am sure that there will be plenty of balance changes (powerfistpowerfistpowerfist) as well.


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## Teco (Feb 13, 2009)

Sweetness. I must show my friends this one the weekend.
The heal ability also made me go wtf when I rushed across the battlefield to my friend's dying Carnifex only to find I couldnt heal it, although I guess there's still a chance you wont be able to do that if you can consider the larger organic units 'infantry' in which case, if they do consider them as such. I want to totally use commando's Waaagh ability to make a Carnifex or Avatar infiltrated. OMGWTFBAAAHH! Doom.


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## Kommodore (Feb 13, 2009)

I can totally see an bad case of imba with a cloaked carni with a VC. I am sure they wouldn't let super-units get cloaked, would they? WOULD THEY!


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## QwertyQwert (Feb 14, 2009)

Attorney At Lawl said:


> I haven't played any RTS seriously since Star Craft. I don't see the point, because Star Craft is about as perfect as an RTS can get, and I have a ton of friends who play it too.



Hell. Yeah...

Why isn't there a Starcraft 2 thread?! I'm making one...


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## psion (Feb 14, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> Its official: the powerfist ubernerf needs to go, now. I can understand normal termies not being able to destroy every vehicle in game for balance reasons, but there is no excuse for the bloody _assault terminators_ to lose a squad member, and half of the health, to a walker one on one. These guys cost 700 zeal, 900 req and 24 pop, they represent a HUGE investment and I would expect them to be able to take a t2 walker a little easier than they do now. This patch is fail, and sadly I do not see any cc buffs in the update for the day 0 patch.  At least there will always be mods.


Eh, I hated a lot of the balances they made but for the most part they haven't changed the game THAT much.  I'm assuming they'll balance things a few more times to get things back to where they were before people bitched for hours about the scouts, the eldar, and weapon platforms.

Also, the DoW2 engine is unfortunately not designed with modiblity in mind.


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## Kommodore (Feb 14, 2009)

What do you mean by mobility? How quickly a unit can move across a ma, or how fast they can react/set up?


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## psion (Feb 15, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> What do you mean by mobility? How quickly a unit can move across a ma, or how fast they can react/set up?



MOD-ablity.  I guess my spelling wasn't up to par.
But anyway, it's been said several times by Dan Ebbert that "The Dawn of War engine was based off the Impossible Creatures engine which was meant to be moddable.  The Essence 2 Engine for Dawn of War 2 was built to be AWESOME!"


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## Kommodore (Feb 16, 2009)

Well, the essence engine is actually less modable than the IC engine, this is both due to its design and the fact that Relic never released any dedicated mod tools for it. It was too difficult to create new models and animations and import them into the game without any tools, so the tools that were available were user made and more or less could only change number values. There is now, finally, a mod with new models and animations, but the fact remains CoH was a bitch to mod, and DoW2 runs on the same engine. 

Although, tools have _already_ been made to access squad files for the beta, and people have extracted the .model files for some of the units (although, apperantly, no way to import them into 3d software yet  ) so I am pretty confidant that this game will be much more modible than the CoH. 

Also, they are going to release at least map tools so thats a plus.


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## psion (Feb 16, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> Well, the essence engine is actually less modable than the IC engine, this is both due to its design and the fact that Relic never released any dedicated mod tools for it. It was too difficult to create new models and animations and import them into the game without any tools, so the tools that were available were user made and more or less could only change number values. There is now, finally, a mod with new models and animations, but the fact remains CoH was a bitch to mod, and DoW2 runs on the same engine.
> 
> Although, tools have _already_ been made to access squad files for the beta, and people have extracted the .model files for some of the units (although, apperantly, no way to import them into 3d software yet  ) so I am pretty confidant that this game will be much more modible than the CoH.
> 
> Also, they are going to release at least map tools so thats a plus.



Well, I absolutely suck at any mod tools more complex then the old Warcraft 2/Starcraft mod tools so I can't really comment on that (guess I just need more practice.)
Although DoW2 does have one more advantage on CoH...  You don't need to design ten different buildings for an army and make them all unique for how many you have.  You just need to stress on the unit models and the terrain doodads.


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## Kommodore (Feb 16, 2009)

Actually, for DoW1 at least, making personal mods was pretty simple. All you needed was the tools (relic released some tools, but there are user made versions that I prefer available) and you were set. You opened up the game files and before you was a simple and straightforward list of units, stats and abilities. Most changes could simply be copy/paste or change a number. Make you own balance changes and all that. And AFAIK even doing alterations on models were pretty simple (helmet swapping, randomization, etc, so long as it didn't fiddle with animations.) all things considered. 

I really hope they release some mod tools, mods gave so much more longevity to the game for me, I stopped playing the vanilla game a few weeks after I finished it and moved to mods, and I plan to do the same here. Not to mention, it paves the way for great user-made large scale mods, which often outshine even what the devs had done.


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## psion (Feb 17, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> Actually, for DoW1 at least, making personal mods was pretty simple. All you needed was the tools (relic released some tools, but there are user made versions that I prefer available) and you were set. You opened up the game files and before you was a simple and straightforward list of units, stats and abilities. Most changes could simply be copy/paste or change a number. Make you own balance changes and all that. And AFAIK even doing alterations on models were pretty simple (helmet swapping, randomization, etc, so long as it didn't fiddle with animations.) all things considered.
> 
> I really hope they release some mod tools, mods gave so much more longevity to the game for me, I stopped playing the vanilla game a few weeks after I finished it and moved to mods, and I plan to do the same here. Not to mention, it paves the way for great user-made large scale mods, which often outshine even what the devs had done.



Eh, shows how adept I am that I couldn't even figure that out.  Although vanilla took me to Soulstorm before I started to experiment with the mods.


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## Teco (Feb 17, 2009)

CommodoreKitty said:


> I can totally see an bad case of imba with a cloaked carni with a VC. I am sure they wouldn't let super-units get cloaked, would they? WOULD THEY!


 
For a limited time, Waaaagh costing buff. Maybe.
Maybe not a flaming Avatar but something slightly less big and organic.


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## Zero_Point (Feb 24, 2009)

I played the beta a couple of times at a friend's house, and I can honestly say I'm kinda indifferent about it. It's a good game from what I've seen, and balance issues aside I think it has potential, but it just doesn't feel as "epic" as DoW1. I LIKE having large, impersonal battles, which DoWII doesn't do very well.


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