I suck ballz in the Dawn of War II Beta... or rather RTS games in general

Over the weekend I downloaded the Dawn of War II (DoW2) multiplayer beta, a game (which I've pre-ordered) that goes live Feb 19th!!

I haven't had much of a chance to play but I did manage to try out one of the Eldar heros (Warlock) vs the "easy" computer. Now I've never been all that good in real time strategy (RTS) games.

Yes, I have fond memories of teaming up with some friends and doing a comp stomp in Red Alert and Star Craft back in the day and enjoyed playing Warcraft. RTS games nowdays are farily complex (at least for someone in the 35+ demographic LOL) and DoW2 takes things to a whole new level.

I should back up a moment and say that DoW2 is created by the same company, Relic Entertainment which produced the venerable WWII RTS game, Company of Heroes title (CoH), arguably the best RTS ever!

I spent many many... many hours in CoH, primarilly playing as the Wehrmacht. Eventually I engaged in 1v1 competitive play on the ladder and was ranked in the top 4000 players before leaving the game.

Anyhow, to succeed in CoH, one had to rely on tactics and strategy. Instead of massing a large blob of one particular unit to mop up your opponent, you had to rely on combined arms, out maneouvering and out producing/teching to win. Each unit and squad had many different upgrades you could purchase and dependent on what and when you bought these upgrades, could sway the tide of the game.

DoW2 takes this to whole new level. Set in the Warhammer 40k universe, this game (from initial impressions of many people) doesn't have the tactical depth as CoH, the different Hero class choices and unit/squad upgrades are immense and greating influence how one plays the game.

So much that I've spent the majority of my time reading and learing about the different factions (there are 4 in this game with more to come in later expansions) the different units and all these bloody upgrades each unit/squad get!!

In any event, I'll be toying around these next few weeks in the beta test trying out different heroes and learning the combat mechanics of this very cool looking game.

It's a bit of a steep learning curve but very fun none the less!

It's time for WAR!