Advanced Training Guide

From CoCWiki

In order to fully comprehend this guide it is advised that you are aware of all the basic controls and principles of gameplay found in the Quick Start Guide. The following is intended for new players, and includes a brief outline of concepts coupled with a few hints and tips from current 'Veterans'. However, these pages will only help you grasp basic ideas, and you will find as time progresses you will develop your own personal style. Hence this guide is solely designed to try and point you in the right direction..

Basic Combat Introduction

In Call of Combat it is important to become accustomed to the principles of 'nading' and cover. These are fundamental parts of the game, and a good understanding of these areas will keep you alive and of use to your team.

Assuming a 1 v 1 scenario there are two main strategies to kill the opposition; simply shooting them and/or by throwing grenades. The first seems simple, but if an enemy is safely behind cover you may be wasting ammo firing at him. The only way to kill soldiers in such situations is by forcing them out of cover, either by assaulting them with other soldiers, or by flanking his position causing his cover to become ineffective. Grenading the enemy takes a lot more skill and requires a lot more practice.

A victory will usually be secured by a combination of the above. As you gain experience you will learn to move soldiers simultaneously, flank the enemy, whilst using 'fire at' to stress, and pick off enemy soldiers leaving cover. Practice is the only way you will improve your gameplay. By grasping the basic concepts of attack, you will automatically be able to set up stronger defensive formations.

The first two sections below are essential. Please take the time to fully understand them, and practice the theories in-game.

Grenades

Grenades are debatably the single most important aspect of gameplay. Games can be, and unfortunately have been, lost by the good placement of a single nade.

The point of throwing grenades is that if you hit an enemy soldier with one, you’re guaranteed to at least stun him, and possibly kill him. If you stun an enemy soldier, he will then be helpless for a few seconds (ie he is unable to move or shoot), so you can run up to him and shoot him from point blank. Grenades are an area stun weapon, so if several enemy soldiers are really close to each other, a single grenade may be able to stun many or all of them. Be careful, though, as if your own soldiers are too close to each other, your opponents may be able to do the same to you. For this reason, one of the first major skills to learn is how to move all four of you men with separate commands, keeping all or most of them outside the range of a single grenade. You should also be aware, that a relatively new feature allows you to grenade your team-mates, or even your own soldiers!!

When grenading opposition behind cover, you must ensure that the nade lands over the cover. Although if the enemy soldier remains standing he may be stunned or killed, more experienced players will simply duck down behind cover, and the grenade will be ineffective. (this doesnt work with haybales, and sometimes will fail with other cover types too)

When being attacked, you can now defend your position by not only shooting the advancing troops, but by anticipating grenades, and by throwing your own first. Often you will be drawn into a 'nade war.' This simply describes the common process of throwing your grenade, and quickly running away from the grenade that your enemy threw at you. Often the encounter will either result with either both soldiers being stunned, or both escaping. If however, you manage to evade his nade and stun the enemy, you have the advantage, but be aware of his other soldiers.

Cover

Soldiers in different types of cover

The most important fundamental strategy is taking cover. A soldier who properly uses cover is dramatically less likely to be shot than one who does not. To take cover, run up to an obstacle, stand at it, and face over or past it. This will protect you against shots that come over the obstacle you’re standing at, but not against shots that come from the side or from behind you. Thus, it is important to recognize that cover is directional, and a given soldier may have cover to protect him against some shots but not others.

It is also good to note that narrow obstacles don’t protect you from a very wide range of shots, and thus aren’t very good cover. In particular, trees, haystacks, ends of walls, and corners of buildings aren’t nearly as good of cover as the other places you can take cover to protect against a wider range of shots. Similarly, narrow objects do you protect you as well from grenades. Ducking down behind a tree will not shield you from stun effects. (unleash the nade falls right in front of the tree, then it may work)

Concealment refers to a soldier who is unseen by the enemy. Enemy soldiers who do not see you, will not fire at you until you are seen. However, a soldier who is concealed does not absolutely have the benefits of cover. For example, if one of your soldiers is "down" behind a wall, and the enemy runs up to the wall, you will likely be shot while still lying down.

Shooting

Marines practicing shooting

The principles behind shot accuracy are governed by complex equations depending on a number of variables. Instead of going into detailed algebra, I will identify general points which will increase your chances of sniping, and avoiding getting shot.

First and foremost, your chances of being shot are dramatically reduced if your soldier is stood directly behind cover. Similarly, if you are shooting an enemy who has cover, you are generally not going to kill him, unless you shoot at an angle where his cover is ineffective. Hence, it is usually wise not to waste ammo on such scenarios. As a rule of thumb, if your going to move one of your soldiers, always move to cover, and avoid leaving your soldiers in the open. If however, one of your soldiers is caught in the open under heavy fire, it may be worth commanding him to 'hit the deck.' Although there is still a risk that he will be shot, it is significantly lower than when he is standing up. The accuracy of any gun decreases with distance. Therefore, you are much more unlikely to be shot at the outermost point of the LOS. (20 squares). If your soldier is standing still, he is much more likely to be shot than if he was moving. Similarly, if your soldier is moving, the angle between his path and the direction of the bullets will also make a difference. You will least likely to be shot if he is moving at right angles to the bullet direction, and most likely walking straight towards them. It is therefore advised to attack positions at angles and not straight on. The best angle being at 22.5 degrees. The type of gun being used will also effect the accuracy. The most powerful gun in the game is the machinegun (BAR/MG42) which are the most accurate over long ranges and induce the most stress. Sub-Machineguns such as the Thompson/Mp40 have higher firing rates but are less accurate. Such weapons are preferred in building combat where speed is important. All of the above should be considered when assessing the possibility of attack, or in some circumstances retreat.

Using the 'fire at' button to concentrate fire on a soldier out of cover can be very effective. This way all your soldiers will be firing at the target, and as such, there will be a greater % chance of a kill. Fire at can also be used to stress certain soldiers as discussed later.

LOS

One important concept to understand is line of sight. Soldiers don’t have eyes in the back of their heads, but can only see in front of them. Thus, if you’re facing away from an enemy, he can sneak up behind you without you seeing him. If you’re in an area that can be flanked in this manner, it is important to at least periodically have a soldier look to see if there are enemies to the side, or behind you. If you see the enemy a considerable distance away, you may be able to do something about a flank, but if you don’t know that the enemy is there until your soldiers are mysteriously stunned from grenades, or shot from behind, it’s too late.

Remember also that soldiers can’t see through walls. A soldier lying down behind a wall can hide there, whether to set an ambush or to reduce his own stress. You can use this to hide your own soldiers, and remember that other players can use this to hide theirs from you as well. If you only see 3 of an enemy squad's soldiers, be wary of a hidden ambush by the 4th soldier.

Stress

When a soldier gets fired at, this value increases. A stressed soldier will have his own shots be far less accurate. At stress values above five, he’ll fire far less frequently, and if the stress values get high enough, he’ll stop firing entirely. This is a very important part of the game, and is to simulate how soldiers in combat often get quite scared of dying, and it makes them less effective at fighting. Use stress to your advantage, as if you’re firing at enemy soldiers a lot, they probably can’t hit you. This is vital when you want to move around.

Stress Basics

Stress is how much your men are 'Scared' of the bullets flying over there head. Stress will make your men fire less often, with ever lowering accuracy. a person at 10 stress, many never fire a bullet! Stress is easily overcome by the more advanced players, and i will also explain how specific movements can increase your odds/lower your stress or raise theirs.

To begin with, I will explain each weapons strengths and weaknesses with stress. An mp40 Or a Thompson, may seem an obsolete weapon outside, but used up front, he can deal a lot of stress quickly, and effectively help your team progress. Careful though, as moving him up has 2 disadvantages.

If you move it up to much, it will become stressed, and thus be in effective.
If your not careful, you may find that your mp is sniped, or worse, naded and taken to stress you.

MG42 and the Bar are very good at long range stress, they fire slowly, but with the help of rifles may maintain a constant 10 Stress on a team, or bunch of clustered players. However, the Mg is slow firing, it also is subjected to stress, as players aim for it, and try to stress it, this is more apparent in large ag games, but may also have a similar effect in opens/p stats.

The standard rifle proved minimal stress, but when in large numbers, or aided with other weapons it may become as effective as them. using your mens positioning you are able to create pockets of stress, but not suffer from any yourself.

Example

The stress bar:

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Notice as how the stress goes up, The accuracy goes down? How ever, even the most skilled players receive stress, they just limit the amount. Here is a few of the ways they do this.

Now I will show you some movement tactics to lower stress.

Decoy

Now there is some sacrificial stress tactics that work, i will show you, an example.

The man, takes all the stress, and the others received 0, increasing the teams combat effectiveness

Moving

One last though, is that when moving, especially when you out number the opponent, only move when he's looking the other way. or not aiming at you. When moving to and from cover, i.e. when attacking, try to make short movements with no more than 2 men at a time, the others stress, and having two move's decrees the amount firing at each man, making your attacks more successful.

Also when attacking, try not to move at the same plane as the opponent, try to move diagonally or from behind, this lowers the % hits on you, and effectively lowers the chance of getting hit.

Here is a picture to show what I mean:

Key

Black: Avoid, Highest hit%
Dark Blue: Caution, High hit %
Light Blue: Medium hit %
Yellow: not visible
Behind the white line: Good job, you're not attacking from behind, the best area to hit.

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Be careful though, as they do turn to face the opponent, but most people use auto fire, so they aim at the highest % getting yourself into those lower % area's will reduce the chance of getting sniped.

Battlefield Tactics

Defending

Defending is intrinsically a considerable advantage, because your soldiers can maintain cover while an attacker has to advance, often without much cover. Thus, it’s generally beneficial to defend when you can and attack only when you have to.

When defending, it is important to account for common attacking tactics. Try to defend locations which cannot be flanked. The enemy can’t come through the edges of the map or through territory which is held by your teammates. Use this to your advantage and avoid being caught defending areas that are easily flanked.

If you see that the enemy is trying to *rush* you, the most important thing to do is immediately call for help in the chat. Count to see how many enemy squads are there, and list the names of the players you see. This information will help your teammates to know how best to help you. While being blitzed, take and keep cover, and don’t run off of it. Your job isn’t to kill the enemy players on your own, but to hold them off long enough so that your teammates can.

Attacking

An attack strategy, a rush accompanied by a flank.

When forced to attack, there are ways that you can gain an advantage. The first of these is by flanking. Flanking basically consists of positioning soldiers such that different soldiers (typically different squads, controlled by different players) can fire at the same enemy soldiers from widely varying angles. Because an obstacle can only provide cover for a limited range of directions, if done properly the defender won’t have cover to protect him from all of the soldiers firing at him, and will soon die.

The second common method of attacking is to fight in houses so that the fighting will be over short ranges. In some places in houses, you’ll be within grenade range as soon as you see the enemy, which negates the possibility of the attacker getting sniped from long range before he can get close enough to use grenades. This is generally employed only by players with considerable skill in fighting indoors, but you should be aware of it.

The third useful method of attacking is the "blitz" or "rush". The basic idea here is that if several squads on one team attack an isolated squad on the other, they can often overwhelm the defender. The heavy stress from so many squads firing on the defender will limit the possibilities of long range snipes, thus enabling the attackers to maneuverer much more effectively, and possibly faster, than the defender.

Call Of Combat Common Techniques

Parallel Window nading Technique

Demonstration of This Technique

When Nading a Window that is parallel to your Soldier follow the steps I have put in order to successfully perform the trick. First Things First, make your Screen is rotated appropiately, this is important if it is to be done correctly. Next, If your behind a corner make your soldier run 2 squares around it. (If your not near a corner ignore this Step.) Click on the grenade Icon, and click on either of the bottom corners of the window opposite to the spot where your man is. Once you click on the Corner your soldier might not throw the grenade, so make sure your clicking like a mad man when performing the maneuver. If done appropiately the grenade should land inside the window and stun whoever is there.

Primary Ambush

In a Building, this is the most commonly performed technique when setting up an ambush. Lay your man down 1 square from a corner or doorway, make sure it's a spot that the enemy can not see you unless hes walked inside the 'Death Zone' or the spot where your man will shoot him. Face your man towards the Corner, and wait patiently...An Unsuspecting enemy should eventually pass by, and he should be instantly killed. IMPORTANT: Once you've killed an enemy move away from the corner, because any Player with sense will throw a nade there. Once your opponent throws a grenade, Wait for the enemy to go for the stunned man he THINKS he has and nade him, walk up to your agressor and kill him, REPEAT. IF Your lucky you should get multiple kills in the process. Another thing, make sure your not going up against a veteran, although you still might get them with this ambush, their more likely to flank, and/or get an angle on you so beware.

Demonstration of This Technique

Map Set Ups

Small House

These are the basement and bedroom set's up for small house allies side only basement set up is commonly used by lower ranks as the higher ranks would rather defend bedroom's.

Basement-http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t259/xxxfaytxxxfaytxxx/SmallHouseAllies.jpg

Bedroom-http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t259/xxxfaytxxxfaytxxx/SmallHouseAllies1.jpg

These are both defensive setups for the allies side in garden and the axis side in main hall. They are strictly defencive and are usually for lower to middle ranks while the higher ranks prefer beds.

Garden-http://i443.photobucket.com/albums/qq157/nygiantfanspics/Garden.jpg

Main Hall-http://i443.photobucket.com/albums/qq157/nygiantfanspics/MainHall.jpg