The RTSC Guide to Dawn of War
Part 2b: Winter Assault Tiers
Dawn of War changes how an real time strategy
game collects resources, but it still builds a base and tech
tree that you've seen in every WarCraft clone
out there. You know the ones: the headquarters
with a set of Add-Ons, the barracks, the armoury,
vehicle factory, turret,
etc. For those not familiar with RTS games, this is a sequence of buildings
with push-button techs
you can buy, where each structure (and some upgrades) act as prerequisites
to unlock progressively more powerful units to play with. If you lose
a building somewhere, then units and techs down the chain are disabled
and you have to replace all the missing prerequisites to re-enable all
your units and abilities again.
Losing part of your build tree is known as being de-teched.
De-teching an opponent is sometimes worth sacrificing most of your
forces for. While you can simply replace any losses with reinforcements,
they may not be able to replace anything until they've rebuild half their
basel.
The whole base building and teching process is roughly grouped into three
teching stages known as Tiers. Each Tier roughly
corresponds to your start, mid and end game. Tiers
have greater importance in Dawn of War because, unlike a lot of RTS games,
many units actually become obsolete as you tech up. As a rough
rule of thumb, Tier 2 units will dominate Tier
1 units, while Tier 3 will usually overpower
everything else. There's a fair bit of overlap, though. While the original
Dawn of War used some seriously hard counters, the Winter Assault expansion
(which this Guide is talking about) uses fairly soft counters. You might
might be lording it early on in a game with masses of early infantry,
dominate most of the map and even driven your opponent back into their
base, but your fortunes can suddenly reverse if your foe counter-attacks
with a smaller force of next Tier units.
I like to think of "tiering" and "teching" as two different things, even though they're all part of "teching".
Tiering is building up your army's build tree;
that is, building your base and unlocking all your units and abilities.
These are essential upgrades, buildings and add-ons that you simply
can't do without if you want to progress up to the next Tier. Tiering
is usually "live": if any of your base buildings get demolished,
then you immediately lose any access to all the units and techs those
buildings unlocked and you're forced to replace all missing structures
and add-ons.
Teching, by contrast, usually covers things
like simple upgrades or any one shot researches. Techs are permanent.
Once researched, they stay researched, regardless of how mutilated your
base or force becomes. Usually, techs are optional - although more often
than not they spell the difference between victory and defeat. Point is,
you can bypass a lot of them. For example, if you "hard tech"
straight to Tier 2, you can skip a lot of Tier
1 upgrades (and save a few resources) because a lot of those early
forces of yours will be rendered obsolete by Tier 2.
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Tiers
There are roughly three tiers in DoW, loosely based on each Headquarters
add-on upgrade. |
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Tier
1 |
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Establishing your economy and capturing the map are all important
at this stage. Most players will be trying to harass each other,
attempting to decap enemy flags before any Listening
Posts can be built. At the same time, you should be trying
to cap as many of your own as you can, and fortifying them as soon
as possible.
During this period the Barracks and
the Armoury will be built. Most people
build a Barracks as soon as the game
starts, making available their primary Leader and
their regular infantry. Most battles in Tier 1 are fights using
light and regular infantry, with the presence of a single Boss
turning the tide. With no vehicles or anti-vehicle units in sight,
buildings are substantial obstacles. You'll need most of your forces
just to demolish a Listening Post. Turrets and Minefields are
at their most dangerous early on before the vehicles and anti-vehicle
units start to show.
At some point, the Armoury will be built.
Armouries unlock your Tier 2 upgrade, and make available squad
leaders, heavy weapons and a range
of infantry upgrades for your squads. Whether or not you decide
to fully upgrade your early forces or decide to bypass them and
jump up to Tier 2 really depends on the situation or your own preferences.
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Tier
2 |
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The First HQ Add-On (or its equivalent)
heralds the start of Tier 2. At Tier
2, Vehicles and advanced
infantry appear, along with anti-vehicle (or AV)
and any secondary Bosses. At this stage you should be consolidating
your economy and forces with upgraded LP's, unit upgrades and heavy
weapons. Your army can now be built up to tackle just about anything
- except Tier 3.
Unless your Tier 1 units can scale up
adequately with some upgrades, there's a good chance they are simply
going to get crushed in Tier 2. If you
haven't got your own anti-vehicle (AV) or vehicles by then, then
the rest of your game will be a hard slog. With vehicles and AV
on the field, LP's and turrets become noticeably weaker. Buildings
can be readily demolished. Minefields start to lose their effectiveness,
although they can still disrupt.
Usually, you'll have sufficient resources to produce lots of guys,
or lots of vehicles; but rarely enough for both at the same time,
unless you're playing Quickstart.
An army reaches Tier2 when...
Space Marines, Chaos, or the Imperial Guard build
their first HQ add-on;
Eldar gets a Soul Shrine up.
Orks build a Pile of Guns and four Waaagh!
banners.
Some people feel Tier 2 is reached only when the vehicle factory is built, although for me this feels more like a "Tier 2.5". |
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Tier
3 |
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The second HQ Add-On (or its equivalent)
heralds Tier 3 - the Dawn of War end
game. The really heavy duty units start to appear, demolishing
all other Tiers before them. The big, potentially game finishing
spells arrive to wreak havoc on the field. This is the Tier of
Deep Striking Terminators, Possessed Chaos Marines and Obliterators,
Ogryn and Kaskryns, Warp Spiders and Fire Prisms, and the Orks
getting blasted out of the game unless they've got their act together. The following armies reaches Tier 3
when...
Space Marines, Chaos and the Imperial Guard build
their second HQ add-on;
Eldar builds their Support Portal (vehicle yard);
Orks build their Orky Fort
add-on.
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More
tiers
But wait - there's more! |
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Tier
0 |
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This is really a subset of Tier 1, but
its useful to think of Tier 0 units and
strategies. Tier 0 is game
start: nothing more than a builder and a vanilla headquarters.
There's only one type of very light unit to fight with.
The first skirmishes take place between small, un reinforced squads
as players try and save req for teching or tiering.
If not, then there'll be some serious early massing as they
try to simply overpower each other through sheer numbers before
anyone has a chance to tech.
You won't even be able to build a Boss yet. Tier
0 can be played entirely without Power, although chances
are you will be trying to get a Barracks
as fast as possible and maybe some power. Already, there are some
strategies here: Space Marines might try a Scout
Rush. Orks might try to suppress you with a Slugga
Swarm. Eldar might hit you with a mass of Guardians.
The Imperial Guard (in 1.5) will probably just get wiped out...
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Tier
1.5 |
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This is really another subset of Tier 1,
but its useful to think of it as a mini-"endgame" for
Tier1. Tier 1.5 starts when the Armoury has
been built. Its the time where you can choose to go for a solid
teching build making squad leaders, and
the first round of heavy weapons and infantry
upgrades. A Tier 1.5 army will
almost certainly crush a basic, un reinforced mass of troops - even
if they're outnumbered. A 1.5 force is the most powerful force
on the field - until someone trumps it hitting Tier 2. It can either
help you romp into the mid game in a strong position, or it can
leave you in a dead end, with a beefed up early force by not resources
to move up or counter your opponent should they try and trump you.
Tier 1.5 can almost be completely bypassed
by tiering straight to Tier 2. Its
usually risky though, unless its pretty clear in the game you're
not going to be able to keep up with you're opponent's upgraded
Tier 1 army.
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Tier
4 |
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This is really a subset of Tier 3, but
its useful to think of Tier 4 as the end
game, where all techs, upgrades and add-ons have been completed.
Its rare to see a 1v1 duel reach this point. There are very few
Tier 4 units: usually its an uber-tank - and you can only reach
them after you've built the second HQ add-on, all the prerequisite
buildings, and an exorbitantly expensive and slow tech
is studied at the vehicle factory. In some cases, you'll have to
capture and hold a Relic too. These uber-units include the Obliterators,
the Land Raider, Squiggoth, Fire
Prism, Leman Russ Tank, or the Chaos
Predator with the Chaos Projectiles upgrade. Tier 4 is almost guaranteed in any Quickstart team game.
Tier 4 is reached when...
...the Space Marines research Heavy
Armour Deployment at their Machine Cult.
...the Imperial Guard research Full
Scale War at the Mechanized Command.
...Chaos researches Chaos Projectiles in
their Machine Pit.
...the Eldar researches Annihilate
the Enemy in the Soul Shrine.
...the Orks research Extra Vehicle
Armour at Da Mek Shop.
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DoW Resourcing
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