The RTSC Guide to Dawn of War
Part 6: Overwatching

DoW
Basics

Like most real time strategy games, Dawn of War lets you queue up to six items by hand in any squad to save you a lot of messy micromanagement. But if you don't have the dosh up front it will simply refuse you. Overwatching is a game feature that lets you automatically build, reinforce and equip your squads the instant those resources become. You can have as many items overwatched as you like, and you can still queue items by hand in the middle of it. They get top priority in any overwatched squad. The only thing you can't overwatch are squad leaders.

To activate Overwatch, right click on the reinforce and heavy weapon buttons inside a squad that you want to build up. The relevant icons will flash white to show its enabled. Overwatching will keep adding new members and heavy weapons while until it runs out of resources or all the available slots are filled. Once a particular item is filled to capacity, Overwatch stops and disables that button. The button won't unlock again until vacancies appear in the squad.

Be warned. There are no warning sounds or messages that let you know a squad has quietly stopped Overwatching. Keep your eye on the ball here - its very, very easy to miss. You'll have to restart further Overwatch by hand after the squad has taken fresh losses. In the middle of a big fight, that's very easy to forget to do.

You can Overwatch units from any factory or barracks - they will continue to be churned out until the relevant Squad or Vehicle Cap is reached. Some factories will even store an extra squad or unit, only releasing it when another squad dies and frees up cap space. The instant you blow away a vehicle or a squad, a fresh replacement materialises back at base. If your opponent has set their rally point at your base or at the battle, then you have a recipe for unit spamming. You can imagine what this can let you do in a QuickStart game with six Overwatched factories and too many resources...

The great thing about Overwatching is that it gets around the problem of trying to add units when you have insufficient resources; it will automatically build reinforcements and weapons for you the moment the for resources become available. A small, basic squad will automatically grow into a fully fledged force by the time it reaches the front lines. There's absolutely no mucking about with your economy or your build: you're freed up to skirmish with your opponent and control the map at all times.

The bad thing about Overwatching is that it can thoroughly bankrupt you in the early stages of a game and deprive you of any spare resources to tech up with. There are times where you really should mass troops early on with Overwatch, and other times where you should reinforce of build by hand, especially if your army of guys becomes obsolete when the first vehicles roll over you. Its a good idea to pause global Overwatching if its grabbing resources while your trying to get an urgent tech or some new units. Just remember to turn it on again afterwards!

Overwatching shortcuts
Two global hotkeys that you really SHOULD get to know.

Ctrl+O

This toggle pauses and unpauses global overwatching across all your forces. When paused, the last queued units, heavy weapons or builds will finish up, but no further requisition or power will be spent, even though all your Reinforce and Build icons will still flash. The Overwatch button will change to a yellow Pause icon when Paused, and a green Play icon when restarted.

Ctrl+K

This cancels all global Overwatching outright. Any queued up units, reinforcements or heavy weapons will finish building, but all flashing icons are reset right across your army. The green Play icon will still be enabled though, so you can restart any new Overwatch commands afresh.