First off, I'm not asking which is better. The primary reason for this post is that I'm interested in Dawn of War 2, because I think I would have fun with it. Since what I'm really asking is how do the factions of Dawn of War II play in comparison to their DoW1 counterparts (where applicable, as 'Nids aren't in DoW1), please, please, don't say "DoW1 is the best, DoW2 shouldn't even exist" or something similar.
I will say this though- I initially sat in the "DoW2 is crap" camp; however, after watching some gameplay videos/developer diaries, and reading up on it a bit, I think I would enjoy it fairly well. I do think that maybe Relic should have perhaps used a different name than "Dawn of War 2", as aside from the 40k theme, and the SP campaign continuing the story of the Blood Ravens, I'm not really sure what other "Dawn of War"-esque elements are even in DoW2.
Additionally I want to know- is the Skirmish AI any good in DoWII? What are it's difficulty levels and how do they compare to DoW1's AI (keeping in mind the AI in DoW1 isn't all that bright). I ask mainly because I'm not very interested in online MP (never really been into online MP); so please also don't bring up the "you shouldn't buy the game if you're not going to play online" stuff (though if there are enough DoWII's active here I might end up wanting to try and get games going; we'll see).
Also, how does leveling/wargear options work in Skirmish? I've played with the demo a bit, and the wargear/leveling of the SP campaign I'm 99.999999% certain works differently from the skirmishes.
Some other things I would like- tips for playing as the Eldar in BOTH DoW1&2, as while I do pretty good once I get x3 Warp Spider squads in DoW1 (Warp Spiders=tons of shredded infantry (including Termies!), and even light vehicles are dead meat), I don't think I'm all that good with them (I can't really use Banshees very well IMO; it seems WSs are the only unit I'm good with (though I think I've gotten fairly good with Dreaps/Dark Reapers and Rangers)).
I'd also like some tips for playing the 'Nids and Space Marines in DoW2; I'm not too inclined to play Orks in DoW2, but I might be persuaded to try them if I know how their unit VOs are; specifically, how do Ork unit VOs in DoW2 compare in reference DoW1/Xpacks.
Thanks for all the help guys!
"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war..."
In DoW1, you pretty much built units, threw them at the enemy, and anyone left alive kept advancing. You didn't need to worry about defense since you had turrets, mines, and turrets on your resource generators. You could also reinforce anywhere so it was easy to hold territory and maintain an advance.
In DoW2 you are forced to be all tactical and sneaky-like, and there are almost no turrets and reinforcing requires the use of a squishy transport, teleport relay, or your single HQ structure. The only way to hold territory in DoW2 is to have troops there, and troops cost upkeep so its hard to amass a large army.
In terms of racial differences between DoW1 and DoW2, they're big. Everything got reduced in size. Fewer squads, and fewer members per squad. This is great for Eldar, Spess Mehrines, and Chaos, however Tyranids and Orks have freaking huge armies with near-limitless numbers (there's even a special rule for Nids in tabletop called Without Number that gives reinforcements) in fluff, so it makes far, far less sense for them to have squads of only a few units.
DoW2 should not be considered a sequel to DoW1, simply because it plays so differently. It's not like C&C4, as that game sucks (it copied DoW2 and very poorly) while DoW2 is good if you replace the "Dawn of War" in the title with something else.
If you want epic large-scale battles like the grimdarkness of the future is popularly known for, buy Dark Crusade. If you want a game that plays a lot like Company of Heroes: 40K Edition (just without the awesome variety of units CoH has) then get DoW2.
If you do get Dark Crusade, I command you to grab the 3.5 version of the Firestorm over Kronus mod. It will rock your socks off. And then go here and grab an unofficial balance patch made by a member of the community that fixes a lot of the issues and imbalances in the mod (some general price changes and changes to underpowered and underused units). And then we'll talk about you installing Hamachi and Xfire and joining up with my group who all play the 3.52 patch.
My Empire is based on the War Hammer 40,000. I have both but I have only played DoW2 campaign to the end and like it very much, I thought it was kinda like War Craft DOTA. Having 7 Heroes do different things and this includes leveling up to level 20 and upgrading weapons and other things from the War Hammer 40,000 World.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Mercy! No Respite!
Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas
The metagame is different in each of these games. (I know you didn't ask for it, but I hate DoW2). The metagame in DoW is to expand like a disease across the board and establish holdings that you can defend with your troops. In DoW2, there are no holdings. This is hard to explain without saying why I hate it, but you have to run and capture points as you did in the past, but they have no build-able defense, just something that only slightly slows down the retake by the enemy. Ultimately it comes down to running your melee around capping and uncapping while you amass enough of an army to win.
@Sparda- I do agree that DoWII probably shouldn't have the DoW name. It's just too different (but it isn't sucktacular at least). That said, the main attraction of DoWII is the very tactically focuses battles and the "sneaky-sneaky" things about it.
@Pfizzyhead- yeah, no default static defenses is a bit of a bummer (even though the SM Techmarine can call down turrets; I don't think that counts since it's commander dependent).
There is a Listening Post mod on the community.dawnofwar2.com mod section BTW, if your interested in it. I saw it while browsing through there.
Like I said, if you want sneaky tactical combat, play DoW2. If you want to amass a huge army the likes of which 40k is known for, go ahead and buy Dark Crusade and Soulstorm (they're both dirt cheap now), and Impulse happens to sell them. You're best off buying the Dawn of War Collection though as it's all four DoW games on Impulse for $49.99, which means no more messing with disks and easy re-installation in case you get a new computer.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
