A Newbie’s Guide to World in Conflict Strategy
So, you’ve just bought World in Conflict and are eager to get into the action, or perhaps you’ve already played your way through the singleplayer campaign and are looking to venture online. Or maybe you’ve played online some, but are tired of getting cut to pieces. If any of these describe you, then read on!
Game Modes
World in Conflict has three primary game modes, Domination, Assault, and Tug of War. Although the roles and units don’t change from mode to mode, the strategy and tactics do! What works well in Domination can fail miserably in Assault and what doesn’t work in Tug of War may well work in Domination.
Domination
The Domination mode revolves around the capture and control of command points. When a team controls more command points than its opposing team, the domination bar will slowly be pushed forward, extending the first team’s flag so it occupies more of the bar. Because the number of command points controlled is vital, a team’s attention needs to be spread over the entire map, always focusing on capturing command points while minimizing the number controlled by your opponent. This entire-map approach is much different than the approach needed for the next mode, Assault.
Assault
Assault also centers around command points, however, in a much different manner than Domination. In Assault, one team attacks, trying to capture as many command points in a set order in the 10 minute frame alloted to them. The other team tries to defend the points. Once either 10 minutes have passed or all of the command points have been captured, the teams switch places. The previously defending team has to capture more command points than the first attackers in order to win.
Other than the differences described above, the major difference between Assault and Domination is that once a command point has been captured by the attacking team, it then disappears, meaning that it cannot be retaken by the defending team. So, once a point is lost by the defenders, it’s lost for good. Because of this, having a few units stay on each command point is generally a good idea as command points cannnot be captured while your units are on them. Not doing so is one of the most frequently made mistakes I see. I also see a shocking number of players standing around on the other side of the map, apparently holding it against assault; this is a complete waste of units: your opponents don’t really care about the other side of the map because the command point isn’t there so there’s no point to having units there.
Tug of War
The third game mode is Tug of War. In Tug of War, there is a “frontline” comprised of a set of command points ranging in number from two to four. The object is simply to have a friendly unit in each of the points without any enemy units in any of the points. Once that is accomplished, the frontline will move forward; a new set of points will become visible and the ones you just captured will remain. Both lines will remain until either your team gets a unit into an unoccupied enemy point or the opposing team gets one into an unoccupied point of yours. If one of your points is occupied, the new set of points will disappear and the battle over the first original frontline will continue. If your team occupies a point, the original frontline will disappear and the conflict over the new frontline will continue in earnest. Because of this, it is a good idea to try to anticipate the capture of the frontline and have a unit or two ready to rush into an enemy square.
Roles
The four roles in World in Conflict vary widely from each other from each other. However, all are very strong when played correctly and all of them are necessary for a team to be successful.
Infantry
The infantry role is by far the most self-sufficient of all of the roles. While armor
needs anti-air to protect it from helicopters and the air role needs ground units to
deal with anti-air, infantry is remarkably good at taking care of itself, provided that
it is well commanded. It has access to a wide range of infantry from snipers to anti-tank
units to the good, old regular infantry unit and because of this, can usually deal with
whatever is sent its way. Another useful ability of infantry is their ability to self heal
as well as to summon reinforcements using the Reinforce Squad button.
The two major drawbacks of infantry are their speed (or lack thereof) and their very low health. The best ways of compensating for these disadvantages are to use the Sprint special ability that all infantry possess and to stay in cover, whether it be in buildings or clumps of trees, whenever possible. If such measures are taken, infantry can be a formidable force to be dealt with on the battlefield.
Armor
The “knights in shinning armor” of World in Conflict are, well, the units that compose the armor role. Combining a fair amount of speed, firepower, and, especially for the heavier tanks, a good deal of armor, the armor role is ideally suited to capture command points and clear out enemy units.
The primary weakness of armor units is the fact that heavy helicopters eat them for breakfast. The light, medium, and heavy tanks have no ability whatsoever to retaliate against enemy air units and the ability of the other armor units to do so is severely limited. The best way to prevent getting ripped to pieces by enemy helicopters is to make sure that a Support player from your team has a few anti-air (and repair if possible) units in the vicinity of your armor. When you are attacked, the Smoke Screen special ability allows a little more time for anti-air to arrive or for you to call in an Air-to-Air Strike Tactical Aid.
Air
The Air role’s greatest assets are its speed and ability to go anywhere on the map. Heavy helicopters are capable of blowing pretty much every ground unit to pieces very quickly unless there is several anti-air units or medium helicopters around. Medium helicopters are great against other air units and can inflict some damage on ground units. The armor role is usually at the complete mercy of the air role unless there is anti-air around.
Fairly low health and vulnerability to anti-air units are the greatest disadvantages of the air role. Anti-air can quickly shred helicopters and the regular infantry unit can do the same in groups of three or four, which are not uncommon. Medium helicopters also pose a significant threat to other air units. Luckily, medium helicopters are not the common on most maps and anti-air can usually be avoided or dealt with using the missiles of the heavy helicopters without gaining too much damage.
Support
The Support role’s job is to, as you probably guessed, to support the other roles. This encompasses three things, anti-air support, artillery support, and providing repairs. A good support player needs to ensure that his team has all of these things as they are vital to a team’s success; he might need to try to manage all of them unless he can coordinate with another support player to split the duties (e.g. “I’ll have anti-air and repairs. Can you get artillery and anti-air?”).
The major weakness of the support role is that it is terrible at close combat. Artillery works well against units that are across the map and anti-air works well against air units, but they really are not very good fighting up close. Luckily, this isn’t quite as a problem as it sounds because your anti-air and repair units will generally be in the vicinity of an armor player because you’re supporting him and your artillery are generally far enough away from enemy units that they don’t have to worry much about being attacked.
Golden Rules of World in Conflict
Following are some general rules that, if used, will greatly help you improve your play.
Communication and teamwork win
Simply put, the team that communicates and works together better than the other team wins. Period. End of Story. There’s no way around it; World in Conflict is all about team play, so be sure to do your best to play as a team.
You have a number of tools aside from the standard chatting capabilities that can help immensely with this. The first is the ingame VOIP (i.e. the tool that allows you to use a microphone). Talking is indefinitely faster and more effective than typing, so use VOIP if you can. The second tool is the Q-menu, for lack of a better term. When you press and hold Q, a menu (see below) will pop up. From here you can select a variety of messages and simply left click to place them anywhere on the battlefield.
Use special abilities
The special abilities of units in World in Conflict add an additional layer of tactical depth and the use of them is absolutely necessary for a good WiC player. Be familiar with each and every unit’s special abilities (both offensive and defensive): know what it does, what it is effective against, and how and when to deploy it.
Learn your hotkeys
Hotkeys are another way that will show instant dividends in gameplay once
you start using them. In addition to the WASD keys required to move the
camera around, hotkeys that you should know include:
E – Offensive Special Ability
R – Defensive Special Ability
F – Attack Ground
Q – Bring up alert menu
M – Toggle between regular map and mega map
Control + 1-9 – Creates a control group
1-9 – Selects control group
Tab – Bring up tab menu
Enter – Chat with team
You can find a list of all of the default hotkeys here.
If you so wish, you can change the hotkeys so you’re more comfortable with them. Most of them can be changed from the menu shown on the right while the rest can be changed simply by clicking on the “Basic” tab.
Keep moving
Unless you are holding a command point in Assault or Tug of War mode, do not stay in a single place for more than more than seven or eight seconds. Stay still for much longer and you’ll most likely find your units dead as you’re an excellent target for enemy artillery and tactical aid strikes.
Be familiar with Tactical Aid
Good World in Conflict players know tactical aid strikes like the back of their hands. They know what strikes are good for what, how much each strike costs, and how to deploy it effectively. Don’t use a chemical strike against enemy tanks or a tank buster on enemy infantry. Doing so is just a waste of time and TA points.
GoSailing has written an great guide to choosing and placing TA strikes here; it’s an excellent read if you’re having trouble with this.
Learn your unit counters
Like most RTS games, World in Conflict employees a unit counter system (i.e. each unit has something it’s good and fighting and something that it is weak against). However, WiC’s counter system is far more complex than the typical infantry beats cavalry-cavalry beats missiles-missiles beat infantry triangle.
Every unit has something that it is good against as well as something that is strong against it. As such, it’s hard to make general rules for counters, but a few are:
1. Air beats armor, artillery, and other vehicles
2. Anti-air beats air
3. Armor beats support and lighter armor
4. Infantry does reasonably well against everything, but is slow and has low health
Just jump in
The best way to learn anything is just to jump in and give it a try. Sure, the first few games probably aren’t going to go all that well, but don’t get discouraged; everyone was at the same point at one time. Just keep going at it and you’ll get better quicker than you thought possible. So, good luck, have fun, and I hope to you see online!
