THQ Suffering Terrible Terrible Damage - Page 5

In essence, cover allowed for a large choke point at certain parts of the map. Rather than constructing ramps and small entrances to create defender's advantage, it allowed the map to be more open with the same net effect in some areas. Similar to Starcraft, you have units that could negate this effect via superior range or mobility, but overall it was a unique way to create a defender's advantage in certain areas of the map that didn't rely on units passing through single-file. Keeping tabs on one's opponent army and knowing which cover areas one needed to control often determined results of a given game.

Morale gave a reason to not just focus down a single unit all the time. In Starcraft, one would be insane to change targets before a unit was killed due to the reduction in DPS along with them not being able to then save the unit itself. In DOW, it became a tradeoff. Do you continue to focus down a morale broken squad - thus ensuring its removal from the board? Or do you change targets to attempt to start reducing the combat effectiveness of another squad - but risk that the morale broken squad might recover or that both squads may be able to make it away? It is a small addition to normal unit micromanagement that made deciding upon targets a bit trickier.

Range vs Melee attacks was a bit of a gimmick as ranged units shat on melee units if one had one more ranged squad than melee. However, it did again add to strategy in that getting a similar speed melee unit to tie up a powerhouse range unit was often essential. Or you might use a Melee units range attack to do some damage while you got into range or retreated. Basically - added a bit of battle micromanagement in this sense, but it wasn't something one really had to think about.

I'm not sure what other mechanics you might consider under the "tactical" aspect. I also cannot speak about DOW2 as I only played it in the beta and don't think it had as much depth as DOW.