MULTIPLAYER DEMO



FACES OF WAR Multiplayer Demo contains 2 game modes: the "Combat" and the "Frontline". The "Combat" can be played both in Team mode and Free For All (FFA). The demo game modes are capped to 4 players max, but the final game has no such restriction. The Combat and the Frontline modes present totally different approaches to the FoW gameplay (that's why we've selected them for the demo). The Combat mode is somewhat chaotic, when all your reaction and quick thinking is required. Buy infantry only or both infantry and vehicles (depending on the server setting) and earn points by eliminating your opponents' units. It's also fun playing in FFA mode, when the battle turns into a burly brawl.

On the other hand, the Frontline mode depends on usage of tactics. This is when you have to pay more attention on how you position your army, how you use mine fields and obstacles. You'll have to choose, whether to perform a frontal attack, or take a roundabout way. And, one more thing. Only in this game mode you gain an advantage by retreating in right time.

"Combat"
In this mode, you constantly get reinforcements by calling them in. But, as you might guess, they don't appear just for free - there's a certain amount of time you have to wait before you can call in next vehicle or infantry squad. Your goal is to earn as many points as you can by eliminating enemy units. Game ends when the time runs up to the limit (set by the server).

Each unit costs some points, heavy tanks cost more than light tanks, and light tanks cost more than infantry. When you kill an infantry unit or disabled a tank, this unit's cost will be added to you score. It is shown near the mouse cursor when you aim an enemy unit.

There are two different "Combat" modes: team-based game, and FFA (Free For All). In FFA mode all players fight against each other. Player with top score wins the game. Alternatively, players group in teams (A and B) so one team fights against the other one. In team mode, if you earn score, then your team will earn score too. Team is the winner if it has most score at the game end.



"Frontline"
In "Frontline" mode teams are playing different roles. One team is attacking and other team is defending. Attackers' goal is to capture all the front-lines. While the defenders are to defend front-lines as long as they can.

There are several flags on a front-line. Each flag belongs to each player. To capture the flag attacking team must bring more forces than defending team to the flag zone. If a flag becomes captured the defender cannot capture it back. In order to capture the front-line attacking team has to capture all flags that belong to defending team.

There is freeze time for teams to prepare. During this time players are separated and can't attack and see each others' units.

Defenders have limited reinforcements and attacking team have unlimited ones. If defending player sees that he cannot hold back the attackers at the certain flag point, he can retreat to the next front-line and prepare the defenses there.

Attacking team will receive 100 points for each captured flag and additionally 100 points for each captured flag when front-line is captured. If attackers win, they receive a time bonus based on time left. Defending team only earns points by destroying attacker's forces.

The game is played in 2 rounds. In the first round Team A attacks Team B. Then they switch positions and the round is played vice versa. Total team score is the sum of both rounds score, and the team with the most score is the winner.



Rocket launcher squad (Bazookers)

Tired of enemy tanks? Call in a squad with bazookas! With proper tactics, a single soldier with a bazooka or a panzerschreck can inflict serious damage to enemy vehicles. Even the heaviest ones. One can launch a rocket using several techniques. If a soldier possesses a bazooka, player can move the mouse cursor over enemy tank (cursor "Attack" appears) and then click it. That soldier will automatically draw the rocket launcher and fire at the enemy. Or, you can press the button with rocket launcher image on the central panel and then click on enemy vehicle. The result is the same. Anyway, even if the soldier with a rocket launcher notices enemy vehicle around, he will attack it on his own. Of course, if he wasn't given the "Hold Fire" order.

However, the "Direct Control" mode is the most effective way to destroy vehicles. Can't express feelings in the heat of the battle... Experienced soldier must know, that it is very hard to hit a vehicle with bazooka from a distance. So, the best tactics is to sneak close to a tank and deliver the fatal blow point-blank.

Sniper[b]

Good sharpshooter can send many enemy soldiers to kingdom come, before the opponent realizes what it's all about. Thus, it's enough to give the order to a sniper and he will do the job: he'll get to the position and perform an aimed shot on his own. This is pretty simple: you just have to press the "Aimed shot" button on the central panel and then click on the enemy.

But, if you're used to do everything by yourself, then take the control in your hands and activate the "Direct Control" mode. Then, aim at the enemy and wait until the cursor fills completely forming a circle. Now shoot! If you pull the trigger too early, the shot will be imperfect. That is because it takes time for the sniper to aim. It is good idea to change position after the shot, as the sniper gives away himself with his shot and becomes an easy target for the enemy.

And, if you want to master your marksmanship, aim at unarmored parts of the body, not at storm troopers body amour or infantry helmets.



[b]Mines

Setting up minefields - is one of the most successful defending methods in the "Frontline" game mode. Imagine this: you've been forced by a tank armada. Isn't it scary? Sure it is. But if you had properly set up minefields at your base approaches, it won't be scary at all. Because, as soon as they reach the borders of your minefield, they're going to be wasted.

So, how do you set up a minefield? Pretty simple. Just call in a miners squad and send them to the beginning of future minefield (1). When they're at the spot, press the "Mine" button (2) on the right panel (you might have to switch the tabs) and click at the end of the minefield you want to set up (3). Now your miners will set up a minefield from the first point to the second one.

But can you just sit back and relax, while you're protected from all sides with your own minefields? No, you don't. Minefields can be deactivated by sappers or wiped away by mine-sweeping tanks. And there's more: the infantry can walk over AT mines and they won't blow, because AT mines only react on objects with greater mass. On the other hand, AP mines can't do any harm to tanks. So place your mines wisely, think about enforcing them with hedgehogs and mounted MGs in the bushes nearby.



Calling units in

So, you're ready to hop in the battle and lead your forces to the victory. But before you start, you have to call in some army. Depending on the game mode and server settings you'll be allowed to purchase different sets of units. Each unit has to "charge up" before it appears available. By saying a unit "charges up" I mean that there's a certain amount of time before you can call in unit again. By the way, when the game starts you'll have no units available and they all "charge".

The first units to be available are Submachine-gunners and Riflemen squads. These are have the least time of "charge". You can now call them in. Units appear at your spawn-spot and are invulnerable to any attacks for a time (they go fading in and out). Note also that in "Frontline" mode your current spawn-spot will be repositioned each time when you capture enemy flag, or your flag gets captured.

Useful facts about unit spawn / calling in:
- Some units "depend" on each other, so purchasing one of them will reset the "charge" status of the others to zero.
- You can only have a certain amount of infantry units. When you're reached maximum, you can't purchase more.
- In the "Frontline mode" there's a limit for purchasing same types of units. For example, you can have only one mine-sweeping tank at a time.



Obstacles (AT Hedgehogs)

There's another one good way to defend your positions. It is an AT Hedgehog, which prevents tanks from passing over it. You can place a hedgehog by calling in an engineer. Select an engineer, then press the "Hedgehog" button (1) and point-click at the desired spot (2). Each engineer can place 4 such obstacles, so they can block tanks from moving through a narrow passage. But a couple of engineers can delay tank offensive for a pretty long time. The best is to place obstacles at 2/3 (two thirds) width of a tank.

But how can attackers fight these obstacles? The dynamite will help. You can get dynamite from a tank's inventory, or call in a scout squad (they have dynamite). Or, alternatively, you can use a large-caliber gun. But be sure to fire AP shells, not the HE ones.



Covers

Your soldiers are vulnerable in the open area. But if your soldier hides behind some cover, he becomes not so easy target. And what's more, he shoots more precisely from a cover. Therefore, when a soldier comes to a battlefield he should get in a cover.

So, how can you do off a soldier that hides in a cover? You can take a roundabout way, to come from the rear, where soldier is not covered, and throw a grenade. You can even destroy the cover, if you have HE shells.

Now, let's see, how do we place our soldiers in the covers. Select a squad and place the mouse cursor over a place with covers. If you select the right place, you'll see soldiers' silhouettes, that show positions to be taken by your soldiers. Now click it and the squad will move to these positions. Your soldiers can also take covers at the slopes and shell-holes. These covers are shown only if soldier is crawling.

The covers in the bushes and in the fallen trees crowns don't protect soldiers from bullets, but can cover your soldiers from enemy's' eyes.



Moving and attacking

When your soldiers are given an order to move somewhere, they don't pay attention on enemies around. From one hand, that's good, because your orders is going to be completed perfectly. But from the other hand, if the destination point is far enough, your soldier can get ambushed. So, to make your soldiers move and attack any enemies encountered, give them a special "Attack" order. You can do it by giving an "Attack" order (1) and point-clicking to the ground where you want them to move.

If you point-click with the "Attack" order on an enemy, your soldier will engage this unit disregarding any others, until it's destroyed. When carrying out this order, the soldiers will use most suitable weapons on their on. They'll also choose correct positions to fire at the target.

There's also a special order to make a gun fire at certain point. It's called "Attack Ground" (2). Your guns will proceed with firing until you cancel the order.



The basics of "Frontline" (tactics and tips)

Setting up a strong defense. So, what's makes you defenses impenetrable, impassable and, what's important, what it takes to survive longer? Of course, there're many ways. We can only examine some methods.

Defenders: "Keep your enemy at a distance". That's right. Don't let them come too close, that may be lethal for your AT guns and short-range mounted MGs (for antipersonnel purpose). Think of combining AT-hedgehogs and AT mine fields. You may deploy hedgehogs on the left and on the right from approaches, and place mine fields in-between them. The enemy will have no choice but force your positions from the front (here they're going to have some problems with the mines), or take a big detour (make sure you hit them from the flank when they try to do so). But you also can place the hedgehogs in the front, and surround it with mine fields from left and right. Then the attackers will be forced to move around the hedgehogs and trap into a mine field. Always have AT guns places at flanks, don't position them too close to each other. Because attackers are able to buy long-range howitzers and it's enough of just one HE shell to send your AT guns flying in parts (so, think of an infantry squad covered at one of the flanks so you can quickly move them out to destroy these howitzers). One more thing: look after your mine fields, renew them when you can and send some units forward to the enemy just to hold them up.

Now, let's see what attackers can do.

Attackers: "Best way is my way". Don't ever let defenders lead you into the trap (well they certainly will try to do it). If you see, that you somehow can't pass in some direction, try another. Leave them no time to regroup and reposition their artillery. Hit them from both flanks (that really hurts, if done right), use mine-sweeping tanks (they really help much) and always have infantry squads around. Storm in and cause real havoc in the defender's positions. There's one thing that can greatly help you - long-range howitzers. They're just perfect in destroying enemy artillery, mortars and mounted MGs. Have 1-2 vehicles in reserve (AFV / light tank) to be able to force to the next front-line right after you capture current one (so the enemy have no time to prepare the defenses). Well, there're numerous ways for the attackers to win. But there's even more ways for them to lose if they just constantly launch frontal attacks.



Towed artillery and mounted guns

All field guns and cannons can be repositioned by it's crew. When you select a cannon, then double-click on the place you want the gun to be moved to, the crew will fold gun's mounts and push the gun there. You can move mounted MGs and mortars same way. If after the gun is arrived to the position the crew receives no orders for a certain time, they prepare the gun for firing. You can convert the gun to firing or towed position manually by pressing 'Space' bar at any time. All corresponding controls ("Firing position" / "Towed position" buttons) are located at the bottom-right panel (you might need to switch to the third tab).

This is good method to move your guns at short distances. But what if you need to transport your gun way farther? It'll take really long time for the crew to make it happen, so you need to use a towing transport. Bring any jeep, truck or AFV to the gun so transport's towing hook is close to the guns towing lug. Having the jeep or the cannon selected, press the "Attach cannon to vehicle" button at the bottom-right panel and point-click on the transport. If everything done right, the gun will link up with the transport. Now, select transport and move it with the cannon to a new place. When arrived, detach the gun and deploy it on the new position.



Visibility

Don't think that your troops and your enemies see just everyone in their sight range. That's not true. FoW uses advanced visibility system that is based on real life.

Every unit has one or several vision zones. These vision zones can be round, conical or bell-shaped. Soldiers have only one zone of vision (they don't have eyes on the back of the head), tanks can have 1 to 4 such zones (driver's one, gunner's one, commander's one and plus one additional vision zone if there's a soldier at the AA MG).

A unit can see the enemy only in it's vision zone. But, if enemy unit is in the vision zone, that doesn't mean it become visible by our unit. That depends on the enemy unit class, the distance to it and whether it moves or not. Here's an example of visibility distances for a soldier in MP:

- Tank 45
- AFV 40
- Soldier: standing 30
- Soldier: crouching 25
- Soldier: prone 21
- Soldier in stealth: crawling 12
- Soldier in stealth: prone 6

If there's an obstacle that obscures vision between your soldier and enemy unit, your unit won't be able to see the enemy. The obscuring object can be anything like a fence, a house, bushes or a destroyed vehicle.

To know the vision system better, please take a look at the picture. You can see a T-34 tank surrounded by german soldiers. Green line shows borders of tank vision zones. Sectors dashed in green are visible to the tanks, while the ones dashed with red are obscured. Look at the units at the picture:

1 - unseen from the tank, because it's not in any of tank's vision zones
2 - perfectly visible
3 - unseen, because he hides in the bushes
4 - unseen, as he's obscured by crates

There's one more possibility for units to see the enemy even at long distances. When a shell or a bullet hits the objects or the ground near a unit, he'll be able to see the shooter for a certain time.



Squad management

In game, all accessible single units or squads are displayed with small icons on the left side of the screen (squad panel). Click on the squad icon to select squad. Double-click will center camera on squad commander.

You can merge two squads, if you wish. It happens often in multiplayer, that you have small number of soldiers in some squads. Select one squad in the squad panel on the left and click on another squad while holding "Shift" pressed (small "plus" sign will appear near cursor) - this will join two squads together.

One can use hot keys for even faster squad selection. Select your squad in squad panel and press Ctrl + 'digit'. Corresponding digit will appear on squad icon. Now you can use key with that digit to select your squad quickly. Double click works as usual and will bring camera to the squad commander.

It is still possible to play in good old Soldiers-like style, although it will make game harder to win in multiplayer. Select a squad, dismiss it by pressing "Shift+K" or by pressing "Dismiss squad" button in right panel. Many separate units will appear in the squad panel instead of your squad. Now you can select your units one by one and play. However, be careful, if you select several units by mouse frame, a new squad with commander will be automatically created.

You can split your squad and put it back together, just remember one thing - you can't have more than 8 units in squad. Creating new squad is easy - cancel current selection and select desired units by mouse frame while holding key "Shift". These units will be removed from their old squads and will be put together into new squad. And one more thing. If you have a squad selected, and want to merge it with another squad - just Shift+click on the icon of the squad (at the left) you want to merge with (you must have a squad selected).

If your squad commander is not able to manage his squad, then you can assign another unit to be a commander. How can I do it, you ask? Select unit in squad and press key 'K' (or corresponding button in right panel) - this unit will become a new squad commander. You can double-click on unit to get the same result.



Damage

FoW uses complex system to calculate damage and ballistics of a shell, that is very close to real shell behavior. Let's examine some of the armament types:

Rifle.
Low rate of fire and small cartridge capacity, but high fire percision. Sniper rifle variants have way more killing power and give ability to perform "Aimed shot".

SMG.
High rate of fire, considerably big ammo clip. It has medium percision and it's killing power falls with distance. Also, bullet scattering becomes apparent at distances, which lowers the damage done by a SMG too.

Machine-gun.
High rate of fire and high killing power. Some MGs have up to 300 shells in their cartridge belts. The best is to fire MG mounted or while laying on ground.

Bazooka/Panzerschreck rocket.
It has hollow charge that can burn through even thick armor on contact. But it can be hard to hit the target at a distance, as the rocket begins to deviate. And a tangential hit can only scorch the armor without doing it any damage. Sometimes rocket may even ricochet.

HE / AP shells.
HE shells are best suitable against enemy infantry or AFVs. HE shell detonates on contact and does damage to all soldiers in reach. HE shell blast power doesn't depend on fire angle and distance.
On the other hand, you should use AP shells against medium and heavy armor. Unlike HE shells, AP shells lose their energy with distance (because they lose their speed). Depending on angle between the shell path and armor surface, the system computes, whether the armor is pierced or just get damaged. Keep in mind that the frontal armor is the most impenetrable part of a tank, and the rear and top of the turret - are the most vulnerable ones.

When a shell hits a vehicle, a mark can be seen on the armor. They show the armor fatigue at the spot. To make armor pierced faster, try to hit the same spot you hit before. You can see an example of such marks below (from left to right: no damage, minor damage, severe damage, critical damage).