It looks that I am late in getting and enjoying this game. Hope there are still people visiting this forum.

I completed the story on the hard level, and am working on the authentic level as well as the solo mode of skirmish maps. I would like to hear some advice on the tactics in solo skirmishes (objective mode).

1) American Mission 3: Through the Valley
Shortly after the save point, I took out the positions on the hill surrounding the village, and led my squad up on the hill. From high above I could spot and engage enemies if I walked along the hill path (there were two directions), and I was able to suppress and snipe them all except the last German fire team, who would hold a position close to the valley exit. Typically I would pin them down with my fire team, and bring my assault team to the village below to flank them. But as I got close to the valley exit, another two German teams would show up and ambush my men. Well, I could still survive that ambush, but I might lose some men and if the difficulty level was increased, I would die myself. Any advice on this part would be greatly appreciated.

2) American Mission 7: Into the Farm
Again, things go ugly after the last point.
There are two bunkers at the end of this mission; one is occupied by a wounded American fire team (3 soldiers), the other by two German teams (4 soldiers), and they are trading fire.
On the left flank of the bunker is an MG nest,
on the right another (beyond the hedgerow), so
approaching the bunker from either flank would mean instant death. After many failures I lowered the difficulty level to novice and ordered my men to charge in the middle of the open toward the bunker. I knew it was a stupid order, and I indeed lost some of my men in the process, but I had no idea what else could be done. If the difficulty was increased the whole squad would simply be wiped out by the Germans in the bunker, so does anyone know a better way to take this bunker or disable those MG nests?

3) German Mission 2: Taking Back the Hamlet
And again, it becomes a pain in the a** near the end of the mission. The church is protected by three MG nests, and I failed to find a roundabout path to the building. The only time I accomplished this mission was in novice mode, and for some unknown reason the paratrooper manning the left MG suddenly decided to grab his rifle and shoot behind the sandbag nearby, allowing me to flank them from the left. Is there any way to go around the MG positions or force the MG crews to leave?

In addition, does anyone have the experience of totally horrible squad accuracy in the story mode? So far it only happened to me in Three Patrol Action on the authentic level, just before meeting up with Baker. To finish the last two Germans, who jumped off from the half-track and took cover, I had my fire team suppress them and led my assault team to right-flank them. Then something mysterious happened. My whole assault team opened up on them, just about 5 yards away, and totally missed! After the assault team emptied two magazines each and killed none, I decided to do it myself and took down both of the Germans in two bursts. Is this squad inaccuracy a penalty in authentic levels?


Well, below are some of my personal opinions on this game. I had RTH30 as well, and both of them are excellent. I think BiA is simply the most realistic WW2 shooter. I knew it has also received some complaints, but what people frequently complain about really doesn't degrade this game. Here goes what I have in mind:

True, the weapon wobble could be annoying, and I was also a little bit frustrated at first when playing RTH30. But it doesn't really make sniping impossible after getting accustomed to it, and in EiB the wobble has been reduced. To get an accurate shot even when the muzzle swings, there are four things that can be done: two "passive" ones, and two "active."
For the passive part
a) Crouch. This also reduces the possibility of getting shot.
b) Remain still for a moment. The muzzle would gradually steady. Combined with a), just forget about hiding behind cover, standing up suddenly and have a good shot. You'll only hit the target when really lucky. (Or maybe some really skilled person can do this, but not me anyway.)
For the active part
a) Compensate the muzzle movement, as has been suggested in previous articles.
b) Pull the trigger when the sight is about to point right on the target. For example, the muzzle may be moving from left to right when an enemy pops up his head behind cover, then click the left button when the tip point in the sight is about to overlap with his head. After some practice it shouldn't be a big problem to know the proper time/distance offset before clicking the mouse.
To put it together, crouch behind cover, strafe slowly to the edge of the cover until you can see ONE HALF SIDE of ONLY ONE enemy at a time, and take your time to snipe. For me, if the enemy's head above cover is more than 5 mm on the screen, he'll be dead in a few rounds. If the enemy is hiding behind wooden fences and the gap between planks is more than 5 mm on the screen, he's dead in three shots -- this case is easier to be done because the collision volume of the body is larger than that of the head. And any rifle can be used in this way, be it bolt-action, semi- or full-automatic. Just don't use SMG's because their accuracy degrades quickly over distance. And if you are getting shot even if you are half-concealed and dealing with only one enemy, which may be because of insufficient enemy suppression or a bad position, just flank the enemy or find the next sniping location. After all, sniping should be an option but not a panacea, right?

Some people also complain that in real life they can aim a rifle much more steadily. I agree with them in part. I was in the army for two years, although I only fired the M16-family rifles in the range. I had no problem putting all the rounds in a magazine on a life-sized target 200 yards away, but I also knew I wasn't under combat pressure when firing my weapon. Besides, if the muzzle no longer moves and we can as a result shoot better, then so should the enemy. Anyone interested in this scenario can try the skirmish mode, and custom-set the accuracy to 10 and suppression to 10 as well (so the enemy would shoot at you aggressively). I tried it and basically if I saw the AI opponents' muzzles for more than 3 seconds -- no matter I was zigzaging about 100 yards away or in partial defilade -- I was dead. Then the game would be no fun at all. On the other hand, while in real life we may be aiming the rifle steadily over some short time, fatigue would eventually set in and the aiming would then be difficult. If the game provides short-term steady aiming, then would fatigue, breathing, etc. also be incorporated? So the game may become: i) Take your aim; the muzzle becomes steady after maybe 2 seconds. ii) If the enemy pops up his head, stop the breath gauge to have a good shot. iii) If you can't get the enemy in a few minutes, leave the iron sight view and take some rest behind cover. Then go back to i). So, to me the wobble in the BiA series is not totally unrealistic and is a well-balanced design between realism and gameplay.

However, I do agree that no-weapon-wobble can be activated as an option, maybe with some penalties -- say there would be no extra unlocked, or you cannot play the story but just single-player skirmishes, etc.

Then the prone issue. Personally I'm not particularly for or against adding the prone feature, but just remember if we can prone, so can the enemy. And while we may not see Germans crawling in high grass, they will surely see us doing the same unless AI visual recognition is implemented, which is very demanding on system resource. So being able to prone doesn't necessarily make the game easier.

As for the power of bullets, my personal observation is that a Kar98 shot in the head or the torso can take down an enemy. Other rifles take at least two, even if you shoot them in the head. I guess this is because of game balance -- as a suppression tool the Kar98 is inferior to the M1 Garand, so it is compensated in terms of accuracy and power. Otherwise the German fire team in skirmishes and MP maps would be much less menacing compared with American ones. For SMG's three or more shots are required to kill a soldier. And yes, I totally agree that at close range even a pistol shot in the head would be lethal, and let's just hope that the game engine of Bia:HH would take this into consideration.

For those who by no means can come to terms with the BiA series because of the reasons above, I would recommend another game: Operation Flashpoint. It is certainly different from the BiA series, but unlike typical run-and-gun games too. Here are the details: The weapons do not sway and have little recoil. You can prone. A shot in the head means instant death, even a long distance shot (I heard that a Bizon shot in the head doesn't kill a guy 10 feet away, but haven't personally seen it). Wounds in arms reduce aiming accuracy (which means your weapon sways again, oops), and in legs make you unable to stand up (which means prone becomes the only option, oops).

Just my two cents, and hope somebody can share tactics regarding those skirmish missions. Thanks!

Everybody have a nice day.

i liked the Kar98k in BIA:EIB skirmish maps. To me just get a clear shot of the enemy and fire away.
In the Three Patrol Action I hid my squad and I went to the rear of the halftrack and I lobbed a grenade. It works.
About the Squad AI in the game. It pisses me off when they get killed but when i compare it to the (supposedly)squad AI of other WWII FPS games(*cough*MOH,COD*cough*) its better than an infinite number of guys getting killed without really making progress. In COD2 for example, in Bergstein I could easily make run for it from the house to cover if there are at least one guy supressing the MG42 in the second floor of the house across. I mean, goddamn, i'm a corporal and i dont have a fireteam to command? Now thats dumbed-down research.

"There's no way we're getting this out"

hello

i am playing the brothers in arms road to hill 30, and i am trying to get to the authentic level. i have completed everything on easy, normal and dificult apart from the carentan difficult level. its really difficult i keep dying or my men do. they germans have great shots when we dont.

anyway thats not my main problem. i dont know how to play multiplayer. i have tried to play it on ubi.com but when i log in on the game and enter my cdkey it just says that there must me a systems error or something.

i tried it on lan player too but i think you need an extra controller or joystick to play that and i dont have one. i really want to play the multiplayer games they look quite good.
I]can you help me[/I]