I enjoyed the first game, but the lack of proper support beyond on-board artillery and a few helicopters was super disappointing, but they seem to be fixing that this time around, so I've been keeping an eye on it.
It seems a lot better this time around I think.
One of my biggest complaints about the first game was how slow-paced it was. It seemed that once sides both became entrenched it was very difficult to do anything for the rest of the mission. The addition of planes has definitely mixed up the formula quite a bit, by giving you a proper answer to helicopters (extremely powerful in the first one), and even a good answer to anti-air defense (A-10s just don't give a shi- about your puny SAMs). In other words you've got a lot more ways to break stalemates than before, which is awesome.
Support in this game seems a lot more useful than before. Aircraft themselves are more of a support than anything. Extremely expensive to put into your deck, and to bring out onto the field, they are fragile, and can only stay in combat for a moment before they run out of fuel. They are typically used to take out an important high-priority target, to escort helicopters (carrying infantry), or to clear the skies over a battle. Taking out the enemy's air recon is also a pretty important job as well. Even with how expensive and fragile they are, they can completely change the outcome of the game.
The nice thing about them is that they visit an off-site base, so they are effectively the only unit in the game which you don't have to manually refuel, repair, or re-arm. This makes their uses unlimited, as long as you keep them alive until they leave the battlefield. However, if they take significant damage, it may take several minutes to repair.
The infantry mechanics have gotten an overhaul, making them significantly better. Unlike before, they can actually occupy buildings and "squares" of cities, entrenching themselves into a certain area, and making it harder than heck to get them out. They are unbelievably fragile while moving across open ground, but once you fortify an area such as a forest or a building, they basically become super-weapons that the enemy has to spend far more resources to dispatch than you did to deploy.
As I said in my original post, you can pick a deck based on Nationality, which gives you certain bonuses, depending on how strong that nation's selection is. I faced a Canadian player once who used a Canadian-only deck (I was using a Russian deck.). Once I took out all his air defense (with the Russian equivalent to the A-10s), he complained that he was sad the Canadian deck sucked so much, and wished they had more options.
Of course, upon hearing this, I took it as a challenge to succeed with a Canadian Nationality deck. On the website it says that the Canadian Force has the fastest troop transport in the game, and powerful anti-tank weapons, making them a very defensive race. Looking through their limited selection I was a bit surprised, and I could see why the canuck was complaining. Their tanks were lacking (to say the least), they had absolutely no surface-to-air vehicles (that I could find), they had no Helicopters at all (WTF), and a very limited selection of aircraft. To make matters worse, their infantry were pretty outdated compared to many of the more technologically advanced countries, and had no long-range anti-tank weaponry. In other words, if you want to use Canadian infantry, you have to be right up in the enemy's face.
Putting together a deck for the Canadians was very difficult. I typically rely on heavy tanks in almost every scenario, but that was definitely out. I like to keep powerful anti-aircraft vehicles in the backline in case of an aircraft or helicopter or attack...that was definitely out too. I usually bring long-range Delta Squadrons of soldiers into the battle and put them in an aggressive treeline to pick up tanks and convoys coming along the roads. But all the Canadians have are short-ranged RPGs, as I mentioned before.
So needless to say, using this deck required completely changing my playstyle into something far more...unorthodox. In fact, you could say the Canadian deck is made up almost EXCLUSIVELY of support units. Somehow I've made it work though. The website is right, their troop transports are damn fast. At the beginning of the battle I'll rush troop transports full of cheap Canadian soldiers into major cities over chokepoints I need to defend. Once I've established my troop forces near the frontlines, I'll put long-range anti-tank vehicles in the backline, as well as some cheap mortar artillery as well. Because infantry in this game are so low-maintanence, I can completely remove my Forward Operating Base from deployment, effectively giving me 100 more deployment points to work with.
Once I establish a nice frontline defense, I fly some more infantry in using helicopters and try to hit their vulnerable backlines with sneak attacks. I'll fly the helicopters near buildings bordering roads I know the enemy uses often, drop my soldiers off, then evacuate the helis. When the enemy brings in their next wave of forces, boy are they in for one hell of a surprise. And good luck trying to dislodge those infantry once they're in place. Often, the enemy will bring in helicopters (this is one of the best counters to infantry as they can brutally and continually suppress them at a nice distance using large salvos of unguidied rockets and a steady stream of machine gun fire), so I'll counter those with F-18s or CF-116 Freedom Fighters (or both at once). This puts the enemy in quite a pickle.
Anyway, the point of that whole spiel was just to show that the game seems to have evolved a lot more options and strategies than before with the additional of several new mechanics. Making a deck without SAMs or Helicopters in the last game would have been unthinkable, but it's very possible in this game if you use it right.
Of course, most decks you will see will be very balanced decks, with a good mixture of everything. I've seen many people complaining about the power of Russian tanks. It's true, they are very powerful, but they're also expensive. If you prepare for them in advance you can minimize most of their effectiveness during an assault.
