Company of Heroes 3

[raydude]

Company of Heroes 3 Cinematic Trailer and Gameplay trailer dropped today. I am cautiously optimistic. Oh hell, I'm actually really excited. Looks like they have a dynamic campaign and from the gameplay trailer it looks like they're going back to the slower pacing in COH.

Here's hoping they learned their lesson about micro-DLCs in COH2 and dropped all that as well.

Also noticed the teaser at the end of the cinematic trailer. North Africa! Hoping to see some Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps. Maybe get the US in Tunisia as a DLC?

[Lordnine]

I'm hopeful as well but in my opinion both CoH2 and DoW3 were pretty big failures so I worry the golden days of Relic might be behind them.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I really wanted to like CoH 2, but it just wasn't the same for me as the original. The insane amount of micro-DLC was the worst for sure.

[Blackhawk]

Huh. I thought I was the only one who preferred 1 over 2.

[Paingod]

The insane amount of micro-DLC was the worst for sure.

Very off-putting. I wanted to like #2 as well but can't remember exactly what put me off. I have vague recollections of being turned off by the needless brutality of the campaign, but maybe that's how shit went down and I just had no stomach for it.

[YellowKing]

I'm ready for a resurgence of old-school RTS games brought up to modern standards. Greatly looking forward to Age of Empires IV as well. I hope both games are good - I really miss RTS gameplay, and even though I've gone back to play the remastered versions, they still feel a bit rough around the edges due to their age.

[Chraolic]

I'm ready for a resurgence of old-school RTS games brought up to modern standards. Greatly looking forward to Age of Empires IV as well. I hope both games are good - I really miss RTS gameplay, and even though I've gone back to play the remastered versions, they still feel a bit rough around the edges due to their age.

I'd have to agree. Particularly the AI in the AoE 1 remaster has not aged well, even compared to Starcraft or Total Annihilation.

[Blackhawk]

Lesse here, give me some Red Alert 4, Starcraft 3, Sins of a Solar Empire 2, Ground Control 3, Warcraft 4, let the new Homeworld not suck.

Then again, there are some 'modern' elements I don't love. Give back free base building, and stop with mechanics that require that the entire game be an endless push, push, push. Not everybody enjoy playing their RTSs aggressively. I always enjoyed perfecting my defense as much or more than my offense. Oh, and stop with the Warcraft III-style skirmish sized armies.

[raydude]

Check out the Tactical Pause feature in COH3. I may end up using this as much as the Strategic Map in COH1. In COH1 I used Strategic Map to get the big picture view of the battle and quickly send my squads to where they're needed. Tactical Pause looks like it can do the same thing, just at the tactical level. No more having to micro my Shermans in real-time to take out Tigers.

[persself]

There's a free alpha for the next couple weeks. Can link to your steam account and download from there.

https://community.companyofheroes.com/c ... es-3/blogs

[raydude]

I tried the pre-alpha and did the first single-player mission in the campaign. Turns out there is no tactical map (where the mini-map becomes full screen and you see all the icons for your troops and any enemy troops in LOS.). I did a quick check of COH2 and looks like they removed the tactical map for single-player but it still exists in multi-player. I don't know if this is the case in COH3.

Frankly, I don't know why they did this. The tactical map was one of the things separating COH from the rest of the RTS pack. It was great for finding where enemy sniper, mortar, or anti-tank fire was coming from because it would show those enemy icons on the map. In COH3 the enemy snipers were not showing up on the mini-map at all, so I had to hunt for them by moving the screen all over the place. This is problematic since in the Company of Heroes games they have units (sniper, mortar, anti-tank) whose ranges extend beyond the player's screen.

Mortars seem pretty effective at killing squads but I did not see any effect of my HMGs pinning down enemy units. I noticed enemy HMGs were pretty good at pinning down my squads though. Enemy squads are quite squishy when caught out in the open. Enemy armored vehicles do a pretty good job of retreating when confronted by anti-armor weapons, except for the counter-attack when they appeared to go on a banzai charge.

Overall it's pretty good so far. There are some bits that I like and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[raydude]

So I fired up COH2 and played the intro to the Ardennes campaign to see how they implemented the dynamic map there. I didn't get beyond the tutorial mission before quitting. The squads in COH2 die much too fast to do any meaningful maneuvering. COH3 has definitely dialed down the lethality.

[Hrothgar]

So this launched, in case you haven't seen the big banners all over Steam. I grabbed a copy with my Humble store discount. I just ran through the tutorial mission mainly to see if it would run on my older rig. It ran pretty well even if the default graphic choices weren't very high. I don't know if I'll be playing this right away. I hope to be getting a new rig this spring, but I've thought that in the past and it hasn't worked out. So it was nice to see that it ran and played well.

Anyone else giving it a try?

[Cylus Maxii]

Did you like it? I don't know if its my jam, but have several friends that might like to play it and that would add to the fun.

[Hrothgar]

My initial impressions are good. I've only played the tutorial and the first Africa mission. I'm pretty rusty (read bad). Infantry is pretty squishy in the open but much better in cover. Mortars and grenades can neutralize cover. Armor feels appropriately powerful. The flamethrower panzer made it a real bad day to be infantry. Facing and firing arcs are very important. Aid stations can turn on auto reinforce which combined with the retreat button can keep your infantry at full power. Buildings seemed a little easy for armor to destroy as cover, but I admit no expertise in how traditional north African buildings hold up to tank rounds. In short, it's tight; it's fun. I haven't played enough to render a real verdict.

[Blackhawk]

(I still need to go and play #2.)

[Isgrimnur]

(I still need to go and play #2.)

[Hyena]

The first one was one of my favorite games at the time. I loved the facing, high ground, and the rock/paper/scissors aspects of the units. I played a little of the second one, but there seemed to be just too many changes and I remember I didn't get too far. Might wait a bit for the reviews on the 3rd one.

**Side note, every time I see someone abbreviate it is CoH, I can't help but think "Oh, I love City of Heroes!"

[Blackhawk]

**Side note, every time I see someone abbreviate it is CoH, I can't help but think "Oh, I love City of Heroes!"

And I keep wondering why everyone keeps talking about Gears of War (GoW.)

[Lordnine]

Aid stations can turn on auto reinforce which combined with the retreat button can keep your infantry at full power.

Well, that restored my interest. For some baffling reason, Dawn of War 3 removed both the option for auto reinforcing and the retreat button. Happy to see they may have corrected course a bit.

[naednek]

Relic is now an independent studio
https://x.com/relicgames/status/1773244 ... ustomer.io

[raydude]

Just wanted to chime in here. I loved COH and was MEH on COH2 - even though I bought it. COH2 seemed like it was going in the wrong direction, especially with how fast squads would wither and die and the fact that they took away the large tactical map from COH.

I bought COH3 from the current Steam sale (50% off, or $30) and have been playing the past few days. I've been reading up on their Onyx Shark update and what I saw was enough to make me want to buy in after holding off for so long. Namely, they did a bunch of improvements to the fog of war, vehicle pathing, and some other stuff.

I recall playing the original demo of COH3 (or open beta? I forget) when it came out. I was very disappointed that they still didn't bring back the tactical map. The mini-map is 'ok', but sometimes you just want a larger version of it to see the big picture. It's like Homeworld's 3D strategic view, only in 2D because it's WW2; not space.

I'm happy to say the current version now has the tactical map. See this tactical map guide to see what I mean (starts at 6:44). It's great! I always felt the tactical map was much more useful than a "tactical pause", which is what the game initially came out with. I still feel like the map could be bigger. In COH the map filled the entire screen. Other improvements - they played around with the "time to kill" for the units, so they don't die so quickly and you can actually have some strategy. Improvements to the sound. Other things which I saw in their update list but which I can't recall off the top of my head right now.

I'm working through the single player Italian campaign now. Will try to chime in with some thoughts on that when I'm done.

[Isgrimnur]

COH2 seemed like it was going in the wrong direction, especially with how fast squads would wither and die and the fact that they took away the large tactical map from COH.

Ardennes Assault DLC?

[raydude]

COH2 seemed like it was going in the wrong direction, especially with how fast squads would wither and die and the fact that they took away the large tactical map from COH.

Ardennes Assault DLC?

I'm confused, are you talking about the Rangers DLC, which is a DLC for the Ardennes Assault DLC? And yes, I was also amazed that they would have the chutzpah to have a DLC for a DLC, but apparently the Rangers (in the DLC for the DLC) are a god unit that doesn't wither away and die easily.

Or are you talking about the turn-based strategic map in Ardennes Assault, which is not what I'm talking about at all? I'm talking about this tactical map.

In any case, I'm not ever going back to COH2 after seeing them move into microtransaction hell. I don't want their marketing folks getting the wrong idea that I want anything to do with that.

[Isgrimnur]

Ah, I was off base.