Company of Heroes 3 German Doctrine review

German troops are heavily affected by its commanders, down to almost every units.
There might be something that I missed, please feel free to add!

German faction has 3 Commanders/Doctrines so far: Spec Ops, Mechanized and Fortifications. In Pre-Alpha stage all commanders are already unlocked at game start. We dont know if we need to pay resources to unlock them.

In Spec ops, Grenadiers have incendiary grenades, can cap faster when vet 1, Pioneers can booby trap points, Light Jaeger and Panzergrens can camouflaged when in cover, can build Goliath in HQ, 221 can be upgraded to 223 radio car(detect nearby units in maps). 251 can camouflaged when remains still.

In Mechanized, Grenadiers have M24 grenades, can have stats buff when fight near 251 or 221. Pioneers can salvage wrecks to gain fuels, Light Jaegers can have stats buff when fight near Marder III and Panzergrens near Stug III. 221 can lay Riegel mines(AT mine). 251 can be upgraded to med car to give nearby infantry heal.

In Fortification, Grenadiers have rifle grenades, all infantry have First aids as Vet ability. Pioneer can restore a destroyed tank into a defensive position. 251 can hull down to increase def. Stosstruppen can use last stand to disable retreat but gain a big buff

Oh，and for Stoßtruppen in Mechanized, it gains buff when near Panzer IV

Fortification Pioneer squad gain one more man.

CoH3 ost new CoH2 sov confirmed!

CoH3 ost new CoH2 sov confirmed!

Well, it kind of shocked me when I saw Grenadier has Merge troop ability lol

do these commander have any late game abilities?

That's weird to see so many stock infantry options for Wehrmacht, and honestly this is one of the cases where "less is more" truly applies.
I'm also surprised by JLI and Panzergrenadiers having 5 G43 or STG as opposed to 3 or 4, and Grenadiers being able to upgrade to squads with fewer models.
Logically speaking, Stoßtrupp would be in conflict with JLI/Panzergrens as role of late game infantry.
I hope this design can be discussed and reconsidered when the Wehrmacht is made avaiable for testing

That's weird to see so many stock infantry options for Wehrmacht, and honestly this is one of the cases where "less is more" truly applies.
I'm also surprised by JLI and Panzergrenadiers having 5 G43 or STG as opposed to 3 or 4, and Grenadiers being able to upgrade to squads with fewer models.
Logically speaking, Stoßtrupp would be in conflict with JLI/Panzergrens as role of late game infantry.
I hope this design can be discussed and reconsidered when the Wehrmacht is made avaiable for testing

I'm expecting that you'll choose one or two of those infantry options somehow, with the rest not being available for that particular game.

I'm expecting that you'll choose one or two of those infantry options somehow, with the rest not being available for that particular game.

That's true for Panzergrens vs JLI sure, but not Panzergrens vs Stosstruppen and JLI vs Stosstruppen
That makes for 3 stock infantry units you'll have to choose from.
That doesn't count doctrinal infantry, pioneers with flamethrower,..

That's weird to see so many stock infantry options for Wehrmacht, and honestly this is one of the cases where "less is more" truly applies.
I'm also surprised by JLI and Panzergrenadiers having 5 G43 or STG as opposed to 3 or 4, and Grenadiers being able to upgrade to squads with fewer models.
Logically speaking, Stoßtrupp would be in conflict with JLI/Panzergrens as role of late game infantry.
I hope this design can be discussed and reconsidered when the Wehrmacht is made avaiable for testing

less is more...why exactly? why would you want to remove stock options. I get that relic has an incentive to do so because they sell commanders but the players really don't.

less is more...why exactly? why would you want to remove stock options. I get that relic has an incentive to do so because they sell commanders but the players really don't.

The players are incentivized to choose the most effective options, this is true in coh2 (think of consripts vs penals) and will be true even in coh3, which is why non doctrinal elite 5 men g43 squad and 4 men mg squad will not necessarily create variety but just overlapping units being switched around according to the meta

The players are incentivized to choose the most effective options, this is true in coh2 (think of consripts vs penals) and will be true even in coh3, which is why non doctrinal elite 5 men g43 squad and 4 men mg squad will not necessarily create variety but just overlapping units being switched around according to the meta

So your argument is don't have 2 stock units that overlap because one will become meta? And if we only have 1 unit that will be better because that one unit isn't just meta it's literally the only option? Makes no sense.

Edit: Oh and penals are fine btw. They have their role.

So your argument is don't have 2 stock units that overlap because one will become meta?

Yes? How is that not a good argument? What's the point of 2 different units doing the same exact thing? You will see either one or the other

Yes? How is that not a good argument? What's the point of 2 different units doing the same exact thing? You will see either one or the other

1. They don't have the exact same role.

2. What's wrong with having to choose between two units with similar roles? We will see either one or another? Great, it's called variety.

1. They don't have the exact same role.

2. What's wrong with having to choose between two units with similar roles? We will see either one or another? Great, it's called variety.

It's not variety, choosing between Panzergrenadiers or Jeager Light Infantry is variety because they are different tools for different purposes. More equal tools with the same purpose doesn't equal more choice unless you factor in a careless player that isn't interested in picking the best of the two tools

As simplistic and restrictive as they were, the doctrines in COH 2 worked in creating variety because they locked you out of other meaningful options. You can't for example pick Osttruppen and get a Tiger, so it's an actual tradeoff. But if Osttruppen were always avaiable, then now everyone would be using them whenever they are meta, just to drop them after the nerf. So paradoxically "less is more"

It's not variety, choosing between Panzergrenadiers or Jeager Light Infantry is variety because they are different tools for different purposes. More equal tools with the same purpose doesn't equal more choice unless you factor in a careless player that isn't interested in picking the best of the two tools

that is assuming that they have the exact same role, there can be nuanced differences between stock units that make one or the other the right choice depending on the situation or playstyle. You also have to account for tech accessability.

Some (purely exemplary) theorycrafting to make this clear: If you skip T3 to go T4 you get punished for that by not having a close range elite infantry early on but get rewarded with an even stronger elite close range infantry once you get T4. What's wrong with that? That's interesting faction design. In CoH2 there is one unit of each kind in the entire tech with zero overlap. Because of this there are very few ways to play CoH2 EVEN IN THEORY and ofc this number is reduced even further in practice.

That's weird to see so many stock infantry options for Wehrmacht, and honestly this is one of the cases where "less is more" truly applies.

I love it.

Grens - Standard inf, meat shield
Jäger - Ranged infantry
PGrens - Assault infantry
Stoßtrupp - Lategame Elite infantry

This has an infantry unit for every playstyle and little redundancies. I especially like that you can choose between ranged (Jäger) and close performance (PGren) in the mid tiers.

What I would really like to see is a Panzer III. It would fit the timephrame with the Ausf. L, M or N.

I love it.

Grens - Standard inf, meat shield
Jäger - Ranged infantry
PGrens - Assault infantry
Stoßtrupp - Lategame Elite infantry

This is basically how it seemed to me... Though I was under the impression that Jaeger Lights had scoped G43s.

This turned out not to be the case. They're armed with unscoped G43s and allegedly they are supposed to have an MG15 upgrade (though this isnt in the game), so they seem to fit a vaguely similar role to the Stoßtrupp, just presumably being worse at it.

They seem like a core feature of the faction and you probably pick one before teching to something. Also we can see a commanders costs 100 manpower and 25 fuel to unlock (hover over it).
They seem in a way like commanders yet are built in and different then whatever battlegroups end up being. Really cool stuff overall.

CoH3 ost new CoH2 sov confirmed!

More like a weird amalgamation of PE, OKW but with more models. I wish the gren promotion existed in coh2 for OKW.

So in the game file thing, thread the guy who made a list made I saw a few more than that, specifically
dev_unlock_battlegroup_breakthrough_ger
dev_unlock_battlegroup_coastal_ger
dev_unlock_battlegroup_defense_ger
dev_unlock_battlegroup_mechanized_ger
dev_unlock_battlegroup_mountain_ger
dev_unlock_battlegroup_luftwaffe_ger

So mountain is probably the Italian focused on (alongside naval prob) with mountaineers being some of the most competent land forces for italians. Atm there's 5 for each allied faction.

Im hoping we get to see the p3 like butcher said, it was the workhorse of the german army and is severely underrepresented (Atleats IT HAS TO BE in the desert corps)