COH3 Campaigns were pretty bad

DAK campaign should have been like opposing front, where their loved ones die and they question the whole morality of what they are doing (Rommel shoots himself in the head after July 20 would've been good, with the Nazis going after his family). Can anyone even remember the story slapped on top of the Africa campaign? If so please tell me the highlights or even one of the characters. Not to mention the CGI was all used up in the launch trailer budget (nice little cheeky bit of false advertising). No one likes cheap barely animated drawings. And once we finally get to Italy how about the same missions on repeat 50 times (with different angels of the same maps). The actual set piece missions were pretty good; I wish they focused on a solid linear campaign.

Coh1>Coh2>Coh3 Campaigns

Man, I really didn't like the CoH 2 campaign but somehow CoH 3s are worse.

RTS campaigns are never good and they never really have been. Most of the time it's either a boring slog with the enemy given some sort of random artificial advantage or it's an annoying mission that has you controlling a handful of units in a way that generally breaks most of the features that make you want to play an RTS game in the first place.

I truly don't understand the people for whom the campaign is genuinely enjoyable.

RTS campaigns are never good and they never really have been. Most of the time it's either a boring slog with the enemy given some sort of random artificial advantage or it's an annoying mission that has you controlling a handful of units in a way that generally breaks most of the features that make you want to play an RTS game in the first place.

I truly don't understand the people for whom the campaign is genuinely enjoyable.

Say it's Starcraft 2 or World in Conflict. Great stories, interesting gameplay and cutscenes.
For me, the single player part is equivalent to the multiplayer in importance. I can't remember how many times I've replayed CoH1, SK2 or WiC it's like rewatching one of my favorite movies.

When I saw that the CoH3 campaign would be a dynamic map, even then I realized that it would be a complete failure. Beta clearly showed this - it's a boring set of skirmish.

It’s just that Relic apparently doesn’t have a competent script writer. CoH1 was great, and it was so because it was based on great movies like: Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, A Bridge Too Far. Right now Relic is not competent and the best move for them was to make a remake of CoH1 (the US they already copied their first part). On a new engine and adding more events to the campaign. They fucking took Italy and didn't make Italy, neither as a playable faction nor as a campaign.

RTS campaigns are never good and they never really have been. Most of the time it's either a boring slog with the enemy given some sort of random artificial advantage or it's an annoying mission that has you controlling a handful of units in a way that generally breaks most of the features that make you want to play an RTS game in the first place.

I truly don't understand the people for whom the campaign is genuinely enjoyable.

Sounds like CoH 3 cope to me

The CoH 1 campaigns were awesome

Sounds like CoH 3 cope to me

The CoH 1 campaigns were awesome

if someone is coh3 coping, it certainly isnt vermillion hawk

RTS campaigns are never good and they never really have been. Most of the time it's either a boring slog with the enemy given some sort of random artificial advantage or it's an annoying mission that has you controlling a handful of units in a way that generally breaks most of the features that make you want to play an RTS game in the first place.

I truly don't understand the people for whom the campaign is genuinely enjoyable.

CoH3's campaign is just rehashed skirmish with some unique missions. Honostly, I only have 4 hours of gameplay in Coh3 because the campaign was boring.

Most RTS I would say have a good campaign that at least has more thoughtful mission design than just skirmish.
Age of Empires Series to include AoE 4
Command and Conquer Series. Even CnC4 had a more thoughtful campaign than CoH3
Supreme Commander
Starcraft and Warcraft

The skirmish mode could be better if they actually improve their AI. If Age of Empire's 2 AI could heard deer, then CoH3 AI can atleast find cover reasonably.

RTS campaigns are never good and they never really have been

SC1,2
WC3
DoW2
Gray Goo
Ancestrs Legacy
Spellforce 3
And from the depths of time, Original War.

These couple had pretty good campaigns, some better gameplay, some better story, but overall memorable and enjoyable.

Other then that, yeah, RTS campaigns were pretty poor.

Nothing good ever came out of C&C series in that regard.

RTS campaigns are never good and they never really have been.

Yeah, no.... There have been some pretty great ones over the years. Particularly enjoyed Starcraft, DOW 2 and the Command and Conquer ones back in the day, it's all just a matter of taste though i suppose. Once i really dig into skirmish and multiplayer i quickly run out of patience for campaign missions unless they are really exceptional.

EDIT: Warcraft 3 would be on the list for me as well, had great fun. Back when Blizzard was Blizzard.

The COH 1 campaign and its subsequent expansions were great, granted it was about 10 years ago so i'm sure it hasn't aged particularly well, but I found myself actually caring about some of the characters. The COH 2 campaign sucked though and the most recent one for COH 3 was even worse.

I take issue with people saying the Starcraft/Warcraft campaigns are good when really they're incredibly generic and the thing that most people praise about them is the story - this, I suppose, is a matter of taste but if I REALLY wanted a good story, I wouldn't be playing an RTS game, and I certainly wouldn't be playing one written by a bunch of morons smashing together every terrible trope in the generic-fiction playbook. "Story-driven RTS" is a recipe for disaster, because the strength of the medium, to me, is not in a linear narrative.

But again, you can chalk it up to taste. Some people have awful taste, as evidenced by the fact that Company of Heroes 3 still has people playing it.

But again, you can chalk it up to taste. Some people have awful taste, as evidenced by the fact that Company of Heroes 3 still has people playing it.

You are consistent, I have to respect that.

Yeah. Thinking about it with my nostalga goggles off, the formula hasn't really changed much between now and then has it. I wonder if I would enjoy those campaigns quite as much now as I did back then... It does seem to be a very tough genre to evolve when it comes to campaigns and single player.

You never know, maybe the guys at Blackbird will be able to surprise us.

Campaigns in RTS are kinda supposed to be like a one big long tutorial before you jump into a multiplayer\skirmish, wraped in a interesting\enjoyable story.

At least this is what makes campaigns in RTSes good.

Other way around would be just throwing player against pre-spawn enemies with objectives and call it a day. This is what pretty much CoH3 does, with both Allies\Axis campaigns.

Italian campaign is just a tedious mess, cheesing AI in "random" battles on the same maps with retarded win conditions. And maps with missions are just brainless killing and pushing the AI towards the objective, its even impossible to lose in like 90% of them. I can only imagine what it feels like for a new player to play it, playing up to 3 skirmishes with conditions like "capture sectors around enemy base". Even ToW in CoH2 was more enjoyable, because at least it was somewhat challenging.

African campaign is just a poor attempt to please people who wanted old fashion style SP and excuse to say that the game has 2 campaigns. In reality its just bunch of the maps, where you have to kill pre-spawned enemy, with missions barely taking 10 mins to complete.

Campaigns in RTS are kinda supposed to be like a one big long tutorial before you jump into a multiplayer\skirmish, wraped in a interesting\enjoyable story.

At least this is what makes campaigns in RTSes good.

Other way around would be just throwing player against pre-spawn enemies with objectives and call it a day. This is what pretty much CoH3 does, with both Allies\Axis campaigns.

Italian campaign is just a tedious mess, cheesing AI in "random" battles on the same maps with retarded win conditions. And maps with missions are just brainless killing and pushing the AI towards the objective, its even impossible to lose in like 90% of them. I can only imagine what it feels like for a new player to play it, playing up to 3 skirmishes with conditions like "capture sectors around enemy base". Even ToW in CoH2 was more enjoyable, because at least it was somewhat challenging.

African campaign is just a poor attempt to please people who wanted old fashion style SP and excuse to say that the game has 2 campaigns. In reality its just bunch of the maps, where you have to kill pre-spawned enemy, with missions barely taking 10 mins to complete.

+6

CoH3's campaign is just rehashed skirmish with some unique missions. Honostly, I only have 4 hours of gameplay in Coh3 because the campaign was boring.

Most RTS I would say have a good campaign that at least has more thoughtful mission design than just skirmish.
Age of Empires Series to include AoE 4
Command and Conquer Series. Even CnC4 had a more thoughtful campaign than CoH3
Supreme Commander
Starcraft and Warcraft

The skirmish mode could be better if they actually improve their AI. If Age of Empire's 2 AI could heard deer, then CoH3 AI can atleast find cover reasonably.

It feels like the campaigns of most RTS's have been trending downhill over time. Before the ones that you mentioned, RTS's like Total Annihilation and MechCommander had excellent campaigns. The individual battles could easily be lost if you screwed up. Total Annihilation even hired James Earl Jones (the original voice of Darth Vader) to narrate their campaign. They were fun and involved.

COH1 had a decent campaign. The original COH2 campaigns weren't great but Ardennes Assault was at least interesting. However, the COH3 Italy campaign is insultingly easy, yet at the same time bugged. On the missions where you "defend" strongpoints, it's easy to just charge to the spawn point and kill everything as it leaves the base sector. When you're attacking strong points, you can typically call in off-maps to destroy them and not really even play. On all of the other maps, you can spam Rifles and M8's to easy victory.

Nothing good ever came out of C&C series in that regard.

Wtf bro have you even played Generals & Zero Hour

Wtf bro have you even played Generals & Zero Hour

I've played Generals, but I'm too geriatric to remember more then putting bunkers on chinese super tanks.

I've played Generals, but I'm too geriatric to remember more then putting bunkers on chinese super tanks.

It was back when you could use suicide bombers with funny voicelines in an RTS and nobody made a fuss, the good old days!

CoH2's Soviet campaign was pretty bad, I think we can all agree on that.

But CoH3's campaigns had, and perhaps still have, the potential to be great if other routes were taken in terms of decision making for them.

In my own personal opinion the DAK campaign missions themselves weren't bad, they were pretty standard but short as was the whole 7 mission "Operation". However the whole problem with them was the disconnected main story, you were playing as the Germans but the whole thing was told from the perspective of a civilian who fought, unwillingly from what I remember, with the British against you and we didn't really get to learn a lot about the overall war effort. What could have been done here differently was for them to have taken the original CoH's approach towards the German campaigns and told a soldier's story of tragedy and sacrifice in service to their Fatherland and commentary could have been made similar to the Tiger Ace campaign at the end towards how Rommel was mistreated later in his career which ultimately ended his life. Speaking of which, Africa could have served as an excellent side-story to the main Tiger Ace one about a different crew or maybe one of the original crew members before they were transferred over to the Eastern Front or Normandy.

As far as the Italian theater goes, I think it was too boxed in and limited with forced humor in the form of the bickering generals in place of the more serious and real tone of the other campaigns. It's really upgraded from CoH2's Ardennes Assault but something more akin to Total War's open ended and free dynamic campaign would have been preferable where you could even fight as Germany for example, or with just an Italian partisan force, or the Italian Army itself for instance, plus the Canadians played a pretty big part in real life but there's little to no mention of them from what I noticed. Overall like I said with a few improvements here and there I think that it would have probably been the biggest and longest most fun campaign in the entire series.

However all in all the original game's campaigns still remain the best and I continue to recommend them to everybody I know as probably some of the best story telling in RTS history, everything just clicked so well together from the dialog to the cutscenes, gameplay and music.