Seeing as Relic has yet to extract their cranium from their anus, I think it's high time to consider other games to occupy one's own time with, at least until they do.
As the title of the thread suggests, my choice is probably going to be MoW 2.
Reasons?
1.) The new "Regiments" system.
An idea introduced by the RobZ Realism mod for AS2, but in MoW2 it's much more fleshed out and interesting.
The Regiments system takes my biggest pet peeve about prior entries to MoW (the massive amount of APM required to play at even a below average proficiency in multiplayer), and turns it into a strength. As you probably know, Men of War allows players to take "Direct Control" of any unit they can field. This leads to a bit of a problem where the player who doesn't immediately start microing their tank pretty much always loses. If you thought CoH was micro heavy, go try to play men of war: assault squad 2 in a public lobby. It's very difficult to both pay attention to battles, plan, AND make sure your tank is actually firing somewhere useful and not at the turret or some stupid sh@#...
The Regiments system deals with this issue by letting each player specialize in a certain aspect of the game, as well as giving them a smaller overall army to control. It also encourages teamwork and allows for larger sized games without being insanely taxing on resources.
More in depth here (since I know I can be a bit verbose ):
2.) Units are more responsive than before
I've had a remarkably frustration-free experience commanding infantry in Men of War 2. There is a reasonably strong lock-on effect to AT grenades now, but not to the extent of CoH 2; they can be outran if the tank is backing up fast enough.
Additionally, infantry AT weaponry is a lot less finicky and actually does what you tell it to do. Bazookas and Panzershrecks are very powerful, though limited to Infantry Regiments.
Honestly, I have always gotten pissed off in MoW PvP, but for the first time, I actually had fun. That's really big for this franchise.
3.) Stealth and FOW changes
For normal infantry, stealth remains unchanged. You basically crawl around and hope nobody sees you. Certain elite units, though, are able to visualize the detection radius around enemy troops, allowing you to remove the guesswork and sneak into enemy lines unmolested (that is, assuming that your enemy doesn't have spotters of their own hidden away somewhere. You can only visualize the detection radius of enemies you can see!)
In the same vein, FOW reveal mechanics are now shown to the player. Certain units reveal themselves while firing at the enemy, such as self-propelled howitzers and AA guns. You are now told when you are about to reveal yourself/ are revealed to the enemy so that you can act accordingly.
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I had a lot of fun in the playtest, but after being burned by CoH 3 so recently, I wouldn't feel right advocating for buying it on release. I would tell you to watch out for it, though, as it's seeming like a good competitor to CoH 3.
I forgot to mention the new Echelon and Logistics timer system.
QRD - MoW 2 replaces the Manpower system of the previous entries with the Logistics Timer and Echelons. Each player starts with 2 Logistics, which allows them to spawn in 2 units at one time. After you spawn a unit, you use up one Logistics. You will regain it in one minute, unless your Regiment has a bonus/malus to the Logistics Timer upon spawning a unit.
Echelons are groups of units that are unlocked through the course of the game. The first echelon is available immediately. The second unlocks some time later, and the third some time after that. You're free to spawn in all units from the Echelon that you can, so long as you have a free Logistics token, and your CP (popcap) has enough room to allow for it.
PPS - I also forgot to mention the changes to the Engineering system. In previous titles you used engineers that would cost CP and you would have to manually control. In MoW 2, you simply mark where you want to fortify, place tank traps, and place mines, and if you have engineers/ combat engineers in your loadout, they will do it autonomously and do not cost CP or Logistics tokens to field. The key phrase being IF you have them in your loadout, as not every Regiment has access to engineers.
Just kidding though, thanks for the break down. I've had MoWII on my watchlist as well, but unfortunately did not find the time for the playtest except for one of the campaign missions - which was okay.
The interface is much cleaner and more usable than in MoWAS2. But even back then I only played bot matches. I somehow never could get along with how this game works, having to click everything down to potentially even inventory management of single soldiers while I actually have to constantly reposition units and control shots directly. I love the detail to it, and I absolutely loved how this game manages to tell small stories with gameplay alone - trying to save your tank crew after their tank got damaged and could not move, starting an operation to gain control over that hill that the tank is now lying on and repairing it under fire, or just trying to get the crew back to a safe place - really cool memories, something that even CoH can't recreate. I am still one of the people that would love a slightly dumbed down version of MoW. The micro management distracted me too much from the actual game play. The small mission I played was more fluent in the overall gameplay, but unfortunately not enough to convince me that my gripes with the general game flow will be solved. Maybe I'll get another chance if there is a next test, let's see. I'll probably pick it up at some time for a couple of Euros, but 90% sure not for release.
Currently, I've come back to the never-aging Age of Empires 2 and Beyond all Reason. The latter one is a game that is being developed by some talented people from the community with no game dev studio behind it. It's a passion project through and through, the devs even play the game at a very good level and you feel it every second in the game. The sci fi stuff is actually not my type of game, but I fell in love nevertheless.
Apart from that, I've also played a couple of matches of Wargame recently while having an eye on both Warno and Broken Arrow. These look promising too, but they are rather modern warfare games.
Thanks for posting this. I really appreciate your objective analysis. If I had posted I would have been banned and it would have been deleted.
First we are talking about a BETA which was testing the multiplayer. Unlike COH3, the BETA is NOT the finished game by any means and only part of the content and features were there.
But here are some key differences between Men of War II and COH3 that I could see:
Direct control of units which is very useful for an accurate HUMMEL or heavy artillery.
No store with outside money or premium currency (don't confuse the MoWII progression system and unit unlocks with a currency store as it is not).
Large roster of pretty much every unit from WW2. Kingtiger, yes. Jagdtiger, yes. Sturmtiger, yes. Hummel, yes, All of the above fielded in one battle, also yes.
There is a Soviet side like in COH2.
Battlegroups are called battalions and there were at least FIFTEEN (15) per side with their units customisable like a deck of cards. This is versus 3 in COH3 per side with zero customisation or ability to change individual units.
Matchmatching takes about 30 seconds to a few minutes at most for German side, and in the full release will probably be instantaneous.
Doctrinal artillery and lots of artillery units and batallions. For example you can build multiple field howtizers at the same time (like in COH2), multiple Wespe, Hummel etc. And yes, they cover the whole map. They will annihilate infantry blobs and one shot medium and lighter vehicles, including other artillery or open top SPGs.
Interesting camouflage and spotting system allowing for artillery duels at long range.
Graphics looks great at 4k and are gritty and units do not look cartoonish. Map variety was something like 7 at beta.
Team games can be 5v5.
Can reconnect to game if disconnected.
Built in ranking and progression system.
Battles can be very close without knowing a clear winner until the very end. It's possible to come back late game after a very long slog and win by a slight margin. No annoying 12 minute style battles or tickets counting down.
There is no annoying upgrades or endless UI sub menus.
Interesting data for equipment and units when hovering pointer. It shows a technical data table with all kinds of info on the equipment. Quite educational.
Airstrikes work as they should with real planes flying from an air base with no warning or magical flares and a delay.
Tanks vs tank combat and versus infantry is far more realistic than COH3 and same with the weapon ranges.
I could see the "balance" whining coming a mile away from the "competitive" YouTube streamers. Yes, in reality heavy late war German tanks and TDs such as Jagdtiger, Sturmtiger etc., would one shot allied tanks. And a medium to heavy German tank will also one shot a lighter allied vehicle. This is just reality. The vehicles still have health bars though and individual components can be damaged.
I had several very satisfying and long battles in MoWII including a very long and close battle where I was able to encircle the enemy forces on a huge map while suppressing them with heavy artillery. This isn't your mickey mouse donald duck 12 min battle console port game. I've never had a game end before 30 min because someone left.
Infantry can be effective if used tactically, but will get destroyed at range out in open by almost any vehicle with an mg. I don't mean suppressed or pinned down. I mean annihilated in groups at longer range. Shells do the same thing from tanks or artillery.
Stats can be turned off so no public tracking by third party sites. Surprised no one filed a complaint against COH3 yet via GDPR.
Most importantly, MoW II is an improvement over the older games adding new features and innovation and is not available on consoles. It's a PC gamer's strategy game for those looking for historical units and more realistic grand WW2 battles.
That's another thing I forgot to mention that's huge: Reconnect. Imagine reconnect in an RTS, right? Absolutely mind boggling. Also, there's a spectator mode. Sadly there's no way to turn the FOW off, but you can spectate both teams.
I am still one of the people that would love a slightly dumbed down version of MoW. The micro management distracted me too much from the actual game play. The small mission I played was more fluent in the overall gameplay, but unfortunately not enough to convince me that my gripes with the general game flow will be solved. Maybe I'll get another chance if there is a next test, let's see. I'll probably pick it up at some time for a couple of Euros, but 90% sure not for release.
Absolutely, not on release. I'm on a similar boat with MoW 2 as I was with CoH 3. Both showed a lot of potential to me in the beta. Working on the assumption that from the beta, the game will be worked on and improved all the way up until release, then I believe that the game would be a good game to buy.
Unfortunately in CoH 3's case, Relic had little to no change between beta and release, and while the potential was still there, it was buried in bugs and blobs post-release.
So long as they do keep working on the game, I think this might be the entry in the series you could get behind.
Currently, I've come back to the never-aging Age of Empires 2 and Beyond all Reason.
If you're grand strategy autist and starcraft APM haver, then sure. I personally enjoy the small scale battles, CoH size. MoW is a better fit for that, while still having the ""realism"" aspect.
Men of War Assault Squads -> COH KILLER
Men of War Assault Squads 2 -> COH KILLER
Gates of Hell -> COH KILLER
MOW2 is hot pile of garbage. It was pile of garbage when it was a free2play, it remained garbage when it became MOW2.
Assault Squads 2 was semi-realistic competitive game, with their own metas micro and pro-moves. Gates of Hell went for pretty much almost full realism.
MOW2 went for an RTS approach and all the appeal old MOW had pretty much were removed in favour of tank HP and other garbage.
If you're grand strategy autist and starcraft APM haver, then sure. I personally enjoy the small scale battles, CoH size. MoW is a better fit for that, while still having the ""realism"" aspect.
Eugen games are on the opposite end of the APM requirement spectrum compared to starcraft. They are basically closer to chess than to fast paced RTS lol. But both MoW and Wargame seem to suffer from terrible gameplay flow. They have complex mechanics but they don't have a satisfying gameplay loop like CoH.
MoW 2 and CoH 3 occupy the same space in my mind currently. I always enjoyed the CoH 3 experience throughout the multiplayer beta. I gave them both the benefit of the doubt, and that allows me to see what good can come of the game. CoH 3 has, so far, been a major letdown, but that's entirely due to the developers post-launch fumbling of support of the game.
Men of War 2 is already as of now looking like a serious contender for a CoH 3 alternative. If the devs working on MoW 2 prove they have a brighter fire in their belly than Relic's devs do... That's the final nail in the coffin for CoH 3. I'm sorry. Don't shoot the messenger.
Eugen games are on the opposite end of the APM requirement spectrum compared to starcraft. They are basically closer to chess than to fast paced RTS lol.
I was talking more about Steel Division b/c I've never heard of EUGEN and I didn't find anything looking it up on steam. So much for due diligence...
Anyways,
But both MoW and Wargame seem to suffer from terrible gameplay flow. They have complex mechanics but they don't have a satisfying gameplay loop like CoH.
MoW 2 is trying to adjust the gameplay loop with stuff like the echelon system and logistics. MoW 2 is definitely faster paced overall than its counterparts, and the new addition of the "retreat to reserve" mechanic means that if you have a unit taking up a lot of popcap, then you can take it out of the field temporarily and bring it back later when it's needed.
It really does have some soul, and I'm tired of hearing people who clearly haven't played the game mouth off about it like they have. (Doesn't include you).
Apples and oranges. They were describing how whole process of "simulation" behind tank combat and armor damage was in previous games. In MOW2 its literal hitpoints.
Example here would be like. In older games, if your hit penetrated King Tiger armor, but calibre was shit, you would damage the hull, but you wont state up destroy it, but if you continue shooting at this particular spot, your chances of actually destroying it are increasing.
In MOW2, you shoot a tank and if its a penetration is looses hit points. It not always work like that, there are some one-taps, but its very noticeable on heavier tanks.
MoW 2 and CoH 3 occupy the same space in my mind currently. I always enjoyed the CoH 3 experience throughout the multiplayer beta. I gave them both the benefit of the doubt, and that allows me to see what good can come of the game. CoH 3 has, so far, been a major letdown, but that's entirely due to the developers post-launch fumbling of support of the game.
Just play RobZ Realism mod for MOWAS2 Its laggy AF, but super enjoyable in MP.
But on a serious note, MoWa always had relatively small community. Its not a big title, and fans of older games arent really happy with what MOW2 is doing right now. Devs already fucked up previous F2P game, by their idiotic design, people didn't like it and project died. Now they are remaking it into a proper game, but gameplay is the same pretty much, so if F2P game was a failer, why this one wont fail?
Apples and oranges. They were describing how whole process of "simulation" behind tank combat and armor damage was in previous games. In MOW2 its literal hitpoints.
No, it's legitimately the exact same as old MoW. The "tank healthbar" is simply an "overall average battle readiness" of the tank. There are still modules with health and penetration. Same as Gates of Hell, same as Assault Squad. Try again. I have played MoW 2. There are modules, trust me.
Just play RobZ Realism mod for MOWAS2 Its laggy AF, but super enjoyable in MP.
On the contrary, I've played Assault Squad 2 and I despise the multiplayer experience. There are some gems, but the gameplay is otherwise constant low drone of frustration at units doing what they want, not doing what you tell them to do, and, to be frank, a very clearly dated UI and overall visual presentation.
Gates of Hell fixes the last issue, but falls short of everything before it. Men of War 2 does improve the PvP experience. And that's why I'm excited about it.
But on a serious note, MoWa always had relatively small community. Its not a big title, and fans of older games arent really happy with what MOW2 is doing right now.
Irrelevant. Fans of older MoW games are playing Gates of Hell. There's no reason to try to poach players from it, as it's already a masterpiece of a love letter to old MoW. MoW 2 is closer in gameplay to CoH than AS2. That's why older fans dislike it. My friends who play CoH and were disappointed in 3 enjoyed Men of War 2. That's all I can tell you.
Devs already fucked up previous F2P game, by their idiotic design, people didn't like it and project died. Now they are remaking it into a proper game, but gameplay is the same pretty much, so if F2P game was a failer, why this one wont fail?
You know, I can't really tell you. Honestly, I didn't play Arena, but from my experiences playing Men of War 2, it was a much more cohesive game (compared to the videos I watched of Arena). The audio design was better, the UI was better, and there were new elements to gameplay that Arena apparently did not have.
If I had to put Gates of Hell and MoW 2 on a scale for quality, then Gates of Hell outweighs Men of War 2 by a moderate margin, but MoW 2 is more fun, and the gripes I have with it the devs have actually said they're working on. I say this over and over and over again: After being spoiled on the polished and arcade nature of CoH battles, the janky-ness of MoW's engine ruins PvP for me. I always say: Go to CoH for the PvP, and Men of War for the PvE.
This is the first MoW entry where I feel that that is no longer the case. That counts for a lot to me, because I like to play multiplayer against people, and I don't like to play Conquest all the time.
Also, Men of War 2 is going to have a campaign, so take that for what it's worth. I don't play campaigns in RTS games so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Men of War Assault Squads -> COH KILLER
Men of War Assault Squads 2 -> COH KILLER
Gates of Hell -> COH KILLER
MOW2 is hot pile of garbage. It was pile of garbage when it was a free2play, it remained garbage when it became MOW2.
Assault Squads 2 was semi-realistic competitive game, with their own metas micro and pro-moves. Gates of Hell went for pretty much almost full realism.
MOW2 went for an RTS approach and all the appeal old MOW had pretty much were removed in favour of tank HP and other garbage.
Iron Harvest was cool but didnt lend itself well to PvP
Eugen makes "Wargame", European escalation, airland battle, red dragon, both steel divisions, and their new one coming up is WARNO. I've enjoyed red dragon for what it is, and I definitely wouldn't call it SC2 paced. There can be fast micro in particular with aircraft, but other than that it's just turning weapons on/off and it's around cohs level of micro.
): 
Its laggy AF, but super enjoyable in MP.
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