Maybe at the highest competitive level, yes, players tend to default to the strongest available options. But again, it's like that in any game, especially one that's been around as long as Company of Heroes 2. I wasn't talking about whether or not someone could win whatever tournament with whatever strategy they wanted, I don't watch those games and I frankly don't care about what they do. I was talking about whether or not I can start an automatched 1v1 and use a diverse array of strategies with a reasonable chance of victory. This is, indeed, possible.
As for Company of Heroes 3, I'm sure that down the line it would get to the same place Company of Heroes 2 is currently at in regards to the meta. Nobody fucking plays it though and we'll probably never know once Relic shuts down!
Im incredibly confused then, because I've seen this argument time and time again, but objectively. coh3 has FAR more variety and options, because if we go by the logic of competitive skill level and "anyone" being able to do a strategy, then your options of whats actually usable is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more than enough.
Just a look at Wehr
Pio,ketten,MG,Luftpio,Gren,Mortar and sniper
All either 0 CP, or in the first buildings you get, Compare that to wehr
MG,Gren,Mortar,pio,Sniper
And then the commander options of Ostruppen and Assgrens (Which are paid DLC).
Your build variety is objectively less, and then you look at tech, it's linear, and you are stuck with basically two real options, Halftrack or 222
Meanwhile you look at wehr in coh3
2A, 222,Flak,Jaeger squad (all viable and strong units btw), that goes into marder and wirble (also strong units, though marder got nerfed into obscurity, but since we arent taking competitive levels into account then it doesn't matter)
2B Pak,Pgren,Halftrack Same thing as above, all viable and strong, that leads into stug and nebelwerfer.
Like, just look at that variety! There are so many options its overwhelming, and when you add in transfer orders you can literally change your builds on the fly, having a massive sort of variety comparetivly to coh2s wehr, where you are ALWAYS locked into triple gren, ostruppen or assgrens, an especially huge issue with USF which is why you never see elites see play.
Honestly im just trying to see where the argument of coh3 lacking variety comes from, it's just... fake? not a thing? Like how do you even reach that conclusion?
I would even go as far as to say, one of cohs WORST qualities, is lack of variety, the manpower economy punishes large armies, which with late elites makes some armies (USF,OKW arguably brits) incredibly limited by their infantry builds, USF famously basically can't build elites because by the time you've gotten 2 cps, your rifles will have you bleed so dry there's literally no point.