Relic independence and possible future Battlegroups

Yesterday's announcement probably came as a surprise not just for me but for many other people here as well so I wanted to make this topic in order to discuss it and gather some opinions on the subject matter.

If I have to be completely honest here, I am not sure what to think of it.

Growing up with CoH back in 2006 it taught me a lot of things about history, made me interested in weapons and vehicles, it's also one of the reasons why I got into mechanics in order to understand how tanks worked better. It also introduced military concepts to me like for example flanking, as in not running towards the enemy head-first but instead trying to go through an alternative route in order to achieve your objective, positive reinforcement in the form of a medal system since as a kid I really got inspired every time I heard "From a grateful Fatherland for the glorious struggle, honor and blood, present this Iron Cross" by the German announcer every time I played the Wehrmacht and upgraded my units to level 3 veterancy.

Then in 2013 I was very sad to hear about THQ's bankruptcy but at least I was happy that CoH2 was coming out, and while the release had it's problems along with the microtransaction commander system in the beginning I think the game got to a pretty good point with around 2 dozen commanders for the vanilla armies and around a dozen for the 3 others that came after them, plus the Ardennes Assault dynamic campaign which received some criticism for it's pricing but I think overall it was pretty solid and only lacked a German part to it which could have fit as the beginning before the story was flipped. Not to mention the 10 years of support with updates, some of which even the community got involved in in order to improve the game.

CoH3 launching in a somewhat similar fashion to it's predecessor almost a decade later I think at least means that they might have the same spirit as to see that things could be improved and are working towards that if the last and next updates are anything to go by so I suppose that's good.

However I still think that it would be a great disservice to everybody to say that there weren't major improvements from last time, we got 4 armies at launch with 3 unique battlegroups each, modding support, however light right now, a workshop full of community-made maps from the get go, lots of new features and mechanics such as the vehicle recovery, auto-vaulting and so forth and against they seem to be committed to improving it.

To me personally the only real major concerns are better modding support and more content in the form of battlegroups if not straight up more armies to play around with. In my view balance-wise at least can be again helped with by the community once more like before with CoH2, while content-wise more can be created with expanded modding capabilities like it's the case with the original game.

So to put it in a few short words, I still think that the game has great potential like I've mentioned here before and if done well with continued improvement and expansion this move could prove to be something good if not great but I suppose only time will really tell.

Which brings me to my second point, new battlegroups.

I think going by previous leaks, current still unreleased content within the game files and now the announcement realistically speaking we have enough for 1 or 2 more Battlegroups for each army right now, those being as far as I can see:

WM - Something with the Nashorn, still non-existing Gebirsjäger mountain troops that have several references to them in the files, Sdkfz. 9 "Famo" recovery halftrack, Flak and Mortar versions of the 251, "Fortress" Pioneers and also the rest of the Italian units from the looks of things that the DAK already have.

DAK - Something with the Italian Paratroopers from the "Folgore" division that we see in some cutscenes from the single-player campaign along with all of the new vehicles that were added in the last update such as the Panzerjäger I, Command Panzer II, Stummel 8 rad heavy armored car and Sturmpanzer II "Bison".

UKF - Canadian Vanguard would be an obvious choice here with the Cannuck shocktroops alongside the Churchill Crocodile as well as the Priest, Piats for the Sappers maybe and the Repair and Recovery CWT truck.

USF - As far as I remember there was a mention of some sort of "Light Mechanized" BG that would contain some of the unfinished units in the game right now such as the Command M3 Halftrack, M20 Utility car, M3 Lee and again possibly an M7 Priest but American this time around again which would make much more sense since the Canadians did have their indigenous Sexton armed with the 25 pounder in order to reduce the logistical hurdle that they had to endure during combat operations.

So what do you guys think? I'm interested in seeing some more opinions like I already mentioned in the beginning of this since I know this place still harbors the more dedicated fans to the series.

Cheers.

From what I heard in the other thread, the future isn't perhaps as bright as it seemed at first glance, but I agree with you that it's a major disservice to Relic say that CoH 3 didn't improve on the formula from CoH 2.

Ever since the multiplayer beta, I enjoyed CoH 3. The major stumbling blocks for me were always the slow balance updates and lack of content in general.

Here's to hoping this isn't the end.

sega of course did it right to sell the relic. one year only 2 new battlegroup, 3 months release a patch,and this patch make many incogitability buff to british. i dont think the employee in relic did their work