German concerns

Been playing all throughout the open beta and I have some concerns over general lack of Ostheer options which boils down to core gameplay features. I'm going to review both units and strategies which I think are detrimental to the development of the game and/or a match. Generally speaking, it boils down to, in my opinion at least, five main concepts.

1) Lack of flexibility in strategy/weakness of T1
2) Support squad weakness
3) Munitions Starve
4) Anti-tank vs Anti-Infantry balance
5) Veterancy

1) Tier 1 is pretty much worthless.

a) Grenadiers aren’t more powerful nor are they as versatile as Scripts. They lack the mobility of Hoorah. Rifle nades are ok, but tovs control the buildings better which makes them superior early . Upgrades to make grens better either come online too late (G43) or have drawbacks that make them not worthwhile (LMG slowness + muni drain). Compound this with the fact that they require a building to construct means they can’t even go toe to toe in map control. Panzerfaust is worthless in countering Clown Car vs good players who know how to kite the range.
b) MG42 is easily flanked by Hoorah unless you have a second MG42 to protect its flank. This means going MG42 requires you to get 2 less you risk giving your only HMG to the enemy. Requiring dual MG42 means you cannot aggressively control the map and relegates you to focusing on a single interest point (Usually Fuel+Cap node). Predictability isn’t good. MG42 also gets dominated by clown cars.
c) Mortars teams only have 3 men. When 2 die the last retreats. To protect one mortar squad, you need 2 Grens using LoS to protect vs clown cars and 2 HMGs to prevent Hoorah’d scripts. This still requires you to play defensively in a single sector and doesn’t provide much benefit as a Russian player won’t be rushing you when he already has 66% of the map for free. Additionally, if you go mass support troops the heavy doctrinal mortar will be the death of you.
d) Snipers are the 2nd worst unit in the game only eclipsed by the pak. Six unit squads means the german sniper is for all intents and purposes half as lethal as it’s Russian counterpart and over twice as easy to kill. Mobile scripts and abundant clown car strats makes this unit entirely obsolete.

2) 6 men make all the difference.

a) If German support squads get killed, a Russian squad can sustain 33% unit loss and still man the unit and retreat to replenish. German units must sustain 0% unit loss in order to retrieve support weapons and still be able to replenish.
b) The only unit that can aggressively flank and try to steal support weapons is the Panzergrenadier. Panzergrenadiers have no defensive bonuses AFAIK over the Gren. Now, this problem is compounded in point 4 as the PG is generally speaking your best anti infantry option and you 100% cannot afford to lose them to man guns as they need vet levels ASAP.
c) The overall lack of German capability to aggressively push and steal support weapons is a problem. The flame HT nerf made it nigh impossible to take them.

3) Too many units require munitions to be effective.

a) Grens need to upgrade their weapon to be able to beat scripts who aren’t using HTD. These munitions can’t be used early as they need to be saved either for fausting clown cars or upgrading scout cars or HTs.
b) Mid game you need to liberally use PG grenade bundles in order to retake the majority of the map from Russian infantry.
c) End game you have to decide between using your area denial artillery or setting up teller mines.

4) Bazookas and you/ Some units and upgrades make no sense.

a) Some units like the Ostwind make no sense. It can’t be acquired before your opponent can acquire it’s direct counter, the T34. Also, the units it’s designed to kill can throw an AT nade and cripple it’s engine so it can’t even retreat.
b) Since the Ostwind can’t reach battlefield effectiveness as an Anti-infantry unit, this leaves your sole means as Panzergrenadiers. Because of this, your PGs should rarely, if ever, upgrade to bazookas as you’ll be left with nothing to take territory from enemy infantry.
c) Compounding this fact is that german armor only really excels at killing other armor. The stug was overnerfed which leaves the panzer 4 as the best go to tank. The main problem with the stug is that to kill a tank generally requires it to move forward to try to land killing blows, but AT nades critting its engine makes it wildly susceptible to follow-up flanks as it doesn’t have a swivel turret gun. This forced defensive posture for the tank wouldn’t be so bad if the Stug’s gun hit infantry like the T34, but it doesn’t.
d) Upgraded scout cars are necessary to kill clown cars, but after the upgrade they cannot even stop a solo engineer vet 0 from capping a node completely.
e) Pak guns are a 100% joke. As it is, German fuel is used to kill tanks and german manpower is used to kill infantry. SU-76, ZiS-3, Flanks, heavy mortars, and ISU all completely shut the unit down to the point where it rarely fires a shot let alone kills a unit.

5) Who wants to live forever?

a) Panzergrenadiers need vet levels ASAP in order to remain relevant against HTD PPSH Scripts or shock troops. I like this idea. The problem is with things like the ZiS/ISU/HMortars completely one shotting full hp vetted Panzer Grens sometimes. Obviously you need to do your scouting with your infantry, and when scouting causes you to lose your entire squad with something you can’t even react to, then there is a problem.
b) There is no counterpart for the germans to instantly kill Russian squads outside of the joke that is the Brummbar. Good Russians rarely ever lose a squad which leads to triple vet infantry all over the place for them.

To Summarize, I don’t think everything listed needs to change. In fact, I think plenty of it would be quite fine remaining as is. The problem is when all of it coincides, it causes the matches to become stale and repetitive. Germans can never go tier 1. Some units are rarely purchased even with the required tech (Pak/Brumm/Panzerwerfer). Some units are so niche that it requires other units which should be more versatile to become niche themselves. Etc. Etc.

I welcome any thoughts/feedback/critiques.

Excellent post. Concise, supported by examples and stats and well organised.

]Id add to this the disparity in effectiveness of flame dmg on Ostheer, as it completely bypasses the Ostheer armor to cost/survival balance, reducing Ostheer infantry hit by flame to the survival rate of an equal number of Cons.

d) Upgraded scout cars are necessary to kill clown cars, but after the upgrade they cannot even stop a solo engineer vet 0 from capping a node completely.

They can't even stop a solo vet0 engineer squad from capping a fuel point completely before the upgrade either. The engineer can actually kill the scout car, even if not in cover.

a) Panzergrenadiers need vet levels ASAP in order to remain relevant against HTD PPSH Scripts or shock troops. I like this idea. The problem is with things like the ZiS/ISU/HMortars completely one shotting full hp vetted Panzer Grens sometimes. Obviously you need to do your scouting with your infantry, and when scouting causes you to lose your entire squad with something you can’t even react to, then there is a problem.

And a lucky soviet mine in a choke can still one-shot multiple full-health german squads. What about the german anti-inf mine-field for 80 muni? Oh, you have to hope they continue to walk into multiple mines. But that's actually how mines are supposed to work, stop the flank or attack, not destroy it entirely.

well said....

idk but this feels a bit like coh1 -> every new patch makes it worse....

I disagree about T1 being useless. Especially after watching Nystrom's stream, I've really come to appreciate how strong grenadiers are in packs. I wish mortars weren't so shitty, but other than that I have no real problem with T1, and my current strat is a strong T1->fuel depot->T3.

I'm fine with the larger soviet squads, as it makes the game less mirror-like. There are clearly some advantages inherent to that as you've mentioned (easier to capture weapon crews, lower risk of squad death, etc.) which I think is fine as the Germans also have their own advantages. The early game can be tough, but once a medic bunker comes out you have very cost-effective infantry, especially if you've managed to save munitions for grenadier upgrades.

I do dislike the reliance on munitions for the Germans. If there's early game point-trading going on, I'd actually fight harder for my munitions than for my fuel. You absolutely MUST use your first 60 munitions on a flamer or soviet infantry in buildings are invincible, as well as soviet conscript blobs. Without a flamer, you have to spend more time for an MG to shoot at a suppressed squad, preventing it from turning to deal with a flanking attack. Of my losses, the majority of them were when I was denied a munitions point and lost map control while slowly going from 50->60 munitions.

I'm also fine with the Ostwind, which I feel is one of the best anti-infantry vehicles in the game and easily destroys light vehicles and can actually do damage to Soviet tanks (see another thread on this subject, including replay).

Agreed that you should avoid buying panzerscheks on your PGs at all costs. I wish you could just buy one.

Stugs should be more specialized as an AT role, and have its fuel cost reduced. I'd like to see it act in the same role as COH1, basically.

Hrmm. I'll have to check Nystorm's stream then. I'm not sure how Grens can take on clown car snipers or flamers.

The more I play the more I feel like the soviet faction was made up by someone who didn't like the first game.

The Osteer lack any call in infantry (like...every faction from the first game...) via doctrine. This really limits flexivilty and the strategic development of the faction. I could tech T1-T3 legitimately in coh2 if I had something to use excess manpower on.

2) I just watched a replay where 3 tigers were immediately rammed and killed 2 minutes after getting there. Not only is this historically ludicrous, it's a dumb cartoon of an ability. Why don't the russians just take out an ACME Mallet or something and crush all German tanks? It's just stupid.

I think the OP is spot on.

In my last 2 v 2 as Sovs a six-man HMG team managed to hold a fuel point in a furious battle, simply because of team size. Meanwhile I simply hit the MG42 by flanking it with a clown car.

The six-man team thing would be fine if there was, if not parity, some other quid pro quo for the Ost.

I have made the point elsewhere about utility: as the OP says the script is a cheap 'Swiss army knife' of a unit that can do anything: occupy buildings, capture weapons, use nades, move fast and flank, HtD and get green cover on a road, use SMGs...

Meanwhile my gren squad can get a LMG that limits mobility and, er, die.

Ill have to disagree with first point. Grenadiers need a bit of micro, but they ultimately defeat conscript squads 100%... In most of my games ill get 2-3 grens squad (depending on the opponent and if he is going cons spam) an mg and sometimes a sniper. If he does go quick clown car grens can faust it.. the clown car does take dmg from small arms fire but I will agree sometimes its hard to counter when its up to quick. You just MUST deny soviets any fuel while trying to protect your munitions.. its a desperate battle and I love it.

The soviet support teams are so upsetting. Its impossible to flank early. The rifle nade rarely does dmg and on certain occasions ive seen it do NO damage. If somehow you manage to kill a maxim or mortar you cant recrew since you most likely took dmg from reinforcng conscripts because it took 4mins at point blank range to kill that support team. German sniper need 5 shots... 5....to finish a support team off... so.... I mean....

Ostwind needs micro, you just got to use it on the periphery of the battle. It does wonders if you manage to keep it alive a while after it first comes out. Send it on flanking attacks and to harass sovs capping vps. Its really no good on the frontline since soviet ats and at nades and mortars...t34s.. SUs...etc will most likely destroy it. Same goes for flammenwerfer if you miraculously manage to keep it alive mid\late game.

Pak40.. yes... useless...

Germans just plain and simple need better commanders. Soviets can call in guards, shock troops, 2 t34s, and the LOLWIN kv-8. The germans can call in. Er... an elephant? (Not much good in 1v1) and a tiger. But as another poster said the soviets can then ram the tiger (or acme smash with wylie coyote) taking it out for a good period or destroying it if at guns are brought up. The ran ability is so cheesy in my opinion, kind of like many of the features in this game... but ram instantly destroying a turret AND engine!?!?!?! Make the damage congruent with the area rammed!!! Front=gun damaged...Side=tracks damaged or heavy damage to german tank... back=damaged\destroyed engine and damage to tank... At least give the rammed bastard a fighting chance..

Hrmm. I'll have to check Nystorm's stream then. I'm not sure how Grens can take on clown car snipers or flamers.

Flamers are easy. Two gren squads focus firing on a charging engineer squad kills it very, very quickly. You MUST focus fire though, or your grens will shoot that conscript in the distance behind a stone wall instead of the engineer with a flamethrower in his face.

Clown cars are trickier, but it comes down to keeping your squads together and realizing that grens aren't the solution to all problems. As long as you have two gren squads together, any mismicro on the clown car = instant death from 2x panzerfausts. Additionally, with more gren squads you can more easily flank a clown car and cut off it's retreat (easier than you might think).

Still, the point is to buy time for you to tech to a more complete solution (scout cars or Ostwind). Nobody's saying that you're not going to get hammered by a clown car sniper squad, but that doesn't mean it's too strong. When facing snipers I often stick my units in buildings (which significantly reduces sniper accuracy) or behind LOS-blockers (hedges, buildings, etc.) to force them to come closer or to disengage. Is this a viable long-term strategy? Of course not. But my whole goal is to stay alive to get to T3, at which point the gimmicky clown car/T-70 problems become irrelevant and actually a liability. That generally only gives him about a 1:30-2:00 to make my life miserable.

Russian MG teams are way more problematic. I'm 0-2 against level 40+ players using nonstop HMG teams (think WSC build from COH1). Mortars don't kill them fast enough, they can deploy in the field of fire of an MG42 and still win, and they lock down your slower infantry. Thinking about trying halftrack flanking play next time I see it.

edit: Also, after someone else on this forum mentioned it, I think Ram is not as bad as I originally thought. I've successfully dodged it complete twice (one time with blitzkrieg) by driving towards the tank at an angle and having it fly past me. The key seems to be to time it right. Too early and it'll turn and hit you, too late and you won't get enough movement to the side. I've also taken a ram to the side where my main gun was facing away and I didn't lose the main gun. I'll do more research, but I'm hoping that Ram will be the tank equivalent of grenades- devastating if you're not looking, but manageable if you're paying attention and have quick reflexes.

Yeah, sorry. No matter how much I look I can't find someone managing clown cars with grens. If someone could post a replay of level 40+ players crushing clown car use with grens I'd greatly appreciate. Unfortunately all the people I play don't blindly walk their clown cars in LoS hedges. This also means your grens need to stick in pairs of 2 and hide in hedges. This means you lose map control... which is the whole point of the clown car. Not to kill you, but to make you stick to a small quadrant (Which I went over in my OP) or to punish you for trying to aggressively match the scripts.

I don't understand why people are saying to use grens to stop clown cars when clown cars are a great counter to grens. Go triple pio, use the first two to completely ignore fighting and take what nodes they can. When you engage, run past the enemy units and try to cut off their captures near their base. This forces them to run back to stop your pioneers, which delays them from stealing the fuel/muni your pios originally took. By the time your engineers have to retreat, your T2 is done around 4 mins and you get a Pgren to hit the field to crush scripts followed up by upG'd scout car to protect it from the clown car trying to push it back. This strategy counters BOTH script spam AND Clown car in all the lvl 40+ 1v1's i've played. I just hate that I know exactly what strategy I have to go before every single game because Tier 1 has no options.

Maybe I'll have to try backteching to T1 in order to get Grens with vet level 0 against scripts vet level 3 in oder to try and Faust tanks or something. Sounds like fun :-/.

Yeah, sorry. No matter how much I look I can't find someone managing clown cars with grens.

I apologize if I made it sound like I thought spamming grens is an effective strategy against clown cars. When I see a clown car, I think, "oh shit, this is going to suck for a while". So far it's just that I'm usually able to maintain enough map control through sheer number of grenadiers that clown cars not my primary issue.

If you're willing to post your 1v1 replays against the best players you've faced using your strategy I'd like to take a look at them. Who knows, maybe you've found the perfect Ostheer strat for the current build?

Just so you know, in the latest patch, the faust has been nerfed in terms of range

= huge buff to the clown car - you can no longer faust without taking flame damage.

I think this thread is good... I'm now level 43 soviet and very concerned about the long term survivability and playability of this game.. Units are not THOUGHT OUT well enough..

Tactical movement should be more important than an unrealistic CLOWNCAR who kites..
And shooting from a clowncar that drives should be made impossible.
SEGA quickly needs to come with better patch or else i stop playing

1.

a) Grenadiers are your main tool to use early game. Vs conscripts in equal numbers they come on top if you know how to use them (exception is hit the dirt). They are the best unit to take you to mid game in terms of mobility fighting power relative to manpower initial cost and reinforce price. Also you'll be able to respond to whatever your opponent is throwing at you.

b) Never get an mg 42 very early. You need to keep at leas 2 gren squads to protect it one to scout in front , the other one to scout flanks. Never keep your mg42 set up if he's not close to an engagement and make it a part of a roaming party. You can even dodge molotovs if you control properly and have scouting units protecting it. You should not lose mg to m3 + flames. You can hear the sound of the motor from m3, and you can make a quick call: if you think you can hold the line , do it carefully otherwise just retreat.

c) no comment here. it's just bad

d) german snipers are good late game. early game it has no use. stay off the traveled routes, there are lots of forests and other objects you can use as cover to scout enemy position. Keep him far enough from your main army so it will not get hit by katy or any other kind of arty. You'll feel the power of the german sniper when fighting high vet troops.



2. No point in wasting more time on this, my brain hurts (this screams for a rework)

3. First of all you don't need to over invest munitions in gren squads just so you can "beat" conscripts earlygame, you just need to hold your ground. You need to use the grens to soak damage from the enemy and flank with PG (DO NOT EVER LEAD THE CHARGE WITH PG SQUADS- they are too important to lose them early, and just sacrificing them will create a big whole in your manpower as they take 45 per man to reinforce). Shreks are awesome, if the squad is at least vet 2, and again you use them to flank vehicles. Also don't just train pg blindly. Use them only if you need them. And that is versus basic conscripts openings (2+). Useless vs sniper + m3 etc.

4.

a)+b)+c) Never go Ostwind as your first vehicle. You don't need Shreks to deal with rus armor. What you need to be doing is hold at least an equal number of fuel points as the enemy. This means the first 10-12 minutes. If you see early t70 it's just great, it means no t4 and will probably be followed up by a t34 or more. Now you know what's coming, you can prepare yourself. Your p4 will arrive 2-3 minutes after t70 an before his t34 comes to play. Use it wisely, if he's dead before the 2nd one is out you're dead anyways.

d) Don't upgrade sc unless you see shock troops. Even if you can keep it safe from at nades, guards will murder it.

e) Paks come in play if you're fighting t34s. keep it relatively close to your p4s. It's crucial after you get 2 p4 to have a pack when fighting similar numbers of t34s. If he's able to outnumber you he'll be more aggressive and will try to ram you. Try to faust if you can, Engine damage = no ram. Keep the p4 with vet 1 in front, ready to blitz and retreat(btw you don't want to be standing still, always use move in reverse). If he sees you reversing he will most likely push, if you lure him into a position where you can flank him with the pack and 1 squad of grens for a faust you'll see the result.



You make very good points, but remember when we play coh2 we go to war. War is not fun, it's putting your abilities to command your armies at test. Clever use of tactics, setting up traps, flanking, etc. will require a lot of imagination and creativity. First it's a moral battle with yourself.

For example:
If you see a sniper inside a m3 and you can only think
you're going to lose a lot of men trying to get rid of it and will probably cost you the game, you should also be thinking about:

1. sniper + scout car= 640 manpower (counting the cost for rifle building w/e it's called)
640 manpower = almost 3 conscript squads
2. he needs to use it in combination with other conscripts and guards/shock troops to keep the scout car alive enough for that combo to pay for it's investment
3.You can't win straight on engagements but he can't be everywhere at once, harass different points on the map, you need to keep him on the move and avoid combat until you get to t3 (if you skip t2 you'll have p4 before he can get t34 considering you're not investing any fuel in ht/sc).

here's an example: http://www.coh2.org/replays/4280/fighting-against-the-sniper-inside-a-scoutcar

I had a lot of mistakes just because he was picking away at my forces and the fact that it was impossible to deal with the sniper car. It's exhausting demoralizing and full of frustrations, just like a real war.

1.
For example:
If you see a sniper inside a m3 and you can only think
you're going to lose a lot of men trying to get rid of it and will probably cost you the game, you should also be thinking about:

1. sniper + scout car= 640 manpower (counting the cost for rifle building w/e it's called)
640 manpower = almost 3 conscript squads
2. he needs to use it in combination with other conscripts and guards/shock troops to keep the scout car alive enough for that combo to pay for it's investment
3.You can't win straight on engagements but he can't be everywhere at once, harass different points on the map, you need to keep him on the move and avoid combat until you get to t3 (if you skip t2 you'll have p4 before he can get t34 considering you're not investing any fuel in ht/sc).

here's an example: http://www.coh2.org/replays/4280/fighting-against-the-sniper-inside-a-scoutcar

I had a lot of mistakes just because he was picking away at my forces and the fact that it was impossible to deal with the sniper car. It's exhausting demoralizing and full of frustrations, just like a real war.

I noticed you made very good points, but you're wrong about this little point.

Point 3 - That would be true of your normal sniper (and we're going to compare with VCoH here).

Now here's the problem - take this 2 man squad, who can actually be everywhere due to the mobility of your scout car, who can kill in one shot and the M3 is always safe from getting fausted. It's an even worse problem than the VCoH sniper ever was (and btw, I had no problem with it, but some other ppl did)

I understand that you're saying that there is a problem with sniper cars, but in this game(and war as well) - it's not only silly and ridiculous - it's broken as well. Do this in a 2v2+ and build multiple sniper cars and you can just wipe out squads - I've tried this, it's ridiculous.

Just singling out

4.
a. T-34 will normally deal with an Ostwind but it's not a dead loss if you have other AT. Ostwind is only really a first vehicle either if your opponent has not had the fuel for a proper T-3/4 or if they're really going in for shocks or guards on a map like Kholodny where an Ostwind can basically just sit on one side and scamper away when you see a tank. If you kite conscripts with an Ostwind you will maul them. More importantly, unlike P-IVs, an Ostwind will chew up a guard squad pretty much instantly.
b. Similarly, p-gren upgrades are a contextually useful item rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.
c. StuGs are also really cheap and are much better vs. infantry than they used to be. Yeah they need to be supported but they're still OK.
d. would like the scout car upgun to be a bit cheaper and maybe a little better vs. infantry but I kind of like it as is.
e. yeah, PAKs are troublingly vulnerable at the moment, and not having a good recrewing option doesn't help.

What i said in my previous post, it's my thoughts on balance issues regarding the 1v1 aspect. Team games changes everything.

I have been playing coh2 since the closed beta (got in with the facebook promo). In closed beta i only played russians and most of the games were 1v1 and 2v2 and started to play ostheer in 1v1 from beta stress test. We had this issue with the m3 + sniper since the beggining. It's a pain to deal with but if the skill level is about the same , assuming above average, it's not a big deal. This seems to be way more powerful on smaller maps like kholodny where you just have to walk you men about 5 seconds to get from a sector to another.


Silly and ridiculous, maybe it's a bit too much. More likely very powerful. You can't expect to take team games too serious with the huge wave of players with no knowledge about the game that came with open beta. Even people with some vcoh background would have struggled at first against it if they only started to play coh2 in open beta.