Company of Heroes III - Your expectations

If produced by Lelic... Lower than a snake's dangly bits. Lower than a social worker's self esteem. Lower than a Welsh civil servant's work ethic. Lower than a politician's morals.

I expect it to shine like a rotting mackerel in the moonlight, with the axis mackerel having twice the armour and sight range of course.

I know this may be controversial but... I really hope we don't get another Panzer Waffen SS Uber Elite German faction again in CoH3.

Like, I get the appeal of bringing in the 'Elite' to the battlefield with the best infantry, best tanks, best tech/abilities and it also empowers those players. And the idea should be that the elite factions are more costly to produce and losses should hurt you more than it does for the other factions.

Unfortunately, in practice, I think not only does Relic get way too absorbed in powercreeping but I never feel like losses are as damaging as it should be. It's astounding how OKW can have comebacks in team games after losing so much infantry and tanks.

Another problem is veterancy. The fact that OKW units can vet up to 5 and how losses or damage only increase their veterancy as long as they're not destroyed outright means their units become ridiculously powerful. Because their units are beefier, they're less likely to be destroyed, which means they become more powerful, whereas Allied units are more prone to being wiped or even doing as much damage in return.

Basically, the veterancy system in CoH2 and how OKW gets 5 stars means OKW can easily snowball the max 3 star allied units.

Like, unless you can make playing the Elite very punishing, then I might not mind as much. But no, they become stronger with almost every engagement, surpassing Allied and Ostheer by the 4h or 5th Veterancy. They have all powerful units like the King Tiger, the upgraded Panther, the Sturmtiger, Walking Stuka, Jagdtiger who all can crush Allied units. Also, casualties they can easily just shrug off as well and hit the retreat button to recover under a minute before getting back into combat while their Panzers are too quickly repaired by Sturmpios and the repair station.

Steel Division Normandy 1944 does a pretty decent job of balancing the elite German division: the Panzer Lehr division. Expensive but limited (quantity) infantry squads, they suffer a lot in Phase A and Phase B but Phase C is where Panzer Lehr shines as they can call in their Panthers, Tigers, King Tigers, and just become this juggernaut. But even with their elite veteran panzers, they're not unstoppable as the Allies can use airpower to delay their advance and a well placed AT gun can immobilize a panzer, thus taking them out of the combat indefinitely. So basically the Elite faction in SD44 is incredibly powerful but lacks enough infantry, their tanks come in much later than the Allies, and their units are have achilles heels (damaged tracks, side armor, low morale from Airstrikes or artillery)