But what about the blatant lack of resource balance between the Allied factions and the Axis factions?
I present Exhibit A:
https://www.coh2.org/replay/62913/according-to-relic-three-equals-one-and-five-equals-two
Soviet Player:
- Floating 400+ munitions and still winning fights against a player who uses all available munitions for weapon upgrades & grenades & mines
- Gaining more fuel than an opponent despite holding fuel points less and having NO fuel caches
- Having enough manpower to reinforce despite losing plenty of models by keeping units always out of cover
- Not reinforcing infantry but being under NO THREAT of unit wipes due to the garbage design of Axis infantry weapons (50% chance or whatever it is of simply not doing any damage)
- Losing NO models at all via Zerg tactics: running directly into enemy fire through open ground while enemy units are in cover
- Winning engagements despite having retreated and never repaired a vehicle, allowing it to sit in base for ages doing nothing
- Building a tank HQ and still having enough fuel for THREE tanks before the enemy has enough for ONE panzer
- Walking THREE infantry squads blobbed together with tons of models each over a mine in a narrow bottleneck and only losing TWO MODELS FROM ONE SQUAD
And as if that weren't enough, at about 4/5 of the way into the match, a T-34/76 rolls up and fires a long range shot at Sturmpioneers before stopping... and kills a model, while not a single German tank can wipe any models unless it's standing still 5 feet from them and has time to fire at least twice.
Also, a panzer & two AT guns take out TWO TANKS and wound a third, but don't even gain ONE STAR OF VERERANCY.
Summary:
- I had to take out FIVE enemy tanks while only having ONE.
- The supposed "anti-infantry" units used by the opponent are more effective against armor than any other anti-tank unit in the game due to high model count, anti-tank grenades that take 1/3 of a tank's health, and overall unit resilience.
- Were the opposing player not a total brain dead imbecile, I wouldn't have been able to take even a single point on the map due to how blatantly broken Allied resource income and units are.
Conclusion: Allied players can dominate a match entirely while having no tactical or strategic skill whatsoever, while Axis players have to play flawlessly, like some kind of tactical masterminds (which I'm not, but that just underscores the discrepancy between skill requirements for Allied and Axis players), and still get punished for it.
P.S. Before anyone starts cherry picking how I could have done things differently, know that I intentionally avoid using machine guns to demonstrate this blatant garbage game design. My baseline infantry units should be just as effective as ANY opposing faction's infantry units. At NO point should I be FORCED to use specific units, so long as I use proper tactics, such as putting units in cover, proper positioning, and so forth. Yet Allies blatantly overpower Axis units in this regard, whose infantry can rush directly into enemy fire with no negative consequences, and who benefit from absurd amounts of resources that they don't even have to use to stand toe-to-toe with Axis forces. If that isn't a blatant lack of balance, I don't know what is.