Newcomer to CoH2 but not RTS, first thoughts

(Sorry if this is more appropriate in COH2 Central, the forums for some reason wanted me to use a subforum specifically).

So yeah, like I said in in my intro thread, I'd like to share my thoughts on CoH2, now that I finally have a PC that can run it in any capacity and, full disclosure, I got it during the official giveaway on Steam late last year. Also, this is based on ~2 hours' worth of skirmishes, and unlike with other games, I didn't start with the singleplayer campaign. We are talking of the base game, no DLC whatsoever.

I like to have a more varied RTS "diet", so I already have experience with the likes of the Command & Conquer series, Dawn of War 1, WarCraft III, Age of Empires/Mythology series, Star Trek: Armada 1 and 2, a bit of StarCraft I and II... all the good stuff, so I'm talking from the perspective of someone who played all those, but had limited exposure to CoH.

What I like:

* the setting - finally, a major WWII game that doesn't feature Americans masturbating over D-Day that is wrongly presented as the start of the war somehow. Also, I have a soft spot for snow, since I live in the Med and I see it once every 5-6 years, and for a very short time. I've still yet to fully investigate on why exactly people in the whole CIS wanted this game banned, but I'm happy to play as the Soviets.

* the new mechanics - so not only did they not break the cover mechanic from Dawn of War 1 and Company of Heroes 1, but they also allowed infantry to jump over walls and trees, which does take a special command to do from my limited experience and therefore extra time, but it's so cool to have. Also, whoever made the blizzard mechanic, if you're reading this, you're the MVP. (And my overly cynical self is not that easy to impress ).

* handling of singleplayer content - even while offline, skirmishes are accessible. In this day and age of pointless always-online-ness, that sadly no longer goes without saying, but at least someone thinks with their heads.

* visuals - apart from the game looking outright astonishing from the details perspective, it also goes into such details as disabling non-historical skins, which I find commendable. Most of the interface is also top-notch, though the buildings and defences menus could've been merged.

* the character - more so than I've seen of CoH1, units have a lot of sass in their responses. A little thing, I know, but a little cheese never hurt anyone.

What I hate:

* starting content vs. DLC - why has it become an unwritten rule to strip content that can easily fit in the base game or a singular meaty expansion pack and make ten billion DLCs out of it? The original CoH may have had only two factions at launch, but why did CoH2 also have to? And why are even commanders that come with the DLC... DLC in themselves? And what is skin DLC doing in an RTS?

* loot - same as lootboxes in other games, fuck that shit with a pneumatic drill right up the arse.

* map variety - in older RTSes, you'd get a lot of default maps without having to rely on expansions and fan-made content. Here, you just get a truly pathetic map count, and to add fuel to the fire, the interface also shows the maps for the DLC you didn't buy (just grayed out), so the base game is really thin in this aspect.

* bases - an RTS without bases is not an RTS. As with CoH1, bases seem to be pretty much ignored after the first 2-3 minutes completely except for making an odd unit or two if your micro sucks and you lose troops.

* LAN - Relic, you old sheep! Not only did you gut LAN in the post-GameSpy versions of Dawn of War 1 and split Company of Heroes 1 into two versions, but you also gave the middle finger to the only way one can play multiplayer when the official servers go down! Sure, nobody expects Steamworks to croak in the foreseeable future, but is future-proofing so much to ask?

* tutorial - instead of always the same barely-bare-bones tutorial for people who never played an RTS, I expected something that'd tell me something about mechanics unique to the game, like the commanders and their support powers.

_____________________________________________________________

As a summary feeling, I love Company of Heroes 2, but I also hate it. I believe it has the most polished RTS gameplay in many, many years (alongside StarCraft II), but I'm also disgusted by the way it's monetized. I need help, because I don't know which voice to listen to.

What I wonder is:

• whether there is any number of fellow noobs online who also aren't casual-minded turtlers, but also not toxic nutjobs
  
• are the DLC factions worth it even on sales
  
• how many people still care for and play CoH1
  

Your points about starting content, DLC, and map variety have a great deal to do with the demise of THQ and the acquisition by SEGA. This game had a very real chance of never seeing the light of day.

When SEGA acquired CoH2, Relic had to do two things simultaneously: Release an unfinished product, and finish a released product.

That said, the state that CoH2 was in at and before THQ's demise is subject to debate and mostly hearsay.

As for the monetization stand point I will say it has come a long way since the beginning. Instead of hoping on blind luck to get bulletins and commanders you want you can now buy them after playing a while the new system allows you to make points to put into buying new commanders etc and was something that was definitely needed. You also rack up a good amount of points per game.

I'd say the DLC factions are worth it on sale definitely. More so WFA than UKF. If you love the game and enjoy playing a lot dropping a couple dollars on the newer factions can be nice. Similarly they arent required since Sov/Ost are two excellent factions.

Welcome

My take on the DLC factions:

Depends on why you ask; in 1v1 (tournaments as well as ladder) the vanilla factions are still the most popular as you can see here. So, if your concern is that you might need them to be competitive: You don't. Also, the main picks for commanders are free there. The factions are also totally viable if you think about team games.

If your question is more along the lines of if the other factions really provide a different style of play: Well, there has been some homogenization going over the last year or so, but they still play differently; they are not just a reskinned version of the vanilla factions...

Your points about starting content, DLC, and map variety have a great deal to do with the demise of THQ and the acquisition by SEGA. This game had a very real chance of never seeing the light of day.

Well, the transfer from THQ to SEGA happened about half a year before the game shipped, and since Relic never operated with schedules as tight as those former EA Los Angeles did (rest in peace), I'm sure they had more than a proof of concept going when SEGA came to the rescue

As for the monetization stand point I will say it has come a long way since the beginning. Instead of hoping on blind luck to get bulletins and commanders you want you can now buy them after playing a while the new system allows you to make points to put into buying new commanders etc and was something that was definitely needed. You also rack up a good amount of points per game.

I get your point, but it's still randomized lootboxes, so that's a hell of a minus. But good to know that it isn't as exploitative as the rest.

Welcome

Thank you!

I'd say the DLC factions are worth it on sale definitely. More so WFA than UKF. If you love the game and enjoy playing a lot dropping a couple dollars on the newer factions can be nice. Similarly they arent required since Sov/Ost are two excellent factions.

My take on the DLC factions:

Depends on why you ask; in 1v1 (tournaments as well as ladder) the vanilla factions are still the most popular as you can see here. So, if your concern is that you might need them to be competitive: You don't. Also, the main picks for commanders are free there. The factions are also totally viable if you think about team games.

If your question is more along the lines of if the other factions really provide a different style of play: Well, there has been some homogenization going over the last year or so, but they still play differently; they are not just a reskinned version of the vanilla factions...

This is also great to know! At least this means I can be patient and see how I truly like the Soviets and Ostheer before considering the rest.

Though I seem to be getting a slight bit of mixed signals, since I looked at the Buyer Guide by A_E and see that USF and UKF would be something I'd play considering those play style descriptions, but the forums here seem to communicate that UKF shouldn't be bothered with.

Still, I feel like I'm missing out if I do not have access to all factions (especially when I can choose the DLC ones as AI opponents), and in almost every RTS game that I play, I try not to stick to one or two factions and want to mix things up a bit. The oldest RTS with two factions that I played is C&C Red Alert 2 (and even that had 9 "countries", and got a third faction in the expansion), so I'm used to having a lot more options from the get-go. Finally, isn't it the game itself that quotes Sun Tzu: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

I get your point, but it's still randomized lootboxes, so that's a hell of a minus. But good to know that it isn't as exploitative as the rest.

Well, it was really bad initially. The original system was that you would rarely and randomly get a loot box with a random item which potentially could even be a duplicate of what you had already (for bulletins this was occasionally ok as they would stack, but having multiple copies of a commander was pointless).

At least now you know when you will get the next box and eventually you'll get mostly coins so you can actually "work" toward an item you would like to buy with in-game coins.

Though I seem to be getting a slight bit of mixed signals, since I looked at the Buyer Guide by A_E and see that USF and UKF would be something I'd play considering those play style descriptions, but the forums here seem to communicate that UKF shouldn't be bothered with.

Well, keep in mind that factions (in particular OKW and UKF) changed considerably over time and guides eventually will be outdated.

What is common to all additional factions is that they were originally built so that they lack certain tools that OH and SOV automatically come with. To some extent they feature non-linear teching and teching all options would be prohibitively expensive. Other tools are simply not available unless you use a certain commander (which often are DLC).

Now, this has been changed over the past year or so, at least to some extent. OKW now has almost all the tools that OH comes with and USF has caught up a little as well. Not much luck for UKF in that respect, though.

In regards of a faction being OP or UP: Well, unless you are a top player, a faction's power level shouldn't affect you much as the matchmaker in automatch is supposed to find you a reasonable opponent with player and faction strength factored in. Also, keep in mind that the strength of certain features depends on the skill level of the players and the game mode involved

UKF, for example, was built around having static emplacements. After some toning down, those are now often considered a waste of resources; you will barely see them in high ranking 1v1 games. However, against less skilled players (and I'm totally one of those), they still could be tricky to deal with and well worth the investment.

UKF in general changed a lot; when they came out, they indeed were very strong mostly due to some ridiculous units or abilities that would totally overperform. For example, the Centaur would almost literally evaporate units in buildings and Crocodiles where close to invincible. Over the last few patches, though, a lot of these extreme units were brought down considerably in terms of performance while the other units got little in return... Still they are probably your got-to faction if you like to dig in around a certain point.

"LAN - Relic, you old sheep! Not only did you gut LAN in the post-GameSpy versions of Dawn of War 1 and split Company of Heroes 1 into two versions, but you also gave the middle finger to the only way one can play multiplayer when the official servers go down! Sure, nobody expects Steamworks to croak in the foreseeable future, but is future-proofing so much to ask?"

As someone that's currently trying to run an 8 man live tournament based on this game, I agree entirely.

The lack of LAN is shocking, we have to basically have a live event where players still have internet lag...

(Sorry if this is more appropriate in COH2 Central, the forums for some reason wanted me to use a subforum specifically).

So yeah, like I said in in my intro thread, I'd like to share my thoughts on CoH2, now that I finally have a PC that can run it in any capacity and, full disclosure, I got it during the official giveaway on Steam late last year. Also, this is based on ~2 hours' worth of skirmishes, and unlike with other games, I didn't start with the singleplayer campaign. We are talking of the base game, no DLC whatsoever.

I like to have a more varied RTS "diet", so I already have experience with the likes of the Command & Conquer series, Dawn of War 1, WarCraft III, Age of Empires/Mythology series, Star Trek: Armada 1 and 2, a bit of StarCraft I and II... all the good stuff, so I'm talking from the perspective of someone who played all those, but had limited exposure to CoH.

What I like:

* the setting - finally, a major WWII game that doesn't feature Americans masturbating over D-Day that is wrongly presented as the start of the war somehow. Also, I have a soft spot for snow, since I live in the Med and I see it once every 5-6 years, and for a very short time. I've still yet to fully investigate on why exactly people in the whole CIS wanted this game banned, but I'm happy to play as the Soviets.

* the new mechanics - so not only did they not break the cover mechanic from Dawn of War 1 and Company of Heroes 1, but they also allowed infantry to jump over walls and trees, which does take a special command to do from my limited experience and therefore extra time, but it's so cool to have. Also, whoever made the blizzard mechanic, if you're reading this, you're the MVP. (And my overly cynical self is not that easy to impress ).

* handling of singleplayer content - even while offline, skirmishes are accessible. In this day and age of pointless always-online-ness, that sadly no longer goes without saying, but at least someone thinks with their heads.

* visuals - apart from the game looking outright astonishing from the details perspective, it also goes into such details as disabling non-historical skins, which I find commendable. Most of the interface is also top-notch, though the buildings and defences menus could've been merged.

* the character - more so than I've seen of CoH1, units have a lot of sass in their responses. A little thing, I know, but a little cheese never hurt anyone.

What I hate:

* starting content vs. DLC - why has it become an unwritten rule to strip content that can easily fit in the base game or a singular meaty expansion pack and make ten billion DLCs out of it? The original CoH may have had only two factions at launch, but why did CoH2 also have to? And why are even commanders that come with the DLC... DLC in themselves? And what is skin DLC doing in an RTS?

* loot - same as lootboxes in other games, fuck that shit with a pneumatic drill right up the arse.

* map variety - in older RTSes, you'd get a lot of default maps without having to rely on expansions and fan-made content. Here, you just get a truly pathetic map count, and to add fuel to the fire, the interface also shows the maps for the DLC you didn't buy (just grayed out), so the base game is really thin in this aspect.

* bases - an RTS without bases is not an RTS. As with CoH1, bases seem to be pretty much ignored after the first 2-3 minutes completely except for making an odd unit or two if your micro sucks and you lose troops.

* LAN - Relic, you old sheep! Not only did you gut LAN in the post-GameSpy versions of Dawn of War 1 and split Company of Heroes 1 into two versions, but you also gave the middle finger to the only way one can play multiplayer when the official servers go down! Sure, nobody expects Steamworks to croak in the foreseeable future, but is future-proofing so much to ask?

* tutorial - instead of always the same barely-bare-bones tutorial for people who never played an RTS, I expected something that'd tell me something about mechanics unique to the game, like the commanders and their support powers.

_____________________________________________________________

As a summary feeling, I love Company of Heroes 2, but I also hate it. I believe it has the most polished RTS gameplay in many, many years (alongside StarCraft II), but I'm also disgusted by the way it's monetized. I need help, because I don't know which voice to listen to.

What I wonder is:

• whether there is any number of fellow noobs online who also aren't casual-minded turtlers, but also not toxic nutjobs
  
• are the DLC factions worth it even on sales
  
• how many people still care for and play CoH1
  

First off, have some respect for the men and women that gave their lives then just so you can even comment right now behind the safety and comfort of your computer, wherever they came from, and never forget that not the Soviets but the Canadians are every year celebrated by your country.

I agree about the mechanics, there are also a lot more changes that make more sense like tanks requiring infantry in order to dig in instead of just going forward and backwards to dig themselves in like in the original game, as well as units coming off map (or at least used to for the infantry) and the blizzard effects that were removed for one reason or another.

Single Player content was only handled well for the Ardennes Assault campaign in my opinion, some Theater of War missions felt half assed or too hard without a competent teammate and were ultimately abandoned in the end, same as the Soviet Campaign. Campaigns in CoH were handled much better and the stories mattered as much as the gameplay there as well if you ask me, you could actually feel the struggle of the characters.

Snow was however handled pretty well in terms of visuals in CoH as well, you can play the mod Battle of the Bulge or Europe at War's Ardennes Offensive front to see what I mean, it was basically replaced rain really but still very well and immersively done, I had the feeling I was actually Easy Company trying to take Foy at one point even.

The Character you're talking about is only present for a few units as I've noticed, such as the Infantry Section for example, it's actually mostly for the British that I've noticed it, the German and American units in CoH had a lot more character, you can even google it if you don't believe me and you will find what I'm talking about in YouTube, the first game also had a lot more memorable quotes. Matter of fact here's a video that I often return to to have a nice laugh once in a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mwJaQCf6to

Here's a longer video of only Axis quotes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3azxIAWJdh0

So far I've only found one such video for CoH 2 that's about 3 minutes long, if I am not mistake there was another such video but it got deleted for some reason.

But I will admit that people have for some reason uploaded more speech videos of CoH2 units than CoH units for some reason.

Now about your negative points:

The only such content are the commanders and was the Theater of War mission packs but now with the improve Spoils of War system commanders, skins, bulletins and whatever else, so you only need to buy the ToW mission packs, AA campaign and Armies themselves if you really want to, the rest of the stuff is fully earnable, sure, with a lot of grinding, but still better than the old system. I would even go a step further and make the original Soviet campaign a DLC, cut the 2 Eastern Front Armies in 2 same as the Western Front Ones and there you go, if they even go ahead and like make the game Free to Play that would be even more perfect if you ask me, then all of this DLC would be actually worth it.

I can't comment about match maker but they did the right thing by adding Workshop support for maps for both games, most recently I went back to CoH and I played for about 2 weeks or 200 hours all on custom maps.

I don't know what you mean by bases but I think the base building in CoH was enough, in DoW2 it was even more minimized and I would say that CoH2 is a sort of mix between the 2 really since for the USF and UKF you're basically researching tiers like in DoW2 but with a visual representation.

LAN... yeah I don't know about that to be honest, I don't think any games after 2009 have that but I can't be 100% sure about that.

I remember some sort of tutorial mission but you're right about it, compared to CoH, CoH2 really lacked such an in-depth thing, the tutorials in CoH really went into the mechanics, at least for the US Army, Brits and PE, I don't know why the Wehrmacht got left out of having their own tutorials or campaigns, but they said that they received some flak for the PE campaign from probably Soviet fanboys and liberals, God forbid there be any other viewpoint other than the victor's one.

But I still think that CoH could be added to with an Italian Front expansion (which they planned but instead did CoH Online) and an Eastern Front one (just make the mod official) and with some mod support on the workshop it would be perfect, and more or less could achieve more than CoH2 in it's current limited modding and now also end of support state.

First off, have some respect for the men and women that gave their lives then just so you can even comment right now behind the safety and comfort of your computer, wherever they came from, and never forget that not the Soviets but the Canadians are every year celebrated by your country.

It's not that I wish to negate the role of the Americans in the war, it's that I wish to negate the Hollywood propagandist view thereof. Don't know about you, but over here, our history books say the war started in Poland in '39, not France in '44 And Yugoslav partisans, whom we actually celebrate on 22nd June every year, were very much sided with the Soviets until the Tito-Stalin split of '47 so there

Single Player content was only handled well for the Ardennes Assault campaign in my opinion, some Theater of War missions felt half assed or too hard without a competent teammate and were ultimately abandoned in the end, same as the Soviet Campaign. Campaigns in CoH were handled much better and the stories mattered as much as the gameplay there as well if you ask me, you could actually feel the struggle of the characters.

I was actually referring to the handling of accessing the AI skirmishes, as I hadn't touched the campaign prior to the first post (I did play some of it last night and this morning), but it's nice to know what the AA campaign plays like.

I would even go a step further and make the original Soviet campaign a DLC, cut the 2 Eastern Front Armies in 2 same as the Western Front Ones and there you go, if they even go ahead and like make the game Free to Play that would be even more perfect if you ask me, then all of this DLC would be actually worth it.

So... you'd get nothing at the start?

I can't comment about match maker but they did the right thing by adding Workshop support for maps for both games, most recently I went back to CoH and I played for about 2 weeks or 200 hours all on custom maps.

Well, in older RTSes, custom maps were the icing on the cake, not the biscuit, cream, and decoration at once.

It's not that I wish to negate the role of the Americans in the war, it's that I wish to negate the Hollywood propagandist view thereof. Don't know about you, but over here, our history books say the war started in Poland in '39, not France in '44 And Yugoslav partisans, whom we actually celebrate on 22nd June every year, were very much sided with the Soviets until the Tito-Stalin split of '47 so there



I was actually referring to the handling of accessing the AI skirmishes, as I hadn't touched the campaign prior to the first post (I did play some of it last night and this morning), but it's nice to know what the AA campaign plays like.



So... you'd get nothing at the start?




Well, in older RTSes, custom maps were the icing on the cake, not the biscuit, cream, and decoration at once.

Then just stay away from Hollywood, I don't see the problem.

Things like Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, The Pacific and to an extent Fury (that mentions Africa) are the real things you should be looking towards, however I will go ahead here and say that Russian movie makers are the same if not worse, I mean I'm sorry but far more Russians single handedly defeat the entire German Army than in Hollywood movies. The only un-biased and truthful Russian movies I have seen are the Brest Fortress and The Battalion of Death or however it was called, with Brest Fortress even being one of my favorite WW2 movies I would say, even going as far as admitting to crying to it and then going to listen to one of the waltzes from the soundtrack (link if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfhp1-69Y8U).

As far as the Canadian thing goes, this is what I was referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Day_(Netherlands)

And what I meant with going Free to Play was having the Eastern Front Armies as a base or perhaps all Armies as a base (like StarCraft 2) with everything else remaining as it is, but the Soviet campaign becoming a DLC in itself.

Or the game stays at is is (paid) and just the original game is chopped up in DLCs so it's more "accessible" so to speak, if you wanna play with a solid German Army you just get the Ostheer for 8 bucks, if you want Soviets same thing, if you want to play a Soviet campaign it's another 5 bucks and so forth.

And finally, I don't know of much old RTS games having workshop support, so those custom maps were not really that accessible as in the case of CoH, there was a little known 619 map pack for the game that only a few people knew and played with, the rest had no idea.

Plus I guess you could say that perhaps mapping doesn't pay as well as the other stuff such as coding and balancing? I really have no idea but I would assume it is so, going by Relic's past experience in CoH where a lot of maps were community made and were accepted and made official by Relic themselves, so instead of just paying mappers they just let the community deal with it, like they are no but with the balancing of the game. Call it cheap but I think it's just better to let the people make whatever they wanna play and let them have their fun.

Then just stay away from Hollywood, I don't see the problem.

Things like Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, The Pacific and to an extent Fury (that mentions Africa) are the real things you should be looking towards, however I will go ahead here and say that Russian movie makers are the same if not worse, I mean I'm sorry but far more Russians single handedly defeat the entire German Army than in Hollywood movies. The only un-biased and truthful Russian movies I have seen are the Brest Fortress and The Battalion of Death or however it was called, with Brest Fortress even being one of my favorite WW2 movies I would say, even going as far as admitting to crying to it and then going to listen to one of the waltzes from the soundtrack (link if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfhp1-69Y8U).

Erm... watch fewer entertainment movies and more unbiased documentaries and books. Not even Yugoslav WWII films were realistic.

As far as the Canadian thing goes, this is what I was referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Day_(Netherlands)

Well I'm not from the Netherlands. Check the flag on my profile again

Or the game stays at is is (paid) and just the original game is chopped up in DLCs so it's more "accessible" so to speak, if you wanna play with a solid German Army you just get the Ostheer for 8 bucks, if you want Soviets same thing, if you want to play a Soviet campaign it's another 5 bucks and so forth.

Single factions aren't worth that much IMHO. If a full-blown game with singleplayer and multiplayer costs $60 at launch, a meaty expansion shouldn't be more than $30-$40 if it expands on both. Over-DLCification of games, especially if the DLC isn't priced right for the amount of content it gives, is not justified in order to make a F2P game.

And finally, I don't know of much old RTS games having workshop support, so those custom maps were not really that accessible as in the case of CoH, there was a little known 619 map pack for the game that only a few people knew and played with, the rest had no idea.

Before Workshop became a popular thing for no reason, mods and maps were always distributed on forums and sites like ModDB and FileFront/GameFront, and still their downloads were counted in tens or hundreds of thousands if they were good. Awareness of that specific map pack is an isolated thing, especially since CoH1 came with the Worldbuilder, so there was no excuse for not using it.

Plus I guess you could say that perhaps mapping doesn't pay as well as the other stuff such as coding and balancing?

You can't speak of coding and balancing if there's little room to play on to begin with, especially if you figure out that certain maps or map types favour or work against a specific faction, as is the case with some games.

* bases - an RTS without bases is not an RTS. As with CoH1, bases seem to be pretty much ignored after the first 2-3 minutes completely except for making an odd unit or two if your micro sucks and you lose troops.

Welcome to a new genre in strategy games. RTT or real time tactics. Consider CoH or even Relic's games, as a middle point between RTS and RTT. If you ask what's the difference, welp think about games on which the macro aspect is less focused on in favour of micro tactics. There's less attention on base building, technology and resource gathering in favour of focusing on combat tactics.

More "pure" RTT would be Men of War, Wargames series or even the combat aspect from Total war games.

map variety - in older RTSes, you'd get a lot of default maps without having to rely on expansions and fan-made content. Here, you just get a truly pathetic map count, and to add fuel to the fire, the interface also shows the maps for the DLC you didn't buy (just grayed out), so the base game is really thin in this aspect.

On automatch, you get access to all of them (randomly). Still i think it's a stupid decision to lock them down, when you could access them through the steamworkshop.

whether there is any number of fellow noobs online who also aren't casual-minded turtlers, but also not toxic nutjobs

There are plenty of noobs as there are also plenty of sharks. The thing is, the first 10 games on each mode, with each different partner, will be basically against anyone. They are your placements games. Still, there's high chances for disparity games, when you are playing outside of prime hours or in modes with less people playing or when doing random search in teamgame modes.

Welcome to a new genre in strategy games. RTT or real time tactics. Consider CoH or even Relic's games, as a middle point between RTS and RTT. If you ask what's the difference, welp think about games on which the macro aspect is less focused on in favour of micro tactics. There's less attention on base building, technology and resource gathering in favour of focusing on combat tactics.

More "pure" RTT would be Men of War, Wargames series or even the combat aspect from Total war games.

I'm fully aware of RTT, though I don't like it mixing with RTS

When I want to play RTT, I fire up Commandos.

I think the game is great and you should definitely keep playing. You don't have to take my word for it though...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/company-of-heroes-2/how-company-of-heroes-2-became-steams-biggest-rts

Welcome to CoH2. Enjoy the cover system.

Welcome to CoH2. Enjoy the cover system.

Sure do!

"LAN - Relic, you old sheep! Not only did you gut LAN in the post-GameSpy versions of Dawn of War 1 and split Company of Heroes 1 into two versions, but you also gave the middle finger to the only way one can play multiplayer when the official servers go down! Sure, nobody expects Steamworks to croak in the foreseeable future, but is future-proofing so much to ask?"

As someone that's currently trying to run an 8 man live tournament based on this game, I agree entirely.

The lack of LAN is shocking, we have to basically have a live event where players still have internet lag...

Technically, the game is fully LAN compatible. It even used to run the client-host architecture at the beginning. But I can understand why relic won't let us use that feature. It is the industry way of dealing with piracy. On the other hand, I can imagine a few ways they could help live tournament organisers. For example by running a battle server clone at the venue.

It is the industry way of dealing with piracy.

Nominally yes, but it's the most pathetic and stupid way imaginable to do so. It also indirectly brands everyone who ever used LAN as pirates, which is simply false.

Nominally yes, but it's the most pathetic and stupid way imaginable to do so. It also indirectly brands everyone who ever used LAN as pirates, which is simply false.

Well, this is the only effective way industry has come up with so far. And it is not that everybody who likes LAN gaming is labeled pirate, more that the lack of LAN hurts pirates much more than legitimate copy owners.

At least in coh2 you can play single player with servers down. In blitzkrieg 3 for example, you can't.