I've always wanted a Japanese faction, ever since the first game. I don't really care so much about a "Pacific Front" so much as I do just the faction itself. A few maps would more than suffice as far as that's concerned.
In CoH, Axis have always been Germany. That's it. Just Germany. eanwhile, Allies get Americans, British, and Soviets, all with their own unique rosters. I've seen enough German factions. With the Eastern Front mod for the first game, I've sat through five of them now. I just want something new. The Axis powers were more than just Germany, although to be fair, Axis might as well have just been called "Germany and the countries helping Germany." Their allies were more or less just manpower reserves. The Japanese, however,fought their own war and fought it on very different terms than the other Axis powers.
If they were made correctly, they could easily be the most unique faction in the game. People argue that it wouldn't be historically accurate for them to be fighting in Europe against, say, the British. And they're right! But who fuckin' cares? I don't want to see another goddamn German faction, and I'm afraid that Relic is going to add
another one eventually to balance out the number of teams on each side.
People also argue that their tanks were bad. Which is true. And I personally wouldn't want to see these ridiculous prototype tanks in their in-game arsenal that were never used in real life, because then they're just going to be a Japanese German faction, if you get what I mean. I want to see an Axis power that doesn't rely on brute force to win engagements. There are other ways to make them viable. Look at the recently released British. They have tons of tricks up their sleeve that don't revolve around tanks (not that I'm discounting their tanks). Base howitzers (which I immediately thought would be a good fit for Japanese when I first played Brits), trenches, emplacements, that kind of stuff. Give the Japanese tough infantry. Give them booby traps. Make ambush camouflage, defenses, and traps a core part of their playstyle. Hell, non-doctrinal plane strikes as part of their late game arsenal would be a really interesting, unique way to play. There is so much you could do with them. People tend to just go "eh, their technology is bad, so they can't work in CoH." And if you were to build them in a boring, straightforward manner and expect them to work like Germany, they'd be right. So don't.
One thing I'd like to add, though, is that I'd never want to see a Company of Heroes 3 with just the US and Japanese. That would be boring. I want them to just be an option among many other nations.
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cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
