It is fair to say that over the six years we've had to play with CoH2, the game has seen a lot of changes. Huge numbers of patches, tweaks and changes that have overhauled the game in a multitude of ways.
The design philosophy of the armies, at least when they launched, offered five unique ways to play CoH2. At some point, every army has been genuinely unique. Not so much any more. This thread is mostly self indulgence, but I would like to offer my opinions on where the identity of armies has gone both right and wrong, and see where the forum agrees or disagrees. I’ve dipped in and out of playing regularly, ridden in beta tests, and watched Katitof accumulate tens of thousands of posts. Lets do this.
Eastern Front
Soviets
The Soviet unique features were always pretty clear and pretty well managed, though we have seen some poorer choices scaled back for the better, and I think what remains is fairly decent.
Six Man squads – the big one. Rivalled only by Ostruppen and, for some reason, PanzerFusilliers and Paratroopers? This applies to almost everything. Infantry, team weapons, stolen team weapons, elite infantry. You name it, the soviets bring the manpower. They may not have the quality or the long range firepower of other armies to play with on their foot soldiers, but they’re Stalin’s Anvil. Handy, then, that they also brought Stlain’s Hammer – thanks, ISU-152.
These are occasionally contentious, but with the Soviets being what they are, I’ve always thought they work well and help define Soviet play style. Easy to bleed, difficult to kill. Some issues were had and have been addressed – the sniper teams, maxims at their peak being a better conscript squad. But the current state of soviet durability supports their play style and identity.
(Ostheer)
Ost have some problems. A lot of them were originally fixed in the early days before WFA even launched, and the erosion of their status of unique has been mostly cemented since the launch of WFA. Most of their national identity only exists when compared to OKW, but they hang onto something.
The nebulous concept of combined arms – Or how I learned to stop spamming inf blobs and use team weapons.
Ost grenadiers are not an elite infantry. Back in the day they stomped conscripts. Hell, they still do, but Ost gets by with the idea of combining their affordable mainline infantry with team weapons. Their MG and AT gun remain affordable and some of the best available, with veterancy abilities that make the soviets cry. What they lack in generalist duties they make up for with best of class in TWP, AP rounds and... no, not counterbattery.
Honourable mentions for Ost in weapon upgrades unlocking free for a wide variety of their units, and the prolific nature of their pintle MGs.
Intermission
That covered, I think this is the point to speak about something that distinguishes the EFA and WFA/UKF, and in a way that has diminished over time. Originally, the Ost had a unique feature over the Soviets in that their roster was complete out of the gate. No matter what commander the Ost picked, they had a full army ready to go, with no glaring holes in their unit list. This worked fine when stacked against the Soviets, who picked elite infantry and even late game armour from their commanders. Where it could have worked with WFA, and didn’t, was in those armies lacking units but having viable alternatives. That has never quite been realized, IMO, but more on that later.
EFA
MURRICA
A mix of good and bad. Still in a unique place, only Rivalling the soviets. Easily the better of the WFA offerings.
Vehicle Crews – Simple and clean. They get the vehicle crew mechanic. Its good!
Officers – They get officers as they tech. Contentious sometimes, though recently overhauled. These fed into the concept of USF being an army centred around versatile, and customizable, infantry cores. Pick your weapons and put them onto a very versatile Rifle squad! Something that filters into my next intermission.
Intermission – Missing units
USF had an incomplete roster at launch. This was originally compensated for with their rifle versatility. They had no mortars, but they could get smoke grenades on their rifle squads. This allowed their infantry to do the job of machine gun smoking, and clear their own approach on buildings or points.
And now they just have a mortar instead. Is this awful? No. But it does represent what, either by choice or necessity, has been happening with balance patches over time. Rather than allow the armies without a certain tool to compensate with what they do have, they have all been brought in line. Rather than let USF have a roster of units that can fill in the job of an on field mortar, they just moved smoke to RE and gave them a mortar.
And this is a good point to move onto the single worst offender in the game. The very unfortunate-
OberKommando Cheese
Well, pardon my opening the gate with a little bias. This isn’t about the OKW being overpowered, its not that kind of cheese. This is all about the huge flaws in their implementation and design. Lets start simple.
Don’t Do this – the original OKW. For those who don’t know, the original concept was meant to represent a resource starved, last ditch effort to defend the western front with a mix of hardened veterans and garbage. They attempted this... by trying to shoehorn in a totally different game into multiplayer?? A nation that was expected to only hold a tiny amount of the map with elite forces, only getting proper resources from sectors linked to your base via a chain of trucks that worked as your production buildings.
Needless to say this was an awful plan for 1v1. It was also totally unworkable in team games. It promptly failed. It was replaced with another iteration of OKW!
No caches, massive resource penalty, but scavenging and cheap super good units and... yeah that went away too. Good riddance! Sadly, these overhauls have left the OKW in a bad way, if not an OP one. Just badly designed. Lets keep going.
Scavenging – Not totally unique. The Soviets could briefly do this, and now the Brits can do it with one commander. Its decent! Sadly not unique, just like 6 man squads, but decent. Moving on.
5 levels of Vet – Ugh, this one. This was a part of OKW’s reigning champion of bad design period. The biggest, worst and most grim manifestation of the baffling design direction that used to exist in the Ost/Sov bad times. The perplexing ‘If Germans reach late game its a free win’. And it was a thing. Go trawl the forums if you don’t believe me. Ally early game OP/Germans cannot lose late game attrition was something people championed. Beats me as to why. It has been overhauled, but it still, to me, represents a bad unique trait. Vehicle crews and 6 man squads have their individual strengths, but 5 levels of vet is a universal army buff in the late game. Its not a single asset, but everything. Game keeps going without constant wipes? OKW keeps vetting. Not a good approach.
Does it make them OP? No. Patches have helped a lot. But only by making the vet 5 differences smaller and also having to overcompensate elsewhere. And I honestly think locking it to OKW was a mistake. That said – intermission time again.
Intermission – Lost Chances
This one is less about identity and more just a personal look at where OKW did it wrong alongside everyone else. Veterancy, IMO, spikes way too hard. A difference between vet 1 and 2 unit can be enormous. This is partially why vet 5 OKW was originally so broken. Imagine a world where everyone had five, gently scaling levels of veterancy..?
More generally, I think it is a sad lost opportunity. We all know the Axis fixated on the biggest most over-expensive and operationally crippling tanks. And rather than introduce parallels to the real allied advantages – resources, production, throttling the Axis – we just get prolific tank destroyers. Ah well. Global late game upgrades just never made it into CoH2. Nor did allied air superiority or a lengthy list of things. Symptomatic of rough times at Relic, I suppose.
Last on the list.
UKF
Quite the ugly duckling for the last army to be released.
Days gone by
The UKF was supposed to try and reflect a certain style of war. A grand battleplan. To accomplish this they focused on two distinct features. A defensive and limited army, coupled with commander abilities that offered ways for Brits to go on the offensive with very powerful bonuses, offering multiple ‘parts’ to support that push.
The latter no longer exist. The former no longer exists, as the brit army now functions more or less okay on its own. The new commander is set to offer brits early CQC squads so really they’re just Ost these days. What’s left..?
Emplacements. But not MG bunkers. These are frustrating to play against. These are frustrating to play with. I don’t get it. Why? Why, Relic?
Optional Teching – Skipping side tech lets UKF rush out a medium tank at some very impressive speeds. They get global infantry upgrades that are frankly mandatory to compete but they do get to choose when to pay for them. Mutually exclusive late game unlocks which, at least, are decent on both sides.
IMO that’s it. UKF lost any identity they had once the abilities got nerfed. They are not UP, but an army without. No mobile mortar and nothing to compensate. As a Brit, perhaps I am Biased, but while they have some individually very strong units the whole army just seems to lack a purpose. Ah well.
My two (hundred) cents. I’d love to bear everyone else’s opinions!
First off, it's WFA and not EFA.
Second, it's United States Forces. Disrespecting us and trying to be funny with "MURRICA" ain't gonna get you far in life I can tell you that much. You don't see me or any other American on here making fun of you or the Brits in game or at least as far as I can tell and see. Matter of fact my favorite Allied Army are the British Forces here and the Commonwealth in CoH.
Lastly, and this is just my opinion here but I can sum up each Army right now with a few words:
Soviet quantity over quality, also known as human wave tactics. Hampered by borderline useless mainline infantry units that are systematically being replaced by either the Maxim or Penal squads, heavily relies on strong commanders. People can forget to even choose a commander sometimes with the other Armies but not with the Soviets.
Ostheer's quality over quantity or at least that's what's written on the tin but life has taught me to never trust the cover of the book. Combined Arms tactics sounds all fine and dandy but the problem comes when you have non-survivable mainline infantry and are constantly fighting superior "premium" doctrinal tanks. Would explain why most people go for commanders that provide Grenadier alternatives or doctrinal Armor of their own.
USF's versatility comes at the cost of the inability to specialize or bring heavier Armor on the field. You're constantly asking yourself if you should go Armor or Infantry company with the rest of the commanders being no shows for most matches. Being stuck with the "versatile" riflemen squads and M4 Shermans sounds good but in reality promotes blobbing as time has proven and also you're nerve shaken by the constant micro management of your glass cannon units. Borderline useless in team games.
OKW is basically Ostheer's bigger and older brother that on paper does everything better however they are plagued by at least for the most part unreliable support weapons. Strong infantry and Armor are supposed to make up for that but again just promote blobbing in my opinion. 5 vet levels argument went out the window when they nerfed the last 2 levels to even out the field for the other Armies.
UKF is supposed to be this heavy and slow juggernaut being able to go toe to toe with the Axis in the late game provided they dig in and survive until then. Problem is being heavy and slow is one thing but relying on static gameplay is an entirely other. Relic learned from their mistakes from CoH and made emplacements bigger and better but much harder to get and thus spam however they still included them to play a large role in the British roaster for one reason or another instead of giving the option to the player if he wants to go that route or not, thus hampering him. Commanders mostly serve the role of plugging holes in the Army roaster and provide some more benefits from time to time but that's largely it from what I've noticed.
I would again like to point out that this is just my own personal opinion and does not mean in no way that it's right or correct or whatever you wanna call it. It's just my observations summed up without going too much in detail. |
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