Profile of Tommy

This is a really special episode today; a split-screen game of Fatal and I playing against each other, while we discuss what we love (and indeed, hate) about the Company of Heroes 2 Closed Beta!

Since the Qazar servers started wobbling (and eventually gave up), I started looking around for other games- honestly, I've been largely disappointed. Most modern games, even the really good recent releases like Far Cry 3, Bioshock, Xcom and so on only really hold my attention for a few hours at most, and I really crave that competetive multiplayer that CoH gave me the satisfaction of. Well, the CoH2 beta was less than engrossing so I was still shopping around when a good old friend of mine with whom I've previously played Total War multiplayer campaigns and other 'wargamey' type things like Unity of Command (great game but lacking depth) pointed out a game he'd had his eye on for a while- Strategic Command.



It's not much to look at and at first it struck me as being one of those ultra-complex, dense and ultimately buggy and broken wargames made by tiny independent devs that make the game and never touch it again. Oh boy, I was seriously wrong, and we haven't started calling it StatCrack for nothing.

Basically it's a wargame that covers WW1 + WW2 (depending on which game you get)- but it nails the easy to learn, hard to master mechanics. First off, it's not as complex as HoI- you manage three main areas; combat (which is huge, encompassing about 20 different sorts of units, land and naval, terrain/weather modifiers and supply-chain based so rewarding encircling/tactical bombings and so on), research (about 20 different areas for research, all boosting different areas) and diplomacy (pushing different countries on the warmap in/out of war, tipping them to your side and so on).

Unlike a game like HoI where it's so complex that it only makes sense to control one nation at a time, in Strategic Command you control a whole side (either Axis/Allies or Entente/Central Powers). The version of SC I've been playing is SC: WW1 as it's the most recent and it also comes with a WW2 full game, so it's like 2 games in 1 (although it 'only' covers Europe, North Africa, a bit of the Middle East, Russia and a small slice of Canada and the USA).



It's a turn based game and typically best played via email, as each turn can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or more depending on how much thought you're putting into it. It's highly tactical on a small level (your units gain experience, you need to assign HQ's to your units and assure your units are in good supply, with good morale and readiness, and make use of combined arms to crack defensive lines, keep tabs on terrain and weather, and that's just scratching the surface) and rewards broader strategy on a larger scale (particularly in the 'whole world' scenarios ie 1939 Storm Over Europe and 1914 Call To Arms) where you have total choice over how you want to make your battle plans, who you want to declare war on, and generally choose to either stick to history or totally shake things up if you think it'll take your opponent off guard.

As an example, I'm currently playing a multiplayer WW2 game as the Axis, and the year is 1943- Operation Sealion was successfully carried out and the German Eagle flies from Big Ben, Spain is on my side, and General Franco is fighting alongside Rommel on the Eastern Front!

Screenshots of the game probably don't conjur up an image of a 'new' game- but the original SC came out in sometihng like 2002 and it has been consistently improved and patched and improved some more on a yearly basis, with the latest version (SC: WW1) coming out last year and the newest one (SC: Global Conflict: Assault on Democracy) due out in a few weeks.

If I've managed to persuade any of you that this game is the next best thing since sliced bread (which for me, right now, it is) then:

If you'd rather play WW2: Strategic Command: Global Conflict Gold (this one has the ENTIRE world map if you play the full war 1939 scenario....it is epic)
If you'd rather play WW1: Strategic Command: WW1 (but also with a WW2 scenario that covers the whole war in Europe, North Africa and the USSR)

If you still think this looks like a crusty old wargame for the over-60s, then check out these awesome AARs...

1914 Call To Arms
1939 Global Conflict

I appreciate this sentiment, and I hope it turns out to be true.

However, I look at your issues with vCoH (Snipers, Bunkers, Stags, Veterancy) and the only one that's a design level, unchangeable mechanic is the Veterancy. If Relic was to devote some time/resources to vCoH, that effort would go a long way to fixing those issues. Ofc that's not going to happen.

I look at all the issues I have with CoH2 and I see a lot that I don't believe Relic is going to change. The UI, the simplified linear Doctrines, the faction design & diversity, the lack of global upgrades, the lack of visibility, the bulletin system, and at this point the upkeep system will likely only change in very small ways.

I think the issue is priorities. Of course Relic would love to make the competitive community happy, but it's becoming apparent to me that what the competitive community wants is at odds with what Relic believes to be the future of their game - casualizing it for the micro-transaction crowd.

While I basically agree, I don't think that competition and casual are necessarily at odds with each other- for every super competetive game, sport, whatever, there's always a spectrum, and at the very bottom you'll find plenty of average-to-bad players who can still enjoy the game for what it is. Relic could change the game in ways that preserve competition without impacting their need to entice a more casual audience.

I haven't played the RO version of CoH in about 2 months, so if I've move up the rankings then it must be from other people moving down ;P

If it wasn't their intention, then you have to question whether they understand what made vCoH great in the first place.

Yes they have Quinn Duffy, but if you read the early interviews for CoH2 it's pretty clear he had little to do with vCoH's multiplayer.

If you don't understand what vCoH did right and what could be improved, you inevitably make changes that appear random or off the mark.

I think their intentions are pretty clear at this point, unfortunately. To make a game with more mass appeal - more forgiving, lower skill cap, more tanks and explosions. And to make a game with more long-term revenue - downplaying Doctrines so they can be sold as DLC, bulletins etc.

Neither of those goals are bad, but the means certainly are. If you want a noob friendly game, help the noob improve. Better tutorials, strong and visible competitive community, fairer matchmaker. You don't change the game so the noob doesn't have to.

This is...basically The Inconvenient Truth. Mass market appeal -> stuff it full of DLC, that's the MO.