Profile of ZombiFrancis

How do you counter flamer halftrack?

Prepare from the get-go of the match laying mines and building AT units, be they guards or going t2 for ATGs. Always, always get AT nades and try to stockpile around 100 munitions on hand at all times for actually using them (so always balance your mine laying rate.)

And most importantly at this point: Pray that your opponent doesn't just build pgrens, capitalizing on the fact you're crippling your map control and anti-infantry fighting force to handle the potential threat of a FHT.

I think most of people's frustrations come from the nature of pre-ordering the game. Many people who preordered were probably the hardcore, hardline players of vCoH that hadn't fallen by the wayside over the years. A CoH game taking place on the eastern front with truesight, vaulting, snow, and ice were what were probably on most minds.

Come beta, the game felt very much like that, but there were tentative issues with some of the features that seemed as if they were simplified or removed from the core of vCoH both gameplay wise and online game-wise: Linear commander choices instead of doctrines, the whole bulletins thing, no fixed start locations on maps, no custom lobbies, no random faction choice, to name some. And this is placing all balancing issues aside (especially as far as competitive gameplay goes). The reality that it was only in beta kept spirits high for the game: these will be resolved by release. None of them were, and the only real changes that occurred in multiplayer between beta to release were minor balancing of artillery stats and Flame HT reload rate.

And since release nothing has changed for multiplayer beyond minor tweaking of unit stats, and the introduction of paid DLC commanders (a continuation of a game feature that's been dubious from the start.) Very few maps have been made since release, and those that were were clones of maps that were already from vCoH. There's been continuous and extensive development for the single player side of the game, but it's my guess that very few people who preordered the game were that interested in singleplayer gameplay. And the number of people who preordered appears to have been no small number, considering SEGA sued Valve for almost a million dollars of preorder assets back in July.

Maybe I'm feeling extra cynical because I've been wishing the Worldbuilder would be released and Relic is officially streaming their office all playing DoW with each other right now, all the while thinking about how CoH2 was almost never released due to THQ's bankruptcy.

When German players are slow to adapt or shoot themselves in the foot (StuG instead of Ostwind etc), I usually find the game to be pretty well balanced and matched up.

Which I guess is weirdly a sort of morbid take on keeping the game historical. :|

Conscripts don't shoot better. Penals actually hit their targets sometimes. Their ability to kill panzer/grenadiers can be particularly useful later in the game. They also have good synergy with conscripts merge ability. I like me my satchels as well.

They lack oorah, molotovs, or AT nades but they are great at dealing damage. They also aren't commander specific.

But you have a point there. Most strategies I know of build tier 1 simply because its 10 fuel less than t2, bringing t3 that much sooner. Rarely is it for any t1 unit.

My thoughts on that were snipers and p/gren swarms. This idea sort of evolved from thoughts on how underpowered and crippled penals and soviet tier 1 are as a whole.

The similar evisceration is already felt with going t1 as far as AT goes. By making soviet tier 2 a more direct counter towards germans players favoring infantry, it becomes an option to actually counter german tactics.

And without mg or mortar cover, the ZiS would much more vulnerable to the german army, and an expensive and dangerous decision to build if the german calls the bluff and gets another pgren.