Profile of Southers

I love the idea of randomised CW infantry teams, you might end up with Highlanders or the Welsh Guards.

I don't know how much military history you're into, but if you read up on Monte Cassino and the Italian campaign you'll see Alexander's army was one of the most polyglot in history. Free French with the foreign legion and North African levies (camels!), Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Brazilians (seriously), Americans and of course the Poles who led the final assault on Cassino.

A whole North Africa into Italy campaign would be brilliant, from the Afrika Korps to the Green Devils in Cassino and the bitter fighting on the Gothic Line, Screaming Eagles at Anzio, the Royal Marines fighting in Commachio...

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! Certainly the randomized infantry teams, no question on that! They can function the same, or different, I dont know much about balancing that or care, it isnt important but I want the different skins and accents at the very least! That feeling of true variety.

I know a fair bit and you are totally right. I must admit I was thinking much more about the whole desert back and fourth saga from the 40's to 42 ish. I said Italy as sort of something to finish it off, another stage in a long war I suppose.

Lets remember the desert, no actually the whole war in the Med. It starts with the infantry battles Italy vs UK turning into Italy vs Commonwealth and eventually Axis vs Commonwealth or Axis vs Allies when both the Germans and US come in to bail each side out. A very progressive set of battles which a lot of emphasis on Supply and logistics, both across the sea and by land. The war here also extends to Greece at once point, and Crete, and to some extent Malta too. All of this was fought by British forces which in the end relied so heavily upon the other nations of the commonwealth to come to their aid, no matter how hard they put up a fight.

Lots to think about but I just really want them to stay away from what they did to the British in vCoH with the whole Caen conundrum. Any army in that situation would have resorted to defensive based offence tactics because of the situation. It helped to create the Falaise pocket which was really a strategic master mind. And whilst we are on vCoH we all know that the Brits are seen as the blob/ spam faction, which was not intentional i believe.

I like your thoughts, and moving away from the damn trucks, YEY. Although:

I would like to see a Commonwealth army that fought in the deserts of north Africa and Italy (being British myself). We are a stubborn bunch, we don't give up easily on anything (hence the nick name desert rats). Therefore the initial idea is to make us very defensive... No thanks relic, we were far from it and it was just Normandy and Caen in particular where this happened. The British has a far reaching empire to maintain, with a highly elite but fairly small professional army, extremely reliant on the huge power projection offered by the royal navy.

That being said, I dont want to turn us into the defensive army we saw in CoH1 (based on how we fought normandy+, no far from it. We were a very effective small and mobile force for most of the war, where at one point around 30,000 men defeated around 200,000 Italians. Now you can blame the Italians for this all you like but its not their fault, we are just too damn professional and hard working for our own damn good, we knew where to strike and when.

All biased aside I really hope they think a bit more about the variety of the Commonwealth when they release them. We had forces from all over the world fighting with us from the Englishman, Scots, Welsh and Irish all the way to Canadians, Australians, Indians and even free French, Polish and Norwegian forces helping out massively. A heavy emphasis should be on this variety and possibly also on the mobility given by the likes of the Royal Navy.

Think of the massive deception plans invented by the Brits (invasion of Corsica) (invasion of Calais), which diverted that huge Axis force into areas, leaving our actual objectives open for the taking!. Also lets Think about those Commando raids across Europe of many different designs from Norway Island raids to French ports, defying our enemies vital strategic resources and maintaining a constant distraction.

In CoH2 lets have a small army that really struggles to fight the masses we see with Germans, Russians, Italians and US but can still strategically be a pain in the A***, winning through ingenuity. Lets have the variety of nations fight for us giving us our Core combat units (call in a rifleman section and you don't know whether they are going to be Scots, Canadians, Aussies, Indians etc, it doesn't matter! who cares they all function the same, make do with what you've got and what you can get your hands on!). Lets have tanks that cannot match the German tanks, but don't need to! because they rely on diversionary tactics where necessary, and have the punch to deliver at just the right time. Lets have elite special forces such as SAS or SOE paratroopers and free fighting forces from Europe to do all our dirty work, and break down our opponents! Lets have commanders that offer a real range of capabilities fitting with British ingenuity and stubbornness (Strategic deception doctrine, Royal marine commando doctrine, Set europe ablaze doctrine, etc . Above all let the commonwealth suffer with that annoying British attitude that everybody hates, that spirit to survive no matter what. Just like the desert Rats.

Lets just make sure we don't have simcity + blob tactics this time... please.

Soviet marines and paratroopers should both be added, for inspiration and a good story go play men of war red tide, it focuses heavily on both groups of men.

they are also shown in soviet storm the TV documentary a fair amount.

the Soviet use of these units was on a far more tactical level than a strategic one, often dropping relatively small units of these men behind the lines to sabotage or engage German units. In contrast the US and British use of these forces was very strategic in large scale operations. Therefore they sort of would fit in the context of CoH much better for the soviets than the US, but oh well.

A possible cause:

"Players seem to spend a lot more time on unit micro now because there is an overall lack of thinking involved" - Southers

Coh2 for me is lacking in Tech options on the battlefield. How do I mean? Well I feel like they have moved most of this into the lobby, so you pick commanders and bulletins etc, then you play the actual game with your mind set on a strat or general direction of gameflow.

I really miss global upgrades and trade offs, they need to implement more of these into the current game (instead of just adding a wider array of choice in the lobby -dlc comanders/ bulletins etc) - I don't know what exactly although from these coh1 examples it shouldn't be too hard to think some up (many have been mentioned).

So in Coh1 we had loads of options, not to mention the doctrine tree adding the whole which way shall i go aspect....

Americans - Bars/Nades/Stickies? Supply Yard upgrades? WSC? MP? Tank factory? smokes/upgun... lots of global upgrades to consider!
Germans - Which VET upgrades do I purchase? people forget this as part of tech!

SOooo, do you people see why in my opinion coh2 lacks something? CHOICE! and I believe that this could be what leads you to deducing the game as a click fest!

Maybe this is a completely dumb cause for clickfest but it might have something to do with? I think the core gameplay has moved away from thinking to clicking! the same could be said for flanking and tactics... remember all that rifleman flanking early game you get on coh1. its gone...

how can he get 4gb more ram and an i5 if the mobo doesnt support either?