Profile of Fortune

The snipers are fine.
Vet 1 Ostheer 1 shots Soviet Sniper teams. Provided you're using the sniper properly (killing CEs for higher exp gain) Vet 1 isn't hard. Don't forget that Soviet Snipers mean there will (probably) not be Mortars, MGs or ZiS, or in the event those show up they've shot themselves in the foot when it comes to tank production.

You can use all of that information to your advantage.

I personally would like Command Bunkers to be capturable.

As for the other two, a single ZiS Field Gun is often enough to deal with them outright.

If this is the example you choose to reference to describe your enduring memory of CoH1, would I be right in saying that you're more of a basic match player? And I'm not being facetious, just asking.

The reason I ask is that I could easily watch a thousand games of top-level CoH on good maps and never get bored, mainly because of the incredibly tense, delicate and brutal opening minutes where the position of every single man is so important, right down to the late game hair-raising base-rapes where a well-placed V1 or off-map can bring a KO to the game right there an then.

Could I find watching as many 4v4s, or indeed 3v3s or even 2v2s as interesting? No- they lack those elements described above because more people means less important decisions, and whereas a Panther in a 1v1 is a large, targeted and specialist investment with the power to turn the tide, the same tank in a 4v4 is very much just more of the same.

CoH by its nature lives and dies by its maps- even with the best design in the world (as with CoH1), a bad map could easily ruin things. Just think of Flooded Plains, or Best, or Beach Assualt, or any number of 1v1 maps that were eventually shafted in favour of better ones. I reckon that if the original had a far greater map pool, it would have lasted a lot longer, simply because strategies are so frequently built around maps. B

ut once again, the significance of the map is inversely proportional to the size of the game. To me, all the 4v4 maps look roughly the same, and you can be near-guaranteed that by 30 minutes in, every hedge, shotblocker and building will have been razed to the ground leaving nothing but a flat billiard table- shown by the popularity of a map like Red Ball Express, which cut out the middleman and gave players a basic map that amounted to little more than a decorated field (but became one of the most played maps in the game).

I'm not sure what part of your post is addressed to me and what part is just describing overall Relic RTS competitive gameplay, which I'm somewhat introduced to from other Relic games (dawn of war 1&2 series) so I'll just sort of comment on your post, if that's alright.

The type of player I am makes or should make no difference, as I've spent far less than 100 hours on CoH1. Instead, I've played DoW 1&2, and was only introduced to CoH1 within a year before it was moved to Steam servers. Far too late to enter the competitive scene, and frankly the game itself seemed dated. As the playerbase at this point had devolved into two camps; the raging teens who talked smack in every "automatch game" win or lose, and the ones who either described themselves as competitive, or actually happened to be on that level. I had -some- fun, I'll admit, but this is largely due to my fascination and interest in WW2, not the gameplay itself.

To me, CoH2 is much closer to DoW 2 than it is to CoH1, save for the theme and context of thereof. MG42s take a while to suppress in CoH1, compared to CoH2 for example, Pumas are rather heftily armored but don't "feel" as good as the SdKfz 221. You can watch it shoot for a while and do negligible damage. I'm not a huge fan of Rock Paper Scissors balancing, because that takes away from the WW2 theme, in my opinion.
In addition, the MG42s on Panthers in CoH1 felt like frivolous decoration, in CoH2 they feel like they're serving a purpose.

Now to answer the question of what type of player I am, I have in the zone of 5000 hours of DoW 2, and along the lines of another 1800 hours on DoW 1 series. I would describe myself as unrelenting, and I love discovering and "exploiting" facets of gameplay I strive to discover. I wish to make a game my own, to have my own style that makes casters go "What, why'd he do that? That makes no sense.." To me, CoH2 gives this opportunity, CoH1 did not. While I appreciate the competitive challenge of 1v1, my heart truly lies in 2v2, though I am trying my best to immerse myself more fully in 1v1s, despite the gametype feeling "snowbally" in comparison.

I disagree that a Panther only serves a specialist function in 1v1, I feel that decisions of that calibre are made much more often in 2v2s, atleast in CoH2. It's a shame that most of the casts, though understandably, are of scrub bashing due to the lesser amount of people as of yet playing the game on automatches.

Anyway, as for what you said about V1s turning the tide or indeed ending a game outright, sure. But that doesn't take away the "Yeah seen it 50 times" feel. Yes, you killed something critical, but it -was- a V1. It was a nuke, the most powerful one infact, you -expect- it to be doing critical damage. Blizzards, ice and the sort add obstacles, it's not just a playing field with tanks, infantry and artillery going at it, a single squad of infantry can make a huge difference. Your units that you've invested in can play a huge role. It's not -just- micro, there's elements of surprize aswell. A Panther in 1v1 can make a huge difference. But what if it showed up in a blizzard, and in your base? You missed it because of the blizzard, and now you have to retreat to deal with it. Maybe it's vet 1 by the time you get there and it gallops into the sunset at your return, and now his army is eagerly taking back the territory you were holding.

V1s are end-game nukes, you hear them coming and you have the time to go "Oh for crying out loud." PGrens sitting in stealth, just waiting, then when they see the tank stop a lone "Grenata!" rings out, and the Soviet checks his infantry. Nothing. Wait, where's my tank?

It is not just odd, it is quite rediculous, yes the ostwind costs more but it does a good job vs infantry, light tanks such as the t70. and a Really good job vs all vehicles/aircraft.

I have started seeing more german players spam 2-3 ostwinds aswell as paks/shreks, so much AI and AT, the only thing that army comp struggles with is the soviet heavy tanks which in 1v1s you do not see very often as all soviets who are not confident in winning choose HtD doctrine, ( i myself tend to go with the heavy mortar and t34/85 doctrine as it requires more skill)

2-3 Ostwinds? Paks aswell as Shreks? The game you're describing should see the Soviet field an ISU-152 after sacrificing enough Manpower to afford the CPs. Or IS-2s for that matter, coupled with Incendiary artillery to harass emplaced infantry AT weapons.

At most you should be investing a single SU-85 once you've seen the Ostwind, fuel-wise, and then invest on ZiS Field Guns, banking on the Manpower investment and hoping you can hold on to your fuel atleast. Spending munitions on mines instead of barrages adds another layer of wasting the Ostheer's time

1.) It is not different to the Russian AT-gun in terms of anti tank, the only thing making the russian one better (in my opinion) is the Artillery Barrage ability.
A Panzer IV can drive by a russian At-gun and destroy it almost as fast as the T34 destroys paks.
edit: scratch that, Paks are way better vs tanks due to higher firerate than the Russian ZIS

2.) I don't get this, people seem to forget that 2 T34 cost as much as a Panther and are not nearly as strong.
The thing making it strong is that German player underestimate how fast they can hit the field (if the Russian plays right) and are often not prepared to deal with them.

3.)Conscripts are quite nice with PPsH and hit the dirt, yes, but don't forget that grens are also nice with G43 or mg42.
And MG42 are not doctrinal while PPsH and Hit the dirt are.
Additionally, it actually costs more to reinforce a conscript squad from 1 member to 6 than it costs for the Grens from 1 to 4, so "cheap" is not really true.

4) If you flank an MG make sure you get as close to it as possible and if it turns to you run through it on the opposit site.
Had no issues with flanking Maxims or MG42.

5)Some good cheaper mines won't hurt for both factions tbh.

1a. Panzer IV requires heavier fuel investment than the T-34. P4 is 115 fuel, plus 25 for first tier, 35 for second, plus another bunch for the building.
T-34 building I believe is 90 fuel, and the 50 fuel for the first building is ignored because Russians start out with that amount, whereas Ostheer do not. Your "first" P4 will hit the field sometime after the "first" T-34/76, giving the Russians a distinct advantage if you choose to go head-to-head Medium Tank vs Medium Tank. Don't forget that T-34/85s require no fuel investment whatsoever, in regards to demanding building being built. This allows a 50-fuel headstart on the tank race.

1b. You're basing Paks being better vs tanks than ZiS based on rate of fire? ZiS play a role as AI with barrage, Pak does not. This allows the Soviet to gamble on that field presence, whereas the Ostheer will have to choose between early PGrens or Pak-40.
The thing about a T-34 build, is that there are no visible markers to warn the Ostheer player that it is indeed coming, unless 120mm Mortar/Guards are spotted, but that is only in the case of T-34/85s. This leads to the situation where the ZiS is on the field, Tank or no Tank. The Pak-40 will -only- make an appearance after it is confirmed to the player that Tanks will be coming. It is entirely possible for a Soviet player to instead go for SU-85s, which will make Pak completely and utterly useless, leeching away pop and MP income.

2. If the Soviet is fielding a T-34 in the same timeframe as the Ostheer is fielding a Panther, something is seriously wrong in the game. Panther requires 50 fuel for tech, another.. 35? For the building. That's already the price of a single T-34, meaning realistically 3 are on the field in the time the first Panther hits the battlefield, and this means the Ostheer did not get a StuG/P4. If he did, that is another 3 minutes before Panthers can even be teched for.

3. PPSh gives 2 weapons for 20 munitions. G43 is 2 weapons for 60, G42 is 1 weapon for 60. You can easily field 3 Cons with PPSh-41s for the same price as 2 grens with a total of 1 MG-42 or 2 G43s. Ontop of this, G43 build means weak artillery counters and a reliance on Armor to do the heavy lifting in the event that Field Artillery is built.
The most obvious and only feasible counter to Hit the Dirt PPSh-41 conscript spam, is a StuG, Ostwind or Panzer IV to simply drive over the little jerks, as they cannot move out of the way of the crushing treads.

4. The Maxim has no de-setup time. Running close to a properly-microed Maxim is tantamount to suicide, and a dual-maxim build for this reason provides some incredible field presence at relatively low cost.