Profile of Quercus

Infantry sections are best in cover and on the move they are abysmal.

True, but at least they don't move at half-speed through non-friendly territory like they did in COH!

Hi Seven.
In my opinion CoH2 is in general an improvement over CoH. I never liked the ability to buy veterancy for Wehrmacht in CoH, nor did I like the mechanic whereby the British could only earn veterancy through their officer units. The implementation of the British Forces in CoH2 is better - both because now all factions earn veterancy the same way (hooray!), but also because you have a choice about what teching up you do and how you play the faction, which wasn't the case in CoH1.
The true Line of Sight, ability to mantle and other small tweaks also make it better.

The negative side of CoH2 is the Commander system. In my opinion the doctrine system in CoH was superior - it offered more in the way of choice during matches and I really don't like the idea of "premium" commanders.

Of course there are balance issues with CoH2, but there were with CoH as well and these are subject to improvement.

The use of emplacements should be optional but with additional advantages.
For example:
All British weapon teams (Vickers MG, 6 lb AT gun and a normal mortar team) have 85% health/durability of standard equivalent but have an option to "fortify" (build a static fortification that reduces damage taken from all projectiles and indirect artillery fire but not from direct attacks with flamethrowers or grenades).
This "fortify" option is free but takes a while to build or dismantle.

Anvil: Fortifications can be built or dismantled much quicker (60% of the normal time) and provide additional protection against indirect artillery fire.

(If only brits had some sort of forward reinforcement point they could build?...)

Yes, because of course any attacks threatening emplacements would leave a Forward HQ tent next to them completely intact and unharmed.

While I agree with the idea of having emplacements left behind to defend cutoffs and rear sectors, the impact this population drain has on your ability to make offensive pushes can't be underestimated - especially if you invest in something like a 17-pounder with its 20 population cost.

The trade-off is really between whether you want to go offensive or defensive (in which case emplacements are great), but the problem is that trying to go offensive is hampered by the lack of mobile indirect fire units.

10 print "hello"
20 goto 10

But that was probably the last programme I wrote that had no bugs.

I'd call a looping program with no exit point bugged.

Seriously though, I agree with a lot that has been said here and I would love to have a blunt Q&A session with Relic to ask them about the DLC model and how much damage the idea of DLC Commanders is doing to the franchise.

As others (Luvnest, Ami, etc.) have said in the past, not only is the Commander system in general a worse and more limiting replacement for the doctrine system in CoH, but forcing people to pay to get exclusive commanders that in many cases are clearly unbalanced compared to the standard ones is just wrong.
Make no mistake, the War Spoils system is working exactly as intended - it is a pretence that we don't have to pay for the good Commanders because there is a very, very faint chance that they will drop on a crate, but like gambling machines the odds are stacked against you; the combination of different rarities, the amount of dilution caused by intel bulletins and the fact that you can be awarded duplicates of things you already have.

While I don't think Relic are incompetent, I suspect when it comes to the biggest issue with the game (the Commanders and their lack of balance), their hands are tied.
They have to generate new income and that means making new Commanders and DLC too appealing to pass up - hence they have to appear very powerful compared to existing ones. Balance will always play second fiddle to sales and that is why Relic can't be trusted to create balanced Commanders as DLC. Look at the British Vanguard Commander for that or the two new ones.

Personally I think the whole Commander system should be rewritten:
- Commanders should be changed so that each has 9 abilities like the old left-hand/right-hand doctrine trees (from CoH), so that even after making the strategic decision of which one to use you still have to make tactical decisions during the game of where you invest the CPs at what point.
- Each faction should have a minimum of 5 standard Commanders available upon release so that everyone has some choice of which they enter a match with.
- War Spoils should *not* allow for duplicates (any duplicates can effectively be re-rolled)
- No "premium" Commanders should have unique units available to them - only variations on abilities or different combinations of them.