re: Company of Heroes 2 Official Thread

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I think the game is quite well balanced, there are a few things that seem annoying, such as Molotov cocktail's pretty much make MG42s useless as a simple charge would take them out before you could suppress, Russians don't even have to flank.

The Russian light tanks come too early, you can't get the ammunition to equip PGs with panzerschrecks, and the light tanks are so accurate and mobile that Grenadiers get creamed. Paks can't counter as they are expensive and die to a single Molotov, additionally, unless you get an engine crit the firing arc is so narrow that the light tank just runs a ring around them till they are dead. The Russian heavy mortars with good MG protection are also really hard to overcome, Russians can get them early and sit them in the centre of the map with MG cover, your grenadiers can't flank them due to the MGs and they stop you from capturing most points, but the game changer for me has been the Russian snipers in APCs. Russians get them early, you can't close on them fast enough with grenadiers to destroy the APCs which forces you to buy a SdKfz which delays you getting a Panzer IV which costs you the game as you either lose too much ground or end up with a Panzer against a heavy.

Finally of course is the fact that the grenadiers rifle grenades are slow to set up making them often less effective than Molotov's and it takes 3 or 4 grenades to kill 6 conscripts in a building, (while it takes 1 Molotov to kill a grenadier team in the same building). All of this can be overcome, but it involves a whole heap of very fast micro management key spamming, jumping rapidly between your units. It also takes a degree of luck, there is nothing like getting hit with a light Russian tank, seconds after you spent the ammo your grenadiers needed to destroy the tank on a MG upgrade.

I love CoH, I love how you can balance your offensive, play your strengths, CoH 2 at the moment seems a little too fast paced, you need to micro manage your troops to win, but your always fighting at 2 or 3 points at the same time. If your not there to move as soon at that exact second the conscript reaches for the Molotov you lose 2 Grenadiers and the engagement. If your not there to move the second you hear the heavy mortar sound when capturing a point, you lose your whole unit and if your not set up once you hear the tank sound with at least 40 ammo and 2 units of Grenadiers to flank that light tank, you lose the lot.

So my argument is that there is balance, but its balanced for uber players who know all the hot keys and can give 20 commands to 5 units in 10 seconds. For us plain mortal players, Russians get better stuff, often earlier, for less cost.

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