I feel that this is a good time to talk about my relationship with the real time strategy
genre.
I fell in love with these games after a friend showed me Command & Conquer in 1995, and I’ve
followed the evolution of the genre ever since.
Another point of order, I am absolutely terrible at these games.
That being said, the original Company of Heroes is one of my favourite real time strategy
games.
It took the mechanics of cover and reinforcement that Relic introduced in Dawn of War and applied
them to a World War II setting.
That game made you care about losing any single unit, and went a long way to present the chaos
and despair of wartime from a bird’s eye view.
That last point is on display here in Company of Heroes 2.
Presenting the war from the perspective of the Russian front as Germany is invading their
lands has you controlling squads that are outgunned, outmanned, and even sometimes lacking
weapons.
Just as you would imagine a soldier in such a predicament having to learn simply how to
survive in the thick of it, the player experiences the same.
This can be especially taxing as levels can be long, multi-segmented, and without checkpoints.
Be sure to save often, or be willing to learn through repetition.
One thing I don’t recall from the original game is how wonky the camera is.
There never seems to be an ideal default angle to witness the battle from.
While holding alt down does allow you free reign to place the camera where you’d like
it, it only seems to be applicable until the next battle or strategic movement, in which
case you need to find a more ideal angle to work from.
I guess this keeps the player from becoming complacent in the heat of battle, but did
they really need to implement that into the camera system?
The same methodical approach to combat is still on display.
If your units are in good cover, you don’t have to worry about them too much as you make
a decision as to what to do next.
Flanking is very important, as is the use of grenades, reinforcements, and suppressive
fire.
Just don’t get attached to your units.
While the last game made you sad if you lost a squad, on the Russian front it seems to
be a necessity.