COH2: squad size and cost versus population cap

[Some Old Gamer]

I've recently given COH2 a second chance, I wasn't too happy with it at first after years of playing vCOH. I purchased the first COH title late in 2006 after I played it at a friends house. vCOH is still one of my favorite games of all time and I have high hopes for COH2, but IMO the devs need to bring the new game a bit closer to the old one in some ways. I'm referring to unit cost vs population cap mainly. I'm much happier about unit power balance during game play than I was at first, but I can't help but notice that some unit's are WAY TOO expensive on the German side of the game. I can't comment on the costs of the Russian side because I haven't dabbled with that army yet outside of the campaign and I haven't played the campaign recently anyway. I also can't comment on the new armies because I haven't spent a cent on DLC.

I was a bit taken back and upset when I saw that COH2 was launched with so much DLC that to buy everything you'd pay for the game twice. I don't remember the initial costs but if memory serves me it was $59.99 for the game and $59.99 for the DLC too. I felt like this game title I've been playing for so many years had it's name violated by corporate America with a launch like that. So like the cheap guy I am I stuck it on my wish list and tried to forget about it till a decent sale came along. Then a friend purchased it for me for Christmas.

Snipers cost 9 population points... really??? It's a sniper not a tank, lower the cost already. I thought snipers costing 4 population points in vCOH was ridiculous when an MG42 or mortar team only cost 3. 9 is way too expensive and really out of hand. Yes they're effective offensively but they're also really squishy. Once a sniper was revealed in vCOH he was dead meat if he wasn't in the right spot or properly protected. I haven't had a different experience with the sniper in COH2 with the exception of the really high cost.

I imagine the reason for this high unit cost is related to PVP and spam style PVPing. I remember some time ago in vCOH people for a while spammed early game units, like mobs of 10 pioneer squads or mobs of 8 jeeps, Puma mobs, American armored car mobs, ostwindflakpanzer mobs, panzer 4 mobs, stug 3 mobs and so on. If this is the case, why not just make a unit type cap for PVP only??

My vCOH game play style is the main reason that I have this complaint. I don't care to stomp the computer as fast as I can anymore and again I'm no PVPer. I like to build up maximum combat points, set up solid defenses and use multiple different unit types to slaughter my enemy. I feel COH2 is still lacking in this department. If I establish a forward base in vCOH, I like to defend it with at least one MG42, a mortar, a sniper, an infantry squad, and an AT gun. I love creating choke points via tank traps, wire and MG nests effectively creating a kill zone for the computer to try to breach. When I"ve had enough and the PC has had plenty of time to build defenses I crush the PC and end the game. I've been doing this to pass time since the days of Command and Conquer in the 90's and I don't intend on changing any time soon.

Tanks... Stug 3's are 8 population points, Panzer 4's (which seem to be too expensive to be useful) cost 12, Panthers 16, Tiger 24... I won't even get into fuel costs. I think tanks should be significantly more expensive than infantry but again this is excessive IMO.

What happened to defenses??? Sand bags, barbed wire, tank traps???
What about forward bases??? I really don't want to spend the time or resources to build 3 bunkers to almost achieve what was possible in vCOH. This list could go on and on... SEGA, this isn't a prompt for you to release yet another DLC package, you've violated this game enough already.

The ability for the player to decide how much fuel or munitions a strategic point collects is a welcome improvment, the red army is awesome to play against, the unit names are more historically accurate, overall it's not a bad game don't get me wrong. It just feels too different from the original to me.

I have no interest in PVP because I'm a grown man with a family. I don't have the time to get good enough at this game to compete so I don't bother. I try to game on weekends in the morning but I usually walk away from the game and just rack up empty hours for each title on my steam account and wear out my gaming hardware. After the kids go to bed, I like to spend an hour or two gaming uninterrupted to unwind before bed. I understand that I'm not the main group of people these games are marked toward but being that I've played or owned almost every piece of gaming equipment since Atari and I'm raising three potential customers it would be foolish to forget about my age group.

Can't we have a unit number vs cost ratio set to 1:1 for most infantry units??? A sniper should cost 1 population point, Grenadiers should = 4 regardless if they're panzer-grenadiers or regular grenadiers. A sniper while effective offensively isn't worth 9 points if it's only a 1 man unit. If you want it worth more than 1 fine, but 9 is too high of a cost as was 4. I'm thinking 2 is a fair number, maybe 3. I just can't seem to produce enough different units to feel like I used the army right.

If you're trying to avoid PVP spamming then do what the rest of the gaming world does, change online game play. Why the hell is the population cap set to 100 when there's no way in hell you'll ever have 100 troops if you have a diverse army??? No tank should cost over 20 population points, that's way excessive also. Why not do what vCOH did and cap certain units??? Early on the tiger tank weren't capped at 1 like they were late in the game. The only way to get more than 1 tiger was to let a bunch of them get destroyed by the enemy, then recover them with the Tiger repair tank on the PE army. You could even break the population cap that way.

If COH2 is for PVPers then spend some time and make the new steam version of vCOH a little more PVE friendly for us worn out old gaming relics.

[BlueZ]

I really feel you. I hate Popcap at 100 :( my ENTIRE ARMY is 3 tanks and 4 bunch of guys... Ridiculous. It's really Frustrating.

[Fornax The Lazy]

Originally posted by BlueZ:

I really feel you. I hate Popcap at 100 :( my ENTIRE ARMY is 3 tanks and 4 bunch of guys... Ridiculous. It's really Frustrating.

What.....why.......are you.....
/sigh

[Fornax The Lazy]

Originally posted by Tasty Tofu x3:

Yeah the armies in Coh 1 were huge in comparison.

The sniper neds the high pop cap otherwise we will get the sniperspam back.

*2014/10/6.

[mustachewarfare]

think spearhead mod will fix the need for larger battles

[Some Old Gamer]

Originally posted by BlueZ:

I really feel you. I hate Popcap at 100 :( my ENTIRE ARMY is 3 tanks and 4 bunch of guys... Ridiculous. It's really Frustrating.

Exactly. There are SO many different units available to build. Why make it difficult to have a diverse army?

To hold a point you'll need to leave troops behind to defend it. I know that there are certain points that can be held to create a defensive line without defending each point, but still the amount of troops that can be deployed to a battlefield is no where near high enough.

To avoid sniper spam, simply cap the unit for PVP play ONLY.

I don't know if they fixed it yet, but I realized that I could build a TON of Sherman tanks by abandoning the tank after it's finished being built, and then put my troops back in later on when I have like 12 or so abandoned tanks and tank squads sitting around and then have more like 160 troops on a 100 army cap map when all my tank squads were in the tank.

It's a dirty little trick, reminicent of Command and Conquer game play.

Massive mob of tanks = good bye any type of defense.

[TermusJar]

Coh2 is about strike force not massive army.

[Some Old Gamer]

I've been playing COH since the first game came out 10 years ago. The skrimish part of the game is about winning a match against either the computer or another player. For some people it's about PVE, for other's it's about the story in campaign mode and for others it's about PVP. I'm sure there are several other ways to play the game other than the way I play it. That said the reason vCOH was so successful was because it was a lot of things to a lot of people. It's called "mass appeal" and I don't feel COH2 has a much mass appeal as vCOH did.

Originally posted by Sigmnt:

Coh2 is about strike force not massive army.

^This^ is what "it's about" to you. You can't speak for everyone, but thanks for sharing.

[dt Walter Robinson]

Originally posted by BlueZ:

I really feel you. I hate Popcap at 100 :( my ENTIRE ARMY is 3 tanks and 4 bunch of guys... Ridiculous. It's really Frustrating.

[mustachewarfare]

Originally posted by Some old gamer:

I've been playing COH since the first game came out 10 years ago. The skrimish part of the game is about winning a match against either the computer or another player. For some people it's about PVE, for other's it's about the story in campaign mode and for others it's about PVP. I'm sure there are several other ways to play the game other than the way I play it. That said the reason vCOH was so successful was because it was a lot of things to a lot of people. It's called "mass appeal" and I don't feel COH2 has a much mass appeal as vCOH did.

Originally posted by Sigmnt:

Coh2 is about strike force not massive army.

^This^ is what "it's about" to you. You can't speak for everyone, but thanks for sharing.

if you look at the game mechanic it heavily centers around usage of clever unit positioning and skirmishing so the game is not much about massive army. For massive army battle, wargame series deliver such experience much better.

[Some Old Gamer]

Originally posted by mustachewarfare:

if you look at the game mechanic it heavily centers around usage of clever unit positioning and skirmishing so the game is not much about massive army. For massive army battle, wargame series deliver such experience much better.

This is true, it's an RTS. However the lack of a large army is one thing I dislike about the sequel of COH. I found it much easier to play the game with more troops. I can win a skirmish in vCOH with 1 volks squad, 1 grenadier squad, 1 pioneer squad, and a half track as my only offensive squad and have done so several times.