American Campaign Impossible

[Secondhand Samurai]

So I'm disapinted with the inclusion of the U.S. forces in CoH 2. What I was expecting was a story driven campaign like CoH 1 and the Soviet campaign. Instead I'm greeted with some kind of RISK rip-off with AI that well to say they cheat would be an understatement. Coupled with the fact that you only have about ten maybe fifteen minutes before they start swarming your base and wiping out all your units. This is being done on Standard dificulty keep in mind, an alegedly "average" or "normal" setting. If that's normal I don't want to imgine what hard will be like.

Anyway enough whining out of me. The point is the campaign is too hard. Your company stength goes down not for every squad that gets wiped (which would make more sense) but for each and every man you lose! WTF!? and the enemy have no such issues. I don't get it guys. Most missions I can power through given enough time. The issue I have is with the one mission (I forget the region) where only kills from vehicles reduce the force counter. The one where you have Shermans (and wolverines as the armor company) and they have Panzer IVs and King Tigers!

[Aazo5]

Agreed. I started it on standard when I got it, and was 3/4 way done with the campaign and restarted it on easy because I wasn't having any fun at all. The way the ai is made in the game is that they can see you through the fog of war, which is a really bad mechanic. Also, the whole true sight thing doesn't mean anything for the enemies because of that. This means no flanking or hiding units behind buildings. Even worse, the enemies will do anything and everything to win, throwing unit after unit and not caring if they die. It's like you're playing against the Soviets. Germans for sure did not fight like that. They fought similar to the US, but the game makes them fight unrealistically which is really just bad ai design.

[Hikuran]

USF campaign is much more challenging than soviet one and almost equal to some ToW Mini Campaign, but they are still AI not people.
A few new tactics or retry and I believe every good players can finish it on hard

[Aluminum Elite Master]

I've beaten the USF campaign on each difficulty mode, and scored enough to earn all rewards, and here's my advice:


#1 - Rangers. You want the Ranger commander, which is why they made it the only one that doesn't come with the base Ardennes Assault (AA) game unless you pre-ordered. Ranger Company has Rangers which can be requisitioned to have muni-free bazookas when you call-in a unit. Plus, unlike most other units, Rangers can toggle on/off their AT weapons, allowing them to switch back to anti-infantry mode.


#2 - Company choices. After Rangers, I find Airborne and Support companies to be the best. Airborne can be requisitioned to allow paratroopers to be dropped into the fog of war, allowing you to quickly get to certain points in a few missions and cause some early chaos (which is needed on occasion, such as when you are in the scripted mission with fuel trucks escaping already in the first 3-4 minutes of the mission) Then, Support is the best for defensive missions, because you can build more MGs and AT guns than usual due to their special bonus of having crew weapons take up less population cap. This allows you to build extra MGs and AT guns while still having a few Riflemen squads.


#3 - Smart Meta on the Campaign Map. King Tiger is possible to avoid until the final mission (Attacking the Siegfried Line or whatever). How? Simply use the companies not engaged in a mission to block the retreat lines for the current engagement. When you play a mission, you see the little Iron Crosses flow out afterwards, right? You want to block those from meeting up with other Iron Crosses. Do that, and it's possible that you won't see a King Tiger until the final moments of the last mission. Even on Hard, I think I saw a total of two, maybe three King Tigers (one occurring during the Vehicle Kills Only engagement because I blobbed Rangers at the beginning rather than use vehicles right away, meaning the mission went on long enough that a King Tiger appeared anyways despite not allowing the mission to be reinforced by retreating enemy strength).

>> It is worth it to surround almost every engagement, even if it means moving through enemy territory and losing a bit of company strength to surround it. <<


#4 - Avoid certain missions until you have the right company with the right upgrades. I hate the mission where you destroy Trucks and IR Halftracks because it almost absolutely requires having Rangers to avoid staggering losses... the only alternative is to play as the other companies and watch the grass grow as the few points you can take early on slowly allow you to *eventually* field bazookas on your other units. Likewise, the Vehicle Kills Only engagement is best played with Rangers that are requisitioned to have Shreks muni-free; otherwise, go with Airborne and requisition the ability to get bazookas from your dropped ammo crates. But whatever you do, try not to play Vehicle Kills Only or a couple of the other engagements until you have certain units/upgrades that appear early on and allow you to really tackle the mission quickly (otherwise some engagements can become pretty tough by the end).


#5 - Did I mention Rangers? Really, it's worth a second mention that you want the Ranger Company. As I said above, you can requisition them to start with Shreks that are muni free. But, more importantly perhaps, you can combine that with their manpower transfer ability, where you take all that unused muni and now turn it into early manpower. This is hugely helpful in engagements, allowing you to quickly field the pricey Rangers without much of a headache. Plus, a couple of missions you have restrictions on manpower income, including one engagement where you only get manpower every 5 minutes or so in one medium sized chunk. So, the manpower transfer ability is also big.

>>But wait! There's more! Ranger units come with muni-free demo-charges, which you can plant on points as you cap them. Then, when the AI sends a unit to cap the point, detonate the charge and annihilate their squad. While Rangers only come with 3 charges each, this is more than enough as long as you have 3-5 Ranger squads. Simply send a Ranger unit down each lane of the map, laying charges as they cap, and you can cover the map pretty easily in terms of defending it, helping you to control points early to gain more resources or bleed enemy tickets. <<


#6 - Basic good CoH2 play. Use control groups, hotkeys, and cover/unit placement to get the most out of your units in general. There are several Steam guides on how to use some of the stuff I just mentioned, as well as forums you could Google where those things are explained better if you aren't familiar with them.


To sum up:

Use the Ranger Company, play the meta-map intelligently, and use good general CoH2 tactics, and you can probably get by on Standard, if not Hard. If you absolutely can't use Rangers because you don't have them and don't want to pay for them, then Airborne with their muni-crates that can drop bazookas can substitute to some extent. But you really, really want Rangers. And you really want to not just see the campaign map as where you choose your next mission, because you can also use rather basic strategic thinking to surround engagements and prevent them from retreating and reinforcing other battles (and sometimes leading to King Tigers or P-IVs being present at places they normally wouldn't).


Hope all that helps!

[Secondhand Samurai]

Thank you Keanu, I apreciate the advice. I will try your suggestions.

[CursedPanther]

The Rangers are the way to go. I used them all the way through the General difficulty and fully upgraded them the first chance I got. The only problem with General difficulty is you lose exactly one manpower in the campaign for each man you lose in the field, so reinforcing the casualties and sacrificing the company's veterency is a total pain. It also means you'll be forced to give up on certain secondary objectives cuz you know you'll lose too many men by forcing your way to it. Can't imagine how the other companies will fair under the same scenarios really.

My advice, stay with Captain difficulty or below if you're here to have 'fun'. A large amount of trial and error comes with General, and most of the time you'll get nothing more than frustration most of the time.

[Final Advance]

I beat the campaign on hard difficulty with the default 3 companies and only once ran out of reinforcements (still won that one too) it was a pain but wouldn't of changed it for anything.
Also once immobilised a king tiger with an AT gun and a stuart, just as the crew bailed out of the stuart giving me a tank new tank crew to snag the king with.

[Cast]

The campaign is definitely beatable, gotta mitigate losses, I have purposely let all the retreating germans regroup in other territories so they are all 5 stars and completed it. After a battle, the other 2 companies recover strength if they are sitting on friendly territory. When engaging, use light vehicles to fight early on and you can withdraw them into shermans late game

[CODGUY]

Originally posted by Lord Protector:

So I'm disapinted with the inclusion of the U.S. forces in CoH 2. What I was expecting was a story driven campaign like CoH 1 and the Soviet campaign. Instead I'm greeted with some kind of RISK rip-off with AI that well to say they cheat would be an understatement. Coupled with the fact that you only have about ten maybe fifteen minutes before they start swarming your base and wiping out all your units. This is being done on Standard dificulty keep in mind, an alegedly "average" or "normal" setting. If that's normal I don't want to imgine what hard will be like.

Anyway enough whining out of me. The point is the campaign is too hard. Your company stength goes down not for every squad that gets wiped (which would make more sense) but for each and every man you lose! WTF!? and the enemy have no such issues. I don't get it guys. Most missions I can power through given enough time. The issue I have is with the one mission (I forget the region) where only kills from vehicles reduce the force counter. The one where you have Shermans (and wolverines as the armor company) and they have Panzer IVs and King Tigers!

Even in the campaign USF sucks? I'm starting to think Relic did this on purpose...LOL!

[ShodaN]

Originally posted by CODGUY:

Even in the campaign USF sucks? I'm starting to think Relic did this on purpose...LOL!

People that cant play against the AI properly generally have problems like that.

[Cast]

Originally posted by DarTH ShodaN:

Originally posted by CODGUY:

Even in the campaign USF sucks? I'm starting to think Relic did this on purpose...LOL!

People that cant play against the AI properly generally have problems like that.

If only he puts this much effort into playing the game, instead of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

[Enrlich Hartman]

you just need to use actual tactics and some common cense , i beated it in normal in first try and hard in the second , out of that , rangers are really helpfull , but you need to play some guerrilla stile always using cover and minimising the damage taken , also dont let them regroup . always create a bag , close it, and delete them , in that way you will cut their forces really god .

[CursedPanther]

Why the ♥♥♥♥ is this thread necroed again?

[Grandpa!]

Some people just couldn't stay away from the necromancy tomes on the shelf could they

[sleeze]

LOL YOU CANT BEAT THE USF CAMPAIGN HOLLLLY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GET GOOD AT THE GAME DUDE JESUS I BEAT THAT ♥♥♥♥ DAY 1 BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Mirage_Panzer]

If someone actually Recommend people to use the Ranger Company, man.. thats a p2w ♥♥♥♥. Why? You need to pay a dlc for a dlc there, pay to make ur life easier.