12azor's Review of COH2 at Eurogamer

Disclaimer : This article is based on a pre-alpha build only and therefore the content of CoH2 is subject to potential change as the build progresses.

Background

Company of Heroes (CoH) is one of the most critically acclaimed Real Time Strategy (RTS) games of all time. It was released in late 2006 and has since had the Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor expansions. I started playing CoH shortly after retail release and from patch 1.4 onwards was playing at the highest competitive level. Throughout the six years I have played CoH and its expansions I have had strong opinions on any changes to the game which have been made by Relic and have on numerous occasions been involved in community balance feedback. I am taking a brief moment to explain this to you to hopefully lend some weight to my opinions and feedback from my time spent play-testing and interrogating at this year’s Eurogamer Expo.

In attendance at the Eurogamer Expo were THQ’s Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller and Relic’s lead for CoH2 Quinn Duffy. They were extensively questioned by the general public, the community members and a contingent of top tier players. I personally spent a great deal of time speaking with both of them and those who had spoken to them to try to glean as much information as possible from the event.

Those of us lucky enough to take part in the private play session had the opportunity to play two different scenarios on two slightly different builds of CoH2. The first was a very linear tutorial, which introduced the basic gameplay elements in a casual but very restrictive manner. The second was a more open skirmish style game where you played against two opponents on a large winter map with the support of an AI.

Basic Unit/Building Information

Disclaimer : Not all units were currently available and the effectiveness and statistics of units is far from finalised at this stage. This list is just to give a rough indication of what you can expect.


The Soviets


Headquarters – Combat Engineers; four man squad, basic builder and infantry support unit (Build base structures, Lay mines, Lay Demo Charges, Build Camp Fires, Upgrades : Flame-thrower), Conscripts; six man squad armed with rifles, basic infantry unit (Construct Sandbags, Throw AT Grenade,Throw Molotov Cocktail, ‘Oorah!’, Merge)

Force Recon – Sniper Squad; two person squad (can be either male or female), scouting unit and highly effective against infantry, camouflages in cover (Hold Fire, Flare), M3A1 Scout Car

Shooting Range – Mortar Squad; six man mortar crew, provides indirect fire support, especially effective against weapon teams and static positions (Barrage, Smoke Barrage), Heavy Machine Gun Squad; six man machine-gun crew, small arc of fire machine-gun with moderate suppression power and quick redeploy time (Armor Piercing Bullets), 53k AT Gun; three man squad equipped with an anti-tank gun, slow moving with medium arc of fire and long range, extremely effective against vehicles

Light Factory – Guards; four man squad, elite infantry unit (Upgrades : PTRS light anti-vehicle weaponry, DP-28 light machine guns highly effective against infantry and grant the ‘Button’ ability), T-70; light tank effective against all unit types (Auto-repair, Ability to have a member of the crew pop-up from the tank hatch to grant additional LoS but disabling the ability to fire whilst active, M5 Halftrack; light vehicle capable of transporting infantry and with the capability of up to six infantry men firing from it whilst inside (Upgrades : Anti-aircraft weapon, especially effective against infantry), SU-76M Assault Tank

Large Factory – T-34; main battle tank, effective against all unit types (url=#]Ram ability), KV-1; heavy battle tank, effective against all unit types but slow moving and vulnerable to flanks, Katyusha; mobile multiple rocket launch platform, effective against all unit types

Additional abilities: IL-2 Sturmovik Strafing Run


The Germans


Panzer Grenadiers; four man infantry squad, strong versatile infantry squad (Throw Bundled Grenade, Upgrades : MP44, Panzershreck)
Grenadiers; four man basic infantry squad (Throw Grenade, Upgrades : LMG42)
Armoured Car; fast moving light vehicle, effective against infantry
Panzer IV; main battle tank, effective against all unit types
Mortar; three man mortar team, similar to CoH Wehrmacht Mortar team
MG42; three man machine-gun squad, large arc of fire with high suppression rate but slow redeploy time (Armor Piercing Bullets)
StuG III; infantry support tank, static gun with high frontal armour.
Pak40; three man crew; extremely powerful slowing moving anti-vehicle weapon with moderate arc and moderate set up time

New Unit Abilities

Build Camp Fire – Some of the key new features of CoH2 are the cold mechanics and with these new features engineers take on an important role in counter-acting the temperature conditions your infantry may suffer. Engineers are able to build Camp Fires anywhere on the map (with no cost in the build I played) and these will provide a temperature increase over time for infantry within their radius.

Throw Molotov Cocktail – This ability of the Soviet Conscript squad will throw a Molotov Cocktail at enemy units. The Molotov Cocktail will explode and create a patch of flaming ground for a period. The initial damage of the Molotov Cocktail is minor but if the squad remains in the fire for a few seconds it will quickly burn to death. In the build I played this had a small munitions cost

Oorah! – Oorah was a Russian Infantry battle cry during World War II and in CoH2 it will confer a bonus to movement speed and accuracy for a brief period. ‘Oorah!’ will also break suppression effects, similar in nature to the ‘Fire-up!’ abilities of the U.S. Rangers and Paratroopers in CoH, although not nearly as quickly. In the build I played this had a minimal munitions cost.

Merge – An interesting new ability exclusive to the Soviet Conscripts, this ability is used to replenish the large weapon crews that the Soviets deploy. When a Conscript squad ‘merges’ with the weapon crew the weapon crew will take on the attributes of the Conscript squad, including their fire-power, health and reinforcement cost. This is an aspect to lend authenticity as well as provide a more efficient manner to reinforcing such large weapon crews in terms of manpower.

Flare – This Sniper Squad ability allowed them to reveal a small area of the map in front of them. It required the squad to be roughly 3 medium tanks length away from the area and opened up an area roughly equivalent to that of the sight area of a tank. With the new True Line of Sight mechanic this could be an invaluable tool for scouting before moving in for an assault on your opponent. It had a moderate munitions cost in the build I played.

Ram – This new ability will allow the T-34 to literally charge at an enemy tank and ram them for additional damage. The tank will quickly accelerate towards the enemy tank and smash into it causing damage. This ability is likely to cause more damage to your own tank, specifically immobilising it and destroying its main gun and cannot completely destroy an enemy tank but it will cause damage and one critical hit effect. It could certainly provide an interesting mechanic when fighting the smaller tank battles associated with the initial transition into later game play. This ability will only be available to the T-34 tank.

Key improvements from CoH to CoH2

Improved AI – Quinn Duffy categorically stated that the quality of the AI play was a concern from early in the design process and that there would be an extremely significant improvement in the AI’s ability to pose a challenge to players. In my time playing I can confirm that this appears to be the case; the AI will try to avoid grenades, will redeploy units to counter flanks, will correctly support vehicles with infantry and weapons crews and is capable of intelligently using cover. Quinn Duffy gave an example that he had played against the AI just prior to attending Eurogamer and whereas in CoH he would simply consider it a matter of time before he’d win against the AI, in CoH2 he had an intense down-to-the-wire Victory Point finish.

Improved Vehicle Pathing – The vehicle pathing in CoH was always clumsy and caused many players a lot of problems when attempting to micro-manage in close quarters or in the midst of a large scale engagement. One inclusion in CoH2 is the option to select a reverse gear on your vehicles, which will allow you to simply select the area they are to reverse to and the vehicle will seamlessly manoeuvre itself to that position in reverse. However, my experience of the vehicle pathing was such that I don’t consider this to be that relevant or necessary, the pathing was so improved that micro-management should be far simpler even without one-click solutions. This is an improvement which should not be taken lightly as it will allow players to more easily control their vehicles in large scale fights and rather than the constant attention they require in CoH it will be possible to micro on several fronts without fear of your vehicle pirouetting in front of enemy anti-tank weaponry. The vehicle pathing has also been improved in the sense that vehicles will no longer be slowed or stalled as significantly when crushing smaller objects, as is the case currently in CoH.

Improved Infantry Pathing and AI – Currently in CoH the larger infantry squads have a tendency to decide to leap from their protective heavy cover into the middle of an open road or a single infantryman thinks it wise to walk the long way around an obstacle into machine gun fire and causes the whole squad to become suppressed. In CoH2 this has been reworked and improved so that infantry will travel more intelligently along the routes you have assigned. For example if you order your men down a road they will then move down that road to their destination but if you order them to move through the snow at the side of the road they won’t stray on to the road whilst making their way to the selected destination. Similarly if a squad is ordered into an area of cover then they will remain in that area of cover until ordered to move outside of it and the lone rifleman flinging himself across the map into no man’s land rather than sitting safely behind the wall will be a thing of the past.

Anti-cheating Measures – Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller said that given the nature of CoH2 being through steam it will inherently be more secure from potential cheats in terms of third party programs or scripts being easily downloaded and used in CoH2. Additionally THQ is planning to work with Valve to ensure a safe and secure game where any cheating can be quickly dealt with and those involved sufficiently punished. Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller went on to say that THQ and Relic would be looking at what they would be able to do independently to deal with potential cheating, as they are aware of the significance of the issue to the multiplayer community.

Directionality of Cover – As anyone who has ever played CoH will know the use of cover for infantry squads is very important. In CoH2 the visual effect of cover will be directly linked to the bonuses that infantry receive. That is to say that if a squad of men is standing behind a fence then they will only receive the bonus from the cover if the enemy fire is coming from the other side of that fence, rather than having the bonuses irrespective of the direction of incoming fire. Whilst this is a smaller issue it is still worth taking note of the smaller improvements that are being made in CoH2.

Competitive Multiplayer Support – Unfortunately I am unable to give any specific details of potential support that THQ may offer to boost, bolster or balloon the competitive scene for CoH2. However, I wanted to include it in this section as Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller was encouraging in the manner in which he spoke about the subject and was clearly keen to attempt to offer whatever support THQ was able to offer to the competitive community. I am fairly well known as a cynic when it comes to projects from Relic and THQ but I personally think this is an area in which we will see improvement from CoH. Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller did sanction me to say that THQ will be supporting tournaments and that they will, “try to do a lot to promote CoH2 in competitive e-sports”.

Unit Targeting Priority – The unit targeting priorities in CoH were for a long time a total mystery to some people, why should a Wehrmacht Bike have a higher priority than a Tiger tank? It was both confusing and frustrating in many cases to have your vehicle switch its focus from an almost dead unit to one of little value or which it could not possibly hope to successfully shoot. In CoH2 this will be a thing of the past; vehicles will maintain their player-selected targets even when given move orders, which will allow for a far more nuanced approach to vehicle micro-management.

Hotkeys – This is a very simple and yet much appreciated change in CoH2; the hotkeys will come in at least two separate potential set-ups, a Grid Key system and a Classic Key system. This will allow those who prefer the classic CoH hotkeys to maintain their use of them whilst also giving those who prefer the more logical Grid Key system the chance to use that instead.

New features: Cold Mechanics

Blizzards – Blizzards are, in the current build of the game, a randomised effect on winter maps which will periodically sweep across the map creating colder conditions. These colder conditions and blizzard conditions will reduce line of sight, create and renew deep snow and ice and lower temperatures on the map. Blizzards will effectively increase or renew the other cold mechanics on the winter maps. This feature could potentially pose some issues for competitive gameplay as the random nature of the blizzards coupled with the stalling nature of its effects could prevent decisive attacks from being carried out or for well choreographed manoeuvers to be disrupted.

Temperature/Freezing – This is one of the key new features of the cold mechanics and in essence means that infantry-based squads will slowly lose health when moving through lower temperature areas. Each infantry-based squad which is vulnerable to the cold will have a temperature gauge against their unit icon which will slowly lower until the squad begins to lose health and eventually individual men as they perish from the harsh condition. There are various ways to prevent this health loss; being in cover will prevent health loss from cold but will not regain any heat for the squad, garrisoning within a building will give the squad the ability to regain its temperature and make the squad immune to freezing. One can also place the squad into a vehicle, such as a halftrack and this will act in the same way as garrisoning a building. Alternatively engineer squads are able to build ‘Camp Fires’ at any point on the map and these will provide a safe area around them in which squad can regain their temperature. As an aside I discovered that if you throw a Molotov Cocktail onto your own freezing squad they will be heated up quite quickly by the fire produced, unfortunately they will also burn to death extremely quickly. Certain units are immune to the effects of freezing; all vehicles and AT guns are immune to these effects, as well as Sniper Squads. There is also an alert to warn players when their units are freezing so that one can quickly respond to the problem, although by the time they get to the stage where the game will automatically warn you they will most likely have to be retreated or halted in cover until support can arrive.

Deep Snow – Deep snow will be a terrain condition on the map, indicated by a small icon when one scrolls the cursor over it, in which units will travel at a much reduced speed, similar in nature to the CoH British infantry units in enemy sectors. Deep snow can be cleared by any kind of flame or explosive weapon and once cleared will not be replaced on the map until a Blizzard strikes. This mechanic could certainly provide some interesting aspects of gameplay in terms of using the terrain to protect the flank of one’s army. However, it does again raise the issue of potentially slowing down early game progress or preventing a free flowing gameplay dynamic.

Frozen Water/Ice – On winter maps the rivers and lakes on the map will be frozen into thick ice. This ice provides two important mechanics; firstly when vehicles are moving over it at speed and trying to turn they are likely to slide slightly across the ice (at this stage we were told it is only graphical in nature, although if it exposes rear armour instead of side armour it could still be significant in gameplay), secondly and more importantly the ice is breakable. The nature of the ice as breakable will work in the sense that each section of ice has health and any heavy vehicles crossing it will reduce this health, as will any explosions on the ice itself e.g. artillery, tank shots. If the ice breaks under a unit then it will act in a similar way to having a bridge destroyed under you in CoH and the unit will be instantly destroyed. It is important to note that vehicles moving over the ice are unable to completely destroy it, they will merely reduce the health of the ice to a minimal amount. In order for the ice to be destroyed some form of explosive must hit the weakened section of the ice and reduce its health to zero.

The ‘Third Player’ – Both Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller and Quinn Duffy were keen to describe the weather and cold mechanics as a ‘third player’ in the game. In an attempt to keep the feel as authentic to the historical Eastern Front as possible they described how important the conditions had been in Russia during the fighting and that their intention was for the weather to have a similar scale of impact in CoH2, to the extent that it would feel like a ‘third player’ in the game.

Additional New Features

Reverse function on all vehicles – All vehicles in CoH2 will have the option to select a reverse gear by use of a single click or a hotkey. After selecting the reverse gear the vehicles will automatically path to the destination selected in reverse thus avoiding facing rear or side armour to the opponent. This is a one time click mechanic so in order to micro-manage in a real-time flanking scenario it will still be necessary to order multiple commands. However, it does remove the need to focus intently on single vehicle units for a long period. In my opinion this ability will be of minor use for the higher tier players as a well micro-managed vehicle will always be able to flank and exploit an enemy vehicle moving on a predictable path.

Vaulting – In CoH2 infantry units will have the ability to vault or jump over small fences or walls. When selecting the unit the player simply needs to scroll over the fence or wall and then an icon will appear to indicate that the squad can vault. Once selected the squad will start to hop over the obstacle and will reform on the other side. This will obviously have a significant impact on gameplay when compared with CoH as it will make the map more open and dynamic in terms of movement. No longer will a small wooden fence prevent your squad from being able to effectively flank a position.

Capturing Vehicles – This is an interesting new addition in CoH2; when a vehicle is down to a minimal amount of health there is a chance, rather than the tank being out-right destroyed and its smoking carcass being left to provide cover on the battlefield, that it may simply become de-crewed. If this happens then either player will be able to send infantry squads to re-crew the tank. The number of infantry required will be indicated but will be generally between four and six. Once the tank has been re-crewed it will remain in a severely damaged state, approximately 5% health and will therefore require extensive repairs. This new feature is one of great concern to me as it provides for a potentially massive swing of momentum in a game. Not only is the capture of a vehicle by one player a huge gain for that player, irrespective of potential time necessary to repair it, it is also a randomly assigned chance for this to take place. If a tank becomes de-crewed in a large scale engagement then perhaps it will simply be knocked out by one player or the other to prevent it being captured but if it is an early tank engagement and the victorious player from the engagement both retains their tank and captures their opponent’s first tank then that would be game-ending.

Unit Deployment on Production – A new feature to CoH2 and a hotly debated one is the deployment of produced units. In CoH the units are invariably produced from their respective production building, excepting doctrinal specific call-in units such as Rangers or the StuH42. However, in CoH2 the units are all deployed from a deployment zone outside the map and as such will travel a small distance from an off-map position towards your rally point for that production building. In the scenario I was able to play there were multiple points of call-in and I was informed by Quinn Duffy that the units would tend to move towards any rally point set prior to actually entering the map. This is an issue which has been raised as a concern by many and on several different occasions and given the level of concern I believe any potential problems with it will be dealt with prior to release.

Size of Base Buildings – In CoH one could often find that the restricted base area could lead to problems in later game, especially as Panzer Elite, as you would be unable to place all the large production buildings within such a tight area. In CoH2 the size of the base buildings is, in comparison, minute. This really has no effect on the gameplay other than aesthetically and is a good change to make in my opinion. In addition to preventing problems with the ability to build all the necessary tiers this would also allow for maps to be generally smaller scale, according to Quinn Duffy.

True Line of Sight – This is a monumental change to gameplay; rather than having a classic Fog of War (FoW) system, as per almost every RTS ever, CoH2 will have a True Line of Sight (LoS) system. This means that units will only be able to see what it is physically viable for the men on the ground to see. Buildings, hedges and any other potential blockage to their LoS will mean that you do not have vision of that area as a player. This even works in terms of reduced LoS capability in Blizzards or that if smoke is produced from a Mortar or a burning building then your squads won’t be able to give you as great a distance of vision. Vehicles and infantry squads in buildings will have a 360 degree sight radius around them, although in the case of tank hunter units they will have an extended LoS frontally and other tanks may be capable of having a man provide additional LoS at the risk of being shot out of the top of the tank. Interestingly when a unit is ‘killed’ there is a chance for the individual man to be severely wounded to the point that he will writhe in agony for a period on the ground; if this happens then he continues to provide LoS until he succumbs to his wounds. A player will be able to shoot these injured men if they manually target them but they will not be automatically fired upon by troops, this was to give the player the choice of their level of ruthlessness according to Quinn Duffy. The impact this kind of change to classic FoW mechanics could have is really difficult to calculate at this point but it certainly does open up a lot of possibilities and potential for more advanced tactics.

Wind – All maps in CoH2 will have a weather based element in terms of wind. Wind will be capable of blowing smoke in the direction that the wind is blowing. This can be extremely significant as smoke from a Mortar team or from a burning building may then provide additional cover for one player’s army or it may limit the vision of the units of one of the players.

Removal of Medics – Medics will not be a feature of CoH2 whatsoever according to Quinn Duffy. The total removal of medics as a mechanic can only do good for the style of gameplay and the pace of the game in my opinion and I’m very pleased to see this change.

Gameplay

The gameplay of the two scenarios I was able to play of CoH2 were quite different. The first scenario was an extremely basic tutorial where each step was painstakingly marked out for you so that even a monkey could have completed it, although I’m told one member of the public did manage to lose. It did a nice job of showing a few of the new features but not many and was frankly so simple that several of us eventually reduced it to a speed-run game where we competed to complete the map in the shortest possible time (the winner, of course, was me with a time about 15seconds faster than ‘Le Pepsi’).

However, the second scenario was far more useful for assessing the gameplay as it had Victory Points, Bases, a wide range of units and was a 2vs2 map so it provided you with an ally and two opponents to test things against. I played for slightly over an hour and given this limited time period I had to trial the gameplay I am willing to say that it feels like CoH, it plays like the original CoH, the game which achieved an almost unparalleled 94% on GameRankings and 93% on MetaCritic. From the experience I had and what I was able to see at Eurogamer I believe that the gameplay will be akin to the early United States versus Wehrmacht games of the 1.2-1.7 era of CoH. Speaking to Quinn Duffy he said that the team are strongly in favour of maintaining the early game dynamics of CoH and that they would like to see the intense cat-and-mouse gameplay and infantry manoeuvres that exist in CoH also be present in CoH2. However, there was an emphasis on increasing the importance and viability of tanks as a late-game necessity. Quinn Duffy stated that in the later game, end tier stages there shouldn’t simply be waves of infantry capable of taking on anything that was thrown at them and that a more defined armour-centric gameplay style, with a mixture of support units would be what they were aiming for.

For me the core dynamics of the game that were so enjoyable from CoH have been kept in place and expanded on with the inclusion of varied units and the new factions. I was initially very apprehensive about a new CoH after what I consider to be the relative failures of Opposing Fronts, Tales of Valor and Company of Heroes : Online but having had a brief chance to play these builds of CoH2 I came away quietly confident that the gameplay will be up to the standard that old fans will be hoping for and that new players will truly enjoy and come to love in the way that I have with CoH.

In terms of my concerns I’d like to say strongly at this point that the cold mechanics do seem to slow down gameplay, in the second scenario we were forced to leap-frog from Camp Fire to Camp Fire with our infantry squads and then eventually I decided that moving infantry without a halftrack across the map was simply not worthwhile given the Temperature conditions. This would undoubtedly slow the early-game back and forth gameplay down, as would the effects of Deep Snow, which hinder infantry movement further and thus make them additionally susceptible to the Temperature effects. Furthermore the Blizzard mechanic reducing LoS and creating Deep Snow whilst also reducing the Temperature can only serve as a stalling mechanism detracting from the free flowing gameplay that we experienced in CoH.

Additional to the Cold mechanics slowing the gameplay down I do have concerns that the potential for tank capturing and the huge influence that this could have on the momentum of a competitive game may cause players to be far more cautious and passive with their initial vehicles. These multiple factors which may slow the gameplay down are my most significant concerns with regards to CoH2.

I’d also like to voice some concerns over the map design and specifically with the small base areas and buildings allowing for smaller scale maps. The feeling I get from this is that the gameplay may potentially be slower and that there will be an attempt to off-set this slower gameplay with smaller, more constricted maps. The smaller maps in themselves won’t necessarily be a negative but the potential to use this to compensate for a slower gameplay is a real concern.

In terms of a competitive multiplayer RTS game CoH2 cannot afford to have stilted slow paced gameplay. What we want, what we need from CoH2 is a fast-paced action-intense game akin to what we initially experienced with the U.S. versus Wehrmacht in CoH and the new mechanics may cause problems with enacting this in competitive play.

Visual and Audio

The graphical and audio aspects of a game have always been a very minor concern to me but I would just like to quickly state that both of these aspects in CoH2 were exceptionally well done. Quinn Duffy stated that the builds we played were nowhere near the quality that the finished game would achieve and even these were awe inspiring. I don’t think that anyone will be able to disagree with me once they have the chance to fire a Katyusha barrage onto an icy river or watch their infantry squads huddle for warmth around a Camp Fire.




Disclaimer : Some of the answers may be paraphrased in part.

Do you feel that CoH2 will be as successful and critically acclaimed as CoH was?

Quinn Duffy : It will be a lot harder in the current climate to get the reception that CoH had as I feel that critics are a lot harsher on games today. The number of games coming out and the supply in the marketplace makes it much more difficult to achieve the kind of success that CoH did but our team is working to make CoH2 the best game it can be.

Are there any things you would have liked to include but haven’t been able to in CoH2?

Quinn Duffy : There haven’t been any things we’ve been completely unable to include as of yet. There are certain ideas we’ve had some problems implementing in a way that works well within the context of the game and some ideas which may prove to be too hard to work in but so far we don’t have any regrets.

Are there any things you’ve tested which simply haven’t worked in CoH2?

Quinn Duffy : We’ve had some problems with finding the best way to include Order 227 into the game in a manner which is both authentic and works well within the game and our attempts so far just haven’t felt right but we hope to find a way to get it right.

How much time, as a percentage of overall time spent on CoH2, do you think you and your team have spent on the multiplayer aspects of CoH2?

Quinn Duffy : Well a lot of the work we do is transferable across all modes of the game, for example the building of an army, such as the Soviets, is a huge project and takes up a lot of our time but then that is relevant to all game modes. So far I’d say that we’ve spent about 80% of our time simply working on the core game rather than focusing on specifics for certain game modes.

Company of Heroes by virtue of its name is more fitting to the Western Front with the popular TV Show Band of Brothers following a specific Company and operations such as Market Garden lending themselves to these smaller groups of soldiers and their heroic deeds. How do you feel you’ve made CoH2 reflect both the scale of sacrifice from the Red Army and still maintain a sense of a Company of Heroes?

Quinn Duffy : The idea of a Company is still there in the sense that the numbers of troops you control and the scales of the battles will still be within a kind of company size. What we’ve tried to do with CoH2 is similar to CoH where each battle and fight has its own narrative; the final AT gun shot that may destroy your tank or may bounce off, the critical shot to prevent a point being de-captured, the crater left by an artillery barrage which becomes a key point of cover for infantry, we want each battle to feel like you’re using a Company of Heroes. In addition to this we’ve tried to amp up the intensity of the game, make it darker and have more impact on the player to try to give it the feel of the Eastern Front and travelling to Russia certainly helped with this.

Personal Aspect of Eurogamer

In closing I would like to personally thank Bobby ‘Lynx’ Miller and Quinn Duffy for their patience and willingness to answer our barrage of questions and for setting up and attending the community day on Saturday at the Eurogamer Expo. I would also like to say to everyone I met there that it was a pleasure to meet others who have such a passion for CoH and to put some faces to some names and meet with those I hadn’t had a chance to interact with before. I should probably also extend an apology to Joel ‘Seph’ Taylor’s girlfriend who he foolishly brought along to the event and sat stoically for nearly two hours as Joel, Max ‘Le Pepsi’, Marco ‘Marcus2389′ Fiore and I discussed CoH, CoH2 and the great history we’ve had with the community.

BETA Key Competition

I invite each of you to guess what the record time I completed the tutorial scenario in was and whoever guesses closest to the actual time will receive a CoH2 BETA Key from me. This obviously excludes anyone who was actually there when we were doing it! Please submit your guesses on Twitter to @12azorCoH. Submissions will be accepted until midnight GMT on the night of Friday, October 19th, 2012. I am always open to answering questions, which may be asked in the comments here or on Twitter.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

For those of you who simply wish to get an overall sense of the Eurogamer pre-alpha build that I was able to experience and the experience of the expo in general I thought I’d write a quick summary of what is discussed in this article.

The game feels good to play, it plays like CoH and gives me the sense that it will have the aspects of vCoH that made it so great. The new mechanics are beautiful and interesting but do cause some concern from a competitive mutliplayer stand point, although these were discussed with the guys from Relic and THQ at some length. The new armies are solid from what I was able to see and don’t seem to diverge too far from the army compositions of the original CoH. I think that I can say with some confidence that after my Eurogamer experience the game will be a good game and that the team are very heavily personally invested into it.

Links to other articles on CoH2 thus far

• AmiPolizeiFunk’s “First Hands on Company of Heroes 2″
  
• AmiPolizeiFunk’s “The Battle of Moscow”
  
• Tommy’s “Eurogamer quick and dirty write up”
  
• Account_Eliminator’s “My hands on CoH 2 at Eurogamer”
  
• Helping Hans’ “Eurogamer ‘Live’ Stream Load Down”