Profile of Goldeneale

Personally I've been having some success with RE-heavy builds.

I actually almost won a game today without building a single rifle. I would've had it, too, if it wasn't for that blasted Stuka loiter.

I remember that bug in the past. I really enjoyed the games that days. I will like to know what the forum thinks about it.

I think it will make more dificult to know what your enemy can deploy and then games more hard/interesting

Not gonna work. There are too many commanders that hard counter other commanders to do that.

If you can't see your enemy's commanders then you take a huge risk whenever you choose one before you know his, which nerfs all early game commanders. You might pick one planning to go for heavy artillery only to find your enemy can counter it with two clicks.

The reason you can bring three commanders into each battle is so that there is still an element of uncertainty in what your opponent will choose. At the same time, you can see their loadout so that you aren't completely blindsided when assault grens bred from the stock of Usain Bolt are suddenly behind your MGs, or when a mortar halftrack destroys your FHQ with a single incendiary round.

Your proposal would make any commander with a counter unpickable, and in fact would make picking some commanders first at all suicide. Only the "safe" commanders would be wise choices.

Knowing what your enemy might choose from is an essential part of CoH. In vCoH everyone knew all the doctrines and so you could react accordingly when your opponent chose his and started showing the signs, but there was still uncertainty since there were multiple trees to advance down. CoH2 emulates this with the three-commander loadout, allowing you to plan around your opponent's potential choices while still leaving some uncertainty for flavor.

The problem with heavy artillery in this game is that it's just inherently flawed as a concept.

If your opponent picks a commander than counters your artillery, then your commander is nullified and you're at a disadvantage.

If your opponent picks a commander with artillery while you have none and no counter, then you're at a disadvantage.

If you both pick commanders with artillery and nobody has a two-click counter then, well, that's not too bad. Personally I don't mind a game which revolves around each sides artillery because that makes sense from a realism perspective. The strategic role of artillery is to soften defenses and force your enemy to go on the offensive.

The problem with the CoH2 commanders is that there's suddenly so many commander choices which all very linear and leave no room for reaction beyond the initial choice. In vCoH the more limited and flexible selection of doctrines meant that Relic could ensure that no matter what your opponent went for, you wouldn't be left totally helpless due to your own doctrine choice. Sure there were matchups where some doctrines had the advantage, but it was never something drastic like your enemy having overwhelming artillery while you were left with no counter or counterpart, or your enemy being able to completely nullify part of your doctrine selection without any counterplay.

The only way to emulate that would be to make certain aspects of the game which counter eachother and are also very powerful stock, unlockable through tech. Say you want an ML-20, then you go to your HQ and research it for some fuel and manpower. Now your enemy should have their own heavy artillery also researchable in their HQ, so they aren't left behind. And the same would have to be done for nuke abilities that could easily one-shot them, though personally I think those abilities are pretty dumb and should be reworked into something that's less drastically all-or-nothing.

From a gameplay perspective, things with higher RoF and lower damage per shot are almost always more balanced than things with huge alpha and low RoF, assuming the same DPS. Nobody enjoys being one-shot with no opportunity for them to fight back, and running for your life doesn't count as "fighting back."

Hrm...

What if we made howitzers in general do much less damage over a wider area, and gave them a constant, slower stream of fire instead of these nuclear barrages they use right now?

I wish you could upgrade PzIIs with the Elite Armor PzCommander to sneak them into your enemy's base and drop the arty

You can't?
Like what, did Relic forget Luchs was a tank?

It's not even that hard to kill. A single Guards squad in green cover will beat it.