Reinforcing units on the front lines by filling the ranks from conscript squads demands more hands-on management than the Germans’ traditional method of relying on Halftracks for a trickle of front-line reinforcements, but it comes with the interesting tradeoff of allowing elite squads to instantly return to full strength that makes that effort worthwhile. The German force in CoH2 is a tweaked version of what we saw in CoH and works in mostly the same way, but the new Soviet Red Army has a fresh, unique style that reflects the manpower advantage they had in the war. Watching your soldiers set up and fire a heavy machine gun or mortar is a treat, and hearing their heavily accented chatter and convincing screams of pain in combat makes it easy to get attached to veteran squads, even though they’re nameless fodder. Each infantry unit is animated and voiced in a lifelike way, and equipped with unique uniforms and weapons. Watching an impressively modeled tank crash through a wall, turn its independently moving turret, and blast an armored car to bits in a spectacular explosion that sends its driver flying through the air and kicks up a huge cloud of smoke and debris with a deafening boom is really astonishing.
I don’t mean to imply that it requires a more tactical mind than a game like StarCraft II, but it’s weighted more toward planning than reflexes in a way that I find rewarding.The detail in the units and world is extravagant. I particularly appreciate the ability to win a battle by attacking an enemy where he’s not, rather than meeting him head-on. Its territory-based resource system, now revised to allow you to influence which of the three resources a held point generates, allows a style of play that’s focused almost entirely on tactics. And because armies are rarely more than a dozen units at a time, it has a relatively slower, more methodical pace than a traditional RTS, even though there’s almost always something going on. More than most real-time strategy games, CoH is all about using smart tactical positioning to take advantage of cover and exploit weak tank armor. Because it’s so similar to the original, Company of Heroes 2 is great for all the same reasons.
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