Overview
This guide will help you understand and interpret the basic tactics and conditions of conducting warfare in an environment as presented by Company of Heroes 2. The goal of this guide is to increase your tactical and strategic insights in order to achieve your ultimate goal: WinningUnderstanding basic military knowledge will greatly improve your skill and control in this game. Noobs will become worthy advisaries and skilled players will become masters of the battlefield. This guide is about the princples of warfare, a baseline from which you can operate, throughout all factions and commanders.
Before we begin..
Thank you for taking the time to educate yourself on military strategy and how you can use it in this great game. In this guide we will focus on the general basics (principles of the game) and early game strategy.
Before going further with the guide, I highly recommend you watch the following video:
This is an 30min introduction to Carl Von Clausewitz and his book: “On War”.
Having seen this video will make it allot easier for you to grasp most of the concepts I will present in this guide.
Since all battles in COH2 are land based, this video is also very interesting, but not required per se.
What “is” Company of Heroes 2
In its mere basics COH2 is a mixture between Chess, Go/Gomoku and WW2 simulation within an RTS gaming context, bound by four general “laws”:
- Every player starts on a uncontested playing field.
- Every player starts with the same or similar resources.
- Every player can win by reducing the opponents victory points to zero.
- Every game/round has the same set theoretical maximum duration.
- Every player can contest any spot on the playing field.
- Every player can decrease or increase its or its opponents resources and vice versa.
- Every player can decrease or increase its or its opponents “survival” time.
On top of this, the COH2 community devides each round/match into 3 categories:
- Early Game
- Mid Game
- Late Game
Depending on your viewpoint you can assign different time slots to these game phases. In order to prevent any confusion I will be using the following definitions throughout my guides:
Early Game: <10 minutes
Mid Game: 10><20 minutes
Late game: 20>
In practice, these concepts can get you in the following scenarios:
Example: Most of us have played games in which you won by a landslide and won the game within 20minutes.
Example: Most of us have played games in which you fought over an hour and won by a tight margin.
Taking into account what I said here, lets apply this material to your basic multiplayer strategy.
Remember: This is fundamental strategy, It is applicable all the time in every game mode (1v1,2v2,3v3,4v4).
The basics: Your start and early game
When you play multiplayer your objective is to win the game.
The most efficient way to win the game, is to decrease your opponents victory points as fast and as soon as possible.
The most efficient tactic to win is to capture 3 victory points as fast as possible and never let go.
You win the game in under 17 minutes by default.
(I did tests versus AI(4v4) on steppes, and it is possible to finish around 15min)
This is your basic early (possible end) game. Your entire early game strategy should be geared towards this goal: ending the game in 17 minutes. If you fail to end the game in under 20 minutes you could say: “The game is going in overtime”.
Overtime implies: “Both sides can contest each other”.
When overtime starts, your general strategy should be geared towards out witting your opponent. (More on that later)
In your early game you want to contest as much ground as possible and as close as possible to your oppenents base(s). It is always better to fight on your enemies turf. He will lose valuable time.
1 minute of fighting on enemy turf is (1/17) of your goal complete (if you have 3 VPs), keep that in mind. Fighting close to your enemies base has another advantage: It is highly more resource efficient. A well placed bunker near the entrance of the enemy camp can guarantee allot of safety for allot of conquered ground. Fighting in the middle of the map is the most resource intensive. You have the maximum amount of ground to cover. Therefore, in early game, always advance. Mobility is the way to go.
A well-coordinated constant moving army is your worst nightmare. (i.e. land grabbing machine)
See the picture for a visualization.
You want to give yourself freedom of movement and at the same time restrict all movement for your enemy. Like shooting fish in a barrel, create tunnels and chokepoints.
If you can restrict movement, you can predict where your enemy will go and you can prepare a counter attack or pin him down. (Using your resources efficiently)
The basics: Tunnels & Choking
Knowing how valuable the element of supprise is one cannot underestimate the potential of barbed wire. Since barbed wire (or simmilar) can be build by all factions (Assuming Brtis have too), I regard this as a “principle of the game”. A corner stone in all potential COH2 strategy.
First of all, lets elaborate with a picture. In this picture you see the lenght of 1 piece of soviet barbed wire going all the way to a total of 7 pieces. In the second segment you see the basics of how to resitrict movement with barbed wire.
Restricting off that center field with barbwire accomplishes several goals:
- In negative cover, your enemy needs to decided: “What route do I take?”
- While advancing the chosen route, your enemy still walks partially in negative cover.
- When approaching the middle of the island the enemy has no room to flank.
- The enemy remains confined in a space which you created and can exploit.
I.e. you delay your enemies movement which grants you more time to end the game within 17 minutes and reduce potential “overtime”. Since barbwire is free you should always try to reason: “How can I use this to restrict my enemies movement and exploit the current situation?”
Cutting off conventional flanking paths can cause major stress and might create confusion which you can exploit.
“No green cover should be free, in any shape, way or form”
Barb it, mine it, destroy it.
Within COH2 every battle is basically determined before it starts. Units do a certain damage output, add them up, take cover and movement speed into account and you can make a basic assessment if a particular battle will turn out positive or negative. If it is negative, why even bother? Setup a trap and create a advantage, lure your enemy in and watch him get beaten.
A trap implies “you get caught”, so soldiers shooting from green cover are in no way “caught” yet. If you know you will engage the enemy and do battle, why not disable his potential green cover? Set the battle terrain so it will benefit you in combat. Barbed wire works excellent for this.
When you look at this picture, it should become clear what the potential of barbed wire is.
If you can “disable” the green cover your enemy could use, your troops will always start the fight with a terrain advantage. Gray: Standard/”No” Cover
The view presented in the above picture is basicly how you should interpret and asses every situation. Using barbed wire to restrict or guide enemy movement towards for example, green coverd troops, seperated by some mines creates great scenarios from which to attack or to fallback on.
Friendly reminder: Units can get stuck easily while placing automated lines of barbed wire.
The basics: Mines
Like I allready mentioned, mines are a essential part of this game just like barbed wires, tunneling and choking. A well placed mine can seriously harm to any attacker. A combination of these four ensures total chaos for your enemy and a great attacking opportunity for you.
Mines are great for the following reasons:
- They injure and kill squad(s) members, weaken them before attacking. (Less time to battle)
- They cause major vehicle damage, taking mobility and causing valuable time lost due to repairs and support. (Less time to battle)
- They have the element of surprise (Negate initiative)
- They cause terror, forces your enemy to be cautious. (Slower movement)
Creating a barbed environment with well-placed mines grants a surrounding for victory.
Retreating and giving your enemy free, clear, clean territory in return is the worst mistake you can make. The time and territory you won during your attack gets lost during your retreat. Making your battle effectively meaningless. Ensuring “Overtime”.
Always be delaying enemy movement in whatever way, shape or form you can.
Make it “cheap” to take back lost territory and costly for the enemy to take it.
Watch carefully for enemy retreat paths. Battle is usally confined to a certain area on the map which allows movement behind enemy lines, unnoticed. Placing mines along the retreat paths can finish of injured retreating units at a bargain. 30 to 50 ammunition to kill the last retreating member of a vetern sqaud is a pretty good deal. (Don’t hesitate to go the extra mile and place a mine way behind enemy lines.)
Example: Damaged units are allot cheaper to fight than fully healed sqauds.
Example: An enemy tank which drives over a mine just outside its base, can possibly delay an entire attack and grant you much needed time.
If you are successful at your mine placement you get the benefit of extra psychological burden for your enemy. The more units your mines kill, the more stress your opponent has with assessing each situation. Needing to ask: “Will there be mines here?” and moving in accordance with that thought will naturally slow down each advancement the enemy makes.
Tip: In every battle, the unit holding the mine sweeper should die first.
The basics: Summary
In summary (random order):
Always be moving
Always be attacking
Fight cost effective battles
Create cost effective surroundings to battle on
Create costly surroundings to conquer
Delay all enemy movement as much as possible
Injure all enemy units as much and as often as possible
If you can hold 3 VP’s for 17minutes from the start you win the game.
Always battle on enemy turf.
1 minute of fighting on enemy turf equals 1/17 of your goal achieved.
Always be surprising.
Barbwire is free, use it.
Whats next? MID & LATE Game (Dif Guide TBA)
Before posting my opinion on the mid and late game I would like to have some feedback on how this guide is percieved. If it gets positive feedback, I will continue to write mid and late game in this kind of style.
Thanks for reading!
PS. English is not my native language.
EDIT: Thanks for the feedback guys!
I tried to make this guide a little smoother and added a picture to clarify some of the concepts.
Currently am shaping the guide for mid game, if you have any particular question or some suggestions, feel free to voice your opinion, I would love to hear it.
EDIT2: Added extra video for those interested
Stay tuned.