Company of Heroes Strategy: British on Wolfheze
I realized that I haven't posted a Company of Heroes strategy video in a long time, so I got the time to produce this one. The title of the post says it all about the video really. Wolfheze is a 2v2 map that is a bit on the suck side; or a lot depending on whom you talk to. It also depends on what faction you play as too. The fundamental problem has to deal with the fact that the British faction can setup shop anywhere they please. This map is a fairly small and a good British strategy is to rush up to the middle +5 fuel and setup shop. There are ways to counter this British strategy though, namely:
1. Double team where the British guy is going to setup, which is namely one of the five +5 fuels right in the middle (Early game)
2. Try to out cap around him and if you are Wehrmacht, get some sturmtroopers from the Blitz company tree. Equip those guys with shrecks and find a weakness in his emplacement spam base.
It takes a coordinated push from two people to try and dislodge the British player once he gets setup on those fuels. So not only do you have to deal with him, it leaves his American team mate to fast tech to M8 Greyhounds or M10 Tank destroyers with the abundant fuel. To make it worse, is the fact that a SINGLE, well placed mortar pit can hit anywhere of importance on the map (if the British player goes Royal Artillery). So, I hope this Company of Heroes tip helps somebody counter an Allied push on Wolfheze. That or gives you some Company of Heroes strategy ideas for the future.
Now, my Company of Heroes video is all from what happens when the allied players get total map control ( and one Axis player doesn't want to drop). I play the American (Armor Company) player, and my friend Tanith plays British (Commandos!). The Panzer Elite player dropped after I was rushing tanks into his base, but the Wehrmacht player stayed till the very end and kept calling in the CoH off map infantry reinforcements. You know, the kind that comes AFTER your base is destroyed and Tanith decided to put an end to it with some Royal Commando det packs. Also, I would like to say that I love running over guys with tanks; that is all!
Here is the high rez version if you are so inclined.
Company of Heroes Tanks and Infantry
So a pretty neat thing that comes from tanks having heavy crush is that when infantry run into them, they die instantly. If you look at the Churchill that the British Royal Engineer command tree gets, this can be very devastating. Due to a little bug (that is going to be fixed when they bring the beta patches to retail) is that when you pop suppression, it INSTANTLY suppresses any infantry in it's range. This means you can easily roll your Churchill right into that blog of infantry and heavy crush them into oblivion.
Granted, it is way more effective when you have the mineplow on the front, and they are going to fix the instant suppress ability.
Now with axis tanks can do the same thing as well (well crush blobs of infantry) but it takes a bit more micro to do it. Today's video is from my friend Dukka, who likes to crush American infantry bastards. By moving his tanks in close, he can neutralize the American Riflemen and hope his opponent isn't looking or paying attention (mass stickies)
So if you watch that, all you really have to do is move a group of tanks right into the infantry ( in this case a bunch of Wermacht Panzer IV) and let the treads do the talking. A good player can see this coming and retreat his guys, but that doesnt help when you move the tanks right into their base to finish them off anyways. The only thing you really have to be worried about is letting those Company of Heroes riflemen get stickies on a tank, that really tends to mess them up.
So just keep in mind that in Company of Heroes, your tanks can be great infantry killing machines; whether it be Axis or Allied.
Increase your performance in Company of Heroes
I run into a lot, and I mean A LOT of people who need to increase their performance in Company of Heroes. The problem is that the performance bar isn't always helpful. When Company of Heroes first came out, it was pretty worthless and at least now, its a fair gauge of performance in Company of Heroes.
So what happens with some of these people is that are used to playing against the computers in Company of Heroes and are just now graduating into the "Big Leagues" and starting some real multiplayer games with four or more people. They are used to having a little performance decrease when playing local skirmishes, but when you play online, because of Relic's crappy netcode, you can seriously degrade the other players experiance if you don't turn down your settings. So hopefully this guide will get out there to some of the in-between players and help you enjoy the game more, and make your game run smooth!
So first we start with the issue that many don't even realize they have; Port Forwarding. Company of Heroes uses a peer to peer system, and you can greatly increase the amount of games you can get into by opening up UDP ports 6112 and 30260 (what the readme says is wrong for the ports needed for Company of Heroes). If you don't know how to do this with your router, do a google search with your router and how to do port forwarding, there should be plenty of guides out there. This will greatly increase your abillity to connect with other people in Company of Heroes.
Another excellent way of increasing performance in Company of Heroes is to mess with some video options. Now, you may think that you have a super computer (and you probably do!) but when you get into the larger games in Company of Heroes, you can really start to run into performance problems with your video settings if you have everything cranked to max.
A good start is to turn off Post Processing in the video settings; this will greatly reduce load times in Company of Heroes. It also will put less of a strain on your system. The rest of the options are pretty self explanatory in the video settings. Try turning down AA and look at tweaking the texture detail. The texture detail will eat your ram alive if you set it to high and will increase your load times. Also, for the love of the deity, DO NOT USE DX10!. It currently is poorly optimized and will greatly hurt your Company of Heroes performance.
Another way to increase your performance in Company of Heroes is to turn down the Physics. The physics in Company of Heroes can use up a lot of CPU power when trying to determine the path of flying bodies and bits of buildings. If you turn it off, you won't get all the flying bodies, but then again, your computer won't lag out when artillery hits in CoH.
Overall, the biggest thing to increasing performance in Company of Heroes is to know when your computer is struggling, and turn down those settings for the benefit of the people playing with you. But you cannot do that while in a game, so do it afterwards, or better, before you get in the game! Also, you will decrease your load times by keeping the textures and other settings on medium/low, and it will still look really good; and people won't yell at you for ruining their game!
So play around with the different settings in Company of Heroes and try and find a balance for the types of games you usually play, (1v1s, 2v2s, etc).
Company of Heroes Tips and Tricks Part 2
Does something happen on the frontlines while you are building back in your base? Need to get there quickly? Have no fear, just use the spacebar. This will allow you to browse events. You can use that, or click on the icon that shows up on the middle left-hand side. This is a very important Company of Heroes tip indeed, because it centers the point right where the event occurred. (And lets you find that pesky sniper).
A great Company of Heroes tip is to use the mini map to your advantage. It is a great and efficient way to move around the map quickly, and locate key areas of intrest. The tactical map is another great way to keep an eye on things. To access the tactical map, just hit the numpad zero key.
Another great CoH tip has to deal with your precious Armor. The worst thing you can do when your tank runs into an anti-tank gun or another tank, is to let it show it’s rear armor. The rear armor is less protected than the front, and this means your tank will more than likely die as it retreats. So what you do is to select the tank(s) and then do the drag and click method from above. Make sure you keep the command close to the tank and face the arrow in the direction of the attack; this will make your tank reverse to that point instead of turning around and showing its rear end. Be warned though, the path finding in Company of Heroes can ruin this… keep an eye on your tanks!
Also, try to learn how each tank moves and try not to put tanks in too large of groups, that path finding will make you pull your hair out. Also, make sure you know what tanks are good against what targets. The Panzer Elite PIV will only kill infantry; it will NOT kill a Sherman (it can sometimes kill a Stewart). With some of the faster tanks, a good tactic is to have one engage and take the focus of the enemy tank and use it to show its rear to your other tanks. This way your tanks will get better penetration and you will kill it quicker.
To help keep your unit’s moving towards the front, use Rally Points. All you have to do is click on the building and then right click someplace on the map (or another unit).
To help keep your units alive and well in Company of Heroes, a great tip is to put them into good cover. If you move your cursor over some cover, it will bring up a green (best) yellow (so-so) or red (negative cover) shield icon. Always try to keep your units in green cover, as it is the best kind of cover. Stay away from red cover, because your units will take more damage than normal.
A CoH tip regarding machine guns (and houses in general); houses and bunkers have better than green cover, but not all houses are created equal. Try to stay out of the wooden house (they burn up easily). Also, just try to stick with machine guns in the houses; if you put a riflemen unit in there, only a few of the squad members can fire out, while the enemy units can all fire at you.
That leads into the next Company of Heroes Tip; DON’T let the AI fight the battles for you. If you leave a unit alone, the Ai will more often than not.. kill it for you. It likes to move your guys out o cover to get a better position.
A Company of Heroes tip for keeping your units alive; make sure you know how each of your units goes against every other. Some units are better at long range, others are better at close range, cover will keep them alive longer. Some matchups require very little micro, others require a lot. This brings into the ability to micro well enough to “kite” a unit. So, constantly micromanaging your puma to stay at max range against the riflemen’s sticky bombs (while still doing damage and killing the unit).