Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor new units video
Well, it seems that Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is FINALLY out and available for purchase. Tales of Valor adds some new multiplayer modes and single player campaigns. The interesting part is that you can earn medals that unlock new vehicles in multiplayer and if you don't want to allow them in your game, there is a simple check box to disable Tales of Valor vehicles.
The video shows some very interesting information about the new units, in the opening scene you see three Geschutzwagens wrecking havoc on a US base on the map Wrecked Train, you can see the massive damage the both tanks seem to do to buildings. They manage to take down a supply yard in just three shots!
- Staghound Armored Car replaces the British Command Tank.
- The Kangaroo Carrier replaces the Cromwell tank.
- The T17 Armored Car replaces the M8 Armored Car.
- The M18 Hellcat replaces the M10 tank destroyer.
- Tiger tank “205” replaces the Blitz Tiger Tank.
- Schwimmwagen Type 166 replaces the Wehrmacht motorcycle (This unit was not in the video)
- Geschutzwagen replaces the Wehrmachts Stug IV.
I haven't had the chance yet to grab Tales of Valor and try out the new vehicles, but it seems that they all have alternate costs. Take the Geschutzwagen (or the GW); It replaces the Wehrmact Stug IV and it's alternate cost is 280 mp and 45 fuel. The Geschutzwagen's health is 375 compared to the 400 of the Stug and it can three hit a British Firefly. So it costs less manpower and five more fuel.. and you have a tank that can take down a building in three hits!
On the other hand, the Kangaroo (replaces the British Cromwell) just doesn't seem justified to me. The Cromwell is a tough and VERY useful call in for the British Engineers Doctrine. I use it as my sole anti tank when I play multiplayer with friends; I tend to just Lt stack and have a infantry blob of doom.
Here is the video of the new Tales of Valor units in action.
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).