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).
Company of Hereoes: Jeeps and You
So I alluded to this video awhile back, and it isn't a Company of Heroes tip OR trick; it is just a funny video. I had posted a series of screen shots here that showed some jeeps (23 in fact) trying to kick some jerry butt. But, a jeep .50 cal machine gun does next to nothing for damage, so me and my team mate decided to call in the big guns; Namely, the Sherman Calliope and the Airborne Doctrine's Bombing Run.
The game that led up to the point of this video was pretty bland. We went for early map control, and then teched for M8 greyhounds and Half tracks. (remember, fuel is VERY important for this strategy). I had went Weapons Support Center and Airborne doctrine, and my team mate Armor with Riflemen instead by building the Barracks.
So, thankfully, the guy we were going against was nice and decided to stay in to watch the fireworks show. Again, this is a great video of why Company of Heroes has such a great physics engine (even if it is rag doll based). I wish I could have gotten more time of the explosions in action, but the Bombing Run and Calliope pretty much destroyed the guy's HQ.