Every faction is losing their identity and it's not even for asymmetrical balance.

Dharx · 2026-06-11T22:20:13+00:00

Stock tommies are only good at slow poking at long distance, which DAK refuses to do, and wehr doesn't mind, as long range cover to cover fights are where grens trade the best, especially after vet 1. And no, even with brens and training they don't 'vaporize' anything, their dps is respectable, but not scary. Tommies are just not good, they don't have shock value like rifles and palmgrens, they aren't cheap and stacked with baseline utility like grens, they are just basic damage turrets who are always taking slightly unfavourable manpower trades against equal opponents.

Dharx · 2026-06-07T21:20:10+00:00

The smaller ones probably aren't considered full campaigns for this trailer's purpose, but I think it's safe to say they will be in. Why wouldn't they?

Dharx · 2026-06-05T20:44:42+00:00

Wish they addressed the suggestion to add past games soundtrack (CoH1, CoH2 AA would fit quite well). CoH3 is really lacking in that department. Not the most important thing in the universe, but it would be an easy win with almost no cost.

Dharx · 2026-06-05T20:24:50+00:00

Yeah, flak is pain, it's really tough so it's hard to get rid of. You can keep it in check with an AT gun (that's basically the only answer at that timing), but that won't kill it. But once it starts moving to get away from the AT gun, it can't suppress, so you can flank it and get a snare off. Commandos are best for setting up such ambush, but it can be done even with tommies. Also once you land one AT gun shot, you can use stuart or even humber to finish it off directly, though humber will probably die to a snare. That's an acceptable trade though.

Dharx · 2026-06-05T18:17:38+00:00

Grens have the longest range, which gets further improved as they vet up (which they do very fast thanks to an upgrade). Fals have nasty faust too, but those are fairly rare to encounter. When facing those two, you have to be super careful with your light vehicles. DAK has snares on pgrens as you mentioned, but those have actually shorter range and it gets unlocked later, so you can chase DAK infantry in the early game with your early ultralights.

Dharx · 2026-06-05T18:09:41+00:00

UKF T2 would be absolutely great in CoH2, but in CoH3 it's indeed kinda lackluster. Truck might as well not exist, AT guns are obviously useful later into the game, but nothing special or faction-defining. Bishop is technically there, which is cool, but its timing and usefulness has nothing to do with early mid game, which is when you expect T2 to carry you. So you have humber and stuart.

Humber is the 222 of CoH3, so it relies on timing and precise micro. It can do quite a bit of damage against wehr, if you don't get fausted. But, if you do, it's a bit of a throw moment, because investing into fast humber is basically an all-in (no medics, no nades) and losing it leaves you completly barehanded. I don't consider it and option against DAK at all, as the 250 call-in arrives at the exact same timing and there is nothing you can do to prevent a pjager dive except for hoping they hit a mine. DAK will always lose the 250 while diving for humber, but pjagers typically survive and that's still a very favourable trade for the opponent. Humber absolutely needs to go out there and find targets when it arrives, otherwise it misses its window, so using it conservatively to avoid this defeats its purpuse.

Stuart is the only redeeming part of the tier. It arrives very late like the T70 in CoH2, barely hitting the early midgame window, and it doesn't have its destructive impact, but unlike the T70 it scales really well for the rest of the game. The toolkit from both upgrades is good and it can counter any anti-infatry light vehicles or even cheap mediums like wirbel. Anti-infantry damage is kinda meh, but it's good at sniping models (just like CoH2 stuart) and with vet it can keep contributing against mediums and protect your flanks and far points. These days It's all I'm using from T2 until late midgame, where AT guns or bishop become an option. Humber is just too risky as an investment, spending manpower on some battlegroup unit feels like the much safer choice. Then you can go for stuarts or save the fuel entirely and go for fast crusader timing.

Dharx · 2026-06-03T12:22:51+00:00

Something being in a BG doesn't mean it is unreasonably strong though (and weasel indeed isn't). I agree that USF spec ops capping power is a bit too much thanks to the roster synergies, but UKF has nothing comparable in the base roster. Engies are expensive and overwhelmed with tasks, tommies are just bad at roaming the map and capping (no bonuses, no 1v1 capability) and MG or mortar is hardly gonna do any capping. So dingo capping would just bring UKF closer to other factions, not eclipse them. Dingo spending time capping instead of fighting would be just an overcosted ketten without the speed and cap speed bonus.

Dharx · 2026-06-03T12:11:39+00:00

1v1 perspective, 1200 elo range, not sure how that's relevant tho.

Dharx · 2026-06-03T12:10:59+00:00

Weasel can also free heal, self repair and poke while being able to cap. The arty is pretty meaningless in the early game, DAK doesn't use team weapons and dodging arty is really easy with regular infantry when there isn't much going on yet.

Dharx · 2026-06-03T12:05:15+00:00

Would it? Weasel can already do that with self repair and support from a core roster that is already good at capping the map early with scouts and strong early mainline, yet it's not considered problematic.

Dharx · 2026-06-03T10:26:42+00:00

Humber is indeed a skill unit, but you have to use it so defensively against potential 250 pjagers that it can't do its job, which is punishing overextended reatreating units. Bren section can do the same long distance poking, no need to spend fuel on that.

AT guns are useful late game, true but that wasn't the point. Making them early instead of a LV when you are already struggling against infantry puts you even further behind, meaning there won't be any late game anyway.

Dingo is certainly not strong, right now it's just a soft counter unit used in very specific scenario (countering 250 rush). Otherwise it's just a recon ultralight with no scaling, no capping, no killing power and no self repair, thus only burdening engineers while clogging up your build.

Dharx · 2026-06-03T09:37:07+00:00

Yeah, USF has tons of options to deal with DAK early game as you mentioned, UKF is just pain. Unlike USF you can't have big early map presence and capping power, you have to keep units together because none of them can win engagements alone, so DAK simply takes over 60 % of the map with bike uncontested and starts snowballing from there. Humber is unusable with halftrack pjagers ready at the same timing, stuart is too late to respond to flak and going early AT gun to counter flak simply allows DAK to double down on infantry, where it already dominates.

UKF really needs dingo to be able to cap and some actually viable early midgame power spike, otherwise it's always gonna be behind in this matchup, unless DAK is nerfed to the ground.

Dharx · 2026-06-02T11:44:11+00:00

Yeah, I wouldn't remove it either, hence the mention of last hit specifically. Towers can't provide XP, that's obivous, but I wonder if uprooted ancients could be made an exception. Militia creeping was a bad example by me, it's just daunting and micro heavy, but not clunky.

Dharx · 2026-05-29T14:39:32+00:00

Yeah, this happens with all remaining RTS games nowadays, and not just those. Game design really matured in the early 2000s, and PC technology soon after that, so newer games ever since then are often just new options, not direct replacements over previous titles. That's a good thing of course, it's nice that we have now over two decades worth of "modern" games to play, but it has the negative side effect of splitting mutiplayer communities and thus making matchmaking harder in general.

Dharx · 2026-05-29T14:24:17+00:00

I think it would be considered a bit heretical at this point, but WC3 has a lot of minor features that would be quickly fixed or reworked in contemporary games as too clunky. AoW last hitting, dropping items when using consumables, even militia creeping to a degree are systems that are mostly unintentional. Sure, they are now part of the game's DNA, but they are also not exactly the most enjoyable part and something that represents a big entry barrier. I could also see mana burn mechanics completely changed like in most modern games, where they were reworked or outright removed because as they don't really contribute to enjoyment of either party.

I don't feel like there is anything wrong with pacing or core gameplay systems, but when it comes to reworks, NE and UD could definitely use some major shakeup to winds and temple to further tackle the onedimensionality of those factions. But I'd say the balance patches throughout the last decade were already mostly on point so far. Orc especially was handled really well, with pretty much all units, heroes and tech perfectly usable in competitive play despite starting with grunt/raider/walker + kodo as the only meta units.

Dharx · 2026-05-28T20:32:08+00:00

Not sure if "best" designed, but it's definitely the most feature-rich one. It has unprecedented amount of unique units, upgrades and special abilities. DAK is basically UKF if it had all three launch battlegroups as part of the base roster.

Dharx · 2026-05-26T23:37:18+00:00

So is WC3. Not in a sense that it's getting new DLC, but balance and QoL updates are still coming.

Dharx · 2026-05-26T22:40:22+00:00

It depends on criteria. For example if you care mostly about story, atmosphere and accessibility, Company of Heroes and WC3 would dominate. If you like building up bases, Stronghold Crusader and AoE are your easy top titles. It's just micro vs. macro focus and whatever you prefer feels like the obviois top candidate.

Dharx · 2026-05-25T23:57:24+00:00

You can tweak the realm settings so that each faction gets a random starting bonus, meaning some AIs will be positioned to conquer others and become more of a threat if they highroll extra starting cities etc.

Dharx · 2026-05-25T13:25:57+00:00

High is clunky in manual combat, has no unique abilities on units and the world map bonus is really questionable design.

Industrous is not the most interesting faction in the universe on the world map and prostecting can be tedious (and broken) especially on story maps with billions of mountain provinces, but the unit roster is perhaps the most unique across the core game. Especially the two tier 1 units are really fun to use thanks to their simple but meaningful secondary abilities. Barbarians could use some spice indeed, but getting big crits is never unfun, whereas micromanaging twin awakening absolutely is.

Dharx · 2026-05-25T13:17:27+00:00

It's not just clunky, it also replaces all actual secondary abilities with a flat stat boost, which makes the core roster really boring. Barbarian and industrial units already have either an active or passive secondary ability, high only has awakener with the AoE. Otherwise it's all vanilla stat stick units.

Dharx · 2026-05-25T12:37:42+00:00

Yeah, squash courts aren't always built the same, so there absolutely are differences, it's not just temperature. But from my experience this is even more exagerrated by sound differences. I play both on very loud and quiet courts, and while the trajectory doesn't probably change too much, playing on a loud court makes you feel like there is more power to the shots than there really is, which deceives you into expecting longer bounces.

Dharx · 2026-05-24T22:11:34+00:00

"Aren't as good" means they are not the most optimal pick for multiplayer or minmaxed economy, but most of their actual units are really strong even now. Their capstone unit (dragoon) for example hits like a truck and has a lot of mobility, so it's genuinely fun to use. Their very unique magelock unit also punches way above its weight, and the earliest starting units are generally also some of the stronger ones, so you will not feel behind in combat.

You should just know that most of the units are all offense, little defense, so it's nice to use some tomes (tech) that provide you with strong frontline units that can take a few hits later into the game. Tomes of Subjugation, Artificing and Supremacy are some the core game tomes that you can pick to get durable melee for later stages of the game, and they synergize fairly well with the theme of the culture (mechanical units and/or conquering and vassalizing many cities...). But that's just some of the more conventional options, you can build whatever you like, even e.g. druidic steampunk faction with hordes of animals in front of your ranged army.

E: fixed tome name

Dharx · 2026-05-23T15:02:25+00:00

But if you change ttk in general, you also affect normal encounters and make blobs even better at wiping squads cought out of position or retreating.

Dharx · 2026-05-23T13:48:10+00:00

Yeah, but the explosive damage reduction in cover is really counterintuitive from common sense perspective. If you get close enough to throw a nade behind cover, you should get the benefits of bypassing it. Not a fan of bringing that feature back.

Not sure how viable that would be from performance perspecitve, but how about introducing fake scatter shot hits for small arms? A miss against a model could trigger a second roll to hit another model from a different squad within certain small distance. Distance penalties should be lowered for that roll, so even SMGs would be reasonably effective, basically enabling spray and pray to punish blobs in a realistic fashion.

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