I played Company of Heroes 3 and will be HONEST with you 

The campaign map allowing naval bombardments and strategically moving forces around would work really well for an island hopping Pacific Campaign.

The thing with the Italian Dynamic Campaign is that it isn't trying to be like Total War's campaign map; it's trying to be the successor of CoH2's Ardennes Assault Campaign which was well received by the community. Like, playing CoH2's AA campaign will make you understand majority of what CoH3's Italy campaign is putting out. I will still say though that yeah there should've been a better introduction to the system. Still, I advice to not look at this from a Total War perspective, and instead look at this through the Ardennes Assault perspective.

I'd be willing to bet a Pacific DLC is 100% in the future. The focus on naval combat, islands, oceans etc. . It would be too easy to make a pacific campaign. I know COH1 and COH2 had western front i.e. France , Belgium etc but I think a campaign map with Western Europe would be fantastic. Dropping Paratroopers . Allied forces pushing through. A Successful Market Garden. Man that be sick.

My dream for Coh3 is for it to evolve over the years to include the western eastern and pacific fronts hopefully including France Soviets OstheerOKW the US Marines/ANZAC and the Japanese army

First issue I noticed in the campaign is that the ai makes terrible decisions during real time battles. Instead of playing objectives, the ai is constantly rushing units through the front line to capture points deep in my territory instead of pushing the front line back or pushing objectives to win.

Seems like the Campaign map has some rough edges for sure but I’m glad to see another company try and blend Strategy and Tactics together like Total War. Amazing overview!

Whilst the tactical and interactive map isn’t perfect by any means, it is a welcome addition and something I’d love to see in more WW2 RTS games. I would love this feature in Call of Arms: Gates of Hell.

Looks pretty good! I think the campaign map is a huge improvement. Even just a campaign like in Panzer General 2 or Ultimate General: Civil War gives you some context for the battles, replay value, and reward for doing well, but having an actual campaign map is awesome.

Hey Andy! Amazing video! This whole concept was introduced in LOTR BFME 2. A criminally underrated game that deserve a full recogciontion for beeing a decade ahead of its time.

I feel like this COH is probably as close as a WW2 Total War we're gonna get. The complexity of WW2 but especially the Italian front is a bit overwhelming and you can't really represent every movement and unit like it was. However the mix of turn-based map and real-time battles is what always worked out for Total War, although never in this scale. Maybe a little more polishing (or mods) can turn it into a blast

What they need to improve firsthand is the explosion effects, and adding more smoke and plume to fires and bombardments. I love this game, the gameplay is great for each army, but it’s definitely missing company of heroes three graphics , and sometimes it doesn’t feel like a company of heroes game lacking the fluff of shells hitting and the debris that gets kicked up. Not to mention, we’re fighting in deserts, and if you see any World War II footage, you’ll see tons of smoke and dust .I still think some of the sounds need to be louder as well. I feel like there’s a few units in the game that need some enhancement. Even when the artillery lands, I remember playing the first Company of heroes, and absolutely loving the way mortars and artillery comes down because it’s ear shattering, but plays well and immerses you. I really hope they improve that because it’s definitely lacking, and that’s just the truth. I still love the game very much, and very grateful for their hard work, but I think there’s an opinion amongst many of us that feels it needs to be fixed.

Id love if they build on the foundation of this and go forward fixing the issues. This has a lot of potential for a possible future Pacific theatre campaign .

Very good summary, I have exactly the same impressions after the first few hours of the campaign.

Agree with everyone you said. I think that ships & planes shouldn't contribute to pop cap as they're already limited by airfield size, fuel & munitions. I always found myself wanting to use new companies but never having the population cap to do so

Awesome video Explained the idea really clear And great commentery

Went in blind today, knew about it offcourse that's why I got it. I have to say I agree with your summary. It feels like a good foundation to build upon. But a bick lackluster in terms of visuals and audio. The campaign map suprised me, in a good way. It needs ways to tinker with it. Let's see where they take it.

Honestly more of the same is perfectly fine, its more of what we loved, and especially since sometimes more of the same is better than full inovation *Remember The Entry of Command and Conquer that shall not be named as a example.*

Company of Heroes 3 makes me really excited for Company of Heroes 4.. Its the first step in a new direction and has great groundwork laid but so much room for improvement

Thanks for this review, I have been on the fence on buying this yet.

I hope Relic doesn't take CoH3's mixed reception as an indictment of the Campaign map. This RTT/4X mix is what I've been craving ever since Total decided to go fantasy. They should iterate on it, and make it better, instead of abandoning it.

I haven't purchased this yet because the reviews are so mixed. I was hoping for much better myself but maybe I'm setting my hopes high because I loved the other 2 games. After the DLC for the 2nd game made the AI waayyy too hard, I'm glad it's toned down but I'd still like a challenge. Thanks for the great review!

I wacked this on the hardest difficulty in my first playthrough and it deff feels different to what people are saying , actually lost a few battles, causing me to lose some areas.

Great review!

I don't know if I want company of heroes turn into total war

Hopefully we'll get something like Company of Heroes: Pacific Assault. We could have the Marines, Japanese, and Australians.

I wish CoH would do a pacific theatre. Burma campaign and island hopping with the marines would be epic

Sounds like it's very tweakable and possible to patch and iron out the bugs and dodgy gameplay mechanics. As long as the base gameplay is great, I'm fully confident in this game.

I like the bigger scale of the battlefield like in Sudden Strike

I really love and enjoy the campaign game mode and the tactical battles. Particularly how different elements can impact in real time battles. I think one of the best ways that it can be improved is by adding an entire new campaign (say Burma, pacific, Normandy, eastern front etc) or if not at least allow the opportunity to play a defensive campaign as the Germans and add more maps, of different sizes and such, to add more variety to tactical battles. Would the campaign be better with more company types?

Nice breakdown. Was wondering if I want to buy this game. Based on your input, I agree with your points. Looks like they need to make some updates and changes before I decide to buy.

hopefully someone comes out with a kmod equivalent. The minimal pop caps always killed it a bit for me, k-mod felt more like what the game was supposed to be.

Nice to see the Italian Campaign getting some love, at least.

This is what they can do. they can make new maps that are better suited to fighting an attacking and defending battles with more aggressive AIs in an update once they get it working. What they can do to make things interesting is if battles at the same place happens close to each other (like say you win a battle and take a town and right after the enemy counter attacks in an attempt to take it back) craters, damaged buildings and such that occurred from the previous battle would still be there in the next battle. this would make it so battle after battle in the same location, it's constantly evolving so your tactics also have to evolve with each battle.

The US constantly suffered from Manpower shortages on the western front, they had more than enough equipment, not so much infantrymen. So historically it does fit with the Manpower limitations.

I am excited to check out this game but I will do so later on.

Guys.....IMAGINE they make dawn of war 4 like this......one can dream.

Great breakdown mate. I will likely buy.

Did they remove gore? I saw no dismembering in the whole video or other videos for that matter. I realy liked that in COH 1 and 2, made combat a lot more visceral.

Reminds me of the campaigns in Wargame Red Dragon or Steel Division 2

Thanks for the review.

This is hype. We love Company of Heroes… maybe we’ll have to do a collab ;)

The gameplay for COH3 is great, the turn based feature is almost the same as Total Wars. If you played turn based games in mobile devices then it is very easy for you to play the game.

The review and comment section really has me question if anyone else played axis and allies for pc from 2004. The gameplay is remarkably similar, and a lot of mechanics could be inspired from that game which I wish had gotten a sequel.

I spoke with the devs in person today at their office (Im the window washer for the building). I told them that the only real qualm I have with CoH is that you cannot zoom out very far. They said, "it's an issue were addressing". #FYI

I don't know I think I'll stick with Men of War: Assault Squad 2 Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront Just the health system for tanks seems outdated. in the games I mentioned one shot can destroy a good tank if the shot comes from the right angle and just penetrates the armor.

I grew up with This game series loved COH 1 it was all I had back on my old pc. In my eyes nothing will ever beat COH 1. And I personally felt that COH 2 flopped hard. From what I’ve played COH 3 seems to be the redemption that the game series needed. So far I’ve enjoyed myself. But I’m a skirmish only kinda guy. The turn based mode is cool but not what I play COH for.

The issue I can’t stand is there seems to be a bug trying to plant mines in the beginning

Good review, thx

they need to bring the italie army to so you can fight the allies and a usual they need to give more popcap

I want to make sure I understand. So if on the campaign map I have a full army, I would still have to start a battle with limited troops having to build stuff to “recruit” my army into the battle? That doesn’t seem logical so I am assuming I misunderstand.

I was mostly looking forward to this campaign so I will probably wait and hope they fix and improve it

I'm using up all of my manpower, but im playing on the hardest difficulty and having to heal my armies alot as I am having to win multiple battles in the end turn.

It would be a dream come true for me if a game exactly like this came out in the future but the only difference would be it literally would be the entire world war 2 from the Pacific all the way to Russia to Berlin and all the battles all in one game I would fucking kill for that. I'm a completionist when it comes to games like this I would play that campaign for months. My literal dream

This game looks like how I remember CoH1. I like how they toned down the cartoony look of the trailers though.

Not every RTS need a campaign map stop forcing the trend, if you like it play total otherwise let other game have a good linear storyline

nice review

imagine when a games studio adapts gpt to deal with in game ai

Andy's Take count all things as new & innovative and all I can hear is Dawn of war: Dark crusade with a lot more Total war elements.

to be fair to company of heroes, the total warhammer games had the same few battle maps all the way up until immortal empries release so thats spanning several games so i wont knock them too hard for it

being completely honest if the tac map was bland i would probably not want it so bad the map basically sold me on wanting to get it one day

I tried the campaign in the early access, it was too complicated and unnecessarily restrictive. This is a major fail and disappointing. Total War’s campaign works because of the simplicity and straightforwardness

Total War: Company of Heroes: Dark Crusade

So wait til it's on sale?.. gotcha!

Soon as I did the alpha I knew this is a test for a pacific theatre game but most likely not DLC it will probably be CoH4

Coh3 is great, it brings back the feel of the first game for me. The italien campaign was a bit lackluster with too many skimish battles inbetween that would have benefitted from an autoresolve. The african campaign was good but short. The multiplayer is good, but the coop against ai is missing the part where you increase difficulty

Here's the main point being missed here, nobody in the COH fanbase was really asking for this campaign. There are cool aspects to it sure, maybe bringing in new players potentially, but it really seems they spent tons of time on this campaign and experience and other aspects of the game completely suffered. CoH's playerbase lives within multiplayer, whether hardcore competitive players, comp stomps, custom games, etc. and it seems a lot of that was overlooked by the devs/team. We were given a completely unfinished game. Imagine the abysmal state the game released in, and jump forward several months earlier to the original release date. Some of this should be so straightforward I don't even know how they fucked it up lol

Adding "another game" in "another genre" a top of the RTS - is not an leaping improvement. Its literally genre-meshing that was in a lot of RTSs before and what, in my opinion, halts the genre back, since developers by popular demand have to make two games in one.

the campaign map is honestly nothing inovative or new. Batle for Middle Earth already had something silimar in 2005

This is a total war/men of war fans west dream of a game I can’t wait till it releases

Imagine a battle mode on total war where, if (for example) a battle has less than 100 troops in it, you could control them in small units or even individuals, like company of heroes. It makes a lot of sense to me, like a skirmish between long range units in napoleon, or an ambush of natives on a small colonial force on empire. It would be not only a completely new and fresh battle mode for total war, also would be historical, if you don't have a big enough force, you don't fight in lines, you get behind trees and fences. (yes I imagined it mostly for musket era total war, but I could see it happening in other settings too).

The question for me is if you would go for this game over the cheaper COP1 or 2? Does it bring enough to warrant the higher price tag?

Damn you didn’t get to faggio until 37, I beat it in 39 turns.

Mediterranean theater, Homers voice: BORING!!!

does this have eastern and western front as well?

I never tried the italy campaign because It's allies only.

Eleonora Valenti never existed, the partisan leaders were others in Italy and very well known. Not only we have not received the Italian faction but we are historically represented in an very approximate way! the potential is high but the game right now is by no means convincing

well its been 8 months, have the patches made the game better?

Relic has gone so massively down hill, let us not forget DOW3

If your not poor buy it. Its so much fun and energy content. Some awesome new audio if you set up your game correct. Patches daily.

Was trying to figure out with a definite answer, is the campaign playable coop?

Umm, I hope you're not saying that COH3 is revolutionary for having a strategic map. RTS games have done dynamic campaigns for a very long time, Steel Division 2 being the most recent example.

Thank you for being honest

I wish they would take Company of Heroes outside of the constraint of realism and add more "what-ifs" stuff into the game. Like prototype tanks, tanks that were drawn and built a few models but never seen the light of day again (like in World of Tanks). Infantry weapons, chemical weapons, etc. Heck, they can take it further and make a completely alternative, retro-future style CoH World War 2 with "futuristic" stuff imagined in that period, similar to Iron Harvest and just name it something else to avoid upsetting CoH diehard fans but still retain the CoH gameplay value. The main CoH 3 problems for me has been all quality issues. The UI looks cheap and cartoony, the audio sounds cheap, no graphical upgrade and in some instances it's a downgrade (especially explosion, gun effects).

Why allow planes and ships if the Population Cap is so low?? That means you have to build the same couple things every game and never get to experiment.

This looks super arcade like!!!! I played coh many many years ago and it looked just like this =O goh ostfront now thats an improvement for ww2 strategy games

Whenever someone has to use CAPITALS in a sentence, I’m always gonna be assuming it’s slightly sketchy. Especially if it’s honest. Usually people don’t have to say it’s honest.

Beware it has Denuvo drm on PC version

"Strategic pause" Don't you mean... No Cojones?

Coh 2 and 3 does not even touch the feeling the blitzkrieg mod gives me for coh 1

100% agreed. It is fantastic that these devs have the balls to take risks and try something new and innovative instead of regurgitating the same stuff over and over again like Age of Empires. Other reviewers do not understand the complications that arise with trying out something new, so they just shit all over the Italian campaign. I have confidence that Relic will gradually release patches that will make this campaign the best of the entire series. It might even become a moddable platform where modders create their own massive world scale 'campaign map' with resource management and everything. The possibilities are endless. But some reviewers dont see that, hence they just have a short term view, which determines their score.

If you havn't already you should check out Call to Arms: Gates of Hell

I feel like it's not fair to complain about there being 4 playable factions at launch since CoH2 only had 2 and you had to pay for the others. This is honestly a huge step up from that.

mixed between RTS and TBS reminded me of a classic Japanese game: DAIVA Story.

Game mechanics looks like a Total War game now.

My problem is this game does not punish you, The turret rotation speed, the vehicles, the Sprites all move too fast. There's very little strategic decisions and moments. Everything looks like it snaps on target

I got the game free for buying an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X. I will probably install it and check it out.

I love the campaign map, I’m hoping they take all this feedback, either for a DLC or the next game, and make it for the invasion of France, or have the option to play as Germany for these maps, or even act as Russia kicking Germany out of their land and advance toward Berlin! They could do so much even through mutilplayer campaign map (Brits and US maybe Russia vs Italy and Germany) and if they do a 3v2 give Germany better starting advantages.

1:30 It’s not a Revolution. Total War has been doing this for decades.

I love the campaign that it kinda reminds me of civilization games. They did really well for their first civilization game. CoH 4 would be even more awesome for sure after they learned from their first mistakes here. I do agree that the AI is easy to beat. I've played skirmish with a friend and it always comes down to taking away all the fuel points making the AI unable to create tanks and win the game like this over and over. We beat the AI on expert and it felt way to easy to beat them like this. Just build an army of tanks and you win is what it all comes down to and it's to easy and boring. Perhaps making manpower a less rich resource could make the game more challenging.

The only problem most people have is the inability to zoom out thankfully its one of the first mods to come out other than that this game is fun as hell