I’ve been playing the multiplayer beta of Company of Heroes, the next real-time strategy game from Relic. These are the people that made Dawn of War. The beta has been constantly improved and balance changes made to the units. So much so that its not really fair to call it a beta anymore, its really the finished multiplayer section of the full game. Given that its coming out in September 11th I thought it would be nice to give a taste of what a multiplayer game is like. Hence this after action report (AAR).

This AAR is of a ranked game between myself, a random ally, and two random axis opponents. Ranked games are basically ladder games. The Relic server tracks the win/loss statistics for everyone and you get to advance in rank (via rank promotions) the more you win in ranked games. There is the option to play non-ranked games, in which case you don’t get to win promotions and the Relic server still tracks your win/loss statistics. This is mostly for purposes of competition and you get a certain satisfaction out of beating a player in the top 50 standings.

So, on with the AAR. By the way, click on the thumbnails to get the full view:

The map was Hill 330, which is normally a three player map, but in this case it was 2 vs 2. My partner was a random moe, which I’ll call Moe. Our opponents were two random people as well, I’ll call them Ratz and Saka. You can see on the screen that each side (axis and allied) starts with 500 victory points. The winner is the side that has positive victory points while the loser has 0. To do so we have to hold the majority of the victory point locations (VPs), which I’ll name objectives 1, 2, and 3. When that happens, the victory points for the opposite side will start decreasing. The more victory points we hold, the faster the rate of decrease.

I sent my first engineer squad up the middle to capture VP 2, even before capturing anything else. This would put the Germans back on their heels to start and force them to come out and try to take VPs back from us. Ratz did so, sending up a motorbike-mg unit to strike at my engineers, forcing them to retreat.

My attempt to capture VP 1 didn’t go so well. My engineer squad was outnumbered 2 to 1 and forced to retreat. I decided to come back with an infantry squad and found VP1 defended by two volksgrenadiers squads. One volks squad took cover behind a rusty pickup truck while we found cover behind a stack of firewood. Private Johnson threw a grenade, killing the volks squad in the open, but then the entire infantry squad was lost to a lucky panzerfaust shot by the remaining enemy unit.

In the meantime VP 2 had fallen to the Germans. Moe and I got our act together, he sent up two MG teams and I sent an infantry unit. We capture VP2 and repelled the first counter-attack. A volks squad was moving up towards the hill in the open and my team, behind the wall, made short work of them.

Still, the midgame situation was critical. We were down on points and the Axis held VP 1 and VP 3. We needed to take at least another VP to change the points drain and make the axis lose points faster. On the right flank I was getting ready to take VP3 and had sent up a quad-50 halftrack along with some engineers and an airborne unit to take the objective. The infantry made its way up a path behind the MG bunker, while the quad-50 halftrack charged in from the front. The bunker, with its MG42 machine gun, was unable to damage the halftrack which lay down a hail of bullets from its 4 linked 50 caliber machine guns, killing the German defenders.

The Germans then tried an infantry assault on VP2, which was now lightly defended because Moe and I were busy taking VP3. He captured the point and held it for a brief while until the quad-50 halftrack was able to race to the objective. An paratroop airdrop came in and helped retake the point.

With the majority of the VPs controlled by our team, Moe decided to make a tank and vehicle advance against Ratz base. I let him go because I knew that keeping the VPs and draining the German victory points was far more important. Still, it served a purpose because it distracted Ratz enough to commit forces to defend against the advance instead of trying to take back the VPs 2 and 3. Meanwhile Saka was content to fortify his position on VP1 and didn’t really venture out at all. I myself was trying to reinforce depleted infantry squads and figuring out how to attack and capture the last VP.

I carried out about 3 probing attacks with infantry, trying to figure out a way in, which is another way of saying I had 3 failed attempts at infantry assaults. VP1 was heavily defended, with an AT gun, mortar, heavy machine gun squad, two MG bunkers, and a grenadier squad. I was low on resources, and I decided I didn’t have time to wait and build a tank factory then get some Shermans. So I snuck two infantry squads along path behind the defenses, which amazingly enough was left open. I radioed a P-51 to do a quick strafing run, killing the MG team and the anti-tank crew. Paratroops and an airdropped AT gun were brought in behind the defenses. After that, it was easy to pound the bunkers into dust with the AT gun and satchel charges.

And then the Germans did what they do best – counter-attack. In the center at VP2 my meager airborne and AT gun faced a double whammy. A German tiger on the left flank and a German Panther coming up from behind. The defenders had no chance, and no survivors.

Saka took a Tiger tank and grenadiers against my forces on VP1 with the same result. In minutes we went from holding 3 VP locations to holding none. To add injury to injury Saka took that same Tiger and headed for my base, destroying the barracks and threatening to destroy all my other buildings. The timely airdrop of an AT gun and Moe sending up an M10 tank destroyer helped to eliminate that threat. As a final note in the German attack plan, a rocked-equipped German halftrack shot 6 salvos against my base, damaging some of my buildings before being driven off by the M10.

For the next 15 minutes Moe and I scrambled to build an assault force, first to attack VP2 in the center, and stop the bleed of victory points. We were up 255 to 5 but by capturing all three victory locations the Germans could bleed us straight down to zero with no loss to their own point total. Our points bled down to 197 before we were able to stop the bleeding, capturing VP2 in the center. Then, after two failed assaults on VP3, we managed to get infantry and airborne in with the help of some Allied armor. As you can see, it was just in time, as VP2 was already under assault and ready to be recaptured by the Germans. The final score was 187 to 0.