The shortcomings of Company of Heroes 1 and 2 partly reflect limitations in consumer technology and game development during the period when these titles were developed. But there are also deliberate design choices in these games—now considered standard elements in the franchise—thatI happen to consider examples of bad wargame design. To me the worst of these are: the use of victory and supply points, the inability to start with adequate forces (forcing you to commit forces in “piecemeal” fashion), the extensive, multi-modal AI cheating, the cramped scales of maps and weapon ranges, and the ludicrously overdone โfog of war.โ COH1 and COH2 might have been intelligent tactical warfare simulations for the discerning gamer. Instead, they merely simulate such simulations—they decorate themselves with superficial aspects of WW2 but teach the player very little about that warโor about war in general. That the game is quite addictive and has been largely profitable suggests that its customers on average don’t mind those limitations. Anyway, I hope that someday a game will come along that realizes more fully the possibilities of this genre.
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