I simply cannot reccomend this game to more average player. The issue is not in the complexity of the game, but how obsolutely attrocious it truly is at realism. The issue is that not only units have uncanny difficulty in fighting the enemy on their own, that is having company of heroes squad AI to actually have common sense for them to shoot at the same direction, but also the attorcious line of sight function which is very poorly implemented. You will find units struggling to cover lines they were ordered to, because few meters in front of them is a bush or a tree. That is not realism, but simply a poor game design. In reality a commander would not need to baby sit units and if we are going for realism, lesser control of the units and greater independancy would be they key.
Another issue is that this game is terrible at explaining stuff. I mean, simple tooltips, explanation of why and etc. Game certainly is poorly designed to help new players to get into the game. This game has a lot of going for it, but it sadly suffers from poor developers of not knowing where to put their own priorities. This results in the final shody product, with interface from 90’s designed to fight the user rather than to help him. Maps and interactions with barely any notification of who they are. All of that could be made simple without loosing depth, but the truth is, this is simple game mascarading as something bigger. It certainly have the scale and right things in mind, but fail completely flat on execution.
Addition: my story which perfectly illustrates my frustration with a game.
Here is that broke my back. I ordered my antitank weapon to oversee flat terrain while hidden in the woods. Not only they had failed to approach Germans approaching through it which is of course ridiculious (since they had freaking half-track), but they also had failed to engage it then it had started to fight my squad in the left.
My mistake was, I did not made its engagement line correctly. I fixed that mistake. I made a correct firing arc. AT gun still ignored orders. I started looking the cause. Line of sight was the problem. So, I ordered AT cannon to be dragged to different position. Units could not effectively place the weapon in the desired direction, so it took a while. I, as a player, saw that there was a direct line of sight towards AT weapon and the cannon. Squad AI had failed to properly allocate itself multiple times and that is worse, it had failed to fire.
You see, at last then I got the cannon pointing into right direction, it could not fire. Why? I pressed the button to see what they actually were seeing. It was messed up view. In the flat terrain they could see very little, because a vegetation (nothing major, I pulled AT weapon out of the forest for a clear shot).
So, in the end, my cannon could not fire, because units view range, while realistic is broken. It is difficult to know what they can see exactly. If you for example move infantry from this building to the next and ask to engage them, they won’t do it. Man of War does it, units are smart enough to take positions and fire upon enemy. In this, they will get into a trench. Since you ordered them to crawl or to fire from sit down position, now they cannot do that, because trench is too big. They cannot see ♥♥♥♥ and thus they cannot fire. Defense of the town is more a matter of figuring out terrain and puting everyone on the firing range. It is micro intesne game in a bad, unrealistic way. Such game should focus more on “commanding units”. Just giving them mission like: “hey, you two squads. Go and protect that building and surrounding area. Enemy is coming from dat way, so place your machine gun covering that direction”. In man of war for example it is far easier to do that. In this you have to fight interface, sight mechanics in order to ensure that every soldier can see anything at all.
In conclusion, if you want direct unit/squad control go for man of war. Nobody does that as well as that game. If you want to focus more on the tactical aspect, look elsewhere. This game is too focused on micromanagement in order to allow proper tactical gameplay as for example, wargame:airland battles allows you to achieve.
Another issue is that this game is terrible at explaining stuff. I mean, simple tooltips, explanation of why and etc. Game certainly is poorly designed to help new players to get into the game. This game has a lot of going for it, but it sadly suffers from poor developers of not knowing where to put their own priorities. This results in the final shody product, with interface from 90’s designed to fight the user rather than to help him. Maps and interactions with barely any notification of who they are. All of that could be made simple without loosing depth, but the truth is, this is simple game mascarading as something bigger. It certainly have the scale and right things in mind, but fail completely flat on execution.
Addition: my story which perfectly illustrates my frustration with a game.
Here is that broke my back. I ordered my antitank weapon to oversee flat terrain while hidden in the woods. Not only they had failed to approach Germans approaching through it which is of course ridiculious (since they had freaking half-track), but they also had failed to engage it then it had started to fight my squad in the left.
My mistake was, I did not made its engagement line correctly. I fixed that mistake. I made a correct firing arc. AT gun still ignored orders. I started looking the cause. Line of sight was the problem. So, I ordered AT cannon to be dragged to different position. Units could not effectively place the weapon in the desired direction, so it took a while. I, as a player, saw that there was a direct line of sight towards AT weapon and the cannon. Squad AI had failed to properly allocate itself multiple times and that is worse, it had failed to fire.
You see, at last then I got the cannon pointing into right direction, it could not fire. Why? I pressed the button to see what they actually were seeing. It was messed up view. In the flat terrain they could see very little, because a vegetation (nothing major, I pulled AT weapon out of the forest for a clear shot).
So, in the end, my cannon could not fire, because units view range, while realistic is broken. It is difficult to know what they can see exactly. If you for example move infantry from this building to the next and ask to engage them, they won’t do it. Man of War does it, units are smart enough to take positions and fire upon enemy. In this, they will get into a trench. Since you ordered them to crawl or to fire from sit down position, now they cannot do that, because trench is too big. They cannot see ♥♥♥♥ and thus they cannot fire. Defense of the town is more a matter of figuring out terrain and puting everyone on the firing range. It is micro intesne game in a bad, unrealistic way. Such game should focus more on “commanding units”. Just giving them mission like: “hey, you two squads. Go and protect that building and surrounding area. Enemy is coming from dat way, so place your machine gun covering that direction”. In man of war for example it is far easier to do that. In this you have to fight interface, sight mechanics in order to ensure that every soldier can see anything at all.
In conclusion, if you want direct unit/squad control go for man of war. Nobody does that as well as that game. If you want to focus more on the tactical aspect, look elsewhere. This game is too focused on micromanagement in order to allow proper tactical gameplay as for example, wargame:airland battles allows you to achieve.