Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

As long as it is perfect, it is okay to jump the ticket a few more times.

Two months ago, the World War II-themed real-time strategy game (RTS) "Company of Heroes 3" announced a jump ticket, which is expected to be postponed from November 17 to February 23 next year.

On the original release date, November 17, I participated in a two-day internal test of "Hero 3". In fact, after the hand, I more or less understand the intention of the production team Relic to choose to skip the ticket.

When the "Company of Heroes" was released before it was released, there was usually only one campaign and two camps, and the other battles and an additional 2-3 camps had to be completed by DLC. On the other hand, the main battlefield of "Company of Heroes 3" is located on the southern front, that is, Italy and North Africa, with two different plot battles and four camps with different styles.

Therefore, the initial content of "Hero Company 3" can be simply understood as double that of the previous work. According to the content released by the test version, the general game framework of the campaign and camp has been finalized, and it is by no means a simple "old wine in a new bottle".

The campaigns of the four major camps: the US military, the British Army, the German Wehrmacht, and the military of the German African Legion are officially called the "Dynamic" campaign. In addition to the real-time strategic and tactical contents that serve as the main body of the "Company of Heroes", they have also introduced round-based maps similar to those in the US military campaigns of "all-out War" and "Company of Heroes 2".

I'm going to play the Allied commander on the Italian battlefield, leading the armed forces, attacking the city on a map of the open world made by Ubisoft, full of Axis strongholds and fortifications, all the way to Rome.

All roads lead to most of the battles that take place on the Roman map, while the remaining key battles are presented in the form of real-time strategy, which is triggered when the player chooses to fight manually or attack some important areas.

The battleship shelled along the coast, weakening the enemy before entering the battle.

Paratroopers landing and seizing the airport because the large map also has the setting of resources, the production troops and the deployment of troops will need to use the resources plundered from the rear or the front; and because the strategy of the large map will have a favorable or adverse impact on local key battles, so I need a certain planning ability to ensure that the goal of liberating Italy can be achieved with minimum casualties and minimum time.

Production force

Through the accumulation of experience in combat, I had to fully take into account the emotions of the three opinion leaders in the allies when I was planning the march route. The allies are not monolithic and are mainly composed of British and American troops. The commanders of these two forces, who are also the novice instructors of the Great Map, are not at all worrying.

Aggressive American generals and conservative British generals always create irreconcilable contradictions in the process of setting my strategic goals. This is mostly due to the tension between Patton and Montgomery, the two allied commanders who have commanded the southern front in history.

In addition, the Italian resistance is also a new force worth taking advantage of, although they have not yet appeared in the beta version. By completing the regional tasks set by these three forces, I will be able to enhance their loyalty and make full use of their bonus ability. The Yankees value air power, the Brits value navies and supply lines, and local guerrillas can provide valuable intelligence support.

The loyalty reward designs three routes with more freedom in dynamic campaigns than in previous linear campaigns. It is said that the storyline of the campaign will also change because the player is inclined to one side, but it is not clear in terms of the current content.

The second campaign was tailor-made for the Axis armies in North Africa. This army, made up of Germans and Italians, is called the "DEK" in the game.

Mission objective: to defend the front "Hero Company" series has always had the tradition of designing two axis camps. As the main force, the camp is often strong, the unit system is complete, and there are few flaws to be exploited. As an elite camp seems to be weak, there are significant institutional shortcomings, but must have independent tactics, excellent troops, or some kind of powerful weapons and equipment, can always reverse the situation.

The African Legion is the existence of the elite role in "Company of Heroes 3". Their infantry teams lacked personnel and firepower and could not even build medical buildings like other camps. However, most infantry have the same convenient ability to repair vehicles as engineers, and can also get a certain attribute bonus when fighting with vehicle combinations. These elements remind me to use infantry tactics that work closely with tanks as much as possible.

The African Legion's science and technology tree allows direct calls to powerful Tiger tanks. The African Legion is also more mechanized, mobile, and executive than other camps, such as infantry entering the battlefield in separate transport vehicles. fixed artillery is usually towed by trucks.

The battle of the African Legion of draggable anti-tank guns is still a battle of traditional linear levels and a single story-they are on the wrong side and can only be taken by destruction. They lacked supplies and support, and faced with allies several times their own, they struggled to survive in encirclement and interception. But under the orders of Rommel of the Desert Fox and under my command, they were able to fight at least a few battles that their opponents praised.

After playing several battle levels in the open trial, I had hoped to enter a multiplayer game. Unfortunately, the multiplayer server used in the test is unstable, and the players participating in the test come from all over the world, so there is no way to solve the problem of network delay, so I can't give any opinion on the multiplayer mode and camp balance of this game.

For the rest of the time, I tested three generations of new mechanisms with AI enemies in encounters. The function of towing artillery mentioned above is a mechanism already available in other more hard-core World War II strategy games, but introduced for the first time in the Company of Heroes, but this is not the monopoly of the African Legion. Other camps can also produce trucks alone to achieve this effect.

Another mechanism introduced for the first time can also significantly improve the mobility of troops: infantry teams of all camps can now step into their own tanks and use them as a means of transport to move quickly to the front.

Hitchhiking Hero Company 3 also adds the height difference system, making the advantages of terrain and bunker more important. A high ground with a good view may be more useful than a well-constructed fortification, because shooting from a height can cross the lower enemy's bunker and achieve effective killing.

Houses have always been easy to defend and difficult to attack, requiring special resource-consuming means such as flamethrowers, explosives or heavy guns to take them down. In this case, most of the infantry units that are good at medium-and close-range combat have a unique and free Breach ability to empty the houses occupied by the enemy for their own use without external interference. This can be very useful on the Italian battlefield, which is highly urbanized and has a high frequency of street fighting.

The grenade explodes in the house where the armored unit gains side armor, separately calculating the armor thickness and damage, which creates more possibilities for armored assault and counter-assault tactics. The vehicle's blood bar goes back to 00:00, may not be completely destroyed, and has the value of being used as an infantry bunker. If there were a repair truck, I would be able to fully repair the vehicle with less resources than producing a new one.

The company system and commander system featured before repairing trucks were transformed from zero to "battle groups" in the third generation. In the test version, each camp has three battle groups to choose from, which will provide active skills, bonus effects, and camp-specific combat units and equipment, creating a variety of tactical options based on a single camp.

In the case of the African Legion, for example, I can choose to use Italian infantry, artillery and light tank units to fully fill or partially replenish the main German forces to complement the system and recover the disadvantages of personnel and weapons in the early stages of the game. Contrary to the perception of many people, the Italian infantry in this work are elites from the Italian marksman regiment or engineer regiment, and are worth relying on.

Italian engineers wearing heavy armor and carrying flamethrowers in the hot desert can choose "armored support" battle groups if they still lack trust in the Italians. This set of tactics focuses on seizing more supply resources on the battlefield, and then using these resources to produce sufficient tanks, supply air support, and achieve centralized breakthroughs.

The British camp can also use the battle group mechanism to recruit the valiant Gurkha riflemen, the Indian artillery on call, and the Canadian Special Operations Forces (SSF), which are good at sneak attacks. The multi-ethnic setting has enhanced the unit diversity of Hero 3, but it is more or less a response to the hell joke that the British Empire will never surrender until the colonists shed the last drop of blood.

"Indian Artillery Battle Group" in view of the high cost of learning for new players, "Hero Company 3" has tried a series of humanized and modern designs. For example, the function of building is changed to be similar to the automatic construction of "red alert", which no longer requires the involvement of engineers. When the front-line troops withdraw the rear replenishment, there is also an optional automatic option, which eliminates the tedious steps of tapping the keyboard to make up a person, and reduces the amount of operation.

The bonus enjoyed by the unit will also be marked in a more significant way than the most friendly system on the unit's head is tactical pause. During battles or encounters with AI enemies, players can pause the game at any time to give accurate and timely orders for each unit. Tactical pauses extend game time, but also increase fault tolerance, greatly lowering the threshold for beginners or disabled players in RTS.

In addition, the tactical pause system also has some picture details, such as the tactical movements of infantry, the special effects of flames, bounces, building destruction and dust, and the old effect of vehicles after a long battle, all of which effectively enhance the sense of substitution of the battlefield. It was difficult for me to take care of it when I was busy directing, and I only noticed these details when I watched the video from a third-party point of view.

"We failed to penetrate their armor" overall, this test version of Hero 3 highlights a large tube full, which is more in line with the taste of players in 2022 than the previous one, even at the end of the test. Some screenshots still shine in front of my eyes.

However, it is precisely because "Hero Company 3" intends to make a large quantity of full RTS, which makes me worried about the development of the game.

The details of the screen are piled up, which leads to worrying optimization of the test version, and many infantry and vehicles appear Bug when performing certain movements. In the beta version, many units and skill icons follow the previous work, sometimes it doesn't match the actual content at all. The large framework of the beta version is relatively perfect, but the actual content under the framework needs to be further populated. The test version is only in English, and localization must also be a headache.

The remaining workload of the production team Relic is proportional to their ambitions. The test version doesn't represent the final quality of the game, but to put it bluntly, I seriously doubt whether they can get the finished product out in less than three months. In order to make Hero Lianlian 3 more perfect, it's okay for them to jump tickets a few more times. I believe players are willing to wait.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Zhaoyue

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