For a long time, real-time strategy has been a genre where the number of things you can physically do in a second has a big impact on how efficiently you play. There’s something to be said for that, but Company of Heroes 3 is trying to extend the appeal of its tactical gameplay, perhaps to someone with whiskey in hand and mouse in hand, who wants to sit back and think carefully about every move. is. other. A tactical pause, as they say, is a less harrowing experience for a soldier being sent to charge a machine gun battery. , is a more luxurious experience for commanders.
When pausing a single-player mission in Company of Heroes 3, you’ll see an action queue for each unit. This allows you to issue a series of consecutive instructions that will be executed when you unpause. So you can run to an infantry squad to cover, throw a grenade, and then tell them to keep moving forward without missing a beat. When you issue complex sequences of orders to multiple units at once, they march like a well-conceived orchestra of destruction, performing some operations that might have previously been possible only for esports pros. You will be able to
I was a little skeptical of this idea at first. Until now, playing against AI in RTS has always been a somewhat asymmetric combat situation. As a human being, I am much more intuitive and able to think abstractly. Secondly, the computer can do split-second calculations and place more orders at once. If you use a tactical pose, you lose that second advantage of her. But I honestly didn’t think it made things too easy. Sometimes you’ll go through an entire mission without it, and other times it actually feels essential. Use it accordingly.
interrupted animation
The two most common times I break that spacebar are when charging, flanking, or reacting to an enemy’s advance. But it’s also very useful for lining up abilities such as airstrikes and especially dodging enemy abilities. Company of Heroes 3’s grenade has a fairly short fuse, so if you don’t spot it exactly as it leaves enemy hands, you won’t have time to get out of the explosion area. Tactical Pose allows you to actually get your men out of there before you open fire.
There were two types of missions that I felt were particularly important. The first is to defend strategic points against enemy occupation attempts. Here we use Salerno as an example as he is one of the first towns to liberate in Italy and one of the first places he is likely to face a counterattack. Seeing how much land we have to set aside here and how many different defensive options we have, from engineers setting up fieldwork to pointing all the big guns in the right direction, the grace period is It will be gone soon. If all this has to be done in real time, an attack will occur.
hold the line
However, with Tactical Pose there are a lot of things you can do before you get hit. You can also see what everyone is doing. Whenever I tried to play this mission without the Tactical Pause, there was always a straggler somewhere who forgot the order. Too many to track reasonably. And as the enemy advances, pausing allows you to coordinate an orderly retreat rather than clicking spam and kicking everyone out of there.
Another mission that I found this feature to be a game changer for was Tobruk, one of the largest and most complex battles on the North African front. Leading the charge as the Deutsches Afrikakorps There’s always a few things going on in this massive, sprawling battlefield once action begins. My solution in the past for RTS has been to create a strong defensive point or two so that you don’t have to babysit as you advance your main group. But now you don’t even need to have a main group. Everyone can be attacked and react to attacks at the same time.
modern warfare
Tactical Pause has been billed as a way to make it easier for new players to get acquainted with the RTS, and it’s certainly one of the things it can do. But even as a veteran who played the genre before learning the multiplication table, I still appreciate it as an alternative way to play a tactical WWII game. Not necessarily lower. Simply focus on a different skill set.
And honestly, having that option available makes each operation a little more fun. At least, all-out war is fun. It’s a breath of fresh air from the moment you hit it and your brain doesn’t have to feel like you have to keep track of different things. I crave chaos at times, but don’t necessarily want to be with it throughout the entire campaign.
