Company of Heroes 3 beginner tips

Master the art of war with these stratagems

Contents

1. Learn about cover types and weapon strengths
2. Preserve your units
3. Don’t just charge into defensive lines
4. Build balanced armies
5. Delay choosing your Battle Group
6. Use reverse gear on your vehicles
7. Take a breather with the Tactical Pause

Company of Heroes 3 is almost here, letting real-time strategy fans dive back into the intense heat of battle in World War II. The game’s narrative campaign, dynamic campaign, skirmishes, and multiplayer matches will lead you to battlefields in North Africa and Italy, as you control one of four factions: Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK), Wehrmacht, US Forces, or British Forces.

Though all factions share some base mechanics and can cover a variety of playstyles, they are built slightly asymmetrical to provide more variety. Battlegroups allow you additional versatility and diversity in your pool of units and abilities, ensuring that you have the tools to overcome any challenge.

The first step to becoming a great commander is to master the basics, however. If you’re new to RTS games or Company of Heroes, or are simply returning after a long break, you’ve come to the right boot camp – our Company of Heroes 3 beginner tips will get you ready for the frontlines.

Learn about cover types and weapon strengths

Company of Heroes 3’s infantry battles are all about cover and positioning. When moving a unit, white dots on the ground indicate a position without any cover, yellow dots indicate light cover, and green dots indicate heavy cover. Obviously, heavy cover is always to be preferred, though you will always have to pay attention to positioning – after all, even heavy cover won’t be of any use to you if the enemy is coming from behind, completely negating its effects.

Were we to move these Riflemen, only one model would get heavy cover as indicated by the green circle / Relic Entertainment

Buildings always count as heavy cover and so do heavy vehicles, which enables cool combined arms tactics. You should strive to occupy the high ground, which provides some bonuses.

Armored vehicles also provide heavy cover, enabling them to protect infantry, which in turn can assist them / Relic Entertainment

You should also keep in mind that an infantry unit’s capabilities can be changed or enhanced by giving them a weapon upgrade. Take the versatile Gurkha Rifles fielded by the British, who can either be outfitted with a light machine gun for long-range firepower or submachine guns, which make them into one of the deadliest close-range units in the game. Recognizing these weapon icons on enemy units is important, because it helps you determine if you want to commit to a firefight and how to position your units. Those submachine guns won’t do much good in a long-distance battle, so it’s a good idea to keep your own infantry away from them.

The Assault Package upgrade transforms the Wehrmacht’s basic Grenadier infantry into deadly close combat fighters / Relic Entertainment

Preserve your units

One of the key principles of the Company of Heroes series has always been unit preservation. Units gain experience as they fight, which is displayed through their Veterancy level. Reaching higher Veterancy grants them additional stats and sometimes you even get to choose a new ability for them – naturally, all of that is valuable. If you’re in an unwinnable position, it’s better to retreat and preserve your units than to let them die fighting in order to maximize the damage they cause before going down. While that’s often the right thing to do in games like StarCraft 2 or Age of Empires 4, where a unit with 1% of its HP does the same amount of damage as a unit with full HP, this isn't the case in Company of Heroes 3.

This Grenadier squad has reached Veterancy 2, reaping the corresponding benefits / Relic Entertainment

In Company of Heroes 3, most units consist of several unit models, which each have their own stats – so a squad with six soldiers will do more damage than one with just a single soldier. As you lose models in combat, the unit loses effectiveness, which should encourage you to retreat and reinforce it instead of letting it get wiped out by keeping it in the fight for minimal gains.

Most infantry squads consist of several models, which each have their own weapons and HP / Relic Entertainment

This is only recommended if you’re desperate to hold a victory point for the last few seconds to clinch a win or something like that.

Don’t just charge into defensive lines

You’ll encounter many strong defensive lines in Company of Heroes 3’s campaign missions, but also in multiplayer, where this is commonly called turtling. While you can attempt to break these lines with pure force, this will almost certainly end in failure; at best you’ll succeed while suffering very heavy losses. Bashing your head against this wall is exactly what your enemy wants you to do – so you shouldn’t indulge them.

One way of dealing with strong fortifications is to circumnavigate them. Multiplayer and campaign maps both feature many paths you can take, so try to find one that allows you to outflank those defenses. Always be aware of mines in that case, since the enemy might have foreseen you coming this way, so bring a squad of pioneers or engineers with minesweeper kits (once they are detected, it’s easy to clear mines by ordering a heavy gun to target the location on the ground from afar). Once you’ve gotten around the defenses, you can attack them from behind or raid deeper into enemy territory. Remember: They can’t cover every part of the map without spreading themselves too thin.

Another way is to dismantle defensive lines with artillery and air support. You may not always be in a position to use all these tools, but if you can spare the resources it’s the best way to break through a turtling enemy. First, secure vision over the enemy positions, then target your air and artillery strikes. Follow this up with your ground forces immediately – while you shouldn’t run into your own barrage and lose units to friendly fire, you also shouldn’t wait until it ends. That would just give your opponent time to reform their line. To maximize the shock effect of your assault, you need to bring your ground troops into the mix right away. Make use of their disorder.

Smoke abilities are a great help when assaulting fortifications, as they can block the vision of machine guns and allow your troops to get into striking distance unmolested.

Build balanced armies

While it’s an awesome feeling to swarm an enemy with infantry or tanks only, it’s not the most effective way to go about things. In most cases, a balanced force will win out over one that’s too reliant on a single unit type. Combined arms tactics have emerged as the successful model of warfare in modern times for a reason, and Company of Heroes 3 follows this doctrine: Tanks without infantry support are vulnerable to many dangers, an infantry-only assault can be held off by a single machine gun, and an army with too many support and artillery units can easily be overrun.

Yes, it’s much easier to control an army with only one or two troop types, but that won’t win you battles in the long term, because the enemy can adapt to what you’re doing much easier. A balanced army keeps your own options open and keeps the opponent guessing.

Mixing troop types together is mostly more effective than relying on only one unit category / Relic Entertainment

Company of Heroes 3 also makes handling mixed groups of units easier with useful features like towed artillery and tank riding. If you use trucks to tow your heavy guns and have infantry ride on your tanks, you can keep your strike force moving as one instead of having to wait for the slower elements to catch up all the time.

Delay choosing your Battle Group

Battle Groups are a powerful tool in multiplayer mode to round out your faction’s capabilities with additional units, abilities, and bonuses. You can bring three different Battle Groups to a match and then commit to one during the game, investing your Command Points (generated from your units engaging in battle) to unlock its contents. Unless you have a strategy in mind that requires you to unlock a Battle Group right at the start of a match, you should wait and see how things go first.

Battle Groups contain additional units, abilities, and bonuses that alter your faction's gameplay / Relic Entertainment

Battle Groups offer lots of different tools to counter what your opponent is doing. If they are turtling, an artillery-focused Battle Group might be useful. If they’re trying to out-multitask you, perhaps you’ll want additional static defenses or enhance your own mobility. It’s wise to keep your options open initially to react to new developments.

Use reverse gear on your vehicles

It’ll inevitably happen that you’re using your tanks and other vehicles a bit too eagerly, getting them into tough spots they should not be in. In situations like these it’s always important to remember that your vehicles’ front armor is the most fortified part of their structure. The sides and back are much more vulnerable, so you’ll want to have the front face the enemy as you retreat.

The Reverse Move command is one of your best friends when it comes to saving vehicles / Relic Entertainment

Company of Heroes 3, like its predecessors, features a reverse gear option, which you can click with your mouse where all the other orders and abilities are on the unit card in the bottom right corner or use via the assigned hotkey. Engaging the reverse gear makes it much easier to back out of dangerous situations without exposing any weak points to enemy fire, boosting the chances of survival for your vehicles.

A hit in the weak Rear Armor will do much more damage than one in the front / Relic Entertainment

Alternatively, you can force vehicles to use reverse gear automatically by continuously ordering them to move back very short distances by spam clicking behind the model, though there is potential for making a mistake here by ordering them to a position that’s too distant. In that case, the vehicle will try to turn, exposing its weak sides or driving further into the danger zone.

Take a breather with the Tactical Pause

Company of Heroes 3 isn’t exactly StarCraft 2 or Age of Empires 2, but things get pretty hectic nonetheless – even playing against the AI. If you ever feel overwhelmed by the multitasking required of you, hit your spacebar and take a deep breath.

In solo games, you can pause the game and give a chain of orders after careful deliberation / Relic Entertainment

Welcome to the new Tactical Pause, where you mull over what to do next and give your orders without immediately having to go back into the action. You can just interrupt the game, give some marching orders, produce new units, plan an artillery strike, and retreat a shot-up squad. Once you hit the spacebar again, the game will resume and carry out all your orders at once. It’s really a very simple and neat system for beginners and we want to make you aware about its existence.

For more on Relic's newest RTS game, check out our Company of Heroes 3 review.