All of em for 15 bucks at direct to drive. Downloading now.

Skip this one, its a stinker.

Get "Men of War Assault Squad" instead. Its 100 percent better, and more realistic. Its on sale at Steam until Jan2.

COH a stinker? The best RTS of recent years?!!!!

No really, it's a RTS, but has some very realistic mechanics inside, and its a lot of fun. Except don't try to play it multiplayer - its good but the opposition is oh so tough. It seems only Guderian, Rommel and Patton are still playing, waiting for fresh meat to join.

Well, "has some very realistic mechanics inside" it's a point of view of who moved from age of empires or starcraft direct to CoH. It's sure a very fun game (with a lot of mods), but, if you want realistic mechanics, go for Achtung Panzer.
Men of War is also a very fun game, similar to CoH, but with a deeper gameplay than CoH (ballistics and armor, albeit "scaled down" to the map size used in the game).

Suggesting MoW Assault Squad is 100% better than CoH is, quite frankly, humorous. SHoWW2 and FoW (predecessors to MoW, for those who don't remember) were very good games, by no means perfect, but very good. MoW ships, then Red Tide, then Assault Squad and, interestingly enough, MoW is becoming more and more like CoH. In other words, if you think Assault Squad is so great, you should really love CoH.....very humorous indeed. If you want a peek at what MoW should have been, go back to FoW.

Anyway, I've said enough about these 2 franchises already so I'll keep this short. CoH is very good at what it does. The FoW/MoW series is also very good at what it does. Neither is perfect and I've got plenty of gripes about both. But, neither is better than the other, IMO. That said, you could do alot worse for only $15 than the entire CoH collection!!

Word!

Re - SacaSoh - i didn't move to COH from AOE or Starcraft. In RTS terms, the last I really played and liked was the first Total Annihilation. For real time strategy or tactics, i'm a Close Combat guy, and I really wanted to like the TOW series... but it's a pain in the A to play. Esp. multiplayer - which was the meat and bones of my office play time - the COH series is amazing. 4v4 matches in the office were quite amazing.

I really liked the first SHOWW2 and would have followed that up, but didn't for lack of play time. So many great games, so little time.

CoH have some great mods, like the coop one (Company of Heroes: Joint Operations, but i think there are some new version), i also started on TA, played some Supreme Commander too. You also spoke of Close Combat... my dream is a Close Combat on MoW engine.

After some time playing, I have uninstalled both of them.

I think I'm too old and crotchety for RTS games anymore.

I totally understand!! It took me many, many starts before I started enjoying (if you could call it that) CoH. SHoWW2 and FoW were much easier to get into and by the time MoW shipped, I knew the engine so I was able to get into it quickly BUT, I didn't like some of the changes. With Red Tide, my dislikes multiplied and Assault Squad pretty much put me off the franchise altogether!! I'm tempted to try the latest Vietnam as the devs are claiming it's getting back to the strengths of the franchise (small-scale squad tactics), but I've pretty much lost all confidence in the devs. After FoW they've only listened and catered to those who prefer large-scale frantic mayhem over small-scale strategy and tactics.

What I find rather interesting is for both of these franchises (CoH and MoW) the overall reception with each new release has been less positive than it was for prior releases. This could mean any number of things but what quickly comes to mind are:

- these devs are just churning out more of the same
- the games are actually getting worse (less enjoyable)
- there is still a substantial number of gameplayers who prefer strategy and tactics over frantic, glitzy fragfests

Too bad to - both franchises have awesome potential, but CoH seems all but dead and MoW is heading the wrong way!! Oh well.....

I think (hope) COH2 is on the way, though Relic are distracted by their apparently very good sales in the WH40k franchises.

Re COH releases getting worse, I partly disagree. Tales Of Valor was kind of an experiment, but Opposite Fronts is very good and the British and Panzer Elite are a blast to play. However, they are harder to swallow and take some time to get accustomed to, while the original factions - US and Wehrmacth - are more classic RTS factions.