Company of Heroes: Official Strategy Guide

Recently, while waiting to see my optomologist, I noticed that he had a diploma from Parkland Hospital, so I asked if that had been the same one where President Kennedy had died. He told me that one of the patients he had there was working in the Emergency Room at the time this event took place. He had talked with an actual eyewitness to this tragedy and its aftermath. About five years ago, I had another specialist at a regional hospital, a gastroenterologist. He, too, had interned at this famous hospital in Dallas. Thus, I had decided he was from Texas. A sensitive, shy personality but extremely competent in his field, I had much admiration for his skill. He had performed some minor surgery and tests on me which kept me from needing radical procedures later on. At one of these procedures, however, I had waited past my endurance(the whole time attached to an IV); thus, I asked a nurse to unhook me as I was ready to go home. When she toldthe doctor that I was wanting to leave, I was immediately wheeled back to the operating room. He said, "So you were going to skip out on me," and I replied, "Doctor, I was sure you had gotten on your horse and ridden off into the sunset." He was surprised and amused by this vision and asked, "Now, why would I do that?" I emphatically stated, "Well, you're from Texas and that's what cowboys do, isn't it?" He said (before he promptly put me to sleep so he could perform his task), "We have horses in Tennessee, too." Later, I learned from one of his nursing assistants there at the hospital that he's a native Tennessean and proud of it. The problem was he hadn't let me tell him that cowboys had always been my heroes. From that day on, this doctor who looked nothing like a cowboy, was one of my heroes. Lincoln once said, "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."

I bought this game and then had to buy a new computer and video card to run it. It was worth it. I've never seen a war game with the kind of accuracy to detail that CoH shows. Mostly you're lucky if you can tell the different units of similar type apart. Here, the Tiger tanks look different from the Panthers which look different from the Shermans and each looks is so detailed that you would never mistake one for the other. The game play is Real Time Simulation with an emphasis on capturing and holding strategic points on the map. I'm not sure that this encourages good military strategy because it is based on holding ground rather than destroying the enemy, but from a game perspective, it allows the sort of resources gathering and expenditure as in games like Age of Empire and adds an extra element to building and concentrating forces. It's gotten so bad that when my friends call the first thing they ask is whether I'm killing Germans.

Quite a bit of useful information, especially if you are new to strategy games. The maps are good and help to give a good overview of the of the single player campaign. I withheld the 5th star due to a lack of more detailed strategies for general game play in skirmish and multi player modes.

This is the best game I've played, detail is excellent, not hard to learn, more than one way to accomplish goals, really liked the way the pause feature worked to be able to issue different instructions to different troops at same time having them work together. REALLY enjoyed the SAVE feature (save as many times as you need and they will be there until you delete them, even if you finish game you can go back back and start at one of your saved points for repeat fun or change the way way you did it) so you can save at some point and then try different ways to accomplish your goal. AS I'm not a multi-player I can only comment on the Single player part, but well worth the time and price to have fun and can play over and over again on different levels. If and when there is a follow-up I'll be right in line to get it.

This is an excellent reference, with walkthroughs of all the single player missions, and descriptions of all the units with advice on how to best utilize each unit.