General Thoughts regarding the Ostheer + Flags!

Hey,

Since it seems like everyone is giving you guys his ideas regarding the Ostheer, I thought I'd write down mine as well.

This is not a thought out doctrine/tech tree, those are just some general Gameplay thoughts I collected, in no specific order.

1) The Ostheer should be a rush-faction, with pretty good starting units, but extremely expensive late game units.
This would create an interesting duality with the Soviets, as the Ostheer player is under constant time pressure to defeat the Soviet as early in the game as possible, while the Soviet has to try his best to delay the Germans while he works on his tech tree.

2) There should be more Waffen-SS units than in the other German factions.
I know that a lot of players don't like the political connotations the Waffen-SS brings with it, but at the end of the day it was the Eastern Front where most of them fought, and gained their notorious reputations. At the very least there should be one Waffen-SS unit that specifically counters the Soviet Partisans, like the infamous Florian Geyer

3) There should be a limit to pretty much every late-game vehicle.
This, coupled with a high production cost, would further force the player to try to force an early decision, as it would make it impossible to hoard Tigers, Jagdpanther, etc for a game winning rush.
It would also work in tune with the poor supply situation of late-war Germany.

4) No retreats starting mid-game.
Just like the Soviets, the Germans very soon were banned from any kind of retreat. Hitler wanted them to stand fast and, if necessary, die where they were, rather than retreat a single mile. Of course, early game units should still be able to retreat.
In battles against the Soviets, this would lead to the all-out bloodbaths so characteristic of the Eastern Front.

5) Cheap "foreign" early units.
Early on, the Germans should have relatively cheap foreign infantry units (Most preferably Romanians, as it ended up being their failure and fast collapse which allowed the 6th Army to be encircled at Stalingrad, providing a nice historical connection). Even though this might be somewhat unfair to said foreigners, these units should, strength-wise, basically be engineers without the ability to build anything.

6) Only late-game, there should be defensive units.
To further hammer home the point that the Ost-Heer was all about the Rush, it should not receive serious defensive units (MG34/MG42) until late in the game. If the EF-Team does not wish to just copy/paste the MG42-Teams from the Wehrmacht, it could use MG34-Teams, which were more accurate, but at a lower rate of fire.

7) Grossdeutschland is a must!
In my eyes, the Grossdeutschland Division should definitely be featured as a playable unit - if not even the official name for the Ostheer. As the most elite Wehrmacht unit of the war, it saw battle in Yugoslavia, Kharkov, Kursk and Koenigsberg and Pillau(where it was destroyed).
It was also the only Unit which had a higher equipment priority than any Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS unit (even LSSAH) giving you a nice excuse for any of the fancier weaponry you might want to offer further up the tech tree.
Remember that the Panzer Elite faction is not called "Nordwest-Heer" either, but Panzer Elite (As a reference to the Panzer Lehr). The same way, the Ostheer shouldn't be called as such, but rather get the name of a specific unit.

8 ) Change the Flag for the Ostheer from what is shown in the current release version of EF!
What I see at the moment is the war flag of the German Imperial Army, not the Nazi-era German army, be it Ostheer or not. The Nazis hated the Monarchy (referred to as 'Reaktion' during Weimar), they saw it as much as their enemy as the Communists. It is true that the Imperial colors were still on the M1935 helmets, but by the M1942, they were eliminated.
Any showing of Imperial colors was because of the Wehrmacht's orientation towards the old Empire, and strongly disliked by the Regime.
I therefore recommend a different flag - in line for my calls of renaming the Ostheer to Grossdeutschland Division, I'd recommend it's unit insignia - a stylized Stahlhelm.

Here's a quick Photoshop as suggestion:



Alternatively, the Stahlhelm silhouette could at least be used as the markings on the tank, comparable to the Balkenkreuz on tanks of the Wehrmacht/Panzer Elite...

9) How about different camo-patterns with upgrades?
This was something that occured to me just recently: Throughout the war, the Wehrmacht/Waffen-SS developed several different camouflage-patterns. It could be somewhat cool if, with a purchasable upgrade, certain unit(s) could work their way through the different ones, each one increasing their ability to camouflage themselves.
I.e:
Level 1 (Feldgrau): No camouflage
Level 2 (Splittertarn): Camouflage when static
Level 3 (Eichentarn): Camouflage when static and moving prone
Level 4 (Leibermuster): Camouflage when static and walking

It should depend on balancing issues whether these upgrades should be individual or global...

Last edited January 24, 2010 at 6:24 PM by Schuultz

"There should be more Waffen-SS units than in the other German factions"
they are not changing the other factions

I know they are not changing the other factions. I'm saying that the Ostheer should feature some, if necessary under different names, so they don't have to name them SS.
(The Assault Troopers in the Wehrmacht Faction were basically Waffen-SS, for example).

Last edited January 18, 2010 at 12:20 AM by Schuultz

Your ideas are not bad at all, but I REALLY dislike all those "No Retreat!" claims. Retreating is essential in Teamgames, especially later on. For both Axis AND Allies. By removing Retreat-functions for important late-game units and limiting their whole Techtree in the lategame massively, you would create a HUGE imbalance in teamgames, making the Ostheer basically unplayable, because nobody sane would use them - cause they'd get steamrolled.

A much better idea is to create them more like the current US-Faction, which is also pretty strong early on, but decreases efficiency during the lategame.

Strong Vet bonuses would keep the Ostheer in the game.

Well, while I can understand the inpopularity of the "No Retreat", I still think that with some units it should be present.
After all, many units fought pretty much to annihilation rather than retreat, especially later on in the war.

I do agree though that high veteran bonuses and some truly elite units should be supplied to make the Ostheer a viable faction.

Still, I feel like the Ostheer should be a rush-faction, though, that has to get as much of an advantage early in the game as possible if it wants to be able to withstand the enemy. And late-game limits put emphasis on this.

I also think that it would still be very much viable in team games, as the Ostheer takes the brunt of the enemies early on with its comparatively good early units, while the teammate tries to tech up and build up its forces for when the Ostheer can no longer hang with the rest of them...

Last edited January 18, 2010 at 12:37 AM by Schuultz

I actually like the idea of cutting out retreating for the Ostheer mid-game, it will, however, probably never be implemented. I feel the Ostheer should be a mix of the British (with their HQ trucks) and PE (with strong infantry).

As for SS, yeah they played a big role on the eastern front, but as you said- The assault troopers (stormtroopers) are technically SS... The camo they wear was one worn by Waffen-SS soldiers. I'm assuming, however, you mean specialized SS units? Like Knight's Cross/Commandos that have strong anti-infantry or anti-tank properties?

Blue wrote:
I'm assuming, however, you mean specialized SS units? Like Knight's Cross/Commandos that have strong anti-infantry or anti-tank properties?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how many of them you wanted to see implemented.
It was just a general thought - as the topic name suggested  ;D

I think have a tank hunting SS squad would be pretty damn cool- Purchasable only through the command tree, of course.

I may have misunderstood your point on the Ostheer late game but the way I read it, you want to have unit caps placed on the Ostheer late game. TERRIBLE idea IMO, if thats what you meant.

I agree 100% that this army needs to be an early game pressure army. That being said the US is the same as well and doesn't have cap limits. I am for capping the IS-2 as it seems VERY strong (at 2), but capping a large portion of the Ostheer's end game units would be disastrous because it would so severely handicap them. From what I read you want late game units to be very expensive, cost a large amount of upkeep and also be capped. That would be nerf city for any army but especially a strong early army who slacks later! The US for example, is at a disadvantage late game, but they can still win and still have access to any and all units that are normally available to them, given they have the resources for it.

Other than my major issue with that particular point I think you have came up with some nice ideas.

In my topic about this army I said early units should be Fusiliers (light infantry) that replace the role of Volks in the Wehrmacht army. I had thought about having Romanian troops in some capacity but as a doctrine choice and have them serve a similar role to the Luftwaffe Ground Forces for PE.


I wasn't initially for the mid-game retreat concepts until I started to think about ways to make it happen. Lets say (and this may be very wrong but just an idea) that Ostheer has tiers like Wehrmacht. One of the results from teching to tier 3 and above is that from then on, all units are indoctrinated by propaganda to fight ruthlessly to the last man for the fatherland. I'm still not sold to the idea because you have to understand, this goes against ALL the game mechanics of CoH and the whole point of the tactical miscues, along with the ebb and flow.

I think i will be fun to see who comes up with ideas and who might see their ideas actually implemented!

"There should be more Waffen-SS units than in the other German factions"
do you mean "Ostheer" not other?

Read my concept I have applied most of those things into it.

I don't think every German unit should have a limit applied to them, especially not infantry units.
However, I think that tanks, especially anything heavier than a Panzer III, should have some kind of limit attached to them. I'm not necessarily talking about limiting it at one, but rather to two or three at a time.
Pretty much the amount that you're most likely to see in a match at a time when the player isn't trying to tank rush.  ;D

Hardcaps are an incredibly bad idea. You can limit players with high unit upkeep (makes sense as the Ostheer had severe problems getting ammo and fuel) and high reinforcement costs. or low repair rates (like PE has).

The best idea IMO is to make them similar to the US faction, but with a slightly better lategame and slightly worse earlygame. Their vehicles should cost lots of fuel.

+ having strong earlygame infantry like Grenadiers with more men than Wehrmacht or PE and various upgrades to make them fight more effective,
+ strong "light vehicles" like Panzer III's and Halftracks with Flakvierlings on top as shock units (can be locked down to increase sight range and accurracy)
+ pak50s and more expensive lategame units like Panzer IV with fuel costing global upgrades (like Ausf. G  to make them better armed and armoured for example) and individual upgrades like MG Gunners.
+ in general onmap artillery like the Wespe Selbstfahrende Artillerieunterstützung (after upgrade available)
+ the ability to build a special version of Tiger I tank (after upgrade) instead of Panthers at a similar cost, cause I think that CoH doesn't need ALL german armies to have panthers... It should cost slightly more (maybe 700mg/140 fuel) but have better overall stats than the panthers have with lower hitpoints than the Wehrmacht Tigers. If someone wants Panthers he can play Wehrmacht.
+ maybe an own version of the 88 as an emplacement like the 17 pounder
+ no possibility to construct OPs at all, but they can secure a sector by occupying a house in the sector and make it their forward HQ to which they can retreat. This sector will be "locked down" like when a Brit Truck sets up on a point and produce more income. The Ostheer can produce infantry in the HQ. The Field HQ is unlocked via a certain technology.

Last edited January 19, 2010 at 4:38 AM by dArCReAvEr

Or maybe even a mobile Flak 88 as a top tier unit:

Nice idea, since a lot of 88s were used on the Eastern Front plus it's putting a new shape to the old 88, so it's different from the Wehr and PE one. Though such a flak would need toned down range and accurracy of course. ;)

An because of its size it would be somewhat hard to maneuver on maps like Lyon as well...

or maybe a special kind of engineers that can only build an 88 and then disappears. (Kind of silly , but maybe someone might like it.)

And about the no retreat-thingy, what if soldiers can't retreat when they reach a certain veterancy. :)

Could be interesting if you could train some special kind of engineer which would be specifically used for frontline-fortifications, like bunkers, tanktraps and defense systems. Basic Pioneers could do the same, but they'd be less effective at doing it. But they could repair vehicles instead.

Regarding retreat:

Just imagine a blob of Rifles combined with some snipers picking off all your units in a big fight. Such an attack is nasty even WITH retreat.

Do you have an idea how this would rape WITHOUT retreat?
Not being able to retreat would result in EXTREME lame and boring gameplay, since the Ostheer would need to destroy the US within like 15 minutes, or they would loose. Same with brits, I'm pretty sure commandos would be amused about how easily Ostheer units would be demolished.

When the units gain veterancy through killing stuff and the faction got a not-so-strong lategame an ability to preserve units is a MUST, else you'll just make the faction unplayable in matches larger than 1on1.

However, cutting down mp income by using higher unit upkeeps is a good idea to make them have a weaker lategame than Wehr simply because they won't be able to replace men as easily as the other factions can. Which also promotes vetted units as they have higher damage / surviveability than unvetted ones.

Last edited January 19, 2010 at 11:20 PM by dArCReAvEr

I agree which dArCReAvEr.

I agree. Well thought out :)

I think every pro should have a con.
Adds flavor :)

I really like the idea of a unit being able to retreat until it reaches a certain veterancy. That would make them even higher priority because you have to consider twice whether you're going to throw your best units into the meatgrinder  ;D

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Added some Flag Suggestions...

Last edited January 22, 2010 at 2:13 AM by Schuultz

None of the German flags in CoH are real. Despite that tricolour flag being from the monarchy, looks different enough to be recognised as a new faction, while still using the distinct Axis colours. We aren't going to resort to using a flag which doesnt even look like a flag...

Fair enough.

Added another suggestion: Purchasable Camo Suits