Hoooooeeeee.... something about this map makes it quite a challenge with this mod.

My wife (Ost) and I (OKW) have played this mod a couple dozen times. Her brother (OST) is very experienced with COH2, but this was only his second map with this mod. We also had an Expert OKW AI on our team.

St. Hillaire is a remake of a COH1 map, we play the Company of Cowards version, as it has more cap points to build on. It is a rectangle, with the bases spread out in a line at the northern and southern most edges. One side is swampy lowlands, the other is a dense urban district, and the midfield is cut in half by a raised berm that offers a vantage as well as some defilade on either side. It also contains two medic points at midfield, and two repair points in the middle, just north and south of mid.

(Image here, in the same orientation we played it last night, us on the bottom, AI up top. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/433823760615559205/2BD36EC560F93C927917D60325C0BF9C85D915B1/ )

Map here if you want to check it out: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=250824028

Starting out, we pushed hard and capture perhaps 3/4 of the map. I generally roll the fortificaiton doctrine commander, and did so this time as well. I pushed with two kubels and two sturms, my first vehicle being a supply truck to bump that early game fuel income. My wife (Dym) goes hard with the point fortification, and each time she completes a depot I send a fuel truck to lock it down. Her brother (Pra) begins to fortify the midfield berm with wire and tank traps, and I back this up with OKW bases and 20mm/40mm guns as soon as they become available. The AI makes a rather uncharacteristically successful early-game push on our right, through the factory district, pushing well past mid before we are able to hold the line and roll it back. I throw up some tank traps to channel their light vehicles toward a 40mm emplacement, and a 20mm gun behind them to take care of any cheeky infantry that try to sneak in. By this point I can see that we're going to be in trouble..., at this stage of the game we should still own most of the map, and we're just now back to maintaining 50% of it. The midfield fortifications are causing major traffic snarls which will come back to haunt us later when the IL-2s and Katyusha come.

The 40mm pit I was able to build early on, on the enemies side of the line, finally succumbs... it distinguished itself well, and clocked out with 3 stars. We now have PaK 43 emplacements going up to supplement Pra's PaK 40s which, along with several 40mm pits have held the line so far. I have 4 artillery pieces up at midfield on counterbattery and they are firing nonstop, as are the pair of Ostwinds tasked solely with keeping the skies clear. Crashing planes and enemy rockets are killing off my Sturmpioneers, and a steady stream of replacements is constantly coming forward from the rear lines to continue the repairs of the King Tiger and Jagdtiger duo that are already 5 stars.

The Red horde is now pushing KV-2s and IS-2s at us in an unbroken tide. They are driving over piles of dead penals, and past the hulks of dead T-34s. I take two of my artillery pieces off of counter battery duty and task them on reducing one of the 4 enemy bases. I would later determine this to be a mistake, as the enemy can repair/rebuild their buildings far faster than the artillery can damage them, and taking the pressure off their Katyushas allows them to slowly wear down our fortifications. While Dym holds the center with several Elefants and KTs, Pra and I attempt a combined push up the right side with my veteran JT/KT pair backed up by two green KTs and Pra follows with half a dozen Panther IIs. Supporting with artillery barrage call-ins, we are able to get within range of the rightmost two enemy bases, but the crimson tide we have been able to see is only the tip of the iceberg, there are dozens of tanks and a hundred soldiers waiting for us... we deliver severe punishment, but withdraw under the cover of smoke, losing several panthers in the process. As a feint, I run a seasoned Panther II I have in reserve up the left side... It kills 7 Katyushas before it is overwhelmed... as it dies I see at least 4 more Katyushas moving forward to replace their lost compatriots.

After we have replenished our losses, I add a Sturmtiger to the mix and our armored forces make another push on the right side. Things begin to get choppy, and this is the most telling indicator that we have reached the point of no return... even my computer cannot contend with the red army's numbers. Calls of "We have lost a forward building!" come more rapidly, and I cannot rebuild them as the few Sturmpioneers I have left are supporting the last push up the right flank.

My game finally crashes, and since it is late, my wife quits out as well, leaving Pra to soldier on alone as he watches the AI promptly squander my elite trio of KTs and their JT brother almost immediately.

He is able to make one last massive push, and gets two of the bases knocked down, but the horde redirects, enveloping him even as it instantly replaces buildings under fire. A combination of futility and the coming work day cause him to quit after this last assault, a first for him.

As my game decided to crash, I am unable to see how well my units did, which was unfortunate as I really wanted to see the stats from the artillery and the Jadtiger in particular, but Pra did capture the overall standings at the end, and here they are:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1908081896

While I am confident the total damage would have been higher had I been able to play the last twenty minutes or so myself, this is by far and away my highest damage match in the 700+ hours I have logged on Steam with COH2.

Amazing mod... I have more fun *losing* with this mod than winning with most of the others on here.