ColinUK>Does he have opposing fronts as that unlocks the Panzer elite and British sides and unlocks two campaigns.
While the opposing fronts campaigns are good in their own right they are nowhere near as good as the original single player campaign.
While I understand that he likes to play at his own pace and can start and stop at his own leisure the MP for the most part is very good besides the dodgy connection method.
You can do Comp stomps which I suspect your father would love and of course you can do the full MP and go against human opponents.
And as much as I find the comp stomps fun the AI is not match for a human opponent. Stick any obstacle like tank traps and sandbags on any of the bridge maps and *** AI 90% of the time does not try to circumnavigate it or destroy it. They will just sit there. Not to mention it likes to put a tank producing facility on the bridge so your troops and armour can't get past it without you destroying it etc.
As in the previous posts by people who play COH the second expansion TAles of Valour wll be with us shortly not to mention the large amount of resources by COH modding commuinity like map packs and game mods. Ask your father to try the download the Battle of the Bulge mod as while it is still COH at the core it has some very interesting additions or alterations to the main game.
I do think your father is missing out on the human aspect of COH and while there are one or two elitist players out there most of my experiences online has been overwhelmingly positive. I, myself am a extremely poor COH player but people try to give you pointers and show you where you need to go to help the team and if they are in trouble asking for reinforcements. While people say there is more teamwork required in WIC, I find COH is also dependant on it especially on the big annilihate and victory point maps.
And suprisingly for a "realistic" RTS the amount of laughs while playing is insane. Whether it is from some newcomer to the the game or some seasoned pro we are in stitches most nights when we play as we use TS to get some good banter going that the team chat facility on COH can not capture.
Also you can use the save replay feature to watch how different people counteract different sides and stuff and you can analyse it to see how they managed to beat your arty spam or tank rushes. This in effect improves your game although it does not guarantee you will win but it does allow you to see your mistakes and minimalise them the next time you play.
There are of course plenty of alternatives to COH. WIC is quite decent although I find it more of a rock, scissors, paper type of RTS with extremely nice graphics. I quite enjoyed C&C3 but it more of a spam fest rather than an outright tactical hard counter RTS which I would classify COH as.
Good luck on finding an alternative to COH for your father but if he can't find any that he enjoys as much as COH then certainly tell him to download the map packs and Battle of the Bulge mod as that will hopefully will holds his interest longer until when/if CoH2 is released.
And if your father ever ventures onto the MP side of things online then please ask him to add me to his friends list. I will make sure to make it nice and friendly although I can't guarantee that I will not play badly
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