Harrassement by Steven "Suprise" Uray.

I'll start off this article with one definition of harassment: Under the United States Code Title 18 Subsection 1514©1. Harassment is defined as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such a person and serves no legitimate purpose". Now, my definition of harassment for RTS is putting stress on your opponent's map control, forces, resources, base, and mind. I would also like to add that although a judge is not likely to agree on this one, harassment serves a very legitimate purpose: an essential part of your victory and defeat. Incorporating harassment into your overall strategy and gameplay is what I am going to teach you here. Harassment can at its very least, be a way to take the fight to the enemy's homeland and force him to defend his territory and keep him off yours. It is a diversion and keeps your base safe while putting theirs in danger.

"If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them."
- The Art of War, Chapter 1

Now, I am going to apply harassment to specific CoH scenarios. I'll give you a rundown of a few of your options as far as that goes, along with a few map-specific examples. It is important to remember that the terrain has the ability to limit/help your harassment. My first example is Angoville, where you have two distinct sides, both of which have many ways to access each other. Sides may be cut off but taking the resource points or by taking special strategic points that cut off entire sides, unless of course you link your side up through other strategic points on their side.

Fighting on Angoville is fast and furious, and most of the main fighting takes place in the center of the map where the all important cut off strategic points are. Buildings and heavy cover help players defend these points, or can actually help the harasser hold the cut off points provided he has taken control of that area. In addition you can take points off your enemy the 'old fashion way' and just take them one by one, or you can take 2 points on their side and cut off anything between those points and the players connecting base.

This is thrown into whack by the british player's almost certain forward base, which is harder to harass economically but much easier to harass in terms of forces. A forward base can be manipulated by the threat of your men charging it, and in the later game it is likely that they bring base-destroying weapons such as armor and anti-tank rockets. Your opponent will be afraid to leave his base, because if he does what stops you from charging in? He must make sure that your forces have been swept from the map or distracted elsewhere (at least termporarily) before he can stop sitting on that egg.

A completely different example would be a map like Semois, which has a ton of buildings and cover on it, which make it a much slower map because you have to slog through your opponent's lines before actually being able to cut off any of his stuff. It is going to be hard to fight through enemy squads in buildings to capture a point, and even harder to ignore them without taking heavy casualties. Sides really aren't chosen, the north and south parts of the map are pretty much given to you. Players on this map mostly fight for control of decisive buildings, but this allows for some interesting, if less glorious harassment. It is easy to take advantage of the fact that north and south are given sides, and so you can send an engineer squad or a lone rifleman squad out to go and take your enemy's munition or fuel points. Your opponent will have to recapture these at some point, and you can take advantage of when he does there will be one less enemy squad on the field to deal with. Remember that you are deep behind enemy lines at this point and sometimes may end up retreating through your enemy's base defenses. With the release of OF, the important munitions points have been moved to the far left and right of the map, while strategic points that cut them off are pretty much in the center of the map and difficult to defend.

To sum this part up, there are pretty much 2 ways a CoH map can go in terms of economic harassment, open or closed. Open maps, like Angovile and Langres, are maps where open strategic points connect well defined sides to a player's base. These points may or may not be easy to defend/assault. Closed maps may lack major cutoff points and distinct sides such as Sturzdorf or Wrecked Train, or these points are simply too hard to get without map control (such as Semois and Hinderdam)

The second part of this article is going to focus on a given faction's ability to harass and defend against harassment. There are pretty much two ways a faction can go in terms of this, light and agile or heavy and methodical. Each faction has variety in their harassment, but in the end they all have a focus. I will state the obvious here and say that Americans and Panzer Elite are generally fast and agile, while Wehrmacht and British are heavy and methodical. The Americans have a very nice advantage early on with the most powerful early 'capping power' units in the game, Riflemen and Engineers. Engineers, generally speaking will have an advantage over Kettenrads (that can't fire back) or Pioneers, (that usually lose head on against Engineers). This allows the American player to split his Engineers on the map and not have to guard them against other enemy Kettenrads or Pioneers. Riflemen have it easy with Engineers because they can focus on fighting or capturing important points, because they won't have to go scare off basic units to save their engineers. American players also have a 1.5 capture rate with a Rifleman squad, which helps him execute decaps on major points with stunning speed and allow his opponent less time to react. It also means that riflemen can spend more time fighting and less time capping.

Another light and agile faction is the infamous Panzer Elite. They have a vehicle unit as their initial capping power (Kettenrads) Kettenrads cheap and fast, and have a good capturing rate. They are also weak and defenseless, and have serious issues with jeeps. What a Panzer Elite player does have is a very mobile main force that can repair itself in the field with Half-tracks loaded with Panzergrenadiers. A Panzer Elite player can quickly defend his Kettenrads against enemy units by speeding across the map, and then going back to harassing enemy units within a very short period of time.

"My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either." - George S. Patton

The heavier factions have to adapt to these light and agile factions by sticking to one side of the map. This is because they either have frail capturing units (Pioneers) or not enough of them (British). Wehrmacht players must send their pioneers to one side of the map if they want a fair chance of taking territory. Enemy engineers will pick them off with relative ease, so Wehrmacht players have learned to keep their Volksgrenadiers and machine guns close by to defend their Pioneers. You should note that Wehrmacht players need to actually split up their pioneers against a British player, as if they focus on the same side as the British players they are likely to get overwhelmed by Recon squads. The Wehrmacht player should take advantage of the fact that the British opponent can only take a few points on the map, while leaving the rest to your Pioneers to capture. Wehrmacht players have good opportunities to harass however, as if they manage to push back an American player's Riflemen (not terribly difficult with Bunkers, Volks, and MGs) They can go for the kill on a vulnerable opponent by taking his cut-off point and camping it with Machine Guns, Bunkers, and Volks. An American player will have a very hard time dislodging his enemy from his cutoff point if he gets fully established, simply because of how well the Whermacht enemy can dig in on important points on the map.

The same idea goes for the British, but to an even greater extreme. The British were designed to operate with less map control than than other factions, but with more sheer power. It is pretty hard to harass with the British, as their capping power is quite limited to weak officers and Recon squads, which are not very numerous or cheap. A British player can launch a devastating cut-off attack if given the initiative, and can camp your cutoff point much harder than anyone else and for much less resource cost. In addition, the British trucks secure points on the map making side switching difficult without weapons to take the trucks off points you want to capture, weapons that can dislodge a truck are often weapons you don't have readily available early game.

I'll end this article and say that harassment is one of the core elements of warfare, battles are won when you wear your enemy down and give him no rest. If you can manage to successfully harass your enemy you will have him weary while you are strong, you may have his economy struggle while yours thrives, you can tire him while you keep up your strength. I will end with this quote from our friend Sun Tzu.

"Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible
as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams;
like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew;
like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more."- The Art of War chapter 5

May not be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit written permission of Steven "Suprise" Uray.