9th Company: Roots Of Terror

I spent time with 9th Company: Roots of Terror fully expecting a budget curiosity and came away with something more complicated than that. The setting alone is nearly unique in the genre: you command Soviet airborne troops through nine years of the Afghan conflict, starting with brutal recruit training in Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley and building toward the real-world last stand at Hill 3234 in January 1988, where the 9th Company of the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment held off an estimated 400 Mujahideen fighters for two days. No other RTS in my collection plants its flag on this ground, and that rarity counts for something. In practice the game sits closest to Men of War and early Close Combat in its tactical feel: you manage small squads across 12 detailed Afghan maps on a nonlinear mission structure, with an area operations layer sitting above the tactical battles. Unit variety is genuinely broad, pushing over 80 different types including mechanized infantry, assault squads, recon and special operations formations. Soldiers carry a permadeath stat system - experience accumulates between missions, injured troops need a medic or they bleed out, and ammo can be scavenged from fallen enemies or stripped from captured vehicles if you snipe the crew first. Off-map support is handled through a radioman: call in D-30 artillery, rocket barrages or Hind helicopter gunship runs when you perform well, but lose the radioman and that entire support layer goes dark. These are genuinely interesting decisions that a well-funded studio could have built something memorable around. The problems are real and persistent. Friendly AI is a known offender - units misread or flat-out ignore orders with enough frequency that micromanagement stops being optional and becomes survival. Balance tips hard toward the Mujahideen in several missions, and the Steam community has a dedicated guide specifically for working around game-breaking bugs. The campaign is also reported as fairly short for the tactical depth on offer. None of this is subtle. The 59% positive rating on Steam from over 200 reviews is an honest reflection: this is a game that works well enough for enthusiasts willing to manage its roughness, and actively punishes anyone expecting Company of Heroes polish. For the strategy crowd that actually cares about late-Cold-War hardware and rarely-depicted conflicts, there is enough here to justify the time investment at a low price point. The morale system, per-character merit rewards, hit location tracking on mechanized units, and the vehicle-capture mechanic via crew elimination all show real design ambition. The mod tooling is available through the community, which is worth knowing if you want to extend the mission count. Approach it as a flawed specialist title with a strong historical core, read the community bug guide before mission three, and you will find more tactical texture than the production values suggest. Come in cold expecting a smooth experience and the frustration will be immediate. Diego, Scout Team

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