CoH has little in common with AoE, besides some of the most basic… basic of RTS functionality. Technically- here and there you erect buildings, there might be some situational bonuses related to map geography, you can garrison structures, create control groups etc. Very different type of RTS.
It’s a pretty good series, I’m not super into point(control)-based design but I like WW2 and the theme alone carried me through CoH and all expansions, and the sequel.
Overall I prefere Dawn of War II much more than CoH. Sadly Dawn of War III was a big letdown and a weak game. It had many of the same issues AoE IV had (and still has). Not sure what happened with Relic after Dawn of War II era. I guess some experienced people left or were fired and a couple of recent games were subpar and released in a poor state.
Dawn of War II - 89% Steam score.
Dawn of War III - 48% score.
AoE IV is too important to be abandoned, Microsoft ain’t SEGA, and slowly IV is shaping up to be pretty good. Still a far cry from what I hoped for. Fundamentally I still stand by the opinion that this would do better as some kind of spin-off, didn’t and still does not carry enough weight to be 4th mainline installment. It never was bad, even after release when it felt like v0.7, but the change of design direction doesn’t appeal to me enough.