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« on: January 22, 2010, 11:25:46 PM »
Hello all. In the interests of trying to keep related feedback in a single thread, I picked this one, hope its close to where it wants to be.
Firstly, I'd like to say thank you to the developers of this mod. You've done an amazing job with the russians, and boy do they look great. Your hard work is greatly appreciated. Now, some 'first impression' gameplay feedback... I apologize for the volume of text, I seem to have carried away, and let me reiterate that I think you guys are doing amazing work here. Please don't let my rambling convince you I have anything less than total respect for your work, and for your desire to make your mod what YOU want it to be.
A couple of things sort of jump out at me about the course of the few games I've played. The first is that the soviets have a major advantage in map control from the start line so to speak, which seems out of place given the course of the early war in the east. The advantages in massive and inexpensive tank and troop production were the result of a relatively slow process of moving men forward toward the front from much farther east, and moving industry back and away from territory that couldn't be held, or could be threatened from the air. To me it seems that these advantages should be developed in the first few stages of russian teching rather than straight off, to reflect the unprepared and defensive nature of the early war. Stalin did after all order his front line troops at the very start of barbarossa not to 'yield to any provocation' from advancing german forces, so to take a game as a microcosm of the war, millions of peasants being hurled into German territory from early in the conflict is quite a reversal. Especially considering that the russian army at the time was, if underequipped by comparison to a fully modern german army, still a proffessional fighting force. Would it completely throw everything off if the first available unit to the soviets was Strelky rather than conscripts? I'm thinking that an early fuel-based upgrade could start the troop trains from siberia and the urals rolling. This would limit the huge territory gains the russians seem to make in map control, which cripples the german ability to tech and bring motorised/armoured units in the early-middle game. The russians pay little enough for their forces (especially in fuel) that I doubt it would slow them down too much, but the germans are dead in the water without that early fuel flow. This would also mean that the russians are paying SOME upkeep before later tiers, rather than throwing their initial manpower into a staggeringly large army pouring onto the front off the bat when they should (again, taken as a microcosm of the conflict) be rocked back on their heels. The red army at the early stages of the war was after all very short on the armaments they
needed, and had lost a staggering number of tanks in the first few days of the invasion, so actually needing to contest some (defended) territory before fielding swarms of t34s doesn't seem out of place, and I'm guessing it wouldn't throw balance off too badly. Possibly soviet tanks could be significantly more expensive by default, and then cheaper with a series of two upgrades to decrease their cost? Call it something like 'Tractor Plants to Tank Production' and 'Factories Reassembled in the Urals', and have these being manpower intensive upgrades, with some small fuel cost. It takes a lot of people after all, to move entire industrial complexes. My thinking is that this way the russians would have to do at least some holding on with infantry and AT guns before the tankovy battalions start steamrolling on the counteroffensive. Lastly, perhaps a hefty (say 50?) munitions cost added to the russian mortars could reflect the difficulty of keeping heavy weapons supplied for the russians early on, as late in the game I don't think the munitions are too hard to come by for them given that they spend it on one-time upgrades (unless hard pressed of course, when you ought to be short ammunition).
For the germans, stylistically speaking, it would be nice if their early armour was more reflective of the invasion force (I know it looks like work on the jerries is forthcoming), possibly with things like panzer II's and III's replacing puma variants and at halftracks. These were early, and very fragile designs replaced by the germans with more well-known PIV, panther and tiger designs which were all brought into service to address the superiority of early
soviet tanks (mainly the t34) in armour and firepower, but were manned by far more experienced crews, and were still capable of engaging russian tanks in the disadvantageous close quarters capacity. Just seems a bit odd for the german at guns to be their most effective anti-armour measure at the early points of their invasion when that sort of equipment was still struggling to the front behind panzer divisions and self-propelled guns. On the side of infantry,
another alternative to semi-balancing out the conscripts would be to make grenadiers the starting infantry, with Volksgrenadiers (an undertrained, later-war defensive type of troops as I understand it) being a highly inexpensive stopgap to fill the lines when the russian juggernaut gets rolling and the conscripts are everywhere. Perhaps they could pop out of medic bunkers regardless of tier, reversing the trend of cheap troops dying and better ones returning to the front, which doesn't seem to have been the way things worked on the ostfront. The axis invasion force was after all highly trained, likely to a standard not held again in the german forces, and most of the units at the outset of war with Russia had already seen combat in France, Africa, or wherever. Maybe it's not practical for balance, but it's a thought. Particularly the volks respawning from dead grenadiers would encourage the crafty german player to minimize his casualties to preserve the quality of his troops, which would have been a major concern of german field commanders in Russia from what I've read. Lastly, the panzer elite seem to need help. I would suggest at least one extra man per squad, with a corresponding increase in training cost. They have no viable suppression that works against the russian horde, and trying to fight 14 conscripts, regardless of how many rifles they have, with three or six men is woeful.
Thanks again for all your great work, and please keep it up!
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