Messages

1

Suggestions / Re: Thoughts (Cromwell Command Tank/Staghound)

« on: March 18, 2012, 04:21:48 AM »

There've already been significant alterations to even the vanilla faction (i.e Comet, RMC), so it didn't seem too far-fetched to alter it a little.

As for the cost: I don't think the increase would be much; as it's already incredibly overpriced for what amounts to a tech unlock.

2

Suggestions / Thoughts (Cromwell Command Tank/Staghound)

« on: March 17, 2012, 08:01:27 PM »

(INITIAL DISCLAIMER: This isn't so much a suggestion as a thought I've had. I am not an expert and have no idea about the further-reaching balance consequences of these two small ideas; which is why I'm making the thread to see what people with more knowledge of the nitty-gritty of stats and balance can tell. I haven't put this in 'balance' because it's more an alteration than a tweak, but if it seems better that it should be moved there, by all means that should be done.)

So far as I can gather, one of the complaints from EF about the British faction is their static nature, despite this being what Relic designed them to do. And it's true that this doesn't match up with the other factions, either in vanilla or in EF - though I haven't seen the Ostheer yet, of course.

In this case, though, the faction is saddled with a couple of units with very limited use: the Cromwell Command Tank (which carries veterancy, nothing else - and unlike the foot officers, cannot even pick up a weapon to be useful with), and the Staghound, which has no command radius and replaces the Cromwell Command Tank.

Given this, it isn't much surprise that people are discouraged from playing offensively, when a significant resource and population investment has to go into a vulnerable, defenceless vehicle.

Consequently, why not give the CCT the main gun, identical to that of the regular Cromwell? The 'command tank' examples shown in the game with a wooden dummy gun to make more space for radio equipment were used at a much higher level than the company level of command the game depicts, and so would never have appeared on the front-line of a battlefield. This way, at least, it would not be a complete waste purchased solely for veterancy/unlocking, and would have some means to defend itself.

It has also always seemed an odd design decision to replace the CCT with the Staghound, as it is roughly comparable to the Stuart light tank. A far less developed thought is that the Staghound, given what it replaces, could gain the command radius of a CCT; trading an increase in speed and usefulness for the lesser survivability of an armoured car.

So: any opinions, or experts coming to proclaim how stupid this idea is?

3

Red Army Suggestions / Re: Red Army AI

« on: April 07, 2010, 11:06:42 PM »

I found the AI spammed Katyushas... and then sent them suiciding into my base, one by one, never firing them...

4

Balance Discussion / Re: [1.04] Effectiveness of Motorcycles vs Soviet Early Infantry

« on: April 07, 2010, 08:45:25 PM »

then you should build command squads to start with if you expect a bike rush and you want to counter it.

well that would be a problem, 'cause you can only build one command squad.. 

Indeed.

5

Balance Discussion / Re: [1.04] Effectiveness of Motorcycles vs Soviet Early Infantry

« on: April 06, 2010, 11:32:50 PM »

Command squad isn't the problem. Trouble is that one bike is capable of taking out several squads of Ingenery and Conscripts at once, and bike spam seems an extremely viable tactic, since the standard Mosin-Nagant barely scratches the paintwork on one of them, for some reason (whereas bikes die against GIs or Tommies).

6

Balance Discussion / [1.04] Effectiveness of Motorcycles vs Soviet Early Infantry

« on: April 04, 2010, 04:42:55 PM »

Before I say anything, I'd like to say thanks to the team for making such a well-made, solid addition to the game. But in my games over the last few days, I've noticed something.

Is it just me who thinks that the machine gun on the motorcycles is vastly too effective against the earlier Soviet infantry - Ingenery and conscripts?

Both against people and the AI, I find that a Wehrmacht player just has to build a few motorcycles, then spread them about. Even without the suppression effects, both Ingenery and Conscripts lose all of their men within about ten or fifteen seconds, even with cover. These units seem to have some tweak making them especially vulnerable to all automatic weapons, and aside from the Command Squad, which lasts a little bit longer, having two units of Ingenery being slaughtered by one motorbike is rather depressing. In the -very- early game, there doesn't seem to be a counter to this - until one of the second-tier structures can get up, the Soviet player has absolutely no weapons that can do much damage to motorbikes - only tiny increments of damage, which the motorbikes easily run away from even when below 25% health.

The damage part is less of a problem, but I'm simply finding, from both sides, that just spamming motorbikes and Pioneers is an extremely viable Wehrmacht strategy. Capture with the Pioneers, each unit accompanied with one motorcycle, and I've been able to press at the borders of the enemy base even in larger maps before the Soviets are able to produce tank hunters or guns, which means I already control most of the map and have effectively won.

And from the Soviet side, this is an obvious problem, when even groups of several Ingenery or Conscripts have to fear encountering a lone motorcycle unit, making very early-game capturing impressively difficult, and no unit with any effectiveness against them coming in for a while. While the early game units can -later- be upgraded to be somewhat more effective, you're practically in the mid game by that point, and the trouble is very early game, the initial dash to capture stage.

I'm not certain how I'd fix this, personally, not knowing the architecture of the game files: ideally, tweaking the resistance level of the two starting Soviet units solely against the motorcycle's non-suppressing machine gun, so that they don't simply die against it even from cover, or making one of the starting units able to actually do damage to the motorcycles without spending nearly thirty seconds getting it down to <25%, losing many men, and then watching it run away.

Purely in terms of MP costs, it can hardly be right that one initially-available scout unit so hugely dominates the early battlefield, to my mind. But I'd like to hear the thoughts of others.