Fire at will!

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

    • Fire at will!

      Generals,

      the Headquarters have been busy. We have now, with the help of our
      skilled scientists, successfully uncovered the secret of the first
      novelty weapon system. Brace yourselves for the Self-propelled Artillery! Core features of these new units are:
      • They move with raised speed (like a Medium Tank).
      • Their featured armor class is “hard”.
      • To keep the balance, they have lesser defense and lowered attack power.


      Bugfixes:

      The HQ has of course also been taking care of bugs:
      • Resources bought for a building or unit will now be used for this purpose instead of the building queue. Negative income won’t prevent new buildings/units any longer.
      • Once you select a province in the province list, the map will now always center itself so the selected province is visible and not behind the list.


      Balancing:

      Finally, we also made some tweaks to our existing arsenal to better meet the expectations on the battlefield:
      • Increased Artillery range from 50 to 70.
      • Increased damage of Heavy Tanks vs. hard armor by 0.5 per level.
      • Increased hitpoints of Heavy Tanks by 12.5%.
      • Increased damage of mechanized Infantry vs. hard armor by 0.5 in total.
      • Increased manpower costs of most units by 10-20%.
      • Adjusted manpower upkeep of most units, from -20% to +20%.
      • Lowered food upkeep of most units by 10-20%.
      • All infantry units now cost a bit of food when bought.
      • Increased oil cost of all armor units by 5-10%.
      The exact values will be published in the forums. Please make
      adjustments to your combat strategy to compensate for the changes.
      We wish you a successful exploration of the new unit!

      Your Call of War Team
    • We looked at the resources of all ongoing games and saw that in many games there is a surplus of manpower. The change was made to even out the resource distribution. We will of course do more analysis after this patch and if we see a problem, we will change it. Please test the new balancing for some time to check if the feeling is right or if there is indeed a problem.
      Thanks for the feedback!
    • Oh great, they're increasing the manpower costs. They were already far too high before. I was very literally about to publish this rant-like letter only minutes ago when I then saw this new announcement, but considering the timing, I'll just paste it here instead. Also, I was complaining about food costs, and they're raising THAT also. There's just no justice for army growth.

      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

      Manpower Growth Sucks in this Game

      The developers try to balance playability aspects of this game but fail to realize that a big part of any worthy military game is having infantry support for mechanized and/or other armored units.

      In this game, the growth speed is so slow that one must choose either infantry OR armored and if you try to build some of each, your armies are so small that you can't take anyone on successfully. To their credit, however, the recent upgrade to the militia at least made them slightly more useful.

      I wish the developers would at least create a building path that includes more significant manpower upgrades than the barracks without such severe food penalties that the barracks have.

      And higher level barracks suck. You only want a very few for mobilized infantry but if you try to build a lot for the absolutely paltry manpower bonuses, your food production can't seem to compete with the penalties no matter how many maxed-out food provinces you own and/or have captured.

      To answer the question of whether one should build barracks, one must only look to this axiom: your damned if you do and damned if you don't.

      <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

      Sans that letter aside, I would at least suggest to the developers that we need a way to increase manpower more significantly. Either increase the bonuses of the overly-expensive (food-wise) barracks or add a new building just for manpower -- perhaps something like a Recruitment Center. For example, a three tiered Recruitment Center could raise manpower production by 10%, 25%, and 50% respectively. A possible way to get the benefits of the Recruitment Center without vastly expensive and wasteful building costs could be that they can only be built in urban provinces but any province directly adjacent to the urban province with a shared road connection would get the same percentage benefits (or maybe half the benefit value) per province.

      Level 1 -- Recruitment Center Lv1 -- Manpower +10%
      Level 2 -- Recruitment Center Lv2 -- Manpower +20% -- Unit Healing +5%

      Level 3 -- Recruitment Center Lv3 -- Manpower +30% -- Unit Healing +10%


      And while I'm suggesting highly useful and realistic additions to the building choices, I think a Community Center might be a good way to create a multiplier within [only?] urban (or all) provinces (i.e. each level of three would increase production of manpower by 10%). A Community Center also could maybe have a positive influence on local morale of the province.

      Level 1 -- Community Center Lv1 -- Manpower +10% -- Morale +5%
      Level 2 -- Community Center Lv2 -- Manpower +20% -- Morale +10%
      Level 3 -- Community Center Lv3 -- Manpower +30% -- Morale +15% -- Unit Healing +5%


      I think a multi-tiered Command Post building structure could help defensive bonus of units -- and their healing -- in a province as well as increase the range of visibility of the provincial borders. A Level 6 Command Post could be a capital-city-only building or only allowed once per nation. The Command Posts could also work in conjunction with the fortifications (i.e.) maybe a fortification level three must be built before a Command Post level three can be built. For example:

      Level 1 -- Lookout Tower ---- Defense +5% --- Sight +15km --- Unit Healing +5% daily
      Level 2 -- Command Post ----- Defense +10% -- Sight +50km --- Unit Healing +5% daily
      Level 3 -- Radar Outpost ---- Defense +15% -- Sight +100km -- Unit Healing +10% daily
      Level 4 -- Control Center --- Defense +20% -- Sight +150km -- Unit Healing +10% daily
      Level 5 -- Command Center --- Defense +25% -- Sight +200km -- Unit Healing +15% daily
      Level 6 -- Central Command -- Defense +35% -- Sight +500km -- Unit Healing +25% daily

      Also, a Recycling Center could be a multiplier of all production in the province -- perhaps with a second tiered version called a Smelting Plant with an additional increase. For example:

      Level 1 -- Recycling Center -- Production +10%
      Level 2 -- Smelting Plant ---- Production +25%

      I would suggest a way to grow the population of a province with some kind of Medical Center (is there growth in the game?). A multi-tiered system could add to population growth something like as follows: a level one "Local Clinic" would increase population growth by 0.25% per hour (or ~5% per day), a level two "Medical Center" would increase growth by 0.45% per hour (or ~10% per day), a level three "Hospital" would increase growth by 0.75% per hour (or ~15% per day). Each of these three Medical Centers could also have a bonus to unit morale healing of (i.e) 5%, 10%, and 25% per day. For example:

      Level 1 -- Local Clinic ---- Population Growth +5%
      Level 2 -- Medical Center -- Population Growth +10%
      Level 3 -- Hospital -------- Population Growth +15%


      I would also like to think there could be nation-wide buildings (only in the capital) like a National Monument for an increase of all provinces' morale growth or a War College for a decrease in infantry costs or an [b]Efficient Draft Board for a percentage increase of all barracks' manpower effect in the nation or a Fertility Clinic for an increase in population growth. Such buildings would be akin to national projects from the Civilization series and ought to cost quite a bit to build or perhaps the maintenance of certain ones would be based on the size of the nation or the size of the military, etc.

      National Monument ------ Increases provincial morale growth (+5%)
      War College ------------ Decreases infantry manpower requirements (-5%)
      Efficient Draft Board -- Increases manpower rate enhancement for all barracks (+10%)
      Fertility Clinic ------- Increases population growth nationwide
      (+5%)

      Of course all of these new building ideas would need to have fair costs for overall balance and some might require higher technology levels reached and/or other building prerequisites. I know that adding new features to the game, besides the programming implementation and bug testing costs, can complicate the layout and/or playability of the game, but I think most players would like at least some of these ideas implemented.

      As an alternative to the possibility to having too many choices in the build screen, perhaps a path choice system per province could reduce the total options on-screen while keeping the variety. For example, have the choice be either resource focus or manpower focus where the player chooses either the Recycling Center tier OR the Medical Center tier (bonus to EITHER resources OR manpower and healing).

      In response to the above post by 'freezy', in every match I've seen, I have never encountered anyone complaining about having surplus manpower. And even if someone -- or even many -- had a surplus of manpower, where is the problem in that? Having a surplus of resources is a good thing. One might even argue that surpluses are a great thing.

      And if surplus manpower is such a problem, why not just allow it to become a tradeable resource like everything else...or would the developers be afraid that that would lead to reduced revenue from novice-playing gold buyers with deep pockets and lots of credit?

      Whew! That was a lot. To anyone who read all of this, thanks for taking the time to do so. Please post your own ideas. And if there is another forum where this post belongs, will someone please put a link to this post in that discussion. Oh, and post here that you did. Thank you.
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3

      The post was edited 3 times, last by Diabolical ().

    • Oh, and one more thing. In reply also to 'freezy':

      When seeing the "surplus" manpower, what percentage of the nations with "surplus" manpower belonged to players with inactive contact with the respective matches and what percentage belonged to AI's?

      If the total was at least 25%, then your assumptions are way too far off from the reality of the human players.
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • @freezy:

      If I can make a few suggestions then as a long standing 1914 player and medior CoW player:

      - make infantry class more attractive. Now the manpower (I hear people mentioning shortages more then abundances, guess thats part of being active?) resource becoming more expensive for armor units (a fair judgement on your part), perhaps decrease MP for infantry. Sure it can still be more expensive (costs of other resources far lower), but make the difference smaller. You will see far more infantry on the field, which is also historical more accurate. Personally I find it often hard to justify to myself building lots of them now, even with their city 'bonus' (decent players can work around that - see arties)

      - Arty range is perhaps too big. 50 km was fine. We dont want the age old 1914 tactic 'spam arties, win game' to reappear. Its one of these things why I now consider this game superior to 1914 in most ways.

      - What about the poor railgun? Shouldnt it be beefed up?

      - Rocket interceptor, same thing (I'd like my question answered in the Q&A as well regarding that one;) )

      - Destroyers lose battles vs an equal attacking sub (defensive subs lose). Shouldnt that be ehm, corrected?

      - Cruisers are far from usable, aside from bombardment duty. Someone mentioned better AA capabilities, that could be a nice job for our midrange jack of all trades friend:)

      Hope you will find my comments to some use.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by miech: edit for better readability ().

    • Destroyers ambushed without knowing u boats were coming were usually annihilated, it's historically accurate from my knowledge. Only convoys survived and even then they could barely get a fraction of it
      "A knight cannot save the world. They call certain methods of fighting good and others evil, acting as if there were some nobility to the battlefield."

      "Honor? Glory? There's no point in speaking to a killer who indulges in such nonsense."

      "It's a crime we call victory, paid for by the pain of the defeated"
    • I run 6 games at a time and only once have I had a real mp depletion, and it's always France so it might be specific to it, but other than that, I don't see the struggle of it
      "A knight cannot save the world. They call certain methods of fighting good and others evil, acting as if there were some nobility to the battlefield."

      "Honor? Glory? There's no point in speaking to a killer who indulges in such nonsense."

      "It's a crime we call victory, paid for by the pain of the defeated"

      The post was edited 1 time, last by aDudeWhoDoesThings ().

    • You know, it has occurred to me that they (the developers) ought to offer me a job as a designer and programmer. Oh, did I mention that I can do coding?

      *dropped a hint....
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • miech wrote:

      - Arty range is perhaps too big. 50 km was fine. We dont want the age old 1914 tactic 'spam arties, win game' to reappear. Its one of these things why I now consider this game superior to 1914 in most ways.

      - What about the poor railgun? Shouldnt it be beefed up?
      Those two statements contradict each other.

      Diabolical wrote:

      You know, it has occurred to me that they (the developers) ought to offer me a job as a designer and programmer. Oh, did I mention that I can do coding?
      They have plenty of coders. People have offered their services before. As far as I know, they were turned down.

      Forum ArmyField Marshall :00000441:

      Mess with the Bill, you get the scorn!

    • I have noticed that the increased resource maintenance requirements are screwing up many players with carefully-maxed-out resource balances. So not only am I forced to build even LESS units, but ALL the army I already have PLUS ALL the buildings I have just got harder to maintain. The shortages on already-well-developed empires like I have in many of my matches have just caused serious problems for builders such as myself. At least the changes could have been applied only to NEW games.
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • Again, not seeing where you come from, I have a military higher than a nation with almost twice my victory points and I have 25,000 manpower
      "A knight cannot save the world. They call certain methods of fighting good and others evil, acting as if there were some nobility to the battlefield."

      "Honor? Glory? There's no point in speaking to a killer who indulges in such nonsense."

      "It's a crime we call victory, paid for by the pain of the defeated"

      The post was edited 1 time, last by aDudeWhoDoesThings ().

    • But you just complained about them being imbalanced
      "A knight cannot save the world. They call certain methods of fighting good and others evil, acting as if there were some nobility to the battlefield."

      "Honor? Glory? There's no point in speaking to a killer who indulges in such nonsense."

      "It's a crime we call victory, paid for by the pain of the defeated"