Hello fellow players,

Let me begin by saying that I am a huge Call of War fan. I really like the game and the strategy it offers. All different units have their own way of excelling and weaknesses, this makes making different kind of tactics and strategies both fun and somewhat of a challenge. However, there are some approaches that are more effective than others. I will be naming a couple of things I noticed about the game and some ideas I have about possibly offering a solution to some of the issues I see with things found out through my time playing this game. I know I am not the first one to mention these things. Although the way I see possible changes I have not seen before. I will first mention a couple of ways in which the game works against itself in a way I have noticed it to. Since there will be a number of things that are connected I will try to discuss each of them as orderly as I can while trying to be obvious on how it connects to the other subjects.

Because of the way it works now the research tree counters the way even the people from call of war itself intended the game to be played (judging from recent upgrades). I say this on the assumption that destroying someone's economy by attacking buildings should be a bigger part of the game then it is now. The only two units that are actually capable of destroying buildings in the game are rockets and strategical bombers. Where rockets are more often shot at troops than buildings, strategic bombers are not that good at what they are supposed to do. Especially not for the amount of recourses it costs you versus how much it will cost your enemy (research and then building strategic bombers). This is all not being helped because of the way a multitude of buildings share damage among themselves. Fortifications are usually food for rockets rather than strategic bombers. Probably because rockets also heavily damage the units within the fortifications. That way your spending on rockets is immediately gained in the difference of troops the enemy loses, resources and especially manpower it will cost your opponent. The result is that people do not bother with strategic bombers and just go for destroying an enemy's units, since this is more of a gain for you and loss for the enemy. The point is that the game should maybe also allow for destroying buildings as a feasible strategic plan. As long as the cost of doing this will not or hardly ever be less than what it will cost your enemy it is not worth it. This includes the risk from the strategic bombers just being shot down.

There are in my opinion two units in the game that make attacking enemy troops always more worth wile. One being the earlier mentioned rocket and the other being the tactical bomber.

Even though the rocket is somewhat meant as a building destroyer, there is no denying its effect on troops. One of the major problems with rockets in my opinion is that they are very hard to counter. Sure they are a hassle to get into position, but since they can be fired from a huge distance there is always an airfield around. Since they are also easily built in captured provinces this somewhat counters the hassle of having to have them moved around. They can be countered by moving away troops, works really well even. However locking troops into place and then firing rockets offers an easy solution. Looking at the problems a player can face when fighting other players the answer is quite possibly always a rocket. Big enemy division? rockets, enemy lading with ships? rockets (quite effectively I might add). Heavy fortifications with troops in them? Rockets. Catching planes refueling? rockets again. One of the counters I mentioned, having troops on the move usually means patrolling more roads than troops would province centers. The same amount of troops in a multitude of smaller divisions brings me to the next somewhat to powerful unit, the tactical bomber.

The tactical bombers have some unique properties as well that make it the better solution in spending resources. Each upgrade gives them 1.5 damage to infantry and 1.0 to armor. That is somewhat fine of course although most armor is quite weak against aircraft. This means that tactical bombers create an ever growing gap between themselves and ground units. Also, this goes for all planes, tactical bombers get a lot of extra speed and range with each upgrade. Especially when compared to things like land or sea based artillery. A range and speed increase for the land artillery happens only once in their entire line of research and the same somewhat goes for sea units to except for the cruiser (elite units not included). When comparing tactical bombers to most land units you notice that tactical bombers get it all. Extra speed, range and attack power with every upgrade. On the other hand most land units get only one of these factors as a major increase and the other two not at all or somewhat. The next thing that makes tactical bombers more powerful than most other units is the way they get around and work. Sure they need an airport to take off, but like I explained earlier there are few units that can really do anything to a building anyway, especially a high level airport among other buildings. Conquering provinces and immediately building an airport makes for a fast possible advance. Making it even more worth wile is that retreating ground troops will probably not be out of the new range the planes get. Tactical bombers have a multitude of uses that add to their superiority. Researching makes them more worthwhile than other troops, they can scout and attack if needed or when a target of opportunity is found. Since they also do some damage to ships the reason no one really ever builds naval bombers is because they do not need to. The usual tactical bomber and interceptor combo deals with disembarking convoys just fine. Finally there is the patrol range, it’s quite big and makes that units wanting to flee oncoming airplanes simply cannot escape. Resulting in a sacrifice tactic to at least get some of your money’s worth. All in all it is the most powerful unit in the game because of all these reasons. The latest fix to the planes upkeep changed nothing about any of that.

Connected to the previous issue is a correlation with manpower. If a player decides to build infantry that will cost 1500 manpower, tactical bombers for example cost you 400. Tactical bombers get significantly better with every upgrade, though infantry damage gains halve after level 3, while it was already less than most other units. In terms of spending manpower to build units, infantry becomes less and less of a good choice. Their air damaging capabilities don't even increase at all. Ever. This actually goes for almost all infantry branch units except of course anti-air. Anti-air gets 1 damage against air per level until level 3 after which it also grows with 1.5 per level. By then however the damage is already done. Anti-air starts with anti air power of 5 while tactical bombers attack infantry with a power of 3. On level 6 anti-air does 10 damage to airplanes and tactical bombers do 11 to infantry. This is eventually not helped because anti-air can go up to level 5 and tactical bombers can go up to level 6 (elite not included for either one). What this all means is that as the game progresses, spending manpower on infantry (any kinds really) diminishes your possible damage output compared to the amount of manpower you put into your units.

End of part 1

start of part 2


So what kind of solutions do I propose? Probably nothing that has not been mentioned before somewhere on the forum, if you can bare with me, read on.

Make research somewhat faster, because the research tree widens, a lot! starting with 13 researchable options and ending in 31. I think this could easily be done by making follow up research increasingly faster instead of slower. This should lead to players researching not only one unit because with the other following changes you will need more than just tactical bombers. It would offer some welcome room for my suggestions yet to come.

Since there is a gap for a unit that destroys buildings well and travels by land, I propose a new unit. The katyusha rocket artillery. Splitting the rocket as it is now into two units, rockets like they are now at level two and katyusha launchers. Both would be researchable after rockets level 1. Rockets would still have their huge range and huge power output for demolishing buildings, but would be much less effective against units. On the other hand the katyusha woulde be somewhat effective against infantry tech tree units and also with building demolishing capabilities. I imagine it would fire only once every 6,8 or 12 hours replicating both their slow reload rate as well as rockets fast build time, evening things out again. For the game this could also fit nicely into needed airport repair time. Range would be more than artillery and less than railroad guns maybe 130 or 140 km. It would require a rare metal upkeep, this would reflect rocket technology being used in a normal army branch. It should be able to do quite some damage to infantry, a lot to buildings, very little to armor and ships. Defensive values would be horrible of course, like with infantry artillery and rockets not yet fired. The capabillities it has against armor would be somewhat lost. But with tank destroyers and anti-tank guns around I think there are good solutions against armor already. It would fill up a niche position in the game that is not yet filled and makes building destroying a more feasible tactic/strategy. Their reload time would not be much of an issue if they are used to actually fire at forts and/or airfields to slow down your enemy. If needed they could surely also offer some support at bottleneck positions to addanother lair to the defences. One more reason to root for this has to be this, katyusha's are really cool.

Make tactical bombers and other airplanes less effective at multitasking. Narrow their patrol range and have them not take over each other’s effective range (tactical bombers doing damage inside of interceptors their patrol range). Decrease their range.

In light of previous nerving I propose another new unit, the scout plane. It would have bigger range and patrol capabilities than other aircraft and be cheap. This makes interceptors have something to also be doing some home defense. And with more interceptors up (in reality not a lot probably). But it would mean less recourses could go into tactical bomber making since this way you would send them of blind without first scouting areas.
Make airplanes and rockets only be able to take of from airports that have 75% hit points instead of 50%. This should, combined with the possibility of another unit that can take out buildings make the advance of huge air fleets more troublesome.

Lower manpower requirements for infantry (the unit, not entire tech branch), I see no real need to use them in light of all I said above. Besides, armored brigades have infantry in them. No divisions ever were compiled of nothing but armored vehicles, something that the amount of required manpower now does not really show as much. Also since infantry is a cheap and bread and butter kind of unit I see no reason for it to be so expensive in manpower. This being said I think that militia needs this decrease in manpower even more. They are already weak enough as it is and since it was just people hiding out in the woods it makes sense that they are not as big as an actual army regiment. The reason I would vote for decreasing manpower cost for infantry instead of increasing manpower production overall is because it would simply be spend of other units. Infantry is to expensive in manpower compared to what you get for it (again looking at their unimpressive power gain with every level) and damage it does to other units. The manpower cost makes infantry the most expensive unit in the game. Since players do grow in manpower production throughout the game manpower is often not an issue late game. But that is precisely when no one bothers to make infantry anyway. Also, their better counterpart the motorized infantry already costs less manpower and actually does better damage.

Give anti-air a defense range. Even if they have a defense range of only 10 or 20 km in which they do 50% damage this would be a big help. One of the main reasons I think tactical bombers are somewhat overpowered is because their counter, anti-air, is forced to fight frontline battles, something it is not at all good at. They have to protect frontline troops from planes attacking while you are in a fight. This means that over the lengthy of a campaign they will always die down over time. So when you come to an actual enemy they need to be replaced. Along with other troops needing replacement the manpower issue comes into play here as well. This change could also make people use artillery more in the way it should be and make for multi layered battles that need a little more planning than it is now.

Anti-air, anti-tank and artillery need their speed buffs earlier in the upgrade tree. Players now just leave them behind because they are slow. I surely know this is each individual players own lack of tactical planning, I mention this more than anything since compared to airplanes, another gap gets wider this way.

I really like Call of War and the strategical play it offers. I would not like to see the game die down to people getting sick of every game just building a certain kind of unit as fast and in a big as possible quantities. For this I think Call of War needs a tweak, so that there will be more than just one way to win maps.

I sinceirly hope fellow players can see what I am trying to say, let me and the forum know what you think. I do not expect the call of war people to implement any ofthese suggestions. Though I’d still like to know what people think.

With kind regards,

Edepedable

Not something I left out really, I know interceptors are very decent protection against air. The assumption on my part is that people all use tac bomber/interceptor winged combo's at the least, some even with strat bombers and naval bombers to for damage soak. This way their defensive rating is that of tac bombers + the interceptors and other planes combined. Stopping them with interceptor wings is possible, but you need a lot. Since it is the only thing interceptors are good for it is also a bit of a waste of recorces to spend a lot of it on interceptors. Rocket fighters dont make sense because of their SBDE of 3 and expenses.

My main issue is with the way tac bombers work now, not even as much their stats. One thing I forgot to mention and is a big part of this is that the green pizza slice area they can operate in also makes them super powerful, interceptors to. By letting a scout plane come into the game that has more range than the other airplanes and more of a green pizza slice area to fly in they would be useful. This would divide the muli usability that airplanes have in the game now, more specificly but not only tactical bombers. Historicly more acurate to since fighter and bombers only were sent out to go on missions, not to act as scouts (interceptors and naval bombers were to some degree though).

I think it is more about a lot of game mechanics working in the advantage of airplanes and tactical bombers specifically. The defender, anti-air and SP anti-air are in no way helped by the game's mechanics while planes are in a multitude of ways. By having a defensive range on anti-air I think things would balance out a lot more.

Hello to all,
Yes I am aware of things mentioned, usually taking over provinces is better in the long run. In the case of fortifications and important enemy recource provinces however some building destroying is/can be a good thing. Sure there a plenty of players that barge into provinces with divisions inside of fortifications but smart players don't.
My point is more that there is only 1 viable strategic solution to defeating your opponents in the game, destroying their units. While during the second world war, doing economical damage was a big part of the war. For the game I think it makes sense that building destruction is more included because it is a recource gathering army build strategy game and also would better represent history.
As it is there are plenty of situations where destroying someone's buildings/economy is a desirable result. For example: enemy fortifications, crucial enemy recource provinces, there is only one enemy left on a map (end game) adding production capabilities is by then no longer a priority. Now especially during those first two scenarios I think having another unit capable of doing good damage to buildings is a gap in the game not yet filled. Strategic bombers do direct damage, they themselves have to fly to what they destroy bringing risks with them and usually makes them wear down due to received damage building up over time. Rockets are amunition themselves and have no such issues. The gap could be filled by a unit that can possibly do damage without receiving damage so shooting amunition, thus being ranged, therfore my sugestion of katyusha's.

The unit would be a new type of building destroyer that is damagable, but is capable of doing damage without receiving damage. I think it would add another interesting layer of play to the game when attacking fortifications and hampering the enemies economy.

Not an option against an active player though. The game mechanics are to much in favor of airplanes.
In the real world anti-air is replaced by surface to air missiles as time progresses but in the game that does not happen either. My point is that they grow appart to much when looking at Call of War through a gaming perspective and I want the game I love to play to be fun to play and complicated. With tactical bombers having a superior role in the game that ruins the game's experience. Tac bombes on level one do 3 damage to infantry and anti-air on level one does 5 to airplanes. On level 5 tac bombers do 9 damage to infantry and anti-air does 10 to air. After this tac bombers get another level bringing their infantry damage to 11. Tactical bombers become better at fighting anti air than anti air is at fighting tactical bombers, that seems a little strange to me. Combined with all the game mechanics at work tactical bombers have advantages that anti air can just never compete with.
Linking this to your economy in game it is easier to build a lot of airplanes than it is to have enough anti-air in all places you need them. In the endgame of maps where my army is 300 units or larger airplanes account for about more than 100 of that number. If my enemy also uses airplanes in large numbers than the other third is almost all anti-air/SP anti-air. The point here is that economicaly making a lot of airplanes makes a lot more sense. Because of their speed they can be wherever you need them. Airplanes cost less manpower than anti-air (as devs also noticed according to the last upgrade) which also gives a huge advantage. Anti air costs 750 manpower, tac bombers cost 400. If a tac bomber is better than anti-air, there is no reason to spend manpower on anti-air (the reason this does not count for SP anti-air is because tbombers are less effective against them because of their armor class).
Manpower is a big concern since it does not grow into abundance as the othe recources do throughout the game.

I will soon be posting a tactic/strategy breakdown where I discuss the use of all the units in the game. This should quite evidently show that tactical bombers (to a lesser degree interceptors) and rockets are to powerfull in the game as they are now.

Kind regards,

Edepedable

Hello fellow players and devs,
My points are:

(1) The game is unbalanced because it allows for both a ''destroy buildings'' and a ''kill units'' strategy, but heavily favors a ''kill units'' strategy.

(2) Destroying buildings should be a more viable strategic move than it is now (more cost/return efficient).

(3) Part of the reason that a ''kill units strategy'' is more (cost) effective is because of some units doing their job to well. Mostly tactical bombers and rockets have to many good things going for them.

(3.1) Tactical bombers and rockets have a lot of traits that make them to much of a game changer.

Tactical bombers (to some extent all airplanes but tacbombers are the ones involved in the ''kill units'' strategy)

- gain intel,
- flee danger easily so can often avoid dying, in contrast to ground units that are usually just dead if they run into something they can not kill,
- their weakness of having to refuel can be somewhat neglected because of patrol,
- they can patrol (when having to fly far away better option than attacking),
- have a wide pizza slice area in which they can operate after take-of this meaning they can scout, pick favorable targets and run when done with just one click.
- they can attack for full damage when enemies are close (patrolling = 0.25 damage every 15 minutes, attacking = 1 per refuel) if your enemy is 15 minuites away, refuel takes 15 minuites they can do 1 damage every 45 minuits instead of 1 per hour like every other unit in the game.
- very fast and get faster with every upgrade thus making escaping nearly impossible
- big range that also get bigger with every upgrade
- low in cost (by the time they are useful around level 3 you already have level 5 industrial complexes and a lot of your core is somewhat fully upgraded. So no matter how much resources they cost, you can build them)
- airplanes can be repaired with gold when up in the air, this means that some gold players can have indestructable airfleets.

(3.2) Rockets are mostly to strong because they can do to much. Game mechanics gives players that use rockets have an upper hand.

Rockets

- rockets can destroy buildings/units at the same time!,
- are hard to kill when not yet used because they are hard to find and far away in enemy territory while still usable,
- impossible to kill once launched,
- cost less in resources than they destroy (by far),
- can be outrun but can also be made inescapable (locking divisions into frontline battles, then launching),
- can gain intel (they spot units as they fly through the air),
- have a huge range,
- ignore fortifications at level 4
- can to easily be mass produced (rockets level 1 need a level 1 airfield, after upgrading to level 2 all your level 1 rockets become level 2, this trait can be exploited).
- because they hardly cost manpower you can attack without spending a much needed manpower while costing your enemy a lot of manpower. You save a lot of manpower while you can still destroy that of your enemy.
- give you their flight time, if you see an enemy with your planes and you see they will be in a certain town 30 minuits from now you can fire a rocket, see that it takes the rocket 23 minuits to get there and then wait 7 minuits to fire a full volley from that same location.

(4) Above reasons make to many players just spam tac bombers and rockets, making for a very one sided gaming experience.

(5) To balance them out I propose the following

(5.1) Split up the rocket starting at level 2 as it is now into two units (flying bombs (rocket level 1 now) would stay
as it is but be called ''flying bomb''). Level 2 rockets would be split into rockets and katyusha's. Separating the
flying bomb from the line of rockets is very important (see point 3 under rockets)

(5.1.1) Rockets would be somewhat as they are now, but without the unit destroying capability, visual range
during flight, flight time displayed (you can just see in the papers when it hits) they should still do damage to
units, but very little.

(5.1.2) Katyusha's would take over the bulding destroy capabilities of the rocket combined with (to a certain
extent) their unit destroy capability.This should also make building destroying a more viable strategy in Call of
War and make them far more counterable than rockets are (For a more detailed description on how katyusha's
would function see my original post, part 2)

(5.2) Split up all the capabillities airplanes have now into airplanes as they are now (not so much the naval
bomber, but its should not be able to have a big visual range when flying over land), plus one extra unit (scout plane).
- ranges should not improve this much with each upgrade (for interceptors and tactical bombers).
- speed should not improve this much with each upgrade.
- the pizza slice area planes an operate should be smaller for tactical bombers and interceptors, (they were
planes sent on particular missions anyway)
- More airfield related than planes but their refuel time should take longer and not improve as much with
airfield level ups. Perhaps airfield lvl 1 20 minuits, airfield lvl 2 15 minuits and airfield lvl 3 10 minuits.
- make airplanes only repairable with gold when on the ground.

(5.2.1) Implement a scout plane that can do what planes can do now, or even have a wider pizza slice area to
fly in than planes do now.

(6) Infantry and militia are two of the worst units in the game because of their manpower cost, there is little manpower around early game. Training 1 infantry or milita unit will cost you more than 2 light tanks in terms of manpower. The upkeep of manpower that infantry does have and armored vehicles don't is not a help in this at all. Training 6 infantry/militia units will make you be able to not build 1 light tank every day manpower wise.

I think that summarizes it pretty well. I say all of this in the hope that the game will be improved and even more fun to play. Since it is a strategy game a lot of people just calculate what the best options for units are. At this point though rockets and tactical bombers are more helped by game mechanics than any other units. One addition to solving this over powerd status of these units would be to improve the game mechanics of anti-air/SP anti-air. The cost in resources for anti-air in most of all manpower and lack of compatible game mechanics make them bad at what they are supposed to do. Implementing a range on them would I believe solve this problem to some extent.


Thank you for your reply,

I know that major changes in the game are not an easy feat to pull of. But I don't think balancing stats will fix this to be honest. The issue is a lot bigger than stats alone so I think it makes sense that the solution should also be.
The major problem for rockets I think is that it is a unit that is on another governing level than all the others. With the exeption of nuclear bombers and nuclear rockets it is the only unit in the game that is acutally amunition, I think this gives it some unique challanges into balancing it into the game. Tactical bombers and airplanes as a whole just have to much going for them right now.

Kind regards,

Edepedable

Hello fellow player,
That is precicely what I am tryingto say here, but I disagree with your '' no problems against airplanes''. I think tactical bombers and rockets make it to easy for players to exploit the game's mechanics instead of actually strategising and playing a strategy game (tacbombers and anti-air stats are just a small part of this). I think Call of War should not and is not intended to be a game of ''the one that exploits the game mechanics better wins'' but represent a board game like chess in a way that strategising matters.

Lets take your profile for example to illustrate my point:
You are a level 79 player with more than 2k of pvp kills while losing not even 150 yourself.

Your kills: 2232
Your achievements
Retributer: >1500 (gold medal)
Train driver: >1000 (gold medal)
Carpet bomber: 396 kills
Engineer: 1355 kills
Green baret: 0 kills (meaning you got all your engineer kills from rockets/railroad guns/nukes)
Little boy: 359 kills
Destroyer of worlds: 90 kills
Train drives: >1000 (gold medal)
Total kills with rockets/nukes/railroad guns: 2110

So that means that without being able to exploit the mechanics of all above mentioned units you would score about 2232 - 2110 = 112 kills versus 131 deaths of your own (Ralroad guns are among these because I can not seperate them from the others, I do not think Railroad guns are overpowered though). Meaning without these heavily exploitable mechanics your rating would be 112/131 = 0.85 instead of 17.04. Although it is likely that you used these lost units to lock enemy divisions in place and then shoot them with rockets judging from your retributer achievement.

Your stats
Your total losses: 131
Tactical bombers: 30 / 1.31 = 22.9% of total losses
Interceptors: 24 18.3%
Light tanks: 18 13.7%
Submarines: 17 12.9%
Infantry: 15 11.5%
Rockets 0 0%
Since your total losses is only 131 that means that every unit type with 13 losses = 10%, I picked every unit type with more than 13. Combining tacbombers and interceptors that is 41.2% of all your losses.
What stands out is that you have zero rocket losses, with more than 1500 of them made. Now if this does not show that the mechanics of rockets and tacbombers are being exploited I do not know what will.

So judging from your achievements and stats you should get precisely what I mean here.

Kind regards,

Edepedable

Not really, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II as this wikipedia article will tell you.
From the article you can retrive the following, right unde the banner of Allied bombing statistics 1939-1945:

''According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Allied bombers between 1939 and 1945
dropped 1,415,745 tons of bombs over Germany (51.1% of the total bomb tonnage dropped by Allied
bombers in the European campaign)'' (source mentioned above).

Now that is 51.1% of all bombings that were not aimed at military units but rather at infrastructure, industry, workers housing and such (its all in the article). There is a reason there is both a tactical bomber and a strategical bomber in the game. Your argument of the ''killing units'' strategy being more historicly accurate is invalid.

Now since it is a game I do not think that things should be even, but more even than now is a very welcomming feat.

Kind regards,

Edepedable