Hi all
It is about a year that I enjoy my newest toy game (in a very long series of similar strategic toys, spanning to many decades) and I thought of dropping here a few thoughts about the things I find simplistic or simply needing some adjustment. I will try to restrict myself to things that can easily be implemented, without changes in the game mechanism.
1. Infantry devaluation.
This is for me the most disturbing part of the game. The extreme increase in the attacking values of planes (esp. tac bombers), combined with the constant value of both hitpoints and AA defense of most infantry type units make the game completely "one-sided" after around Day 13 of the game. The plan "build planes and stack them" is far too dominant, and perhaps the most efficient.
I am not going to enter into historic debates on that, since it is a game and not a simulation (if I wanted, I would start by asking to increase the AT value of AA guns, having in mind the German 88 AA/AT), but I feel there probably are easy ways to change that:
a) Increase the AA value of infantry by 0.5 per upgrade level. I would prefer that to a decrease to the attack of bombers, as that would still make the bombers killers of any AT/arty they find unprotected.
b) A change in the way SBDE works on stacks (will come back to that later)
c) Gradual increase in the speed of infantry (after all, in the 30s they were marching on foot while in the 50s that was a long forgotten history). This speed increase should be even bigger for AT/AA/arty, as they were the main ones who benefited from the escorting trucks. On the other hand, their speed should continue to be very slow when crossing mountains.
NOTE: of course I know there are motorized/mechanized infantry in the game. And my firm personal belief is that they are perhaps the less useful units, due to (mainly) the extreme requirements on food/manpower/barracks. In fact, there is no such thing as a separate type of unit like that, but simply the old units were equipped with transportation. But, to return to game mechanisms only, since I dont want to expand in proposals about internal things, like food management, and how they (for example) make Barracks Lvl3 a killer of the economy, I will simply say that it is unfair to require to build a new infantry unit (to make motorized) while simultaneously you "accept" that a 1930 LT or bomber can be simply upgraded to a 1950 one.
2, Planes
Unfortunately, there is a unified mechanism for handling all plane types, which prevents serious adjustments (it would be great to have different attack value of AA versus tac bombers, but unfortunately we cannot easily have it). Acknowledging this, the only thing that might be changed easily, apart from the attack/defense values, is the way planes are used, in order to significantly devalue their dominance. They will still remain powerful, but will no longer be cruising at the later stages of the game. That is why i put this suggestion on a different section about SBDE.
3. SBDE - Stacking
For me, this is the main area where the game needs changes, and a successful change here will cure many of the other evils. The real problem is that currently overstacking in effect increases the damage control, with no practical limit. Instead of proposing a completely different mechanism, which might be tough to implement (I have made a hint in a different post), I suggest something very simple which can be implemented almost immediately:
change the SBDE values of units so as to drop very fast, and reach zero when you put more than 2*sbde units in the stack. For example, since the sbde for tac bombers is 5, if you add more that 10 tac in a stack then the 11th, 12th etc. tac doesnt add ANY attack or defense, and only increases the hitpoints of the stack. This is already happening in the game, but with a much higher value. Then the bigger stacks will lose much of their effectiveness, for all types of units - after all, if you claim that sbde represents a limit point after which units dont have a clear line of fire to fight, it is difficult to imagine that you can put twice as many units there in any useful way.
Wish you all happy gaming!
It is about a year that I enjoy my newest toy game (in a very long series of similar strategic toys, spanning to many decades) and I thought of dropping here a few thoughts about the things I find simplistic or simply needing some adjustment. I will try to restrict myself to things that can easily be implemented, without changes in the game mechanism.
1. Infantry devaluation.
This is for me the most disturbing part of the game. The extreme increase in the attacking values of planes (esp. tac bombers), combined with the constant value of both hitpoints and AA defense of most infantry type units make the game completely "one-sided" after around Day 13 of the game. The plan "build planes and stack them" is far too dominant, and perhaps the most efficient.
I am not going to enter into historic debates on that, since it is a game and not a simulation (if I wanted, I would start by asking to increase the AT value of AA guns, having in mind the German 88 AA/AT), but I feel there probably are easy ways to change that:
a) Increase the AA value of infantry by 0.5 per upgrade level. I would prefer that to a decrease to the attack of bombers, as that would still make the bombers killers of any AT/arty they find unprotected.
b) A change in the way SBDE works on stacks (will come back to that later)
c) Gradual increase in the speed of infantry (after all, in the 30s they were marching on foot while in the 50s that was a long forgotten history). This speed increase should be even bigger for AT/AA/arty, as they were the main ones who benefited from the escorting trucks. On the other hand, their speed should continue to be very slow when crossing mountains.
NOTE: of course I know there are motorized/mechanized infantry in the game. And my firm personal belief is that they are perhaps the less useful units, due to (mainly) the extreme requirements on food/manpower/barracks. In fact, there is no such thing as a separate type of unit like that, but simply the old units were equipped with transportation. But, to return to game mechanisms only, since I dont want to expand in proposals about internal things, like food management, and how they (for example) make Barracks Lvl3 a killer of the economy, I will simply say that it is unfair to require to build a new infantry unit (to make motorized) while simultaneously you "accept" that a 1930 LT or bomber can be simply upgraded to a 1950 one.
2, Planes
Unfortunately, there is a unified mechanism for handling all plane types, which prevents serious adjustments (it would be great to have different attack value of AA versus tac bombers, but unfortunately we cannot easily have it). Acknowledging this, the only thing that might be changed easily, apart from the attack/defense values, is the way planes are used, in order to significantly devalue their dominance. They will still remain powerful, but will no longer be cruising at the later stages of the game. That is why i put this suggestion on a different section about SBDE.
3. SBDE - Stacking
For me, this is the main area where the game needs changes, and a successful change here will cure many of the other evils. The real problem is that currently overstacking in effect increases the damage control, with no practical limit. Instead of proposing a completely different mechanism, which might be tough to implement (I have made a hint in a different post), I suggest something very simple which can be implemented almost immediately:
change the SBDE values of units so as to drop very fast, and reach zero when you put more than 2*sbde units in the stack. For example, since the sbde for tac bombers is 5, if you add more that 10 tac in a stack then the 11th, 12th etc. tac doesnt add ANY attack or defense, and only increases the hitpoints of the stack. This is already happening in the game, but with a much higher value. Then the bigger stacks will lose much of their effectiveness, for all types of units - after all, if you claim that sbde represents a limit point after which units dont have a clear line of fire to fight, it is difficult to imagine that you can put twice as many units there in any useful way.
Wish you all happy gaming!