Hello fellow players and developers,
I would like to elaborate on a a post I made a long while back. I suggested replacing the rocket at level 2 as it is now by two units. One being a rocket that loses its unit destroying capabillities while maintaining its effect against buildings and morale. The other would be rocket artillery that can do damage to units and also damage buildings but is a lot easier to counter than the rocket is now. Reason I would like to elaborate on this is because I think a lot of problems that cause imbalance in the game now could possibly be fixed this way. The rocket on the first level would remain somewhat as it is now, the split would occur from the rocket at level 2.
Rockets are the only buildable unit in the game that give a strategical advantage, a tactical advantage as well as a game mechanic advantage to whoever is using them. Rockets are a triple edged sword and your enemy suffers all three of them.
Damage and cost
On level 1 rockets do 15 damage to both infantry and armor and 50 to buildings. For comparison:
A tactical bomber at level 6 does 11 to infantry, 6.1 to armor and 1.8 against buildings.
The airplane is more expensive in manpower, oil, goods and money while metal is cost is 2/3.
A medium tank at level 5 does 8 to infantry, 8.5 to armor and 1.5 to buildings.
The tank costs more, well, everything.
A strategic bomber at level 6 does 4.9 to infantry, 3.1 to armor and 17 to buildings.
Costs the same in metal as a rocket, but is more expensive in every other resource.
Rockets are simply to strong, to cheap and to multi purspose use.
Mechanics
Rockets can do a ridiculous amount of things in the game, unmatched by any other unit.
Rockets:
- can destroy buildings/units at the same time.
- are hard to kill when not yet used because they can be hard to find and far away in enemy territory while still usable.
- impossible to kill once launched.
- ignore fortifications at level 4.
- cost less in resources than they destroy, because they can destroy units so well that are usually more expensive than they are (this is especially true for manpower!).
- 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).
- Checkmate enemy divisions in forts. Shoot rockets at units in a fort, if they don’t move, they suffer damage and the fortifications get weaker. If they move, shoot at them with artillery when they are outside of their fort (works good with level 4 rockets).
- have a huge range.
- can defend islands on their own starting at level 3 when combined with active play.
- 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 once every game).
- because they hardly cost manpower you can attack without spending 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 minutes from now you can fire a rocket, see that it takes the rocket 23 minutes to get there and then wait 7 minutes to fire a full volley from that same location.
Reasons for splitting up the rocket as it is now
- Historically speaking, the long range missiles of the second world war were not effective in using them against units. They were a terror weapon, trying to lower morale.
- Rockets are hard to counter and balance into the game since they are not a unit, but ammunition. They just function in a way that makes them hard to counter (see list above). In short I see a lot of inbalance because of the way rockets are in the game now. Additional reasons are given throughout this article.
- Rocket artillery as a unit would be much easier to defend against.
- Rocket artillery would be a cool new unit with its own niche position in the game (but likely still be used a lot more than strategic bombers).
- Historically, all sides in the game had these units. Pictures are added as an attachment.
The new rocket
- cheap. It would be cheaper than the current rocket
- do damage to buildings and morale
- hardly damage units
- not in the same reaserch line as level 1 rockets. What is now a level 1 rocket would become the ‘flying bomb’. The current level 2 rocket would be a separate researchable unit with the flying bomb as a requirement.
Rocket artillery
- damages buildings
- damages units (more damage to infantry type than armored or ships)
- has bigger range than conventional artillery, smaller than the railroadgun / Or smaller range than conventional artillery and relatively more speed (see comments and response below from and to @Kanaris).
- has a minimum range. They should not be able to hit enemies that are to close.
- slow reload. Instead of the usual hourly damage, I’m thinking they could fire every 8 – 12 hours.
I think splitting up the rocket is a much needed change for the game. It would stop late game experience from being an ''Owh I was not online and now my army is gone'' kind of experience. The game is a strategic very interesting and entertaining game. Though, the rocket kind of destroys this gaming experience up to a certain degree.
Hope I can get some support going for this.
Kind regards,
Edepedable
I would like to elaborate on a a post I made a long while back. I suggested replacing the rocket at level 2 as it is now by two units. One being a rocket that loses its unit destroying capabillities while maintaining its effect against buildings and morale. The other would be rocket artillery that can do damage to units and also damage buildings but is a lot easier to counter than the rocket is now. Reason I would like to elaborate on this is because I think a lot of problems that cause imbalance in the game now could possibly be fixed this way. The rocket on the first level would remain somewhat as it is now, the split would occur from the rocket at level 2.
Rockets are the only buildable unit in the game that give a strategical advantage, a tactical advantage as well as a game mechanic advantage to whoever is using them. Rockets are a triple edged sword and your enemy suffers all three of them.
Damage and cost
On level 1 rockets do 15 damage to both infantry and armor and 50 to buildings. For comparison:
A tactical bomber at level 6 does 11 to infantry, 6.1 to armor and 1.8 against buildings.
The airplane is more expensive in manpower, oil, goods and money while metal is cost is 2/3.
A medium tank at level 5 does 8 to infantry, 8.5 to armor and 1.5 to buildings.
The tank costs more, well, everything.
A strategic bomber at level 6 does 4.9 to infantry, 3.1 to armor and 17 to buildings.
Costs the same in metal as a rocket, but is more expensive in every other resource.
Rockets are simply to strong, to cheap and to multi purspose use.
Mechanics
Rockets can do a ridiculous amount of things in the game, unmatched by any other unit.
Rockets:
- can destroy buildings/units at the same time.
- are hard to kill when not yet used because they can be hard to find and far away in enemy territory while still usable.
- impossible to kill once launched.
- ignore fortifications at level 4.
- cost less in resources than they destroy, because they can destroy units so well that are usually more expensive than they are (this is especially true for manpower!).
- 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).
- Checkmate enemy divisions in forts. Shoot rockets at units in a fort, if they don’t move, they suffer damage and the fortifications get weaker. If they move, shoot at them with artillery when they are outside of their fort (works good with level 4 rockets).
- have a huge range.
- can defend islands on their own starting at level 3 when combined with active play.
- 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 once every game).
- because they hardly cost manpower you can attack without spending 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 minutes from now you can fire a rocket, see that it takes the rocket 23 minutes to get there and then wait 7 minutes to fire a full volley from that same location.
Reasons for splitting up the rocket as it is now
- Historically speaking, the long range missiles of the second world war were not effective in using them against units. They were a terror weapon, trying to lower morale.
- Rockets are hard to counter and balance into the game since they are not a unit, but ammunition. They just function in a way that makes them hard to counter (see list above). In short I see a lot of inbalance because of the way rockets are in the game now. Additional reasons are given throughout this article.
- Rocket artillery as a unit would be much easier to defend against.
- Rocket artillery would be a cool new unit with its own niche position in the game (but likely still be used a lot more than strategic bombers).
- Historically, all sides in the game had these units. Pictures are added as an attachment.
The new rocket
- cheap. It would be cheaper than the current rocket
- do damage to buildings and morale
- hardly damage units
- not in the same reaserch line as level 1 rockets. What is now a level 1 rocket would become the ‘flying bomb’. The current level 2 rocket would be a separate researchable unit with the flying bomb as a requirement.
Rocket artillery
- damages buildings
- damages units (more damage to infantry type than armored or ships)
- has bigger range than conventional artillery, smaller than the railroadgun / Or smaller range than conventional artillery and relatively more speed (see comments and response below from and to @Kanaris).
- has a minimum range. They should not be able to hit enemies that are to close.
- slow reload. Instead of the usual hourly damage, I’m thinking they could fire every 8 – 12 hours.
I think splitting up the rocket is a much needed change for the game. It would stop late game experience from being an ''Owh I was not online and now my army is gone'' kind of experience. The game is a strategic very interesting and entertaining game. Though, the rocket kind of destroys this gaming experience up to a certain degree.
Hope I can get some support going for this.
Kind regards,
Edepedable
The post was edited 8 times, last by Edepedable ().