I am fairly new to this game and its possible others have already commented on this. So apologies if this is just reiterating what someone might have already stated.
Observations about 1.5 CoW so far:
1) Feels like air strategy (which is what I tend to prefer) is someone inhibited with the new changes. If you invest early on planes you will also have to invest early on lots of airstrips since your existing planes wont upgrade as you research level up nor will their ranges. The cost of all these closer airstrips places you at a serious disadvantage on land since so much of your resources are going towards extra airstrips. In WW2, air strategy was center stage from the onset of the war, in this game you almost have to wait til you have research leveled up planes to max before making the investment.
2) Really dislike the need for all these extra building to build units. Sort of the same problem as with planes. once you invest in building higher level tank plants for example and then advance you have to invest again in building them closer to the front lines. Just the number of building required is greater than I would prefer.
3) Something about the battle computation seems odd to me. Not sure yet if I prefer it or not, maybe just need to get use to it. For example, seems like it you could inflict lots of damage on a stack of tanks and the stack before the stack loses even a single tank. I guess this can go both ways so not sure yet if I like it or not, just not use to it.
4) Just feels like not having research levels improve existing troops slows down the pace of the game and makes your early investments on units wasteful. Sometime your earliest troops will endure for the full span of the game thanks to researching levels up. Now you'll be replenishing troops more or even hoping they are killed off so you can replace them with higher level troops so you dont have to suffer the plenty of upkeeping lower level units.
Overall, I would say I am sort of OK with the changes. Like someone above stated, its just new parameters of the game one needs to get use to but maybe I dont have the history with the game that others have. The one 1.5 feature I really dont like is the researching levels not affecting existing units.
However, my biggest complaint of this game has little to do with 1.5 changes (though it seems like it exasperates it) and that is the issue of game speed. I much prefer the faster speed worlds. I get impatient with 1 day marches of troops hahaha.. I much rather play hard and fast for a week and then take weeks off than play slow for months but I digress.
Observations about 1.5 CoW so far:
1) Feels like air strategy (which is what I tend to prefer) is someone inhibited with the new changes. If you invest early on planes you will also have to invest early on lots of airstrips since your existing planes wont upgrade as you research level up nor will their ranges. The cost of all these closer airstrips places you at a serious disadvantage on land since so much of your resources are going towards extra airstrips. In WW2, air strategy was center stage from the onset of the war, in this game you almost have to wait til you have research leveled up planes to max before making the investment.
2) Really dislike the need for all these extra building to build units. Sort of the same problem as with planes. once you invest in building higher level tank plants for example and then advance you have to invest again in building them closer to the front lines. Just the number of building required is greater than I would prefer.
3) Something about the battle computation seems odd to me. Not sure yet if I prefer it or not, maybe just need to get use to it. For example, seems like it you could inflict lots of damage on a stack of tanks and the stack before the stack loses even a single tank. I guess this can go both ways so not sure yet if I like it or not, just not use to it.
4) Just feels like not having research levels improve existing troops slows down the pace of the game and makes your early investments on units wasteful. Sometime your earliest troops will endure for the full span of the game thanks to researching levels up. Now you'll be replenishing troops more or even hoping they are killed off so you can replace them with higher level troops so you dont have to suffer the plenty of upkeeping lower level units.
Overall, I would say I am sort of OK with the changes. Like someone above stated, its just new parameters of the game one needs to get use to but maybe I dont have the history with the game that others have. The one 1.5 feature I really dont like is the researching levels not affecting existing units.
However, my biggest complaint of this game has little to do with 1.5 changes (though it seems like it exasperates it) and that is the issue of game speed. I much prefer the faster speed worlds. I get impatient with 1 day marches of troops hahaha.. I much rather play hard and fast for a week and then take weeks off than play slow for months but I digress.