Call of War 1.5: Mechanics & New Balancing

When I have a stack of subs at different levels and I use the HC setting "return fire' it doesn't change it for the stack. It goes back to 'fire at will'

DxC... this first map is also a tiny version of the smalest map... so limited in what you can do. Once the Balancing is worked out it should be much more playable.

Open letter to Bytro team


Hy guys,

you've been asking for sincere feedback, so here we go:

First of all, let me make it clear I'm totally "on your side" and do respect your work. We have the same goal - making CoW an even more enjoyable game than it is now (or rather than it was, before resource trade outside coalitions was removed and with it all that was fun about trade and diplomacy).
I very much want 1.5 to be a success and I'm not opposing changes in general.
You may remember the times when I was defending the nerf for planes in August 2018 against a fierce shitstorm of angry planes-lovers, together with freezy (by now I think it's clear to everyone that this nerf was of essential importance and improved the game very much).
Or the moment when I joined testing the research-balancing update in May 2019, pointed out more than a dozen aspects that were not yet balanced... you then adjusted many of these in the direction I suggested (in a different way, but same direction) and all of that turned out to be very positive... without these adaptions, all the criticism that the research-balancing update received later on would have been justified. I afterwards defended that update with all words my limited English provides against Kanaris&Co. And I still state it's very well balanced except for the loophole that rares cost the same amount of gold as other resources (while should have twice the gold costs) - which easily destroys every balance as soon as some gold is being used.
The result is that Current-CoW now has a beautiful, well-balanced research tree / set of units with realistic characteristics (exception: infantry costs too much food) that doesn't quickly become boring and that makes it difficult to make the right strategic unit choice in every situation. Which you're now going to replace with a plane, mathematical schema with every value progressing at the same degree. But why?

* For the sake of each unit having a very clear role in ultimate paper/rock/scissors battles? In reality, some units had similar roles, so this will bring CoW away from realism - no matter how much finishing you give it. And it isn't disturbing at all in Current-CoW that some units have similar roles - except that this promotes hyperfocusing on just a few units. But I described in my last post how a big variety in army compositions can be made attractive without having to invent fantasy roles for the units. Just take units as they are in Current-CoW, make them no longer automatically upgrade research levels and make SBDE limits more strict. That's all that needs to be done for that.

* To see more tactical movements on the board? You mean movements like the by now famous manoeuvre of Romanian tanks, stepping back behind the own infantry just to come back soon after so they can be the attacker? True, such tactical movements are not yet seen in CoW... and neither anywhere else in the history of warfare. My point is if you want players to be able to move their forces in a realistic and thus intuitive way, units got to have realistic values.

* To make units easily comparable? That's bad in itself. Makes you have to think less. And asking yourself which unit to research, upgrade or build next is the fun part of the game.

Hmmm.
I understand what we're seeing now is only the first version of CoW 1.5 and you're going to improve it a lot. But let me hereby say that there's no way an even-shaped, mathematical unit & research schema can ever be as compelling, interesting, long-term motivating and realistic as the units tree in Current-CoW is. Even if you get them well-balanced (which you certainly will), all you can achieve is a game that resembles Supremacy1 very much. And what do you want with two Supremacy1s? Name them "Rock/paper/scissors WW1 edition" and "Rock/paper/scissors WW2 edition"? Nobody will want to play both. While strategy and realism lovers will leave.

Please seriously ask yourself what you want to have: Either
* Realistic units with realistic level-ups like in Current-CoW + SBDE system like in Current-CoW but with lower limits.
Or
* Unrealistic units squeezed into unrealistic roles with unrealistic level-ups like in 1.5 and Supremacy1?

In both alternatives, players will research and build a broad variety of different units in every game, so that's no argument for the latter.

Bottom line: If I feel sure a change is not good for the game, I have to warn you. Like I warned you several times before (and after) release of removal of resource trade outside own coalition. Of course it's your game and totally your decision. I hope you make the right one.
Only if you stay on the path of the new unit values & level-up principle, don't say afterwards nobody warned you. I hereby decidedly predict the result won't be good!

OK, that much from me; I shut up now.
Best regards and best wishes from me; good luck either way!



P.S.: I tried out Supremacy1 for two weeks and it felt boring already since the second day. So after the two weeks I came back running to Current-CoW... cause it's so much greater. Please don't throw away what you have!

Sone is not so much boring as it is cluttered.
The concept is innovative, the implemented GUI is horrible.

And now, Artillery will only 'attack' by direct melee engagement with enemy units?
Please fix the war fighting aspects, before introducing additional meaningless role play "features".

Feedback on the two 1.5 games I've completed

Game 1: Lost on day 4 to the tactics described by Alphared below. Not an enjoyable experience when I realised that my carefully thought out research, building construction and prepared defence (within the severe limitations on resources) can be so easily negated by a mass charge by cannon fodder on my food producing city (which, being Ukraine, is conveniently located right on my border). Having 80% of production of each type of resource concentrated on a single city is a recipe for a short and unsatisfactory game if these tactics win out every time.
Game 2: Coalition win on day 11. Achieved highest individual score. Once past the first 4 or 5 days of not enough of anything, I managed to build enough infrastructure and forces to begin operations. Attack ... attack ... attack seems to be the winning tactics to employ. Certainly I didn't have resource issues once I'd expanded to controlling 12 or more cities. Didn't need aircraft. Little use of light tanks. Used ACs and destroyers for scouting and raiding. Artillery used extensively to wreck cities and defenders alike. Tank destroyers and motorised infantry used for attack; infantry and anti-tank guns for defence against counter-attacks. Opposition didn't bother defending open territory so my ACs and motorized infantry had a free sweep, creating the illusion of doing more harm than actually inflicted. One opponent even quit before I'd attacked any of his cities. In the end, it was all a bit easy, but that may be influenced by the bamboozled opposition.

Overall impression: Still uncertain whether all these changes are going to lead to a better version of CoW. The game needs several tweaks to even out the offensive/defensive values of units. Both games were an interesting experience without achieving a "must do again" feeling.

If it's not broke, don't fix it...

I am now able to set stack of mixed lvl subs to 'return fire'. Not sure what changed.

Its so "de ja vu" it isnt funny. I can see myself writing this exact message, because I almost exactly did. I felt so defeated tonight and I used to JUST LOVE this game... I didnt start that long ago 12 months but after 8 months the changes just started killing the mood and I took 4 months off to come back to more bad changes. Literally our group is unraveling, people less interested and that is in 1.0 CoW. Man this was a couple day affair but it looks like my feelings are warranted and that 1.5 isnt going to make it better. Thank you and I am sorry.

Hello there, i would again like to sum some stuff up and maybe give general answers.
With 1.5 we wanted to introduce more ways to play the game. We wanted more strategies to be viable, while at the same time keeping up with the historical accuracy.
We did not decide to go for the gameplay first option many other games do. But of course, there always has to be a compromise. What exactly is the point in a unit, not good for anything? Thats why units have values that seem off at first. The vision is, to mirror the capabilities of the unit. Of course, a tank destroyer was in reality more often used to defend against tanks. But it was designed to engage tanks in offense and defense.
The bigger issue here is probably the design philosophy, and how we mirrored it in the game. Right now offense units have double or even more the damage valuesfor attacking than defending, contrary goes for defense units. And perhaps that was over-simplified. But that is why we wanted your feedback if it fits your expectations or not - and got it.
Same goes for progression where all of you pointed out very clearly, why you like or dislike certain changes. And i can agree, that in the live environment the game feels less interactive than in our testing runs. But again, this is something we can only see by having many games running and not base on a few test games.
And with the help of all of you we managed to fill over 900 maps of CoW 1.5. The forum is as active as it has never been. Over 15K users play and test the event and even if they do not give feedback actively, we analyze very carefully what units are used most, how games played out how resource production developed and so much more in big data.
We hear your concerns. And yes, we want to continue with CoW 1.5 because we believe in it. But that does not mean we will force any changes no matter what you say.
Please give us the opportunity to proof that we can listen to you. I haven't been here for the whole last 10 years, so i can only assume that you might have felt ignored - i don't know. But i know, that we dicuss all of your feedback - from both veterans and new players - and rearranged our plans to make this next CoW 1.5 event as good as we can.
Hopefully i did not bore you guys too much and what i said was understandable,
Have a great week.
P.S.: Look forward, as Santa might have a gift for you

Gaius,

Thanks for the info. Looking forward to the next round. Not sure what is going on with the screen cap, a bug of some sort. See attached.

Good luck.

You must understand, some of us have been around since the beginning. We, at one time very long ago were encouraged to give this kind of feedback on everything... it quickly became a pretense. In fact, being insulted by staff and being banned for this can of feedback was not unheard of after a while. That was followed by simply being ignored.

If you are now changing your ways now, that is good. But, some of us have seen how this can go.

If you indeed want my feedback; I have one point that would clear up many of the problems that you are designing to solve... separate online from mobile play. Mobile needs to many buffs to speed for online players to contend with, online players have to much need for detail for mobile players to remain interested in. The two markets are incompatible at the point you need to slant the game to the benefit of one and the detriment of the other... there is no balance that will work for both!

that is a known bug with a fix on the next update, in the mean time submit a bug report and GO will have to manually remove that unit.

There are some things that I like. The new buildings allow for specialization. I like the new combat. I like the new moral system.

Unfortunately, the fact that there is no way to upgrade obsolete units is an absolute deal-breaker for me. I will be quitting if it’s not changed. Aircraft stacks with 6-7 different ranges? NOPE NOPE NOPE. its one facet I have no interest in managing. If you guys do not give us the option to upgrade older units, I’m just flat out done with this game. I am in two 1.5 games now and I hate it.

It was never a deal breaker, but I wasn't comfortable with it at first. The biggest issue for me is keeping track of different levels. I keep splitting my stacks into a lot of stacks, because everything moves at different speed. I am starting to enjoy the diversity and challlenge of it though. It makes it more complex in a way not everyone may like.

With three games at day 9, 12 and 12;
Six cases of the early rush tactic, only one of those
six players is alive. Not a large sample, and the one
who survived is much more experienced than the other five,
so might not mean much.


One of the rush cases was against the country I was controlling.
Took the grain city while I was away. Managed to recover and
take that player out, one of his coalition mates, and the third
is about done for. So the initial loss of a grain city does not
necessarily mean defeat - but once again, inexperience on the
part of the rusher might be the bigger factor.

An early rush is always a potential strategy in 1.5 and elsewhere. I would say in 1.5 it is more risky due to the defense advantage. Even if you take a city, you will end up weaker on average and the defender is in a better position to counter. The attack city early strategy was espoused by someone here, but that doesn't mean it works or that it is some kind of meta.

I understood the complaint to be that if someone makes a concerted blitz attack against your grain city there's really no good defense. Even if the attacker ends up in a mutual destruction pact, you're equally dead.

Fortunately it hasn't happened to me, so I haven't had to try to defend against it.

Early game grain city is the least important. On day nine, I have a ridiculously large army and I got more food than anything. Plus you just push him out and rebuild your lvl 1 industry

It varies on country slightly. The biggest concern is that

A: Defensive units have extremely high stats that can hold their own against same leveled or next leveled units
B: 15% bonus + the split exploit + forts
C: Stacking your units in defensive positions.
D: Enemy rushes. Hits your stacks. Early game even 2/3 greater force, the attacker will die. Combat ticks are faster. Defender can rush reinforcements in faster with fast build times, attacker will be more delayed to sending stuff 1 at a time which will die easily.
C: Attacker dead. Reinforcing rush leads to immediate resource shortage = dead. Not reinforcing lends more to a counter attack, but you'll be pretty weak and nearly out of resources then.

So by focusing more on turtling/the defensive and letting the opponent hit you, you'll retain a greater amount of units, exploit the resource shortage, and kill anyone who attacks you easily. The attacker loses tempo, the defender keeps it in this version of CoW versus the original original one. Or both people can sit, turtle up, exploit or two both suffer the resource shortage, and the person that hits first will usually be at a good disadvantage.

If your less active and or get bum rushed ASAP, losing a core province can/will drive you into the hole sooner. Regular old style strategies of trying to build up Tacs to cover your territories isn't as viable, though it seems Shoot n Scoot/Artillery is a lot more viable. More Supremacy, less CoW applies here in general playstyle.