Call of War 1.5: Mechanics & New Balancing

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  • DxC wrote:

    Yea, when a "unit" "dies" it doesn't really die. It's HP (imaginary soldiers etc) are redistributed to other divisions. So for those for which realism is important, it's not a question of when they die, but when the division is disolved and redistributed to other nearby divisions. I like the new method because it adds some depth in that you can estimate how low your little dudes might go and plan accordingly for the medics.
    This is not quite right.

    I posted a comment above regarding an Armour Division (approx 355 Tanks, 17,000+ Infantry and Crew, and 7,000 pieces of equipment) being down to 0.2% HP or the equivalent of 1 tank, and a couple dozen men. Which to me does not Qualify as enough to be considered a "Division"... that unit was left alive WAY beyond the point where it's DNA and molecular structure no longer resembled a Division.

    That game mechanic of amalgamating damaged units needs to kick in much sooner BEFORE the units get below 10% especially in Stacks. I don't see how 10 Infantry Divisions at 8% would functions, they should be combined to 1 Division at 80% before that is allowed to happen.
    General Maximus Decimus Meridius - "Are you not entertained?"

    The post was edited 1 time, last by OneNutSquirrel ().

  • 1.5 review – game currently still in progress

    To Start - I love this game.The only way to level up is get blueprints.Otherwise a 1st time player as much of a chance to win as someone that’s played 100 rounds.Moreover, there’s many ways to outplay someone.War, Spies, Economy, & Diplomacy – not to mention Morale management.

    • Economy - The Market sucks now.There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to sell as much as I want to whomever I want.
      • The tax rate is too high.It’s also historically inaccurate.See the USA & England Lend Lease act.
      • COW is basically – to use a poker term – raking the pot.What’s the point of this tax?It’s not like you can collect and re-spend fake game currency.Leave the Market open & tax free.It adds another level to the game.Why simplify the game?
    • War – Again the Lend Lease Act. I should be able to trade units to whoever I want that I am at peace with – for whatever price, be it cash, materials, or lands.
      • Removing Morale from war – Hard to say.I’m ambivalent.
      • Destroyers vs sub 1 vs 1 – destroyers are sub hunters – 5 def, sub vs 12 attack I lost an attacking destroyer lvl 1 to a lvl 1 sub.That makes no sense.
      • I do like the fall back and recover aspect to unit strength
        • But, there should be some losses – 50% stack strength is way too low – I’d suggest you start to lose units at 75-80% (stack size dependent)
    • Espionage – The changes are excellent.Although – I haven’t used them yet on the 1.5 – just agree with the higher gold costs.
    • Diplomacy& Morale
      • Full trading between nations at peace should be reestablished.
      • Morale has been basically removed from the game.
        • The new rules incentives hitting lots of cities early to get the people resource
        • But, also incentives having 1 huge stack
          • 2 different styles of play – but removing negative Morale also removes another element of the game.

    • General – the troop/population costs are too high.I wasn’t a fan of switching research to food – but this is worse.It does make more sense that you need people to build things – but then the provinces have to produce more troops/people – and the food provinces have to be balanced to feed them – or not – since you have to spend a ton of them on research anyway instead of battle units.Troop production is the only thing you can’t use the market to get – so (although gold is part of the game) it incentivizes that part over resource management.
  • I think someone mentioned this situation already but I couldn't locate the post to quote......

    So I have a need to rush some units into production although the Ordnance Factory is one level lower than the highest level foundry I have constructed in another province.

    Same for a couple of tank plants.

    However, when I go to produce a lower level tank, AT, AA or arty, the mechanics are not letting me do so.

    Only the highest level unit researched is available to be produced thereby not allowing any production whatsoever until the next level foundry or plant is constructed.

    Is this really the way the game mechanics are set up or is this just a bug?

    Does anyone know?

    Earlier in the game I was able to construct various levels of units based upon what level of plant or foundry had been constructed, but now I cannot.

    My expansion plan was formulated around the concept that various levels of each unit could still be produced as I expanded.

    Now that doesn't seem to be a viable option.

    I already sent in a bug report.

    But if anyone knows one way or the other how this part of the game mechanics has been set up, I would appreciate hearing back from you.

    Thx.
    wb
  • white bird wrote:

    SNIP

    But if anyone knows one way or the other how this part of the game mechanics has been set up, I would appreciate hearing back from you.

    Thx.
    Hey white bird,

    What you describe is currently the intended game behaviour.

    Say you have researched infrantry level 5. If you have a province with level 5 barracks you will only be able to produce level 5 infrantry there. If you want to produce infrantry of a lower level you will have to do this in a province with barracks of a lower level.
  • (the post was in the wrong forum and I repeat it here correctly - sorry if you already seen it!)

    To my long experience, the Present CoW is one of the best games of the kind (either board or PC) EVER (ever = last 40 years!). So, by default: Congratulations for the idea & the implementation!!

    First, a significant General Suggestion (for the mobile GUI, that I use occasionally) and for both new & old CoW:
    -Problem: Mobile Version does not report the remaining time for the next attack or bombing, so, mobile players can't synchronize units correctly.
    -Correction(?): There is plenty of space to add it, in place of the travel timer, as traveling is not reported any more when engaged in a fight.

    Now,
    about the NEW CoW 1.5 - Some Comments-Suggestions I collected during play:

    1. The number of Coastal cities is naturally not the same for all, but now a Naval Base can't be built in a province and the ship production will be always inferior for that player.

    2. All cities initially have Tank Plants(!), I believe that 5 (of the same) is too much for start. At least 2-3 of them could be replaced, instead, by e.g., Ordnances &/or Barracks, so a player can build basic units. It is more realistic too, one should be able to build infantry if he already invented tanks...

    3. Infrastructure is unimportant now in 1.5 and can be renamed to e.g., 'transportation'. So it is not like the normal CoW 'infrastructure' which was very important, and current players will not be confused

    4. Research of higher levels does not update old units! Not Realistic or Logical. When a new machine gun is produced in a real country, it is distributed to all its troops. Old troops do not keep their obsolete muskets & arrows. New guns replace old ones even with a small delay ... At least, there must be a button to Upgrade the units at a certain cost/delay or disband them and receive some resources back!

    5. Refueling time in Airbase (city) is double (1hr) the Airstrip (province) refueling time (30min)!! This is illogical! City airports are more efficient than province airports. Not mentioning that 1 hr that is way too much for military airplanes (... even civil aviation refuels faster in congested airports)!

    6. Convoy Ships are stronger (8) than Destroyers (5)? When in history this happened, or, when a submarine took damage from a convoy? Convoys should have a much lower strength (e.g. 2 or less) i.e. less than half of the lowest naval unit.

    Now, we are about to finish this first 1.5 event, with a coalition victory, and, my general impression is not so positive, but, i'm a fan of strategy and I may be biased! In 1.5 the gravity center is somehow moved from strategy to 'build units & capture provs as fast as you can...'.
    In fact, I got closer to winning the event, since I decided to stop building higher level buildings, and use everything to research & build many simple Lvl.1 units running the map capturing provs and stealing resources...

    Kind Request: Classic CoW is a very different game with much more strategy and building/relationship planning than other games. Many new players do not understand it at start, but there lays its beauty and most CoW fans like it just for this. So, please, keep the Engineering principle: Never replace a good working machine with a mediocre untested one, just because it's newer (at least you keep them both in parallel).

    Keep Up the Good Work!
    Many Thanks for your time
    foeVtest
  • @foeVtest

    Very good summary.

    I would like to add that, in my opinion, losing or simplifying many of the features which have somehow to do with relations and interactions between :
    • economy and industry development
    • research
    • strategic choices
    • players
    is the big issue with COW 1.5.

    Whereas COW 1.0 incorporated an interesting mesh of interaction between all components,
    COW 1.5 feels like the interaction between game components is very limited.

    With that, COW 1.5 misses out on many of the attractions of COW 1.0, while providing nothing in return.

    As such, without wanting to resort to sexism,
    - COW 1.0 is like a not really pretty woman (looks-wise), but well built, interestingly dressed and having an intriguing character and a truly pretty smile; all making her beautiful and attractive.
    - COW 1.5 is that very pretty looking girl, but after meeting her, you can only think that it is deep how she can be so shallow.


    Eagerly waiting for Saint Nicholas / Santa Claus!
    My wish list:
    - keeping COW 1.0
    - not another 1.5, but a 1.6



    @GaiusUltima : you meant St. Nicholas Eve on the 5th of December; or the USA Santa, coming X-mas?
    A 20 day difference!

    The post was edited 1 time, last by vonlettowvorbeck ().

  • I havent read this whole thread as i only just registered to the forum to say this one thing so i dont know if im repeating something thats already been discussed...
    There really needs to be a way to at least disband units if not upgrade or sell/scrap them! Having to declare an unwanted war just so you can sacrifice obsolete units to avoid paying their upkeep costs is ridiculously unrealistic!
  • 21 pages already :) Thanks for the feedback again everybody. Didn't really have the time in the past few days to comment in this particular thread. After reading through the last pages I have the feeling though that by now alot of arguments get repeated over and over and certain discussions end up in circles. So I feel like we already got most of the feedback we need to tweak the second Event, and that there probably won't be any new ground breaking new points being presented. We are currently evaluationg all the feedback and we will make a separate news post about the changes before we start the second Event, which will happen earl next year. But still looking forward to impressions from the mid to late game of the 1st Event rounds.
  • freezy wrote:

    21 pages already :) Thanks for the feedback again everybody. Didn't really have the time in the past few days to comment in this particular thread. After reading through the last pages I have the feeling though that by now alot of arguments get repeated over and over and certain discussions end up in circles. So I feel like we already got most of the feedback we need to tweak the second Event, and that there probably won't be any new ground breaking new points being presented. We are currently evaluationg all the feedback and we will make a separate news post about the changes before we start the second Event, which will happen earl next year. But still looking forward to impressions from the mid to late game of the 1st Event rounds.
    How many events will there be and when will 1.5 possibly be released?
    BeaveRyan
    Moderator
    EN Community Support | Bytro Labs Gmbh


    Training Alliance United Leader
  • Day 16 feedback on 1.5 event. Economic development had fewer options to consider. This round was interesting mostly because a 3 vs. 3 coalition battle happened. Now that one side has won, it's just mop-up. Only now starting an air force (was not affordable sooner), so it will not play a role because the round will end soon. Didn't build or research any Secret but fought enemy Commandos. Their stealth feature gave some value into researching AC3.

    The simpler 1.5 economy simplified military planning. Just make superior numbers of artillery + counters to whatever the enemy prefers. Prioritizing arty, upgrade everything to Level2 before producing units, then upgrade to L3 and spam away. Diminishing returns after that. Most of the research options had no utility this round. A larger map might make more of them worth testing.
  • End Game Observations (Coalition win on Day 16)

    I tend to play the Civ Style / Empire Builder type game that is heavy on the economy and end up swarming my enemy's late game.

    This type of play was quite do-able in CoW 1.5. Surprised how quickly the game ended. Diplomacy aside (which I tend to start on Day 1), my Coalition cleaned house. I was caught off guard in how the economy works in first game, so took a couple days to read up on Building Bonuses and ended up with the following

    --------------1st-----2nd-----3rd
    Pts ---------480-----360-----230
    Economy - 157k ---147k ---87k ----72k- ---67k

    I put about half my res into economy daily for the first 10 days, then could afford the Manpower and Fuel heavy building upgrades in late week 2 to start putting out the Lvl 3-4 units.

    These were the Top 3 Scores, with the next economies being half of mine. By the end, I had wiped out 3 x 12 unit (or so) stacks of the most powerful enemy, but since I was dropping Lvl 4 units on his 1,2 and 3's, they melted way too quick. Even though the units seem to take Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long to die... lower Lvl units just MELT !


    Everything seemed to take longer than it needed too... combat took, to long... economy wound up way too slowly, but before we could get into some good fights... game was over. Large part of that feeling no doubt came from this TINY map used during this event.

    I found I was walking infantry from my original starting cities... because upgrading cities closer to the action was too expensive.

    One thing that stood out as "Odd" is the Manpower costs. A Lvl 5 Infantry unit is equivalent to 5 Lvl 1 units for 2x cost in Manpower.

    Also 1.5 lost that feeling of "Economies of Scale" you would find in upgrading IC's to get faster unit production times.

    Need to restore some of the "Specialized" costs of units instead of making cost everything.... it would make the resources more meaningful. Would also make Trade more important, as it's lost a lot of it's... umph! with the 20% Tax and limited trading partners.

    Also found the units in higher Lvls very OP against lower Lvl ones. Just doesn't feel right to have a Lvl 4 unit be so overwhelmingly outgunning Lvl 1-3. As I mentioned before, I can see the "Tech dependant" units seeing such advantages WITHIN THEIR CLASS. What I mean is that a 1939 fighter vs a 1944 fighter stood little chance, but their effectiveness vs armour or infantry did NOT see the same effectiveness gap develop. Early war tanks had armour plate that worked by being thicker... then they realized they could get the same effectiveness by sloping/angling the armour and that increased the apparent thickness without actually using more materials and increasing weight. Yet a machine gun on a tank was just as effective vs infantry in 1939 as it was in 1940. There were no such significant tech upgrades that made class vs class combat strength improvements so "Drastic", even though within the same class those technological leaps could be felt quite significantly. The Bismark was torpedoed by Swordfish "Bi-planes" launching off the carrier HMS Ark Royal. Carriers became the technological end to the Battleships, yet that's not represented in the game.

    By end of game, I was running short on food because higher Lvl units were eating it up... though I don't understand how a 15,000 man Lvl 5 Infantry Division costs 2x as much to train, and feed as it's 15,000 man Lvl 1 predecessor.

    Many of these "Nuance" interactions seem to be missing in CoW 1.5 when compared to Cow 1.0

    Looking forward to giving it a try again when some of the balancing issues are tweeked.
    General Maximus Decimus Meridius - "Are you not entertained?"

    The post was edited 2 times, last by OneNutSquirrel ().

  • Akiar wrote:

    white bird wrote:

    SNIP

    But if anyone knows one way or the other how this part of the game mechanics has been set up, I would appreciate hearing back from you.

    Thx.
    Hey white bird,
    What you describe is currently the intended game behaviour.

    Say you have researched infrantry level 5. If you have a province with level 5 barracks you will only be able to produce level 5 infrantry there. If you want to produce infrantry of a lower level you will have to do this in a province with barracks of a lower level.
    Thank you for the reply Akiar.

    My situation was a bit different, but my post was rushed because I was actually in the heat of battle when it was written and so probably I didn't express the situation properly.

    I had an existing Ordnance Factory lvl. 2 and an existing Tank Plant lvl.2 both of which I was in the process of upgrading to lvl. 3's.

    Then an AI attacked. So I decided to start producing what I could prior to the construction upgrades to lvl. 3.

    My expectation was that I would be able to produce what ever the two production buildings would produce.

    However, I kept receiving messages that I couldn't produce those units.

    I think it is a programming bug. Both provinces were captured provinces. It took another 36 hours, but once I got the provinces upgraded to lvl. 3's they seem to work correctly.

    So the problem was that as lvl. 2's the production choices of what I could build were not showing up. Meaning I was expecting one level lower than the lvl. I had completed research on should have been available as a production choice, but it was not.
    wb
  • OneNutSquirrel wrote:

    End Game Observations (Coalition win on Day 16)

    (...)

    This type of play was quite do-able in CoW 1.5. Surprised how quickly the game ended. Diplomacy aside (which I tend to start on Day 1), my Coalition cleaned house. I was caught off guard in how the economy works in first game, so took a couple days to read up on Building Bonuses and ended
    (...)
    One thing that stood out as "Odd" is the Manpower costs. A Lvl 5 Infantry unit is equivalent to 5 Lvl 1 units for 2x cost in Manpower.

    Also 1.5 lost that feeling of "Economies of Scale" you would find in upgrading IC's to get faster unit production times.

    Need to restore some of the "Specialized" costs of units instead of making cost everything.... it would make the resources more meaningful. Would also make Trade more important, as it's lost a lot of it's... umph! with the 20% Tax and limited trading partners.

    Also found the units in higher Lvls very OP against lower Lvl ones. Just doesn't feel right to have a Lvl 4 unit be so overwhelmingly outgunning Lvl 1-3.
    This mirror most of my end game feeling (currently day 16, it is will be mop up until level 18).

    First, an interesting note : my ally Morocco was backstabbed day 13 by Algiers, who took by surprise all his cores. Well, Morocco has taken the CSA and his army was there, and losing his core frustrated him but did not stop him from attacking the US : his tech advantage he had was so strong that he does not care for not being able to build more.

    Which is for me a core example of why does not go well in late game : Any high level unit with destroy any low level unit (OK, excluding heavy tanks) without much losses, so the Rock/Paper/Scissor of the end game is mostly gone.

    In addition, even if you had the tech the manpower limit totally blocks from recovering from a loss of your army in endgame. In CoW 1.0 you can build militia or AT or wait for your friends, not so much in 1.5 - hence the weaker Algiers neutralizing Morrocco very fast.

    On balancing, I have the feeling, for the event map, that it I s not worth it to improve conquered provinces - the price is too steep (20k from IC 0 to IC 5, which will give +1.3k a day... so 15 days to be profitable on the resource produced, not counting MP, the other resources you used, time of construction and the opportunity cost.

    On the other end, multiplying local industries in my core really gave me a MP advantage.

    Conclusion : industrially my core is developed the rest is left as conquered.

    Same with unit productions, though some players had leveled up some of their unit production so if it was only « one level » late I would upgrade it and use it.

    So a final note :
    I started playing CoW years ago, and my first game of CoW was a « victory ». Back then there was no tutorial match it was the 100 players map and there no coalition victory so I was one of the 3 last players and we agreed to stop there.
    Observing other players m in the game, I discovered on the fly the importance of bombers and plenty of tricks, and could adapt.

    1.5 on the other hand is a list of huge newbie trap, and if you made the wrong decision early on in terms of where you invest the manpower or what research you do (or don’t do) there is no way to recover. I think on our 22 players map, the game was decided (alliance nonewithstanding) by day 5 or 6. From then on, it was just snowballing
  • Why not make manpower growth researchable?

    If you could reseach some "manpower tech" it would represent a more efficient recruiting system.
    More manpower is needed since almost everything you do in this game use manpower.

    In my current game I have a good economy, high tech and a good start, but I´m loosing it since I lack manpower to build armies (and I´m currently under attack from 3 of the top 4 players on the map).
    The only way to survive is to become a "golden boy" and use money to get more manpower.

    I do understand that what´s the developers want us to do, but to pay this much? Nope, then I´m out of here and find a better balanced game to play, a game where RL cash don´t decide the outcome as much.
  • OneNutSquirrel wrote:

    I put about half my res into economy daily for the first 10 days, then could afford the Manpower and Fuel heavy building upgrades in late week 2 to start putting out the Lvl 3-4 units.
    Very interesting.
    The exact opposite was the case in the three test games I tried.
    Early mass attacks by noobs resulted in having to quickly recruit low level units,
    which left little manpower for either research or leveling up buildings.
    vast majority of the many battles were all level 1 or 2 units.

    Results appear to be: easy win in one game, loss in another (3 very good players in one dominant coalition), and one still too close to call. About the same as CoW 1.0 experiences.
  • freezy wrote:

    But still looking forward to impressions from the mid to late game of the 1st Event rounds.
    Mid-game status:

    In my test rounds the known and always active players, are not active at all. Once a day or less, players log in to the 1.5 rounds. None of the known players is known for quitting maps and planning to go inactive.

    As a solution to their predicament (being stuck in a game nobody is really enjoying),the active players, of which some are actually mortal enemies and would not easily join each other, have joined in a coalition for one single purpose: ending the maps ASAP.

    The biggest issues:
    • endless and relentless, non-creative, dull, uninspiring, farming requirements to make progress in any aspect of the game; it is like a chore in Farmville and not like an important strategic aspect of a strategy game.
    • moral management in cities virtually offers no options nor other approaches than to spam lvl 1 buildings (being the cheapest), each adding a meager +1% moral influence;
    • moral management in rural provinces is easier due to the possibility to construct infra; however, investing in rural provinces outside the core is not worth it and even inside the core the investment is doubtful;
    • issues with manpower requirements, even in mid-game, can only be resolved by spamming IC's; even in empty provinces, just because they have a triple manpower output compared to other.
    • any aspect that has to do with war and battle is rather uninspiring; very straight forward; not much of any creative thinking required; everyone focuses on his fav units, spams these and smashes the opponents (now all AI anyway). It is more like a chore than anything else.


    Conclusion towards mid-game: The more the maps progress, the less interested the players are.

    This simply is not boding well for 1.5.