Call of War 1.5 iteration 3: Balancing changelog

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  • Balhog wrote:

    . This is hard to explain but the logos of the cities are so bold and large its difficult to see if there are troops in them at times. I've actualy been surprised by hidden armies behind these logos. Perhaps a more transparant logo on the cities will allow for better visibility of units inside.
    The huge city logos are a problem dating back to Cow0.5
    the solution is available under "Settings":
    just click on the "Disable Enhanced Graphics" button.

    Hans A. Pils wrote:

    You can place troops in the province center at day change to reduce the risk of an uprising. If the garrisoned army has a strength of 10.0 or more, the risk of an uprising in that province is down to 0%.
    False!
    Due to another bug, Armor units do NOT prevent revolts!

  • General cdub wrote:

    Greetings one and all,


    I was very much looking forward to testing out version 1.5 in the 3rd test phase and giving both positive feedback and areas of improvement.


    However, as I do not want to be hassled by any moderators, have any staff members feel I am insulting them or worse, be prosecuted by some international court and then sent to some dark dreary prison for an imaginary law or regulation that someone may think I broke, I will only say that I am very disappointed based on what was said in the feedback and what was actually produced. I feel you are turning what was a great World War II Strategy game into some cheap game for small kids. There is no strategy in the version you are producing now. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5.


    General cdub
    I personally am having to rethink all of my strategies. What I used to do at of instinct; I now have create and relearn methods of operations. I am playing a 100 map for the first time v1.5. I think I like it but it is new and confusing.

  • I understand there will be some revolt and morale tweaks in the future, that's good and needed. I just played a 4x 100 player COW 1.5 map, regular speed 100 player 1.5 map, as well as a regular speed 22 player 1.5 map, and there are major issues.

    For one, strength does not prevent revolt properly in all cases. Early game, I had an Axis motorized infantry level 2 with the strength of 15 fail to prevent a revolt in a city(BONUS TERRAIN) and actually switch to my opponents team. Major, major blow through bad luck. Have revolts just injure your units, not flip them. Also a strength of 15 should be plenty, but there was still a chance of revolt, obviously. late game in another map, an AA gun with a strength of 10 was enough to bring a 25% morale city to zero chance revolt. Whats up with the discrepancy. Some lev 1 and two units would take 3 units to prevent revolt in 25% morale city, and no way is that worth it in non-cities.

    Now for morale growth after conquering: Being South Africa attacking over in Borneo and Sumatra, or even as close as Saudi Arabia, the morale distance penalty of -60 combined with unhappy and enemy neighbors of -10 to -22 created a downward spiral so that stationing troops one turn does not alleviate anything, you need more the next day. -80 morale penalties are not worth dealing with for non-cities because I cant afford to put 2-3 ground units in them and build lev 2 infra everywhere. I did that and they still revolt if I get an enemy neighbor. The good news is that if they revolt to an ally, they get a morale boost and they don't hurt your remaining provinces morale as much. Bring and ally with you so you can revolt to each other. What happened to me was a area where I controlled the cites, but all the neighboring provinces revolted to allies or vise verse. I looked at the map at the end of the game (time limit) and it held true: A network of checkerboard areas that increased in pixel-ation the further you go away from home territories. Even players that were defeated long ago had territories continuously blinking in and out around the globe due to revolts.

    Why not have a reduction in the distance penalty for each day you own it, or a positive factor for each day you control it, say 5 per day for 5 days to a maximum of 25. Or an annex option that creates a high risk for one day, but reduces morale penalties in the future. That way you could plan to suppress it, but also know that you wont be stuck there forever.

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

  • Leveling up units: I don't like the way units level up in a standard 33% boost to everything, 10% speed, increase manpower (with some exceptions such as lev 3 armored car gaining the ability to detect stealth or higher level air able to land on carriers). This leads to a breakdown in the a asymmetric warfare ability that is prevalent in 1.0, especially when you get to large armies, facing stack damage limits, and availability of advanced units.

    For example, even giants stacks of heavy tanks are murder on high level aircraft when leveled up. Why not just bring back a little randomness to what upgrades can do so we have to think about it more? Such as this next upgrade only increases the primary stats that the unit was designed to do.

    You could keep the leveling the way it is, but reduce the lev 1 stats in some areas to make sure their weaknesses are still very evident later in the game.

  • Manpower: Both friend and foe in the 100 player map complained of manpower. After the first several days, I always had enough of each resource to build what ever units I wanted until manpower ran out, and then build more industry through out my core provinces, even not producing. Because I was at first enthused about upgrading, this might mean only producing units in 3 cities at a time due to the high manpower cost. After I had lev 5/3 Industry in all core resource producing provinces, I never ran low on resources other than manpower, including when I was building nuclear missiles.

    This goes back to bringing back asymmetrical warfare. Just because I have a great economy, I have no good way to compete with someone that has ore territory and manpower. In COW 1.0, with low manpower I would focus on Tanks, Air, and if really low, missiles. In 1.5, nothing is now on manpower or manpower upkeep.

    Besides tweaking the manpower upkeep for certain units, two other things should happen:
    1. Have some unit types take drastically less manpower compared to others (think Infantry and vs Light Tanks or subs in COW 1.0)
    2. Have upgraded units not take additional manpower at all.


    lastly- i don't want to make a stink of it, but there needs to be the return of asymmetry in resources to increase the strategic planning and create a more varied playing experience depending on circumstances.

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

  • I agree with most that has been said above.
    • Manpower is an issue
    • Revolts seem worse (understand the bug issue)
    I feel some units have to use to much man power in general for the type of units they are -- upgrading planes should not need some much MP -- perhaps raise a different rss to compensate.

    Speaking of planes. It would be nice to have an easier way to figure out which ring belonged to which plane. As now since you can have as much as 6 different levels of planes in same stack it takes for ever to figure out which ring belongs to which plane group. Maybe color code etc.

    One more thing I have noticed. It takes a really long time to regain moral for some units even if you dont use them for a couple of days. Even when upgraded they stay the same. This item could be improved, or if you upgrade them them it reduces it significantly.

    • Allow for disbanding units would also help this issue. Did I mention it would be nice to be able to Disband a unit.
    Thanks for the great game. That is all.

    AK3

  • Can someone explain to me why this moral system is god awful since the update, like in my 25 player game as Germany, me and Russia split Poland and i was at war with an inactive France and i have taken a bit of his land so did an inactive Italy and the land i have taken countless times keeps revolting even when it hits 35 moral, so ? i am confused why the territory is turning against me every time i take it, so wherever my troops are i control, and i'm about to fight Russia so i can't keep trying to take France because it's basically impossible with the amount of manpower i have and the amount of inactive countries that are about to attack me within the next couple of days so i have no choice but to sit troops on the french border and let Italy take it so Italy can gain power and attack me later on because of the trade embargo it put on me, and one other thing 20 days later after i took half of Poland, almost all the land is at 89 and all the resources but manpower is high but Tczew turned against me with 2 of my units sitting in the province like.... HHHOOOWWWW, ive been trying to build power on my eastern border and he's getting the land that is revolting against me, he now has Danzig after he took the Polish coastal city, whats gonna happen when i invade Russia will all the land revolt or will i gain land like wtf.

  • Little_Debbie wrote:

    Can someone explain to me why this moral system is god awful since the update, like in my 25 player game as Germany, me and Russia split Poland and i was at war with an inactive France and i have taken a bit of his land so did an inactive Italy and the land i have taken countless times keeps revolting even when it hits 35 moral, so ? i am confused why the territory is turning against me every time i take it, so wherever my troops are i control, and i'm about to fight Russia so i can't keep trying to take France because it's basically impossible with the amount of manpower i have and the amount of inactive countries that are about to attack me within the next couple of days so i have no choice but to sit troops on the french border and let Italy take it so Italy can gain power and attack me later on because of the trade embargo it put on me, and one other thing 20 days later after i took half of Poland, almost all the land is at 89 and all the resources but manpower is high but Tczew turned against me with 2 of my units sitting in the province like.... HHHOOOWWWW, ive been trying to build power on my eastern border and he's getting the land that is revolting against me, he now has Danzig after he took the Polish coastal city, whats gonna happen when i invade Russia will all the land revolt or will i gain land like wtf.
    I’m pretty sure this what talked about a LOT on other threads try searching for them.

  • Little_Debbie wrote:

    Can someone explain to me why this moral system is god awful since the update, like in my 25 player game as Germany, me and Russia split Poland and i was at war with an inactive France and i have taken a bit of his land so did an inactive Italy and the land i have taken countless times keeps revolting even when it hits 35 moral, so ? i am confused why the territory is turning against me every time i take it, so wherever my troops are i control, and i'm about to fight Russia so i can't keep trying to take France because it's basically impossible with the amount of manpower i have and the amount of inactive countries that are about to attack me within the next couple of days so i have no choice but to sit troops on the french border and let Italy take it so Italy can gain power and attack me later on because of the trade embargo it put on me, and one other thing 20 days later after i took half of Poland, almost all the land is at 89 and all the resources but manpower is high but Tczew turned against me with 2 of my units sitting in the province like.... HHHOOOWWWW, ive been trying to build power on my eastern border and he's getting the land that is revolting against me, he now has Danzig after he took the Polish coastal city, whats gonna happen when i invade Russia will all the land revolt or will i gain land like wtf.
    Yep. I believe they responded earlier to these issues and a fix is coming in the next itteration. As I said in an earlier post, the AI impact on my ability to play against other human players was a royal pain. It was afactor in an earlier lost game.

  • cycle9 wrote:

    False!Due to another bug, Armor units do NOT prevent revolts!
    Armor units should prevent revolts, too. The issue is just that the needed strength value to suppress a revolt to 0% is higher than intended.
    Currently it uses the base strength of a unit though, so no terrain bonus applies. That will probably be changed with a future update.

    FinnDaddy wrote:

    I understand there will be some revolt and morale tweaks in the future, that's good and needed. I just played a 4x 100 player COW 1.5 map, regular speed 100 player 1.5 map, as well as a regular speed 22 player 1.5 map, and there are major issues.

    For one, strength does not prevent revolt properly in all cases. Early game, I had an Axis motorized infantry level 2 with the strength of 15 fail to prevent a revolt in a city(BONUS TERRAIN) and actually switch to my opponents team. Major, major blow through bad luck. Have revolts just injure your units, not flip them. Also a strength of 15 should be plenty, but there was still a chance of revolt, obviously. late game in another map, an AA gun with a strength of 10 was enough to bring a 25% morale city to zero chance revolt. Whats up with the discrepancy. Some lev 1 and two units would take 3 units to prevent revolt in 25% morale city, and no way is that worth it in non-cities.

    Now for morale growth after conquering: Being South Africa attacking over in Borneo and Sumatra, or even as close as Saudi Arabia, the morale distance penalty of -60 combined with unhappy and enemy neighbors of -10 to -22 created a downward spiral so that stationing troops one turn does not alleviate anything, you need more the next day. -80 morale penalties are not worth dealing with for non-cities because I cant afford to put 2-3 ground units in them and build lev 2 infra everywhere. I did that and they still revolt if I get an enemy neighbor. The good news is that if they revolt to an ally, they get a morale boost and they don't hurt your remaining provinces morale as much. Bring and ally with you so you can revolt to each other. What happened to me was a area where I controlled the cites, but all the neighboring provinces revolted to allies or vise verse. I looked at the map at the end of the game (time limit) and it held true: A network of checkerboard areas that increased in pixel-ation the further you go away from home territories. Even players that were defeated long ago had territories continuously blinking in and out around the globe due to revolts.

    Why not have a reduction in the distance penalty for each day you own it, or a positive factor for each day you control it, say 5 per day for 5 days to a maximum of 25. Or an annex option that creates a high risk for one day, but reduces morale penalties in the future. That way you could plan to suppress it, but also know that you wont be stuck there forever.
    Thanks for the feedback!

    We will adress the morale issue on the 1.5 100p map a little bit in the June update, where increase the capital's radius of influence.
    In the July update we will probably make further morale tweaks and shift some penalties around to even out the morale burden a bit better.

    In the July update we will also release some fixes to the revolt mechanics, like reducing the strength needed to suppress a revolt, (probably) make it so the final strength value of a unit is used and not its base strength and probably also slightly reducing the overall revolt chance in general.

    FinnDaddy wrote:

    Leveling up units: I don't like the way units level up in a standard 33% boost to everything, 10% speed, increase manpower (with some exceptions such as lev 3 armored car gaining the ability to detect stealth or higher level air able to land on carriers). This leads to a breakdown in the a asymmetric warfare ability that is prevalent in 1.0, especially when you get to large armies, facing stack damage limits, and availability of advanced units.

    For example, even giants stacks of heavy tanks are murder on high level aircraft when leveled up. Why not just bring back a little randomness to what upgrades can do so we have to think about it more? Such as this next upgrade only increases the primary stats that the unit was designed to do.

    You could keep the leveling the way it is, but reduce the lev 1 stats in some areas to make sure their weaknesses are still very evident later in the game.
    But all units retain their weakness against other classes, because of the more consistent damage scaling. Unit A should be as effective againt unit B also on later levels. Heavy Tanks and airplanes make no exception here, even on their highest level Heavy tanks only defend with 5 damage back, while e.g. Attack Bombers deal 25 damage to them. So killing heavy tanks with attack bombers has a high cost efficiency.
    Maybe you rather mean that in 1.5 the power gap between certain units categories does not rise as much anymore as in 1.0, example being air vs. ground. Over the course of the game air scales much better vs ground units in 1.0, and we wanted to get rid of this to keep all units viable in the game for the whole duration of the game. We won't change this approach.

    FinnDaddy wrote:

    Manpower: Both friend and foe in the 100 player map complained of manpower. After the first several days, I always had enough of each resource to build what ever units I wanted until manpower ran out, and then build more industry through out my core provinces, even not producing. Because I was at first enthused about upgrading, this might mean only producing units in 3 cities at a time due to the high manpower cost. After I had lev 5/3 Industry in all core resource producing provinces, I never ran low on resources other than manpower, including when I was building nuclear missiles.

    This goes back to bringing back asymmetrical warfare. Just because I have a great economy, I have no good way to compete with someone that has ore territory and manpower. In COW 1.0, with low manpower I would focus on Tanks, Air, and if really low, missiles. In 1.5, nothing is now on manpower or manpower upkeep.

    Besides tweaking the manpower upkeep for certain units, two other things should happen:
    1. Have some unit types take drastically less manpower compared to others (think Infantry and vs Light Tanks or subs in COW 1.0)
    2. Have upgraded units not take additional manpower at all.


    lastly- i don't want to make a stink of it, but there needs to be the return of asymmetry in resources to increase the strategic planning and create a more varied playing experience depending on circumstances.
    In the June update we will allieviate the manpower problem in mid and late game by reducing the manpower costs for higher unit levels and increasing the manpower voost on higher Industry levels. Rocket manpower cost will also be cut down especially.

    Akulla3D wrote:

    I agree with most that has been said above.
    • Manpower is an issue
    • Revolts seem worse (understand the bug issue)
    I feel some units have to use to much man power in general for the type of units they are -- upgrading planes should not need some much MP -- perhaps raise a different rss to compensate.

    Speaking of planes. It would be nice to have an easier way to figure out which ring belonged to which plane. As now since you can have as much as 6 different levels of planes in same stack it takes for ever to figure out which ring belongs to which plane group. Maybe color code etc.

    One more thing I have noticed. It takes a really long time to regain moral for some units even if you dont use them for a couple of days. Even when upgraded they stay the same. This item could be improved, or if you upgrade them them it reduces it significantly.

    • Allow for disbanding units would also help this issue. Did I mention it would be nice to be able to Disband a unit.
    Thanks for the great game. That is all.

    AK3
    As commented above, revolts and manpower will be adressed in future updates.
    Thanks for the other suggestions!

    Akulla3D wrote:

    Forced March doesnt seem to be working in 1.5, anyone else see this issue?
    Can't confirm, works normally in my games.

    Little_Debbie wrote:

    Can someone explain to me why this moral system is god awful since the update, like in my 25 player game as Germany, me and Russia split Poland and i was at war with an inactive France and i have taken a bit of his land so did an inactive Italy and the land i have taken countless times keeps revolting even when it hits 35 moral, so ? i am confused why the territory is turning against me every time i take it, so wherever my troops are i control, and i'm about to fight Russia so i can't keep trying to take France because it's basically impossible with the amount of manpower i have and the amount of inactive countries that are about to attack me within the next couple of days so i have no choice but to sit troops on the french border and let Italy take it so Italy can gain power and attack me later on because of the trade embargo it put on me, and one other thing 20 days later after i took half of Poland, almost all the land is at 89 and all the resources but manpower is high but Tczew turned against me with 2 of my units sitting in the province like.... HHHOOOWWWW, ive been trying to build power on my eastern border and he's getting the land that is revolting against me, he now has Danzig after he took the Polish coastal city, whats gonna happen when i invade Russia will all the land revolt or will i gain land like wtf.
    That has nothing to do with CoW1.5 balancing though as you are describing issues in a cow1.0 game. But as commented above, we will adress revolts in upcoming updates again.
    (but that doesnt mean that we will make it super easy like during the time where no revolts where happening at all. Revolts will remain a part of the game that players need to take care of)

  • General cdub wrote:

    Greetings one and all,


    I was very much looking forward to testing out version 1.5 in the 3rd test phase and giving both positive feedback and areas of improvement.


    However, as I do not want to be hassled by any moderators, have any staff members feel I am insulting them or worse, be prosecuted by some international court and then sent to some dark dreary prison for an imaginary law or regulation that someone may think I broke, I will only say that I am very disappointed based on what was said in the feedback and what was actually produced.

    I must agree with you General cdub. The reaction to you calling out suspicious looking accounts on a forum was way out of proportion. Polite moderation is one thing but disrespectful barking and threats quite another. A game forum but we may not call out a gamer tag? Really? Moderation or censorship and control?

    Have a bit of respect for your regular paying players. This situation was handled badly.

  • pjrobbo wrote:

    General cdub wrote:

    Greetings one and all,


    I was very much looking forward to testing out version 1.5 in the 3rd test phase and giving both positive feedback and areas of improvement.


    However, as I do not want to be hassled by any moderators, have any staff members feel I am insulting them or worse, be prosecuted by some international court and then sent to some dark dreary prison for an imaginary law or regulation that someone may think I broke, I will only say that I am very disappointed based on what was said in the feedback and what was actually produced.
    I must agree with you General cdub. The reaction to you calling out suspicious looking accounts on a forum was way out of proportion. Polite moderation is one thing but disrespectful barking and threats quite another. A game forum but we may not call out a gamer tag? Really? Moderation or censorship and control?

    Have a bit of respect for your regular paying players. This situation was handled badly.
    Just build industries in all your provinces and you will get more, I used to have +350 manpower and I built industries in all my core provinces, After that my production increased to +1300 manpower.

  • Thank you PJ,

    Let me also share with you that it was not the first time those comments, false accusations and the threats had been made to me. I have never once posted in RL Information. In fact, every bit of information I have ever posted is public information that anyone can access on the Call of War sight including user names. In the end, there was probably anywhere between 5 to 7 times that I had been attacked in posts by a moderator.

    This is one reason why I have stopped posting including helping the less experienced players in the forums.

    General cdub

    As a Disclaimer: This post is not intended for the reading of any moderator and anything said should not be taken personally. This was strictly an answer to PJ and his post. Thank you in advance for you understanding.

  • Yes, Akulla, the SBDE has changed. Now it counts as the top 10 most powerful units for the SBDE (or something like that, I'm sure someone else can explain better).
    "As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable." Albert Einstein

    "Giving up is not an option in war, for it proves one's incapability and incompetence as a leader." - Me (Little Racoon)

  • New changelog : a great deception ?

    Just like before, today I chossed to join a new game. With some empires left. But then... My game has already started 5 days before. Impossible to win in this conditions. I'm sorry, but thats ***. Why ? All nations already joined coalition with no place for me. France already taked 1/3 of the map.

    What can I ad ? I prefer the old version.