To whom it may concern,
I have played two rounds of the 1.5 update and one of the new aspects that has really been bothering me is the Resource distribution and the concentration of Victory Points and unit production powers in cities.
Firstly, all cities produce double resources. In one of the maps I was in, this lead to the prices dropping steeply on the Market. This is detrimental to game play because players are producing all resources evenly, so they have the same number of Rare Materials as they do Steel. That said, the players don't use as much RM as they do Steel and end up with a massive (sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands) surplus of Rare Materials. Normally, with such a surplus, the player would simply sell it on the Market, but because everybody has such a surplus the market prices hover around 1:1. Furthermore, if all of the cities produce double resources, when a city gets taken your resource production tanks. This means that in order to eliminate a player from the board, one must simply take all of their cities quickly and they will die because they no longer have resources (or, as I will cover later, the ability to produce units) and will not be able to mount a considerable defensive retaliation.
Secondly, the concentration of all of the player's Victory Points in the cities makes mounting an offensive very boring. The reasons for this are twofold :
1) A player defending need not defend their other provinces. They can slip in an out of cities, maybe take a strategic crossroads, but generally speaking concentrating the Victory Points is an incentive for players to stack their armies in their cities and ignore the other provinces. As a result, once you get through the first line of defense (if there is any), you have an empty path until you reach the cities.
2) The player attacking doesn't really have any obstacles. In 1.0, maybe someone was producing units in a rural province, which means they would have units somewhere the player didn't expect them to be. What's more, when mounting an offensive players would have to grab the cities, but would also have to go out of their way to grab a province. This means that your offensive had to slow down and your opponent has time to possibly mount a considerable defensive retaliation.
Finally, the unit production powers in cities is unfair. For one, that means a player who is producing a lot of resources is limited to the amount of units they can produce, but also what kinds. One example is that some countries do not have cities on a body of water, despite being placed near a body of water. In the past, the player would simply have built an industrial complex and naval base in any province they chose. Now, they will have to invade another country in order to gain the right to produce naval ships. Having the ability to produce in any province also means if the player wanted to, they could move all of their production near the front lines. Lastly, if an enemy takes a player's cities, they are effectively taking the player's only means of unit production.
The concentration on resource production, victory points, and unit production powers in cities has created an imbalance in the way the game is played and has negatively impacted the way players organise their game. While some change is good, the gross imbalance has lead to extremely low market prices because of every nation's surplus in resources, the over-simplification of the defensive tactics necessary for defending one's Victory Points, and the inability to be flexible in where you produce units.
I would propose a few slight alterations : I would re-evaluate the resource productions per country, creating more imbalances from country to country (thereby forcing them to make different military decisions, making game play more unpredictable and therefore interesting). Every country does not need double production of every resource, just one or two resources. Then, they are forced to sell surplus and buy whatever they are lacking which means the prices of the market will fluctuate and players will be able to "hijack" each other's game play by manipulating the prices (forcing them to buy something more expensive...). While this may be seen as a way to over-complicate the game, it will in fact simplify it because players will be able to always satisfy their resource production needs. This is because if they are short on steel, they can sell their RM for cash and then have enough to buy steel and not just have loads of RM, no cash and no steel. I would equally redistribute where the resources are produced. Every production did not happen historically in cities, in fact many such activities happened outside of key urban centers (I'm thinking notably about food and RM, which for world war two would include coal, as well as oil). Keeping goods production and some metal production would be historically accurate (in the sense that sometimes those activities took place in urban centers). If the developers would like to add an interesting level of complication to the game, I would suggest they add a building the player can build that adds a second resource production to your city or province (pre-determined for every province). If players want to "create" a new resource production, they just need to build this building, which would cost a lot of time and money to make.
Regarding Victory Points, I would recommend that the developers subtract 3 Victory Points from every city except the capitol. Split the 12 or so Victory Points subtracted among the rural provinces that have seen a boost in resource production. Either, the developers can do what they did in 1.0 and have a province with 1 or 2 Victory Points; or the developers could distribute the 3 Victory Points to the new resource producing provinces or maybe a province that is seen as strategically important. That way, there is still a concentration of Victory Points in a few provinces, but they're more spread out and the player does have to go out of their way to get all of a country's Victory Points. This would also make the rebellions a bit more difficult because suddenly you're losing one province with 3 Victory Points and maybe you go and get it back or maybe you don't...
Regarding unit production, I would recommend that the developers make it possible to produce troops in rural provinces, but much more expensive. If players have a surplus in resources, they can chose to have a tank plant in a rural provinces just to boost their tank production. Maybe, instead of it being only in urban areas, it's you can only produce in provinces with Victory Points? This would expand the options of the player while not giving them so many options that they are overwhelmed.
One of the things I really appreciated about the game when I first started playing is the versatility of game-play styles. Players had options and the choices they made would influence their later game, so developing a strong economy and really having to contemplate where they move troops and build things was important. While this may make the game more complicated for newer players, it makes it much more intricate and engaging for experienced players. While the 1.5 update allows for even footing and equal military, it was the little differences between each country that made the game subtly more difficult in 1.0 that I feel are missing. What's more, with the ideologies, I would imagine having slight differences in resource production might impact a specific player's decisions for their country. If Spain and Germany are both Axis countries, but one has more of this resource than that resource, they will meet different challenges within the same round.
While I am sure there are many reasons why what I have proposed is imperfect and that I have overlooked this or that aspect of the game, the overall message of my suggestion - that cities have way too much power and it negatively affects game-play - is still one that I hope is strongly considered. I have played this game for a long time, have met many good friends on Call of War, and even done some work on Frontline. I am as dedicated as one can be to Call of War, and I keep coming back because the game is really cool and has some awesome mechanics that are unpredictable at times, but always interesting to mess around with. I was really saddened to see that the resource production, victory point distribution and the unit producing powers were not carried over to 1.5. While I understand some of these changes are necessary, I believe they were implemented too radically. What I have outlined is not drastic (although possibly from a coding perspective it is, I'm not sure), but I believe it will greatly improve the general game-play in 1.5. If not, this update has given me a lot of new toys to play with and I will surely be trying everything there is to try!
Thank you!
GGBugh
I have played two rounds of the 1.5 update and one of the new aspects that has really been bothering me is the Resource distribution and the concentration of Victory Points and unit production powers in cities.
Firstly, all cities produce double resources. In one of the maps I was in, this lead to the prices dropping steeply on the Market. This is detrimental to game play because players are producing all resources evenly, so they have the same number of Rare Materials as they do Steel. That said, the players don't use as much RM as they do Steel and end up with a massive (sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands) surplus of Rare Materials. Normally, with such a surplus, the player would simply sell it on the Market, but because everybody has such a surplus the market prices hover around 1:1. Furthermore, if all of the cities produce double resources, when a city gets taken your resource production tanks. This means that in order to eliminate a player from the board, one must simply take all of their cities quickly and they will die because they no longer have resources (or, as I will cover later, the ability to produce units) and will not be able to mount a considerable defensive retaliation.
Secondly, the concentration of all of the player's Victory Points in the cities makes mounting an offensive very boring. The reasons for this are twofold :
1) A player defending need not defend their other provinces. They can slip in an out of cities, maybe take a strategic crossroads, but generally speaking concentrating the Victory Points is an incentive for players to stack their armies in their cities and ignore the other provinces. As a result, once you get through the first line of defense (if there is any), you have an empty path until you reach the cities.
2) The player attacking doesn't really have any obstacles. In 1.0, maybe someone was producing units in a rural province, which means they would have units somewhere the player didn't expect them to be. What's more, when mounting an offensive players would have to grab the cities, but would also have to go out of their way to grab a province. This means that your offensive had to slow down and your opponent has time to possibly mount a considerable defensive retaliation.
Finally, the unit production powers in cities is unfair. For one, that means a player who is producing a lot of resources is limited to the amount of units they can produce, but also what kinds. One example is that some countries do not have cities on a body of water, despite being placed near a body of water. In the past, the player would simply have built an industrial complex and naval base in any province they chose. Now, they will have to invade another country in order to gain the right to produce naval ships. Having the ability to produce in any province also means if the player wanted to, they could move all of their production near the front lines. Lastly, if an enemy takes a player's cities, they are effectively taking the player's only means of unit production.
The concentration on resource production, victory points, and unit production powers in cities has created an imbalance in the way the game is played and has negatively impacted the way players organise their game. While some change is good, the gross imbalance has lead to extremely low market prices because of every nation's surplus in resources, the over-simplification of the defensive tactics necessary for defending one's Victory Points, and the inability to be flexible in where you produce units.
I would propose a few slight alterations : I would re-evaluate the resource productions per country, creating more imbalances from country to country (thereby forcing them to make different military decisions, making game play more unpredictable and therefore interesting). Every country does not need double production of every resource, just one or two resources. Then, they are forced to sell surplus and buy whatever they are lacking which means the prices of the market will fluctuate and players will be able to "hijack" each other's game play by manipulating the prices (forcing them to buy something more expensive...). While this may be seen as a way to over-complicate the game, it will in fact simplify it because players will be able to always satisfy their resource production needs. This is because if they are short on steel, they can sell their RM for cash and then have enough to buy steel and not just have loads of RM, no cash and no steel. I would equally redistribute where the resources are produced. Every production did not happen historically in cities, in fact many such activities happened outside of key urban centers (I'm thinking notably about food and RM, which for world war two would include coal, as well as oil). Keeping goods production and some metal production would be historically accurate (in the sense that sometimes those activities took place in urban centers). If the developers would like to add an interesting level of complication to the game, I would suggest they add a building the player can build that adds a second resource production to your city or province (pre-determined for every province). If players want to "create" a new resource production, they just need to build this building, which would cost a lot of time and money to make.
Regarding Victory Points, I would recommend that the developers subtract 3 Victory Points from every city except the capitol. Split the 12 or so Victory Points subtracted among the rural provinces that have seen a boost in resource production. Either, the developers can do what they did in 1.0 and have a province with 1 or 2 Victory Points; or the developers could distribute the 3 Victory Points to the new resource producing provinces or maybe a province that is seen as strategically important. That way, there is still a concentration of Victory Points in a few provinces, but they're more spread out and the player does have to go out of their way to get all of a country's Victory Points. This would also make the rebellions a bit more difficult because suddenly you're losing one province with 3 Victory Points and maybe you go and get it back or maybe you don't...
Regarding unit production, I would recommend that the developers make it possible to produce troops in rural provinces, but much more expensive. If players have a surplus in resources, they can chose to have a tank plant in a rural provinces just to boost their tank production. Maybe, instead of it being only in urban areas, it's you can only produce in provinces with Victory Points? This would expand the options of the player while not giving them so many options that they are overwhelmed.
One of the things I really appreciated about the game when I first started playing is the versatility of game-play styles. Players had options and the choices they made would influence their later game, so developing a strong economy and really having to contemplate where they move troops and build things was important. While this may make the game more complicated for newer players, it makes it much more intricate and engaging for experienced players. While the 1.5 update allows for even footing and equal military, it was the little differences between each country that made the game subtly more difficult in 1.0 that I feel are missing. What's more, with the ideologies, I would imagine having slight differences in resource production might impact a specific player's decisions for their country. If Spain and Germany are both Axis countries, but one has more of this resource than that resource, they will meet different challenges within the same round.
While I am sure there are many reasons why what I have proposed is imperfect and that I have overlooked this or that aspect of the game, the overall message of my suggestion - that cities have way too much power and it negatively affects game-play - is still one that I hope is strongly considered. I have played this game for a long time, have met many good friends on Call of War, and even done some work on Frontline. I am as dedicated as one can be to Call of War, and I keep coming back because the game is really cool and has some awesome mechanics that are unpredictable at times, but always interesting to mess around with. I was really saddened to see that the resource production, victory point distribution and the unit producing powers were not carried over to 1.5. While I understand some of these changes are necessary, I believe they were implemented too radically. What I have outlined is not drastic (although possibly from a coding perspective it is, I'm not sure), but I believe it will greatly improve the general game-play in 1.5. If not, this update has given me a lot of new toys to play with and I will surely be trying everything there is to try!
Thank you!
GGBugh