Well some units in real life are better at attacking than defensing. It is the same in 1.0, you need to have defensive troops. In this game, only light and medium tanks and motorized units as well as fighters have higher attack values, as it is in WW2 being used in the blitzkrieg tactic.

I agree with this from a realism/historical standpoint as well. A lot of the art of war consists of becoming the tactical defender, even when you are the strategical attacker. For example, a strategical attacker might rush to occupy an objective which is vital to the defender, and hold it, forcing the (strategical) defender to become the (tactical) attacker and attempt to take it back. In all the ages of warfare, the tactical defense has been easier than the attack; the mythical status attributed to the attack value of tanks is merely a question of (1) the ability to circumvent enemy strongpoints by virtue of superior mobility, and (2) "not being SO TERRIBLY bad as infantry". After all, on a single road with no manoeuver possibilities, an attacking tank would be at a disadvantage against a defending tank anyway; think camouflage and cover options, the need to stop to fire, prepared fire trajectories, etc etc.

The power of initiative, concentration and reconnaisance (finding the weak point of the defender) are where the mobile attacker has his advantage; but these are not in the actual battle values of the units, but in his ability to pick the battle site in his favor, and creating (temporary) numerical superiority on PARTS of the front. This is exactly why chokepoints (mountain passes, bridges, etc) are notorious for being "hard to take": the attacker loses his flexibility because there is just one way to go. If tanks and other mobile troops really DID have a tactical attacking advantage, it would be madness to defend these chokepoints because they would just be an opportunity for the attacker to inflict extra casualties on the defender.

In our gaming simulation microcosmos, this is reflected as well. In 1.0, where most units had equal or higher defensive values, an important point of manoeuver was to become the defender of the province dot, and force the opponent to either become the attacker (and thus be at the tactical disadvantage), or abort the attack on the province and withdraw. This is very realistic, and a challenge for players to achieve. In 1.5 on the other hand, it is hardly relevant, because way too many units have their att/def values unnaturally "reversed". This often leads to the conclusion that even if you DO manage to become the defender by a clever manoeuver, you find that the units battle values make it more advantageous to "attack back" anyway, which is completely counter-intuitive for both a wargamer and a student of history.

personally i think the offensive unit are a good concept however as Rokossovski say concentration of power its key, even with defensive units concentrated on one point i can do a decent offensive, with attacking units concentrated, im completely unstopabble unless my adversary can expend a lot of time in micromanangment.


touching the point of time, since most of us are getting back to normal life we cant dedicate the same amount of time to games in general, faster battles and production require a lot of attention we can not afford.

Agreed. Huge flaw in 1.5 design. Buildings, units, everything. Too much to worry about.

well i do prefer 1.5 :V

but anyway
what im trying to say its maybe in the future since dealing with attack units effectivly its too time consuming, this could become a problem, as i say its not the attack units a bad mechanic, but considering concentration of attack unit on one point and the add objective button and less time to play. not everyone will be able to deal with this units.

Units have an offensive and defensive focus to achieve greater unit diversity in the game. And this works pretty well, the unit diversity is much higher compared to the old version. Several units would become nearly obsolete if we changed their focus. It would alter the unit gameplay pretty drastically again, but since most players seem to like the status quo in the new version, we will keep it.

For the use case you are describing (defending while you are offline) we have enough suitable defensive-focused units. It is their advantage. Defensive units are most often also cheaper than offensive units. Offensive units on the other hand also have advantages. If you want to be successful you probably have to use both.

If you have a mixed stack of offensive and defensive units you can also just split it and attack only with one half. This also works when your original stack is pinned down in melee combat.

If you only have offensive units at hand and need to go offline, you can set a bunch of waypoints to keep your offensive units moving while you are away.

The unit damage stats do not represent only their armor piercing values but are basically a summary of all kinds of different considerations. For example the ability to evade enemy fire or flank enemies is reflected in the values as well. This is kinda necessary since we do not have open maps with 100% free movement and micromanagement.

As for the new version being flawed: That is a quite subjective view. From all the objective data that we gathered in the months since its release we see quite clearly that the new version works better than the old version.

I agree with Freezy. We need attacking units to force players out of their trenches. Otherwise, we would have a "Call of Mortars" 1.5.

As for the game design, I believe our design team has forgotten the values of keeping things simple and giving the players fewer things to worry about. After all, the game is not supposed to be played for hours on end.

I worry that the devs are giving up those design philosophies that made the original game successful. Not too late to turn back.

Well, it is a little bit more complicated than that. Because the enemy has an offensive stack, it may be a good adea to attack back EVEN WHEN you have a (mainly) defensive stack. IF it is less "defensive-minded" than the opponent is "offensive minded".

To clarify with an eample:
I have a mixed stack with a slightly defensive focus, let's say 22-25 (off/def)
My enemy has an all-tank stack, let's say 30-20

He is attacking me, so his offense goes against my defense and he has a 30-25 advantage
If I attack back, my offense goes against his defense, so I have a 22-20 advantage

In this case, it is more advantageous to attack back, even though I have a defensive stack... which is counter-intuitive, and bypasses the strategic idea of "trying to become the defender" as I argued above.

And yes, I would also like to add that criticism on some aspect of the version doesn't mean that the entire version is bad.

This should be achieved by encouraging STRATEGIC manoeuvre to achieve local superiorities, NOT by discarding the age-old principle that TACTICAL defense is superior to offense.

SBDE of 10 units top. What superiority are you talking about? We are not talking about airforce remember?

The games where all the enemy border provinces are guarded by 10-stacks are rare indeed. And if they aren't, there is room for manoeuvre and creating local superiority.

You speak as if
1) there is always room for maneuvering;
2) capturing those empty or lightly defended provinces have strategic significance;
3) the defenders won't spot the attackers and manoeuvre in time, taking into account the fact that movement speed is 100% faster on friendly territory and that the defender can spot hostile forces moving in friendly territory; [1]
4) the attacker has a clear view of the positioning and composition of the defending armies. [1]

If any of the above fails to obtain, your argument doesn't hold. But I do agree that the attacking-defending gap should be brought closer for attack-specialized units.

[1] Some units have stealth that can avoid detection.

Misconception.

The new version works NOT primarily because units have diverse stats. But primarily because

1) Research no longer auto-upgrade all existing units.
2) Unit production no longer requires high level buildings; all units are quick to produce at lower research level.
3) Stealth mechanics when it nudges the players to research and produce scouting units. Those scouting units are unique on their own even without scout. When we talk about how attacking units are good or bad (motorized infantry), we keep forgetting the stealth part. Wholesale package is terrible.
4) It's a relatively new release.