Balancing Artillery and Aircraft

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    • Capacity as well as capability.

      Should a single air strip on a small island support hundreds of planes?
      No.
      Should a level 1 air strip built in a few hours support giant, long-range bombers?
      No.

      Rebasing is the biggest joke.

      Should an air squadron, with all their support equipment and personnel, spare parts, fuel and ammunition depots, be able to hop on their own war planes and pop over for a beer on the other side of the planet?

      WTF, hell no!

    • "Should an air squadron, with all their support equipment and personnel, spare parts, fuel and ammunition depots, be able to hop on their own war planes and pop over for a beer on the other side of the planet?"

      Everything is relative to what other units in the GAME are capable of. Its way more realistic than an AC driving across the entire continent with ZERO pause.

    • Heinrici wrote:

      "Should an air squadron, with all their support equipment and personnel, spare parts, fuel and ammunition depots, be able to hop on their own war planes and pop over for a beer on the other side of the planet?"

      Everything is relative to what other units in the GAME are capable of. Its way more realistic than an AC driving across the entire continent with ZERO pause.

      It's a game, I get that. AC driving across Asia is silly, but they are just armored cars. They can steal some gas along the way. They can pack up and move their command post. Infantry, same thing. Navy is more of a stretch. They can't "find" fuel from the country side. They should stop at friendly ports to refuel and rearm. Air is the biggest problem. It's the most OP arm, and it's given the most ludicrous powers of infinite rebasing. You can move your entire air force to an island and hit another continent with enough bombs and bullets to destroy entire armies. It's completely out of control.

    • I read a "portion" of this thread and admit, not all of it.

      Here's my take on this.

      If the Arty inflicted damage was only 50% of what it is now, then those units would only advance at half speed since those who don't pay attention to the map and only check in once a day (then quit when things are not going perfectly their way)... will still die just slower.

      When you look at stats from WWII, and see that more than 2/3 armour kills (68%) were from AT's followed by Arty at almost 17%, yes some tweeks would be required to make weapons more "realistic" to make them more apt to be used in game.

      But that will not change anything.

      The good players will switch tactics and use THOSE units... while the sheep will keep marking their mindless armies of armour to their slaughter like lemmings off a cliff.

      Until such a time as BYTRO attempts to make CoW "realistic"... a depth of nuance I can't see happening here without a complete rewrite of the game from ground up... Best strategies an units will be used by the "active" players, while the majority be be cannon fodder (no pun intended) to be harvested for points and victories using only "tactics" (if that word can be used to describe what they're doing) that "Look good"....
      General Maximus Decimus Meridius - "Are you not entertained?"

    • That's a pretty bleak take on the game... you're basically saying that we spend the majority of our time here fighting some sort of zombie AI armies which happen to be controlled by a human... although I see your point, I prefer to think about the game in a different way.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • I agree with earlier points about making counter units cheaper. If bombers are overpowered, make interceptors cheaper.

      I played a game after the recent rebalance where cruisers were made more expensive. Cruisers are always shockingly underutilized and will probably be even more so. I was able to clean up using naval bombers. Naval bombers are gaining my appreciation recently. They are cheap and effective at searching large sections of the ocean quickly. You can fan them out to find the enemy, then pull them back, regroup and send them out again after your target. Perfect pack hunters. You can even pair them with subs on aggressive fire control at key locations. Great for dealing with potential sneak attacks. Just put the sub on the edge of the naval bombers patrol circle the naval bomber will start attacking when the sub attacks.

    • Foot AA is already effective to deter planes. It is just that people don't bother about building them until it is too late; after all, the investment is useless when your opponent does NOT use air. There's also the problem that they can't keep up with mobile stacks, but foot stacks of experienced players (especially arty) usually have sufficient AA to make attacking them with planes unfeasible.

      SPAA could certainly use a boost, the research investment is very high and when you get that done the build times are just gruesome. And to top it off, they can't even keep up with the light armor units, so you either pay a high (speed) price when you finally have the investment done, or you find that you can't protect your rush units anyway...
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • Z. Sakki wrote:

      That's not what's happening in CoW. If you build anything other than planes and artys + def troops to cover the artys, you'd lose.

      If you try what you just said:

      Suna232 wrote:

      Hitler's blitzkrieg was successful because it used advanced technology to overwhelm enemy forces. First, airplanes bombed a region, then fast-moving ground troops moved in to surround enemy forces followed by artillery shallig.
      - You'd lose. The correct approach would be to shell the crap out of a target with arty and planes then move in to capture the now empty province. No "then fast-moving ground troops moved in to surround enemy forces", if you do that, you're just wasting resources.
      If you missed it, we actually want the game to be played that way, hence the call for balancing because currently, you just can't play that way because the game is too arty-centered. With shoot n scoot, melee offensive units are just not viable. I think you can even ditch planes except for ints and just double down on artys. They're that broken.

      You're essentially obligated to go arty every single time if you want to win and it gets old really fast. It's boring. Might as well just rebrand the game to Call of Artillery at this point.
      Rush the artillery. With tanks at various speeds. Even Cars. It will hit the front units. But anything else nope.

    • vietcong2005 wrote:

      Suna232 wrote:

      vietcong2005 wrote:

      No Planes and Arty were used to weaken and disperse enemy lines, not to directly kill them. Infantry can easily take cover from planes and arty, as evidenced in World War I. The British shelled the Germans at Somme for over 7 days with over 1.7 mil shells. Yet the Germans simply hid in trenches and were fine and provided ample resistance to British assult, inflicting heavy casualties. This was also evidenced in World War II during the battle of Seelow heights, where the Soviets placed over 9,000 rocket arty and arty and bombarded German positions. Yet, most German forces survived and were able to inflict more losses on Soviets with far less forces. With air planes, during the battle of Sedan, French forces only suffered minor losses from airplanes. The true damage came from dispersion not actual damage. Tanks and infantry are used to go in and inflict damage and capture prisoners.
      This is game,and this game doesn't have any other elements that will inflict units capabilities other then hitpoints,terrain and bonuses of home land and therefore we cannot take that into a count.Artillery and airforce is significant piece of equipment and only reason why irl casualties from artillery and airforce were not as high is because logistics.A nation will first deal with assuring air superiority then targetting artillery units using scouts and rushing them away with bombers,then offensive will proceed while here Players carelessly rush and then complain about them being destroyed by range units.
      You need air and artillery same as anti air.Always irl and in game first targets should be potential airstrips and following that locating artillery and destroying artillery then ground offensive should proceed.
      If you follow those steps you will see that those units are not overpowered it is just that people don't want to bother planing their attacks.This is not arcade game this is strategic low key simulation game and a 4D chess,planing up front and understating the ways your enemy is playing is necessary.
      I make extensive use of Tactical Bombers, Attack Bombers, and Arty. In fact my melee troops barely play a role in actual fighting. However, a few hundred planes destroying entire divisions in a few days is just unrealistic. My greatest concern is the great lack of your knowledge in actual history. You seem to think that World War II planes are on the same techniolgcial level as modern day A-10s. The true purpose of Arty and Planes back then was to pin down and weaken enemy troops, but not to actually destroy enemy troops. This allowed for encirclements and gave an oppurtunity for your attack with armored divisions. Warfare is all about combined arms involving, tanks, infantry, ships, planes, and artillery. Also, as you usefully pointed out in your passage, Artillery and Air power are used to target precise objectives like command posts, airstrips, communcation centers, etc. My point is that both these factors were never meant to destroy troops, destroying moving troops would be more unlikely
      I 110% agree with this.
      I love artillery and planes and Naval, but enhancing AA, and adding coastal defenses would be more challenging. Just parking stacks of battleships off a coast is not a wow go to gaming experience. Is it now?
      Make city and provincial defense items or units. Give them same range as BS or RR Art
      Make take on this

    • z00mz00m wrote:

      B17 bomber:
      • Crew: 10
      • Empty weight: 36,135 lb (16,391 kg)
      • Fuel capacity: 1,700 gallons
      P51 fighter:
      • Crew: 1
      • Empty weight: 7,635 lb (3,463 kg)
      • Fuel capacity: 184 gallons



      Depending on how you calculate the "cost", the airplane by itself contains 5 times much material, and 10 times the crew. If you want to include ground crew and so on, the B17 still a beast with 4 engines to the Mustang's 1, there are 13 machine guns in 9 various turrets, all of which must be armed and maintained. It takes almost 10 times as much fuel to fill up.

      1 on 1, the cost to build and operate a strategic bomber should be somewhere between 5 and 10 times that of a fighter. If you want to say that 1 squad of fighters is really 5-10 fighters, that's fine. In that case, the squad of 5-10 fighters easily shoots down 1 bomber.

      Something has to give, either the cost of a strategic bomber has to go WAY up, or interceptors have to get MUCH cheaper. That would be a good way to balance out the game, making it harder for players to bomb cities and units with impunity. Scores of cheaply produced, effective fighters would get that done.
      Oh good point. Interceptors are way way way to weak and pricey. On board with you there.

    • Heinrici wrote:

      Arty is too powerful and shoot and scoot is unrealistic. How to fix both with something that seems implementable?
      Give Arty Patrol circles like planes have but make the patrol time 30 minutes or even 1 hour. Arty could use its full strength when in a stack in direct combat.

      Bombers. Patrolling is no longer used. Bombers must direct attack. Airfield level 1 should have 1 hour refueling. No patrolling and the longer refuels make ranked airbases much better. This would give needed depth to the air game.

      So, I guess I'm saying Bombers and Arty should swap patrolling mechanic with longer patrol time on top of it.

      Another idea would be that Arty needs to convert to a convoy to move like planes with a 30min conversion to the truck, then 30 mins to convert back from truck to Arty. The idea of all these guns running around in enemy territory is so ridiculous. I see stacks of Art and AA running rampant over the entire map, in reality they need to be protected by real troops.
      Another idea would be that Arty needs to convert to a convoy to move like planes with a 30min conversion to the truck, then 30 mins to convert back from truck to Arty. The idea of all these guns running around in enemy territory is so ridiculous. I see stacks of Art and AA running rampant over the entire map, in reality they need to be protected by real troops.

      @freezy this is actually a very very smart suggestion. I like the idea of artillery being towed. Maybe not 30 mins, though. I would opt for 15 mins.
      I would also give range like artillery for AA but also it has to be towed. This is not a bad idea at all.

    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      Foot AA is already effective to deter planes. It is just that people don't bother about building them until it is too late; after all, the investment is useless when your opponent does NOT use air. There's also the problem that they can't keep up with mobile stacks, but foot stacks of experienced players (especially arty) usually have sufficient AA to make attacking them with planes unfeasible.

      SPAA could certainly use a boost, the research investment is very high and when you get that done the build times are just gruesome. And to top it off, they can't even keep up with the light armor units, so you either pay a high (speed) price when you finally have the investment done, or you find that you can't protect your rush units anyway...
      I agree with you here

    • Come on, now.

      I make a lot of complaints to Bytro because I love this game. It's truly amazing, how they managed to create a war strategy game that takes weeks to play out, in an age of TikTok.

      Despite recent changes to "spruce up" the UI (which I don't care for) the game is largely NOT about animated graphics and sound effects. It really is a WAR game. And that's simply marvelous.

      Enjoy it while it's here, fellas.