Balancing Changes

Very interesting update!

Just one comment regarding the nuclear reactors would it not be better to leave the rares daily upkeep, but instead give some kind of incentive to leave them running like incremental resource production boost per level?

Level1 +5% to resource production

Level2 +10% to resource production

etc...

I do not mind any of these changes except for infra. It's prices should not have been meddled with.

TANK Destroyer

it does not need to be faster it needs more life points or more defense against armored vehicles, for that they are and they do not fulfill their function.

Railroad gun

added small damage vs submarine

what it really needs is an increase in damage against structures and troops,

currently it is very expensive and inefficient, if it were more efficient the cost would not matter

The commands

the commands almost nobody uses them could be added the function of parachutists, so they avoid creating a new unit, they give use to the unit and make everyone happy

HEAVY TANK

Need decreased HP in all levels

are overwhelmingly superiors

Most of these changes I agree with and think will make the game much better! However, I do not think that the cost of infrastructure should've been increased. Infrastructure is one of the first buildings made on day 1 by experienced players, and by raising the price, hinders most early game strategies. In addition, later game, people might actually shy away from infra due to it's increased oil and steel costs, especially since many late game units require large amounts of oil and steel, along with consuming oil daily.

What does normalizing damage for attack and defense mean? numbers shown are the actual attack/defense of the unit?

Lets keep this thread to the topic at hand, which is these balancing changes.

Suggestions for additional units should be done in the suggestions section.

The paratrooper comments have been moved to Here

And spam has been removed.

Kehsct wrote:

I do not think that the cost of infrastructure should've been increased.

cchyt wrote:

What does normalizing damage for attack and defense mean? numbers shown are the actual attack/defense of the unit?

This means the Air to Air offense and defense values.

Currently with units such as Tactical bomber it does more damage defending that attacking, like so:

This means that there has been an exploit often complained about where players can avoid attacking on patrol and allowing their planes to be attacked in order to do more damage. While I have personally found this "exploit" to be useless when I have tried it, so I have never gotten worried over it, but some players have. Really it only matters when both players know the same trick and are locked in a permanent dance never actually attacking.

This balance change will mean that all bombers will do the same amount of damage both attacking and defending, thus avoiding the dance.

im against interceptors & tactical bombers upkeep and cost change they made fun and oil is currently rare

also their hp was perfect

artillery needs more damage against infantry

im against increase oil cost& upkeep of everything

Quasi-duck wrote:

I do not mind any of these changes except for infra. It's prices should not have been meddled with.

Kehsct wrote:

Infrastructure is one of the first buildings made on day 1 by experienced players, and by raising the price, hinders most early game strategies.

Besides, only the Armored Car is buildable early enough to take advantage of first-prioritized Infrastructure. By the time one researches Light Tanks, usually a couple days have gone by and the player can easily get at least a level 1.5 upgrade on their factories before switching over to Infrastructure. This way, they can avoid the risk of a successful espionage attack while still getting their Infrastructure built.

Also, there are some players that always went straight to Tac Bombers, not even bothering with Infrastructure, but using Gold to upgrade and build level 2 airbases and researching the technology instantly. Those folks get themselves a big stack of bombers on day one and pretty much ruin the game for all their neighbors. Actually, I had that happen to me in a match I recently started. But, I got wise to it, immediately....I convinced about 10 or so players around the map to sell me their starting Fighters. By the time they got to my shores, I was already growing into a full-fledged empire and I'm ready to take on that golder....and I am going to do so without using gold. Oh, and by the way, I tricked him into selling me three of his bombers. Trust me, by the time he realized, I had flown them far enough out of his reach. He was madder than a wet hen....but it was totally his own fault. You should have seen it!

Kehsct wrote:

In addition, later game, people might actually shy away from infra due to it's increased oil and steel costs, especially since many late game units require large amounts of oil and steel, along with consuming oil daily.

VorlonFCW wrote:

I think The morale bonus for infrastructure will more than pay for them with increased production, both early game before your core typically grows to 100% morale, and late game in large maps to stabilize far flung food provinces.

That said, the mid and late-game affect will be very serendipitous for those of us who like to build gargantuan empires. Unfortunately, with the increased resource costs, it will likely be used less frequently than would make sense. As I mentioned at the top of this post, the increased resource costs should probably be mellowed a bit.

abdoer wrote:

im against interceptors & tactical bombers upkeep and cost change they made fun and oil is currently rare

also their hp was perfect

Well from what I read, here's a few agrees and disagrees:

Agree:

Tactical bombers. Tac bombers have been OP and most players use it, including me. Decreasing its HP would encourage players not to just produce tac bombers but interceptors and naval bombers as well.

Anti air. Not mentioned much here, but I think this is pretty major. Anti air isn't produced much since it's quite hard to find out other people's troop placements (unless you have espionage), but anti tanks can be really effective. Lowering the manpower cost can make anti airs more common and more effective.

Nuclear reactor removing upkeep. This is really useful because you don't need to worry about your rare resource production and just put it in more worthwhile things, such as rockets.

Armored cars increased damage against armored troops. This is good because I don't use armored cars except on early game simply because their health isn't very good and they can't put up a fight with tanks. Increased damage could increase armored cars winning rate against tanks and thus make good use of their speed to quickly conquer provinces.

Disagree:

Infrastructure. As mentioned before, the increased cost is too much. I like infrastructure and the update that allows it to increase morale, but the cost doesn't encourage people to build more of those. Infrastructure's supposed to increase production but if it's too expensive, then what's the point? ICs would be preferred then.

Railroadgun. RGs are really expensive and good because of their range, but it's not good enough. An extra buff like increasing health or increasing speed with infras would be nice since I've had many RGs defeated at once because of an enemy blitz.

Nuclear sub. I'm not disagreeing to it's nerf on anti-air capabilities, I just think it's too much. Maybe nerfed to a 3-3.3 would be good because halving the damage is simply too much and discouraging to people who wants to build nuclear naval weapons.

Yeah so the one guy who spoke up supporting the change to infra builds lvl 2 facs before anything else? Alright, noted. This change was unneeded, and as for this

VorlonFCW wrote:

both early game before your core typically grows to 100% morale, and late game in large maps to stabilize far flung food provinces

Diabolical wrote:

Kehsct wrote:

Infrastructure is one of the first buildings made on day 1 by experienced players, and by raising the price, hinders most early game strategies.

Mmmm, not always. I prefer to upgrade Factories to level 2 before adding infrastructure on some matches, especially when your craftiest of neighbors blows half their starting cash on a bunch of military spies and tries to flatten your level 1 factories on the day 1 -> 2 change. Trust me, this has been done to me, before, and I never could recover enough to afford all the repairs to my IC's just to bring them back to functional status. And since most players try to max out the starting tech research as fast as they can, they won't have enough Rare Materials to rebuild their defunct factories anymore than I had, that one time.

Besides, only the Armored Car is buildable early enough to take advantage of first-prioritized Infrastructure. By the time one researches Light Tanks, usually a couple days have gone by and the player can easily get at least a level 1.5 upgrade on their factories before switching over to Infrastructure. This way, they can avoid the risk of a successful espionage attack while still getting their Infrastructure built.

Also, there are some players that always went straight to Tac Bombers, not even bothering with Infrastructure, but using Gold to upgrade and build level 2 airbases and researching the technology instantly. Those folks get themselves a big stack of bombers on day one and pretty much ruin the game for all their neighbors. Actually, I had that happen to me in a match I recently started. But, I got wise to it, immediately....I convinced about 10 or so players around the map to sell me their starting Fighters. By the time they got to my shores, I was already growing into a full-fledged empire and I'm ready to take on that golder....and I am going to do so without using gold. Oh, and by the way, I tricked him into selling me three of his bombers. Trust me, by the time he realized, I had flown them far enough out of his reach. He was madder than a wet hen....but it was totally his own fault. You should have seen it!

Kehsct wrote:

You do make a fair point Diabolical, and that match you're playing sounds fun. However, in terms of infra usage early on, you're forgetting about arty. Artillery is something that I have grown to use a lot prior to medium tanks and the like, and even afterwards if oil stops me from producing SPGs. It's just too good at reducing casualties. Especially now that AA won't be needed as much with the air debuffs taking place.

I usually don't attack any of the little AI nations until AFTER I've cleared my borders of anyone with a brain (as in, any human player with more than a noob rating). And that usually requires Light Tanks before Artillery. And, because I assume that my competitors will be doing the same ——— and many — if not most — DO try to build Light Tanks as soon as possible ——— I start out with some Anti-Tanks, which works better with low starting manpower than just building all Infantry, anyway. Besides, adding some Anti-Tanks on day one are a good way to defend against golders who like to build first-day-tanks.

Diabolical wrote:

Kehsct wrote:

You do make a fair point Diabolical, and that match you're playing sounds fun. However, in terms of infra usage early on, you're forgetting about arty. Artillery is something that I have grown to use a lot prior to medium tanks and the like, and even afterwards if oil stops me from producing SPGs. It's just too good at reducing casualties. Especially now that AA won't be needed as much with the air debuffs taking place.

Actually, I usually don't build Artillery for, at least, a couple days. And I prefer to build Artillery after getting a couple waves of Light Tanks built, first. Of course, I'm not locked into that strategy, but it seems to work best at clearing out a human neighbor or two.

I usually don't attack any of the little AI nations until AFTER I've cleared my borders of anyone with a brain (as in, any human player with more than a noob rating). And that usually requires Light Tanks before Artillery. And, because I assume that my competitors will be doing the same ——— and many — if not most — DO try to build Light Tanks as soon as possible ——— I start out with some Anti-Tanks, which works better with low starting manpower than just building all Infantry, anyway. Besides, adding some Anti-Tanks on day one are a good way to defend against golders who like to build first-day-tanks.

Kehsct wrote:

Diabolical wrote:

Kehsct wrote:

You do make a fair point Diabolical, and that match you're playing sounds fun. However, in terms of infra usage early on, you're forgetting about arty. Artillery is something that I have grown to use a lot prior to medium tanks and the like, and even afterwards if oil stops me from producing SPGs. It's just too good at reducing casualties. Especially now that AA won't be needed as much with the air debuffs taking place.

Actually, I usually don't build Artillery for, at least, a couple days. And I prefer to build Artillery after getting a couple waves of Light Tanks built, first. Of course, I'm not locked into that strategy, but it seems to work best at clearing out a human neighbor or two.I usually don't attack any of the little AI nations until AFTER I've cleared my borders of anyone with a brain (as in, any human player with more than a noob rating). And that usually requires Light Tanks before Artillery. And, because I assume that my competitors will be doing the same ——— and many — if not most — DO try to build Light Tanks as soon as possible ——— I start out with some Anti-Tanks, which works better with low starting manpower than just building all Infantry, anyway. Besides, adding some Anti-Tanks on day one are a good way to defend against golders who like to build first-day-tanks.

Fair enough. I don't shy away from producing LTs either, I just see arty as a lot more worthwhile early on typically. It allows you to conserve troops if you can and not have to replace infantry and the like.

I couldn't have done that with artillery, since, by the time I bring them to bear, the other guy will have already replaced his losses. Tanks can get in there fast enough to capture defenseless factories and whatever free units the other guy was vanely building. Thus, I increase my army's size much faster, overall.

This is a more aggressive strategy. But it is one that works very well against both noobs as well as more-experienced players.

Diabolical wrote:

Kehsct wrote:

Diabolical wrote:

Kehsct wrote:

You do make a fair point Diabolical, and that match you're playing sounds fun. However, in terms of infra usage early on, you're forgetting about arty. Artillery is something that I have grown to use a lot prior to medium tanks and the like, and even afterwards if oil stops me from producing SPGs. It's just too good at reducing casualties. Especially now that AA won't be needed as much with the air debuffs taking place.

Actually, I usually don't build Artillery for, at least, a couple days. And I prefer to build Artillery after getting a couple waves of Light Tanks built, first. Of course, I'm not locked into that strategy, but it seems to work best at clearing out a human neighbor or two.I usually don't attack any of the little AI nations until AFTER I've cleared my borders of anyone with a brain (as in, any human player with more than a noob rating). And that usually requires Light Tanks before Artillery. And, because I assume that my competitors will be doing the same ——— and many — if not most — DO try to build Light Tanks as soon as possible ——— I start out with some Anti-Tanks, which works better with low starting manpower than just building all Infantry, anyway. Besides, adding some Anti-Tanks on day one are a good way to defend against golders who like to build first-day-tanks.

Fair enough. I don't shy away from producing LTs either, I just see arty as a lot more worthwhile early on typically. It allows you to conserve troops if you can and not have to replace infantry and the like.

I agree, except that usually I encounter at least one other player that blitzes with their entire army against my borders. By the time I could even get those Artillery online (barring using gold, of course), they won't make much of a difference and I will likely have had to stand and fight a melee battle which has already cost me some of my Infantry, despite their defensive advantage. But, since that foolish other player will have lost far more Infantry than me, my newly-coming-online tanks will be able to counter with less resistance and then take over their entire nation because they lost it all taking me on.

I couldn't have done that with artillery, since, by the time I bring them to bear, the other guy will have already replaced his losses. Tanks can get in there fast enough to capture defenseless factories and whatever free units the other guy was vanely building. Thus, I increase my army's size much faster, overall.

This is a more aggressive strategy. But it is one that works very well against both noobs as well as more-experienced players.

A lot of the balancing changes seem to be directed at players developing overpowering air forces.

I thought I might propose another logical way to address the issue using SBDE.

Instead of calculating SBDE on the stack on which the planes are flying, calculate SBDE based on the base it is flying from. Therefore 25 tacs flying out of single airbase are less efficient in SBDE. Currently players will put 25 tacs patrolling overlapping space in stacks of 5. Which is hugely destructive but technically due to the overlap it should be treated like a single stack of 25. Using the base method they might be still able to accomplish the same thing but they'd have to use 5 different air bases.

Diabolical wrote:

Actually, I usually don't build Artillery for, at least, a couple days. And I prefer to build Artillery after getting a couple waves of Light Tanks built, first. Of course, I'm not locked into that strategy, but it seems to work best at clearing out a human neighbor or two.

one question I have in regards to the changes.....why would an Anti Air unit have to actually go to the airbase to shoot down an airplane? you shouldnt have to, you should just have to be within striking range of the aircraft to shoot at it