Call of War 1.5: Mechanics & New Balancing

Tasmine wrote:

If freezy really want to import this feature. I'd want to ask you how defender against invaders if one of your urban province being occupied. If both sides has 4 urban area at the begining. You now only 3 provinces can produce units while enemy has 5. And if invaders occupy your rural provinces. You have try to take it back without losing other urban province at the time. It will become an advantage of map side because you only need to focus one direction to other nation. How about the centre of nations? Go to hell?

What's the balance idea of yours? I really want to hear about that. Maybe this is the only way to make us accepted.

Hans A. Pils wrote:

That's clear. Of course the option to give orders with your smartphone whenever you want and wherever you are is very handy. It gives a huge advantage, so naturally almost all players make use of it. But that doesn't mean that it's very important that concepts have to be easily understandable on both platforms. CoW for the majority of players has always worked in a way that the desktop version is where you get your understanding of game concepts and mechanics (and also where you enjoy the game), whereas mobile you only use to give orders during the times you cannot play on a PC.

I'm very sad to see that with 1.5 you're about to let game designs be dictated by the limited feasibilities that smartphones offer and thus let them be dictated by a (so far) minority - by those players who exclusively use smartphones. Sure: By dumbing down the game you'll be attracting more of such players. But it's still very sad, because so many dumb games for mobile already exist, whereas CoW1.0 is strategically challenging and realistic... or in one word great. And with units no longer upgrading automatically it can even be perfectioned in both these respects - if you had that goal.

In the News article on the interview with freezy it's said it was being tried to find a compromise between strategic depth + realism and gameplay. I don't see any compromise in 1.5 so far. There is a small number of changes that doesn't harm either one or the other and is objectively good (primarily units not upgrading automatically any more). But all others only serve to make the game easier to handle overall and easier visualizable on smartphones (in --> this post <-- I list a lot of them), while at the same time degrading strategic profoundness or realism or both. That cannot be called a compromise. It will make the game very unattractive for the current majority of players, who at least sometimes use a PC. Only exclusive smartphone users benefit.

That interview also refered to what we want to change in the upcoming versions of 1.5. So even if you did not see much compromise yet, we want to make more compromises in the next versions. One example will be the balancing in the next event.

Hans A. Pils wrote:

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

A few advancing tanks, as tough as they were, could easily be taken out by infantry if the tanks just attempted to punch through the infantry lines with no regard to infantry carrying explosives and anti tank hand weapons flanking them. While the same few tanks were greatly more efficient with infantry support and acted as moving steel walls for the infantry advance so they couldn't get flanked, and the infantry had protection for the advance.

That's so very true. Infantry had no means to harm tanks, in particular medium or heavy tanks, unless getting very close and not only facing their front-sides. Which was impossible to achieve as long as there was opposing infantry escorting the tanks. For example carrying explosives and attaching them to a tank was suicide if there were a few men of the enemy next to the tank with guns in their hands. Even with bazookas you needed to get very close and ideally to the side or rear of a heavily armoured vehicle to have a reasonable chance to damage it.

So now my suggestion that would make me live with SBDE per total stack size happily:

* Militia, regular infantry, paratroopers, motorized and mechanized infantry get a new characteristic "provides infantry support".

* All heavy armour get a new characteristic "requires infantry support".

* Militia, regular infantry, paratroopers, motorized infantry and Commandos get a new bonus +100% damage to heavy armour with "insufficient infantry support". Which would be defined as more units requiring infantry support than units providing infantry support in the stack.

Displaying a stack with insuffient infantry support could look like this (I bet you're able to design a way more beautiful icon and write a better text

Assumption I made in the above is that the basic damage that militia, regular infantry, paratroopers and motorized infantry does to light armour is less than they do to unarmoured targets and the basic damage they do heavy armour again only 50% of the damage to light armour. Which would result in heavy armour being able to easily overrun infantry, unless having insufficient infantry support.

Which would not only be fully realistic, but also give infantry a sense... a special power which it so far is lacking in CoW. And we would for example see some players build both tanks AND motorized or mechanized infantry in order to use tanks without insufficient infantry support and without slowing them down as the other infantry units would do. Which would be a nice strategical option and - again - very realistic.

EZ Dolittle wrote:

I do not know if that sort of adjustment (infantry support) is a priority concern at the grand tactical level of this game.

I would not direct scarce design program time to it.

A much higher priority would be first to make the mobile and the computer version identical in features where currently there are significant differences between them.

Hans A. Pils wrote:

See it this way: If nothing like either the "infantry support" feature or SBDE-per-unit-type is added to CoW1.5, then we'll end up with pure tanks (or tanks+SPAA) stacks steamrolling thoughtlessly over the board. And nobody who's looking for a strategic or tactical challenge or for a game with WW2 feeling can want that.

Hans A. Pils wrote:

If you have tanks and your enemy has tank destroyers, that would in CoW1.5 make you build a mere infantry stack next to your tanks stack (and then send the infantry stack against the tank destroyers). It still wouldn't make you mix your tanks with infantry in the same stack - which was an essential element in WW2 tactics... as you yourself and I already described.

CoW1.5 with its SBDE-per-total-stack-size system promotes stacks containing very few different unit types. And I'm sure that nobody except for Bytro (for reasons that totally evade me) can want that.

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

Hans A. Pils wrote:

I see it's your hobby to just criticize what other people write, no matter what. But in this topic, I'm on your side. So it makes no sense you criticize the options I describe for how it can be realized what we both want. You contradict yourself.

Yes.

That's how BETTER ideas are born.

Sometimes the criticism shuts that "idea" right down, and shows that it could never work past the glaring flaws. At other times, the criticism inspires reworking, adjusting and turns a mediocre idea into a decent one, then smarter people then me can make it into a great idea. The fact that there are 4 or 5 people "fine tuning" this one from different sides is a good thing.

-------Not to Digress

One thing to consider... SBDE (STATE Based Damage Efficiency) is a very misleading name.... Should rightly be STACK Based Damage Efficiency.

I could have 50 stacks of Artillery x 8 units, in a Province and firing at one target, all doing 100% of their damage without penalty. SBDE ONLY affected combat units that fought on CONTACT, not ranged or air. For it to have any meaningful impact on the game, any new limitations on number of troops in a combat zone would have to consider weather these limits are arbitrarily on Stacks or Provinces.

Results

STACK-BDE - Limit of 10 units per stack or X number of a Class of units per stack are only penalty to the Defender. Attacker can put 10 Stacks of Air units(5/5), 10 stacks of Naval units (3/3) to bombard, and 100 stacks or Artillery ((Doesn't matter if it's Limitations on Unit Classes in a stack or total number of units in the stack, effects are the same) on same target without suffering any penalty while the Defender is handicapped from the start.

STATE-BDE - Only X Number of units in a Province fight at 100%.. All others suffer penalty.

there are some serious misconceptions about the role of tanks, infantry and the use of combinations thereof.

The key feature of WW2 was the use of blitzkrieg tactics. These revolve around finding an enemies key weakness (Schwerpunkt or Centre of Gravity) and rapidly focusing maximum military pressure towards that weakness.

Now this is a strategic or theatre level concept but for us we need to focus on 2 key words used above RAPID and MAXIMUM.

In order to achieve RAPID we need to move faster and decide faster. Much of the move was achieved by the amount of armoured forces deployed via tracked vehicles that were not necessarily confined to roads and tracks. This did not just include tanks but also SP Arty, Engineers and AA. They could move quickly and leave the enemy trying to react at a much slower pace where they did not have the same mobility.

The next thing is MAXIMUM. The concentration of force is a key military principle, espoused first by Von Clausewitz who saw that generals who maintained their forces equal as inefficient and unsuccessful. In order to do this you need to combine all aspects of the combat (armour and infantry) and combat supports arms (engineers and artillery/AA) together to create the Combined Arms approach. This was achieved successfully through the use of radio which allowed a commander to at last control his troops when in combat, something that had only commenced being used towards the end of the first world war. The Germans perfected this during their experience in the Spanish CIvil War. In addition the forward positioning of generals and their ability to move around the battlefield via liasion aircraft (the Storch was key for this) was also key in bringing MAXIMUM combat power RAPIDLY where it would have the most effect.

So having given this context (which is still quite a simplified explanation) how does infantry best support tanks? Well the tank is the best tank killer around, however it becomes weak without air cover (hence Rommel's desert defeat and other instances like the Falaise gap rout), or without infantry support when the ground dictates this (woods/swampy/urban/mountain areas). A tank is at it's best when it can use it's firepower with it's long range in the direct fire role coupled with it's mobility. The areas mentioned before do not allow this and instead provide cover for infantry with satchel charges/molotov cocktails and antitank weapons. Hence in this type of terrain the tank SUPPORTS the Infantry.

In open terrain, the tank alone rules, without infantry. However there will usually be areas in these open terrain situations which become problematic for tanks. Large farmsteads, hamlets, villages, even small copses of trees and woods. So you need infantry to accompany tanks for this kind of situation. Here the infantry supports the tank.

Now here is the trick you are all missing. Infantry in WW2 was largely transported using the LPC (Leather Personnel Carrier) or boots as they were best known, these simply could not keep up with tanks and hence the RAPID was lost as was the MAXIMUM because the combined arms approach could not be followed. The next improvement came with troops following on trucks, not ideal but miles better. Then came the troops following much closer in lightly armoured half tracks that had some protection and greater mobility over rough terrain. With this last we now have RAPID once more togther with maximum.

In order to maintain the RAPID, armies would often skirt around urban cities which could swallow entire armies in slow costly fighting. Stalingrad being the classic example. The Russian march towards Berlin saw them largely avoiding urban areas which were mopped up by slower troops. Like this pressure and contact was maintained with the German retreating forces.

However sometimes we have to deal with urban areas. Here the dismounted Infantry have the upper hand especially as defenders. The tanks have lost their speed as well as the ability to use long range direct fire main armament. Their armour is the only advantage they retain but the infantry have walls to protect them. So now the dismounted infantry calls up the armour (which they protect) as and when they need some heavier firepower to get past some enemy strongpoint. So now the armour supports the infantry . Unfortunately the russians forgot this lesson when they went down to Grozny. Their armour was slaughtered in the streets by infantry firing from upper floors or even basement windows.

Nowadays the idea has been developed further as in for example the British Army which has mech infantry and above that Armoured Infantry. Here the infantry drives at the same pace as a tank in their Armoured Fighting Vehicles. The infantry drives into / onto the enemy position (trench system/small group of farm buildings) and dismount ON the enemy. So closing with the enmy, the most difficult infantry job, is done under armour and high speed (60 - 80kph).

So, think of what we are trying to achieve - fast, shock, action inflicting the max violence on the enemy, in this case the infantry is in support of the tank and needs to keep up and dismount where necessary, mechanised troops for that. That is blitzkrieg.

But some situations require slow dogged infantry work and in this case the tank supports the dismounted foot infantry.

Remember i refered to only 2 combat arms. They are the infantry and armour (tanks). Everyone else is combat support (engineers, arty/aa) of course we also have combat service support (logistics, field hospitals etc).

Infantry are an offensive unit be they foot, motorised, mechanised, airborne, marine or nowadays armoured inf. in some circumstances they support armour in many others they don't. Think of the bocage, urban, marshes as a contrast to the plains of Germany, sands of North Africa or steppes of Russia.

I feel the attack/defence stats and the terrain handicaps already in place are a good representation of real combat in both WW2 and nowadays.

Well done, Bytro.

For further reading try searching for the Boyd Theory or OODA loop, a key battle winner and for desperate situations look up auftragtaktik.

freezy wrote:

you lose one of your urban provinces in the early game in CoW 1.0 the same would happen, because also in CoW 1.0 you start with Industrial Complexes only in urban provinces. You often won't have the resources or the time to build a new fifth IC in a rural province for a counter attack. So I would say in both versions it is equally as difficult to come back from that situation, though it is possible. In 1.5 you will also always start with 5 urbans (some maps need to be reworked then).

I didnt forget Militia, they just have rather week offensive stats, move slowly and also take days to produce, so most likely it is too late by then. Even including Militia, your chances of a successful counter attack in the very early stages of the game are nearly as slim (or big, how you wanna see it) as in CoW1.5. I don't see a problem that is exclusive to 1.5 here. There are of course also other solutions in both versions as well, one could try to conquer the urban provinces of the enemy in return, if he left his core undefended in the early assault.

I really disagree with this statement.

In 1.0, even if you lost one Industrial Center due to surprise, you can still concentrate the rest of your troops, build more dudes

Your opponent is not necessarily able to outproduce you, since he has a resource constraint (like you have), and you have the home defense advantage (shorter production-to-battlefield time, and critically 15% defense for every province you take back.

If you win the war, you get his IC and you may be back in the game.

In 1.5, if you lose a province, you lose almost all production of one of your resources, and tough luck, all units need all resources so if you are unlucky and lost food or crates, you won't be able to build anything.

I have recovered from losing 1 or even 2 of my starting IC in 1.0, I don't think it is really possible in 1.5 if you lose your food or supply production and did not have reserves, and even (except early game when infantry is enough) if you lose steel or oil. And even if you manage to retake the territory because the other guy got you by surprising you with only an handful of units, it will be difficult to rekick production since you need the materials you are lacking to rebuild the production capacity of the province.

Yeah, you cannot make units in some province which I think is horrible. If you turn this game to the WWII version of conflict of nations. As he said, you lose one, you lost a lot of your resource production and you basically lost 1/5 of you cities that you can produce units. I think each game should have their differences and I would like this game to keep itself far away from CON.

Chimere wrote:

In 1.0, even if you lost one Industrial Center due to surprise, you can still concentrate the rest of your troops, build more dudes

Your opponent is not necessarily able to outproduce you, since he has a resource constraint (like you have), and you have the home defense advantage (shorter production-to-battlefield time, and critically 15% defense for every province you take back.

If you win the war, you get his IC and you may be back in the game.

In 1.5, if you lose a province, you lose almost all production of one of your resources, and tough luck, all units need all resources so if you are unlucky and lost food or crates, you won't be able to build anything.

I have recovered from losing 1 or even 2 of my starting IC in 1.0, I don't think it is really possible in 1.5 if you lose your food or supply production and did not have reserves, and even (except early game when infantry is enough) if you lose steel or oil. And even if you manage to retake the territory because the other guy got you by surprising you with only an handful of units, it will be difficult to rekick production since you need the materials you are lacking to rebuild the production capacity of the province.

- In 1.5 you can concentrate the rest of your troops or build more dudes, too.

- In 1.5 your oponents has a resource constraint and also in 1.5 you have the home defense bonus, too

- If you win the war and you get the IC, you are back in the game in both versions. It will be difficult in both versions to rekick the production in the province since in both versions the buildings will get damaged and it could be in both versions that you lost put on exactly that resource that was needed for rebuilding.

- In the next version of 1.5 units/buildings won't cost all resource types anymore. Therefore you will be able to continue producing certain troops even if you lost 1 or 2 resource completely. (ok you could not know that ofc)

So as I see it the main issue with this was that all units costed all resources in the 1st event. With that gone there should not be much of a difference in terms of difficulty dealing with such a situations.

(In 1.0 waiting 2 days for militias to be built in rural provinces+them traveling 1 day to the front; or spending a huge amount of resources for building a new IC lvl1 + waiting 3 days for the new IC and units to be built does not make much of an impact in my eyes in this situation, by that time you are already at a major disadvantage...)

I really see not much of a difference in both versions in a situation where you lose one of your production provinces at the start of the game. It will be nearly the same difficulty to come back from that, with some slight differences. In the end all we do in this discussion right now is theorycrafting, maybe we should all try to play out such situations in the next test event to really see what works and what does not, and do the same in 1.0. Also keep in mind that there still will be alot of balancing changes in the next 1.5 events, probably many issues that we saw in event #1 will be resolved by then.

freezy wrote:

Chimere wrote:

In 1.0, even if you lost one Industrial Center due to surprise, you can still concentrate the rest of your troops, build more dudes

Your opponent is not necessarily able to outproduce you, since he has a resource constraint (like you have), and you have the home defense advantage (shorter production-to-battlefield time, and critically 15% defense for every province you take back.

If you win the war, you get his IC and you may be back in the game.

In 1.5, if you lose a province, you lose almost all production of one of your resources, and tough luck, all units need all resources so if you are unlucky and lost food or crates, you won't be able to build anything.

I have recovered from losing 1 or even 2 of my starting IC in 1.0, I don't think it is really possible in 1.5 if you lose your food or supply production and did not have reserves, and even (except early game when infantry is enough) if you lose steel or oil. And even if you manage to retake the territory because the other guy got you by surprising you with only an handful of units, it will be difficult to rekick production since you need the materials you are lacking to rebuild the production capacity of the province.

Hm almost all points in your argument apply totally to both versions:

- In 1.5 you can concentrate the rest of your troops or build more dudes, too.

- In 1.5 your oponents has a resource constraint and also in 1.5 you have the home defense bonus, too

- If you win the war and you get the IC, you are back in the game in both versions. It will be difficult in both versions to rekick the production in the province since in both versions the buildings will get damaged and it could be in both versions that you lost put on exactly that resource that was needed for rebuilding.

- In the next version of 1.5 units/buildings won't cost all resource types anymore. Therefore you will be able to continue producing certain troops even if you lost 1 or 2 resource completely. (ok you could not know that ofc)

So as I see it the main issue with this was that all units costed all resources in the 1st event. With that gone there should not be much of a difference in terms of difficulty dealing with such a situations.

(In 1.0 waiting 2 days for militias to be built in rural provinces+them traveling 1 day to the front; or spending a huge amount of resources for building a new IC lvl1 + waiting 3 days for the new IC and units to be built does not make much of an impact in my eyes in this situation, by that time you are already at a major disadvantage...)

I really see not much of a difference in both versions in a situation where you lose one of your production provinces at the start of the game. It will be nearly the same difficulty to come back from that, with some slight differences. In the end all we do in this discussion right now is theorycrafting, maybe we should all try to play out such situations in the next test event to really see what works and what does not, and do the same in 1.0. Also keep in mind that there still will be alot of balancing changes in the next 1.5 events, probably many issues that we saw in event #1 will be resolved by then.

if you don't have resource reserves (which is likely to happen early game) and a player takes your City in 1.5, if that city is one of those resources you need to build infantry, then you have lost since you cannot build units anymore (or you have to rely on the puny non-city production).

In 1.0, the other guys need to take 3 provinces to totally cut your access to a resource and cripple your opponent, IN ADDITION (and independantly) to taking the IC. In 1.5, one is enough.

Probably they only reply to messages that contradict to 1.0

true Chimere, your point is clearer now. Taking that one commodity out of the picture is easier in 1.5 than 1.0 and hurts even more in early game.

Chimere wrote:

freezy wrote:

Chimere wrote:

In 1.0, even if you lost one Industrial Center due to surprise, you can still concentrate the rest of your troops, build more dudes

Your opponent is not necessarily able to outproduce you, since he has a resource constraint (like you have), and you have the home defense advantage (shorter production-to-battlefield time, and critically 15% defense for every province you take back.

If you win the war, you get his IC and you may be back in the game.

In 1.5, if you lose a province, you lose almost all production of one of your resources, and tough luck, all units need all resources so if you are unlucky and lost food or crates, you won't be able to build anything.

I have recovered from losing 1 or even 2 of my starting IC in 1.0, I don't think it is really possible in 1.5 if you lose your food or supply production and did not have reserves, and even (except early game when infantry is enough) if you lose steel or oil. And even if you manage to retake the territory because the other guy got you by surprising you with only an handful of units, it will be difficult to rekick production since you need the materials you are lacking to rebuild the production capacity of the province.

Hm almost all points in your argument apply totally to both versions:- In 1.5 you can concentrate the rest of your troops or build more dudes, too.

- In 1.5 your oponents has a resource constraint and also in 1.5 you have the home defense bonus, too

- If you win the war and you get the IC, you are back in the game in both versions. It will be difficult in both versions to rekick the production in the province since in both versions the buildings will get damaged and it could be in both versions that you lost put on exactly that resource that was needed for rebuilding.

- In the next version of 1.5 units/buildings won't cost all resource types anymore. Therefore you will be able to continue producing certain troops even if you lost 1 or 2 resource completely. (ok you could not know that ofc)

So as I see it the main issue with this was that all units costed all resources in the 1st event. With that gone there should not be much of a difference in terms of difficulty dealing with such a situations.

(In 1.0 waiting 2 days for militias to be built in rural provinces+them traveling 1 day to the front; or spending a huge amount of resources for building a new IC lvl1 + waiting 3 days for the new IC and units to be built does not make much of an impact in my eyes in this situation, by that time you are already at a major disadvantage...)

I really see not much of a difference in both versions in a situation where you lose one of your production provinces at the start of the game. It will be nearly the same difficulty to come back from that, with some slight differences. In the end all we do in this discussion right now is theorycrafting, maybe we should all try to play out such situations in the next test event to really see what works and what does not, and do the same in 1.0. Also keep in mind that there still will be alot of balancing changes in the next 1.5 events, probably many issues that we saw in event #1 will be resolved by then.

You missed my point, though it could have been clearer.

if you don't have resource reserves (which is likely to happen early game) and a player takes your City in 1.5, if that city is one of those resources you need to build infantry, then you have lost since you cannot build units anymore (or you have to rely on the puny non-city production).

In 1.0, the other guys need to take 3 provinces to totally cut your access to a resource and cripple your opponent, IN ADDITION (and independantly) to taking the IC. In 1.5, one is enough.

Some observations which 1.5 has a chance to address before it follows in the shortcoming of 1.0

Resources

I'm hard pressed to think of a single City, which produced food during the 1940's. Most cities were CONSUMING resources faster than producing them, with the exception of "Manpower". Every farmer will tell you "Farms feed Cities".... it has NEVER been the other way around. So Food production should NEVER be from cities.

I do know a few towns which have sprung up around resources, then faded out of existence just as quickly, but for cities, Real Cities, they exist because of location on river route, or transportation routes, or at mountain passes, but they rarely are the source of anything. Cities were the destination of resources which would then be made into something.... so I do like the idea of not being able to build IC's all over the place but having to "Centralize" production.

Throughout Texas for example, Oil is being pumped from the ground while cattle graze around the oil wells.... so multiple resources produces in same province should be normal... Food was produced EVERYWHERE... not just a few Key spots..

Every province should be producing a variety of resources... and the cumulative effect of that production is what drives the economy of a country... 2 province feeding an entire nation.. just doesn't make sense.

Factories in Captured Territory

This again is another thing that disturbs the order of what was WWII. All Sherman tanks made during WWII were made in USA (with one facility in Canada). NONE of them were ever built in cities and factories USA captured in France, Italy, Africa, Pacific. Not a one. All were built in North America.

So the concept of capturing facilities then making YOUR units elsewhere just doesn't belong in WWII history.

Time

What is the Real Time Equivalent of 1 Day of Game Time?

Knowing the answer to that question would now put so many other aspects of the game into perspective. Unit Speed. Combat TICK speed (why an hour?.. an I'm making all time references to the normal speed games). By the end of WWII, ships were making the USA to UK trip in under a week... how does that compare with units marching across the fields of Europe. Naval units in game move approx 1/3 the speed they should truly be moving if we put them beside land units.

Air... to me it's about 10 times slower than it should be and ranges severely handycapped.

Rockets

In the hands of a knowledgeable player, rockets are the Bane of every Air Force. Reality was that they were inaccurate, unreliable (less than 50% hit their intended "target") and if your target was anything but a 10 km x 10 km City... your chance of hitting it was less than 1 in 10. Even the last rockets fired during the war, no one tried to hit a neighbourhood... they were happy if said rocket hit land.. any land... London was pure fluke bonus!

There were two separate V2 rocket hits which caused mass casualties, 160 and 106 fatalities, but of the 3,700+ V2's fired, they only cause 2,700 casualties total. That's an average of 0.86 fatalities per rocket.. at a cost 3x that of the Manhattan project.

The in game rockets are Smart Bombs compared to what V2's were actually capable of doing.

That's something I'd like to see more accurately represented. Air Forces were fought with Air Forces.. and nothing else made a dent in that other than Fuel shortages.

Resource Shortages

This is something that should affect game play much more than it does. Germany's attack of Russia was motivated by wanting to get to the Oil Reserves of the Caucuses. We see that in game. Yet fuels shortages are irrelevant on game play. Food and Fuel shortage should affect game units, not just country moral. Hungry soldiers did not fight. No vroom vroom for the Panthers if no diesel in the tank. Those elements should be reflected in unit performance, not just production and weather I have enough to build it...

Supply Depos/Lines

I'd just be plugging my suggestion here in another thread, but units did not fight in isolation of their supplies. Would like to see that represented somehow as well.

Map Movement Paths

I get strongest impression that a 12 year old who's never looked at a map (but really wanted to), is responsible for making the Movement Paths on these maps.

I can move through the Amazon (which even today has no roads crossing it East to West or North to South... Iquitos is a city of over 500,000 people in the middle of the Amazon and it's only connection to the outside world is boat or airplane ( today.. in 2020), yet in 1942 my infantry unit and super fast AC can zoom across that, then go for a spin through Siberia...

I'd love to see a map where the roads around the Amazon, Pantanal, Siberia and Northern Canada are representative of what those lands still ar today... barely passable. (The headwaters of the Amazon River were only discovered in last 5 years ! )

At the same time.. Rivers made a huge impact on how armies moved, would be interesting to see an improvement made to the maps, not just units and economies.

Well, here we are again Squirrel.

I only have one question for you and it is a simple Yes or No Answer.

Is there anything about Call of War you do like?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

General cdub

Lol maybe it starts to go off . . It is probably obvious that he does like something if we do drop the sarcasm here. But one question for other players maybe what parts of the game do you think needs the most improvement or implementation?

It's all valid criticism but then again COW Is not a simulation. Whilst he complains of food in cities he should realise that the same applies to rares etc. Cities should be looked at as processing centres. The oil from the wells, the steel girders and ball bearings, the processed ores in rares, the refining of wheat and grain into flour, cakes etc are all prepared near cities in oil refineries, smelters, bakeries etc which are at the very least on the edges of population centres.

Many things in the game are to be taken at simple representations and not actuality.

To make COW fun, I believe COW being as a simulation will make things realistic and more enjoyable for us. If it is not a simulation what is it? Dont say game because that's obvious I believe it is both game and simulation.

CoW is a simulation [viewed from 30,000 feet], and that's why most people are here.

I was just trying to highlight the biggest and most glaring "discrepancies". In business world there is a term to describe such abnormalities.

They are the "Low hanging fruit"

Meaning they are the easiest items, which get greatest results for least amount of work.

Food for example, every plains or hills province should be producing food. Only Mountains, forests and deserts would not... Instant realism

Factory Location and Time. If you're fighting in your own Core... you've already lost, ask Poland, France and any other WWII nation that saw enemy units in it's Core provinces. Units should be moving "faster" to the front but built in owner's Core. As an example, first thing Soviets did when they grabbed Germany, is they dismantled EVERY SINGLE factory, steel mill, smelter and manufacturing facility then SHIPPED them back to Soviet Core and reassembled them there. China did the same thing as Japan advanced... dismantled it's manufacturing facilities and moved it all West to the interior of the country and away from coast near Japan.

Most of you, like me came here to play the game and NOT for the the graphics... yet it's the graphics that seem to be be getting most of the attention. While the game mechanics and basic game concepts have been left forgotten.

So with CoW 1.5 arriving, thought addressing a few key foundation concepts of the game would be in order.

CoW 1.0 has, for the most part, found a balance in capturing many of the elements of WWII. CoW 1.5 should step that up where possible.

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

Some observations which 1.5 has a chance to address before it follows in the shortcoming of 1.0

Resources

I'm hard pressed to think of a single City, which produced food during the 1940's. Most cities were CONSUMING resources faster than producing them, with the exception of "Manpower". Every farmer will tell you "Farms feed Cities".... it has NEVER been the other way around. So Food production should NEVER be from cities.

I do know a few towns which have sprung up around resources, then faded out of existence just as quickly, but for cities, Real Cities, they exist because of location on river route, or transportation routes, or at mountain passes, but they rarely are the source of anything. Cities were the destination of resources which would then be made into something.... so I do like the idea of not being able to build IC's all over the place but having to "Centralize" production.

Throughout Texas for example, Oil is being pumped from the ground while cattle graze around the oil wells.... so multiple resources produces in same province should be normal... Food was produced EVERYWHERE... not just a few Key spots..

Every province should be producing a variety of resources... and the cumulative effect of that production is what drives the economy of a country... 2 province feeding an entire nation.. just doesn't make sense.

Factories in Captured Territory

This again is another thing that disturbs the order of what was WWII. All Sherman tanks made during WWII were made in USA (with one facility in Canada). NONE of them were ever built in cities and factories USA captured in France, Italy, Africa, Pacific. Not a one. All were built in North America.

So the concept of capturing facilities then making YOUR units elsewhere just doesn't belong in WWII history.

Time

What is the Real Time Equivalent of 1 Day of Game Time?

Knowing the answer to that question would now put so many other aspects of the game into perspective. Unit Speed. Combat TICK speed (why an hour?.. an I'm making all time references to the normal speed games). By the end of WWII, ships were making the USA to UK trip in under a week... how does that compare with units marching across the fields of Europe. Naval units in game move approx 1/3 the speed they should truly be moving if we put them beside land units.

Air... to me it's about 10 times slower than it should be and ranges severely handycapped.

Rockets

In the hands of a knowledgeable player, rockets are the Bane of every Air Force. Reality was that they were inaccurate, unreliable (less than 50% hit their intended "target") and if your target was anything but a 10 km x 10 km City... your chance of hitting it was less than 1 in 10. Even the last rockets fired during the war, no one tried to hit a neighbourhood... they were happy if said rocket hit land.. any land... London was pure fluke bonus!

There were two separate V2 rocket hits which caused mass casualties, 160 and 106 fatalities, but of the 3,700+ V2's fired, they only cause 2,700 casualties total. That's an average of 0.86 fatalities per rocket.. at a cost 3x that of the Manhattan project.

The in game rockets are Smart Bombs compared to what V2's were actually capable of doing.

That's something I'd like to see more accurately represented. Air Forces were fought with Air Forces.. and nothing else made a dent in that other than Fuel shortages.

Resource Shortages

This is something that should affect game play much more than it does. Germany's attack of Russia was motivated by wanting to get to the Oil Reserves of the Caucuses. We see that in game. Yet fuels shortages are irrelevant on game play. Food and Fuel shortage should affect game units, not just country moral. Hungry soldiers did not fight. No vroom vroom for the Panthers if no diesel in the tank. Those elements should be reflected in unit performance, not just production and weather I have enough to build it...

Supply Depos/Lines

I'd just be plugging my suggestion here in another thread, but units did not fight in isolation of their supplies. Would like to see that represented somehow as well.

Map Movement Paths

I get strongest impression that a 12 year old who's never looked at a map (but really wanted to), is responsible for making the Movement Paths on these maps.

I can move through the Amazon (which even today has no roads crossing it East to West or North to South... Iquitos is a city of over 500,000 people in the middle of the Amazon and it's only connection to the outside world is boat or airplane ( today.. in 2020), yet in 1942 my infantry unit and super fast AC can zoom across that, then go for a spin through Siberia...

I'd love to see a map where the roads around the Amazon, Pantanal, Siberia and Northern Canada are representative of what those lands still ar today... barely passable. (The headwaters of the Amazon River were only discovered in last 5 years ! )

At the same time.. Rivers made a huge impact on how armies moved, would be interesting to see an improvement made to the maps, not just units and economies.

1) We regard cities more as the resource processing centers. Usually alot of the raw materials are shipped to industrial centers for further processing. Also the game is a simplification and alot of steps and processes are not shown on the map, e.g. ammunition and supply lines for units. The same goes for resources. Now that we remove consumption of provinces it does not mean that it was not there in reality, just that we don't show that part anymore. So you can assume that provinces also produce and receive additional resources for their own upkeep.

In terms of gameplay reason, we want to give a higher focus on urban provinces and also get a more even spread between the importance of the resources, enabling more varied strategies. It is also much easier to balance. Having a map where resources are placed where their raw materials are produced would result in a very imbalanced map with huge country differences.

2) True but that would make the game less playable and again would create huge imbalances between countries. Usually in the game players still produce most of their troops in their core territory, as there their industry is save and most advanced. Also, just because it was not done in RL does not mean that it was not possible to do. Some aspects in Call of War follow the "what if" route and allow players to play out WW2 as they would have done it. That means for example that also tiny nations could invest heavily in certain tech branches that they did not historically do, or that a nation could decide that it wants to produce their units in conquered territory instead of only doing it in their core.

3) Time is a hard thing to completely balance historically while keeping the game playable. Usually we regard one ingame day as several real life months. But there is not a hard number that can be used in an equation to put every time value in the game relative to one another.The same goes for distance. It would just be too hard to achieve and balance it right, and it is also a very minor aspect that usually no one mentions. Therefore we are not too concernced that not everything lines up perfectly. Also keep in mind again that the game map is an abstraction. It does not show everything. Just because a battle progresses in 1 hour intervalls does not mean that no attacks would happen in between or that both armies would be perfectly standing still. We just don't show that stuff on the map and simplify it for gameplay reasons.

4) You are certainly right that rockets were no precision weapons in WW2. That said, in the game units are not single units, but represent batallions etc. That also means that one rocket fired represents more than one rocket fired. So one could imagine that of dozen rockets being fired one would hit something. Other than that, the rockets were largely included as they are because they are just more fun to use that way. If they had their RL accuracy probably no one would build them and they would be useless.

One has to say though that the lower rocket casualties in WW2 largely also stem from misinformation campaigns by the allies. The Germans thought that their rockets fell short due to the info they received from double agents and false newspaper reports etc., when in fact they were hitting their target. As a result they adjusted trajectories and alot of rockets overshot after that. Historicians estimated that rocket casualties would have been way higher otherwise. But that only as a sidenote.

Rockets are not able to target patroling airplanes anymore since an update last year because it was indeed too unrealistic.

You can at least look forward a little bit to the rocket balancing in 1.5 because their building damage got relatively raised and their troop damage got relatively lowered compared to 1.0. That should make them already more realistic than in the old version.

5) True, would make more sense if troops are affected as well. It was just not implemented that way in the engine. May be a possible feature in the future and is already on the long list of feature suggestions.

6) While supply lines would be a nice feature, it would also be a complicated and expensive feature. We dabbled a bit with ideas around that in the past and we realized that it would be a big feature to implement, but at what opportunity cost? In the end the game is a simplification as I said and supply routes are just not shown. That said this is also on our long list of suggested features.

7) It's of course possible that we work on a map in the future where we have more impassable areas in the map. It was just not a priority when making the maps, where the map was rather seen as a strategic and abstract map than a tactical map with all kinds of obstacles. The roads drawn in the map do not represent actual historic/geografic roads, but are just a simplification of all the roads and paths that possibly exist in that country. Same goes for the rivers. Other than that it is also not easily doable to represent rivers in the game. I mean rivers where you also have bridges and stuff. But also they are on the list of suggested features and we certainly would like them as well (just like many other features).

Hope I could give some perspective on things.

Captain Hurricane wrote:

It's all valid criticism but then again COW Is not a simulation. Whilst he complains of food in cities he should realise that the same applies to rares etc. Cities should be looked at as processing centres. The oil from the wells, the steel girders and ball bearings, the processed ores in rares, the refining of wheat and grain into flour, cakes etc are all prepared near cities in oil refineries, smelters, bakeries etc which are at the very least on the edges of population centres.

Many things in the game are to be taken at simple representations and not actuality.

Ryan04px2025 wrote:

To make COW fun, I believe COW being as a simulation will make things realistic and more enjoyable for us. If it is not a simulation what is it? Dont say game because that's obvious I believe it is both game and simulation.

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

Food and Fuel shortage should affect game units, not just country moral. Hungry soldiers did not fight. No vroom vroom for the Panthers if no diesel in the tank.

and armor units lost mobility (moved slower) when fuel was gone.