CoW balancing changelog - 2020-07-14

Nn gg wrote:

Yeah... somehow i get 700/h in my match...

Nice discussion on Industry and Local Industry. We want both buildings to be worthwhile of course, and right know I would say they are also balanced in that way.

El Cazador wrote:

there was a stealth anti-tank in an urban province, the blind saw the unit (new map, speed event 6), and then sent 10 tacticians to shoot down the anti-tank. But it turned out that my tactics led to damage to the tank, as the unit did not undergo any changes. It was when an idea to attack directly, and then it was like the anti-tank. Would that be a bug?

RiverWolf74 wrote:

Nn gg wrote:

Yeah... somehow i get 700/h in my match...

Ya I once built max level industries in all my core provinces in a game as New Zealand and my manpower production went up to +1200/h, but it still was only just enough.

Nn gg wrote:

RiverWolf74 wrote:

Nn gg wrote:

Yeah... somehow i get 700/h in my match...

Ya I once built max level industries in all my core provinces in a game as New Zealand and my manpower production went up to +1200/h, but it still was only just enough.

yeah I got 700/h for almost every province got industry/local industry in greater Romania

freezy wrote:

UNSC_Scerbs wrote:

freezy wrote:

Well we have a graph that shows us the wins per faction, and right now it is pretty balanced. We will keep monitoring it.

Is there a way for players to see?

No, that's internal only, sorry. Maybe we will publish some selected and curated stats in the future. But as I said, the wins per Doctrine are reasonably close to each other with some fluctuations here and there. It also depends on the map and if its a coalition win or solo win.

By the way, I am curious: Did anyone of you already play a game with the new balancing, that was released mid of July? Only rounds after that date have the new balancing.

I would like to hear some impressions on the changes, especially regarding the new stealth/scout units, morale based production time and the expansion factor.

Also do you think there currently is still a unit in the game with is far too powerful for its price and unlock date, or far too weak? If so please also describe your reasoning.

I really like the Stealth ability on militias, they are like cheap commandos now

freezy wrote:

By the way, I am curious: Did anyone of you already play a game with the new balancing, that was released mid of July? Only rounds after that date have the new balancing.

I would like to hear some impressions on the changes, especially regarding the new stealth/scout units, morale based production time and the expansion factor.

Also do you think there currently is still a unit in the game with is far too powerful for its price and unlock date, or far too weak? If so please also describe your reasoning.

As for the new morale based changes, they added another layer of realism to the game and now it seems that morale management has become a more important part of gameplay.

I love the new changes.

When are we getting a unit icon update it's been a while since the last one

Freezy

First I want to congratulate you for the great and beautiful work you are doing. I'm loving every update that they do in 1.5 and keep it up, they are perfect there is nothing to complain about. Of course, over time it will balance things out. The only thing that intrigues me is about the life of the units. I spend days and days with them in a protected place to recover their HP, but they are still damaged. Is there no possibility for you to create a "hospital" building to house your troops to recover their energy? Because with the skills of the units I produce, I need to leave them unusable to recover energy, or use them until I die, it would cost me more money to produce, as the hospital recovered faster and could return to war!

El Patron - wrote:

Freezy

First I want to congratulate you for the great and beautiful work you are doing. I'm loving every update that they do in 1.5 and keep it up, they are perfect there is nothing to complain about. Of course, over time it will balance things out. The only thing that intrigues me is about the life of the units. I spend days and days with them in a protected place to recover their HP, but they are still damaged. Is there no possibility for you to create a "hospital" building to house your troops to recover their energy? Because with the skills of the units I produce, I need to leave them unusable to recover energy, or use them until I die, it would cost me more money to produce, as the hospital recovered faster and could return to war!

Do you think I don't know?

anti-tank units are in trouble in the mountains. They are not being sneaky.

One thing I hated was that, destroying a scout unit, it doesn't make sense, in the second war, these ships were sunk by submarine. But now, if the player sees the destroyer, it can be 1 destroyer level 1 komintern against 10 submarine level 4 of the axis, even so the submarine is useless. This afternoon it happened that I am an axle and the guy manages to escape with the fleet of battleships calm and shooting at my submarines that I am trying to catch, I will never catch, even in forced march, since both are in forced march. That is why I think that the submarine unit of the axis doctrine is simply not useful!

prnt.sc/tqq8i6

THEME REVIEW ASIAN

having just about finished with my first experience with the Asian theme I have to say I like it over the others for the following reason which may not have been intended:

The increased visibility means that airpower on Patrol has a far far greater ground coverage than anyone else. This allows for more attacks on passing through units as well as identifications of stealth units etc.

The increase speed is important as well in doing raids with scout cars and the long distance hauls across the Pacific or other waters.

The reduction in Hit points is not that significant because of the increase in sighting allows you to avoid unfavorable attacks if you happen to be on line a lot.

MANPOWER INFANTRY AND MILITIA

Continuing with the multiple 1.5 beta tests there is still a manpower shortage and that again hurts the employment of infantry and militia units. Infantry was the backbone of most armies in this period yet looking at the units that are around at the end they are very very small minority. I believe a lot of this is because the cost effectiveness relative to the manpower costs and the maintenance.

I would suggest that Manpower costs be reduced by 33-45% for both militia and infantry and that would allow for greater employment of the units as a viable alternative to other forms of weapon systems.

To increase the projected labor force, it is enough to build the local industry in provinces without resources, as they produce or double the labor force than any other province.

freezy wrote:

By the way, I am curious: Did anyone of you already play a game with the new balancing, that was released mid of July? Only rounds after that date have the new balancing.

I would like to hear some impressions on the changes, especially regarding the new stealth/scout units, morale based production time and the expansion factor.

Also do you think there currently is still a unit in the game with is far too powerful for its price and unlock date, or far too weak? If so please also describe your reasoning.

As a quick summary:

I have not really experienced the new stealth/scout units to comment on yet. I am building AC in all stacks tho to eliminate the risk of the enemy using them against me. And have also been running around quite successfully with commandoes

Moral based production times I like and don't like. For troop production times I do like this. I think it balanced the game well meaning new fronts cannot suddenly produce troops as fast. It also makes me feel my core industry is more valuable as it produces troops faster. I would really like a + modifier for 100%, I myself am okay without it, but my team playing my 100 map are all feeling the new mechanic is just a penalty mechanic as there is no real + for having high moral. High moral means you just don't have a penalty rather then getting a benefit from it. Figured I would add others feedback here.

Moral based building times I really dislike. I feel it really slows the game down. Early game when I want new production centres (my first nation conquest) it kind of sucks to have to wait over 2x as long to build my next factory. Additionally, it takes 10+ hours just to build a lvl 1 infra (which would increase moral). But my least favourite aspect about it and if this was not an issue moral based building times I would not care about so much is AB build times. I loved how it would take 2h to build a new AB. Both for attacking but esp for if I simply missed an AB it was easier to place down a new one. 2h takes a while. But it is easily manageable. Enemy suddenly comes from a new front after I take some new land I can quickly respond with a new AB... now it takes 5h 14 mins at 25% to build 1 AB which is sooo long. Additionally, all troops movement is now faster in 1.5. Planes are slower with their 30 min refuel times. With the addition of taking 5h 14 mins to build new forward ABs, the pace of the war is much slower. I believe using both ground troops and air is the most effective army, but now my armies are all waiting for ABs to be constructed. My ground units cannot progress as the ABs are not built, as my strategy involves using air and ground power, moving forward without air is quite risky.

If there was a method of making moral based troop production times a thing and not having it impact buildings that would be my ideal

Expansion factor so far I am liking. Only receiving a -8 penalty rn and day 13 so im yet to fully experience it so I will wait to comment on this. I will say I might change this opinion, but so far I do like this feature as it adds something to think about the more land you take. (just built an infra in my core cities about 18h ago). I also see my enemy with a 95% moral in his capital but 0 infra which is quite nice as he clearly is neglecting his morale management.

So far I feel most troops are well balanced, I will make a longer list once this AvA game is over. My current major troop I feel is both too OP and then too UP (under powered) is the rail road gun.

Early game this troop is a monster, but late game it becomes quite weak. It is soooo slow by the end of the game I couldn't use it. Additionally, its damage values early game are quite solid, additionally as we have less troops it is harder to deal with. Later game its stats are really weak and not enough to be a threat. I think a lvl 1 and a lvl 2 option for the RRG would be quite practical. Lowering its stats slightly at lvl 1. (keep speed the same), then up the damage and speed at maybe day 12-14 to let this unit be useable later on.

Strat bombers I also feel are way too expensive given they don't really work atm. This is something you have already explained to me but wanted to mention. Given building damage is not working quite right, having strats be so expensive and not do their one job well means they just feel super useless. I don't have the data, but I doubt many players are using strats. Esp experienced players. Perhaps if they where half the price, they could be used more. Once the building damage is fixed, they go back to their current cost. Small thing but something. I just don't see strats being effective rn. In a previous game an ally with allies doctrine tried them and they really sucked and felt like a huge waste of rss.

I just entered into a lovely 1v3 last night so I will get a much better idea of how different units perform during this fight. Again I will write more once my AvA game is done. but for now my time is focused on that.

Regarding someone hospital comment. I was actually thinking of this, about 2 days ago and was planning on writing an idea for it here.

I saw it a lot in 1.0. But in that mode generally most troops had high condition as 1 troop would die, then push the condition back up. So a dedicated location to heal troops was less useful.But with the new combat mechanics of troops living at 20% with large numbers still.

In 1.5 I am seeing 30 stack at 5% condition. Just last night I was bombing a 19 stack at 100% condition. but at 23% condition it had 17 troops. All really low. And lets just say I lost the fight then so these 17 troops survived. Well now this poor player has 17 useless troops as they are super weak, super slow, and still costing a mint to upkeep. Now im writing this I see a legit strat of bombing troops to 10% condition then leaving them alive to ruin the enemy as now he has slow weak troops that still have loads of upkeep.

An ally also has 27 planes at 15% condition. These troops are pretty much useless for weeks now as they take ages to heal up which is quite frustrating tbh as we gotta still pay for these troops but not use them for ages.

The new combat mechanics now mean large amounts of troops survive battles but with super low conditions. I had 28 planes bomb that 19 stack, I wiped them all with 0 losses. Something that in 1.0 was super rare. But my condition fell about 19%. Minimum stacks lose troops at 50% condition, whereas in 1.0 troops died around 80%, then back to 100%, or a single troop got down to 10% so a hospital was not really needed/useful. Now I see it being almost necessary to heal back these troops at super low conditions. I am not trying to say this is a problem in the new mechanics, but just how they are working.

As such, my idea for a hospital would be the following:

3-5 lvls on it.

I think 3 lvls would be ideal. Lvl 1 gives a 5% condition boost, lvl 2 gives a 12% and lvl 3 gives a 20% boost. (Same as the previous version of infra, possibly this should even be increased as 20% boost at 40% condition still would take a fair while to heal back up). I know this sounds like quite possible OP. On average troops get down to at least 50% (I am finding troops are living at 20% and even lower). I think this is quite fair and anything more and it would take too long. As if a stack is wiped down to 40%, and is retreating back, likely you either lost a fight, or if you did not you just sent back your army so now your front is weaker. If lets say it took 1 week to heal. Then I would say likely that is too long as by the time the troops heal you likely are dead. I also think it should heal a strong amount as otherwise why build it? Ofc Freezy will have a better idea of how to best balance this, I am just giving my thoughts to demonstrate how I see the hospital being used. But the healing % of damage received will mean troops at lower condition will benefit the most from the hospital which I would say is idea.

However, to balance out the high healing amounts. I would say lvl 1 should take 12 hours, lvl 2 24 hours, lvl 3 36 hours. This I believe would ensure these hospitals are far back enough so that you need to travel a decent distance to get to them. And if built on a front line, it takes 3 days to build up which is a hefty duration. I personally think any longer would favour experienced players too much.

For example, I would know to build hospitals, so I start building one. My enemy, a slightly newer player does not build one, after I damage his army, or vice versa I have already built the hospital, the enemy has not and now starts to do so. 3 days is enough so I have an advantage, but as said above, 3 days to heal as well means by the time my troops are healed, the enemy will have built his hospital up and had already some condition boost from lvl 1 and 2. Also a 4+ day build means if I need a hospital built/want to build one closer to the front by the time it is done, the front may have moved too much. 3 days just feels right.

But ofc all those numbers are just suggestions.

I do really think with these new mechanics and stacks living at 20% with 20+ troops means we need a method of healing troops up higher.

I find it sad to think how if 2 armies fo 20 troops face each other. 1 army loses, the 2nd army has their troops down to 15% condition and 16 troops. They won the battle. But these troops are now realistically useless for weeks. So they kind of did lose this battle. And now they gotta pay the upkeep on these weak troops.

I also believe CoN has hospitals? I have not played that, but perhaps that means a hospital would be less difficult to implement? Just a hope really as I don't know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I would be curious about this as an idea.

Edit: Hopefully this post makes sense to read. I've been writing it for a few days on and off as this AvA game continues so normally I write at one time and send that day, this has been a few days to write so hopefully it still flows well and makes sense

Torpedo2000