CoW1.5 Event #2 - Detailed Balancing descriptions

Welcome to the secret forum, General!

We hope nobody followed you. The fact that you consult us here, surely proves that you completed the general briefing issued for all generals. Let’s talk about some more details on what changes you can expect when facing the enemy in our second test event for Call of War 1.5.

The following list describes what we changed from CoW1.5 Event #1 to CoW1.5 Event #2, it does not describe changes from the current CoW 1.0 version to CoW 1.5. Those changes were explained in the news for the first CoW 1.5 Event.

General Balancing:

• Based on the community’s feedback, units and buildings do not require every kind of resource anymore. This is to allow players to fine tune their economic strategy more. [list]
• Buildings and units now never require more than 3 different main resources, meaning that at least 2 resources are not needed to produce them.

• Cost and build times were adjusted all over the board

[*]In order to improve the general overview, we implemented “Ordnance” as a production and research category.

• The following units are part of this new category:

• - Anti Air

• - Anti Tank

• - Artillery

• - SP Artillery

• - SP Anti Air

• As part of this rework we changed the name of the Armored category to Tanks, and moved the Mechanized Infantry from the Tank to the Infantry category.

[/list]Map Balancing:

• We realized that providing Aircraft Industry right from the start skews player’s early game strategy too much into the air tech branch. [list]
• As we want players to be free to choose any strategy they like, without the game directing them too much into a certain direction, we decided to remove Aircraft Industries from all countries.

• All countries are now equipped with one Airstrip and one airplane in a non-urban province at the beginning of a gameround to still allow for early scouting.

[*]Based on the community’s feedback we diversified resource allocation among countries.

• We removed 1 non-urban resource and added 2 different non-urban resources per playable country.

• Playable countries are now more diverse in terms of available resources.

• This will make it necessary to adjust strategies according to available resources on the map.

[*]Due to player feedback we increased Money and Manpower production in all provinces by 20%. [/list]Unit Balancing:

• Based on the community’s feedback we reduced the progression and power gain per unit level. The next unit level is now roughly 30% stronger than the previous one. [list]
• Researching and upgrading units to the next level will still give you an advantage, but does not create too much of a disadvantage for the opposing player.

• Having a relative instead of a non-linear increase also makes the progression more consistent.

• Since all unit values were changed across the board due to this, the following balancing changes listed are meant as being applied after this rebalancing.

[*]To make production easier, you are now able to produce units of any level in a level 1 building.

• There are no building level requirements anymore.

• Once a new unit level is researched, the previous unit level cannot be produced anymore.

• The maximum production time of a unit increases significantly per level.

• From now on leveling up the production buildings greatly reduces the production time of units, at level 5 a building reduces the production time to only 6% of its initial maximum duration.

• Each unit now has a minimum production time: The production time cannot be decreased below this value.

• - This was done for balancing reasons: Since buildings now provide a large production speed boost, lower level units would become overpowered if they did not have a minimum production time. Leveling up production buildings therefore grants little to no boost for lower unit levels, but very high boosts for higher unit levels.

[*]We took a detailed look at all unit levels and balanced them in context of other unit levels which are available on the same day. [*]We reduced damage and hit points of transport ships as they were perceived as too strong. [*]We adjusted some unit roles to be more in line with their historic background, while still having them fulfill different roles:

• Tank Destroyers are now defensive focused.

• Medium Tanks are now offensive focused.

• Heavy Tanks now have equal defensive and offensive capabilities.

[*]According to community feedback we reduced the gap between offensive focused and defensive focused damage values for most ground units by approx. 50%.

• This makes sure that offensive focused units still have an impact when defending and defensive focused units still have an impact when attacking an opponent, so that they are a bit easier to use.

[*]We improved the overall damage of Commando units and changed their role: They now are more effective against light armored targets, using sabotage and explosives. [*]We increased costs and production times for nuclear weapons.

• This should ensure that usage of nuclear weapons is an extraordinary event in game rounds.

[*]We reduced the build time gap and increased the damage gap between build times of Flying Bombs and level 1 Rockets to make switching to rockets in the early game worthwhile. [*]We reduced build times for Militias and made them less dependent on building level upgrades. This gives Militias the role of a swiftly produced counter unit. [*]We changed the terrain bonus for Anti Tank units from 50% when stationed in an urban province to 25% when stationed in an urban province, and 25% when stationed in a province with hills or forests. [*]We slightly reduced damage dealt by Anti Tank and Tank Destroyer units against light armor units, while at the same time increasing their damage dealt against heavy armor units, and also decreasing their damage against unarmored units.

• This should give these units are more diverse role compared to other units.

[*]The range of Railroad Guns was reduced by 30. [*]The range of alI land and sea ranged units (except Railroad Guns) was reduced by 10.

• We made this change to balance an indirect boost for these units, which is caused by the fact that combat rounds in Call of War 1.5 happen every 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes. Due to the shorter combat round interval, ranged weapons hit more often before they end up in close combat in Call of War 1.5.

[*]We rounded flight ranges of airplane levels to make it easier to combine airplanes of different types with similar range (e.g. Interceptor level 3 and Tactical Bomber level 1). [*]We increased the capacity of aircraft carriers, they now receive 2 more slots for each level.

• Previously the capacity increased only by +2 starting with level 4.

[*]We slightly reduced Anti Air’s and SP Anti Air’s damage dealt against unarmored and light armored targets and increased their damage dealt against heavy armored targets. [*]We added a second level to Rocket Fighters.

• Level 2 Rocket Fighters become available at day 14 of a game round.

[/list]Building Balancing:

• Based on community feedback regarding amortization of buildings and regarding resources: [list]
• We increased the production boost of Industries from 100% to 125% on the maximum level.

• We increased the production boost of Local Industries from 200% to 250% on the maximum level.

[*]Following community feedback we removed the morale boost of production buildings and instead added a significant production time boost. [*]We increased the morale boost of Infrastructure to 20 on maximum level. [*]We lowered the hitpoint increase per level for buildings to match the new unit damage values. [*]Level 1 bunkers and fortifications provide a defense bonus again as long as they have 50% or more hitpoints. [*]We increased the relative number of hit points for Fortifications and Bunkers. [*]We reduced build times and costs for Fortifications and Bunkers. [*]We reduced costs and build times for Airstrips. [*]We increased the refuel time speed bonus for upgraded Airstrips and Aircraft Factories.

• The refuel time bonus progression is now more linear as well: From Aistrip lvl. 1 with 30 minutes to Airstrip lvl. 3 with 10 minutes and Aircraft Factory lvl.1 with 60 minutes to Aircraft Factory lvl. 5 with 10 minutes.

[*]Based on community feedback, we removed manpower costs for buildings. [/list]Research Balancing:

• We increased research times for earlier research levels.
• We decreased research times for later research levels.
• We increased costs and times for all nuclear weapon researches.
• We changed the day of availability of Railroad Guns to day 4 (from day 2 in the first Call of War 1.5 test event) due to their power.
• We adjusted the day of availability of Flying Bombs and Rockets level 1, 2 and 3 by +2 days. [list]
• Flying Bombs are available at day 2.

• Rockets are now available at day 6.

[*]We adjusted the day of availability of Atomic Bombs and Nuclear Bombers by +2 days

• Both are available on day 18 now.

[*]We changed the day of availability of several second level researches from day 2 to day 3. [/list]Mechanics Balancing:

• We reduced the damage dealt to buildings when a province gets conquered.
• We reduced the damage dealt by damaged units from 30% to 20% when they are close to 0 hit points, to reduce the winner’s advantage after a battle. [list]
• This was necessary because units only start dying when falling below 50% in CoW 1.5.

[*]To compensate the morale bonus added to Infrastructure, we adjusted the capital distance morale penalty.

• We reduced the morale penalty per kilometer, so it has less effects in closer territories.

• We increased the maximum morale penalty from 40 to 60, so it has higher effects in far away territories, though it now takes longer to reach this maximum.

[*]We made adjustments to the stack limit:

• The 15 strongest values of each damage type now contribute to the army’s damage output

• - e.g. the 15 strongest offensive damage values vs. unarmored targets, the 15 strongest defensive damage values vs. unarmored targets etc.

• This means that the damage output gets limited if more than 15 units in total are part of an army, but it leaves room for optimizing damage output of larger stacks by combining units with strengths in different areas.

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[/b] [b]General overview about changes from CoW1.0 to CoW1.5:
[/b] For those of you who did not participate in the first CoW1.5 event:[b]
[/b][b]
[/b] - Overhauled balancing: Different stats and costs for units & buildings & researches.[b]
[/b] - Level progression: Units get stronger when leveling up but also more expensive and take longer to produce.[b]
[/b] - Changed resource balancing: Resources have the same importance and are equally distributed in costs, research only costs manpower and money.[b]
[/b] - Unit functionality changes: Commandoes are stealth, more units can reveal stealth units.[b]
[/b] - Split armor class "Armored" into "Light Armor" and "Heavy Armor".[b]
[/b] - Revised production categories: Certain Inf units moved to the Inf category, certain support and counter units moved to new Ordnance category.[b]
[/b] - Units don't automatically upgrade, they can be manually upgraded.[b]
[/b] - Urban focus: Units and certain buildings only producible in urban provinces, Victory points only in urbans, resources concentrated more in urbans.[b]
[/b] - New production buildings only produce the units of their respective tech branch and need to be leveled up to reduce build times of stronger units.[b]
[/b] - Removed war morale penalty and province upkeep.[b]
[/b] - Removed nuclear sea units and nuclear reactor.[b]
[/b] - New combat mechanics: Armies don't lose units immediately when getting damaged, stack limits apply for the whole stack instead of individual units, severely damaged units become slower, combat tick happening every 30min, smaller random Factor.[b]
[/b] - Visual changes and interface changes that highlight urban provinces more.[b]
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