How good are Commandos?

Why is this thread not closed? Question" Are commandos good?2 was already answered with many answer, latest is...

-Are comandos good?

-Don't know, but we dont need paratroopers

I get accused of bias, nepotism, flawed logic, and a general despicable character if I close any paratrooper-related thread. Maybe one of the other mods can do it?

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I get accused of bias, nepotism, flawed logic, and a general despicable character if I close any paratrooper-related thread.

Last Warrior wrote:

-Don't know, but we dont need paratroopers

I do find it remarkable that the same vocal minority who oppose the addition of a new airborne infantry unit to the game also seem to believe that the grotesquely over-powered commandos unit is perfectly acceptable, as well as fantasy units like nuclear battleships, and anachronisms like tactical nuclear missiles (with pinpoint accuracy) and nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

@montana: If you mean me by that: afaik I have never spoken on this forum on the subject of commando's or nuclear battleships. If you ask me straight out, I'm against both (well, against the nuclear ships straight out; the commando's should be reworked into "light infantry", "moutain troops" or smth like that), but I don't find them as disruptive to gameplay as the paratrooper blueprints as they are on the table. Nuclear ships are way out of reach for any game length that I usually play; commando's are good, possibly OP, but their (low) speed and availability (capital prov building) limits their usefulness against more devastating options like air power; they're still "conventional". Paratroopers as suggested are like nukes to me, a whole different ballpark.

Having some ridiculous units in the game is no excuse to add more, or we would have genetically-modified dragons in no time.

Now fellow mod, close this thread cause it is about commando's and not about paratroopers.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

@montana: If you mean me by that . . .

K.Rokossovski wrote:

cause it is about commando's and not about paratroopers.

Level 1 Commandos get mountain and city bonuses as current. Research to

Level 2 they become Marines +50% speed on embarking/disembarking. Research to

Level 3 they become paratroopers - can land X distance from the airport they start in at flight speed Y

At each level you loose the old ability but gain the new ability. So depending on what map your playing determines how much research you pour into them to get what you want. Needs some tweaking to flesh out strength/cost etc.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I get accused of bias, nepotism, flawed logic, and a general despicable character if I close any paratrooper-related thread. Maybe one of the other mods can do it?

MontanaBB wrote:

To the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever accused you of nepotism or having a generally despicable character. And I would personally defend your character, as well as your usual high-quality work as an administrator, even if I believe you are the last administrator who should be moderating threads on this topic.

jk

MontanaBB wrote:

and anachronisms like tactical nuclear missiles (with pinpoint accuracy)

Sure, they hit where they're sent, but sometime's the target's are moving so quickly that you "accurately" hit an empty battlefield. And no amount of blast radius will make up for some targets at the extreme edge of a nuke missile's radius. That being said, nukes are generally pretty frickin' sweet in this game. But they are at the back-end of the timeline, so I'd probably cease calling them anachronistic. After all, it's not like they're ICBM's unless you count traveling over the Med or the Middle East as "intercontinental"

Peter Mat wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

cause it is about commando's and not about paratroopers.

Actually you could combine the two topics through research.

Level 1 Commandos get mountain and city bonuses as current. Research to

Level 2 they become Marines +50% speed on embarking/disembarking. Research to

Level 3 they become paratroopers - can land X distance from the airport they start in at flight speed Y

At each level you loose the old ability but gain the new ability. So depending on what map your playing determines how much research you pour into them to get what you want. Needs some tweaking to flesh out strength/cost etc.

Come to think of it, upgrading units shouldn't just make them faster and stronger. There could be some new features at higher levels that would really make upgrading along a chosen path more lucrative and fun. No more would everyone just max out Tac Bombers. Instead, they might want to upgrade Fighters and Naval Bombers to achieve a "Kamikaze" feature that I've requested before. Maybe once level 6 Militia has been researched, a player can choose one Militia from his troops per day to be converted into a Commando unit (this would effectively increase the rate at which Commandos are produced. And, by giving the player the choice to pick which Militia gets the free upgrade per day would make the game more interesting for all involved. (Hey, I kinda really like this idea. I just thought of it.)

Maybe a level 5 Armored Car could have the ability to set up a free barracks once in its lifetime (for each AC). But this barracks is only capable of producing Militias as a sub-level 1 barracks and would have to be upgraded to a full level 1 barracks for a factory to utilize it to increase production speed and to build other infantry types. Oh, and the AC would have to be sacrificed to represent a scouting crew founding a resistance cell. And, a level 0.1 barracks (or whatever it's called) would produce Militia at the older very slow rate that used to be true (a full 24 hours).

Wow, I'm just full of ideas, right now.

Diabolical wrote:

I like this approach. But my only criticism would be to not lose past-learned abilities. That seems strange in that you'd be asking troops to learn new skills but forget everything they ever knew about their already-mastered abilities.

Diabolical, You can already capture a province without firing a shot, Besides, the Paratroopers have an hour of disembarkation time suggestion. Besides, Do you even READ the things we say? Or do you just assume that we are all suggesting the same thing from 3 years ago? Also, Paratroopers didn't 'forget' how to do airborne operations once they landed. I mean, anyone can do them, Paratroopers are just the best at it. Like Special Operations, Anyone can do them, just those guys are the best at it, because they train for it. If we get Paratroopers, they need to be a viable fighting force, not just a unit where they drop in, get into a fight, then die instantly for no reason other than 'they'd be too op' mate, we already have OP units, look at commandos, battle ships, nuclear units, Railroad guns, all of those are OP units. People need to have a thinking mind, use AA in cities you don't want lost. Go read some of my suggestions, you might agree to what I am suggesting. There needs to be some form of airdrop unit, I don't care if its Militia with airborne abilities, I just want a viable airborne unit that can last in a fight.

Oh good grief. This is what Diabolical is reduced to; arguing moot points online.

To be fair I had to take a 6 month hiatus after kicking his butt into the next year, so I kinda give him that benefit - but still, this is a bit of a stretch for someone that thinks so highly of himself.

Are you even in any games anymore, Diabolical?

KingCongo wrote:

Oh good grief. This is what Diabolical is reduced to; arguing moot points online.

To be fair I had to take a 6 month hiatus after kicking his butt into the next year, so I kinda give him that benefit - but still, this is a bit of a stretch for someone that thinks so highly of himself.

Are you even in any games anymore, Diabolical?

As for you kicking my butt. I seem to remember you backstabbing me after we were fighting a mutual third-party opponent. I had grown complacent, I suppose, and I let you walk all over me. By the time I realized you were really going to run the knife through me and not just pass through my lands en route to the real enemy, I was already too far afield to stop you. So, congrats on that.

I really should thank you, though. Thanks to you, my trust of allies has grown even more sparse. I am playing a little too defensively and it's making my victories take even longer than normal in these games. Alas, nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- has been able to successfully stab me in the back since you. So, again, thank you for reminding me of an important lesson. Trust must be earned. I extended trust to you when I didn't really know you. I paid for it. I won't pay that price again.

Despite my appreciation of your lesson, unfortunately, since you did betray me, I've put your name at the top of my blacklist of untrusted players to avoid alongside @Redd Baron as the most infamous of back-stabbers I've come across in this game. His name has been on that list for a couple years now. Yours has been there since that fateful match where you earned your infamy. Unlike some other players on my blacklist, your name was pushed up to the top. In fact, here's an excerpt from my blacklist. Note that you are still not number 1.

01.) (the most contemptible backstabber)

02.) KingCongo (none shall be loathed as much as this notorious backstabber)

There are five other names on that list. So, as you can see, it's not exactly a big list. Most backstabbers don't even make that list since I usually catch them in the act and thwart their evil intent. That I failed to prevent your betrayal is a testament to your underhanded trickery and cunning. Anyway, do yourself and everyone else a favor and don't mention my name in your posts, anymore.

On a side note, I'm not a bitter man. I do keep a blacklist to avoid certain players that have made me nauseous. But there are other players who didn't fill me with bile. And that is my whitelist. My whitelist is much bigger than my blacklist and grows much more often. It's a list of players that are either quite trustworthy or are just awesome to play against.

You see, I like to have allies I can trust. But I also like to have worthy and honorable opponents who can not just challenge me, but do so cheerfully and with grace and good sportsmanship. Because such players are honorable in my eyes, I feel it quite appropriate to list some of them here. I'll note that a few of them might not be seen that favorably by some of my readers, but these are all people that I've had positive dealings with and with whom I have no complaints.

Here's the top 14 on my list. Note that it's not necessarily in order of most awesome to least. But some of the names on this list would certainly be in the top 10 even if I had 100 entries because they are just that cool.

01.) Sir McSquiggles [former staff]

02.) axelrod [Jason]

03.) [PL] Mark Achkar [Lebanon]

04.) [PL] K. Rokossovski [staff]

05.) [SK] Henry Liang

06.) [SK] Habib Hassan [Pakistan]

07.) [SK] Vilan_007

08.) SeaBreezeza

09.) [PL] grandpoobah52 [staff]

10.) _Starkad_ (Wild Lobster) [former staff]

11.) Mathex319 [senior staff]

12.) Edward D Davis [Alaska]

13.) [PL] Peter Mat [good team player]

14.) [PL] challie [nice person, team player]

Are we even talking about this topic now, "How good are commandos"? Cos I feel we aren't

Would be fine, if we collect some statistic about commando fights! I mean like this:

Terrain: mountains

Home land defense: non

Fortress defense: non

Attacking army:

pc1 commando (10/5) SBDE: 100%, 1 pc lvl3 infantry(4/1,5) SBDE: 100% adjusted nrs: 24/11,5 (1*10*2+1*4/1*5*2+1*1,5). HP: 35 (25+15)

Defending army: 1pcs lvl3 AA (2/1,5) SBDE: 100%; 1 pcs lvl3 infantry (6/2,3) SBDE: 100%. HP 25 (10+15)

In round 1:

attacking army should cause 24 damage - , but real damage was: X

After having some (at least 40-50) battle with commandos, we can see the real effect! Without that we are just talking about X factor - about random...

in city;

all units at 100% condition,

no fortress, no homeland defense:

Attacking forces:

1 pc lvl5 Infantry + 1 pc commando : calculated damage: 5+10*1,25= 17,5 - real damage: 3

Defending forces:

1 pc lvl2 AA unit calculated damage: 1,5 - real damage: 1 (on commando unit)

Next round:

Calculated damage: 5+10×0.98×1,25=17,3 real damage: 3

Next round

Calculated damage: 5×0,95+10×0,95×1,25= 17,1 real damage 2

Finished in round 4! Commando seemed to significantly underperforming!

2 Commandos (full power)in Mountains vs 3 lvl3 LT (not full health)both run in each other, also every stack had 1 attack and 1 def tick. After first tick LT's dead, Commandos less then 15% damaged.

szinisa wrote:

in city;

all units at 100% condition,

no fortress, no homeland defense:

Attacking forces:

1 pc lvl5 Infantry + 1 pc commando : calculated damage: 5+10*1,25= 17,5 - real damage: 3

Defending forces:

1 pc lvl2 AA unit calculated damage: 1,5 - real damage: 1 (on commando unit)

Next round:

Calculated damage: 5+10×0.98×1,25=17,3 real damage: 3

Next round

Calculated damage: 5×0,95+10×0,95×1,25= 17,1 real damage 2

Finished in round 4! Commando seemed to significantly underperforming!

In other cases these values are very close to the real damage! Such underperfomance (3 instead of 17,5) I have not realized! More over this underperformance was not a one of item (caused by random), but the same in the coming 2 round (the last one hard to evaluate).

pls note: I calculated with SBDE as well!

There is a simple way to fix this problem...not only for Commandos, but to make the overall performance of all units better-reflect their stated values while retaining an 'X' factor.

Check out my latest thread in the suggestions/criticisms section, here. It covers how to utilize a mean value for the average 'X' factor by using a standard deviation formula.

Diabolical wrote:

There is a simple way to fix this problem...not only for Commandos, but to make the overall performance of all units better-reflect their stated values while retaining an 'X' factor.

Check out my latest thread in the suggestions/criticisms section, here. It covers how to utilize a mean value for the average 'X' factor by using a standard deviation formula.

Diabolical has right, if we have a great population, i mean having huge number of data abaout battles, with right parameters, than it is not a hard work to figure out the real battle mechanism, but we need a big database! To be honest quite timeconsuming work....