Amphibious Warfare : Units and structures

just pretend it is happening dude and you will get there ...

imagination...

it will never happen!!!

Plot twist , i know it wont ;p

Seriously though just wanted to hear opinions and constructive criticiscm as to why it wont fit in , your comment doesnot offer it unfortunately freeman

I really like this idea but instead of stuff like naval infantry(lets face it, our inf is the best stuff out there, it can fight anywhere) isn't very good but I do like assault and naval defences(the defences would be great for both normal game and RP).

I would go for more ships and boats like improved troop transports, LST and LSI.

Southeast England had huge coastal guns in order to destroy ships/landing craft when invasion felt close in 1940, and as we have Anti-Air, Anti-tank, I feel it would be good to have coastal defence guns- but would they be units or buildings?

I suggest units, because you could have "Needs naval yard to work" prompt

GeneralPhara wrote:

The amphibious warfare aspect is greatly undermined in the game , with countries having more or less same amphibious capabilities.

In my view , a country that researches certain related technologies should be able to have a higher capability of performing an amphibious assault than a country not researching in this field.

Units:

Assault Craft - Naval tree- A unit to be grouped with infantry , increases hp and defence stats of infantry while embarking and shortens the embarking time. The craft is however vulnerable to attacks by any naval vessels and air strikes. Assault craft carry limited number of infantry per craft

Coastal Defences- A structure that can be built on coastal provinces. Composed of bunkers, coastal artllery , pillboxes , this structure automatically opens fire on embarking troops , higher level = more damage output.

Fortifications only appear to cause less damage and increase moral at this point, so perhaps adding a damage component against ships could be used.

I severly doubt that fortification will be given the ability to cause damage , will make them even more powerful than they are.

Coastal defences are distinct from provincal fortification in that their role is to protect only the designated shore, immediately opening fire on embrarking troops.

Ofcourse , I am not the one creating and assigning roles, those were their historical roles.

I guess from the responses we had, we can agree that the current S1914 - based Amphibious system is not adequate, for it completely ignores the fact that most of largest amphibious assaults in history of mankind occured in the timeframe that this game is set in , as seen by ignoring hardware used to perform such landings, not simple "convoys" that is currently used

May I add, you should have an option to either build solely fortifications in the coastal province, or build coastal defenses, or even both. The coastal defenses should comprise of hedgehogs (much like an enemy's border province has), mini-forts (pentagonal in shape just like normal forts, but smaller), and the ability to add modular components to it, such as AA guns for enemy bombers coming in from the sea, naval artillery weapons to combat enemy ships, and even submarine mines off the coast to prevent subs from going near your coast and spying on your units. These upgrades should be part of the naval defense upgrade itself. Whether they're included as you upgrade the naval defenses, or if they can be added to the defenses as "modular" upgrades, that can be discussed.

I also believe since now that we're talking about naval defenses, what about internal defenses, such as outposts and checkpoints? Militia could be converted into "National Guard" units and could be used to patrol the checkpoints and outposts, much like the U.S. does nowadays with its many military bases and national guard bases within the country.

IISpikeII wrote:

I also believe since now that we're talking about naval defenses, what about internal defenses, such as outposts and checkpoints? Militia could be converted into "National Guard" units and could be used to patrol the checkpoints and outposts, much like the U.S. does nowadays with its many military bases and national guard bases within the country.

I like the idea in theory but this just becomes unit bloat.

I believe the best way to go about it is to integrate these types of bonuses onto existing units through the research tree and make it an interesting choice.

For instance each broad unit type- Infantry, Tank, Artillery, Naval, Air could have a set of 3 or more mutually exclusive specialized bonuses in a new "doctrines" tab in research to choose from.

Quickly off the top of my head, for infantry some ideas could be amphibious training, anti-air equipment(perhaps lowering the starter infantry AA power in response), increased division size (+2hp per inf or something), standard basic AT weapons (+5% vs armor). Small but significant bonuses that you can use to differentiate your army, strategically design it for a purpose.

Instead of being unlocked by a set date it could be opened up based on building levels. Level 3 barracks in a province for infantry doctrine, 3 airbase for air doctrine etc.

No Aurave, if we wanted boosts, we would ask for them. Which we did, but not that kind. The kind we asked for was province bonuses. The currently existing units don't quite cut it, we only have 3 ships and 1 boat(with another ship coming) which is NOT enough. The devs did good for a beta game but all types of units are missing stuff. Here are some examples below:

Combat engineers

Tank destroyers

Assault guns

Self propelled arty

SPAA

Attackers

LSI

LST

Bat bombs

Fleas

Kamikaze(only for Pacific map though)

PT Boats

Cruiser tanks

Infantry tanks

Battlecruiser

Escort carriers

Escort destroyer

Missile submarines(Germany had plans, just like the CV although the CV was mostly built)

These are just a few. We need more units before they get boosts.

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

No Aurave, if we wanted boosts, we would ask for them. Which we did, but not that kind. The kind we asked for was province bonuses. The currently existing units don't quite cut it, we only have 3 ships and 1 boat(with another ship coming) which is NOT enough. The devs did good for a beta game but all types of units are missing stuff. Here are some examples below:

Combat engineers

Tank destroyers

Assault guns

Self propelled arty

SPAA

Attackers

LSI

LST

Bat bombs

Fleas

Kamikaze(only for Pacific map though)

PT Boats

Cruiser tanks

Infantry tanks

Battlecruiser

Escort carriers

Escort destroyer

Missile submarines(Germany had plans, just like the CV although the CV was mostly built)

These are just a few. We need more units before they get boosts.

Anyway, back on topic, I still think coastal guns should be a unit.

I think a fortification where you have to place units for it to be effective. Might give militia another use.

Having coastal defences as a building is much more viable since the guns are meant to be sheltered very well in fixed emplacements, having them as units means they will be taken out easily by a couple tactical bomber

Coastal defence is meant to open fire automatically on embarking troops and nearby navy vessels , that said what would be an optimal range , 20 km?

Yes, sounds good. Coastal guns at Calais etc. couldn't hit the English coast so it can't be further than the width of the channel.

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

No Aurave, if we wanted boosts, we would ask for them. Which we did, but not that kind. The kind we asked for was province bonuses. The currently existing units don't quite cut it, we only have 3 ships and 1 boat(with another ship coming) which is NOT enough. The devs did good for a beta game but all types of units are missing stuff. Here are some examples below:

Combat engineers

Tank destroyers

Assault guns

Self propelled arty

SPAA

Attackers

LSI

LST

Bat bombs

Fleas

Kamikaze(only for Pacific map though)

PT Boats

Cruiser tanks

Infantry tanks

Battlecruiser

Escort carriers

Escort destroyer

Missile submarines(Germany had plans, just like the CV although the CV was mostly built)

These are just a few. We need more units before they get boosts.

Like I said that sounds real cool but without drastic changes to how CoW works, and I mean so drastic its not even the same game anymore, it's terrible game design.

I have a bevy of realistic units I would hypothetically love in this game, even with country specific stats for units where applicable. But it doesn't fit this style game, CoW is different. How will research be relevant? Who will have the resources to research everything they wanted? The fewer units you have to research and keep current upgrading, the better for your war machine. If the combined arms and a vast mix of these additional units does turns out to be exceptionally effective mechanics wise, how much upgrading your economy and fielding a numerically larger army will be sacrificed to achieve this?

I think there are enough naval units in the game already, save for the need of carriers which obviously fill a special need that can't be done any other way. As it is, I pretty much build subs 90% of the time. I'd rather have a relevant and well balanced useful mix of only 4 naval units than add 7 more naval types that won't be researched or built in any relatively competitive game except for RP purposes.

These aren't just "boosts" but reflect a type of doctrine specialization you want your army to focus in without adding a bunch of unit paths to research and build.

You stated you would like to see SP units in the game. So would I. For whatever the artillery group (AT/AA/Art) is called, this is also how it could be implemented in a streamlined fashion, while adding meaningful strategic choices to the game. Generically the ideas for artillery could fall along the lines of mobility/firepower/something else. Mobility would allow construction of SP versions of all those units, and tank destroyers. Or, it would upgrade all existing AA/Art directly into SP versions.

Air doctrines could give increased range/air to air power/land bombardment and so on.

Aurave wrote:

I'd rather have a relevant and well balanced useful mix of only 4 naval units than add 7 more naval types that won't be researched or built in any relatively competitive game except for RP purposes

Your idea would have people research even less, just spamming MT and mechfantry rather than having a diverse army. Nearly every unit has a use and if more were added, more would be useful.

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

Aurave wrote:

I'd rather have a relevant and well balanced useful mix of only 4 naval units than add 7 more naval types that won't be researched or built in any relatively competitive game except for RP purposes

I use nearly every unit in the game. The only ones I don't use are commandos, AC, int and subs. I generally ignore RP purposes, that is only a small part of us. Most of us have already said we wanted the units I mentioned and multiple people liked my idea while your idea has only gotten opposition.

Your idea would have people research even less, just spamming MT and mechfantry rather than having a diverse army. Nearly every unit has a use and if more were added, more would be useful.

IISpikeII wrote:

because the game is complex and slow enough

I should've mentioned that they would have to add another research slot. They do need more units, every area is lacking units and the armour section the most.

More units for what, the sake of more units? I think most people can agree there are certain areas of the game that can only be addressed with new units, and would like them added. Aircraft carriers, self propelled artillery of all types, paratroopers for some, probably some others.

But to say armor is lacking? How exactly are you going to translate all these superfluous units into this game with the combat system in place the way as it is, a few set of numerical values? How much meaningful differentiation can there be? So you want infantry tanks, light tanks, medium tanks, infantry tanks, cruiser tanks, heavy tanks.

Pray tell exactly how the difference between a medium tank and a cruiser tank IN GAME. Infantry tank...how will that play out? It basically would just be a heavy tank that comes earlier in the tech tree, with relatively less in the vs armor category. It's clear that an infantry tank needs to fulfill this in general : slow and not much faster than normal infantry if at all, strong against other infantry, weaker against other tanks.

And even more so what will be the difference between a cruiser tank and medium/light tanks? I'd like to hear that. Because there are only so many levers to tweak when creating a new unit, and a cruiser tank could be the most pointless thing ever to introduce into this strategy game, except for having new historical unit names and icons to diplay on the unit info panel. All it would force players to do is to choose either a cruiser tank or a medium tank and stick with it solely, not because of any strategical considerations that bear on your country's situation or possible war plans, but because they would fill the exact same role in the same way and it would be inefficient to research and build them both.

Think about game design and the macro implications of changes to the game instead of units you want to see just because you like the WW2 era and all the different types of units involved.

Aurave wrote:

Pray tell exactly how the difference between a medium tank and a cruiser tank IN GAME

Anyway, there is also something else important that needs to be brought in. What level are you, what is your ranking and how long have you been playing?