Artillery Deploy Time and Packing up time

vietcong2005 wrote:

Last Warrior wrote:

obsolete diskussion.

Player without skills cry for nerfing a weak (if use solo) unit, wich is strong only in great numbers and with another numbers of closecombat and antiairdeffend units.

Also, even if nerfed, then artillery will be used in huge numbers instead of large numbers. Another unskilled player will come and cry.

I killed once 22er doomstack of 10 inf, 10 lt, 2 ht with single artillery. That was 10x speed event game, and enemy send his huge stacks for longruns while being offline 4+ ingamedays.

Sorry. That is not imballance of units.

Question is offline taktik vs online taktik. But it seems nobody want nerfing of onliners: my proposals to make 50% speed events for depowering of online taktiks was not supported by players, even by those who can not afford many online time for this game.

50% speed is "too slow" for them, they are ready to loose and cry for nerfing, instead try to play such "slow" events.

Well it was far weaker in 1.0 yet nobody really cared. It barely dealt 2 hitpoints in unarmored and it almost dealt no damage in the rest of the category. How would nerfing artillery weaken it? It would still be a prominent unit. The people using artillery are actually the ones with no skill. They could stay completely offline and when the enemy attacks, they're almost guaranteed to lose 40%-50% units. Shooting and scooting only makes it worse. The packing up time gives the player a small chance to at least kill the artillery unit. If you claim that you have so much "skill", then how would packing up be of great consequence? It won't matter anyways because it would only take 20 minutes to pack up. It wouldn't really affect your "skill" because most people don't live in their mother's basement. Furthermore, if you have so much "skill" go and try some other tactics to the win, not just artillery spam. On an ending note, you can use your "skill" to improve your spelling.

Also, arty while being offline is easy to counter :

You can encircle the person and send a stack of cheaper troops to tank the arty shots. Then, charge with mot inf or ac.

Which online game wouldn’t need you to play consistently and regularly to be considered good.

The only thing that I agree about a nerf on arty is not being able to shoot for 20-30 minutes after moving. Pack-up time is an unbalanced nerf.

Tgufyru wrote:

The only thing that I agree about a nerf on arty is not being able to shoot for 20-30 minutes after moving. Pack-up time is an unbalanced nerf.

Last Warrior wrote:

@vietcong2005 yes, if some low minded foe doesnothave arhguemanntsts, they start with spedldling, grhahmmhargh and other stuff, like "no life".

You know, that novadays everyone can be online time to time with smartphones?

You know, that, english, this "very broken old german" is not even true languige for most earthlings.

Also, please, go and do something many times with and without parental control. I dont dont care about this thread anymore.

If threadopeners and friends would say at least ballanced proposals, like delaying by 5 till 20 seconds, it could be nice thread. But no, greed of own advantages is endless, you cry for 20 minutes deley. even 30 minutes would be great for you.

I would like to emphatize with those calling for applying some nerfs to artillery units, but for someone to throw random stats with no factual basis just make me dismiss the idea. Saying that you will lose 40% of your units when dealing with artillery stacks to make your point is disappointing.

Without considerations to unit upgrades/doctrine/terrain, throwing random figures is not going to build a good case in establishing a nerf. At the moment, this thread is only about a handful of players whining because they can’t come up with a viable strategy to counter them - when there are in fact several ways to do so if they take close attention to what units to use.

If you guys want to convince the public to give artillery some sort of nerf, then make a freaking good case about it (better with supporting scenarios of unit engagements and screenshots). There are strategies to counter them, and PLANES remain to be the most utilized strategy to victory by experts anyways.

a) i said already november 2020, that artillery is buffed in version 1.5.x (at november 2020 this version called so) may be a little bit too strong, beacause improoved hitpoints numbers, not beacause their damage output.

Increased damage output is catched by increased hitpoint for target unit.

But survivability of artillery is increased overproportional. On the other side range of artillery is decreased, while speed of target units (undamaged) increased.

So i can confirm now: artillery is very well ballanced unit. If someone attack artillery with halfdead units and wonder, why he can not reach them for closecombat, it is only own fault.

b) There is several taktiks to handle enemy with artillery. If someone complain that it is impossible to kill defended artillery division with equal by ammount of spended ressources units, i call him a lier.

If enemy use 30 units to protect 10er division artillery (10 AA, 10 ASF, 10 inf), so you can beat it with your 30 till 40 land units easily. killing all 40 enemy units and lose 0 till 50% own units, and yes it is possible to kill that army without single unit own losses.

vietcong2005 wrote:

Motorized infantry gets annihilated usually by these unarmored units. Unless you want to send 30 motorized units straight into an artillery stack with half of them coming out intact. Almost every ground unit is vulnerable to planes, so don't act like artillery is the only unit. Almost every powerful unit in game has a more concrete setback in a sense. We're not even asking for artillery damage values to be nerfed, we're just asking for a nerf that will have only make it slightly weaker. Artillery will still be a good unit that takes skill and precision to use. Many people will still use artillery to destroy large stacks of troops.

If there is one unit that is extremely vounerable to planes then it's artillery. In general most unarmored units have decent AA stats.

Last Warrior wrote:

a) i said already november 2020, that artillery is buffed in version 1.5.x (at november 2020 this version called so) may be a little bit too strong, beacause improoved hitpoints numbers, not beacause their damage output.

Increased damage output is catched by increased hitpoint for target unit.

But survivability of artillery is increased overproportional. On the other side range of artillery is decreased, while speed of target units (undamaged) increased.

So i can confirm now: artillery is very well balanced unit. If someone attack artillery with halfdead units and wonder, why he can not reach them for close combat, it is only own fault.

b) There is several tactics to handle enemy with artillery. If someone complain that it is impossible to kill defended artillery division with equal by amount of spent resources units, i call him a lier.

If enemy use 30 units to protect 10er division artillery (10 AA, 10 ASF, 10 inf), so you can beat it with your 30 till 40 land units easily. killing all 40 enemy units and lose 0 till 50% own units, and yes it is possible to kill that army without single unit own losses.

scuffed wrote:

its like you are ignoring everything i said. You can't use bombers because of AA, you cant rush them down because they will just kite you down with the arty and the speed reduction from damaged armies, and if you even have the chance to get close, they will just break away a small force to destroy your already pummeled stack, and engage them in melee combat while their arty stays behind safely continuously bombing your division. Then after you attack fails, they group it all back up and rinse and repeat. This is just going to turn the game into War of the Artillery, whoever has the most and can kite better wins.

1. What about militia and anti tank units hidden in a forest to ambush them. Their stealth would be their advantage.

2.Or you could use commandos against that stack. They have great stats and they are stealth in all terrain. Artillery can't attack what it can't see. 10 commando's and that stack should clean up nicely.

3. Of course you can use bombers. Put 10 tacs together with 10 interceptors and patrol over the stack. You will take damage that's for sure but if the enemy doesn't have 10 AA in his stack he's done for.

4. Use your own stack but with only rocket artillery in it. They are the perfect counter against unarmored units being: infantry, AA, AT, artillery and rocket artillery. If you pull back straight after your attack you won't even be counterattacked. You can repeat the process every 30min. Make sure you are in the hills or mountains where you get a 50% extra bonus and deny your enemy that terrain. You should win soon enough.

There you go, any doom stack can be countered. Every player has the same toolbox, you just need to use the right tools.

vietcong2005 wrote:

just camped in his province

BMfox wrote:

militia and anti tank units hidden in a forest

BMfox wrote:

scuffed wrote:

its like you are ignoring everything i said. You can't use bombers because of AA, you cant rush them down because they will just kite you down with the arty and the speed reduction from damaged armies, and if you even have the chance to get close, they will just break away a small force to destroy your already pummeled stack, and engage them in melee combat while their arty stays behind safely continuously bombing your division. Then after you attack fails, they group it all back up and rinse and repeat. This is just going to turn the game into War of the Artillery, whoever has the most and can kite better wins.

Waaw, you really don't like artillery it seems. Here some more possibilities:

1. What about militia and anti tank units hidden in a forest to ambush them. Their stealth would be their advantage.

2.Or you could use commandos against that stack. They have great stats and they are stealth in all terrain. Artillery can't attack what it can't see. 10 commando's and that stack should clean up nicely.

3. Of course you can use bombers. Put 10 tacs together with 10 interceptors and patrol over the stack. You will take damage that's for sure but if the enemy doesn't have 10 AA in his stack he's done for.

4. Use your own stack but with only rocket artillery in it. They are the perfect counter against unarmored units being: infantry, AA, AT, artillery and rocket artillery. If you pull back straight after your attack you won't even be counterattacked. You can repeat the process every 30min. Make sure you are in the hills or mountains where you get a 50% extra bonus and deny your enemy that terrain. You should win soon enough.

There you go, any doom stack can be countered. Every player has the same toolbox, you just need to use the right tools.

You could use any option above or combination of them. Again 10 tactical bombers and 10 interceptors stacked together will kill anything unarmored, AA in the stack or not. It doesn't matter. Yes your planes will be heavily damaged but that stack will be gone.

Most players don't upgrade their AC so they wouldn't see your higher level stealth troops. Even if you are spotted, artillery can only shoot once or twice before you lock them in battle. Or he needs to split them up but that's where your tacs can focus on one stack only. Either way those units would be toast. You have plenty of options to deal with a stack like that.

If all the solutions that I gave don't work for you than it's because that player was simply better and that you were unable to adapt your strategy. It's hardly an argument to nerf artillery.

vietcong2005 wrote:

He had AC for commandos and he had AA for bombers

vietcong2005 wrote:

There's something called anti air. You obviously haven't met a good player if you haven't seen one.

If they have AA, artillery, anti-tank and/or anti-infantry all in one stack with it still being effective (if possible), then they're just the better player. If not, exploit the one option they're vulnerable to.

Alternatively, if they just have a massive stack of like 20+ troops, there's not really anything anyone could do about that anyways. I'd like to see a higher penalty for exceeding the 10-troop limit.

scuffed wrote:

Im tired of people spamming artillery and being able to shoot and scoot all the time cause they have nothing better to do than sit there and micro-manage artillery, making them invincible. IMO, artillery should have a deploy time of around maybe 15-30 minutes before they can start firing, and when you try to move them when deployed, they will have to "pack up" for another 15-30 minutes before they can start moving again. This will solve the annoying shoot and scoot mechanic that makes active players nearly unstoppable as they can pair AA up with them so you cant even use bombers.

Please realize how much it takes to use artillery properly in real competitive play. They are slow and vulnerable to bombers, so you have to support the reinforcement routes or add AA to them, though that requires being very active or using a lot to escort all the armies you're sending. Even if you have AA, you may have trouble with bombers. Artillery has far less hp compared to other units, so it takes fewer bomber runs/shorter patrol time to kill them, and the bombers receive less damage from the AA. You have to either level the AA up and use some other unit as a meatshield (to make your artillery even slower to kill) or gain air superiority, which requires high activity and a very good strategy. You may argue that max level AA and Arty (for whatever in-game day) stacked is already pretty cost-ineffective to attack with tactical bombers, however, you are spending more research time and costs and not factoring in the fighter escort of the bombers, which would absorb some of the damage. Also, those stacks are easily raidable with mot infantry, or even mech infantry/AC. This means you will need a strong army in front, which is common practice. However, it also needs good AA protection, or your enemy will destroy it with bombers and your artillery with raiding units. If your enemy knows what you're doing he can level up a faster unit to the highest level possible and then destroy you, as levels are very significant. Or, he can just use rocket artillery to bombard your main army and your AA will die quickly, exposing it to bombers. Just rocket artillery, mot infantry, interceptors and bombers can do well there.

Artillery really can be strong sometimes, but to make it strong, you must plan ahead, choose the right army composition and a good tactic, and have a lot of time. It may seem OP if you don't play "pro" games though. I mean, the preparation and execution of an artillery strategy are not easy and it really just rewards your enemy for having better planning, activity and usage of brain.exe. True it's not always good to have the activity or HC in such an important role in the game, but that's just one aspect all have to get along with.

Hornetkeeper wrote:

scuffed wrote:

Im tired of people spamming artillery and being able to shoot and scoot all the time cause they have nothing better to do than sit there and micro-manage artillery, making them invincible. IMO, artillery should have a deploy time of around maybe 15-30 minutes before they can start firing, and when you try to move them when deployed, they will have to "pack up" for another 15-30 minutes before they can start moving again. This will solve the annoying shoot and scoot mechanic that makes active players nearly unstoppable as they can pair AA up with them so you cant even use bombers.

Just scuffed things, lol.Please realize how much it takes to use artillery properly in real competitive play. They are slow and vulnerable to bombers, so you have to support the reinforcement routes or add AA to them, though that requires being very active or using a lot to escort all the armies you're sending. Even if you have AA, you may have trouble with bombers. Artillery has far less hp compared to other units, so it takes fewer bomber runs/shorter patrol time to kill them, and the bombers receive less damage from the AA. You have to either level the AA up and use some other unit as a meatshield (to make your artillery even slower to kill) or gain air superiority, which requires high activity and a very good strategy. You may argue that max level AA and Arty (for whatever in-game day) stacked is already pretty cost-ineffective to attack with tactical bombers, however, you are spending more research time and costs and not factoring in the fighter escort of the bombers, which would absorb some of the damage. Also, those stacks are easily raidable with mot infantry, or even mech infantry/AC. This means you will need a strong army in front, which is common practice. However, it also needs good AA protection, or your enemy will destroy it with bombers and your artillery with raiding units. If your enemy knows what you're doing he can level up a faster unit to the highest level possible and then destroy you, as levels are very significant. Or, he can just use rocket artillery to bombard your main army and your AA will die quickly, exposing it to bombers. Just rocket artillery, mot infantry, interceptors and bombers can do well there.

Artillery really can be strong sometimes, but to make it strong, you must plan ahead, choose the right army composition and a good tactic, and have a lot of time. It may seem OP if you don't play "pro" games though. I mean, the preparation and execution of an artillery strategy are not easy and it really just rewards your enemy for having better planning, activity and usage of brain.exe. True it's not always good to have the activity or HC in such an important role in the game, but that's just one aspect all have to get along with.

BMfox wrote:

scuffed wrote:

its like you are ignoring everything i said. You can't use bombers because of AA, you cant rush them down because they will just kite you down with the arty and the speed reduction from damaged armies, and if you even have the chance to get close, they will just break away a small force to destroy your already pummeled stack, and engage them in melee combat while their arty stays behind safely continuously bombing your division. Then after you attack fails, they group it all back up and rinse and repeat. This is just going to turn the game into War of the Artillery, whoever has the most and can kite better wins.

Waaw, you really don't like artillery it seems. Here some more possibilities:

1. What about militia and anti tank units hidden in a forest to ambush them. Their stealth would be their advantage.

2.Or you could use commandos against that stack. They have great stats and they are stealth in all terrain. Artillery can't attack what it can't see. 10 commando's and that stack should clean up nicely.

3. Of course you can use bombers. Put 10 tacs together with 10 interceptors and patrol over the stack. You will take damage that's for sure but if the enemy doesn't have 10 AA in his stack he's done for.

4. Use your own stack but with only rocket artillery in it. They are the perfect counter against unarmored units being: infantry, AA, AT, artillery and rocket artillery. If you pull back straight after your attack you won't even be counterattacked. You can repeat the process every 30min. Make sure you are in the hills or mountains where you get a 50% extra bonus and deny your enemy that terrain. You should win soon enough.

There you go, any doom stack can be countered. Every player has the same toolbox, you just need to use the right tools.

scuffed wrote:

BMfox wrote:

scuffed wrote:

its like you are ignoring everything i said. You can't use bombers because of AA, you cant rush them down because they will just kite you down with the arty and the speed reduction from damaged armies, and if you even have the chance to get close, they will just break away a small force to destroy your already pummeled stack, and engage them in melee combat while their arty stays behind safely continuously bombing your division. Then after you attack fails, they group it all back up and rinse and repeat. This is just going to turn the game into War of the Artillery, whoever has the most and can kite better wins.

Waaw, you really don't like artillery it seems. Here some more possibilities:1. What about militia and anti tank units hidden in a forest to ambush them. Their stealth would be their advantage.

2.Or you could use commandos against that stack. They have great stats and they are stealth in all terrain. Artillery can't attack what it can't see. 10 commando's and that stack should clean up nicely.

3. Of course you can use bombers. Put 10 tacs together with 10 interceptors and patrol over the stack. You will take damage that's for sure but if the enemy doesn't have 10 AA in his stack he's done for.

4. Use your own stack but with only rocket artillery in it. They are the perfect counter against unarmored units being: infantry, AA, AT, artillery and rocket artillery. If you pull back straight after your attack you won't even be counterattacked. You can repeat the process every 30min. Make sure you are in the hills or mountains where you get a 50% extra bonus and deny your enemy that terrain. You should win soon enough.

There you go, any doom stack can be countered. Every player has the same toolbox, you just need to use the right tools.

They can simply add armor cars in their stacks like the people i just fought doing this just did. And as for number 4, that isn't really a solution to counter the stack, just doing what they are doing because you can't do anything about it is still not good game design. Shouldn't have to be droop down to their level to fight them via fight fire with fire.

scuffed wrote:

They can simply add armor cars in their stacks like the people i just fought doing this just did. And as for number 4, that isn't really a solution to counter the stack, just doing what they are doing because you can't do anything about it is still not good game design. Shouldn't have to be droop down to their level to fight them via fight fire with fire.

I feel like I'm repeating myself,...

BMfox wrote:

Most players don't upgrade their AC so they wouldn't see your higher level stealth troops. Even if you are spotted, artillery can only shoot once or twice before you lock them in battle. Or he needs to split them up but that's where your tacs can focus on one stack only. Either way those units would be toast. You have plenty of options to deal with a stack like that.

If you want the Bytro take on this:

In our view shoot'n'scoot is an unintended exploit that we do not want in the game. Just to be on the same page, shoot'n'scoot is when you attack a ranged unit with another ranged unit but pull back your own ranged unit so fast that the server does not react in time to issue counter-fire. We are not talking about the balancing between arties and tanks here for example. As long as shoot'n'scoot is in the game you are free to use it of course. But the only reason why it is still in the game is because so far it did not get priority and enough resources to be fixed. But it is still on our list to do something about it at some point, for example by adding a movement delay after fireing for all ranged units so that the other ranged army has time to respond (it wouldnt be as long as suggested earlier in this thread though).

This is not so much about unit balance for us, but about the fact that this is a grand strategy game, not an action game. And this game runs 24/7, so naturally there are phases were a player cannot respond. So any tactic that requires extreme levels of activity and micromanagement, and that allows beating players who are currently offline with 0 casualties, is not in the spirit of the game. To less experienced player it is very disheartening and it also looks totally bugged to see your own units die to the same enemy unit type for some unexplained reason.

If we ever did such a change (I cannot tell when this happens) and see that this nerfs ranged units too much, we would buff their other stats (e.g. damage) or increase their normal move speed to make up for it. As I said, it's not about changing unit balance but about balancing game mechanics and bringing them in line with the type of game this is.