Balancing the game/rocket, tactical bomber and infantry criticism

Hello fellow players,

Let me begin by saying that I am a huge Call of War fan. I really like the game and the strategy it offers. All different units have their own way of excelling and weaknesses, this makes making different kind of tactics and strategies both fun and somewhat of a challenge. However, there are some approaches that are more effective than others. I will be naming a couple of things I noticed about the game and some ideas I have about possibly offering a solution to some of the issues I see with things found out through my time playing this game. I know I am not the first one to mention these things. Although the way I see possible changes I have not seen before. I will first mention a couple of ways in which the game works against itself in a way I have noticed it to. Since there will be a number of things that are connected I will try to discuss each of them as orderly as I can while trying to be obvious on how it connects to the other subjects.

Because of the way it works now the research tree counters the way even the people from call of war itself intended the game to be played (judging from recent upgrades). I say this on the assumption that destroying someone's economy by attacking buildings should be a bigger part of the game then it is now. The only two units that are actually capable of destroying buildings in the game are rockets and strategical bombers. Where rockets are more often shot at troops than buildings, strategic bombers are not that good at what they are supposed to do. Especially not for the amount of recourses it costs you versus how much it will cost your enemy (research and then building strategic bombers). This is all not being helped because of the way a multitude of buildings share damage among themselves. Fortifications are usually food for rockets rather than strategic bombers. Probably because rockets also heavily damage the units within the fortifications. That way your spending on rockets is immediately gained in the difference of troops the enemy loses, resources and especially manpower it will cost your opponent. The result is that people do not bother with strategic bombers and just go for destroying an enemy's units, since this is more of a gain for you and loss for the enemy. The point is that the game should maybe also allow for destroying buildings as a feasible strategic plan. As long as the cost of doing this will not or hardly ever be less than what it will cost your enemy it is not worth it. This includes the risk from the strategic bombers just being shot down.

There are in my opinion two units in the game that make attacking enemy troops always more worth wile. One being the earlier mentioned rocket and the other being the tactical bomber.

Even though the rocket is somewhat meant as a building destroyer, there is no denying its effect on troops. One of the major problems with rockets in my opinion is that they are very hard to counter. Sure they are a hassle to get into position, but since they can be fired from a huge distance there is always an airfield around. Since they are also easily built in captured provinces this somewhat counters the hassle of having to have them moved around. They can be countered by moving away troops, works really well even. However locking troops into place and then firing rockets offers an easy solution. Looking at the problems a player can face when fighting other players the answer is quite possibly always a rocket. Big enemy division? rockets, enemy lading with ships? rockets (quite effectively I might add). Heavy fortifications with troops in them? Rockets. Catching planes refueling? rockets again. One of the counters I mentioned, having troops on the move usually means patrolling more roads than troops would province centers. The same amount of troops in a multitude of smaller divisions brings me to the next somewhat to powerful unit, the tactical bomber.

The tactical bombers have some unique properties as well that make it the better solution in spending resources. Each upgrade gives them 1.5 damage to infantry and 1.0 to armor. That is somewhat fine of course although most armor is quite weak against aircraft. This means that tactical bombers create an ever growing gap between themselves and ground units. Also, this goes for all planes, tactical bombers get a lot of extra speed and range with each upgrade. Especially when compared to things like land or sea based artillery. A range and speed increase for the land artillery happens only once in their entire line of research and the same somewhat goes for sea units to except for the cruiser (elite units not included). When comparing tactical bombers to most land units you notice that tactical bombers get it all. Extra speed, range and attack power with every upgrade. On the other hand most land units get only one of these factors as a major increase and the other two not at all or somewhat. The next thing that makes tactical bombers more powerful than most other units is the way they get around and work. Sure they need an airport to take off, but like I explained earlier there are few units that can really do anything to a building anyway, especially a high level airport among other buildings. Conquering provinces and immediately building an airport makes for a fast possible advance. Making it even more worth wile is that retreating ground troops will probably not be out of the new range the planes get. Tactical bombers have a multitude of uses that add to their superiority. Researching makes them more worthwhile than other troops, they can scout and attack if needed or when a target of opportunity is found. Since they also do some damage to ships the reason no one really ever builds naval bombers is because they do not need to. The usual tactical bomber and interceptor combo deals with disembarking convoys just fine. Finally there is the patrol range, it’s quite big and makes that units wanting to flee oncoming airplanes simply cannot escape. Resulting in a sacrifice tactic to at least get some of your money’s worth. All in all it is the most powerful unit in the game because of all these reasons. The latest fix to the planes upkeep changed nothing about any of that.

Connected to the previous issue is a correlation with manpower. If a player decides to build infantry that will cost 1500 manpower, tactical bombers for example cost you 400. Tactical bombers get significantly better with every upgrade, though infantry damage gains halve after level 3, while it was already less than most other units. In terms of spending manpower to build units, infantry becomes less and less of a good choice. Their air damaging capabilities don't even increase at all. Ever. This actually goes for almost all infantry branch units except of course anti-air. Anti-air gets 1 damage against air per level until level 3 after which it also grows with 1.5 per level. By then however the damage is already done. Anti-air starts with anti air power of 5 while tactical bombers attack infantry with a power of 3. On level 6 anti-air does 10 damage to airplanes and tactical bombers do 11 to infantry. This is eventually not helped because anti-air can go up to level 5 and tactical bombers can go up to level 6 (elite not included for either one). What this all means is that as the game progresses, spending manpower on infantry (any kinds really) diminishes your possible damage output compared to the amount of manpower you put into your units.

End of part 1