Why can't ranged units and planes focus their fire on a specific target within a stack? It seems a bit silly that when bombing a stack that damage is equally spread between all units. Obviously, the artillery or planes would focus on the biggest threats, either enemy artillery, anti-air, motorized infantry, etc. It would allow for more diverse gameplay for ranged units. Imagine a scenario like this: There are two stacks facing off. One stack has 5 artillery. The other has 3 artillery, along with 10 AA. Who would win? Doing the calculations, the 3 artillery will win, because it has more HP and the damage is evenly spread out between the artillery and AA. This is extremely dumb, mainly because the 5 artillery stack wouldn't be attacking the anti-air, just the artillery. Obviously, some of the AA will get damaged. That's why I propose that when focusing fire, you deal somewhere between 70-80% of the intended damage to the artillery. The AA will still soak up the damage, but it wouldn't be as big of an advantage. There should be a info screen, similar to the split unit screen, in which you can choose which type of unit you want to focus the fire on.
To balance it for planes, defensive damage would still be dealt by all units within the stack (and units within a 5km radius). This makes it so that anti-air can still be used effectively to prevent bombers from destroying stacks. But now, the bombers can focus their fire on the AA, to destroy them as fast as possible. Or maybe they want to focus on the artillery. Of course, by default, damage is spread out between all units. Maybe there could be percentage of how much you want to damage some units. For example, there could be a feature where you could split 50% of the damage to artillery, while the other 50% goes to the anti-air. (Of course, the offensive damage is still spread out, so only 70-80% is truly attributed to the selected units).
Thoughts?
3 Replies
21 Jun 2022, 07:11
The efficiency of artillery depends mainly on the concentration of the enemy troops. If the 10 AA in your example were deployed in between the artillery, it would be impossible to actively target the enemy artillery (for the 5-stack) and somehow "miss" the AA and not "waiste damage points" on them. When deploying carpet fire (as was customary in the day; remember we're not talking about direct fire of a gun on a target, but rather about spotter units passing map coordinates to gun crews), the efficiency depends mainly on the concentration of the enemy troops in the target location. The 5 arty would indeed "win", but simply because there was EXTRA damage to the AA because of their concentration (the shells simply had a better chance to hit ANYTHING in the target area, because there was more to hit). At the other end of the spectrum, an artillery barrage would have little use against a single militia unit, and it is frankly quite ridiculous (historically speaking) that you can even take out single units with artillery.
If this was to be translated into the game, artillery damage wouldn't be fixed by the amount and type of guns firing, but a function of the size of the target stack. Not completely linear, but maybe a root function, something like * SQRT . Base damage should be drastically reduced of course. As a side gameplay effect, this would also give a more efficient counter against the doom stacks which are so prevalent these days.
A similiar story could be told about level bombers (tacs and strats they would bomb an area rather than a specific target. Attack bombers, strafing fighters and naval bombers are a different story; they would indeed roam the battlefield and pick specific targets, which is more in line with your suggestion. To complete the ranged units, naval exchanges (both surface and submarine) would also be target- rather than area-based.
I'm guessing that all this is pretty hard to implement though. And there are also points to be made for changing the damage distribution for plain melee combat: would the AT really waiste their fire on the infantry in a mixed stack with armor as well? So opening this might open endless discussion; when you implement changes in one area, it would scream for changes in another as well. Also remember that battle is often initiated when players are offline, and they're not available to make the "smart choice" when offering extra combat options, so the default would have to be at least "pretty good" as well.
All in all, I don't think it is wise to open this can of worms; it is, after all, a simplified RTS and we don't want to go into micromanaging too much, let alone spend precious developer time on changes that might not even work the way we want to.
21 Jun 2022, 07:43
K.Rokossovski wrote:
As a side gameplay effect, this would also give a more efficient counter against the doom stacks which are so prevalent these days.
That was the main point driving me to make this thread in the first place
K.Rokossovski wrote:
A similiar story could be told about level bombers (tacs and strats they would bomb an area rather than a specific target. Attack bombers, strafing fighters and naval bombers are a different story; they would indeed roam the battlefield and pick specific targets, which is more in line with your suggestion.
I was thinking about this, and to align it with my suggestion, tactical bombers' and attack bombers' roles would have to be slightly changed, otherwise attack bombers might become too OP (although late game, they rarely get used so it might help balance that).
K.Rokossovski wrote:
To complete the ranged units, naval exchanges (both surface and submarine) would also be target- rather than area-based.
That was also another key point driving me to make this thread. It is a bit dumb that if you just add convoys to naval stacks, they automatically get added to the total HP, even though the enemy ships would focus on destroying the major threats first (carriers and battleships in most cases). The convoys would just be destroyed later, they don't go running into battle, that's not their purpose.
K.Rokossovski wrote:
And there are also points to be made for changing the damage distribution for plain melee combat: would the AT really waiste their fire on the infantry in a mixed stack with armor as well? So opening this might open endless discussion; when you implement changes in one area, it would scream for changes in another as well.
You do have a point, but this would occur at point blank range. The AT's will obviously be attacking the armour attacking them, not the invading infantry (that's for the defending infantry to deal with). It does open up a can of worms, so yea, I do agree with you on this one.
K.Rokossovski wrote:
Also remember that battle is often initiated when players are offline, and they're not available to make the "smart choice" when offering extra combat options, so the default would have to be at least "pretty good" as well.
True, but this is just another piece to argue about in the ongoing debate of "optimization at the cost of players needing to be active vs. activity at the cost of needing expert micromanagement". Rather not get involved in that can of worms for now
K.Rokossovski wrote:
let alone spend precious developer time on changes that might not even work the way we want to.
Rather have something to try out and test rather than just get a "Beta Client got a new Victory Screen!" update ą² ą² .
21 Jun 2022, 13:09
_Pyth0n_ wrote:
K.Rokossovski wrote:
As a side gameplay effect, this would also give a more efficient counter against the doom stacks which are so prevalent these days.
That was the main point driving me to make this thread in the first place
The simple, but expensive answer:
ATOM BOMB
Although those are best used strategically.
Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. ā Marshal Foch A pretty mechanical toy [...] the war will never be won by such machines. ā Lord Kitchener, on tanks
they would bomb an area rather than a specific target. Attack bombers, strafing fighters and naval bombers are a different story; they would indeed roam the battlefield and pick specific targets, which is more in line with your suggestion. To complete the ranged units, naval exchanges (both surface and submarine) would also be target- rather than area-based.
