Modding to weaken "chop & drop" tactics

[DilithiumDad]

I have been testing various modifications to weaken "chop & drop", which allows the first player Air Power and MMI to win every time. The goal is not to eliminate the strategy altogether, but to bring into balance with other methods such as:

Infantry Battle
Rolling Rovers
Green Conquest
Amphibious Assault
Missile combat
Advanced chassis (hovertank and gravship)
etc

Here is what I have tried (based on prior mods):
I. Reducing range
1. Reduce jet range by 3
2. Reduce 'copter range by 4
3. Reduce drop range from 8 to 6
4. Penalty for dropping and attacking the same turn increased from 50% to 66%
II. Increasing costs
1. Double cost factor of all air units
2. Increase prototyping cost to 100% for air units
3. Cost of drop ability rises with weapon strength and speed.
4. Cost of nerve gas ability rises with weapon strength
III. Increasing defense
1. Intrinsic base defense bonus increased from 25% to 50%
2. Sensor defense bonus increased from 25% to 50%
3. AAA ability is free, and increases defense 125% instead of 100%.
4. SAM ability is free.
5. Non-combat defense penalty eliminated.
6. Cost and maintenance of Aerospace Complex reduced.
7. Cost and maintenance of Tachyon Shield reduced.

[fluxionman]

I didn't vote in the poll, because I've found a combination of several of the options you've listed works relatively well.

a. Reducing chopper range - not only does it make sense realistically (choppers are fuel-hungry, low-range units compared to jets), but it reduces their attack capabilities to 2 or 3 per turn at the most

b. Increasing air drop penalty - hard to argue against

c. Increased prototyping costs - again, makes sense (air units are far more technologically complex than ground units) and double cost for prototypes is not prohibitive

d. Cost of drop ability rises with weapon and speed - that's a great idea I hadn't considered before

e. Increasing intrinsic base defense - I think bases are absurdly easy to take in SMAC under the default settings; realistically, unless an attacker has a tremendous technological advantage, he should be suffering twice as many casualties as the defender as he takes a base. This is the #1 factor contributing to chop & drop - being able to sweep through base after base without losing a significant attacking strength

I think players don't plan their defenses well enough to repel attacks from combined forces. It's common practice to design one type of base defender, when there should be anti-air (AAA SAM) and anti-ground (comm jammer / trance) units in combination. Hence, I tend to think that strengthening defenses and re-thinking defensive strategies are more appropriate than weakening the attack abilities of air units.

That's my $.02

[gwillybj]

I've done some of those things similar to what you listed, but for different reasons. I voted for only two items (as always, from a solo-play outlook):

Penalty for dropping and attacking the same turn increased from 50% to 66%.
Since the AI doesn't C&D (they do sometimes, but not very often and never very well), the increased penalty simply makes it less attractive to the player and either encourages more traditional methods or just slows things down a bit.

Cost of drop ability rises with weapon strength and speed.
The increased cost makes sense in that heavier units should be more difficult to airdrop.

[goomeister]

Originally posted by DilithiumDad
Here is what I have tried (based on prior mods):
I. Reducing range
1. Reduce jet range by 3
2. Reduce 'copter range by 4
3. Reduce drop range from 8 to 6
4. Penalty for dropping and attacking the same turn increased from 50% to 66%

All good ideas.

II. Increasing costs
1. Double cost factor of all air units
2. Increase prototyping cost to 100% for air units
3. Cost of drop ability rises with weapon strength and speed.
4. Cost of nerve gas ability rises with weapon strength

Again, good ideas. Watch out for number 3 though - I tried it, and imagine my surprise when I saw that it took 100 turns (!) to build a drop colony pod.

III. Increasing defense
1. Intrinsic base defense bonus increased from 25% to 50%
2. Sensor defense bonus increased from 25% to 50%

I've done this. You may want to increase the infantry bonus too, otherwise you'll kill early-game warfare.

3. AAA ability is free, and increases defense 125% instead of 100%.
4. SAM ability is free.
5. Non-combat defense penalty eliminated.

I don't know about these. If choppers are broken, you should treat the problem at its source. Free AAA will just end up as boilerplate on all defenders, and then what's the point? You've defeated the original intent of those abilities. If choppers are overpowered, making the defenders overpowered to match is not the solution.

I'm not sure about removing the penalty for non-combat defense. What's the point of specialized defenders if armored formers do just as well, and terraform? Non-combat units already have no penalty when defending from a base.

6. Cost and maintenance of Aerospace Complex reduced.
7. Cost and maintenance of Tachyon Shield reduced.

Well, I do think some of the facilities on the higher end of the tech tree are too expensive. But really, is it that hard to build an Aerospace complex?

[DilithiumDad]

Cost of drop colony pod: I noticed that too --with a fusion reactor! It's still the same old price with a fission reactor. Another cure would be include "drop colony pod" as a pre-designed unit. The AI would make them that way, too.

Increasing infantry bonus: Right. It works well to increase this to 33% (from 25%). Fanatic bonus also increased from 25% to 33%, so that Miriam is not shut out of momentum play.

The main strategy is using the two ability slots wisely. There's an opportunity cost to using AAA instead of trance, police, ECM or drop. 100% to 125% increases the defense multiplier from 2 to 2.25 --just 10% more.

Let's do the math. The game-busting matchup is a shard chopper against a plasma steel defender. Let's assume a disciplined base defender with a sensor and AAA:

Original game: 3 x 1.25 x 1.25 x 2 = 9.37

Modded game: 3 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 2.25 = 15.19

Now there's an even match! Of course, if the attacker adds in an extra jet and you can easily take out the sensor, reducing defense to 10.1. Now you need an aero complex, bringing up the total defense to 20.2 without a sensor.

Take the time to research and protocypte silk steel, and you can increase these numbers by a factor of 1.33.

Non-combat: This applies typically to a 'copter taking out many formers, transports and crawlers in a single turn. Without the 50% defense penalty, they are still pushovers, but at least the attacking unit will occasionally suffer a little damage. A former with plasma steel armor is still only going have a defense of 3, an instant kill for any attacker, at a great cost. Anyway, putting armor on any non-combat unit makes it a combat unit.

Cost of Aero Complex: Sure, you can build one. But you need to build one in every single base, including the size 1 base you just built. This is especially true when facing a human player with the Space Elevator. Ever try to rush build Aero Complexes in multiple bases while upgrading defenders and maybe rebuilding your HQ? Lowering cost also favors prepared attackers. Two units of morale can make all the difference with a tigher margin between attack and defense.

[Zeiter]

I've done several things in my alpha.txt file to decrease the overwhelming advantage of chop&drop:

1. AAA bonus costs the same, but gives 150% bonus.
2. Choppers cost roughly double the min rows
3. Choppers don't come until a later tech (I usually set it at nanomettalurgy)
4. I decrease the ECM bonus to +25%. This makes rover warfare more lucrative.
5. I increased the prototype cost to +100%.
6. I doubled the cost of nerve gas.

That +150% AAA bonus helps a lot! And not only do base defenders have better defending odds, but AAA ships are now worth building because they'll actually survive an aerial attack or two. And since the cost of aircraft is increased, it isn't economical to trade 2 aircraft for 1 destroyer, thus forcing there to be more emphasis on the navy and more naval battles, something that usually gets sidelined after D:AP.

[DilithiumDad]

Good idea about keeping the cost of AAA but raising the AAA defense bonus to 150% (this increases the multiplier from 2 to 2.5). I don't think this will help naval units much, because plasma armor with AAA only has a defense of 7.5 and won't even stand up to chaos. Now, a trained AAA destroyer would get another 1.25 multiplier for morale, so it would have 9.38 defense, which would easily fall prey to fusion laser or shard.

It's worse than that, actually. Because 'copters survive many battles, they quickly become elite. That means shard units have 19.5 attack! How is plasma or even silksteel supposed to stand up to that?

Regarding changing the required tech: as it is, MMI is pretty advanced, considering we can make 'copters now. Of course, this is with a mind-machine interface, similar to the devices seen in the Schwarzenagger flick "The Sixth Day". Actually, what I have expeirmented with is moving hovertanks to Superconductor and giving them 4 movepoints, and moving gravships to Nanometallurgy. The souped-up hovertanks are another alternative to 'copters. I also reduced the cost of missiles and increased their attack. I am not worried about missiles replacing 'copters because they are single-use.

[goomeister]

Originally posted by DilithiumDad
It's worse than that, actually. Because 'copters survive many battles, they quickly become elite. That means shard units have 19.5 attack! How is plasma or even silksteel supposed to stand up to that?

Base attack is about twice as strong as defence at the same tech level. This strongly favors the attacker, especially in air and sea battles, where there are no bonuses from terrain. I think we should raise the strength of armor, to give the edge to the unit with higher morale, rather than to the attacker.

Regarding changing the required tech: as it is, MMI is pretty advanced, considering we can make 'copters now. Of course, this is with a mind-machine interface, similar to the devices seen in the Schwarzenagger flick "The Sixth Day". Actually, what I have expeirmented with is moving hovertanks to Superconductor and giving them 4 movepoints, and moving gravships to Nanometallurgy. The souped-up hovertanks are another alternative to 'copters. I also reduced the cost of missiles and increased their attack. I am not worried about missiles replacing 'copters because they are single-use.

Personally, I think choppers come too early and hovertanks come too late, so I just swapped their positions on the tech tree. I'll probably move hovertanks somewhere else, though, to make MMI less valuable. I'm still experimenting with movement points. I've reduced 'copter moves, raised needlejet moves, increased missile attack strength, and raised costs across the board.

Really, choppers' multiple attacks are overpowered no matter what; all you can really do is give them so few movement points that they can't do anything useful. Maybe we should just do away with them altogether? We could then move hovertanks and gravships down the tech tree to compensate.

[DilithiumDad]

I don't want to eliminate 'copters entirely or mess with the tech tree too much. Players have had 5 years to get used to the tech tree. I would like to get people off the beeline to Air Power. The alternative beeline leads to Fusion Reactor BEFORE air power. I encourage this by strengthening artillery (enahncing Plymorphic Software) and moving hovertank chassis to Superconductor. Also, with the reduced move points air units are really only useful after Fusion.

In my single-player testing, I find that the set of changes outlined here are pretty effective in making chop&drop just another strategy. Hovertank rush and captive-bred mind worm rush are just as viable, and amphibious invasion is now superior to chop&drop.

I have thought about changing armor values, but I am concerned it would be too drastic a change and end up confusing players. It seems to me that weak armor is mainly a problem early (impact vs. synthmetal, chaos and then shard vs. plasma or silksteel). Thus, you could just add one to the value of all armor. This would have a big impact early, then have less effect later on as armor catches up to shard attack (level 13).

scout armor = 2 (+1, 100% increase)
synthmetal = 3 (+1, 50% increase)
plasma = 4 (+1, 33% increase)
silksteel = 5 (+1, 25% increase)
photon wall = 6 (+1, 20% increase)
probability = 8 (+2, 33% increase)
neutronium = 10 (+2, 25% increase)
antimatter = 12 (+2, 20% increase)
singularity = 15 (+3, 25% increase)

Increasing the defense of unarmored units from 1 to 2 would have little effect except to increase the chance of the attacker losing one or two hit points. Could be more significant for players caught with unarmored scouts defending their bases. None of the changes would affect psi combat, of course.

[livid imp]

I think you all have gone way overboard with this. I agree choppers should have a few move points shaved off. And they definitely need to cost 2 to 3 times more (they are worth the mins in military returns). But what ever happened to just using SAM and AAA units? One Air Superiority fighter will guarantee a win over a chopper of the same weapon value. Plus AS jets can reach trouble spots faster than any unit except bombers (until mag tubes of course). Now I don't play PBEMs, so maybe I have no clue, but I stockpile AS fighters if a aggressive opponent is building bombers. At that point it just becomes a war of attrition.....just like real wars. The ugly truth is that ground defenders just don't stand a chance against an air force, even when dug in with AAA. Ultimately, you have to fight air power with air power.

Choppers are over powered true, but not really broke. Why change fundamentals of the game such as an intrinsic bonus/penalty? Talk of added penalties or increased cost of drop troops is pointless. When I build drop troops I never bother giving them offensive armament. I only use them to capture cities and important ZoC areas, and they rarely get into fights. Besides the cost of drop ability rising with weapon strength and speed already occurs. The "Drop" ability is a multiplier in the total unit cost.

[DilithiumDad]

If you have never played PBEM, I can understand why you think there is little problem. I thought so too when I played single player and a couple of casual PBEM's. But then I had the experience, which almost everyone here has, of spending up to 6 months slowly building an empire then WHAM --out of the blue you have lost 4 major bases and your air force and all your offensive units are destroyed. Next turn, you lose your capital along with all your secret projects; your economy and research fall to zero. You conterattack and retake 2 or 3 bases, but lose them all and more the next turn. Game over.

There is no defense for this attack. The only defense is to be the first to attack. In PBEM, everyone beelines for Air Power and MMI. Beelining for AMA to get AAA ability is a losing strategy. To even the odds against air units, you need AAA defenders and aero complexes in every single base. The only plan is to keep military units (especially air units) back from the front lines for use in a counterattack --very risky.

SAM units don't work as the programmers intended. Their only use is for attacking needlejets in flight. If you have an aero complex, they will scramble to defend but do not get the attack bonus. A non-scrambled SAM unit has a defense of one unless it has armor.

Increased cost of drop ability will have only a small effect and only affect certain strategies --it wil actually have more effect on combat in the orbital insertion era. Also, drop rovers are extremely powerful for capturing bases --you can drop outside the aero complex protection area and swoop in for capture. Drop rovers are very cheap under standard alpha.txt configuration.