Tank Stength Imbalance

[Barley]

Been considering the strength of Tanks and as is agreed they are to strong
and their discovery by one player usually ends the game abruptly.

The solution would seem to be just reduce their strength but this would
cause further imbalance with other modern and future units. In addition to
Tanks PT-Boats seem to have a imbalance in terms of their bombard strength.

Having though about this rather than deal with these two unit types I think
the focus should be on Machine Gunners and Artillery which could be
considered to week. If these were made to be stronger and have a higher
production cost it may improve the PT-Boat / Tank issue. In addition it
would modify the current situation of Machine Gunner/Artillery being only
slightly better than Infantry/Cannon.

I suggest we do the following:

* Increase Machine Gunner & Artillery strength & production cost by about 20%
* Decrease Tank Strength slightly and increase overall production
costs up 20%

Current Values

Unit Cost Support Attack Range Defence Armour Damage
Infantry 1000 10 25 10 35 1 3
Cavalry 1200 12 35 20 30 1 3
Cannon 1200 12 10 50 25 1 3
Machine Gunner 1200 12 40 20 30 1 3
Artillery 1500 15 10 70 35 2 3
PT-Boat 2000 20 50 0 40 2 4
Tank 2000 20 50 80 35 3 4

New Values

Unit Cost Support Attack Range Defence Armour Damage
Infantry 1000 10 25 10 35 1 3
Cavalry 1200 12 35 20 30 1 3
Cannon 1200 12 10 50 25 1 3
Machine Gunner 1400 14 45 20 35 1 3
Artillery 1700 17 10 75 35 2 3
PT-Boat 2000 20 50 0 40 2 4
Tank 2500 25 50 75 35 3 4

Maybe worth play testing these changes.

[Shadow]

Give it a shot and let us know your findings.

Over the years I've tinkered quite a lot with these variables for various units. Especially the cruise missiles... now that's an understrength unit IMO.

[Maquiladora]

Have you had a look in the MP mod thread Barley?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120360

But just to comment on those new stats for Tanks, i would still say theyd be my main unit. No matter how expensive or how cheap the other units are (to a realistic point) its nearly always better to go for the best armoured unit there. Not only is it less support overall to build a few powerful tanks (rather than lots of weak m.gunners) but they can flank, which makes them a lot more powerful than the numbers show, when theyre flanking for each other in a 12 stack.

[Barley]

Hi Maq, I have seen that thread and have a few comments to make but will reserve them for the weekend when I have time to consider and type a reasonably detailed response.

Re the Tanks, I take your point about going for the strongest unit and I do the same. My concern was brought to fore by a recent game where I was just 3 turns behind on discovering Tanks where everything else was quite equal. My fortified stacks (in Forts) of M-Gunner/Art were just demolished by Tanks. I felt these units should be made just that bit stronger that if deployed in numbers would have at least some chance to slow a Tank attack down for enough turns. A stack of 12 Tanks leaves even a stack of 12 M-Gunner/Art in pieces with little Tank damage even when they are fortified in forts. Thus your idea that fortified units should have a bonus of 100% carries some weight though this needs to be considered in terms of possible imbalance that may result.

At the end of the day we play the game to its strengths and through trial and error find the most economical solutions to enable an advantage over an oponent. I guess whatever changes are made we will learn to exploit the small imbalances.

[Maquiladora]

Take your example and see if its a realistic result and if its a good result in terms of gameplay. Its a pretty crappy result in terms of gameplay balance. Would a full stack of machine gunners and artillery ready and waiting inside a fort be able to stop an equal stack of tanks in real life? I dont know my military knowledge is terrible. I just know id like to see most of those tanks die.

Yeah if we get it wrong we'll soon find out, but i cant see much wrong with making defence easier than offence, considering the current situation. Offence takes less ingenuity and planning to suprise IMO, than defence does, so defence should be easier for good exciting gameplay, like in your example. We both know how losing even 2 or 3 cities can cripple someone for the rest of the game too, which is silly and ruins a good close game IMO.