Over the past several games, along with watching a lot of games from the big guns like joelodom, xiken, ntalbott, and many others.... I've noticed a trend in playing styles:

 It seems like a lot more players are going to a quantity style. They are using massive lines of infantry with heavy artillery behind them. In theory, I think this is the best strategy as well: There is no way a line of tanks can get through dozens of infantry to get to the heavy artilleries without the infantry being able to regenerate so easily with new arrivals.

 Anyone else notice this? 

I'm pretty sure a month from now everyone will be playing this style and heavytanks/tanks will barely be played with. I wonder if this will show a slight imbalance?

 My suggestion would be to diminish the defense of the infantry to the same as raiders or something.

now you rushed this post i was planning to do about playstyles from players...

from games i've played against "younger" players i've noticed they tend to abuse tanks and heavy tanks and all that... people give to much credit to those things... and weewar is based on a simple fact: Artillery = DEATH, save the artillery save your world!

So all you need is to protect your artillery (HEAVY ARTILLERY or DFA)... and for that all you need is troopers. Tanks are a last resort option... to use only when you need that extra edge FAST! Raiders is a unit to use when you need even more speed... or you need to take down enemy artillery. But for defending your artillery, the main weapon in the game... all you need is a good infantary. mix some heavy and normal troopers. and you are good to go. I would say: make 2 lines of artillery between your enemies and you. that will probably will be enough.  this works in BIG maps.

 For small maps... go for heavy tanks (or beserkers even) first. In the smallest map of the game (1on1? dunno it's name) first guy getting heavy tank advantage as won the map.

 well... that's my game... honestly... i use all units in the game. i have my preferences. but honestly don't change unit stats... they are ok. And i think it's like in real life... infantary is the best weapon! man is better than machine!! and a lot of men can kill even tanks! and bigger armies are much more fun to manage also!

ok now you know how i play... invite me to a game and make me lose games!! hahaha

kgosser: Yeah, that's  true, I don't remember the last time I have built h.tank - yeah, it's kind of powerful, unles it is hit by undamaged h.artilery defended by a horde of infantry. I think decreasing infantry defence value would be an option, but honestly I like the way it is now - like xiken have jus said.

 On the other hand, my last two 1on1 games (on the map with sandy path on the both sides and the main track in the middle of it, yeah, I've forgotten it's name) tend to stuck in the centre. Both players use h.a. + infantry lol

There's a way around this problem I guess - making the attacking unit have some advantage over the unit being attacked would help a little. 

yeah, the "one on one" map does tend to bottleneck at the centre, its not so much that both players are using the same strategy, just that the narrowness of the path means it doesn't matter how many men you have, you can only get so many attacks per turn (reminds of the film 300 - "a narrow passage where numbers are meaningless")

One way to get a little more use out of a larger army is to send some of them around the edges, its slow but they get there eventually and supported by heavy artillery they can help you break through to the other side.

I have a game running with that situtation, although its actually now sort of moved to the stage of having pretty much broken through, but for a long time it was deadlocked at the centre (until I got a few guys through and sniped out ghstomohawks artillery)

Now that game is being delayed by an apparent lack of opponent, but I can wait (he does show up and make a move every so often, but if you're reading this ghstomohawks, move it along )

raiders can make a difference on that map! just make your large army first

protect the centre... don't let your opponent enter your borders... and then attack in the sides... or use artillery to kill him or to make him attack you. 

yeah.. now you say it I remember raiders being used to move swiftly and break it up a little too.

that works too  

My strategy is to quickly grab the bases and then fight bravely to my death!

Super-King you an Heavy Trooper spammer!!

I think that if people are seeing that they can achieve victory using only two or three out of 8 to 10 unit types, then the game needs to be [slowly and incrementally and carefully] tweaked.  Each unit should have some moderate to strong advantage and disadvantage against some other unit.  If certain units are far less useful in the game, what's the point?  Just take them out.  Even if they were useful under certain circumstances, that would be worth something.

i just lost a base due to 2 heavy artillery behind several heavy troopers and normal troopers, before base balance was 500-300 so i thought i could just churn out the better units but he overwhelmed me with his troopers.

 I agree with pistos because i saw super kings game and it looked boring. So far i havent resorted to spamming out troopers, but i may consider doing so just to win.

Balancing is a delicate issue. It defenitely needs to hapen, but then it must not hapen to often as it would mess with people's strategy. But we have noticed these trends and are currently considering various tweaks. Maybe you have specific suggestions as to how change things around? Range, defense, attack, prize, move AND attack vs move OR attack, etc. We'd bevery interested in hearing your ideas on this.

Yeah, 76th round...  lol

 Heavy tanks are not useful at all against horde of troopers [not to mention h.troopers], cause h. artilery tends to take out around 5 h.t. subunits. Even though troopers can't do a harm to h.t., they are good barricade for sluggish h.t.

Blocking narrow paths with h.t. is kind of hard, too, because again they are slow. Even if you get them where you want them to be, they probably will be gunned down by h.a. 

Building 6 h.troopers is more efficient than building one h.tank.

It's easier to block h.artilery with 5-10*10 troopers than one or two heavy tanks.

 Picking up all statements written above, we can gather that h.tanks either are to expensive [eventually slow], h.a. too cheap and troopers of any kind [that gives cheap two against wide range of expensive mechanized] can easily spam the map. 

Suggestions?

1) rise the ha.a cost so that people will be forced to spam even more troopers [or eventually other units if we get through another point]. 

2) decrease h.tanks cost - dunno if it's a good idea, but for now they are neither goot for attacking [cause they are slow and can be easily taken down by 2xh.a.] nor for defending [When we defend, it usually means that enemy has a lot of h.a. :o]. h.tanks [and tanks] should move faster than troopers in the sand and this brown-green kind of terrain [I know they do now, but what if the h.tanks could do 3 pieces of sand-terrain in sandy areas - when you're on the desert you don't have to care about the rabbits and other animals around you like you do on the plains] At least let h.t. do 2 pieces per turn, no matter what kind of terrain they are passing through.

3) terrain shouldnt affect all the mechanized units in the same way. Dunno why the tanks would have some difficulties with passing thorugh sand/trees/mud etc.

4) The best idea to make people not build only Infantry and h.a. it to make the unit limitations, so that quality of the units would be more important than their amount.

I think that's kind of easy and fair way to change player's not-too-imaginative style of playing. Actually I feel I alowly become more and more bored with the way my games are being played. Yeah, I'm doing h.a. + infantry too, but nothing else seems to be as much effective, so why not...

Very delicate indeed, plasticshore. I appreciate the receptiveness to tweaking though. It's a beautiful, beautiful game, but it doesn't mean it can't tweak a bit

The reason I brought this up is that it has become boring with just that strategy. There's really no way to lose with it, as long as you prefer to grind out your opponent. And it feels like the game is being cheated when raiders, tanks, and h.tanks are somtimes never used a whole game by someone.

My biggest suggestion: Make the defense of infantry more dynamic. If they are on trees or a base, having a good defense is ok there.. but if they are on an open grass field or a desert tile, there's no reason why a tank couldn't take out 7-8 of them. 

 A minor suggestion: What Guthlord said: Make attacking units have a slight bigger advantage over the defending ones. Although I acknowledge that's not as life-like since a defensive stance in war has prevailed probably 80% of the time throughout history.

(I just made that stat up ) 

xiken: I have an open slot.. do you think I could get a game with you? Maybe a 1v1 so I can learn a bit more? Thanks!

i think you h.a. + infantary spammers are wrong! There is a use for Heavy Tanks, tanks and raiders... (and beserkers by the way, that is one mean killing machine... it's not a D.F.A.... but it's pretty close to it in usefulness...)

 ATTENTION SPAMMERS:

if anyone is up for a weewar lesson... let's make a game... you promisse to use only those units through the game and i'll use whatever units i'll want... and then let's see what happen! just for the sake of the experience. Any takers? make it  a 2-6 player game... doesn't matter... but with more players you will see the beauty of armored veicules even better.

(i just don't have any open spots right now...i've used my last one yesterday... because i would gladly kill all of you in alfabetic order) 

suggestions(for tweaking units):

• Light artillery it's not really usefull... how about some fast light artillery (raider speed)? or longer distance artillery but making only lighter damage to units? Or some kind of long distance artillery that could make light area damage, not just one hex... but various.
• Defense units... we have artillery... a unit that can only attack and sucks at defense. how about the reverse? a armored unit that can defend well, moves slow, have light attacks... but it's though as hell to take down... it could even replace infantary as defense for artillery. a name for it? i was thinking something in the ways of a brick of walls... something very very though to take down!! a shield! but i see no real equivalent to that right now...

@kgosser: sure!! wanna try and use only infantary+artillery against me? 

I use the "churn out heavy troopers and back it up with artillery" strategy when it works, on a wide open field where tanks have room to maneuver, or if there's lots of sand around then it ends up not working and however many waves of infantry you have they fall apart like wet tissue paper, so then I don't use it

I be no spammer  

I would support making tanks cheaper - when you need some units quickly, waiting 2 or 3 turns for a H.Tank pretty much rules it out as an option

@xiken: Sure. Just send me an invite when you have an open slot.

To clearify my suggestion a little better: If infantry are going to be used as pawns in strategy, then they should be treated as pawns on the battlefield. A more specific example would be to set Light Inf. to this: 

75credits / 1 defensive shield / 3vs.inf / 1vs.tank 

and heavy inf. to this: 125 credits / 3 defensive shield / 2vs.inf / 3vs.tank 

i still think you guys love tanks too much. they are just stupid cars with big armors... don't give them more power!!

death to machines... power to the people!! go infantary go!!!

Some suggestions follow.  Not all of these have to be implemented together, just experiment:

Perhaps the tanks could get one more notch of defense.  After all, shooting at flesh and shooting at metal plating ought to give some pretty different results.

And now a very radical idea.  This will change game dynamics a LOT, but who knows, it might be interesting or worth it.

Have all armour (non-artillery) have the ability to attack by moving onto the hex containing enemy infantry.  The result would be some sort of attack that does damage, and then any survivors are pushed back 1 hex (perhaps straight back, perhaps in a random direction).  This would simulate tanks barrelling in and steamrolling enemy personnel.  After all, does it make any sense that personnel can hold a position and prevent a tank from moving forward?

If you implement this, make any necessary adjustment to the price of armour. 

Also, we could consider allowing tanks to have attack range 1-2 instead of just 1. 

Maybe tanks could be used to damage/destroy bases?  (Give bases HP, too)  After a base is destroyed, it could remain uncapturable for the rest of the battle.

@xiken: I'd like to see you stare down a tank, lol.

@pistos: some of those are really tough to impliment, although good ideas. Giving tanks a range of 1-2 instead of 1 is a great idea, in my opinion though. 

They may take a lot of implementation, but if they would be good for the game, I'd say the effort is worth it. 

I like kgosser's idea to make infantry defense more variable depending on the terrain type.  With that in place... expanding on Xiken's idea for "defense units" -- maybe infantry could dig trenches or build fortifications on a grass hex, which would increase the defense of an infantry unit on that specific hex.  That action would cost a certain number of credits and the infantry couldn't do anything else for that turn (kind of like capturing a base).  Maybe that action could only be done by a special "engineers" trooper type.  Just brainstorming...

I thought we were trying to make the infantry less powerful compared to armour? 

The more I think about my steamroller idea, the more I like it.  The key problem with tanks vs. troops that people are bringing up is that spamming troops clogs up strategic sections of the map.  This doesn't seem to make sense when you stop to consider: just how exactly are troops stopping tanks from moving anywhere they please, especially on plains?

@pistos: Infantry would be changed to be less powerful.  It would take extra time (during which they cannot move and would be even more vulnerable) and credits to increase infantry defense to be around to where it is now or maybe a little more...  Just a clarification...

I find a tank being able to force its way through an area full of infantry more unrealistic than the tank being stopped - a tank may be armoured but it can't act like a snowplough and its not invulnerable to bullets.

I know if I was the guy driving a tank and I saw a massed army of infantry staring me down I wouldn't want to try and drive straight into them. Tank vs. infantry should favour the tanks more, for realism and to diminish the advantage of trying to choke an area with infantry, but being able to push them around like that just doesn't seem right to me (maybe add it to the growing list of "things to make optional")

Making bases destructible is a bad idea as far as I can see. Unless they're repairable afterwards, maybe take an extra turn to capture to simulate rebuilding a little, otherwise it'd be too easy for a player to storm into an area, destroy the only base nearby instead of waiting 2 turns to capture it (which is fairly easily interruptable) then withdraw when their units have taken a pounding and leave their opponent permanently weakened.

You could easily tweak how hard it is to destroy bases.  Like maybe each turn you can only do 1-5 damage on it, and it could have like 30-50 HP.  So it would take 6-10 turns to fully destroy. 

And it balances out, because the same thing can happen the other way around.  You might get attacked, but you can also attack a base.

I'm not saying the tank should be invulnerable to infantry, the infantry can still attack it the same way as right now.  I'm just saying that I don't see how a group of 10 people can stop a group of 10 tanks.  I'm assuming that's what the subunit number means.

If tanks were so weak, they wouldn't be used in the real world.

The infantry should be superior to tanks in their maneuverability, and ability to go through places where tanks can't, like heavily wooded areas, or up mountainsides. 

But if you're going to compare purely firepower on an open plain, assuming the same number of units or subunits... tanks should be superior.

 I always treated the subunit number as being a health-meter rather than a number of units within a block, but both ways make sense. However, as it stands, 1 infantry unit vs. one tank unit, the tank will most likely win, as it should (although not 100% of the time - occasionally infantry can take down a tank) but if a passage is choked up with half a dozen infantry units (one unit is rarely able to block a whole route), then if each one represents 10 men thats 60 guys with guns, I would think twice before trying to send a tank column through that.

Obviously tanks should kick ass against infantry, but not to the point where infantry are worthless in the face of a tank assault, that just tips it to the other extreme. The decision to make is where the tipping point is - are 3 infantry units a match for one tank unit? In which case the tank being 3 times more expensive than the infantry makes sense, or do the prices/strengths need tweaking to even it out?

@Pistos: The steamrolling idea isn't bad, but let's say an infantry gets pushed back, but all the hexes surrounding it are full of other units at 10? And behind them, another row of units all at 10? Where would the unit being steamrolled go?

I'd rather just decrease the defense of an infantry via terrain more so that it's easier to completely dispose of them like the pawns they are being used as. 

what if tanks could crush infantary? if you moved a Tank or Heavy Tank or Berserker unit (health 1-10) to a square (plain, sand or swamp) with troopers or heavy troopers (health 1-3) you could "crush" the infantary unit, instantly killing that unit, and allowing you to take a a shot at someone in the same turn. Wouldn't that be fun? and a nice incentive to make people use tanks?

 what if troopers and heavy troopers would have defense = 3 but instead of the Stay option they could Defend for the turn giving them the normal defense = 4? that would powered them down a bit.... at least as offensive units... and people would have to use more tanks to attack. and infantary more for defense purposes only.

 and how about parashooters? we are getting planes... can't we get aero transported infantary now too?so we could drop a present at the enemies back... and surprise him a little!!

There really isn't a way to surprise your enemy.... only at the buliding stage

kgosser: Good point about "where does the unit get pushed to" 

Maybe, on account of there being nowhere to go (all 5 exit hexes are taken), the unit is forced to totally die? 

Super-King: I'm not trying to make infantry just little weaklings that you just step on like ants.  The infantry can still fire back, use RPGs, shoot at weak points, plant C4, toss a grenade in the cockpit, on and on.  So, they can still attack as per normal (as it is right now), I'm just trying to introduce a "might" factor for tanks.

(which I believe they deserve when matching up 1:1 unit for unit)

abAnother way to counteract the strength of a mass of infantry blocking a path would be to make a new unit that's good at breaking up such a knot of infantry

maybe a sniper - able to pick them off from a distance with huge damage vs infantry (but almost none vs vehicles and low defense) get a couple of snipers and combined with a tank assault you can disintegrate the whole blockage

@Super-King: GREAT idea!!!!

Also, the last three games I've played, the game has been nothing but all teams using mass infantry and h.art.... something has to be done about this. Talk about boring! Guthlord is in one of those games right now. And in another, I was the ONLY person out of 4 to use a unit outside of light.inf/heavy.inf/heavy.art the whole freaking game. So boring, I might stop playing

AOE damage could be consired, too. Would be very effective against those mass infantry players

TBH, in all the games I've played so far, I have used nearly all unit types.  Cheaper ones more frequently, of course, but only because of cost effectiveness.   I certainly see the effectiveness of artillery behind a fodder wall, but the other units are not totally useless to me.

@kgosser: have you tried playing different maps maybe? infantary+artillery in some maps doesn't work... or it's exclusive use it's just easy to beat!

Play this maps: cruel intentions(with 4 players), aruba (2 players), dead meadows (2 players), city sprawl (2 players), one on one (2 players). these are some where you need to use other units to play it and win!

I do use the "quick-spawn a large infantry army" tactic, but supplement it by saving money from other bases (those not involved in the spawning of infantry) to get raiders, tanks, whatever the situation calls for. 

*sigh*.... 

another game, another situation where even 2 tanks, 2 raiders, and 4 infantry couldn't get past only 6 infantry and a heavy artillery. and i'm not bad at this game... that was my first loss 

btw, Xiken, that was on Aruba. I as blue and came down early with said units, and for 20 straight rounds i couldn't crack through his line of infantry (since he could just create 2 new ones every round). and his heavy artillery just bashed any incoming infantry down to 3 every round.

finally, after 20 rounds, i just gave up. there was no more "tactical use of many units" going on, as Pistos likes to say. it came down to only a few actual hexes could attack his infantry, and the toughness of the infantry wouldn't even let tanks/raiders cut through. i even got a light.artillery to give me some extra attacks, but by the time it got within range, his heavy.artillery knocked it down to 2. so a HUGE wtf and essentially pissed me off enough to yawn at this game

i'm probably not going to play anymore until the defense of infantry are brought down or there are some changes to mix it up. i can easily win if I sell out and use that strat, and I easily lose if I try to mix it up and do a different strat. later bros.

@Kgosser: I'm not saying you are a good or bad player... nor that is my problem or concern. But the problem there is that you choose the wrong army composition to defeat your opponent. Aruba is an Heavy Tank Arena. All units there exist with the single purpose to help the Heavy Tank. So tanks and raiders are not necessary to build unless there is REAL need for them.

Raiders and Tanks strong point is Speed. I think their main use is to flank your opponent, or to do a temporary boost in the assault/defence line... not to do a frontal assault... unless you can spam tanks like hell that is... but you can't do that in Aruba. You don't have enough money to do it.

So complicated.... whatever happened to point and shoot?

yeah, you should stay with tetris, dek 

This might not be a surprise, but I'm not much better at that either

As a suggestion if certain units, say Raiders or Tanks, destroy an infantry unit, allow them to occupy that spot.  This would allow them to push through enemy lines more easily.

That's a pretty good idea, prevents the infantry group reforming along the same line on that player's turn and rebuilding numbers from behind

Sort of like chess.

+1 for vehicles claiming spots of defeated infantry.

(in lieu of implementing my steamrolling ideas  :) )

i think that claiming infantary spots is a good idea too (but for thanks... raiders would be too powerfull with that). but not right now!!

with the new units (planes, subs, hovercrafts...) popping soon... well i don't think changes in the old units aren't really what anyone needs, right now at least! because we will all have to change playing styles to new units... and no one wants a revolution in gameplay right? we all just want an evolution!

and who knows (besides the devs)... maybe the new units fix any stalling problems in the game! 

If the revolution in gameplay would bring more balance, then I'm ready to change my playing style. +1 for lower defence value for h.infantry and infantry btw. From my new games I picked up that: horde of infantry can be easily stopped by a few riders. Rider can turn out usefull in capturing bases when enemy builds lots of infantry, unles we say heavy - then they're pretty useless.

I am a new player (I havn't finished a game yet) and I have definitely noticed these trends. I am doing surprisingly well againts the two people I am playing (maybe they are more noob than I?) but I have a well balanced army. But is very similar strategy that would be employed in other turn based war games. (is 'Advanced Wars' taboo around here? I don't think I have seen it mentioned dispite the influences)

no taboo that I know of, and I think I remember some comparison.. somewhere around here.. somewhere.. 

I bought Advance Wars because several Wee War players mentioned it.  I think that the Wee War hex system is far better than a rectangular grid.

If tanks could pass over infantry occupied spaces, and were able to finish their move on any infantry occupied plain or sand or mud space if the infantry were at strength 5 or under (thereby destroying the infantry in an "overrun"), I'd be happy... Just allowing them to move through infantry occupied spaces would be interesting (the other is simply to reduce the pssibility of removing the tank ability by carpeting the land with strength 1 infantry).

+1 for taking the space after destroying a unit. 

+2 agree with taking space after destroying.  think about it - how would this be happening in the real world?

Just wondering if all units being able to occupy the space held by a destroyed enemy would make sense, that would prevent the situation of a block being held by a continuous supply of troopers from the back.

Super-King: I'd like to see that in beta test.  Not sure at the moment whether it would be good or not, but I'm in favour of vehicles taking over defeated infantry hexes.

Okay, just thought I'd revisit the original point of this thread.  I'm noticing now that most of the games I'm losing, it's because I lost the artillery arms race.  I also notice that it is very difficult to turn a game around once you are behind in terms of units lost.

A game that boils down to an artillery arms race is not my idea of a fun game... I think a good strategy game needs to provide all players multiple avenues to victory, even when they are a little bit disadvantaged at the current moment.  There should be plenty of factors and variables to consider, and that's where the masterful game play should arise -- that is, good management of all these factors.  When all it comes down to are: (1) arms race + (2) getting even just slightly ahead in damage count, then I think the winning strategies have simmered down and gotten too simplified.

I don't have all the answers, but I think the game is in need of some tweakings. 

1 on 1 is a good level for that theres no race

+ 3 for taking space after destroying a unit. or even for moving after destroying a unit? i mean, if a unit can move and shoot, why should it not be able to shoot first and move afterwards? 

and i also think, if the units are more affected by the terrain as other people already said, the gameplay would be better. infantry should have increased its defense in cities a lot while tanks that fight against a city should have lowered their defense and attack (as if fighting _in_ the city instead of on the terrain surrounding the city. 

*agrees with part of what Pistos said*

Losing a little bit can swing the whole match against you. It can take a while, but once your opponent has more bases than you, and hence more attack power, you're pretty much inevitably screwed. 

The only way I would support space occupation after destroying another unit, is if the attacking unit still had movement points left that would allow it to move into that space. No freebies. That would affect game balance. Everytime you change the game mechanics, you need to look at balance. Still not sure I would support the idea. I would like to see it on test before committing to it.

+1 for unit movement after attack, and not capture tile if unit is destroyed. I agree with clown too. Movement after a kill should be base on movement points left. If propeply balance, this could counter the whole build walls of troopers and have arts behind to pound.

Example 1: raider moves 2, attacks and destroys trooper, moves 2 back. This opens a hole to move another raider or trooper to attack the Art.

Clowntrigger: Agreed.  Only allow hex takeover if the unit has MPs left. 

I would seperate the overrun attack from movement.  Essentially, do not give it to Raiders.  They already have a roll.  Instead work towards bettering the tanks.  Allow them if they destroy an infantry unit to move into that square.  Nothing more complicated than that.  Balance changes should be small.

You're going to run into ZOC issues too. I say balance the new units, get a good map editor, then, and maybe only then, add it to the test server for feedback.

it just doesnt make sense NOT to capture the tile you just attacked atter the unit is destroyed. i mean, you practically MOVE your unit on that field with an attack (like, you send your troops in the city to attack it), why should they walk BACK after the successful attack? last game: my city was completely surrounded. he destroeyed my heavy tank with his LAST unit, that was around his city, my city was empty, but i just built another brand new heavy tank on my round. that doesn't seem right, fair or logical at all.

+1 on duck idea!! i can relate to that... the situation he is telling happens (at least to me) a lot. and it's REALLY frustrating!

-1 Auto takeover after a successful attack will require you to rethink your attacks. Most of the time when I attack I want to open a hole up in my opponents defensive line. For example: If my unit attacks and destroys the opposing unit, it then moves into the catpure tile and successfully plugs up the hole due to ZOC. If you based it on movement points left. Then you can choose to move to the tile or leave it open. 

Duck: In your scenerio, your tank will have to have enough movement points to move into the tile. If he doesn't then he stays. If your opponents builds a tank the next round, you can still destroy it. Since your tank has not move in this round it will have enough movement points to capture the tile.

What would be annoying would be if your victorious tank was automatically moved on top of the beseiged base, meaning you couldn't capture it until next turn

So yeah, capturing a defeated hex wants to be optional and most likely based on some kind of movement point system

Converting to a movement/attack point system would also mean that attack then move becomes possible, and allow more maneuvering of tight-packed units, all good things 

madmike: Agreed, it should be an option to move.  All of this boils down to an Action Point or Movement Point system, wherein your attack and your move are completely independent.  i.e. all units could: (1) attack then move, (2) move then attack, (3) move, attack, move; provided the unit has MPs to spend.

I'm a new player and I've certainly noticed this "Light Troopers" and "Heavy Artillery" strategy. To be honest, if you guys aren't going to fix it then I don't plan on sticking around. My favorite strategy games are those with many different types of effective units and many different winning strategies--not just one. Please let me know what you are doing to combat this irritating unbalance.

For a while it seemed fixed.. but I'm getting beat that way again in the tourney.

I think to fix it, either artillery would have to be nerfed, or troopers made more expensive (and my gut reaction doesn't like either option)

Making troopers weaker wouldn't really help - even if you could kill them with one hit, you can't kill them quick enough to make a meaningful advance because you can only attack so many times per turn.

Actually.. if you could kill troopers with a single hit, you might stand a chance of advancing into their ranks. But if you need 2 hits, you need to get 2 units that are able to attack it, and along an infantry wall you can't do that to 2 adjacent units (without artillery of your own), and can't move another unit into the gap created because of the ones on either side being left.

Attacking across multiple turns fails if they can keep up swift restocking of the cannon fodder.. maybe if troopers had no ZOC. That could give vehicles an edge by letting them get inside of 1-hex gaps in the wall. If there's a whole stack of artillery behind it then you're still going to take heavy losses... but that's to be expected - artillery are expensive and ought to pack a reasonable punch.

tangential side note: I realised after the event that each successive paragraph in my last post was one line longer [with my screen resolution and positioning of the topic list/message window divider that is]

Maybe infantry zone of control could be negated by armor simulating an overun attack.

if you apply the move and attack option I think two things should apply. Attack uses a fraction a movement point, so not all advances would be possible. Example tank moves one, destroys and infantry and moves forward to that hex under clear terrain conditions. If the infantry was in a wooded area, movement cost for the tank would be just out of reach so move to the wood would be impossible that turn, but a move to clear terrain hex would be OK

Second, apply it to all units, infantry included.

I have mentioned before, but I think a reduction in the accuracy of artillery would be a realistic and beneficial tweak. Artillery should have a high degree of accuracy at the minimum range but the further the shot, the probability of drift should come into play. At maximum range a artillery unit should have a chance of missing its target, with the shot drifting to an adjacent hex. This will help in those artillary standoffs by introducing a new random into play. Imagine that DFA at a range of 5 not being guaranteed a hit on that base your trying to capture.
 

I suggest that we add an anti infantry unit (comparable to http://weewar.com/specifications ) :

Sniper (SOFT)

Attack:

soft: 8
hard: 0
air: 0
speedboat: 0
amphibic: 0
sub: 0
boat: 0
 

Defense: 2

Range: 2-3

Movement: 7
 

Can move and attack. Can attack a second time.

Cost: about 300 
 

this unit would probably very helpful against (mass) infantery, but useless against every other unit.

As the one who is beating Super King with heavy artillery and light infantry in the tourney - I think SK's solution is actually the best.  If artillery could kill troopers in a single shot then I think an attacker could blow through the lines.  As it stands now, you have to get lucky with a strength 10 DFA to kill a full-strength trooper!  This solution has the advantage of being a relatively minor tweak.  Just increase the strength of artillery on "soft" to a huge number.

My suggested solution was for infantry to not have ZOC over vehicles - I'm thinking of the case where one player has a good sized force of tanks, but little or no artillery, and are facing off against a trooper-mass with artillery behind it.

Against a solid wall of infantry, the most attacks you can hit one trooper with is 2 (one from each side) and you can't do that to 2 adjacent troopers. Means that without bringing up artillery of your own (which would kind of defeat the point of trying to find a counter-strategy to the artillery wall) you can't move a vehicle forward into enemy infantry lines - the gaps are only 1 hex and ZOC stops you from moving past the guy on either side of that gap.

Assuming near-unlimited supply of infantry from the back there's no way to move forward. Remove the ZOC on the other hand, and you can gang up on one guy with 2 units, and jump a 3rd one into the gap to attack any of the others (or the artillery if the wall is that thin).

I think one-hit kills on infantry would just make them not worth building.

hmmm  sorry for not understanding the suggestion.

Back in the distant past when this thread was first started there was no ZOC for ANY units and there was still a problem with the infantry/artillery strategy.  I'm not so sure adjusting the ZOC would be effective in countering it.

I think one-hit kills on infantry would just make them not worth building.

I like this suggestion. I also like the idea of being able to sometimes occupy hexes after killing the unit in that hex. Thanks for your suggestions...keep me informed on the progress of this!
 

I really like Humphammer's suggestion to give artillery less accuracy at range.

Agree for less accuracy at range.

Also, I believe this was mention a long time ago in the summer. Allow raiders to avoid enemy ZOC unless the enemy has >= movement points of the raider. In this case, only hovers, raiders, and assault artillery could block it. Or something to that degree.
 

What about giving tanks to ability to displace or crush regular troopers?  If it's either ger run over or move I bet they'd move.  So if a tank moves into a hex with an enemy tropper on it  if there's a clear adjacent hex then the tropper gets pushed to it, otherwise a tank just runs it over.

Then the defence of troopers would be worthless... just go on a crushing spree and they all die.

Seems like it would swing it too far the other way.

its a funny idea though. come with an army of tanks and run over infantry. One could include that once they overran a unit, they cant attack anymore.

either way, I miss a unit that kills another unit for sure, no dice rolling, no random, click/dead finito. One DFA cant even kill a bunch of 10 capturing light infantrists. make it a super expencive kamakazi if need be but something ...

 

I suppose burying a tank into enemy lines would mean you then leave yourself open to attack from all sides in their turn,  but with enough tanks you could blow them away in a single turn

Seems kinda open to abuse to me - it'd fix the issue at hand to be sure, but it'd cause a whole new one.

Maybe a sniper unit as was suggested somewhere. That could be the guaranteed one-shot unit, but its usefulness is limited by the fact that it's crappy against everything except infantry.

What about artillery-shell shrapnel?

It would affect all adjacent hexes to the target hex, and damage only soft targets in those hexes?
 

I suggest changing artillery attack from a "vehicle" source damage to it's own range category. Then you can change how each unit takes artillery hits. So maybe units like raiders would have high armor vs range attacks.

I would suggest a couple of possible changes (some of which have been mentioned above) to beef up the ranks of the tanks.None of these as far as I can guess would require a massive rewrite of game code but they might need tweaking of attack and defence stats so as not to throw the whole game out of balance.

1. All tanks should be able to fire first and then move or move first and then fire: This would mean that you could kill the trooper directly in front of you and at least advance one square instead of having the gap filled in by a new soldier every turn before you can move into it.

2. Tanks should be immune to the ZOC of enemy infantry: This would mean that when confronted with a horde of infantry type attack you could use your artillery to kill an enemy inf 2 or 3 rows back and move your tank into the gap ( even if that means leapfrogging enemy infantry).
As someone said before a tank should really be able to plough through a line of infantry, and while it would be unfair if the infantry were wiped out by this I think they shouldn't be able to stop a tank by their very presence alone if there is an open space behind them for the tank to go to.

3. The Berserker should be able to fire twice: The Berserker is very expensive at the moment considering it can so easily be blocked off by inf and hammered to death by arty in just a couple of turns. This change coupled with the option to move then fire would bring back some of the awe inspiring deadliness of the big gun.

I'm not sure a real tank would plough through real infantry, but for the purposes of Weewar (where one costs double/4x the amount of the other) I agree.

True enough, but maybe not so much plough through as use their superior speed on level ground to slip by unscathed. This would mean that they could get by inf with no damage to either parties as long as there was an empty hex for them to move into within their range.

That said a sniper unit does sound fun too


 

Well if there's going to be snipers then heavy infantry should get a range increase to 2 so they're not completely worthless.

They do look as if they're toting around a rocket launcher or rpg or other ranged weapon of some description (a rifle of course being a melee weapon )

Super-King - I see no reason (Other than decency) why any of those tanks would even notice if they ran over that guy.  Even if he had a rifle it'd get squished right along with him.

A 200lb guy is no match for a 28000lb tank

And don't forget, I suggested that the infantry moved to an adjacent hex if possible.

lol...  but a peaceful democracy protester is also not the same as a RPG-toting, grenade-carrying soldier

So the tank could take a point or two of damage for running over the grenades, but I've seen tanks drive through cinderblock buildings without slowing (wife was in the military),  a squishy human is nothing.

Yes.. we are pathetic bags of meat compared to the might of a tank