http://blog.weewar.com/index.php/main/entry/the_artillery_strikes_back/

To prevent games from stalling with two frontlines consisting mostly of artillery, we are testing a new rule on the live system: Artillery strikes back! Every time an artillery is attacked from a distance that is within its shooting range, it will return fire. We’re curious to see how the game play feels with this new twist.

Nice! the light arty becomes less useless.

ah, if only i had read the blog before i did my turns  

hmmm, imo, this wasn't a problem.  Yes, breaking up a line of heavy artillery took a good bit of work, but i've never come across a line i couldn't break if i had equal resources to work with.  It really becomes a simple matter of tactics.  To me this feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that with the new ZoC rule, artillery has become much more important.  The solution isn't to change artillery, the solution is to tweak ZoC so it make more sense.  The idea of a regular trooper completely stopping my raider is dubious; the idea of a heavy tank stopping it is completely laughable.  My suggestion would be, as has been mentioned elsewhere, to change ZoC so that going past a unit costs more movement points, with the cost depending on the unit passing and the unit being passed, rather than eliminating the ability to move at all, just as terrain affects a unit's ability to move on it.  If it is necessary to allow artillery to hit back from a ranged attack, I think the defender should take a penalty to it's damage capabilities.  Consider: if you fire an artillery shot at me, and I hear the incoming and can't defend against it, I'm going to at least try to get a counter shot off before your shot hits.  However, being in a hurry to get that shot off is going to seriously affect my accuracy and lessen the damage I do.  Just my $.02

I agree with Simonz on ZOC. It definitely needs to be tweaked for the different units. I would also caution against putting changes into existing games. It's really screwed up my strategy when Hvy Troopers went to 150c and the unit abilities changed. Please test these changes first. You have a dedicated group of testers that are willing to assist.

So far I don't know what to think about this feature. Actually I've already have lots of games which were drawed because of the arty-wall. And that sucked. Recently I have a few games where gaining arty advantage was going on (You know - like 2 h.a. v 1 h.a) and in such situations one of artys was badly injured, but all in al I managed to kill one without losing my own. That was nice and since the new patch was introduced (the one with ZoC) I didn't happen to stuck in the game.

On the other hand it seems to be very handy as it supports ovensive thinking, and that's good, I think.

Dev rebuttal please? 

I'll give my two cents, which is that before you could control territory with artillery, like putting pressure on a base (or bases) in range by threatening to put the hurt on any units built there, including artillery (which would be usually rendered ineffective the next turn).  With the new rule in effect, if you build an artillery you can immediately have it counter attack next turn, which negates an entire kind of strategy involving Artillery.

For example, Blue may try to rush the opponent with Raiders while Red builds artillery and soldiers and Purple builds heavy armour.  Now the strategy Red uses is compromised because if he plays well and pushes into enemy territory, Blue or Purple are free to start building artillery at the last moment, knowing that they can counterattack and, if damaged/destroyed, be completely replaced the next turn.  Red will have a much harder time replacing his/her artillery and bringing it to the battlefield.

Before this change, Blue or Purple would have to pull back and give up a base and regroup or face heavy losses, thus rewarding skillful artillery strategy with a small victory, which is the way it should be.

I think the solution to the stalemate buildup problem is still a reworking of the ZOC mechanic.  Raiders ought to realistically be able to move two spaces within certain ZOC arrangements due to their speed and maneuverability, for example.  This would cause thoughtful players to look for opportunities, which they would inevitably find, where they can penetrate a front line and sneak raiders in to put the hurt on the artillery.


 

Blue and purple made other choices when setting up their army structure. They should be given equal chance to defend their territory.

Futhermore this rule takes care of the fact that artilleries basicly were holding up a deadzone for other artillery. This is due to the fact that players play in turns.

We are sorry for those who have build their strategy ontop of this deadzone fact. You might loose the game. But after all I think this rule is worth to be seriously tested. And serious tests can only be done with a lot of players.

Warmeh, I think the rule that 2arty v 1arty still works, I'd even say it help the attacker cause when you do 2v1 move, now your opponent can attack your artilery and stay with ~3 more, or he can runaway as well. If he does the first one, you still own 2 artys - one which needs to be repaired, and the other which can kill enemys arty without much effort - he's 600 credits in the back. (All in all you're one move forward as you don't have to fire two artys - only the one which's healthy shots, the other can move back and repair)

Furthermore when you move your two artys so that an enemy's base is in range, building arty by him won't help him too much as it'll die even faster.

>Blue and purple made other choices when setting up their army structure. They should be given equal chance to defend their territory.

I think the point that we're trying to make is that setting up their army structure -is- their equal chance to defend their territory.  Very seldom do you get a chance to build artillery and have it be immediately part of your attack.  Generally you have to build your artillery and move it into position, and if you see artillery coming you know that you have to get something in place to counter it.  Being able to pop out a last minute artillery isn't going to help stop artillery lines, it's just going to mean that when i come with my artillery i'll make sure mine really outnumber the other guy's.  Rather than stopping the proliferation of artillery, it will increase it.  It isn't very fun to put together a solid attacking line and have it stopped by a last minute artillery building when they should have to set up their defenses at least a turn or two in advance when they see the attack coming.

>But after all I think this rule is worth to be seriously tested. And serious tests can only be done with a lot of players.

I agree completely that it is worth testing, but I'm of the opinion that it is going to be a detriment to the playability of the game.

>Futhermore this rule takes care of the fact that artilleries basicly were holding up a deadzone for other artillery. This is due to the fact that players play in turns.

Again, this is just my opinion, but creating a deadzone is the whole point of artillery.  But it is completely possible to fight against a line of artillery, it just takes a shift in tactics and some work.  I've played against a line of artillery that was 7 long and 3 deep (against upalnat, in a very crazy game on the Cruel Intentions map) and was able to steadily push him back with a combination of my own artillery (and only using roughly half as many I might add) and raiders to cross the deadzone.

Bert: in my example they already had an opportunity to defend and did not play as well as Red, so my point is that they should have to pull back and have consequences, not just be able to build a bunch of artillery on bases and essentially stop the charge without any planning ahead.  That kills all strategy.  This situation also has an ironic effect of prolonging battles, not helping them be decided quicker.  and, btw, I am not being influenced by any existing games.  I only have two going right now and neither have a lot of artillery in play.

Guth: This still does not address the attrition factor that is so crucial to many strategies in this game, not just an artillery heavy one.  If you are extended out into enemy territory with fewer bases than he, then you may be able to destroy an artillery piece he just built with two of your own, but now what?  let's say that the die rolls were even and you hit a 10-strenght heavy artillery with your 10-strength heavy artillery, then hit it with another 10 strenght artillery.  Now you've probably wiped out his artillery, but with all the counter bombardment you are now left with a 4- or 5- strenght artillery from the first attack and an 8- or 9- strenght artillery from the second, AND you haven't even been able to shoot at anything else he had because you were too busy knockng that artillery piece out.  So now you've essentially stalled the attack for a turn since you had to use up your artillery attacks, and yet next turn he builds a 10-strength artillery and you still have these significantly weakened pieces, one of which you'll probably lose to take his out.  Or you can use the weaker pieces you now have to attack his frontline troops with less damage, and you can't count on as many replacements as he has.  Or you can pull them back and/or repair the artillery so they're useful again.  Do you see how this does nothing but slow down the battle?  The defender will probably win and you'll have a big loss of units on both sides with no territory gained or lost.  That is the opposite of the intended effect of this rule change.

Simonz: I would like to add something to your point about making sure to come with mroe artillery to defeat a counter'ing artillery.  Once again, this is a point that shows how this rule will do nothing but increase the length of battles by requiring a much more massive buildup.

The solution to a huge deadlock in lines is still to tweak the ZOC to allow really fast vehicles like Raiders to, in certain conditions, move twice within the opponent's ZOC, thus causing enough existing pressure so that any weaknesses are exploited.  This, combined with Assault Artillery, will fix or mitigate most of the stalling issues.
 

If being overrun "popping a few artilleries in the last moment" wont help you. There is no change in that. I'd say you give it a try and see how this feels after a  few games. I am curious to hear some game experiences.

well, i'm not sure i can provide any in-game experiences of attacking my opponents artillery with mine.  I did it once and hated the result, and quickly decided that it would be more beneficial to use my artillery to hit the units he was defending his artillery with and use raiders and tanks to try and knock down the enemy artillery, and so far that strategy has held up for me.  I can't think of one time since that first attempt that i've actually attacked an artillery unit with an artillery unit.  I figure it's better to just use my artillery on the other stuff in the way, and if he wants to suicide and take out both of our artillery so be it, i essentially got to attack twice with mine and he only got one attack.

Yeah, I guess that's what puts me off about it.  With any other units if I attack another of the same unit and we both have full health, both units generally still have 6+ hp left, whereas with artillery it seems they're both generally pretty much dead at 2 or 3hp after the encounter, so it feels like a suicide attack, which is not the kind of mission I like for my most expensive unit

Oh, and I guess this is as good a place as any for it, the new artillery rules completely break the balance on the badlands map.  There's no way that red can possibly win the encounter in the top middle, and the same goes for whichever person is second on the bottom half as well, and losing that badly in the middle that soon puts the second player at an unrecoverable disadvantage.

I think Simonz explained my point about the attrition factor of Artillery better than I was able to right there, with:

"whereas with artillery it seems they're both generally pretty much dead at 2 or 3hp after the encounter, so it feels like a suicide attack, which is not the kind of mission I like for my most expensive unit"

It is a suicide attack because you now have 7-8 turns just to get it back to full strength.  If you're taking over an opponent's base, this unacceptable delay will kill your momentum and result in more stalemates, not less.

Now if the ZOC ruleset was changed to allow clever maneuvering by fast units like hovercraft and raiders to knock an artillery unit down like that, that would be good as it rewards cleverness, planning, and skill as opposed to just building a bunch of artillery at the last second.

 

Well, no offfence Warmeh but reading your comments makes me feel your words don't have too much to do with what happens in reality (of weewar). I said before (or, didn't I?) - Even I my enemy pops out new ha, I'm 100% sure I won't attack it with my artys but try and make a pretty looking hole so that I can get to it with my other units (so it's what Simonz said above), doesn't that sound much more reasonable? If my enemy decides to attack my arty in the next turn it's ok, all in all it'll be as nothing happened. What happens then? He builds another arty.. Hmmm, building such an expensive fodder wall would make me crazy for sure.

It's all about that now you're able to push your artys forward, no matter if they are 3hp strong, battles usually last longer and with let's say three succesful 2v1 arty moves you're 3 artys more than your opponent, does that sound good? Of course.

I don't see also how am I able to try and recapture an opponent's base with less troops than he - that must be suicide mission, then your ha popping up theory might work... I rather try to defend rather than to attack when I'm weaker.

Guth, it all depends on how you imagine a particular situation in your head, and you are imagining a completely different situation than I (and one which wouldn't have a stalemate problem without the counterattack rules in play anyway).  Since this game has logical rules, there is nothing wrong with thinking about how situations can turn out as long as you think about it in terms of the rules.  If I had a pro or test account I can promise you I would be testing this much more than I am able to.

Let's say you have an attacking army that is invading an enemy army with one base in range of the attackers artillery line (consisting of pieces) and two bases that are a further two hexes away.  The attacker has an adequately sized army that is enough to drive forward at a reasonable pace and take over the front base, which is being defended by some fodder like troopers and tanks.

Normally the defender would have to choose to either lose a lot of units in a desperate attempt to defend the base or pull back and buy a little time while he sets up his own counterattack.

Now the defender can simply pop out one or two artilleries to bolster his own A-line from the two rear bases, move them up in position without fear of being destroyed before they have a chance to fire, and re-establish a better artillery line over time than the attacker's.  If the attacking army chooses to take down his artillery pieces one by one, he suffers a loss of artillery strenght that is unrecoverable in the heat of battle.  If he chooses to continue to attack the fodder, he will have to be able to punch a hole three hexes wide (with current ZOC rules) just to get to the newly built artillery. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Eventually the defender wins more often in this case because he can re-supply fodder and increase his artillery capabilities much, much easier than the attacker.  I see a lot more stale-mate situations like that occurring from the rule change causing no significant changes in the standings for either player, and not adequately rewarding the aggressiveness and skill of the attacker (in fact punishing him for it).

And something else I thought of recently is that the artillery counterattack just seems to go against the principle of the thing.  Artillery are the only units that don't have to worry about counterattacks, but they pay a price for this, which is that they are the units that can not fire and move on the same turn.  It just makes more logical sense that way, as opposed to a situation where they can be built and then fire back immediately, or move and then fire back immediately.

At the end of the day, I can try and think of all the examples I want, but Simonz is absolutely correct when he points out that this will do nothing but eventually cause artillery to fire on other artillery rarely, if ever.  So, just thinking about that logically for a second: How does a rule change that makes artillery attack fodder more and other artillery less REDUCE stalemates?!?  That makes no logical sense at all.  You're just going to extend trading fodder-attacks and prolong the stalemate that you try and mitigate by doing that.

If this idea is going to be tested, so be it.  I just think it's the wrong way to go about solving the stalemate issue.

Actually when I first played weewar I thought it's very very good thing the arty can't move and then shoot, hit back after attacked etc., IMO the way it is now it reduces the stalemate problem. Don't want to write examples of epic battles, that jus doesn't make just sense. Why? You said "you can build one or two arty..." Well, yes, you can, if you have like 600-1200 of income and nothing else to do this, and "...and protect it with some fodder like troopers or tanks" Hmmm, then you'd have even bigger income, hmmmm... :> Nevermind... I'll speak then...

The Botanic troube map - what happens often there is that god damn arty race - When you have 2 artys and your enemy has one and 400 credits for the next turn, it's like 10th round - no fodder walls, no 2k income - when you put your artys so that they're able to hit his arty, the only reasonable thing he can do is to back out, huh?

"Actually when I first played weewar I thought it's very very good thing the arty can't move and then shoot, hit back after attacked etc., IMO the way it is now it reduces the stalemate problem."

okay, and you are entitled to your opinion.  If you can explain logically how this actually reduces stalemates than go for it.  To be honest, since your first post, where you just talked about a couple experiences with having it turned on in the middle of an existing battle, you haven't even discussed except to attempt to rebut my discussion.  If you really think it works and mitigates stalemates, then I think your best counter-argument would be to demonstrate it by showing examples.  Surely your real-play examples would trump my thought-experiment examples, right?

"Don't want to write examples of epic battles, that jus doesn't make just sense. Why?"...  "Well, yes, you can, if you have like 600-1200 of income and nothing else to do this, and"

Well, first of all I think it's pretty obvious to most people reading this that I have been speaking about medium to large battles because, obviously, artillery just comes into play so much more often in maps not named "aruba."  duh?  Additionally, stalemates are much more common on bigger maps with two players, which was the whole situation that brought about this rule test, right?

So, yes, in these battles with bigger maps and more income available, you are going to have a lot each turn to blow on defenses.  As far as your point about having "nothing else to do..." I get the feeling that having a base attacked by a bigger army will become a priority to a player!

"When you have 2 artys and your enemy has one and 400 credits for the next turn, it's like 10th round - no fodder walls, no 2k income - when you put your artys so that they're able to hit his arty, the only reasonable thing he can do is to back out, huh?"

Uhm, in your example I think the only reasonable thing for your opponent to do would be surrender!  It sounds like the guy in your case is pretty much toast at that point (way too late to employ the tactics I refer to) and all the attacking player needs to do is mop up.  I mean, you're talking about a match where you have the only significant army and your opponent has just one artillery piece and no money left... I think he's the walking dead.  If THAT example is the problem here, then there probably isn't a solution.  Personally, I never really cared if an opponent clings on for life for 10 more turns, just as long as he doesn't milk the clock, but that's what the time limits are for I guess.

I think I've defended my theory here quite enough, and it's time to let other people talk about their real experiences.  If I get involved in a big artillery battle soon, I will be sure and archive and post it here.

Well, when I told one arty I meant thet he owns one h.arty unit, which doesn't mean it's his only unit. I didn't know you want me to say that he has also 10 tanks or 10 raiders and 10 troopers, it's obvious. The point is that sooner or later, usually sooner, one player has the ha advantage, and is able do do such move as to put 2ha against 1, then the second player have even 2 options - back out his arty or find a weak point in enemys defence and break through to his arty. Well, lets say he can also build another arty and (if the first arty in range was standing at on the base) he can defend 2v2 (If it wasn't  it's still 2v2). Getting arty advantage is all about that - you have more credits on the map and initially one arty more, depends on tactic. Subsequently you're able to grow your advantage to a few artys what is goddamn important on maps which don't feature more than 30 bases 1v1.

Also I don't think every time you play big map like badlands or whatever you want you have a situation that you and your enemy have 50-50 bases and everyoe knows the one who has income advantage, will sooner (which is the only time for seond player when he can do sth more than defend) or later win.

Personally, I've begun to feel that this is an aspect I don't necessarily like about weewar.  I'm not fully decided on it yet, but I get the feeling so far that it isn't good.  The issue: There doesn't seem to be much chance of momentum shift in games.  Assuming both sides start out relatively equal (which isn't even the case on some maps), once one side even slightly tips the scale in his favour  in terms of tempo, onboard unit worth, or damage delta, then the momentum of the advantaged player is really difficult to stop.  It's almost like the game is decided at that tipping point, and the rest is just ceremony.  I've only turned the tide in like... 5% of my games.

 What I'd rather like to see is a wider range of possibility in terms of local skirmishes on the map.  I'm not sure how this could be done in terms of alterations to the game.  And everyone knows that I've been asking for LESS randomness and more determinism.   But imagine weewar where you could win a local battle at the north end, lose one in the south end, and be ensure of the outcome where you are engaging in the middle.  etc.  I think that might make for a more interesting game.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not totally solid on my thoughts and feelings on this, but that's my tentative take on the matter after the games I've played.

I agree with pistos. It comes down to who captures that extra one base. Before the change, I was always capable of stopping blue, and come back with well place artillery. Now, since my arts take the same amount of damage, they become useless. There is no way to stop that tipping point that pistos describe. I am still playing, but as of now the new artillery rule only benefits experience blue players, and does not balance the game.

I agree with Pistos and madmike, and many others for that matter. The new artillery return fire rule gives the advantage to the player with the most credits. Before this rule a couple of well placed artillery units could support the advance into enemy territory, but since all the defending player has to do is burn some credits on artillery, and the advance stops cold.

This rule takes the advantage away from positioning and strategy and simply makes it so that whoever can build the most artillery, the fastest, wins. Based on my games so far, there is MORE artillery getting built and games quickly turn into an artillery shoot-out. If you try to build another unit, they just get blown to bits with no retaliation.

Boo on this rule.

Maybe the artillery are too powerful?  Maybe they just need an offense tweak, like 25% less damage on all three of the art units.

I've always been of the opinion that no single unit should be very powerful.

so can we get some input on the dev's on what they think of the rule, when the testing phase will be over, and if they think it will stick?

I've made it pretty clear what I think of these rules, it would be nice to have an ETA on when (hopefully) they get shut off.

We have received a lot of feedback - some of which was appreciative and some that was not. No decision has been made as of yet. One thing that is quite clear (and understandably so) is that changes to the core mechanics are disruptive and should not occur too often. So I am afraid we do not know yet when and if this will be modified.

okay, good to hear the info on it, Alex