We have just started up test to try out the first round of balancing tweaks.You can sign up and upgrade for free on test.weewar.com. Please share your impressions and feedback here or via the contact form. This is is all about unit changes. Everything else is just like on the the live system. We are planing to add more maps to the game start dialogue as the selection is somewhat limited right now. So create away

There is a more general blog post about this, too. The exact changes are as follows (new value vs old value in brackets):

Airdefence
Credits: 300 (400)
Defence: 4(6)
Hard: 3(0)
Boat: 3(0)
Trooper: 8(0)
Air: 8(13)
Speedboat: 3(0)
Hovercraft: 3(0)
Max-Attack-Range: 2(3)

Assault Artillery
Air: 6(8)

Battleship
Defence: 14(16)
Max-Attack-Range: 4(5)
Hard: 14(16)
Soft: 10(12)
Air: 6(12)
Speedboat: 14(16)
Amphibic: 14(16)
Repairs : 1(2)

Bomber
Credits: 800(1200)
Boat: 16(14)

Destroyer:
Credits: 900(1100)
Air:10(8)

Jet
Hard: 8(6)

Heavy Trooper
Air: 6(8)

Helicopter
Hard: 10(8)
Soft: 16(14)

Hovercraft
Air: 0(6)
Speedboat: 8(10)

Light Artillery
Credits: 200(400)
Max-Range: 3
Hard: 4(8)
Soft: 10(8)

Raider
Air: 0(4)

Speedboat
Credits 250(200)
Soft: 8(10)
Hovercraft: 18(14)

Berserker
Defence 14(16)

Sub
Credits 900(1200)
Max-Range: 2(1)
Speedboat: 8(0)
Hovercraft: 8(0)

Hooray!

I love that after registering, it says "Weewar loves you" =)

Pluto, can you make an updated battle sim with the new changes? I think it would help speed up some balancing testing in terms of predicting damage

this is very cool... yes, i can update the sims... hopefully in the next couple of days.

Alex,

Since subs can target speedboats and hovercraft, does this mean subs can take damage from speedboats and hovercrafts.

because of my test maps, air vs. sea (and the other variations), one of the good fellows that i've played on them against, commented about hovercraft being able to capture and they are produced through both normal land bases and through harbors.  that was a couple weeks ago, btw... but just now i had a thought about, to counteract this imbalance, we need an equally amphibious, but not amphibious meaning land and water, but rather land and air unit.  unless an additional unit can be thought of, i think that the helicopter is a suitable candidate.  all that needs to be done is to make it capturable.

Yeah, a capturing air unit might be an idea, otherwise in the long run, air units look like expensive escorts for hovercraft.

Heli might have to take a bit of a nerfing if it's going to get the bonus ability of capturing though... I've lost track of how good they are, but just in general, capturing units don't want to be too strong.

think heli would work too, but i dont think it needs a nerf. If can only move 6(2 more then a hover), it does not have strafing as an option. It only cost 600 credits(twice a hover).

Subs just became amazing. I need to try a sea map now, it looks like I'll build nothing but subs.

Subs are way too powerful. Their range ability kills every unit on the water, but i think its because they were given the ability to target speedboats and hovers. Since subs can target hovers they can also target bases being captured by hovers.  Destroyers were too weak against subs. In the ver1 it would take two destroyers to sink a sub. Now, subs can easily take them out. Also, I had suggested giving subs range but not weaking battleships against them.

Suggestions:

Sub

Credits:1200

Defense(8)

Speedboat(0)

Hovercraft(0)

one more thing. Anti-Air went from ok to not that ok. >)

Let me reiterate from my previous post Anti-Air was ok, but it was never powerful against Air units. This new version is not even that usable against air, its much betters as cheap version of Assault Artilleries.

See this game about subs and anti-air.  http://test.weewar.com/game/26

besides pistos's simulator, i have to assume the gm stats script is not reliable for these new specs.  i forget who created that.

Okay, without actually playing a game yet (gonna get to that) I think the only thing that I can make a peep about is: I don't totally understand why you made the anti-air unit do damage against non-air units.  That doesn't make much sense to me, but... enh.  Off I go to sign up. 

Yeah, honestly, the anti-air shoould be named something different if they are going to be able to do some damage to ground units, too. I'm not a fan of this change. I LOVE the cheaper artillery though--it gives a good "do i build a raider?  or lt.artillery?" decision to the game.

I know we are not going for total realism here, but it, at least, should be believable.

Anti-air doing damage to ground troops makes sense. During WWII flak cannons were used as anti-tank weapon by Russians and Germans. This was a last resort measure, of course, but they were quite effective (consider large caliber and long barrels).

Automatic anti-air guns (as displayed in Weewar) could also be turned against ground troops - infantry and lightly armored vehicles - and were quite efficient as well. So I am fine with that.

I am quite happy that aircrafts were buffed.

I am not happy about the submarine buff though. I have seen games (e.g. on Lakes) where players would just spam their adversaries with subs - and it worked! Now subs are just super units that can kill anything.

Submarine being effecient against speedboats and hovercrafts is just a joke. Speedboat is too small and fast to be targeted by a torpedo and hovercraft barely touches water surface so torpedoes will just pass below it. Ok, WWII subs had a cannon mounted on the deck. So technically a sub could do some damage to small boats (although risking to get hit in return). Practically this would be too complicated. So I suggest that subs either do very small damage to speedboats and hovercraft (perhaps 2 and not from the distance) or no damage at all.

More after some play testing.

I think they're trying to present a workaround to sub blockage.  I suspect they'll take out sub offense against speedboats and hovers once they fix sub blockage.

And okay, I concede on the point with the AA.

Suggest:  Keep some anti-air with raider, and possibly add even weaker anti-air from other tanks.

AA:  Reduce movement as well as range.  Don't decrease anti-air damage as much.

Battleship:  Decrease anti-air further.  It especially doesn't make sense that a battleship would be able to bomb a flying jet from far away.

Sub:  Very little damage to speedboat/hovercraft.

Bombers:  May be too cheap now, especially with less anti-air from other units.

I don't like how subs can attack hovers and speedboats and how cheap they are given their range and amount of damage. Sub deals roughly 7 damage to a destroyer and takes no damage back at range. I think subs should be back to 1200 and have no attack against hovers and speedboats.

Question: since subs can attack capturing hovers, does this mean a capturing hover is really still a hover (and thus takes damage as a hover) as opposed to what I thought it was - which is a capturing trooper?

Anti-air needs more air damage for its cost. Movement and range are probably fine as they are. Alternatively, keep anti-air as it is and add a super-anti-air which is like the old anti-air but more expensive and deals more air damage.

As it is, bomber + destroyer can take out a battleship while receiving little damage in return. Using a sub is even better. I think either battleship defense needs to go up or return repair rate to 2. It is so slow and so vulnerable that it's not very useful since it seems like it can't get very far without taking damage.

Massing subs, air, and hover pretty much pwns all, at least on my map here: http://test.weewar.com/map/32

Hi, I think it is good that that a first balance patch is made but i think there is still a lot of work to do:

Airdefence: I think the Airdefence can be useful as a cheaper replacement for the assault artillery when your main enemies are troopers. However it is imo often useless against jets and bombers. Especially on maps where is mountain or water as a border the jets and bomber can attack something and move 2 hex back and are out of range of the anti air very easily. You can see it in http://test.weewar.com/game/86 .

Also the damage of the anti air against air units is far to low. With only 3 to 4 damage to a bomber/heli and 2-3 damage to a jet it is not enough for a weapon which main purpose is to fight air units. I suggest to change the anti air back as it was before the patch but lower the costs to 300 or 350.

Battleship: With all these buffs the battleship is not very useful. The reduced defense increase most of the damage it takes by one and the bomber does even more damage against the battleship. The reduced repair rate is also a major buff for the battleship. Also the range of 4 is a big problem for the battleship. The use of the battleship against enemy dfa becomes very limited on coastal sieges like  in  http://battleground2.weewar.com/game/64638/wOHOMmLqcbrt (white vs red) . Also it is likely that the destroyer get the first shot at the battleship. With the improved subs, destroyers and bombers the battleship is imo not worth building for 2000 credits. Reducing the  attack against air units is ok for me but I think it would not be bad if the battleships deal a little more damage to air units (therefore i recommend to increase the damage a little to 8 so that they are better against air units.

Bomber:

I think the 800 is too cheap for the bomber especially with the lower anti air capability of some units. I recommend 1000 here.

Destroyer:

Wasn't the Destroyer also meant as an anti sub unit? With the increased range of the subs and the high damage they deal against destroyers this function is imo gone. Therefore I suggest to improve the maxrange of destroyers against subs to 2. Also Destroyers lose against bombers which you can see here:  http://test.weewar.com/game/82     An update of the destroyer damage against air is useful in that case . I recommend to improve the air damage to 12.

Heli:

Although this unit is improved this unit is still not that useful as other air units because it cannot move twice as the jet and the bomber. I recommend to improve the movement speed of this unit to 1-5 , 1-1 so that the heli can move one hex after shooting.

Berserker:

Is there a reason to reduce the defense of this unit? With the same defense as a heavy tank, a lower repair and 300 more costs I don't think it is very useful building this unit. I would in most cases build the heavy tank instead of the berserker.

Sub:

I think the sub is far to strong. Also there is no unit which is a good counter against them (see what i wrote to the destroyer). I think the improved range makes sense (if the destroyer get the improved range, too). But i think the subs should not be able to attack hovers and speedboats because the increased range makes it easier to hit battleships (which get even more damaged due to there reduced defense). For a price of 900 there should be a unit which can counter in a way where a sub cannot strike back. I suggest to give one of the air units the ability to attack subs with low damage (about 2) or to increase the sub price.

[...no unit which is a good counter against (subs)...]

How about giving helicopter anti-sub capabilities?

sub is way too strong, for all the reasons already stated.

destroyers are basically now overpowered; battleships can no longer contain them and they move very fast.  destroyers may be countered by subs, but since subs are too powerful and need to be readjusted i don't think that's a way to accomplish it.

i think battleships should be returned to the way they were, but increased in price.  combined with the reduced destoryer price and reduced bomber price, this would keep battleships in check.

i think AA needs to be more powerful against aircraft, but i like the keeping its range lower.  we don't need 2 different (almost identical) types of assault artilery; that's redundant.

bombers are WAAAAY too powerful; see http://test.weewar.com/game/95 

more evidence about bombers being too powerful:  http://test.weewar.com/game/95

sorry, that should have been:  http://test.weewar.com/game/97 

trying all these tweaks at the same time is probably not the way to go.

BBs should be strong, the king of the sea etc. just reduce its defense against air. that couppled with subs being able to attach at range (without other sub modifications) should do the trick. That gives a BB two things to fear. thats enough.

"trying all these tweaks at the same time is probably not the way to go."

eh... it depends.  if they truly are trying to fix the imbalance, then i'd agree.  and that's what they've said.  but if they were trying to come up with a different gameplay, then a bunch of changes would be the way to go, imho.  but i do note that you said probably. 

so, for a second balancing patch, which the name "first balancing patch" implies, what should be done?

I haven't played too many turns yet, so I won't comment much, but I do think that completing a full and proper implementation of ZoC would go a long way towards gamer satisfaction.  For starters, aircraft should be stopped by the [multi-hex] ZoC of all AA-capable units.  Then you could do things like build a wall or string of ground AAs to help defend against air strikes.

Bombers suck! Subs rule! See this: http://test.weewar.com/game/74

I just read the comments on the related blog post on unit balancing.  It made me think/agree: perhaps the issue wasn't that the battleship was too powerful, but rather that it was too cheap for what it could do.  I get the feeling that battleships should indeed rule the seas, including having decent anti-air capability.  (Though I still want subs to be able to take them down from afar.)  I think this dominance just got magnified because many of the maps with harbours in them did not have enough inland areas.  Naturally, if you have a powerful seafaring unit, and nearly all the land on the map is within reach of the shoreline, should we expect any other outcome than domination by spamming battleships?  But imagine maps where the key areas (read: bases) were mostly inland, out of reach of battleships.  Then the supposedly "too powerful" battleships would have limited usefulness.

Several comments on the fly:

1. Speedboat's price should return to 200 as before. 250 is just too high.

2. I want to see something happening with the massive attack and defense bonus that aircraft receive while on airfields (especially enemy airfields!). This is just ridiculous! I suggest +1 to both attack and defense (from +3 as of now).

that's interesting pistos - "completing a full and proper implementation of ZoC would go a long way towards gamer satisfaction."  not only would it go a long way towards gamer satisfaction, but it would also make sense to do this before trying to balance the units.  that is, if it's going to get done at all.

i also like the idea of "many of the maps with harbours in them did not have enough inland areas.  Naturally, if you have a powerful seafaring unit, and nearly all the land on the map is within reach of the shoreline, should we expect any other outcome than domination by spamming battleships?  But imagine maps where the key areas (read: bases) were mostly inland, out of reach of battleships.  Then the supposedly "too powerful" battleships would have limited usefulness."

i'm gonna have to make a map with these elements in mind now...

Agreed - if ZOC is going to be changed to be better eventually, it should probably be done before changing unit balance, since it is likely that after ZOC is changed, units would have to be rebalanced.

I would also really like to see subs be able to go under other ships and air units if there is a reachable open spot on the other side. (e.g. a jet in front of a sub should not force the sub to take a path around the jet to get to the other side, using up an extra movement tile, worse if it's a one-tile-wide water channel)

agreed, especially about the subs.  i had some similar thought floating around in my head a couple days ago.

here's the map that pistos' comments inspired: coastal

I agree with Pistos about map design and stated so in the original post about unit balancing. True balancing can only really be done if WeeWar was played with a static map set. Map designers are responsible for allowing a certain unit to dominate or not quite often, especially in regards as to how land, sea, and air units interact. Even land only maps can be tilted one way or another depending on how flat or mountainous it is. Add to that the ability of the game creator to prohibit certain units and that's one more thing to throw off any attempt at unit balance.

I think that no matter what you do with unit characteristics you'd be able to create maps to take advantage of certain units. That's just something you'll have to live with by opening up map design. Allowing map designers to pick what units are allowed on a map could offset that some, but "testing" unit balance by playing a game with nothing but subs and bombers really won't prove a lot toward real world playing. At least that's my thoughts which again, aren't coming from a huge log of games played, so take that into consideration and I withhold the right to totally change my mind in the future!

That said, I do think tweaking the ZoC could be a good thing and allow for different types of strategies and give things perhaps a more realistic feel.

agree on all ZOC comments given here in the last 40 hours, however, I dont remember reading anything about any intentions to change ZOC & related behaviors on any units.

agree with spadequack: - "I would also really like to see subs be able to go under other ships and air units if there is a reachable open spot on the other side."

lucky, in relation to your map: What the hell man?

How is red supposed to win at all? no airport, no harbour. Blue covers each seabase with a BB to kill any capturing HC and tadaaa, invincible.

Streen, I think the point of the map is for red to get all 14 land bases and blue to get all 14 sea bases and then show how useless it is for blue to have battleships in trying to conquer the land bases. but yeah, red has no chance. blue doesn't even need battleships - just  subs, since they can attack hovers, capturing or not, without taking any damage in return.

And I agree with NickDanger - no matter how we tweak the units, map design has a huge impact on unit balance. [This idea should probably go into a different topic, but I think all custom maps should be unrated until they are deemed good and mostly balanced, approved by the devs and/or the community. These would then be included in the standard mapset where games can be rated. ]

But even though one set of unit tweaks will shift balance in one way on one particular map and shift balance another way on another map, the units should still be balanced for the average basic and pro maps, that involve use of almost all terrain types, and the only way to get a good sense of this is to try the units on a wide variety of maps. Maps that have extreme cases of, say, only air vs only sea, might arise in a game and should be tested, but more common cases should be tested more and unit balance should be based more on that.  Thus, lots of testing.

"What the hell man?" lol... you're to funny streen! 

"I think the point of the map is for red to get all 14 land bases and blue to get all 14 sea bases and then show how useless it is for blue to have battleships in trying to conquer the land bases."  sounds like a good point for that map to have.  tx sq!

"red has no chance. blue doesn't even need battleships - just  subs, since they can attack hovers, capturing or not, without taking any damage in return."  so red has no chance of capturing the normal bases in the water.  do you guys think that blue has a chance of capturing the normal bases on land?

nope

I would just build a couple of DFA's with overlapping fields of fire to cover the land bases from blue hovers.

Red would need a lot of anti-air units also, then blue doesn't have much chance either.

from the chat: "subs can fire through land, i thought was funny..." lol

but there are no airports...

subs can only fire through land on units it can target. I mention this before in one of my other posts. If a mnt is in between a two subs, they cna both fire at each other. Another interesting thing, if a hovercraft is capturing a base and the base is one hex away from the shore. A sub can still targeted and take it out, but a capturing infantry can not be targeted.

my bad lucky, i thought there were

That map is a stalemate from round 1. Uless one of the players is a total expert and his opponent is a total noob

tx.  i'll probably modify more later today to make it playable, but i started it just to illustrate the point that pistos was making about bases being far away from water so that BBs can't attack.

Great-looking map, luckymustard.  Though, I wonder if maybe you should give red an airbase or a harbour.

with airbases for red and more land for blue's navy.  feel free to copy and edit.

tx pistos!

Looks fun. 

aaahhh ... much better

we have drifted off topic a little...

Some more comments:

I think the whole battleship change went in the wrong direction. The nerf of battleship's attack against aircraft is ok, I think. The overall nerf of attack range and damage means for me that it is not worth buying a battleship anymore. I think battleship should still rule the battlefield. It just should be more difficult to buy it. At the moment, a strategy that worked best for me in River Maze is saving for a battleship (see http://weewar.com/game/67484). If battleship would cost more (e.g. 3000 credits) and remain as powerful as before (except for reduced attack against aircraft) it probably would still be worth buying this beast and fun using it.

Re: ZoC: I think the only thing that needs to be done (for a first phase of testing, anyway) is to make all units exert ZoC equal to their range of attack, except where the unit does 0 damage against the trespassing unit.

A big result from a change like this would be that the artillery type units would gain a whole lot of stopping power, so we may consider making artillery an exception; have either no ZoC or reduced ZoC.

i agree with muzzafar.  given how slow BS's are, they are fine if the price is upped.  also, i don't think they should be hobbed too much against air - two bombers should only be able to take out a BS if with excellent rolls.

the sub-range thing does enough to put BS's in check.

I haven't played games in a month or two, so I don't know if this was already in place for some time, but I noticed today that my destroyer could not engage a submarine from full range, only from an adjacent hex.  This is a good step in the right direction, my only further suggestion might be that the submarine should have limited or no attack power in defense of itself at this range, to better simulate the idea that it is being depth charged by the surface craft.

Non-sub units can only attack subs at melee range. That's been there for a while. A sub having no retaliatory damage sounds pretty interesting.

By no retaliatory damage, I mean that subs should have a range like 2-4, as opposed to 1-2.

i would recommend the light artillery range of 2-3.

i like the 2-3 range idea for subs, but they shouldn't be defenseless at range 1.  otherwise they become like artillery and will get slaughtered at melee range, especially given that destoryers are faster...

(i don't have a good solution for this problem)

oh, and more proof that the reduced air defense of ships renders them too wear against air assault... http://test.weewar.com/game/101 

Since subs can move-attack, making them ranged wouldn't prevent them attacking things that get up close. Although I suppose it would mean that going into melee range would mean you don't take counter-damage and force them to move back to attack you.

Perhaps we could experiment with units that can use up a turn to transform.  The sub unit could transform between a surfaced sub and a submerged sub.  Each would have differing offensive and defensive capabilities.  e.g. the surface sub is the one with all the attack ability, but becomes vulnerable to a few more types of attack (e.g. ranged attack by naval craft).  The submerged sub cannot attack anything else (except perhaps other submerged subs), but are vulnerable only to depth charges from BBs and DDs.

good idea pistos!

I like the idea of a submerged sub and also the 2-4 range. I suggest to give the destroyer a range of 1-2 against subs, so that they are more effective.  I also suggest some changes to the heli:

Maybe a sub with the submerge ability could be like the following. Submerging / emgerging should take a full turn like repair. The sub should be submerged when bought so that they cannot be shot by the battleship when they are just build.

price: 1200

Sub (submerged):

• Type: SUB
• Defense: 7 (depends on destroyer range vs SUB)
• Repair: 2
• Movement: 9
• Attack:
• Range: 2-4
• Sub: 7
• Boat: 13 ( i think it is ok to reduce it a bit since the battleships are weaker. also they can sometimes shoot  destroyers at range when they cannot retaliate)
• all others: 0

 

Sub(surfaced):

• Type: BOAT
• Defense: 10
• Repair:2
• Movement: 9
• Attack:
• Range: 2-4
• Sub: 10
• Boat: 14
• Soft: 10
• Hard: 10
• Air: 7
• Speedboat: 10
• Amphibic: 10

 

Heli:

• Movement: 15,3 (move 5 hexes as before then shoot and move one hex. Also like the jet you can move, move and shoot then.)
• Attack:
• Sub: 3

• All other values stay as before.
2008-04-07 01:40:45.0

There are bigger problems that just units. I built a sub line against a coast and prevented all surface and aircraft from crossing the sub line to attack my units behind the sub line. Wee war should find a way to have 3 zones. Submerged, Surface and Air. Therefore in a sea hex, there could be a sub, a battleship and a bomber in the same hex. It leads to technical difficulties for sure.

Next up is subs. Hunt for Red October. Bombers and Helicopters don't go after subs. Jets do. A 10 strength jet should have a 40% to 50% chance to do 1 point of damage to an undamaged sub. If the sub is surfaced, then it can fight back. If not, then the sub has "better" armor. roughly 18 jets can attack a single sub, so the minimal damage is appropriate and people aren't going to be building dozens of jets to keep the seas clear of subs. Players will tactically use a couple jets to ping subs prior to attacking the subs with destroyers or subs. Sub blocks could be eliminated in this fashion, although my sub line concept would be somewhat problematic, although a high enough income would allow a player to break through the sub line relatively quickly and then it is off to the races with other aircraft. (At least until weewar implements submerged, surface and air zones).

In the history of navies, the pre WWII destoyer class was the fastest at 45 knots as compared to today's typical 28-30 knots. In 1906 the Italian master Vittorio Cuniberti's designs brought forth the Dreadnaughts with a speed of about 24 knots. So destoyers can move 4, but BB's should move 3 and so should subs. Destroyers are designed for a purpose - hunt torpedo boats, anti aircraft support, small guns as compared to battleships, missile launch platform etc. BBs are designed for massive barage from main guns. Sub are designed to knock out BBs. It's a circle. I've read accounts of BBs attacking destroyers and hitting time and time again, but the destroyer was so lightly armored that the bug gun shells would pass right through the destroyer without exploding. Good thing the engine wasn't hit! because that would cause a detonation. A game over kind of detonation.

Therefore BBs should not do well against destroyers or subs or aircraft, and should do well against all other surface units. Destroyers should not do well against BBs, but should do really well against subs and aircraft and moderately well against all other surface units. Subs should do well against BBs and destroyers and not do well against anything else. If surfaced they should interact slightly with aircraft. Subs aren't known for guns. So a jet and sub both at 10 strength might both end up at 9.

BB range should be 4. Destroyer range should be 2. If subs get a range of 2, then destroyers should be able to shoot subs at a range of 2 and the same should be true of jets. Drop the torpedo that guides itself and flee aa guns.

If battleships have a range of 4 (less obstrusive to coastlines), then the artillery class needs to change.

I like the idea of 'mortar teams' instead of light artillery and they can move and shoot at 1 or 2 range and can sit in mountains.

I like the idea of artillery having almost all the same ranges but with varying degrees of firepower. I do use light artillery for clean up and poking units pre-attack so my infantry suffer less.

Heavy infantry aren't worth it, but I still build them on occasion.

I'd like to see a paratrooper. A unit that can jump from a base harbor or airfield to an open hex to a range of 2 or 3. That is the end of their turn. If that is too strong than maybe they are damaged based on the terrain the bumpily land in.

I like the idea of rocket launching infantry.

Everything can be balanced if it has the right price tag. Maybe there are 2 classes of BB. A heavy and a light. An armored bulk class and a swift lightly armored menace.

I have been working on a formula by which all units may be priced such that any unit priced by the formula is automatically play balanced, but I've been busy and haven't finished it. I heard they'd like to make modifications this week and figured this would be a good time to speak up. I could give specific numbers for my recommendations, but that would take a lot longer.

There are simple ways to balance things for playability as well as for cost. Jets attacks subs is one. No units fire at range 5 is another. Price units correctly is of course the simplest. If it takes 3 bombers to take out a BB, then the BB should be approximately 3200 credits.

The problem with coming up with a pricing formula is that you don't want everything of equal cost to be equal to each other - that would make it inconsequential what you choose to build. There are things that are strong/weak against each other, and you want a small amount of the advantaged side to be equal to a larger (in cost terms) amount of the disadvantaged side.

subs seem dang powerful now, almost too powerful, and only a few units can actually attack them.  what if artillery could be allowed to nail them?  or would that just not make any sense?

jeye: Hm, I'm not sure I agree; I think surfaced subs should be offensively stronger than submerged ones.  With your stats, there doesn't seem to be an advantage to surfacing, or weakness to submerging?

I thought heli can already move and shoot?  I don't remember.    But I agree that helis should have sub power, since I believe someone mentioned a few months ago that modern day helis are the antisub due to sonar ability and good maneouverability compared to naval craft.

<stirling> "Wee war should find a way to have 3 zones."  As I've proposed [multiple times] in the past.

stirling: Thanks for your enlightening input to the discussion.  And yes, sub blockage is an absurdity we/I have been clamouring to get fixed for some months now.  I'd be interested in hearing more of your core thoughts on units and specs; you can privately message me if you like.  I also want to hear about these formulae of yours.

defbyte: Yeah, not sure about artillery attacking subs.  I already feel strange that they can attack air, since I don't imagine that's what they're designed to do.  Otherwise, what is an AA gun/rocket?  I thought artillery/mortar is supposed to go up, go down, and do its damage on account of the wide-area ground-impact explosion.

@pistos: I had the idea that submerged subs can use the torpedos well against other units and emerged subs have a canon to fire at units  above the sea or on land. but i adjusted the stats a little in the post above.

@pistos: the advantage to surfacing is when fighting a heli, or a destroyer (when the destroyer can get close). Also a surfaced sub can attack land units as an artillery. (in WW2 subs had some guns on them) The advantage of the submerged sub is when fighting battleships or destroyers at range. A submerged and surfaced sub deal equal damage.

@Super-King: The pricing formula is related to overall combat ability and wouldn't make generic units. There is a relationship of power between the ability to deal damage (attack rating), ability to withstand firepower (armor and mobility), ability to heal or repair, ability to move and shoot, ability to attack at range, ability to fire twice etc. When the units are balanced then the formula would be clear. The formula I do have does not properly take everything into account yet. However it correctly identifies the units that are imbalanced. Currently the formula is roughly accurate for land units, but puts the Battleship at between 4000 and 7000 credits depending on how I tweak the formula. Berserkers are cool except that they repair at a rate of 1. Planes are cool except they require an airfield to repair and are very easy to shoot down.

A properly balanced formula gives a value to a particular combat skill or mobility skill. When designing new units.. so long as the unit is priced by the formula, then it would be play balanced. But I'll concede that such a formula might not exist for weewar because of the difficulty in taking into account the value of the move n shoot or even trying to take into account the 20,000 different attack ratings.

@defbyte: I agree.

I also think that artillery should not be hard, they should be artillery. This is a special class that through out time armies and generals have given special consideration to devices that can attack at range. Rocks, arrows, slings, catapults, treebuckets, cannons etc. The Sherman tank is a cannon on wheels. The all encompassing armor is what makes the tanks and raiders hard. Artillery has deflector shields and is operated by unarmored soldiers running around. Shrapnel is more likely to damage an artillery unit than a tank. Artillery isn't hard.

I suppose I'll have to find more time for unit design than map design. :-D

One way around subs is to turn them into a different kind of boat (boat class). Have 4 Boats. Bulk Battleships with 2 speed and 5 range, Fast Battleships with 3 speed and 5 range but little armor, Destroyers with 4 speed that are good against land and air units that have 3 range. Destroyers with 4 speed that are good against boats since they are loaded with torpedoes and have 2 range. Then weewar doesn't have to a submerged class until it can generate the submerged surface and air zones and allow multiple units in the same hex. i.e. get rid of the problem concept and replace it with a less problematic concept.

Then weewar doesn't have to have (correction) a submerged class...

jeye: I was thinking more about keeping game balance when suggesting that the sub's two states should be "good offense + bad defense" and "bad offense + good defense", so you have to tactically decide when you want to use one or the other.

stirling: I've been trying to get the game to move away from merely gradience along the attack and defense scales.

The test server is down. I hope this is a sign that changes are coming (and not a sign that the server crashed.)

Although I like the idea of three planes of occupation - underwater, land, and air - it doesn't seem very feasible to display three units on the same tile on three different levels. Weewar is pretty "wee" as it is... but if the developers or anyone else comes up with an amazing idea, I'm up for it. In the meantime, I think ZOC should just be altered to reflect the fact that subs can go under other units to get to an empty space on the other side. Air units should also not be under ZOC of units that cannot attack them.

Pistos, I don't like artillery having ZOC over their entire range of attack - that makes them much harder to take down then. I also don't like ships having ZOC over their entire range of attack - it makes them nearly impenetrable from air units. So other than melee units, that leaves AA guns. I think ZOC over their full range is good, as long as their range is 2. Thus, it takes both moves of a jet or bomber, and two turns of a Helicopter to attack the AA guns. The specific numbers will need to be retweaked though, but I think it sounds like a good idea.

@spadequack: "Air units should also not be under ZOC of units that cannot attack them." Is this aimed at the tank series?

@Pistos: I have no problems with staying away from gradience, but introducing subs caused problems that haven't been resolved yet. Aircraft should be able to pass over subs or through hexes they occupy. Similarly subs should be able to move under ships and aircraft and pop up behind enemy lines. Allow subs to enter any sea zone that is unoccupied and within their movement. i.e. no ZOC affects subs. It might even be the most effective way to prevent sub blocks.

@all - while I like these ideas in general, I think that many of them are too complicated to attempt in just one patch.  I propose we handle one issue at a time.

I think the best points in this discussion elucidated that the "best" unit depends more on the map than anything else.  There are, however, four things that I think need addressing:

1.  BS's need to cost more than 2000.  But i think they should keep their current abilities.

2.  Light Artillery needs to be fixed.  I think the drop cost to 200 (or maybe 250) get this done.

3.  subs can cause stalemates.  I think the current fix addresses that, provided - subs can't attack anything on land (including hovercraft) - period.  They also can only attack units for which they have a direct water path (i.e., no shooting through land).

4.  jets and bombers should not be attackable by any land units except AA and assault artillery.  helicopters should be targetable, but not ZOCed, by infrantry (and of course AA and assault artillery).  All prices should stay the same (1200/800/600), but if helicopters are targetable by infantry they should be reduced to 500.

So that's my two cents based on playing a lot on the test server.

spadequack: Yes, I agree that blindly and simply giving "full ZOC over a unit's full attack range" may be rash, and produce some deadening results that will bog the game down.  It will have to be tweaked repeatedly with lots of playtesting to see how things turn out.  But overall, the main point of ZOC is to reflect the fact that entering an enemy unit's area of attack makes movement difficult, or prohibits it altogether, on account of there being a difference between free movement and movement under fire.  This is sensible in the case of infantry walking on foot, or even perhaps slow vehicles, but when we try to conceptualize things like jets being somehow inhibited in flight... that becomes harder to swallow indeed.  We may consider experimenting with different kinds of ZOC (as I've mentioned in the past): one kind would be the "full stop" sort that we already have, but a new one could be "partial" ZOC, where movement costs are, say, doubled.  That could emulate that all units, including jets, need to maneouvre evasively under enemy fire.

Another alternative is to provide some units with "defensive offense".  By this I mean that a unit would actually be able to attack when an enemy unit moves into attack range.  For example, an AA gun shooting at an enemy aircraft that wandered into range.  Such "defensive attacks" would consume the attack (and move) for the unit in the unit's coming turn, and we could limit defensive attacks to equal whatever the unit would have had (i.e. 1 for AA guns, 2 for BBs, etc.)  Who knows, I might prefer a defensive attack system than a ZoC system.  Or perhaps having both. 

stirling: As I have said repeatedly to date, sub blockage (or wrongful unit blockage in general) is a critical issue that needs to be address as soon as possible.  I beg of you to join with me (us?) in chorus to pester the development team to get on this sooner rather than later.  Lord knows my lone [annoying] voice has not been enough on many counts.

As for "no ZOC affects subs" I still think that we should be enforcing more ZOC than we have now.  See my previous posts in this thread.

dbthaw: Oh of course this will take many iterations of development.  I would laugh at the suggestion that we should have just one or three iterations and that that would be enough.

I'm curious why you think Assault Artillery should be able to attack jets?  I think only AA guns should.

I think there are a few ways around sub blockage.

If subs can pop up anywhere within their movement zone and attack there won't be as many sub blocks unless you are 3 deep in subs. If jets can minimally attack subs with torpedoes then poking at the sub with a jet or two will make blasting through the sub blocking a fair amount easier and quicker. Subs and Destroyers having a torpedo range of 2 against boats and subs would also work. Getting rid of subs would work.

Fixing subs and aircraft not able to cross over and under each other is at a different level of the programming. Instead of the movement engine calculating a blockage, it should calculate just that the unit can't end on top of a sub... for starters. This still doesn't do anything to resolve having a line of units so that you can't attack the first line (subs) and therefore can't attack units behind the sub line if there are no open spaces the aircraft can get into, which would be a wrongful block. That aspect is only resolvable by having submerged, surface, and air zones where multiple units can be in a single hex.

For displaying multiple units in the same hex... The hexes could be made larger. Or if there is only one unit, then the picture is normal sized and if there are 2 or 3 units in the hex then the pictures are smaller.

Weewar is imo supposed to be a fun game, not a nearly-real-simulation. The complexity of the game will increase with new features. I stick to the opinion that BBs need to be strong against landunits (otherwise why do you want a seaforce anyway?), weak against subs and air, subs need to be weak against destroyers and destroyers need to be weak against BBs (as they are in the normal game), but strong against air.
The problem with subs is that they are blocked by speedboats. The two hex-range cancels that a bit, but makes them too powerfull against destroyers, which should be the opposite! That's the whole point.

i haven't read all the above, but to respond to peter777's specific comment of (and make a point again that hopefully the devs will read) "BBs need to be strong against landunits (otherwise why do you want a seaforce anyway?)":

can we please at least test making more units able to capture and/or having air and water bases produce income?  as far as the latter goes, income of those bases could be either the same as or less than the normal land base.  and for the former, i previously discussed making helicopters capturable in this thread on march 31 at 2:45pm.  there was support for that.

Yeah I for one support that. Let Helis capture!

Displaying shouldn't be much of an issue, you just have to offset the sprites slightly, so that they look like a fanned-out deck of cards.

peter777: We are not (well, I am not) aiming for a nearly-real simulation.  If I want that, I'll play a full 3D action or simulator game.  What I do want, though, is a game that doesn't jar my sensibilities, at least not too much.  As I've said, I agree that game play trumps realism.  But where good game play can be preserved, I appreciate an edge towards realism.

I also agree with a general movement towards "rock paper scissors" configurations among units.

I can go for playtesting with helis that capture.

@pistos - i think your observations about "goals" are exactly on point.

also, regarding the "rock-paper-scissors" approach - i think it's not just a goal, but NECESSARY - otherwise you get two conditions:  1) whoever gets the first BB (or equivalent) gets a huge advantage; and/or 2) whoever moves second has a huge advantage b/c they can tune their attack based on what's produced first without fear of retribution (since they can select whichever "counterunit" can't be countered

as for helis... i'm not precisely against a capturing air unit, but i think we need to sort out the other air balancing issues before we do that.

were the changes applied to the real server? Isnt it to early for that?

@streen - i don't see that the changes have been applied.  yes, it would be too early for that.

@dbthaw - "as for helis... i'm not precisely against a capturing air unit, but i think we need to sort out the other air balancing issues before we do that." - do you mean before testing it, or before making it a patch on the main server?  if the devs would even be slightly considering it, then i think we need to take that into consideration before proceeding with balancing issues.

sorry, my bad. my mate told me "hey, battleships have a range of 4 now", but turns out its just the descriptions of BB that are wrong now

hu? the range is still 5?

what is "hu"?

i think he meant huh?

@luckymustard - i meant before testing it.  if we test too many things at once, we confound the variables and it's hard to see what's affecting what.  that's why i suggest we muck with values before adding a capturing air unit

Hello everybody. Thank you for giving such a lot of feedback. It seems as if you are enjoying this discussion. So do I. I'll go into detail on a few points that have been mentioned.

Battleship: I think we all agree that it is to strong the way it is on the live server. There are two ways to handle that: 1) Make it cost more, 2) make it less effective. We would like to keep it at 2k credits as we think that making it so much more expensive would not be as much fun as it would be build a lot less. This means that the effectiveness is going to be reduced.

Subs: We gave the sub a 2-Range attack and allowed it to attack hovercrafts and speedboats in order to prevent blocking situations. I am more and more of the opinion that this was is leading the wrong way. As stated by Stirling and Pistos tweaking the ZOC/Movement takes better care of the problem. Giving a unit an "altitude" and  allowing them to pass over/underneath enemy units if they do not issue zone of control would be a good start. Even though it would still allow for 3-field blocking walls but those are a lot harder to establish. I do not like the idea of extending ZOC over more then the adjacent field.

Destroyers: They need the same range as subs so they can strike back when attacked by subs.   

(Thanks for chiming in, bert.  It is appreciated.)

Well let's see how the weakening plays out.  After all, I have said in the past that I'd like to test a wholesale levelling/flattening of unit abilities and costs, and an increase in variance of abilities.  That is to say, right now units only vary on scales of offense, defense and mobility.  What I think we all want to avoid, though, are cases where units are too easily countered or "cheesed".  But with enough tweak iterations, I feel confident it won't come to that.

Airdefence: Some of you mention that aircrafts are shot down to easily while other state that the airdefence is to weak. I think that we can solve this by calculating what an airdefence does to an airborne unit in terms of destroyed credits. More of that soon. If the AA is anticipated as a low budget version of the assault artillery it might do well with a 1-1 attack range vs all types but aircrafts.

Aircraft: Bombers seem to strong. So maybe we give it another try with a little less effectiveness or 100 credits more cost. I also like the idea of giving Helis a 5-1 movement range but would delay that a bit.

I share people's fear about extending ZOC to the full range of attack, insofar as one would think that would bog the game down.  But I think in some cases, it is asking to be done.  The one I have in mind is AA guns vs. jets.  Right now, on larger maps, it takes a whole lot of AA guns to make jets pause.  With only two or three in the area, it's almost useless because the jets have so much maneouverability that they avoid the AAs.

But how about this.  [As I've suggested in the past], you can give an overall increase in movement to pretty much all units.  Somewhere between 50 to 150% increase, on a unit-by-unit basis.  e.g. raiders move over 4 plains right now; up that to 7 or 8.  Tanks and LInf move 3 plains; up that to 5 or 6.  This way you can extend ZOC *and* hedge against bogging the game down.

Why did I have to pick a time to post my comments when you are online Pistos?

You so know I'm leaving this window open and watching with eagle eyes. 

I'll try to be less of a nasty fox and more of a humble hare.   Do carry on...

But [as I've mentioned], this is osmething I notice about Weewar vs. other hex games I've played.  The movement ranges of all the units (save the aircraft) are so little, that you lose a sense of unpredictability or surprise.

Think of chess, how a mediocre player can be surprised by a seasoned player when the seasoned player moves a piece from seemingly out of nowhere to capture an exposed piece of the mediocre player.  That's because the pieces have so much mobility; the bishops, rooks and queen can fly from one end of the board to the other, with no limit.

But if these pieces could only move two squares per turn, then this element of "watching all the angles", and "covering all your bases" is all but eliminated.

And that's exactly the effect (or, lack of effect, as it were) that you get with weewar.

A couple other ideas to counter game boggage:

(1) Have specialized units that are hindered by fewer types of ZOC (or none at all?).  Perhaps marines or something, who can stealth their way through enemy lines and plant C4 on the artillery.

(2) You could perhaps have two kinds of movement; the normal kind (as we have now), or "rush", where you no longer are hindered by ZOC, but take a defense penalty as a result.  "Running straight through the fire" as it were.

I think the developers need to make a hard decision of who they want the game to pander to. While the gamer in me really likes a lot of Pistos' and others ideas I think it can be argued that they will make WeeWar more difficult to comprehend. A few of my friends that I play with I figure are like your basic WeeWar player in that they play with only a casual interest in digging deep into the strategies of the game. They already have a hard time in figuring out a winning plan and adding complexity would most likely just cause them to lose interest as the game passes them by. For players like this a tweak here on cost, and a tweak there on offense or defense could be understood.

Just to be clear, myself I'm all for tricking up ZoC and opening up movement or what have you, but those of us that are looking for a deeper game might have to dial it back if that is not the road map currently laid out for WeeWar. In that case it might be best to keep comments in line with what has a realistic chance of becoming implemented. Being fairly new to WeeWar this is something that might have already been discussed in the early days, but I've not seen any kind of mission statement (man, I even hate using that overused corporate buzz word) as to a direction of the game. But reading between the lines I get the overall feeling that keeping the game simple and easy to jump into is a big road sign along the path.

And don't misunderstand me that I think all of Pistos' ideas will cause complexity, I'm just more thinking aloud and wondering if perhaps some are trying to steer the game down a path that those in charge aren't willing to go down at this time. Which bring up another thought that is most likely really a dream, but what if buying a Pro membership brought with it a whole new set of units that did behave in a more complex way. That way the game creator could pretty much choose to play an "easy" game or an "advanced" game.

Okay, enough rambling from me.

Hm, you bring up a good point, NickDanger - a lot of the changes suggested, especially the ZOC changes, will rack up the complexity level a fair deal - it would probably be best to make the most complex / confusing changes to Pro units.

In regard to Pistos' comment on surprise attacks, I think when Fog of War is implemented, there will certainly be some surprise attacks. But even without Fog of War, I like the game as it is and I think that a seasoned player is definitely able to surprise a mediocre player with an unexpected move due to the number of possible moves and advantages of different units. Chess is much simpler - for the most part, only movement distance and direction are variable, but in weewar, movement, attack strength, defense, terrain advantages, base capturing and squatting, and choice of what units to make, are all variable.

Bert, I think the cost/effectiveness ratio or whatever between AA guns and aircraft is for the most part decent. It takes about 3 AA guns to take down a Jet in the test server. Perhaps make Jets cost 900 and Bombers 1000? What I think is the main problem is that a player doesn't have enough time to make 3 AAs to counter a single Jet before the Jet gets to them due to the large movement of the Jet. This can be addressed by introducing a stronger AA unit, increasing the air strength and cost of AA guns, or giving AA units a 2-hex ZOC, thus preventing air units from attacking an AA guns and retreating (say, onto a base, preventing more AA guns from being built, which felt somewhat common).

We've decided to tweak the movement algorithm. Prepare for another testing session next week (using the current database with altered unit stats.) The testserver will be shut down later this evening.

Ah, the testserver is already down. And I was just starting a new game.

I forgot to address Bert's comments on changes - they sound good =)

Can't wait to test the updated units

Yep, can't wait to see what this next iteration has in store for us.  I'm pretty pleased that we're rolling right along with spec tweaks. 

NickDanger: Good point on complexity.  At the same time, I think it should only be a moderate development effort to introduce the ability to play with different rule sets.  For starters, have a Basic ruleset and an Advanced ruleset.  I think I don't have to go into details about the exact rules for everyone to understand what I'm getting at.

spadequack: I concur that there is still SOME element of surprise or unforeseen attack.  But based on my experience with hex games, weewar certainly feels slowest.  Weewar armies move like flowing syrup, whereas in other games, the armies are more like octopi: the main body is still there, but now and again, tentacles can lash out in attack.  In weewar, if I see an enemy infantry unit, there is very little surprise regarding where he could go in the coming turn.  Imagine if he could move 6 hexes in a turn though... now that could really get exciting.

@Bert about the BB. I don't agree that the BB is too strong. In my opinion it should cost about 2k and have range 5. The whole problem with the BB is that the countermeasures (read subs) don't work well against it. The reason subs don't work well, is because subs can be blocked by hovers and speedboats. 
The BB is too strong against air though.
The first patch tried to do all, that is: AND reduce the power of BB, AND give more power to subs. Either one would have been ok.

Maybe removing the ability of the BB to move and shoot also helps, because then the DDs are not so vulnerable to BBs anymore.

i always thought the best way top balance out the battle ship was to reduce it's second attack to something like a heavy art or something.  Battle ships have 12 inch guns and 9 inch guns, the first shot could be the 12s doing massive damage and the second shot could be the 9s doing less damage.

agree with peter, one or two changes could have solved the problem.

disagree with winter. two shots of different power does not sound like a good idea

i also disagree about the BS.  I think it's fine the way it is, and the way to address the problem is to bump up to cost a little (maybe 2300-2500?) and to increase the effectiveness of countermeasures (e.g., make subs able to land as much as 8 damage w/ good rolls).  it's also possible that with the increased range of subs this will be solved w/o strengthening their attack vs. battleships.

my reasoning on this is pretty straightforward - if you're going to spend that much money on ANYTHING, it's gotta be worth it.  since two bombers can cripple - if not kill - a BS, i'd much sooner buy 2 under the new system than waste money on a BS that can get picked off by DFA's which outrange it.

I talked with Peter777 about the [b]battleship[/b] problem, and just want to chime in in support of his comments. Effective measures against battleships are courtailed by ZOC problems. What annoyes me most about battleships is the giant air interdiction bubble. They should remain really nice to have, though.

Re [b]'zerks[/b], I feel they should be limited to a movement of one. Must admit I dislike the superheavies, ie. DFAs too... they render smart unit mixes pretty redundant, but then I am not enamored of the usual arty exchanges too much either. Movement is more my thing!

Love the little hovercraft dudes!

Zerk movement of 1 makes them useless. I was unaware that there was anything wrong with Zerks in the first place

The monkeys are scary. they look evil. takes some getting used to

I know I'm late chiming in on a long thread, but I have to agree with Streen's last comments. Zerks are a struggle to work with already and limiting them to movement of 1 is too much from my perspective.

I also agree that the new hc's are creepy. Took me a second to figure out what they were supposed to be - I thought they were monkeys too!

Was there an update that I missed?  What are you guys talking about with the Berserker change?  Hovercraft?  Monkeys?

Oh, I guess there was a live server update...

So... when do we hit the next iteration of spec tweaks?  Test server has been down for days.