Amphibious Assault nerf & bug

[Umeu]

Nerf:

historically, amphibious assaults were very risky affairs that required great planning and specially trained troops & special equipment. These landings often took heavy losses, despite them often outnumbering the defenders and being of better combat quality.

But in WaW it seems like amphibious assaults especially, but also the landings (Which are 2 separate events) seem to be overpowered. The attacks are too good because the attacker cannot take any losses. At lower tech levels (up to about lvl 3) this is not that much of an issue, as predictions are often at 0:0 or 0:1, 0:2 at most. But at higher levels (4&5) it seems like they get really out of control, and because there is no distinction between which unit is actually in the landing vehicle, you can do a lot of damage with cheap units such as Anti Air units. They can score 0:3 and 0:4 vs entrenched armies and special forces, which is really quite crazy. The units do more damage while in the landing vehicle / amphibious assault than they do after they have landed, and some units don't even have an attack after they have landed. There isn't really much of a defence against this, because of the range that these long distance landing vehicles have, they are out of range of naval and airforce units, and also defensively, ships only do something if the vehicle enters an adjacent hex, so that is really quite easy to avoid in many cases.

it would be nice to see a few changes:

1) distinguish between units in the landing vehicle (aka, units with no or low attack on land should also have no or low attack on the landing vehicle, and vice versa. Or maybe a separate stat for every unit for when they load onto a landing vehicle (this way, special forces can receive a higher stat in this department as they are supposed to be specialised in amphibious assaults)
2) if that is not possible, then lower Amphibious assault attack values across the board, or cap them at lvl 3 so that lvl 4 & 5 mostly add other bonuses.
3) a lower range for long range landing vehicles, or remove the naval cruise? can also be considered. (lowering the range and/or removing the cruise also makes the island hopping campaign relevant, as right now, you can generally just bypass most of the islands as you can just send your long range vehicles straight to whichever mainland you want to take)
4) higher casualties for landings that are opposed (or alternatively, when doing an amphibious assault, the attacker should also take damage in the engagement.)
5) airforce and maybe also naval units automatically launch intercepts at amphibious landing vehicles within a certain range (similarly to how shore guns work now, though those only defend the adjacent hex)





Bug:
would like to add that sometimes long range transports can no longer use their naval cruise even though they haven't moved. I'm not sure what causes it (I've noticed it might be related to subs being around, or having moved/attacked the previous turn, but might just be a coincidence)

[Platoonist]

3) a lower range for long range landing vehicles, or remove the naval cruise? can also be considered. (lowering the range and/or removing the cruise also makes the island hopping campaign relevant, as right now, you can generally just bypass most of the islands as you can just send your long range vehicles straight to whichever mainland you want to take)

The long-range amphibious transport feature was eliminated from the 1941 grand campaign scenario in SC:War in the Pacific. I think one of the reasons was to curtail both the US and Japanese players from attempting direct trans-oceanic invasions of each other's homelands.

[Umeu]

3) a lower range for long range landing vehicles, or remove the naval cruise? can also be considered. (lowering the range and/or removing the cruise also makes the island hopping campaign relevant, as right now, you can generally just bypass most of the islands as you can just send your long range vehicles straight to whichever mainland you want to take)

The long-range amphibious transport feature was eliminated from the 1941 grand campaign scenario in SC:War in the Pacific. I think one of the reasons was to curtail both the US and Japanese players from attempting direct trans-oceanic invasions of each other's homelands.

good to know, and I think that's the right decision. maybe there really just needs to be 1 kind of landing vehicle, and tech can increase the range by a bit more than it does now? like +2 range instead of +1 range?

The amphibious attack problem still remains though

[Umeu]

lvl 3 heavy tank vs unentrenched lvl 2 garrison is 1-3 prediction, vs an unentrenched lvl 1 AA unit it's 1-4.
lvl 5 AA unit amhibious landing vehicle has the same attack stats as a lvl 3 heavy tank, but it can't take damage. It does 8-0 vs an 3x entrenched HQ, 4-0 vs entrenched armies.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

lvl 3 heavy tank vs unentrenched lvl 2 garrison is 1-3 prediction, vs an unentrenched lvl 1 AA unit it's 1-4.
lvl 5 AA unit amhibious landing vehicle has the same attack stats as a lvl 3 heavy tank, but it can't take damage. It does 8-0 vs an 3x entrenched HQ, 4-0 vs entrenched armies.

Yep this has been a problem for years, particularly the example with AA units on AVLs. Crazy cheese!
Regarding SC-WitP and amphib operations. Things are way more realistic with AVLs not in the picture. Amphibious operations have to be carefully planned with AVs, since once loaded, they lose supply. At high levels, they are yoked out strong, but the range is still relatively short.
There's none of that flinging AVLs across the oceans on naval cruise mode to see what sticks.

In WaW, would not do away with AVLs. Different game and scope. But at level 4 and especially 5 they are floating nukes. I had a fully entrenched and elite pipped German Army unit at Bremen get vaporized by 2 lvl 5 amphibs. An Army man! Now thats nuts. I did it before too, and felt kind of bad about that.

Anyways, my 3 cents.

[Umeu]

lvl 3 heavy tank vs unentrenched lvl 2 garrison is 1-3 prediction, vs an unentrenched lvl 1 AA unit it's 1-4.
lvl 5 AA unit amhibious landing vehicle has the same attack stats as a lvl 3 heavy tank, but it can't take damage. It does 8-0 vs an 3x entrenched HQ, 4-0 vs entrenched armies.

Yep this has been a problem for years, particularly the example with AA units on AVLs. Crazy cheese!
Regarding SC-WitP and amphib operations. Things are way more realistic with AVLs not in the picture. Amphibious operations have to be carefully planned with AVs, since once loaded, they lose supply. At high levels, they are yoked out strong, but the range is still relatively short.
There's none of that flinging AVLs across the oceans on naval cruise mode to see what sticks.

In WaW, would not do away with AVLs. Different game and scope. But at level 4 and especially 5 they are floating nukes. I had a fully entrenched and elite pipped German Army unit at Bremen get vaporized by 2 lvl 5 amphibs. An Army man! Now thats nuts. I did it before too, and felt kind of bad about that.

Anyways, my 3 cents.

ok, good to know I'm not crazy about this haha, but if it's been a problem for years I guess not much will be done about it. Any established house rules on this then?

Yeah, the higher attack levels are really the biggest problem, but the range is problematic as well. Feels like maybe attack should be capped at lvl 3. Then again, removing LDR and giving the normal amphibious landing vehicle a +2 range per tech might work too. Allies would really have to establish bases of support that way, and do proper island hopping. Also Axis would be less inclined to evacuate NA? Although I'm not sure it can really be held vs proper Allied play.

on a side/different note, do you know why artillery sometimes loses their stocked up shells when moving (just normal moves)?

[OldCrowBalthazor]

lvl 3 heavy tank vs unentrenched lvl 2 garrison is 1-3 prediction, vs an unentrenched lvl 1 AA unit it's 1-4.
lvl 5 AA unit amhibious landing vehicle has the same attack stats as a lvl 3 heavy tank, but it can't take damage. It does 8-0 vs an 3x entrenched HQ, 4-0 vs entrenched armies.

Yep this has been a problem for years, particularly the example with AA units on AVLs. Crazy cheese!
Regarding SC-WitP and amphib operations. Things are way more realistic with AVLs not in the picture. Amphibious operations have to be carefully planned with AVs, since once loaded, they lose supply. At high levels, they are yoked out strong, but the range is still relatively short.
There's none of that flinging AVLs across the oceans on naval cruise mode to see what sticks.

In WaW, would not do away with AVLs. Different game and scope. But at level 4 and especially 5 they are floating nukes. I had a fully entrenched and elite pipped German Army unit at Bremen get vaporized by 2 lvl 5 amphibs. An Army man! Now thats nuts. I did it before too, and felt kind of bad about that.

Anyways, my 3 cents.

ok, good to know I'm not crazy about this haha, but if it's been a problem for years I guess not much will be done about it. Any established house rules on this then?

Yeah, the higher attack levels are really the biggest problem, but the range is problematic as well. Feels like maybe attack should be capped at lvl 3. Then again, removing LDR and giving the normal amphibious landing vehicle a +2 range per tech might work too. Allies would really have to establish bases of support that way, and do proper island hopping. Also Axis would be less inclined to evacuate NA? Although I'm not sure it can really be held vs proper Allied play.

on a side/different note, do you know why artillery sometimes loses their stocked up shells when moving (just normal moves)?

No established house-rules concerning AVLs that I know of but there could be some private ones.
Regarding Arty losing shells. Well Force marching them will lose those shells. I made a joke in one of my videos about this. I had to forcemarch a valuable artillery unit out of harms way as it was in danger of being over-run. I remarked that the enemy could probably find me by the trail of cannonballs left like breadcrumbs as we una$$Ed out of there by unburdening ourselves.

[Umeu]

Yep this has been a problem for years, particularly the example with AA units on AVLs. Crazy cheese!
Regarding SC-WitP and amphib operations. Things are way more realistic with AVLs not in the picture. Amphibious operations have to be carefully planned with AVs, since once loaded, they lose supply. At high levels, they are yoked out strong, but the range is still relatively short.
There's none of that flinging AVLs across the oceans on naval cruise mode to see what sticks.

In WaW, would not do away with AVLs. Different game and scope. But at level 4 and especially 5 they are floating nukes. I had a fully entrenched and elite pipped German Army unit at Bremen get vaporized by 2 lvl 5 amphibs. An Army man! Now thats nuts. I did it before too, and felt kind of bad about that.

Anyways, my 3 cents.

ok, good to know I'm not crazy about this haha, but if it's been a problem for years I guess not much will be done about it. Any established house rules on this then?

Yeah, the higher attack levels are really the biggest problem, but the range is problematic as well. Feels like maybe attack should be capped at lvl 3. Then again, removing LDR and giving the normal amphibious landing vehicle a +2 range per tech might work too. Allies would really have to establish bases of support that way, and do proper island hopping. Also Axis would be less inclined to evacuate NA? Although I'm not sure it can really be held vs proper Allied play.

on a side/different note, do you know why artillery sometimes loses their stocked up shells when moving (just normal moves)?

No established house-rules concerning AVLs that I know of but there could be some private ones.
Regarding Arty losing shells. Well Force marching them will lose those shells. I made a joke in one of my videos about this. I had to forcemarch a valuable artillery unit out of harms way as it was in danger of being over-run. I remarked that the enemy could probably find me by the trail of cannonballs left like breadcrumbs as we una$$Ed out of there by unburdening ourselves.

yeah forced march makes sense, but sometimes you lose them even on normal march, but you do use up all the APs. But not always. I haven't been able to find out the pattern yet.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ok, good to know I'm not crazy about this haha, but if it's been a problem for years I guess not much will be done about it. Any established house rules on this then?

Yeah, the higher attack levels are really the biggest problem, but the range is problematic as well. Feels like maybe attack should be capped at lvl 3. Then again, removing LDR and giving the normal amphibious landing vehicle a +2 range per tech might work too. Allies would really have to establish bases of support that way, and do proper island hopping. Also Axis would be less inclined to evacuate NA? Although I'm not sure it can really be held vs proper Allied play.

on a side/different note, do you know why artillery sometimes loses their stocked up shells when moving (just normal moves)?

No established house-rules concerning AVLs that I know of but there could be some private ones.
Regarding Arty losing shells. Well Force marching them will lose those shells. I made a joke in one of my videos about this. I had to forcemarch a valuable artillery unit out of harms way as it was in danger of being over-run. I remarked that the enemy could probably find me by the trail of cannonballs left like breadcrumbs as we una$$Ed out of there by unburdening ourselves.

yeah forced march makes sense, but sometimes you lose them even on normal march, but you do use up all the APs. But not always. I haven't been able to find out the pattern yet.

Never seen that behavior before. Perhaps a weird bug like the naval cruise glitch that sometimes happens randomly (I discovered a work-around for that annoyance)
The devs have tried for a long time to suss out that bug.