Super Infantry has to go

[royson58]

It's getting pretty boring in any game going into 1946, when the WA has developed their Super Soldiers. By this time, they are virtually untouchable, which makes for a very boring, very unrealistic, game.

I would actually prefer that infantry could not be improved over what they have now.

What do you think?


--Royson58--

[aletoledo]

I don't really care for it much either, but in some ways I think its fine as is.

I recently lost a game as axis, where russia was completely dead and I mean completely. yet by that time the WA player had 8/8 infantry to my 7/7 and I had so many that I'd never be able to achieve 8/8 for several months, in which time his infantry would go rampant through me.

however I like the option of doing super-infantry. without it, the tanks would end up being the superunits.

I think the "solution" is to leave it as is, but give the allies a bunch of frozen infantry. this way it would be a lot more expensive for the allies to devote to infantry research. if the allies want to devote that research into infantry early, then their ASW would suffer. it should be a cat and mouse game, but the allies at this point can do everything at once without hardly trying to counter the axis at all.

[Harrybanana]

I find this kinda amusing in a way. Shortly after this game came out everyone was complaining about the "Uber 10/10 Tanks". So the developers changed the rules to make the research of these tanks more difficult. Then people complained about the Super Allied bombers, so the game was changed again to reduce Allied bomber starting evasion and make research more expensive. Now the complaint is the super infantry. I suppose after this the complaint will be with the attack factor 9 artillery. Actually I don't see the problem with 8/8 infantry. If 10 of these infantry attack a force of say 5 7/7 infantry and 5 10/9 tanks the attacking infantry will need "29s" on 8 dice to hit the infantry (assuming clear terrain) = 2 probable hits and "25s" on 7 dice to hit the tanks = 2 more hits. Meanwhile the defending infantry will need "32s" on 7 dice = 0 hits and the defending tanks will need "32s" on 10 dice= 3 probable hits. So 4 hits to 3 and the Allies are forced to retreat. The problem for the Germans is if they have built and developed their infantry at the expense of their tanks. I have seen the Germans do this if they are going for the early knockout aginst Russia.

I have never developed 9/9 infantry myself as the cost is prohibitive and an Allied player who does so must be making a big sacrifice somewhere else. Is this something other Allied Players are doing regularly?

[royson58]

I'm not a big fan of Super anything. However, keeping the current improvement rules, a tweaking of combat modifiers might be appropriate. That way, 3 WA infantry don't go on an offensive against the whole Japanese occupation forces in China, and without being touched.

--Royson58--

[Uncle_Joe]

Its the same 'problem' rearing its head in different units. Infantry have a Durability of 4, so by the time the higher techs are being reached you need to have MORE than their equal level of attack to have decent odds of hitting.

Most units have DUR of 3, so each level of EVA is adding 3 to defense while each level of attack is adding 3.5 to the other side of the equation.

All you really have to remember is that once techs hit about 8, you have to have TWO levels above in order to maintain roughly the same odds you had of a kill at the lower levels. Either that, or you have to outnumber them quite a bit so that you can fire at the reduced EVA levels (where Infantry are losing 4).

So, this has the same symptoms as the Tanks and Heavy Bombers, but its easier to counter. Tanks have an Armor stat and Heavy Bombers had Armor AND a DUR of 4(!). Together that made them pretty impossible to take down later in the game. Tanks had the -1 die from Armor, had a higher World Standard for EVA, and on top of that, tended to be fewer in number resulting in an cheaper upgrade cost than most counters.

Looking at it that perspective, 'Super' Infantry arent really hard to deal with. All you have to do is understand that they are tougher to take down and make an investment in SOMETHING that can kill them (usually Arty as they get two shots and have a high WS for Ground Attack).

From a 'historical' perspective, it was really only the WAllies who had the industry to produce any real numbers of Armored Infantry formations, so I think its appropriate that they are the power most likely to have 'super' infantry. Looking at the firepower of a US late 44 Armored Infantry unit its quite easy to see how could easily overwhelm their lesser mechanized and equipped opponents. On the Russian side, most Russian Infantry division werent well equipped even late in the war. So, even in the 'realism' test, the WAllies possessing tough infantry doesnt feel to far off base.

[aletoledo]

From a 'historical' perspective, it was really only the WAllies who had the industry to produce any real numbers of Armored Infantry formations, so I think its appropriate that they are the power most likely to have 'super' infantry. Looking at the firepower of a US late 44 Armored Infantry unit its quite easy to see how could easily overwhelm their lesser mechanized and equipped opponents. On the Russian side, most Russian Infantry division werent well equipped even late in the war. So, even in the 'realism' test, the WAllies possessing tough infantry doesnt feel to far off base.

interesting point, I never looked at it that way. perhaps the WA infantry should get an increased movement just like tanks?

Harry, I think the infantry is fine the way it is for research, just that the germans shouldn't be so penalized for having more starting infantry.

I have to disagree with you on the tanks though (which perhaps should be another topic). it seems that most germans use tanks in place of infantry, filling in the gaps since that seems to be their only option. I suppose I'm wrong, but I would think that the tanks should be used for blitzing and not just to hold the line because the infantry can't. perhaps though this is a reflection of history and not military doctrine taking place and the germans should be using the tanks to fill the holes.

[Harrybanana]

I guess it depends on the timelime aletoledo. Certainly in Normandy the Germans were using their Panzers to fill the line and not to blitzkrieg. By this time the Allied infantry was pretty much overmatching the regular German infantry. Even in Italy, which was primarily an infantry and artillery theatre where the terrain heavily favored the defender, the Allied infantry generally pushed the Germans back even though often outnumbered. Of course it took them about 1 1/2 years (about 6 turns) to do so.

Off topic, what I would like to see in a future WAW would be some sort of gearing limits. This way if the Allies spend a lot of their initial investment in the first several turns on research they couldn't just suddenly turn those research factories (how does a factory produce research anyway?) into producing the actual units. This would affect the Axis too, no more producing 7 TAC or 8 tanks on the first turn. Of course this would take away some of the options available to the players which might hurt the enjoyablity part of the game.

A solution to the problem you point out would be to not have research any more costly if you have more units. Actually you would think that the more units of a particular type you have the more experience you would have with that particular type of unit and the easier research would be. Of course than you would have to work it so units did not automatically upgrade. Instead you would have to expend supply (say 5 points per point of upgrade) to upgrade the units individually. Upgraded units should not be able to attack in the turn of upgrade. This could result in any given army having several "classes" of the same type of unit. I think this would really make the game more enjoyable as you would have to decide where you want to commit your best units. It would also add some more FOW as you would still be able to see your opponents unit types, but would not know their "class" until you engaged in combat. Upgrading ships evasion and certain attack strengths should cost more in supplies than upgrading land units, and they should have to remain in port for the turn. If applied to transports, for example, it might actually make it worthwhile for the Allies to invest in their amphib carrying capacity so they could upgrade a few select units. Of course, I think the whole amphib system should be reworked anyway. OK, I've rambled on long enough.

[aletoledo]

solution to the problem you point out would be to not have research any more costly if you have more units. Actually you would think that the more units of a particular type you have the more experience you would have with that particular type of unit and the easier research would be. Of course than you would have to work it so units did not automatically upgrade. Instead you would have to expend supply (say 5 points per point of upgrade) to upgrade the units individually. Upgraded units should not be able to attack in the turn of upgrade. This could result in any given army having several "classes" of the same type of unit. I think this would really make the game more enjoyable as you would have to decide where you want to commit your best units. It would also add some more FOW as you would still be able to see your opponents unit types, but would not know their "class" until you engaged in combat. Upgrading ships evasion and certain attack strengths should cost more in supplies than upgrading land units, and they should have to remain in port for the turn.

excellent idea! I think making research seperate from production and unit counts is a great solution. then making units upgraded at cost rounds out the picture.

it couldn't be too hard to do (for a W@W2 that is) since the units are apparently already tracked by an ID anyway. what difference would it make if the ID just tracked a "unit" and that object (programming object) simply had an icon and its all its other attributes tracked throughout the game. after all there is only probably a maximum of 1000 units (objects) to track throughtout the game, which doesn't seem too large (but I'm not a big programmer type).

I wonder if they would ever do a W@W2? we could start up suggestions for the next iteration then.

[Harrybanana]

I certainly hope there is a WAW2. But I guess a lot depends on how many units of WAW get sold. While this game is certainly on my top ten list of the "Best Games Ever", I suspect it's less appealing to the general game buying public. On the other hand the develoment of WAW2 would be less costly as the basic game engine is fine. The Developers also have to know that they already have a committed group of devotees who would pay anything (well almost anything) to get an improved game.

[aletoledo]

I wonder if the engine is good enough though to expand upon a few things though. perhaps more units (greater diversity) and a more segmented map (with more provinces). those would make me buy the game in a heartbeat.

[Harrybanana]

Are you talking about more provinces everywhere, or just where there are currently large provinces that cost 2 mp to cross (such as East Russia and North America)? If the former than the time scale would also have to be changed from 3 month turns to 2 or even 1 month turns. I have no problem with this but it would mean for even longer games. If the latter, than this would definitely favor the Allies as breaking East Russia into more provinces would definitely slow down the Japanese advance. Actually I think the designers intention was to use large areas where historically there was not much action for convenience. I mean why else have China broken down into so many provinces while the considerably larger East Russia is only about 6 areas. Of course in about half of all games or more East Russia is a very active area. I think this is 1 of the biggest problems with the game from a realism aspect. There is no way the Japanese could have driven across east Russia in even 9 months (as they do in most games) even if they were virtually unopposed.

[aletoledo]

actually i was thinking more along the lines of cutting all the provinces up and then (though I didn't think of it) reduce the turn length to one month or two. if this is too huge an idea, perhaps they could theater the game, into europe and pacific.

I'll probably play W@W for a few more months, but just like axis&allies it will become routine after awhile. it would be nice to look forward to a "new map" in the form of W@W2.

[SeaMonkey]

Don't fret guys SC2 is on the horizon.[:)]

[aletoledo]

Don't fret guys SC2 is on the horizon.

I doubt that game will be out for at least another year.

[Forwarn45]

I would like a sequel to this game. [:)] On a side note, I don't mind the super-infantry as they can be countered as mentioned. It might not be a bad thing, however, to raise the world standard for infantry attack by 1 so that infantry can more easily retain effectiveness against infantry with a reasonable investment -- at least until you develop "super" super infantry. [;)]