Well you asked for ideas and feedback so I made some suggestions below. They might – (C) in particular - look complex at first and some may discard it from the get-go because they feel obliged to the KISS principle but IMO it is not really difficult to implement IF desired and there have been rather math/probability-heavy improvements made in the last update as well, such as the CAG-Counter-strike which includes a formula I have not even bothered to look at.
If nothing else than maybe the ability to mod this would come out of it so be it.
Here is the primer: As it is now all units get CAM regardless how many of each unit type exist in one region, as long as at least one unit each of the unit types is present. The CAM simply applies the CAM to all units regardless how the distribution among the 4 unit types. During WWII, except maybe for the late war US troops all armies were still mainly mobile-on-foot which resulted in only certain core units/corps being able to actually follow-through/execute Combined Arms tactics. The percentage of units able to apply “modern” tactics of course increased during the war. Units used as cannon-fodder should not get a CAM just because they happen to be in a region where a CAM.capable core group is present.
To account for the above I suggest the following:
A. Heavy Bombers & CAM
Similarly to Militia that was excluded from qualifying units also exclude Heavy bombers in addition to Fighters to qualify for CAM (both to get CAM in the first place and to receive CAM bonus). Justification: H.B’s were mainly used for infrastructure and industry attacks, in parts for carpet-bombing of suspected enemy deployment regions (e.g. Normandy) but with lesser effect then the Tactical Bombers whose primary task was to actually support own land forces and interdict enemy formations. In AWD too many H.B’s are used to gain CAM, which is not realistic IMO. In the case of H.B’s you should not be able to bomb factories in one turn and support ground troops with the same type of aircraft. This would also further increase the need and use of Tactical Bombers over H.B’s.
B. Gaining of CAM and denial of CAM to the opponent
Take away the requirement that only the force that has a higher number of tanks can gain CAM. Only the provision that all required units present should have to be fulfilled. Do allow the defender to also gain CAM if he qualifies (i.e. has all four unit types). There is a counter to deny the defender his CAM: take out his air first! (As used historically). This also gives a player on the defensive a reason to build all unit types – combined with (C) there would be motivation to “out-CAM” the opponent.
alternative option: Deny CAM if the other player qualifies for CAM (offset)
C. Allocation of CAM bonus
- This is a mix of several suggestions in part made in this thread above -
Instead of applying a fixed CAM to all units present in the region, make the CAM “level” dependent on the number and distribution of forces. Increase the max. modifier from 3 to 4 to account for the “special” bonus that is applied in reflection of the sometimes earth-quake like advance of armies applying combined-arms tactics over those that do not. Then, limit the number of unit that get max. CAM to the smallest number of units present of any of the four required unit types to account for a “core army” using CA-tactics. I’ll call this number “MIN-count”. MIN-count equals to Minimum( number of Inf/Para, number of Arty, Number of Armour, Number of Tac.B./CAG).
There can be a “reduced” CAM if desired to underline the importance of the CAM for the unit types with higher numbers present: Reduce the CAM from 4 to 3, then down to 2 and finally 1, for the same number of additional units. Thus a number of units equalling MIN-count from each of the four unit types can receive max. CAM (level 4), if present, another number equalling MIN-count can get CAM level 3, and so on until level 1.
As I am not capable of putting this in words as well as into tables, on to 4 examples:
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