Matrix Games Forums

What unique characteristics do different units have that make them worth producing?

We know that Artillery has a range and op-fire capability, giving it a special ability.

Armor has…ummm..armor! making it tougher and it has special movement abilities.

Heavy bombers have air transport abilities.

Carrier air can be deployed on carriers.

Subs get an option on combat.

Anti-air units gets shot at first by air attacks (I think), so R&D’ing and building it MIGHT be cheaper than raising the AA value of armor and/or inf.

Other than that there seems to be no reason to build or research various units. For instance, why not just do research on tactical air for land, sea and sub attack and produce it instead of heavy bombers (except for a few para transports?). TAC air is cheaper and unless there is something about heavy air we have not been told then it makes more sense to concentrate research and production on TAC.

The same argument can be advanced in several instances. I wonder if concentrating research to create an Uber-light surface ship is more effective than splitting R&D and production with Heavies, which are more expensive to build and operate.

I guess what I am asking is: Are there some special modifiers not detailed in the manual that are in the combat algorithms that some unit types get? Unless it is so, it looks to me like you can get a lot more bang for the money by concentrating R&D on fewer unit types in some cases. Some of the known special abilities are pretty weak and in many cases the world standards are close enough so that there is not a significant additional R&D cost that would not be offset by having fewer units to research for.

This is pretty much a fundimental choice made at the start of the game. You have a very limited amount of R&D that you can do and to get any real value out of it, you must specialize in one or two things. You also have to adjust your production of units to match your R&D plans which in turn pretty much governs your battle plans going forward.

It is good to look at the overall starting situation of each country as each has it's own unique advantages and going against the grain here tends to throw away that starting advantage (not to say you can't, just requires some careful thought.)

See the chart of hit probabilities I posted - you need to look at how yor defense (evasion*durability) and attack dice leave you compared to your enemies. if you get too far behind you can be at a sever disadvantage. For example late in teh game as teh Axis i try to get my inf defense to 8 giving me a 32 defense requiring 9 attack dice to get favorable odds when numbers are even (50% hit chance) and 8 dice if the attacker has a significant numerical advantage. Try to get 10 evasion tanks for teh same reason. If the Russians have 10 attack dice tanks and you only have 7 evasion (28 def) he has a 90+% hit chance against you.

So there is a bit of "cat and mouse" in evasion and land attack for the ground units. This becomes VERY inmportant in teh end game where the Allies need to attrite the West germany piled sky high with units. If teh germans can somehow get inf evasion 9 and arty attack 10 - its virtually impossible to take out West Germany in a timely nature without terrible losses.

INf and arty "come right back' the smae tun if damaged so depending on teh resources you have as Germany, West Germany can be like a Troll, regenerating 6 to 8 units every turn. That is where air power needs to whack away at the factories, tough if the German has 5 or 6 FLAK defending...

A "Festung" stack of 5 or 6 FLAK 10 or 12 arty and 20-25 inf in West Germany - especailly if you can hit the magic 9 inf evasion, 10 arty attack, can take over a year to reduce depending on the "luck of the dice" and the air power the WA bring to bear on production...

Paul, where is that chart. I can't seem to find it on the forums. Thanks.

-jim

All true enough, but this does not address the question of why do we need heavy bombers at all? Just spend the R&D you would have spent on them on TAC instead, giving you a single, cheaper aircraft type to produce that can do it all. I see no innate value in heavy bombers.

The same question could be asked of other unit types.

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

This is pretty much a fundimental choice made at the start of the game. You have a very limited amount of R&D that you can do and to get any real value out of it, you must specialize in one or two things. You also have to adjust your production of units to match your R&D plans which in turn pretty much governs your battle plans going forward.

Exactly my point. Why not make a one-plane-does-it-all or one-ship-does-it-all or one-land unit-does-it-all R&D/production choice to maximise research and production costs? The ONLY mitigating factor is where some units, such as artillery have a special attribute that makes them worth having in addition to your armor or infantry. It appears to me that some units may not have anything special enough about them to make them worth the effort.

solops my opinion is exactly the opposite: Heavy bombers - I call them LR air, for long range air, because their range is IMO their most important "starting" characteristic, especially for WA - make excellent sub killers. Build their ASW to 3 or 4 and they will eat enemy subs for breakfast. Their range makes them perfect for covering large chunks of ocean (tac bombers have limited range).

Now, since you invested that much in their ASW factor, and since you build at least a handful of LR air units, I think it is reasonable to invest in their other factors as well, like land attack etc. rather than researching land attack for tac bombers (and having to produce them as well). Of course this may depend on which side you play, but I'd say this works at least for naval oriented sides like WA and Japan.

So you see - different strategies for different people, thats why I love this game so much [:D]

O.

This is true to a certain extent, but the 'World Standard' prevents some combos from appearing. Also note that some (most) Heavy Bombers have an 'Armor' factor that is not researchable by the smaller planes.

Apart from that, some units just have a head start in certain areas so its often not worth it to develop them up to where you already an alternative. One other slight benefit is that once you get a lot of a type of unit, it becomes more and more expensive to research. If you dont need ALL of them to do a certain thing, paying the research premium can be a waste.

I do pretty much follow your idea with Japan though. I research up the Carrier Air Groups and then generally build almost no other air units. I will occasionally build Heavy Bombers for their range to reach out and hit WAllied Transports (upping the Range twice on the CAGs is too expensive). But other than that, I use make the CAGs my 'jack of all trades' aircraft.

Paul, where is that chart. I can't seem to find it on the forums. Thanks.

I reposted it in the war room with a sticky.

Hmmm...looked in War Room and did not see it. (never mind, found it)

Anyway...Oleg: Fine, make the Main Plane an HB instead of a TAC, the question still remains. Where does a unit's innate abilities and starting stats vs world standard make it worth producing in lieu of concentrating R&D on a single model. With aircraft in Germany's case, since their HBs have no armor, I see no reason not to research the range up on the cheaper and faster to produce TACs and make them the anti-everything aircraft (except anti-air).

Unless there is a significant difference between starting values and the World Standard difference is great also, then there are some real, long-term savings to be had on both R&D and production. Where do these exceptions occur? And, as noted, different countries will have different situations.

I have reservations about heavy ships as well as opposed to light ships.

And the joker is undocumented modifiers in the combat algorithm.

well one reason to use heavy bombers, is that its the only unit (to my understanding) that is the 'atomic bomb' at level 10, which of course is required for auto-victory as allies.

I personally use the strengths of each unit, since they have that 'head start' in their special area. except I rarely use tac bombers, since I use heavy bombers for whatever they are needed for. also I'm starting to question the value of infantry, when tanks seem much better all around.

I would say that Solops raises a very interesting point, but is over simplifying a bit.

Yes you could make Tacs that were in most ways as good or better than the heavies with enough research, but there is a limitting factor to over stacking research that you may be overlooking. Two of them in fact.

1.) the base value that when exceeded doubles, then triples reaserch cost. Units that start better at some thing such as range or sea attack can be kept better at that thing much more cheaply than a different type of unit could be brought on par or exceed them.

2.) time is definitely against you if you are wanting to raise the same stat multiple times. Even worse, if you make a super unit, you will of course want to make several of them. This would increase research costs even more.

Another point against the one air unit to rule them all approach is, of course, fighters. Tacs will never be able to compete with fighters in the air.

I would, however, agree that is some cases, it is an either or situation. You generally either want to improve tac or heavies in a given game. The same would be true for heavy and light fleets. I don't think it works well to improve both heavily.

What I do not think is the case is that it is always better to improve tac or always better to improve light fleets. This seems to be the heart of your point. If it does work out so that the lighter and faster produced units are always more efficient, it does reduce the need for the heavier units to the point where it might be unwise to make any of them, ever.