Broken balance - Soviets vs OKW

Relic never learns from their mistakes, in CoH1 with the release of PE and Brits, the game was highly annoying, probably everyone suffered from PG blob that was unbeatable unless snipers or strafes or Brit blob that could be stopped by arty, prop war, snipers. Well, the problem was that in mixed games (PE vs USA or Brits vs Wehr) only few units were worth building, unlike USA vs Wehr where all units were worth something because factions were similar. Now the story repeats with WF armies, OKW is a mix of PE and brits, trucks can be abused and their inf are superior and with good luck they can be countered by blob (ofc they are full RNG because high reinforce doesnt reflect their combat effectiveness, they can be deadly or meat shield), this faction is not similar to any other in the game, luckily USA is more similar to basic factions, only tech system is changed and weapon upgrades can be bought in base but the rest is almost the same.


Now let's look at Soviets vs OKW (because they will give us most imbalanced games)

OKW has no proper and cheap early AT weapon stuff, raketenwerfer has low range and it doesnt provide green cover as other AT gun does, it can be garrisoned in building (which is the only good thing probably for that unit) but it's not enough because Soviets can get OP M3 in first minutes and it's unkillable by all HQ units except this weak raketenwerfer. Volks are cheap version of grens and they cant penetrate M3, Kubelwagen dies in 1-2 bursts from M3 and sturmpios have low health.

Conscripts, penals and maxims seem to be doing well vs OKW. Cons are very similar to Volks, Penals were always good vs Ostheer grens so with Volks they have bigger chances and there's no unit (except low health Kubelwagen) to pin them and soviets can get 6 man maxim squad which insta pins Volks and they can be flanked properly only with Sturmpios, but it's random, depends if the Maxim is supported by cons or CE's.

Now is the worst part of it... Fuel income - OKW will always suffer from Fuel income, bigger tanks costs too much (first real tank Jagdpanzer IV costs 135 which in real values [not counting their reduced incomes] it's like 170-180 Fuel), other vehicles are mostly useless in late, med game when enemy armour hits the field and this doesnt affect Soviets, why? because they have 100% Fuel income and first T-70 can hit the field at like 13 mins? at that time OKW can only afford raketenwerfer and maybe Shrecked Volks, nothing else. Had a game where i was crushing soviet player, but then KV-8 hit the field, had raketenwerfer in building, it barely fired 2 shots and was dead, Volks with shrecks fired once and had to retreat, Puma couldn't penetrate it's front and had troubles with rear (and ofc Puma is penetrating T34-85 with E.Z, logic relic pls) then IS-2 hit the Field and it took out mine 2 raketenwerfer in front.


Well, I believe that Relic will do something about it (I doubt it tbh) and finally stopped doing these retarded ideas all the time (a.k.a "it's awesome stuff" - Relic) that screws the game and then they release tons of patches (and they are proud of that...)

Soviets are OP allround because of m3 and medium call ins.Now is-2 probably added to list.thats not even taking into acc how annoying sniper/guards or maximspam in teamgames can be.

For pak43 the range nerf basically kills it due to its narrow arc and huge turning time.

Nerf for elefant is more damaging than isu,though it remains to be seen if isu still 1 shots at 70 range.

competely agree with Barton, more different faction, more difficult to balance,
the only way to counter that is all faction have similar tier structure
HQ: different upgrade
Tier 1: infantry and some support weapon
Tier 2: some support weapon and light vehicle
Tier 3: medium vehicle and medium tank
Tier 4: Heavy tank, tank destoryer and indirect fire vehicle
all tier structure will be linear,player dont really care about the different tier structure of each faction, they do really care if it is good unit.
this will solve almost everything and easy to balance, Relic, however, choose a hard way

competely agree with Barton, more different faction, more difficult to balance,
the only way to counter that is all faction have similar tier structure
HQ: different upgrade
Tier 1: infantry and some support weapon
Tier 2: some support weapon and light vehicle
Tier 3: medium vehicle and medium tank
Tier 4: Heavy tank, tank destoryer and indirect fire vehicle
all tier structure will be linear,player dont really care about the different tier structure of each faction, they do really care if it is good unit.
this will solve almost everything and easy to balance, Relic, however, choose a hard way

Why not just have 1 faction? Perfect balance.

competely agree with Barton, more different faction, more difficult to balance,
the only way to counter that is all faction have similar tier structure
HQ: different upgrade
Tier 1: infantry and some support weapon
Tier 2: some support weapon and light vehicle
Tier 3: medium vehicle and medium tank
Tier 4: Heavy tank, tank destoryer and indirect fire vehicle
all tier structure will be linear,player dont really care about the different tier structure of each faction, they do really care if it is good unit.
this will solve almost everything and easy to balance, Relic, however, choose a hard way

This would kill all versatility.

Well,I guess Relic has never tried to study history or even to look into the theoretical books on the tactical level issues. Look at the formations of the troops of the game itself which most players have. It is barely called combined arm warfares and they probably can not specify what kind of theoretical model was adopted for this mechanism. It will continue until they lost all customers, which they knew that they will not. You have no options here. Or you can turn to close combat, combat missions or TOAW3 which is a different taste.

rushing jadpanzer?

Not sure about how to counter the M3 hell. I'll try to figure out something tomorrow.

Without target tables you cannot balance 4 factions. Relic should have kept the factions seperated. But they feared that it would split the already small community into two camps

Without target tables you cannot balance 4 factions. Relic should have kept the factions seperated. But they feared that it would split the already small community into two camps

Not separated, but they shouldn't have scrapped the target tables, I'm not sure why they did. Simplicity I suppose. But balancing 4 factions is anything but simple.

tbh The regular Germans are just as bad at dealing with an early M3 as the OKW, on smaller maps with buildings the OKW's small at gun will probably be better than anything that the original germans have, you just need to make sure to build the at-gun early.

Technically, the puppchen allows OKW to counter early M3's better than Ostheer. And the Jagdpanzer... hmm... If OKW is lucky to pull it out fast enough, it could destroy medium tanks before they do too much damage, but OKW's lack of medium vehicles is highly noticeable. Yes, soviet tanks cause huge damage when OKW does not have available enough counters to it. (Again, Jagdpanzer is great for it, but soviet armor will beat it to the battlefield). However, the puppchen satisfies me in that role. And yet, i see AI, yes - AI, pull a fast m3 on an Ostheer teammate, and he quits.

Well I have not gotten to play this match up but it does seem like a problem. To be honest I thought the Kubelwagon would have enough penetration to at least even the playing field

Technically, the puppchen allows OKW to counter early M3's better than Ostheer. And the Jagdpanzer... hmm... If OKW is lucky to pull it out fast enough, it could destroy medium tanks before they do too much damage, but OKW's lack of medium vehicles is highly noticeable. Yes, soviet tanks cause huge damage when OKW does not have available enough counters to it. (Again, Jagdpanzer is great for it, but soviet armor will beat it to the battlefield). However, the puppchen satisfies me in that role. And yet, i see AI, yes - AI, pull a fast m3 on an Ostheer teammate, and he quits.

The flak halftrack and the puma seem like decent medium tanks, the flak halftrack is like an ostwind for half the price.

You bring in a t34 and they die pretty easy - thankfully their vet ability releases a load of smoke so they can escape the threat. But they dont have a standard medium combat tank atwixt their light vehicles and super heavy armor - they have two extremes with not much in between.

I do agree soviets have a strong advantage vs OKW early to midgame, but I actually think soviet t2 is harder to fight than sov t1.

Maxim spam is hard to counter because OKW have no cost effective units to fight off maxim spam. This is because the infantry support gun for its cost (420) simply cannot keep up with the number of maxims soviets can put out. One support gun can't handle 2-4 6-man mg teams in an engagement. Volksgrens are exactly what the maxim counters, and their grenades are too expensive for their effect. Kubels simply die to the maxim's dmg, it doesnt matter if they flank and get a suppression. Sturmpios have no utility (no smoke, no grenades) to assault maxims, so maxims in structures or covering each other are very hard to fight.
So t1 OKW don't have tools to deal with spammed maxims, and the t2 ISG is too expensive and slow to take out high numbers of the 6 man maxim squad. How about t3 armor? Well, the flak ht does crazy dmg, but it's extremely vulnerable when the soviet field gun arrives due to its setup and teardown time, so it's not a reliable or scaling option. Pumas are okay for flanking i guess, but they certainly take a while to get out. The best counter - the walking stuka - a 100 fuel purchase, can't come until you've likely lost most of the map.

To summarize, I think OKW have a very hard time vs sov t2 earlygame because they just don't have any cost effective units and NO SMOKE until early midgame.

Some helpful tips:

Don't ever buy kubels vs soviets. T0, T1 and T2 sovs have easy counters to them.

Have at least 2 sturmpios early for better flexibility vs all soviet tiers. 2 sturms can actually do very good damage against a charging scout car, and if you expect scout car spam you should definitely get a raketenwerfer (hold fire until the cars show up to avoid being spotted and flanked). Sturms also have a chance to flank maxims before soviets fortify a position with 3 or 4 of them.

Make sure you use the puma's superior range and mobility against t34s. Like the US's tank destroyers, you have to kite and outrange with the puma. Dont forget smoke if things turn bad!

If you can survive to midgame, obviously falls or obers are powerful units that can go toe to toe with any soviet unit. 2 upgraded obers can shoot maxim gunners before they can fire back, basically countering their own counter.

Panzerfusiliers can spot units from far away. Use this to avoid picking fights you won't win, pick off isolated units, or hit them with indirect fire.

I do think OKW have a very strong lategame, so they aren't without hope. But earlygame is rough. I guess i just cant stop whining about maxims haha.

Is IR HT of any use against maxim spam?

The fact of the matter is M3 and maxim should have been fixed before this patch landed EVEN without WFA. Now everything is screwed.

And they have taken out ISU152 and simply replaced it agian with IS2 which will dominate vs tiger which for some reason has been nerfed.

The biggest insult was only change t-34-85 to CP 10 with no nerfs at all.

2 months, this is by far the most disappointing patch ever.

ISU152 will simply be replaced by IS2 Spam. Guaranteed.

its bad enough sovs have so much flexibility with the units they can get, especially infantry wise. and all are way to effective for their price. In addition to the fact that they always have so much spare munitions to consantly use thier abilities while OH struggle due to expensive upgrades

Cake, have you even played Soviets? Do you have a clue about the sacrifices and choices they must make?