No they should not, conscript spam was working strategy and the game was stale.
Conscript should be a part of an army composition not the army itself or a stop gap to call in units.
Soviet have a wide variety of early, strong, call-in infantry and support weapons and there should be room for all these unit be a part of the army composition.
EVERY mainline inf is part of an army composition, with a variety of support weapons and vehicles. Grens are supposed to work with powerful support weapons and somehow don't have to be garbage because of that.
Even riflemen have AssEngs and Pathfinders to help out and fill the roles that RM can't (and they are supposed to be do-it-all inf). Slightly buffing Conscripts around T3-4 won't make Guards, Penals or Shocks obsolete, simply because of different roles they have. Right now the only room in the army there is for cons is in the garbage bin.
Also, it's not like im proposing to give cons Schreks nad FG-42s here, just a decent, lategame DPS buff.
I'll just repeat my idea
-A 30-25 fuel upgrade, available when T3/T4 is built
-All cons on the field and in T0 change name to Strelki (to indicate to both players that cons aren't to be pushed around anymore)
-New unit icon (same as above)
-Con Mosins are replaced with Guard mosins (~35% more DPS)
-Target Size reduced to 1.0
-Vet 1 RA adjusted if possible
Comparable to IS bolster, (25 % more DPS and HP) but comes later.
Cons are now "cheap" garbage troops(like now) but when you hit that upgrade they become cheap, decent troops, so you trade early game power for late game efficiency. If you think thats too efficient, change their reinforcement cost to 25 or something.
With upgrade, Cons DPS gets closer to Penal DPS, but still 30% lower.
Penals are still viable AI specialist unit, because of early game AI power, and stronger offensive vet
Guards are still needed for their AT rifles and long range firepower
Shocks are still needed for close-range firepower.
Pros:
- Early game balance is kept (sacred Gren-Con balance is still where it was)
- Doesn't ovelap with any units, PPSH or PTRS upgrades nor makes them obsolete
- Doesn't change the character of the unit (literally the same model and weapon)
- Is unique, and kinda fits the theme (and the campaing)
- Gives Sov a real option between an AI powerhouse mainline (Penals), or a more well rounded mainline which gets only gets decent mid/lategame (Cons->Strelki)
- T1/Penal builds are as viable as ever.
- If someone wants to use the cons for their utility, they can ignore the 30 fuel upgrade and get their vehicles that much faster
Cons:
-yes
Honestly, I'm not even sure if that's enough to make them viable, but at least it's a step in the right direction, because no amount of thrown mollies will help them out