Automating reinforcing doesn’t really hurt the core gameplay that much
Agreed.
One thing that should definitely be considered is constricting auto-reinforce to HQ sectors. Some strategies are balanced around being limited by available micro, namely halftrack and bunker play, and auto reinforce severely lowers this “micro tax”, making these deathball type strategies way too easy to execute for how hard they are to counter. Also, by auto reinforce being available on the frontline, it takes value away from merge, because you won’t disable auto reinforce just to save some manpower with merge.
Auto-reinforce in base only sounds like l33t tax that doesn't help the game in any way except making more micro, because you're adding clicks based on where the unit is reinforcing. That's not consistent design.
I'd rather see auto-reinforce available wherever one can reinforce, and then merge becomes the combat version of reinforce. Maybe it should take twice as long to reinforce outside HQ.
The answer to blobs must come from coh3 gameplay design, not micro tax.
The Medic upgrade has the same issues as the 251 for Wehrmacht in that most micro requirements have been removed as a result of autohealing, auto reinforce and easy team weapon recapture, resulting in halftrack play becoming very hard to counter for how easy it is to pull off.
Coh3 designers need to be thinking super hard about blobbing in their game, and how they'll mitigate it in teamgames without just throwing micro tax clicks at the issue.
Good suppression at long range on all MGs is a good start. Enhancing the cap point losses for teams that are blobbing instead of capping is another.
Like, what if captured points started to de-cap themselves in teamgames. That'd mean they need to be re-capped occasionally. That would severely hamper blob play and further reward the fortification of specific areas, leading to a dynamic push and pull that can reduce camping as well as encourage fewer blobs.