Profile of Hannibal

I like most of the list, although it could be more in-depth at times. Which I understand that it can't go into details in every single point, given that everyone was playing the pre-alpha as a hobby in their free time.

My opinion on the auto-reinforce is fully positive though.
It reduces what I call "stupid micro". Clicking for clicking's sake. Yes, sometimes you want to not reinforce and save the manpower for buying a tank a little earlier. But let's be real, this situation occurs maybe once a game. >90% of the time everyone is just spamming the reinforce button as quickly as possible to go back to the front line. It is by far more reasonable to actually cancel the auto reinforce in the rare occasion of wanting to save manpower instead of making this rare occasion the default.
The only downside I can see is that players won't see reinforcement costs as often. Those should be displayed alongside the buying cost when hovering over the unit construction icon in the respective building, which would make sense regardless of auto reinforce or not.

Elevation is actually an interesting mechanic, since it is a natural shot blocker. A map could be very open, but at the same time not. This also brings more emphasis to knowledge of the map and ability to use it as an advantage. Coh2 also has elevation, but (AFAIK) it can be ignored, if the firing unit rolls an accuracy hit.

The main problem with Coh2's elevation is also that units won't take elevation into account. They try to fire regardless and will happily hit the ground if they don't roll an accuracy hit. So either it looks odd because the shot goes through the ground, or it looks odd because your unit shoots the ground. In any case, it looks odd because your unit might actually not see its target.

XP used to be directly tied to cost.

Most patches that change the cost of unit did not change the XP values accordingly while some units had the XP changed so currently XP value are mess.


XP values of entities

Grenadier 60
Riflemen 56
IS 54
VG 50
Conscripts 40

XP value of entity itself is enough to determine only in wipes. In the case that squad survives one has to take into the total damage dealt multiplied XP so a weapon firing on conscripts squad probably has to deal 1.5X damage to gain the same veterancy as firing on grenadier squad.

But what I did not claim that ML-20 vet faster , I simply pointed out that I see no reason why LeFH would vet faster.

From my experience OKW trucks are a prime target for ML-20/120mm mortar since the are big and have high XP value and if one want to gain veterancy one should aim for them.

You didn't say that the LeFH vetted faster than the ML20, but you pointed out that Soviet models give less XP without the context of larger Soviet squads. It doesn't matter how much XP the single model gives, but how much a shot gives. With Soviet squads being 1.5x times larger than Ostheer ones, it makes sense that Ostheer squads need to yield 1.5x times more XP, because larger squads have a higher chance of being hit due to covering a larger area and you hit more models in general. How this plays out in detail from shots hitting in the middle of the squad to only clipping some models with their far AoE is difficult to answer. Maybe MMX knows more, but I remember him saying that TTK (in the case of infantry vs heavy tanks) does not depend on the squad size. But again, the only things I wanted to point out is:
1. Soviet infantry yielding less XP is a necessity due to larger squad sizes.
2. USF and UKF exist, which yield fairly high XP values compared to Soviets.

As a last point, there are also Soviet Penals builds which combine both high cost and large squad size.

I am not sure if that hold much water. One the most popular soviet commanders is Soviet Combined Arms Army that combines ml-20/reckon/IL-2 bombing that could clear LeFH.

I would guess that is Soviet did/do build less ml-20s is related to the fact that there are more option available to allies teams for arty like B4,Priest, Sexton, calliope, Land mattress or the fact that soviet have access to super heavies so they might choose to go for them instead.

On the other hand Axis are in need of counters to 120mm/Pak howizter/emplacements.

In any case is rather easy to delete howitzer with off maps which UKF/USF officer can easily reveal so I don't that usage speaks volumes about value.

On the other hand I do agree that removing counter barrage was a (probably justified) nerf to LeFH.

The dive bomb has been removed from Jager Armor specifically after the community requested it to be, because artillery to bleed out your opponent was one of the few counters to Elefant builds.
Sextons and Priests surely are a contributing factor. But if you look at the commanders in Ostheer and OKW back in March-June and the fact that your ML20 when in doubt would lose the shoot out (at that time especially with CB), it is not surprising that ML20s are not popular.

At least in the current build, Axis have a very good counter to emplacements and infantry based arty with OKW's Stuka.

Generally speaking soviet entities has lesser XP value than axis ones so I can;t say that can agree that Lefh vet faster.

Isn't the XP value coupled to cost (either directly or manually as a trend?).

Soviet squads also have more models that can be hit and give XP, so it is more of a question of how large the XP difference actually is. Basically is e.g. 6*Conscript XP similar to 4*Grenadier XP?
I don't know those values to be honest, but as long as the Grenadier XP value is roughly 1,5 times larger than the Conscript one, they vet similarly.

Also, the LeFH does not only shoot at Soviets. UKF emplacements are prime targets as well, and UKF and USF infantry are worth a lot more.

ISU honestly already does slaughter any and all armor beneath elephant/KT/JT. However inorder to effectively beat the elephant in a heads up fight you require mark. The issue I have is its penetration at max is <50% against the JT, which just seems dumb. I had my ISU recently bounce against an OKW p4 and was surprised by that. Not that the ability needs to give it 400 penetration but its pen most of the time isn't what holds it back versus non-superheavies, it's the rate of fire and shell swap times. I don't think a +20% timed pen ability would really break the ISU any further than the current JT or elephant.

At the very least the CPR should be considered for a change, as many people have agreed with it being mediocre.

I vaguely remember that we once estimated the ISU's AT capability to be roughly equal to an SU85. So overall, it should lose to a Panther.

Your post got me the impression that you want the ISU to win or at least roughly be equal to the Elefant in terms of AT when the ability is activated. But pen buffs are as you said not as valuable for the ISU due to the deflection damage, which would mean damage and or ROF buffs. And those would hit lighter targets alike.

Not really. With "low" armour and low ROF, a single Panther will always be able to take on the ISU152. Soviets on the other hand will have trouble with the Jgd/Ele. First their RAM combo has been gutted and you need to invest a lot of micro/munitions/MP/fuel to take it down. Worse if the enemy is competent.

Jagd and ele should have massive damage and armour and HP, but their mobility and rotation should be extremely low as well, and abilities should focus on AT, not AI.

ISU152 has good good armour (340) and good HP. Suffers from mobility as well. It's AT is decent enough and it's AI is great. Overall a well balanced unit after the HE range nerf.
Jagd wouldn't even be that OP if it was not in the same commander as the fussies

As you can read from the post, my whole point was under the assumption that the ISU gets some type of timed AT ability that enables it to win against e.g. the Elefant, I was not talking about the current ISU.
CoH2 does not allow a unit to be good vs heavy units but bad vs lights, not with the current range of accuracies and target sizes. A buff vs heavies often works against lighter units too. The only way to somehow dofferentiate is by picking damage thresholds. And an ISU that wins against the Elefant MUST get higher ROF, meaning it will kill all other units more quickly.