Profile of Cabreza

Why would you put irregulars and the SU-76 in this poll?

Irregulars are fully capable of taking on a pioneer squad and winning most of the time and the SU-76 can typically fend off the light vehicles that are incapable of penetrating it's armor.

Sounds like a L2P issue to me.

Good feedback thus far. This won't be a simple solution. What would happen to the game if there was no caches? Slow it down?

If there were no caches or reduced resource income I would expect a few things to happen:

1.) More infantry: First and foremost the manpower spent on caches would almost assuredly be spent on an extra infantry squad. Later in the game less fuel would mean less manpower spent on tanks. This in turn would allow for more manpower to be invested into infantry and support weapons.

2.) A longer early game: Less fuel income would directly translate into slower teching and a larger window for light vehicles, light tanks, and even medium tanks.

3.) Heavies will carry a greater opportunity cost: Currently it is possible to tech, build a number of medium tanks, and still have enough fuel to call in a heavy tank when the CPs are met. Without caches heavies will arrive at the same time but players will have to make a conscious choice to forgo or limit teching if they want to be able to afford a heavy tank the moment the CPs are available.

4.) Tank losses will hurt: Since tanks don't bleed fuel like infantry bleed manpower it is possible for teams to acquire enormous stores of fuel once pop cap is reached. This in turn allows players to near instantly replace any lost heavy tank. With less fuel available loosing a tank will be a much larger blow.

5.) There will be less explosions: Without munitions caches there will be fewer off map artillery abilities and plane strikes in 4v4 games and players will be inclined to use these strikes somewhat more tactically. The same will also be true of grenades and other munitions abilities. This will also mean that infantry upgrades will compete to a larger degree with off-map arty for munitions use and in turn make killing upgraded infantry squads that much more rewarding.

Resource caches remain a problem in large team game. The cost doesn't change but the return on investment triples or quadruples depending on the number of players on the field. In a 1v1, for example, a fuel cache provides 5 fuel per minute. In a 4v4 that fuel cache provides the same 5 fuel per minute but to all 4 player for a total of 20 fuel per minute. This makes caches hyper efficient investments in team games and results in these caches being built on every single capture point. Combine this with the fact that larger game modes have more capture points in general and resource income quickly gets out of control. As a result the window for light vehicle play is nearly non-existent and even medium tanks quickly find themselves outclassed. Resource cache income needs to be divided by the number of players in a match (then rounded up) to remain balanced in larger game modes.

Another issue is forward retreat points. Forward reinforcement and healing is fine as all factions have the ability to do it but forward retreat points give a huge advantage to the OKW and US on large maps since it can easily cut retreat times in half and makes it extremely difficult for the opposition to take ground near such a point. A hard retreat should result in a long walk back to the front regardless of faction.

I don't think anyone is arguing the strength of the unit. The issue is the fact that it costs no fuel so it can snowball an otherwise close game.

It has been mentioned elsewhere but the easiest fix for the TA would be to make it cost as much as a regular Tiger but in compensation remove the resource penalty. That way the advantage of the ability would be that you get a vet3 Tiger on steroids for the price of a regular Tiger while the disadvantage would be you only get one so you better damn well keep it alive.

Making all the bridges indestructible instead of just the middle would go a long way towards making it less campy.

But something nobody in this thread has addressed is the fact all the buildings are really, really durable. It's like half the buildings on the map are almost as durable as the train station on Eddlebruck which really doesn't help the camp factor.

It isn't necessary to knock down buildings to kill the infantry inside and after the first 5 minutes everyone has enough mortars/ISGs to ensure that being inside a building is just as dangerous as being outside of it. Moreover there is so much green cover around the map that there isn't much difference between fighting inside a house or fighting behind a brick wall/sandbag wall. The houses really just serve to slow early engagements to a crawl as each side struggles to inflict any sort of casualty.

That said, when urban defense is used on this map the axis are going to have a bad time.