General Observations:
Regarding total tech costs:
All factions have relatively similar full tech fuel unlock costs except ostheer (290 ostheer vs 240 sov, 255 USF and 220 OKW). This pretty clearly shows that ostheer has to choose either t3 or t4, not competitive to choose both. All other factions have similar total teching costs that all can afford to fully tech in the course of a match. Mp wise, Sovs have extremely heavy mp costs, much greater than ostheer which I'd say is unfair. USF costs are a bit hard to directly compare, but if we take the LT/Capt as a rifle squad with bars/zooks and adjust the cost accordingly then USF mp teching cost is negligible, even pushing into surplus territory if both the combat officers are bought!
Regarding medium armor:
The medium armor thresholds are not so balanced but this is somewhat understandable due to unit differences. (ost 170 or 215, sov 220, usf 205, okw 165).One glaring outlier is ost t3 cost vs sov t4 cost. The differential is 50 fuel! I shall elaborate more below in the specific matchups. Please do keep in mind that while OKW teching is cheaper, their vehicles etc are much more expensive e.g. OKW pz4 costs 135 fuel but due to 66% fuel income they have to wait for the time required to save 202.5 fuel i.e. assuming equal territory control, their allied opponent will have saved up 202.5 fuel by the time they have saved 135 fuel.
Regarding artillery:
Ostheer requires a min. 215 fuel investment to access arty but excludes t3. Conversely, going t3 makes arty prohibitively expensive, requiring a further investment of 120 fuel! Other factions get access to their arty more-or-less by normal teching. USF suffers from not having any core arty apart from the major himself (NOT referring to HMC here) which is severely underwhelming. Access-wise though, the other 3 factions have their access, such as it is, at competitive prices.
Regarding allied vs axis:
The allied factions can benefit tremendously by skipping out on grenades/racks, as they form a significant portion of the teching cost (50 sov, 35 USF); particularly in quickly accessing medium armor. However, the tradeoff for sov is increased mp tech costs. Which is more valuable? 250 mp or 50 fuel? Its harder to compare for USF as their 'free' officers drastically cut their mp costs for teching but add to their popcap, so its hard to compare. They keyword here is CAN. Not saying its a definite cause of imbalance, just pointing out a disparity.
Ost vs Sov
Ost has two advantages, one quite big: in being able to outproduce sovs in super-early game (340 mp vs 230 mp leftover after building first building) AND (this is the big one) ost can access P4 before sovs can access equivalents (170 fuel ost vs 220 fuel sov which translates to 2+ mins).
That said, there are two particular areas where soviets can achieve a huge advantage. First: Ost going this route (T3) makes it prohibitively expensive to access artillery effectively leaving them with the mortar only. Second, sov T2 counters everything in Ost T2 at equal skill and sov T3 is very easily accessible compared to Ost T3 (170 vs 130). With the recent buffs to M5 and Su76, this places at sov players disposal 2 units very capable of countering infantry based AT gun and shrecks, which are the t70 and su76 (barrage) and have no vehicle counter of their own, which synergizes extremely well with M5 quad. If sov player is skilled enough to forgoe nades, the gap widens more. The matchup favours sov in mid game, but IF both players kept income levels similar, then favours ost late game.
Ost going T4 against soviets is also unviable as there is a 45 fuel difference plus panthers themselves cost 175 fuel. Again, leaving sov with a huge advantage (i.e. no opposing AT vehicle) midgame (unless he forgoes any units from T3). Definite exploit potential.
Ost vs USF
In this matchup USF has early game advantage by being able to access stuarts early whereas ost has no comparable light armor. However, ost retains its mid-late and late game advantage. Particularly problematic is that Ost has access to medium armor much earlier than USF (170 fu vs 205 fu), which gap grows wider if USF gets a light vehicle, as osts light vehicles are (a) not critical to ost mid-game unlike USF and (b) cheaper than USF light vehicles. Id say USF has the disadvantage here, somewhat. Perhaps greater still if ost player is able to lockdown USF rifles in super-early game but as I don't have win-rates and the meta hasn't stabilized yet for MOST players I'd say its pointless to speculate.
OKW vs Soviet
OKW has super-cheap teching compared to sov, particularly in accessing medium tanks (160 fu vs 220 fu). However, as the price of the units fuel wise (on account of OKW fuel penalty) is much higher, the matchup seems structured so that, with equal skill and equal incomes, both factions can access their first medium tank at around about the same time. E.g. OKW going p4 = 160 + 135*1.5 = 362.5; for Sov going t34/85 = 220 + 130 = 350 so the matchup revolves more on skill. OKW has puma to counter sov t3 and both have similar (adjusted) costs e.g. 75 fu for sov su76, 50*1.5 = 75 fu for OKW.
OKW vs USF
Again, similar matchup with regards to tech prices due to OKW unit costs, see above. USF has slight advantage in that it has a cheaper medium armor threshold compared to Sov (205 fu vs 220 fu for Sov). I am concerned with how USF can counter an okw p4 as their stock sherman can neither outfight it nor outnumber it.
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