@KurtGodel7 said:
With all this in mind, I believe I can improve infantry for a number of nations without having to rebalance anything regarding PU-only units.

No, this is not correct, because the exchange rate between MP and PU is not consistent for different countries - as you’ve said, they all have very different ratios.

Giving a flat power boost to infantry thus disproportionately benefits nations that have higher MP values because those infantry will have higher kill rates against the PU-only units. Whoever is able to field more Infantry gets a huge boost, and whoever relies more heavily on PU takes a big hit because they’ll be losing those expensive units at a higher rate.

As for the AT Gun, right now I think you’re essentially setting players up for confusion by giving them a unit that’s called “Anti-Tank” but has no actual anti-tank properties - in contrast to the AA Gun, which does in fact counter aircraft.

If you’re running into the problem that major countries don’t have enough MP to properly fill out their armies, I think the more obvious solution might have just been to put more MP on the map instead of having a redundant unit fill the gap.

To add to my earlier post:

I don't know if I'm upgrading the light tank or not. But if I am, the following would be true.

All this starts with an upgrade to the heavy tank.
Currently a normal heavy tank or Panther has four hitpoints, and attacks and defends on a 4. Whereas a medium tank has 2 hitpoints and attacks and defends on a 3. The heavy tank is twice as good for hitpoints, not much better than a medium tank for firepower.

Suppose I were to give a heavy tank or Panther a firepower of 4 + 4 for offense and the same for defense. Also 4 hitpoints. That lifts the ceiling on what I can now give to the medium tank. An improved version of the medium tank could attack and defend on a 4, while keeping its two hitpoints. The Comet tech for Britain would cause its medium tanks to attack and defend on a 5.

So now you compare the improved light tank ( 3/2 ) to the improved medium tank ( 4/4 ). In absolute terms the medium tank is stronger on offense, defense, and hitpoints. If you're looking at what you're getting per PU spent, the improved medium tank is the better unit for hitpoints and defensive firepower, while the light tank is the better unit for offensive firepower per PU. Therefore each still has a role.

If you're worried about balancing them against artillery-category units, I would point out the following.

@Vendetta said:

This seems rather dangerous to me. Infantry is the basic building block the whole combat system in A&A is balanced around. If you're giving the basic Infantry double the attack and 50% more defense for the same price, it immediately devalues every single unit that's more expensive than the infantry (in other words, almost all of them). So then you have to go and figure out new values for all those other units and rebuild the whole balance from scratch.

It's also turning the Sturmtruppen into a god unit (your existing version already gets the same combat stats as a Fighter from the base game once it's upgraded, and it costs less, and it gets even better with artillery). Rolling a second dice (if that's what 3+2 / 3+3 means) is a big power boost.

D3+D2: 33% double miss, 50% single hit, 17% double hit
D4: 33% miss, 67% hit

D3+D3: 25% double miss, 50% single hit, 25% double hit
D5: 17% miss, 83% hit

I would recommend keeping the base infantry at 1A/2D.

If you want other nations to have elite units that are better than the standard infantry but not as good as the Sturmtruppen, make those 2A/2D.

Or you could make them 2A/3D and on par with Sturmtruppen, but they don't get access to that assault rifle upgrade.

If you want certain countries to have lower tier infantry than the standard, just make them 1A/1D. You can give Italy, Japan, etc a tech to research them up to 1A/2D like everyone else's.

One other thing you can do if you want to make the major powers have stronger infantry than the minors is not to change the infantry stats at all, but the effectiveness of their support.

For instance, everyone gets 1A/2D basic infantry, but the USA, UK, and Germany start with a tech that allows each artillery to support two infantry, while Italy, Japan, and the Soviets need to research it.

I may see things a bit differently than you do.

Recall that manpower points (MPs) are a separate resource type. A nation which gets 30 PUs a turn and 10 MPs a turn should build 10 infantry or conscripts or similar. A nation which gets 10 MPs a turn and 200 PUs should also build 10 infantry a turn or similar. It cannot build more than the 10, because its infantry production is being constrained by lack of MPs, not by lack of PUs.

Units which cost PUs need to be balanced against other units which cost PUs. No question there. But for infantry, the main cost is the 1 MP, not the one PU. If I make infantry better for Britain, America, and Germany, then that increases the value they receive from their MPs. In my sample games, Germany and Britain each needed more cannon fodder than they had MPs, causing them to buy anti-tank guns to fill the need. America Atlantic was getting to that point as well.

With all this in mind, I believe I can improve infantry for a number of nations without having to rebalance anything regarding PU-only units.

What might cause me to need to rebalance PU-only units is your wish for a better light tank.

@Vendetta said:

Having Germany only able to buy elite infantry that are better than everyone else's is a far bigger violation of realism (as well as game balance) than playing a bit fast and loose with the unit names.

I tend to agree, but then we cannot use "grenadier" as name for a German elite infantry on the account that, from late 1942 onwards, that was the name for the basic infantry, and we are back on square one for what is a good name for a German infantry elite.

At this point, maybe it is better just to call it "elite_infantry". I would suggest that over "sturmtruppen" at least.