Another ways to solve huge stack issue
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@Cernel You just made a broad statement... I was simply pointing out that it wasn't an entirely true statement.
I agree that gas should be a researchable tech... it would add historical significance to the game as well as limit the immediate spamming of gas to eliminate some of the smaller nations.
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Also I like setting gas 4/0/3 with 3.5 cost while conscript 4, infantry 5 and field 6 etc... And no additinal tech for gas. I don't like the idea even fully researched gas is still a lot cost ineffective against infantry stacks. With this case.
3 gas (10.5 Pus) kills 2 inf (10 Pus)
6 gas (21 Pus) kills 4 infantry (20 Pus) etc... -
@Schulz @Schulz While the direct PU comparison might be temping to make... you also have to consider the collateral benefits of utilizing gas while mounting an attack... since Gas has the first strike ability the defender looses his casualties immediately.
Using your example... if you sent those three gas in during a combined attack you would sustain far fewer casualties during the defensive return fire phase over the course of the entire battle... now I'm not about to start running the math on an incomplete example... but I am curious if you factored in the reduced defensive total from an entire battle what the comparable value might turn out to be. (There are far more skilled mathematicians here over me)
Just some food for thought.
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The bigger difference is the movement. If you make gas have 1 move then some of this math could maybe be justified but with 3 movement that is a huge advantage and allows them to threaten multiple enemy territories and get to the front very quickly.
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Central Power's biggest production locations (Berlin, Mecklenburg, Vienna,Hungary,Constantinople) are already too far making noticable effect in battles. Entente nations start immiadetaly benefiting inf/conscript spawns because they provides immiadetaly cheap defensive power while gases from these locations don't provide immiadeate benefit.
For example bought 26 gases in round 2 from Berlin-Mecklenburg will be ready attacking Paris in round 4 while paris infantries at the same time provide immiadetaly benefit. In round 4 these gases will only be able to kill roughly 17 inf (it means burning 104 Pus for just taking 51 Entente Pus)
Wile France in round 2 and round 3 will have extra minimum 19 units+6 trences even these purchases are enough to negate all off these gases let alone considering other French units, possible defensive techs and UK+Italian supports.
It it true they can threat multiple targets but also buying more gas also mean less defense, less firepower, less tech etc. Enemy may decide retreaing and hitting back or sacrificing some stuffs. It is still very bad unit.
Without any tech gas is incredibly bad unit. 3 gas (12 Pus) takes on just 2 inf (6 Pus) two times more ineffectiveness!.
The only reason buying some of them is rushing some important locations or minor nations in initial rounds after that there is zero reason buying them if nation is not going to take on a major enemy capital.
Or as France why would I buy gas?
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@Schulz Well if you made the changes you laid out where gas would cost 3.5 and inf would cost 5 then you'd see all nations including France buy a ton of gas and it would become a battle of giant gas stacks staring at each other. From what I've seen in v1.4, players still are buying gas especially as a way to quickly add attack power and attack areas with lots of trenches and few other units.
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@redrum Well, no. I can see that only one of the side (like France, if under pressure) will be almost nothing else than a giant gas stack to deadzone the enemy advance, but, of course, the one trying to advance would buy almost only infantry and few other units, functionally inverting the role of gas from now. Not a player, but this is what happens when the strongest unit is attack oriented or, in an extreme case like this one, can only attack.
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@Cernel Yeah, fair point. As the one that needs to advance, needs to have enough units to survive the gas stack. But that would definitely not be ideal for this map.
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France would still almost never buy gases especially in eary stages of war since even with these cost infantries's defensive power slighly outweight gases.
Buying some gases as Central Powrers is somewhat ok in initial rounds but after that really not much reason buying them,
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@Schulz I actually think France would probably buy all gas and try to dead zone Germany. Regardless, if you made gas that cheap compared to other units probably more than 50% of purchases would be gas.
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But also I would make gases purchasable from capitals only in this case.
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Regardless, I saw that in lobby some experienced players are still advocating gas limits (houserules) in the current version, despite the increase of the minimum cost to 3.5.
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@Schulz said in Another ways to solve huge stack issue:
But also I would make gases purchasable from capitals only in this case.
@Schulz You really need to think bigger picture... literally your near last post was complaining about the handicap the Central face with production locations...
Central Power's biggest production locations (Berlin, Mecklenburg, Vienna,Hungary,Constantinople) are already too far making noticable effect in battles. Entente nations start immiadetaly benefiting inf/conscript spawns because they provides immiadetaly cheap defensive power while gases from these locations don't provide immiadeate benefit.
Now you are advocating for cheaper gas units which can only be produced at Capitals.... this does not seem to benefit the Centrals at all... and really only seems to compound their problems more.
Gas really NEEDS to be:
- A research specific tech that is effective but requires some level of effort by the developer (wherever they might want to develop it from) to manufacture which also has production limitations.
It's similar to the German Stromtruppen which simply become the bulk purchase during the game. It is silly, as gas is, when a player can simply spam something that is meant to be a "special" unit. It forces the game to either make the unit relatively mediocre to compensate for unlimited production potential... or it forces you to make overly simplistic restrictions that are going to hand the advantage to one side or the other depending on the circumstances of the game.
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Could there be a limit placed on the number of units that get to roll dice, so that extra units in a stack serve as cannon fodder but offer no combat capability?
That would somewhat discourage big stacks, and makes some sense, as not all 'reserves' would fit at the 'front'.
Alternatively, packing in huge numbers of units in a single space should make them more vulnerable. Engine-wise, give the opponent hit bonuses proportional to the number of opponents.
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3.5 gas cost with 5 inf cost makes gases really worth melting enemy inf stacks without being broken. I am not advocating making gases only be produced at capitals as much as I want to show how bad are they currently.
That would be just my proposal if gas would be broken or something. Its not necessary. A useful but restricted gases would be far better for centrals than unlimited but cost ineffective gases. -
@Hepps If you want to restrict special units, either use MaxBuilltPerPlayer or make them non-buildable and bring them on with events.
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@Hepps I recall that, back then during early development, I reiterately tried to have Imbaked making the gas into a tech, like tanks. Instead, he insisted that he wanted gas available since start game, but I don't recall what was his reason for it. The problem with techs that unlock units is that they have a fixed cost for unlocking, thus they induce spam, by making the unit relatively less expensive the more you buy it (as the research cost will be divided amongst more TUV, lowering the markup). So, basically, the risk is that either the tech is not good to get or once you get it you need to spam it a lot to make it worthwhile. This is likely the root of the problem of the current NML Mustard Gas and Working Women tech combo.
With this said, unless the map goes a bit the way of Civil War, and you have manpower vs manufacture, so that, for example, you cannot spend all your income in spamming infantry (hence the gas would be alternative to other materials, not much to infantry, reducing the need of having a quite strict mathematical comparison between the TUV cost of the gas and the TUV cost of the infantries it is going to grind down), I would rather suggest gas being limited by the number of targets, that would represent the fact that is not a weapon of annihilation. Regular gas may hit at 1 and mustard gas at 2 (and possibly another level of gas that hits at 3), and only infantry or infantry-like units, with possible maximum rolls limited to the number of targets (as said). However, the problem with this is that, then, you may end up just sending exactly a number of gas equal to the maximum hits you can roll, each time, that would be some dumb management. The best would be that gas has a sort of mechanics that becomes less and less effective the more you use it on a same target, and the more effective the bigger the target.
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I was thinking about this issue again; how much interest is there in experimentally trying various solutions to the stacking issue? We could certainly mod some existing maps to try various methods pretty easily; but how many would wish to test such changes is unclear. I have a hard enough time finding games as it is, finding people to test modded versions might be too hard.
Are stacking issues lessened when people use dice instead of LL, and if so by how much are they lessened?
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First depucling incomes of all territories, starting Pus,tech costs but still keeping the original production capacities. Then cost/upkeep ratio becomes somewhat like this;
Conscript: 20/2
Infantry: 30/3
Cavalry: 35/3 (m.warfare provides carrying inf ability)
Field: 35/3 (with ww)
Heavy 45/4 (with ww)
Gas 30/2 (with ww)
Fighter 80/5 (with ww)
Trench 30/2
Zeppelin: 140/5 (new stats are 2/1/5 instead of 1/2/5)
Colonial: 30/3
S.Trooper: 30/3
L.Fighter: 100/5
Transport: 60/3
Sub: 60/3
Destroyer: 80/4
Cruiser: 90/5
Carrier: 120/6
B.Cruiser: 140/6
B.Ship: 200/9 -
@Schulz Our map has a lot of anti-stack stuff, including gas. The way our gas works though is that it's a "shot" fired from a heavy artillery that is a suicide air unit with "AA" against soft targets (bypassing trenches). We also have railguns and emplaced artillery that can shell a neighboring territory. So you do see people start to stack up infantry and trenches in capitals, but the attacker can use 2-hit tanks, gas munitions, and railguns (as well as powerful support combos with zeppelins, bombers, etc.) to counter the stack.
