Mobile Defence

This proposal is an idea for a new strategy, inspired by the spirited defence conducted by the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939-40.

During this war, massed infantry held key defensive positions in the south, while in the vast forests between key defensive positions, difficult-to-detect special infantry units harassed enemy positions and created well-executed traps in the forests. Thus, despite the Finns' dire lack of heavy weaponry and aircraft, they were able to defend Karelia for longer than anyone expected.

So, inspired by such, this is my idea for a new strategy, which I am calling by the provisional name of "Mobile Defence."

Ground Secondary Defence (Militia)
-20 cost
-2 attack
-3 defence
+3 range
By making militia weaker but faster, I intend to discourage using militia in battles for cities and encourage more aggressive walling with militia. Big wall your cities, wall off chokepoints, delay, delay, delay - this is mobile defence.

Ground Main Defence (Infantry)
+20 cost
+2 attack
-2 defence
(+1 defence in defensive lines or cities)
+3 critical
Assault infantry! Flip the logic of MoS on its head and have offensive infantry with defensive marines!

Ground Main Attack (Tanks)
+20 cost
-1 attack
-1 range
Finland 1939 did not have good tanks, nor did they have many of them. I propose to model this by making tanks less useful and more expensive - useful only for assaults, if even that.

Ground Stealth Attack (Marines)
-40 cost
-2 attack
+4 defence
+3 range
(+1 defence against Ground Main Attack)
(+1 defence in defence lines or in cities)
This right here is the point of the strategy. 5 attack, 7 defence, for $120. In short, fast-moving Stealth Infantry - the kind of unit you need to turn your apparently empty cities into fatal traps and the kind of unit you need to actually hold the cities you re-capture through stealth attacks. Even if all your cities get de-walled, the enemy still won't be able to attack confidently - because they won't know where your marine defence will be.

Everything else
+100 cost to Air Stealth Attack
+50 cost to Naval Main Attack
-1 attack to Naval Main Attack
+50 cost to Naval Transport
+40 cost to Naval Stealth Attack
+40 cost to Air Main Attack
-1 attack to Air Main Attack
-1 defence to Air Main Attack
-100 cost to Air Transport
The enemy will likely have control of the air and sea - it is expected that players of this strategy will defend from these with highly mobile stealth defence units provided above. The lower cost to air transport units, however, helps in reinforcing front-lines rapidly.

Thoughts and comments are welcome. I'm not an experienced player, so I might have balanced the bonuses and penalties poorly. Comments in this regard would be particularly welcome.

EDIT 1: revised stats to air transport and ground stealth attack, following Darth Plagueis' suggestions.
EDIT 2: decreased penalty on infantry following various suggestions.
EDIT 3: fixed infantry again.

I like the idea, but don't you think you've nerfed it too much? +50 cost for Infantry is too much, I propose no more than +40.
Marines should get no more than -2 attack, +2 defence and +2 range imo turning Marines into PD Infantry is not that good an idea as PD Infantry have much less range. Also, the cost should be reduced further by -50 or -60 and compensating by -1 critical chance.
View range should be increased by +2
If you intend this to be an expensive strategy in terms of SP (then you can take the higher value of my cost proposals since higher ranks will have the expendable Marines upgrade). You want it cheaper, or free, then take the lower values.
Also, nerfing both Naval Transport and air transport takes away the whole point of its mobility. Nerf either one, but leave the other unchanged if you're reluctant to boost it.

Taking a deeper look, it seems to me like a much more mobile GW with weaker militia and greater emphasis on Marines from the start.

Few suggestions:
remove mil defence nerf
remove at and air stealth nerf
+1 capacity to subs
make marines attack -2, make cost -20 or 30 instead and remove bonus against tanks
remove range nerf on inf and make cost +30
remove nerfs on tanks
remove nerfs on naval transport

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 02:29

Taking a deeper look, it seems to me like a much more mobile GW with weaker militia and greater emphasis on Marines from the start.

That was indeed the idea. I wanted a GW-style strategy that played like PD, but was more expensive than either.

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 02:29

Marines should get no more than -2 attack, +2 defence and +2 range imo turning Marines into PD Infantry is not that good an idea as PD Infantry have much less range. Also, the cost should be reduced further by -50 or -60 and compensating by -1 critical chance.
View range should be increased by +2

Napísal Xenosapien, 07.04.2016 at 02:33

Few suggestions:
remove mil defence nerf
remove at and air stealth nerf
+1 capacity to subs
make marines attack -2, make cost -20 or 30 instead and remove bonus against tanks
remove range nerf on inf and make cost +30
remove nerfs on tanks
remove nerfs on naval transport

Can the two of you provide justifications for these?

I like the idea of defensive marines, does need adjusting though. Could call it something like "shield of deception".

Decent idea, but you have nerfed marine's attack, tank's attack, bomber's attack, destroyer's attack, militia's attack, and infantry's cost. How are you going to attack anything? :/

Napísal International, 07.04.2016 at 02:58

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 02:29

Taking a deeper look, it seems to me like a much more mobile GW with weaker militia and greater emphasis on Marines from the start.

That was indeed the idea. I wanted a GW-style strategy that played like PD, but was more expensive than either.

Hmm according to Ivan Cthulhu's Rebel Strategy was much the same in regards to a GW-style strat.

Cituj:

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 02:29

Marines should get no more than -2 attack, +2 defence and +2 range imo turning Marines into PD Infantry is not that good an idea as PD Infantry have much less range. Also, the cost should be reduced further by -50 or -60 and compensating by -1 critical chance.
View range should be increased by +2

Napísal Xenosapien, 07.04.2016 at 02:33

Few suggestions:
remove mil defence nerf
remove at and air stealth nerf
+1 capacity to subs
make marines attack -2, make cost -20 or 30 instead and remove bonus against tanks
remove range nerf on inf and make cost +30
remove nerfs on tanks
remove nerfs on naval transport

Can the two of you provide justifications for these?

Yes. Instead of nerfing both air and naval transports nerf only one and leave the other unchanged if you don't want to boost it. Nerfing both of them, reduces its mobility to GW rates (almost) and comes nowhere close to PD. Since you want this to be an expensive-ish strat, I'd recommend boosting air trans and nerfing naval trans.
I'm not sure about the +1 capacity to subs because imo that's just making it a cheaper MoS.
Giving Marines the attack of default Infantry in this strat would make it too weak. Especially with the Infantry and tank nerfs. So make it -2 attack instead of -3. Preferably it should be only -1,however since this is mobile defence and not mobile attack, -2 it is.
You have proposed what is essentially Stealth Infantry with 4 attack and 6 defence for nearly double the price at 120 cost. Taking my proposal to make it 5 attack and 7 defence for 110 cost, the other massive nerf to the rest of the units begins to balance out.

If I'm wrong don't hesitate to correct me since I'm much less experienced at this game than you.

Hue, desu made a similar proposal regarding marine defence. But your strategy in this form would be extremely weak. Every other strat would destroy it, even hw. Your economy is crippled, your defence is weak and expensive, offense is expensive, transport is expensive. You'd need to do a lot of tweaking here to even make this strat playable. But i am hoping to see a strat with a similar concept introduced in the near future.

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 17:17

Yes. Instead of nerfing both air and naval transports nerf only one and leave the other unchanged if you don't want to boost it. Nerfing both of them, reduces its mobility to GW rates (almost) and comes nowhere close to PD. Since you want this to be an expensive-ish strat, I'd recommend boosting air trans and nerfing naval trans.
I'm not sure about the +1 capacity to subs because imo that's just making it a cheaper MoS.
Giving Marines the attack of default Infantry in this strat would make it too weak. Especially with the Infantry and tank nerfs. So make it -2 attack instead of -3. Preferably it should be only -1,however since this is mobile defence and not mobile attack, -2 it is.
You have proposed what is essentially Stealth Infantry with 4 attack and 6 defence for nearly double the price at 120 cost. Taking my proposal to make it 5 attack and 7 defence for 110 cost, the other massive nerf to the rest of the units begins to balance out.

If I'm wrong don't hesitate to correct me since I'm much less experienced at this game than you.

It makes good sense, I think. I'll revise my original post to take this into account. Especially since...

Napísal Permamuted, 07.04.2016 at 17:42

Hue, desu made a similar proposal regarding marine defence. But your strategy in this form would be extremely weak. Every other strat would destroy it, even hw. Your economy is crippled, your defence is weak and expensive, offense is expensive, transport is expensive. You'd need to do a lot of tweaking here to even make this strat playable. But i am hoping to see a strat with a similar concept introduced in the near future.

...this guy agrees with you.

Napísal International, 07.04.2016 at 02:58

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 02:29

Taking a deeper look, it seems to me like a much more mobile GW with weaker militia and greater emphasis on Marines from the start.

That was indeed the idea. I wanted a GW-style strategy that played like PD, but was more expensive than either.

Napísal Darth., 07.04.2016 at 02:29

Marines should get no more than -2 attack, +2 defence and +2 range imo turning Marines into PD Infantry is not that good an idea as PD Infantry have much less range. Also, the cost should be reduced further by -50 or -60 and compensating by -1 critical chance.
View range should be increased by +2

Napísal Xenosapien, 07.04.2016 at 02:33

Few suggestions:
remove mil defence nerf
remove at and air stealth nerf
+1 capacity to subs
make marines attack -2, make cost -20 or 30 instead and remove bonus against tanks
remove range nerf on inf and make cost +30
remove nerfs on tanks
remove nerfs on naval transport

Can the two of you provide justifications for these?

It's still too weak, and for a strat follow a particular line e.g no tanks isn't really good for balance. the cost needs to be sorted out the lack of attack needs to be sorted out, the lack of starting power needs to be sorted out and it needs to not overlap with gw too much and share its nerfs despite having its own. I'd also add make mil -10 cost but only -1 attack and marines 100/110 cost. Even with my suggestions it's quite questionable.

Whatever else you do to this strat the inf is going to kill this strat for two reasons for 2 reasons.

The marines equal or exceed the inf in LITERALLY EVERY CATEGORY. They both have 110 cost and 7 defence (8 in defence lines) (but the marines are +1 better vs tanks), and the marines are better with +1 attack, +4 range, and invisibility. So no one would ever build inf with this strategy.

The second one takes a bit of explaining, so here goes my thing about proportionality again:
Basically, in the majority of cases the proportional change of the boost or nerf is of greater importance than the absolute change. You can see this with the cost reductions on SM bombers and on PD infantry:
PD infantry have a cost reduction of 10/60 = 1/6 = 0.167
SM bombers have a cost reduction of 30/160 = 3/16 = 0.188
Therefore despite the absolute cost reduction of SM bombers being 3 times that of PD inf the boosts are quite similar proportionally. A small change in a big value is going to mean much less than the same change in a small value.

Your inf nerf is the big problem here for me with the cost nerf nearly doubling the cost, by far the biggest single nerf to inf for any strategy I've seen. Even though it was already established that no one would ever build inf the inf, they have a maintenance cost and maintenance cost is directly tied to the cost to buy. This will come in hard after turn 1 because you still have to pay maintenance for your starting units, and everyone gets inf to start, so a player of this strat will be paying nearly twice as much to maintain their starting units. If you started as the UK and you didn't kill any inf the first turn you would have to pay 280 more just in maintenance costs on all those inf on turn 2. Honestly the inf cost nerf kills your strat as it is.

Other points to consider:

I don't get the logic behind AT's having a cost boost but seatrans having a cost nerf

What's the intended main attacking unit for this strat? The marines seem to be the best bet and as I've said before strong defence does make attacking units more dangerous (see PD) but it just seems counterintuitive attacking with something that has an attack nerf

You're taking out the power of last ditch militia defending to wear down an opponents stack in cities that are lost anyway.

Awesome one but inf should have +2 def or + 20/30 cost + 50 tooo much

Revised again, made infantry a bit stronger.

Napísal International, 09.04.2016 at 03:44

Revised again, made infantry a bit stronger.

I'd advise making the infantry +30 instead of the +20 because of the expendable infantry upgrade. This strategy is going to be expensive in-game, and judging by how much HW costs, will be pretty expensive in SP terms too. Which means only high ranked players with cheap infantry upgrade will likely be buying it. +10 overall cost to infantry (after upgrade) isn't much

Maybe make inf into an offensive unit.

How my[non-whale hunter] eyes see this strategy idea:
making militia shit and making infantry into tanks.
Bye.

Needs some rebalancing here.

Napísal Guest, 11.04.2016 at 05:11

Needs some rebalancing here.

Such as? I'm not entirely sure if you mean that I should boost the strategy or nerf it.

Lol +2 attack +3 crit for inf with only +20 cost.

Napísal Xenosapien, 12.04.2016 at 00:51

Lol +2 attack +3 crit for inf with only +20 cost.

Yeah but -2 defence and so many nerfs to other units. It's not balanced completely, but inf aren't OP here. But I more or less agree inf should be +30 because of expendable inf upgrade.

Napísal Darth., 12.04.2016 at 02:36

Napísal Xenosapien, 12.04.2016 at 00:51

Lol +2 attack +3 crit for inf with only +20 cost.

Yeah but -2 defence and so many nerfs to other units. It's not balanced completely, but inf aren't OP here. But I more or less agree inf should be +30 because of expendable inf upgrade.

mate you have no idea how powerful this would make infs, the defence doesn't matter when you have other options for defence.

Napísal Xenosapien, 12.04.2016 at 12:24

Napísal Darth., 12.04.2016 at 02:36

Napísal Xenosapien, 12.04.2016 at 00:51

Lol +2 attack +3 crit for inf with only +20 cost.

Yeah but -2 defence and so many nerfs to other units. It's not balanced completely, but inf aren't OP here. But I more or less agree inf should be +30 because of expendable inf upgrade.

mate you have no idea how powerful this would make infs, the defence doesn't matter when you have other options for defence.

I still don't understand, since Marines are pretty expensive still despite being for defense at 120 cost for the standard 6 defence of Infantry. Could you explain further please if it's no trouble?

Napísal Darth., 12.04.2016 at 12:55

Napísal Xenosapien, 12.04.2016 at 12:24

Napísal Darth., 12.04.2016 at 02:36

Napísal Xenosapien, 12.04.2016 at 00:51

Lol +2 attack +3 crit for inf with only +20 cost.

Yeah but -2 defence and so many nerfs to other units. It's not balanced completely, but inf aren't OP here. But I more or less agree inf should be +30 because of expendable inf upgrade.

mate you have no idea how powerful this would make infs, the defence doesn't matter when you have other options for defence.

I still don't understand, since Marines are pretty expensive still despite being for defense at 120 cost for the standard 6 defence of Infantry. Could you explain further please if it's no trouble?

With inf you are talking 6 attack for 70 cost, almost as good as gw marines (but you get powerful gen bonuses also), making this a primary unit. But then you have stealth which also give you good defence and when you've this kind of attacking power and the right starting country the cost isn't that bad, not to mention your starting inf. It allows you to amass a lot of attacking power in a snowball fashion without the kind of range nerfs gw has. It also just makes it too similar to gw even if you fixed it.