an OKW and SOV balance question

heres an interesting quirk of balance i thought of... ostheer currently has the top dog HMG in the game... this is intended as ostheer suffers from having the second worst line infantry ingame down there with conscripts though volks are slightly better...

likwise UKF and USF line infantry... tommies and rifles respectively... significantly outclass all line infantry in the game however USF has no other earlygame support unit and is completely reliant on rifles while UKF tommies are slightly weaker than tommies however the UC carrier is intended to be its supporting unit....

what i do find odd is why SOV and OKW are both expected to "survive" with a conscript and volks in their primary opening yet OST is generally assumed to be unplayable without the MG42 and neither volk nor conscript is anywhere near as good as the USF riflemen or even the UKF tommy...

now i understand that OST has to contend with USF and UKF which both have brutal line infantry to punish OST with.... but if thats the case then by virtue of equivalence SOV and OKW have neither machinegun nor line infantry nor any other unit to compensate for in the current meta... coincidentally this may be the reason for the piss poor performance of both SOV and OKW in the current meta though correlation may not imply causation in every case....

therefore it might be good to consider

A. buffing conscripts and/or volks
B. buffing the Maxim and/or Mg34
C. buffing some other unit in the earlygame phase in the SOV and OKW lineup (SOV sniper and/or kubel perhaps?)
D. a mix of the above...

agree or disagree?

MG34s and Maxims don't see much action because their tech requirements are restrictive (and because the maxim is too expensive for what it does). By the time you unlock them you are better of spending your MP on other units.

For OKW an option would be to lock MG34 behind 1st truck build instead of 1st truck deployed.

For Soviet an option would be to make T1/T2 cheaper and T3 more expensive.

MG34s and Maxims don't see much action because their tech requirements are restrictive (and because the maxim is too expensive for what it does). By the time you unlock them you are better of spending your MP on other units.

For OKW an option would be to lock MG34 behind 1st truck build instead of 1st truck deployed.

For Soviet an option would be to make T1/T2 cheaper and T3 more expensive.

Mg34 behind 1 truck is probably the best.
As for soviet making t1/t2 cheaper and keeping t3 the same but with a side tech to get the t70+ progress to t4 might be a less than elegant solution for a few problems.

Considering the frequency I see rifle blob/penal blob/IS blob early game, an MG34 behind 1st truck would be extremely useful in punishing such 'builds'. They know an OKW player cannot get an MG out in time without being forced into BGruup (and still late) so attempt to capitalise on a bad design.

I have my own issues with the volkfaust being shorter ranged than the gren one despite coming later and the likelihood you'll be dealing with clown cars/UC being extremely high. I mean sure, the Rak can in theory deal with a fast moving, deadly unit that can effortlessly kite your units. That said, I despise clown cars as a concept, dating back to 'MDvees' in C&C Generals Zero Hour.

I think the Soviet/OKW tech tree both suffer from punishing you by delaying FU for backteching. It incentivises a rush to T4 whilst locking you into a specific route. This might have been addressed in one of the large proposed changes somewhere on the forum already.

Considering the frequency I see rifle blob/penal blob/IS blob early game, an That said, I despise clown cars as a concept

Agreed. I accept that clown cars are an integral part of the game now, and I'm fine with non-clown car transports like the Universal Carrier and the 251, but I really wish that clown cars like the M3A1 were doctrinal with a Soviet BA-64 replacing them.

hmm i was more on the idea of buffing the maxim (that ways SOV has the conscript/maxim support dynamic) while OKW gets massive buffs to volksgrenadiers to put them in line with tommies or IS.... not sure if people agree to it though lol

Maxim buffs: Absolutely 100000% should have happened 2 years ago
Volks buffs: lmao no

hmm i was more on the idea of buffing the maxim (that ways SOV has the conscript/maxim support dynamic) while OKW gets massive buffs to volksgrenadiers to put them in line with tommies or IS.... not sure if people agree to it though lol

Volks would need a cost increase to match rifles and tommies as well as a plethora of abilities locked behind side grades at which point were at a complete redesign of the faction