- Restrict/remove Conscripts` and Grendiers` AT capabilites.
I am thinking make AT nades/Pfausts vet 2 abilities, there are other possibilities as well of course. This way basic infantry would have a weakness and in conjuction with the other solutions it should prompt teching instead of spam. BTW This would also mean infantry chasing tanks around wouldn`t happen as much, which I think would be a good thing (Doesn`t it look/feel silly?).
- Remove PPSHs, LMGs, G43s upgrades for Conscripts and Grenadiers. Improving mid-late game capabilties of basic infantry through upgrades encourages spam. If they were to stay raise the cost significantly and add another restriction to make them come way later. Also in that case make PPSHs non-doctrinal - they should have been non-doctrinal from the beginning. I would prefer weapon upgrades to be only available for elite inantry (like Guards or Pgrens) though.
- Buff german Armored Car slightly and increase its manpower cost a bit. Its paper armor doesn`t reflect the "Armored" Car name very well. I would like it to be an early counter to Conscripts forcing Soviets to tech beyond tier 0. Slight buff and AT nades as vet 2 ability would do that.
Now changing AT nades/Pfausts to vet 2 (and buffing AC on top of that) raises a lot of balance issues. I`ll try to provide some answers on how that change could be followed up to make sure early vehicles don`t murder everything.
- Put German Half-track into tier 3. FHT on tier 2 would rape everything. Move German Sniper to tier 2. Makes sense and fills the gap.
- Make German tier 2 building cost less fuel and reduce its building time. (The Battle Phase 1 escalation should remain the same!)
- Give Germans another kind of mine that is around 30 munition (alternatively change Tellers to make them cheaper) to give germans early AT capabilties in this area.
- Make AP rounds of German HMG vet 0 ability (similiar to DShK), cost adjustment may be needed as well.
- Reduce the cost of PAK and ZiS to 330 manpower.
- Swap Soviet Sniper and 45mm AT gun. That way Soviets can go for cheap & weak AT gun at tier 1 to supplement their infantry with some early AT (+ mines of course). Soviet Sniper would become doctrinal which would increase the viability of German Sniper nicely. Pgrens would benefit as a result as well.
- Make Guards 2 CP and increase the button time. This would prevent Conspam + Guards as the go-to new meta. Also the role of Guards would be more of a mid-game vehicle disabler + anti-inf since the early AT role would be already filled with 45mm AT guns.
Is it radical? I wouldn`t have it any other way I am not claiming these 10 changes would make the game perfectly balanced and everybody would live happily ever after but I think it would be a step in the right direction finally pushing the meta away from Conspam vs Grenspam.