Fuel and Strategic Points

I've noticed a lot of people mention that the early and mid game are rushed, and merely serve to delay the inevitable heavy vehicles. I agree, especially considering the emphasis placed on amassing fuel, and getting armour out before your enemies. I personally like the initial phase of most battles where fights are determined by mg placement or cover and grenades.

In vCoH you had a lot of global abilities and upgrades to sink your fuel into, which delayed your tech or forced a lesser field presence. In CoH2 you have really nothing baring soviet conscript HQ upgrades and tech or building costs, which are all no-brainer purchases. Also with commanders you can forgo certain tech and upgrades which means tanks even sooner, not to mention the ones you can get resource bonuses from.

My suggestion is to remove the fuel from regular strategic points. I believe right now strategic points grant +3fuel/+5munitions and full points grant +7 of their resource. This would make the dedicated points more important, but still leave strategic value in the cutoffs and supply lines. It would also put more emphasis on Fuel Caches, and with a longer T1 and T2 you would have the manpower more often to build these.

I don't think this would affect the length of games too severely, just more victory point drains.

I have no issues with current munition rates, but perhaps a slight increase in CP requirements? Grenades, mines, upgrades and abilities would be nice to see more often.

What do you guys think? Would it deprive you of your beloved Tigers and IS2s in 1v1s? Maybe hurt the 3v3 and 4v4 crowd because they love big tank battles? Force too much emphasis on fuel points?

Edit: double post, sorry guys.

removing fuel form normal points would increase emphasis on fuel points even more, I really do not like that.

But aside from that I would like to see drawn out T1 T2 play. Perhaps make infantry i fight a little better, Make cover matter more.

I would agree with the OP to a certain point, the early - mid game is too rushed. In the current meta, most games, if not all, end in less than 30 minutes. Almost all of the SNF matches also showed that the matches end in less than 30mins. But removing the fuel would be detrimental. Maybe toning down the fuel from the standard points would be better. Dropping it down to 1- 1.5 fuel per normal standard point would see an infantry war back into the fray with more combined arms use rather than the usual tank rush.

tank rush has more to do with lack of options to engage heavy armor than with fuel options.

I'll put it this way.

In COH you hard very capable and some specialized AT inf (Paratroopers, double shrecks, etc) tank traps, mines, capable at guns (combined with tank traps) etc.

In COH2 you really have to go for those tanks, especially if playing Soviets.
a. not many Effective AT options available
b. inf and at guns are much more vulnerable to call in abilities and tanks cannot be slowed down by tank traps, etc.

Thats why I think that your idea probably wouldn't really work.

That's a good point. Soviet Heavy Tanks annihilate Infantry and AT Crews, while Soviets themselves lack any hard-hitting mobile AT. Bazookas and Recoiless Rifles were weak as hell, but even they could dent a Panther if you got behind it. On the other hand Panzerschrecks still do a great job, but the men can not stay alive long enough to get enough hits in. Thus, both sides default to getting their own Tanks to fight the other Tanks.

My proposed solution was only a suggestion to fix the issue of T1 and T2 ending too quickly. I'm interested to see other options to address this.

Baring the new Tiger Ace all heavy tanks require fuel, and so this would serve to delay these as much as the tanks you're getting to counter them.

I'm not saying it will stop people from trying to get fuel and get tanks on the field faster than their opponents, only stop it from happening so early in the game and removing the incentive to rush tanks, as there is a higher likelihood of AT guns, mines, panzershreks and AT grenades.

My proposed solution was only a suggestion to fix the issue of T1 and T2 ending too quickly. I'm interested to see other options to address this.

Baring the new Tiger Ace all heavy tanks require fuel, and so this would serve to delay these as much as the tanks you're getting to counter them.

I'm not saying it will stop people from trying to get fuel and get tanks on the field faster than their opponents, only stop it from happening so early in the game and removing the incentive to rush tanks, as there is a higher likelihood of AT guns, mines, panzershreks and AT grenades.

I don't really see easy way to do something about this, since it is core game design. You would need to redesign both armies and... It would be almost easier to scrap the game and start from scratch.
Tank rush is here to stay unfortunately. In my opinion, of course

half of the games don't last long enough to field 11cp tanks
and if you can, they come too late to make a difference
(let alone enough time to get 100 kills with a kv-2 for the bulletin)

if you reduce the fuel income or the start fuel
in order to delay the onset of tanks, that won't stop the tankrush because it'll still be important to field tanks first.

people will choose to either get more infantry or build fuelcaches

You're right, since the recent CP changes heavy tanks and other high CP call ins are quite late in the game.

I feel an adjustment to the fuel incomes(through my suggestion or other means) would bring regular T3 and T4 units more in line with these.

As others have brought up T34/85s come out far later than most T3 units, who I assume are meant to be their counterparts(PzIV).

Overall, this is the first step of many to come which will impact pacing and tech progression within the game.

I think Relic is actively looking at the early game progression, so some discourse on it might help them refine community thoughts on the subject.

quote is from the Aftermath Update topic (how do you put the name of the quoted individual in the quote banner?)