Soviet AT too map and commander call in dependant

This is called the Defensive Commander

And no one uses it because it's shit


See also:

Urban Defence

Urban defense has fhq and incend arty tho. Booby traps are situational and so are those little at guns, gap fillers. Vehicle detection is one of the most worthless abilities in the whole game.

Yes but the whole thing people are moaning about is having to rely on ZiS if they want decent early AT.. and its an AT gun... people want something more mobile so either a light vehicle call in with moderate AT, or a stronger AT inf unit that Guards, that could have little AI just like shrek PGs.


But either of those two options are going against part of the designed weakness of the faction, so to balance that out, yes, the rest of the doctrine would need to be fairly weak.

Its not hard to see that if you plonked early AT into many of the soviet doctrines they would be beyond OP.

Kinda like the puma doctrine... the rest of the abilities are meh (appart from command tank, but thats limited to one :'(

We'll there could be a couple of options for additional soviet at.

1. Find a way to balance the t70 or other new armor units into the game for the soviets. The goal of this would be too force the german meta to consistently add pak 40 or pg shreks to the german build orders. So now you ask how does this effect soviet at? It does in many ways.

1. A pak 40 can be decrewed and stolen. Make shreks drop a little more so they can be picked by the soviets. I don't think the soviets would cry so hard about the the uber pak if they could actually get their hands on one consistently. Although I think you would soon see some german cries to nerf it rather quickly.

2. Find a way to get the t70 back into the game early enough and increase the rear penetration it does to tanks. The t70 could work with the zis to take down mediums. If the t70 is a threat to the german rear armor you would see mediums turning to face the t70 and exposing their rears to the zis.

3. Implement commanders with some early call in armor. Balanced accordingly of course and then go to my first point..

4. Give guards an option to further upgrade their ptrs after tier 3 or 4 is built to something along the line of shreks.

We'll there could be a couple of options for additional soviet at.

1. Find a way to balance the t70 or other new armor units into the game for the soviets. The goal of this would be too force the german meta to consistently add pak 40 or pg shreks to the german build orders. So now you ask how does this effect soviet at? It does in many ways.

1. A pak 40 can be decrewed and stolen. Make shreks drop a little more so they can be picked by the soviets. I don't think the soviets would cry so hard about the the uber pak if they could actually get their hands on one consistently. Although I think you would soon see some german cries to nerf it rather quickly.

2. Find a way to get the t70 back into the game early enough and increase the rear penetration it does to tanks. The t70 could work with the zis to take down mediums. If the t70 is a threat to the german rear armor you would see mediums turning to face the t70 and exposing their rears to the zis.

3. Implement commanders with some early call in armor. Balanced accordingly of course and then go to my first point..

4. Give guards an option to further upgrade their ptrs after tier 3 or 4 is built to something along the line of shreks.

....oh...oh... and don't forget: if all these won't work, please add in the soviet menu an "I win" button. That way, when they suck ballz on battlefield, they won't be forced anymore to use flood or other tiring tricks and cheats in order to win (happened to me almost every time when I was winning in last 10 games, but never while I was loosing).

Every single point is ridiculous:
1. Soviets are playing aggressively untill middle game and usualy gain more map and push germans around. If you tell me you can't do that.... well... L2P. A stronger T70 will bring us back close the point where we was after the release of Soviet Industry doctrine. Remember? T70 is fine as it is; the germans are allready forced to bring on the field a PAK40 asap. A T34 can hit the field before PIV. And if you tell me I'm wrong, then again, L2P, dude.
2. Same as above. If you're asking for a T70 like a PIV, keep dreaming dude. In addition, yeah, PZGrens are not worthless enough, now they should equip the enemy even more, right?
3. So in addition to M3, or your OP T70 wannabe, you need earlier tank call ins for soviet. Let's imagine a little a battlefield full of M3s, T70s and early call-ins. German player will camp in his base, no point in trying to engage.
4. This could be the only decent thing you said, but even this one is wrongly put. PTRS needs a slight increase in armor penetration. That it's the only think it needs.

How can someone say these things and pretend he wants balance?!

Its like in Kindergarten in here!!!

OP made good points but everybody just pissed on them. He never said "buff the Soviets". But whatever, i am ot here to play your Kindergarden teacher.

on topic.

I had a game yesterday on semoisky and i chose a doc without call-ins (yes, there are people who dont take advantage of the game and just use the ISU doc). I knew that the opponent had chosen i tiger doc so i was thinking how to counter it. T3 was a nogo because T34 do shit against them. So i went from T2 to T4. I got me 2 ZIS and two SU85. So, the two ZISes are in front and the SU85 in the back covering them. Then the opponent atacked me with 2 tigers. In about 30 seconds the tigers whiped the ZIS from the face of the earth! You will say, what did your 85s do? I say "they did shit" because semoisky is a shitty map for them, the pathing is just... bad. They had no change.

So, i think the OP has some valid points. I am not saying that the Soviets need a buff but they need something.

Oh, yeah. Just rememberd another game on semoisky. I had 2 SU85 and 1 ZIS and my opponent had 2 Panthers and 1 Brumbar. The same result. 2 shots from the brum to the ZIS and bye bye ZIS and the panthers trolled my SU 85.

And one last thing. Maybe you will say that my micro was not good enough. Maybe but the micro from my opponents was also not better then my micro. I would say that i had the upper hand on the matches (had better map control and unit preservetion).

P.S. Tigers and IS2 are to good against AT Guns or the opposite. AT Guns suck against them. 2 AT Guns should not fear a Heavy Tank. It is funny to see Heavy tanks retreat when the see infantry bbut when they see AT Guns, they laugh there azzes off!!!

You're never going to have a balanced game with the stubborn mentality of "X faction has certain over performing things about it, therefore we should ignore and neglect fixing the under performing things and address the problems that are causing issues."

Balance is making the game as fair as possible for both factions, not giving both factions an equal chance of winning.

Balance is making the game as fair as possible for both factions, not giving both factions an equal chance of winning.

Actually, its about making the chances of winning as equal as it gets while providing different tools depending on faction to achieve it. For this reason always one side will have advantages over the other in certain aspects of the gameplay and that is fine. If they wouldn't, then why have 2 different factions at all, just reskin one of the existing and call it another one, like in warcraft2, because only then balance can be perfect.

Things shouldn't be compared on unit vs unit basis(apparently too many people think this is a dueling game of various units with nothing else involved), but army vs army.

I would like to see Guards as core units from T1 instead of Penals. Every tier from every faction has some form of at or units with at-abilities EXCEPT for Soviet T1.

Soviet AT is pretty map dependent, but usually, even on non-open maps, I still find them effective. My one complaint is with the mini-gun for the Soviets from the Urban Defense Doc, it tends to get one shotted by most armor easily. Now I know it's a smaller form of at-gun but if it can't hold on it's on to even a decent tank like a p4 I find it quite sad.

BS-3 for Soviets! Make it happen!

I agree with OPs post for the most part, but with a few exceptions:

1) Map/Commander interdependency exists, but should not be presented as a "problem". Owing to the nature of some maps, some Commanders have advantages owing to their ability spread. If this was not so, there would be no point in Commander selection, and in order for it to be so, all maps would have to be simply blank open fields. Sov has a generally wider and more diverse call-in profile (which intrinsically is Commander linked) to offset their building tier structure, as assymetrically compared to Osts generally ability based Commander variety and linear tier structure. Both designs present a different spectrum of dis/advantages, which to apply to whichever map you are currently on.

2) If the game was being built from scratch, Id agree that both factions (with Sov more so) could4 benefit from more vanilla light AT options. Infact I think the entire early tiers phase is quite squeezed out of the meta exactly due to its limited AT potential. Meta has responded to this in two ways. A) Hard teching to heavies B) Relying on call-ins to skip that phase as soon as possible. Its too late in the games design process to start re-creating Sovs non-doctrine light AT options. The cascade affect, in conjunction with Sovs generally better anti-infantry profile and secondary artillery effects, would systemically imbalance the factions.

3) The light ZiS was an interesting example of such earlier AT, and has its place, but only as a call-in. Imagine if it was built from tier building, the result would be simply fielding early AT, and then using another doctrine to bring in heavies ontop of those. The combined effect of the vanilla option AND Commander call-ins would stack into forces which dont really have any weaknesses for the opponent to form his force profile against.

4) If Ost had a T70 equivalent, Id agree that Sov would have more need of a mobile light AT option. But fact is, they dont. Existing options are sufficient to counter 221s and halftracks, and the tiering of both call-ins and buildings means that heavier vehicles hit the field at around the same time after that anyways inorder to respond to each other.

5) SU76 could somewhat fill the mobile AT role you propose, but you cant take it into cramped streets due to its weak armor. Any armor it encounters there will justnfacepunch it. And it has half its value invested as an artillery option, so yeah, its not the tool for the job. Stugs and SU85s imo are roughly aligned for use in fire lines in clutter. SU85 suffering in mobility abit, whereas Stug in turn not hitting as hard. Neither isnoptimal, Stugs having the small edgenin clutter, but SU85s having their cake if instead deployed at greater range. T34s and PIVs similarly have an arrangement of stats that make them roughly equivalent for use in clutter, or open.

6) So what to do vs Ost armor in cramped streets? Id recommend Mines on the exit points, middle of long avenues and on key corners to disable armor for your conventional AT lines of fire from outside or along long streets, and T34s if you want to venture into the streets. T34s can handle themselves adequately vs PIVs there, and if they happen to encounter a Tiger lumbering through, can harass it with better mobility and as a final resort, turn it into an enormous paperweight by ramming it (at which point you know where the Tiger is, know Ost is forced to consolidate around it and repair it, and are free to maneuver around it.) Id say it is much preferable for Sov if the Tigers are crawling around in clutter, rather than having to worry about them moving freely around the rest of the map. Yes, better lines of fire on it in the open for Sov AT types, but if its crawling in clutter, you are not having to deal with it, and can instead focus on other targetsnwhich are ALL weaker and easier.

7) Its a normal instict to try and engage your opponents strengths, because you perceive those as the greatest threat. But SunTzu and other military gurus always remind of this, that the better way is to always instead engage your opponents weaknesses. You, rightly, perceive the relative Ost strength of turretted tanks in cramped quarters. You, understandably, want a mobile AT option to counter that. But then what. Result would be one of Osts strengths being blunted, and Ost instead whining for example for more explosive AoE to nuke Sov infantry, resulting in one of Sovs relative strengths being blunted.

I understand where OP is coming from, but I think he has lost some perspective on the necessary assymetric arrangements between the factions to the tune of "My relative strengths do not counter your relative strengths", when the more accurate and constructive perspective is to instead think "How well do my relative strengths control your relative weaknesses".