Balance Preview Update 09/08/2015

The T-34/76 was the best tank in the world, in 1941. It's armour could deflect nearly everything the Germans had en masse. Pak 36, Pak 38, Panzer III 36mm Guns, Panzer III 50mm Guns, Panzer IV 75mm Infantry Support Guns. Only the Pak 40 and Flak 88 could penetrate it at decent range. It could also penetrate the Panzer III and Panzer IV Tanks.

In 1942 the Germans altered the Panzer IV significantly, doubling its armour and giving it a Pak 40 based gun. The T-34/76 had lost it's advantages against them. And obviously the Tiger I had no trouble with the T-34/76.

The T-34/85 didn't improve the armour situation as far as I know, it just allowed the T-34 to engage on equal footing with the Panzer IV, and Tiger I if it was close enough.

Honestly, when it comes to comparing a tank vs a tank, people get too wrapped up with tank vs tank fights.


Tanks spent 90% of the time fighting infantry, not other tanks.

And honestly, the t-34 was not really a good tank in 1941/ Why do i say this? Very unreliable. T-34s in 1941 had massive reliability problems, had lack of proper trained crews, and a huge lack of spare parts. Yes, of course the design was evolutionary, but that doesn't change the fact that the t-34 didint do much in 1941.

Same goes for the panther. An amazing tank on paper for 1943, yet when it was introduced it ended up a failure. Panthers only started to get good in 1944 when they started fixing the reliablity problems.


It's actually funny that the sides that had inferior tanks at the time were the winning ones. Germans in 1941-42 inferior tanks yet massive victories. USA on the western front 44-45 had arguably "inferior" tanks yet managed pretty much a 1:1 ratio when it came to losses.


Also about the PIV the PIV didin't get "double armor". It got a hull upgrade from 50mm to 80mm, while the turret remained 50mm. And the hull could be penetrated at 500~ meters with APCR. From what i understand the soviets were actually the side that managed to get APCR ammunition to reasonable quantities on tanks, especially later in the war.


And the t-34/85 did get an armor upgrade , the turret went from 70mm to 90mm. Not to mention the massivelly improved gun againts both infantry and armor, the 3 man turret.



Why did i write all of this off topic nonsense

And honestly, the t-34 was not really a good tank in 1941/ Why do i say this? Very unreliable.

I'm not sure if Heinz Guderian would have agreed with everything what you wrote here. If you read his book "Panzer Leader", he presents there some different thoughts about the subject. His opinion about the T-34 was different. The tank was so good that the Germans wanted to copy it. They managed to beat the T-34 because the German tank crews and leaders were much better in 1941 than their Sovjet counterparts. But the tank in itself was very good.

Partisans Tank Hunters call in shows up twice when you selected the Partisan commander.

Partisans now have camouflage to gain extra utility after their initial deployment -> Haven't seen this working.

Is it also possible, when you make a squad spawn in a building, to let them stay in the selected building, and not hop out instantly?

Really like the flamethrower changes!

I'm not sure if Heinz Guderian would have agreed with everything what you wrote here. If you read his book "Panzer Leader", he presents there some different thoughts about the subject. His opinion about the T-34 was different. The tank was so good that the Germans wanted to copy it. They managed to beat the T-34 because the German tank crews and leaders were much better in 1941 than their Sovjet counterparts. But the tank in itself was very good.

I believe the answer is in the middle of these two sides. Tank development involves a lot of trade-offs, and one of the major trade-offs the T-34 designers made in order to have a good combination of sloped armour and excellent mobility was a cramped interior with fewer vision ports. The standard for German medium and heavy tanks was a 5-man crew, but the T-34 only fit 4 crew members (the later T-34/85 with the larger turret fixed this, though it was still cramped), so the commander was also the gunner. Even if the Soviet crew was as experienced as a German crew, they were still at a bit of a tactical disadvantage if their commander was busy aiming and firing the gun rather than observing the big picture. And with fewer vision ports (and the lack of a commander's cupola in early models) the crew didn't have great situational awareness to begin with.

( Lack of radios was another issue that contributed to low success rates in combat, though more to do with a shortage of dry cells than to do with the T-34 design itself. )

No surprise that when the Germans made two proposals for T-34-inspired vehicles, both were a bit larger than the actual T-34 so that they could fit 5 crew in. The winning proposal led to the Panther, which as we know is quite a bit bigger

So... Should not IS2 also get range buff?
I know its not facing so often 60 range TD but still.. (I can live with KT but vet 2, 56 range Tiger? Damn...)

Do you think about fixing some old commanders which became useless after so many changes during last year?

In first place, I have on my mind soviet industry with KV2 which is really useless, like the whole doctrine + 2 repairing abilities for ammo (its like giving CAS 2 different recons).
Sturmovnik strike, Thompsons for crew etc etc

And also fixis mp drain.


Other odctrines that need to bee fixed :

USA : recon
mechanized (mostly m3 and dodge scout car)

OKW : maybe elite armor a bit after nerf tu sturmtiger , otherwise i think their all usable in 1 vs 1

Russia: Infamous NKVD
Urban defence (in 1 vs 1 useles due tu cost of fiel hq) suggestions : remove fuel from fhq , allow it to only reiforce , maybe heal but no buff. it will fix many thin also m 40 (that lil at gun i dont know even its name because its useless) need pen buff and icrease cost if needed. I think it should be able to pen at least p4 more than 66% of time NOTE: it should have fast rof and low dmg
Russian windustry (fix 2 repair abilities , fix bad mp to fuel transfer , fix kv2)
Antiinfantry tactics. It need somethin special thaht will give it difference over shock frontline , now it is shock frontline without is2
Partisans and irregulas will be fixed thx relic
defensive doctrine it need whole rework, only think thaht is fine there are those lil mines and actually demo does this job better
Others i think are fine (one more one less but at least you can see em in player roosters)

Ostheer:Defensive doctrine give trenches some uselfulness , other can be fine cause i dont know what add there because it have pak and nice arty , maybe make tank traps and trenches took one slot and give germans something new in 5th slot
Prostruppen change prostrupen to 4 men unit with cost of 140 MP
fix bug that dont give em bonus when in building
return conversion to its previsious state , give em tank traps with trench other thinks look fine , now ostruppen look like weaker grens with similar cost.
Infantry , blitzkireg and mechanized need complete rework to match other commanders
festung support give em command panzer 4 in exchange of something (i dont even know this dctrine never see it in game)

Relic, can't you make a tiny patch adding the prioritize vehicle ability back. It's literally game breaking without it.

One might think this is one of the reasons why they can have affordable a horde of cheap infantry with great scaling and hard AT to advance before your tank, pressing TDs while heavy tank advances with them and deals with AI/med armor threats.

But yea, maybe you're right, maybe you are supposed to YOLO spearhead your heaviest armor alone, with no support at all and expect it to deal with everything alone and then screaming "underpowered!" when it gets killed

I know you are being sarcastic but I have had people do that... and then say "axis armor is such a joke" It is actually pretty common.

I haven't seen the Medics come out of the glider at all when I tried it... Hope it'll be like the passive medics the Russians have.

Anyone else having issues of weapon icons disappearing on Tank Hunter Infantry Sections after enough casualties? Even their AT Rifles disappear eventually and cannot be replaced at all, since the slots are still full.

EDIT: Oh! I also believe that British Emplacements suffer from Crits from Flame Weapons. Killing them outright before the health goes down all the way. I had a Volks squad throw a Flame Grenade at my Forward Supply Station and it just died at half health a couple of days ago.

can somebody look at the USF captain? He is currently the biggest noob on the battlefield? Is his aristocratic blood the reason behind it? He jumps, sprints, crawls, suicides into a tank and then fires maybe one bazooka shoot. Funny how some peasants aka. volks can fire schrecks so much better then some American aristocrat.

I'm not sure if Heinz Guderian would have agreed with everything what you wrote here. If you read his book "Panzer Leader", he presents there some different thoughts about the subject. His opinion about the T-34 was different. The tank was so good that the Germans wanted to copy it. They managed to beat the T-34 because the German tank crews and leaders were much better in 1941 than their Sovjet counterparts. But the tank in itself was very good.

Of course the tank istelf was very good. However, it's early versions had some serious flaws.

Add prioritize vehicles back! Why was it removed? Everyone loved it.

T34-76 1941 Tank being unreliable lol. They keep pulling these models out of bogs and marshes in Russia for years now. Pop in some gas and drive them straight to the cleaning shops.

The tank wasn't unreliable. If any tanks were unreliable, it were the Panther D models, First Tiger I models and the first Elefant tank destroyer model.

All these tanks fought at Kursk, 80% of the Panthers broke down due to mechanical issues, The Tiger I tanks suffered the same fate, with about 60% breaking down, and the Elefant had horrible power to weight ratio, which meant it got bogged down on anything but a proper road.

T34-76 1941 model was a beast, named by Guderian himself "The deadliest tank in the world". It had rudimentary aiming systems, and was heavy to shift gears in, which required the now infamous hammer. The beauty of the T34-76 was, that if you were a farmer or came from a farm, you could drive it and needed no further training, it was that simple and used the same principals for driving as a tractor would. Simple yet effective.

Give UKF at nade to their infantry section. Without them their left hopeless agains early vehilce rush , only with at gun , and maybe scout car and sniper that maybe hit vehilces main gun so it will ne to retreat.


OKW at least get shrecks to compesate this , cloaked at gun , early mines and dont bleed mp like pig.


Solution: give them at grenade that get at IS (rare commander one) with mill greande upgrade.

What it change : people will actually unlock mill grenades , UKF will get early - mid game soft counter to early veichel rushes (like oshteer flamer + 2 scout cars)

Add prioritize vehicles back! Why was it removed? Everyone loved it.

bug. They fixed it for upcoming patch. See the preview notes here:

http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/company-of-heroes-2-general-discussion/67-coh-2-changelog/page7?page=7

I haven't seen the Medics come out of the glider at all when I tried it... Hope it'll be like the passive medics the Russians have.

Anyone else having issues of weapon icons disappearing on Tank Hunter Infantry Sections after enough casualties? Even their AT Rifles disappear eventually and cannot be replaced at all, since the slots are still full.

EDIT: Oh! I also believe that British Emplacements suffer from Crits from Flame Weapons. Killing them outright before the health goes down all the way. I had a Volks squad throw a Flame Grenade at my Forward Supply Station and it just died at half health a couple of days ago.

Yeah, when I tried the Balance Mod last night I noticed the Medics were missing too. Then again a lot of stuff is missing from the Mod. USF Assault Engineers still have their old shitty mine, British Sniper still goes prone and has slow aim ,etc.

Volk's Grenade Animation isn't synced correctly right now either (I hope its too fast, because that grenade gets throws pretty damn fast for what is essentially a molotov). The grenades are also pretty OP against buildings right now due to the DoT... Relic needs either to nerf their building damage or change how flames work against emplacements.

On a side note, I really think they should give the Forward Supply Station brace because that thing dies to stiff breeze and costs 450 manpower when you upgrade it to a retreat point.

I know you are being sarcastic but I have had people do that... and then say "axis armor is such a joke" It is actually pretty common.

Yeah it is, sadly.

I believe the answer is in the middle of these two sides. Tank development involves a lot of trade-offs, and one of the major trade-offs the T-34 designers made in order to have a good combination of sloped armour and excellent mobility was a cramped interior with fewer vision ports. The standard for German medium and heavy tanks was a 5-man crew, but the T-34 only fit 4 crew members (the later T-34/85 with the larger turret fixed this, though it was still cramped), so the commander was also the gunner. Even if the Soviet crew was as experienced as a German crew, they were still at a bit of a tactical disadvantage if their commander was busy aiming and firing the gun rather than observing the big picture. And with fewer vision ports (and the lack of a commander's cupola in early models) the crew didn't have great situational awareness to begin with.

( Lack of radios was another issue that contributed to low success rates in combat, though more to do with a shortage of dry cells than to do with the T-34 design itself. )

No surprise that when the Germans made two proposals for T-34-inspired vehicles, both were a bit larger than the actual T-34 so that they could fit 5 crew in. The winning proposal led to the Panther, which as we know is quite a bit bigger

Informative and excellent post there. Just to add to the trivia: The Heer (army) wanted a 35 ton tank. Hitler insisted on adding more armor so it ended up being as big as it was (45 ton IIRC)

Only lelic could nerf comet which isn't even close to great when there's a panther which costs less, comes at the same time and is better at everything except AI.

Not to mention the fact that Comet often deals 0 dmg(even if he pens the target)

Thanks to Jason and Brad for keeping the community informed and involved in the process. Sucks that you guys have to go through so much biased junk and white noise to comb for the good feedback (although I do enjoy the historical trivia.)

add some things

Tiger and Tiger Ace Vet 2 sight bonus reduced from 10 to 5
Added more of a stagger of time between the planes of Stuka Close Air Support
Fixed rifleman sandbag requirement so u can build it right off the bat

Ty for the quick updates devs. I have a balance request:

Can hand-held infantry AT weapons i.e. shrecks, zooks and PIATS be modified to not deal damage to infantry, particularly no splash damage? With the new cover spacing its just a horrible exploit to quickly clear enemy infantry in cover by rushing in close (AoE does the trick and they don't miss infantry at short range).

If I may suggest: The PTRS uses a bonus dmg mechanic to reduce its anti infantry dmg to 27 while retaining its anti-vehicle dmg at 40? Could something similar be implemented here?