I Feel Soviets Failed Thematically.

Design Soviet faction is disgusting, it's common knowledge. Im little happy that the developers are working on it. I'm talking about reworking T-34-76, SU-76, partyzans and T1 / T2 changes.

However Devs have a lot work: increase advantage T1 and T4, reworking 1 vet almost for all soviet units, fix absurd ram T-34, fix industry and buff for KV-1 and KV-2. Also reworking old commanders abilities like "Hit the dirt!", "Rapid conscription", "Armored Vehicle Detection", IL-2 strafe and other would awesome but this I do not even hope.

Then those things got gutted and we're just stuck with a T34 way late into the game. Sure it costs 80 fuel and you can get two for the price of one panzer 4...

It is hardly possible to say so
- Pz.IV 350 manpower, 125 fuel, 12 cap
- T-34-76 x 2, 600 manpower, 160 fuel, 20 cap
So that it is more likely 2 T-34-76 vs 1 Pz.V
- T-34-76 x 2, 600 manpower, 160 fuel, 20 cap
- PzV Panther, 490 manpower, 175 fuel, 16 cap

well said, +1.

teching, not so much, units purchased, absolutely. dow2 didn't limit teching, a lot of older (and less relevant) RTS games didn't limit tech much at all (total annihilation, WC1/2, AoE). later games started to add choices. SC2 tends to have the player build roughly half their units in a given game. the difference between those games and coh2 is for whatever set of tiers you go, you have a unit for every situation.

Plenty of older games had tech paths though. Command and Conquer, for example. Any game with production structures, really. The difference here is most people in this game completely neglect building "lower tier" units and structures.

they work differently but the roles overlap; you don't get much of that with coh2, if you have it at all and that's the problem.

There's plenty of this in Coh2, OKW is full of it. That's why the Luchs comes from the panzer command and the jagdpanzer comes from the medic command. It's why the Puma is in mechanized and why the raketenwerfer can be built from HQ. Relic does actually plan this stuff fairly well. (Atleast in this game they did. DoW2 was half-assed with T1 based anti tank)

For Soviets the way this worked was thus:

T1 is the only structure with no AT potential. But it was also primarily early game stuff, so that's no surprise. Even so, Satchel charges were an option and do good AT damage if you can immobilize them first with engine damage. (At grenades?) That said, you generally wanted to either go T2 or T4 after going T1 for AT options like the ATG or Su85.

T2 had AT guns, nuff said.

T3 had T-34's which had Ram which worked well at disabling enemy vehicles for your other AT to kill them. (This got neutered though.)

T4 had Su76 for lighter vehicles and SU85 for late game tank destroyer.


I'm emphasizing AT because that's generally the thing everyone needs in this game. But vehicle wise t3 offered a light tank and a medium tank (and at one point the katyusha, but that got swapped with the halftrack because 4v4 scrubs didn't understand how "non linear" teching worked and thought halftrack came too late to be useful.) T4 had the halftrack for anti infantry and support, SU76 with some AI potential.

HQ had molotovs for anti garrison, penals had satchel charge for antibuilding, AT gun and su76 both had barrage for similar purposes. etc. There's actually a lot of such overlap, and for a reason.


In other words, they had all their bases covered and if you wanted to do risky tech like T1 to T4 you had stop gap options in the form of ATG, mines and guard rifles. Any sort of safe tech included T2 for AT guns. (Which paired nicely with shock troops)



I can understand why people wouldn't like this sort of tech structure, but it's a shame Relic bent over and homogenized it.

Plenty of older games had tech paths though. Command and Conquer, for example. Any game with production structures, really. The difference here is most people in this game completely neglect building "lower tier" units and structures.




There's plenty of this in Coh2, OKW is full of it. That's why the Luchs comes from the panzer command and the jagdpanzer comes from the medic command. It's why the Puma is in mechanized and why the raketenwerfer can be built from HQ. Relic does actually plan this stuff fairly well. (Atleast in this game they did. DoW2 was half-assed with T1 based anti tank)

For Soviets the way this worked was thus:

T1 is the only structure with no AT potential. But it was also primarily early game stuff, so that's no surprise. Even so, Satchel charges were an option and do good AT damage if you can immobilize them first with engine damage. (At grenades?) That said, you generally wanted to either go T2 or T4 after going T1 for AT options like the ATG or Su85.

T2 had AT guns, nuff said.

T3 had T-34's which had Ram which worked well at disabling enemy vehicles for your other AT to kill them. (This got neutered though.)

T4 had Su76 for lighter vehicles and SU85 for late game tank destroyer.


I'm emphasizing AT because that's generally the thing everyone needs in this game. But vehicle wise t3 offered a light tank and a medium tank (and at one point the katyusha, but that got swapped with the halftrack because 4v4 scrubs didn't understand how "non linear" teching worked and thought halftrack came too late to be useful.) T4 had the halftrack for anti infantry and support, SU76 with some AI potential.

HQ had molotovs for anti garrison, penals had satchel charge for antibuilding, AT gun and su76 both had barrage for similar purposes. etc. There's actually a lot of such overlap, and for a reason.


In other words, they had all their bases covered and if you wanted to do risky tech like T1 to T4 you had stop gap options in the form of ATG, mines and guard rifles. Any sort of safe tech included T2 for AT guns. (Which paired nicely with shock troops)



I can understand why people wouldn't like this sort of tech structure, but it's a shame Relic bent over and homogenized it.

i meant that teching in older games was more limited, not that it was non-existent. there was a LOT of teching in ensemble's games as a tech advantage was the best way to win. of the newer RTS games i've played, most of them are more focused on micro/macro but they also have more unit variety instead of 4 different versions of each unit, each version being slightly better than the old one.


the first two factions are really the ones that have significant overlap, although the soviets had issues with t1/t3 not having anything to really deal with V/VIs and not having any fallbacks if their 34/76 was destroyed. i think their design worked a lot better in 1v1s in team games though because it's harder to get run over by multiple vehicles in smaller games. in team games soviets had a very hard time against tanks if they didn't get the su-85 out. they're much better now AT wise with su-76 in t3. even with the old design though, t1/t3 or t1/t4 still worked if you gained enough momentum to get a fuel advantage. the part i didn't like was that it was pretty much over if you didn't.

USF has very little overlap, apart from the m2 and m15 both suppressing and the m8 basically being a packhowitzer on tracks. OKW has overlap in their AT vehicles (jpIV/puma/V) although each is weaker/stronger then the others and has different utility. there's also overlap with the 251/8 and luchs although it has a similar dicotamy to the jpIV/puma/V where by the luchs is much better in general than the flaktrack; it's effectively a replacement unit.

i wouldn't have any issue with the old soviet tech structure if they had a core that included a decent AT gun and a decent generalist medium vehicle. their first two tiers worked fine with t0, they only ran into issues against heavier tanks because of lackluster AT options. OKH never had that issue because they always have access to pak40s and schrecks (both of which are very good, unlike the PTRS) and could then get stugs or IVs or Vs, all of which were also very solid units.

when core stuff is missing, like suppression when going t1 or AT guns with t1/t3, you can end up not having counter play options to things the enemy builds and i don't enjoy that. USF has a similar issue in dealing with MGs early on certain maps as they have to rely on smoke which is both expensive and not very productive.

<ThoseDeafMutes says a ton of stuff I completely agree with>

Absolutely! (And totally agree about how Relic flubbed the historical accuracy of the Soviets and OKW)

There's definitely room for giving every faction its own flavour, but Relic's tinkering at the lowest levels of the gameplay creates far more problems, and is unnecessary to achieve that flavour. It's difficult enough to balance a particular unit when you have all of these variables to consider:

Manpower cost
Fuel cost
Time it takes to build the unit -or- cooldown before you can deploy another from off-map
Cost of all tech upgrades needed before unit is unlocked
Cost of all buildings needed before unit is available
Command Points needed before unit is unlocked
Reinforcement cost (if infantry)
Relative effectiveness to other units that you/opponent has at time the unit becomes available/unlocked
Relative need for the unit (soft/hard counter to something?) at time the unit becomes available/unlocked
And probably a few others I missed...

That's a lot to worry about. Changing how a faction works at the lowest levels adds an order of magnitude more complexity to the process, upsetting assumptions about how to balance a unit's multiple variables because Faction A approaches things differently than Faction B.

Trying to theme them around what are essentially stereotypes was always inadvisable, imo...

DeafMutes, it's fine if they went for more of the "Realistic" approach. Where Soviets were well equipped and could go toe to toe with whatever is thrown at them. However, they aren't even that. The only units Soviets have that can are heavy tanks(IS-2) and the T34-85. So we have this weird mish mash that doesn't fit either the sterotypical theme or the "realistic" theme. It doesn't fit any, which is my point.

It's hard to say what Relic MEANT for them to be. The campaign clearly portrays them as the losing, throw men at the wall, not one step back. That implies that's what they want them to be. Gameplay wise nothing reflects that.

As a reminder, we're not talking balance here.

There's definitely room for giving every faction its own flavour, but Relic's tinkering at the lowest levels of the gameplay creates far more problems, and is unnecessary to achieve that flavour.

I kind of find that statement insulting, pretty much saying that thematics is pointless. That's a large reason people play Relic based games. When you play the Dawn of War series 70% of the reason you are playing that game is because it is based off of Warhammer 40k. A big reason some people like me play this game is because they love WW2, and like the matching thematic factions of the war. If this was some Sci-Fi setting with lasers being shot out everywhere having no correlation to WW2, I'd probably not be interested at all.

I kind of find that statement insulting, pretty much saying that thematics is pointless. That's a large reason people play Relic based games. When you play the Dawn of War series 70% of the reason you are playing that game is because it is based off of Warhammer 40k. A big reason some people like me play this game is because they love WW2, and like the matching thematic factions of the war. If this was some Sci-Fi setting with lasers being shot out everywhere having no correlation to WW2, I'd probably not be interested at all.

I think you're misunderstanding my point. I was agreeing with ThoseDeafMutes that tinkering with things like levels of veterancy, income rates, and artificially denying/adding units to achieve a weird theme (i.e. kübelwagen instead of heavy machine-gun team) is going to make it very hard to balance. Theme IS important, but it can be expressed through other means, such as unit roster, unit abilities, commander abilities, upgrades, the benefits gained from each level of veterancy, and so on, without having to change a core foundation of the game.

DeafMutes, it's fine if they went for more of the "Realistic" approach. Where Soviets were well equipped and could go toe to toe with whatever is thrown at them. However, they aren't even that. The only units Soviets have that can are heavy tanks(IS-2) and the T34-85. So we have this weird mish mash that doesn't fit either the sterotypical theme or the "realistic" theme. It doesn't fit any, which is my point.

It's almost like they struck a balance between the realistic theme and stereotypical theme or something insanely stupid :kappa: like that!

I think you're misunderstanding my point.

Oh I see your point. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I can see how removing core units such as Motars and snipers can really hurt certain factions and not create diversity as much as create clunkyness.

It's almost like they struck a balance between the realistic theme and stereotypical theme or something insanely stupid :kappa: like that!

If you do both, you better be damned sure you know what you're doing. When you do both and mess up nothing feels right and it's just some mish mash of an army. So now Soviets are stuck with 25% swarmy, 25% elite, and 50% of nothing. I feel that they haven't hit any of those points in the head, because if so russians would play like having a weak and swarmy early game, and late game have tough soldiers available (Red army soldiers instead of conscripts?) Showing that they finally got their shit together. As of now you get guards pretty early, and shocks....and I mean, those aren't your mainline infantry or anything. Conscripts vet 3 are like, alright I guess? Not really well trained as much as not dying very easily. Some people say that the main "Tactic" is to use conscripts as a screen for your tanks and elite infantry. You mean like...every other army?

My point is that one could say they tried a mix, but screwed up royally.

Oh I see your point. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I can see how removing core units such as Motars and snipers can really hurt certain factions and not create diversity as much as create clunkyness.



If you do both, you better be damned sure you know what you're doing. When you do both and mess up nothing feels right and it's just some mish mash of an army. So now Soviets are stuck with 25% swarmy, 25% elite, and 50% of nothing. I feel that they haven't hit any of those points in the head, because if so russians would play like having a weak and swarmy early game, and late game have tough soldiers available (Red army soldiers instead of conscripts?) Showing that they finally got their shit together. As of now you get guards pretty early, and shocks....and I mean, those aren't your mainline infantry or anything. Conscripts vet 3 are like, alright I guess? Not really well trained as much as not dying very easily. Some people say that the main "Tactic" is to use conscripts as a screen for your tanks and elite infantry. You mean like...every other army?

My point is that one could say they tried a mix, but screwed up royally.

Oh, looks like someone decided to pick up one of my topics as well as the many thousands that were posted to the official forums.

This has been said countless times before, but... the soviet faction is just so mediocre that i think it is just flawed at a fundamental level.

This in addition to the lower amount of options compared to vCOH forces a lot of players to play this faction as a gimicky faction in general.

SU just needs more manpower.

Oh, looks like someone decided to pick up one of my topics as well as the many thousands that were posted to the official forums.

This has been said countless times before, but... the soviet faction is just so mediocre that i think it is just flawed at a fundamental level.

This in addition to the lower amount of options compared to vCOH forces a lot of players to play this faction as a gimicky faction in general.

I never went to the official forums. I'm glad that it's spreading there as well.

The type of gameplay you are looking for exists. It's called con spam into t-34s. The only reason it isn't commonly seen is because of restrictive manpower costs of teching to and building T-34/76s. But it's still a valid tactic.

The desperate, struggling Soviets zerg rushing the Germans to make up for their deficiencies are an early-war phenomenon.

And it is also a myth, losing huge losses in men and equipment in the first months of the war, before the beginning of 1943, the Wehrmacht had a numerical advantage

And it is also a myth, losing huge losses in men and equipment in the first months of the war, before the beginning of 1943, the Wehrmacht had a numerical advantage

Also can't forget the irony of Operation Barbarossa being literally the largest invasion in all of human history.

SU just needs more manpower.

For more spam in start?

For more spam in start?

Well if every other faction is meant to be a late game giant it only makes sense.

And it is also a myth, losing huge losses in men and equipment in the first months of the war, before the beginning of 1943, the Wehrmacht had a numerical advantage

On a tactical scale yes, the USSR did not have overwhelming numerical advantages (at least not any more than any other army does at the points they choose to attack, where everybody always tries to attack the weakest positions with the most number of men to maximize advantage), however the total number of Soviet soldiers participating in combat exceeded the number of Axis ones on that front over the first few years. The Axis invasion forces enjoyed an overall numerical advantage in '41, but not beyond it, when in Q1 1942 the total manpower intake for the USSR was something close to double the Wehrmacht. Had the Soviets not lost so many formations early on in the war, their total manpower strength would have far outstripped the Axis from much earlier on than it did historically.

USSR was something close to double the Wehrmacht.

Do not forget that part of the Soviet troops was on the border with Japan.
Also you talking about the Axis forces, this allows German allies or just Wehrmacht?

Do not forget that part of the Soviet troops was on the border with Japan.
Also you talking about the Axis forces, this allows German allies or just Wehrmacht?

Yes, one third of all Soviet troops has always been in the Far East in anticipation of Japanese invasion.

Yes, one third of all Soviet troops has always been in the Far East in anticipation of Japanese invasion.

Some sort of Axis Second Front, lol.