AE's King Tiger Adventure Analysed by Someone With Eyes

30 to 40% more powerful than what? One medium? Two mediums?

30-40% of units of the same cost. In this case 2 mediums. That has to do with "Opportunity Cost".

That doesn't make much sense. Opportunity cost works both ways.

That doesn't make much sense. Opportunity cost works both ways.

What it means is that since one can buy 1+1 mediums tanks earlier than 1 heavy tank one can make out more on his investment before the heavy tank appears.

If 1+1 medium=1 heavy of the same cost there would be no reason to wait in order to accumulated the resources needed.

Read the article provided for more info.

I see what you mean.

It's a decent argument in favour of a KT outperforming two P4s being fair. Not sure about the other heavies though: they're call ins and therefore act as an alternative to teching.

Note: the article is from 04/2015 (a bit less than 1 year after WFA) and is probably talking about the original design on call ins and heavy tanks during the release of CoH2.

09/2013 (game was released on 06/2013)

Heavy Tanks
One major issue we sought to resolve was the viability of heavier tanks within the mid-late game. Their cost and performance was refactored to better take into consideration their effectiveness at the later stage of a match. Additionally, heavier tanks should be more viable in smaller matches.

IS2/Tiger were a joke in that meta (bad bad bad)Show Spoiler, so it made sense. But too many things have been done and changed, and new paradigmas are been established as the game evolves.

Reminder that there are factors outside of the stats provided by the game. Something which isn't mentioned is micro opportunity/cost.
Remember the times of double/triple IS2/Tigers with Pio/CE only ? Why wouldn't you use 4/5 medium tanks instead of 2 heavier tanks? Cause the later is easier to use and control.

The value of the more expensive unit does not have to be restricted to the distribution of its combat characteristics. In this example, there is also a cost associated with microing multiple units over just one.

Also:

The design considerations amongst opportunity cost, power concentration, and relative balance all play off of one another.

That's the point of heavies. If any of the 3 heavies or super mediums ever needs a set of buffs, i'll rather it be through changes that don't necessarily alters their raw performance. Say passive aura buffs for infantry or changes to repair speed. (ALTHOUGH i don't think they need those kind of buffs ATM).

PD: while minimum, heavy tanks (including KT) are call ins which let's you bypass build time.

PD2: wild idea. What if heavy tanks hulls MG range were reduced to 25-20 but they could now suppress like Ostwind/KT vet1 ability (IIRC).