Unpopular opinion time: infantry combat was best during vet gate. The levels of bonuses some units get from very makes losing squads near impossible to recover from.
Imo (and I know it's far far too late at this point) but infantry bonuses should be SMALL Stat changes and abilities instead. Things like reduced ability costs or faster cool downs. Things that make squads more potent withiut making a replacement squad so neutered its nearly hopeless. Raise the skill ceiling not the floor.
Absolutely disagree. This actually leaves room for elite troops to fill the role of AI unit if some mainlime is wiped. Without veterancy scaling there would be almost no penalty besides the mp cost for losing squads, but it's far from impossible to recover from losing a mainline because many late game units can cover their role