Profile of porkloin

Nor do I, but it seems to be what the OP is interested in.

Sure. If you reduce infantry pop to like 2-3, and heavies to around 8-9.

So the actual metric is suddenly DPS and not purchase cost?

I've always used the phrase pop-value density. I've only used cost as a rough index of value because that's what it is. While not perfectly accurate we'd spend years deriving some other index of value, and I know this for a fact because balance team has spent the past 5 years trying to perfect the already existing index of value i.e. cost!

You'd see this if you were honestly evaluating the merits of the idea, but it's clear you're straw-grasping instead of admitting to yourself that you rushed into an argument without actually thinking it through.

Go quote me on that, because I never said that build costs hold no value to balancing. I said that looking at build costs alone and neglecting everything else is bullshit.

Apparently balancing by combat stats is the preferred way, although the effects are much more indirect than changing purchase costs. Should make you think why, because I am sure that balance team is not interested in creating more work than necessary.

Are some units, despite being balanced early game, far more effective than others in a pop-cap situation?

If yes: which is more work for the balance team?

1: rebalancing 10s of units around the pop-cap performance without disturbing early game balance
-or-
2: changing 1 arbitrary value

No they would not. Kubels get two-shot (or even shot+snare or shot+small arms). Building them mid and late game is simply throwing resources away since there is a medium and an ATG available.

The SOV clown car has the exact same health. 2x WC-51s dominated USF meta for months. 222 is an OST staple. Bren carrier has been a staple of UKF for awhile though currently there isn't much reason for one over super sections.

Kubels are the only ultra-lights that don't see much play not because they don't have high value individually, but because kubels tie up a 340 manpower worker/mainline.

Also suddenly there are interdependencies?
Why is there no interdependency between IS and REs? Grens and MG42s? Penals and the lack of any team weapon? Obers and the otherwise lack of a cost late game AI option for OKW?
That's what I am talking about: You cannot completely neglect the environment your comparison operates in.

So you want me to write a 1,000 page book on every unit in the game before commenting on anything? I have a sneaking suspicion you wouldn't want to read it.

Maybe let's take a short cut:
Why do you think that the purchase cost is such a better measurement of performance than any actual performance stat like DPS or health?

I think the purchase cost, after 5 years of balancing, is a decent summation of the relative value of a unit's DPS and health stats, and though they may not be perfectly accurate, are a good tool for high level discussion compared to the alternative situation wherein I write a 1,000 page book.

I cannot think of a single unit that consistently beats a more expensive unit in it's same class role. Semi-elite infantry beat mainline infantry, elite infantry beats semi-elite. Mediums beat lights. Heavies beat mediums etc. etc.

The only equalizer for cheap units is numbers, which works great for the first 30 minutes of the game until it becomes impossible to outnumber your opponent.

Again, I never said that even if you're trying to insinuate so.
I'll bounce this question right back since you are convinced of the purchase cost theory: Why are T70s not built in the late game when they have way higher cost density than T34/76s? Heck, even the IS2 cannot cope with this cost density.

T-70 is built in 99% of SOV games, and the entire faction revolves around it's effectiveness so I'm not sure why you think this is some sort of gotcha. I've seen 100s of games where someone replaces a destroyed t-70 for every 1 game someone replaces a 222.

The worst thing you can do in a winning position is not keeping the pressure.
If you keep playing at the same army strengths you allow your opponent to punish a misplay of yours and wipe squads/steal weapons etc. If you have an additional 1-2 units on the field (the advantage you gained previously), the chance of him doing so is much lower, because he needs to fight an uphill battle. You on the other hand bleed less, put more pressure, more map control, more income.

If you don't believe me, then believe any of the other pro or non-pro players that have said exactly the same in this very thread.

This pressure mindset sounds great until you hit a base entrance mine chasing low health squads, or get ambush snared in front of two AT guns.

DPS, EHP, reinforcement cost, camo, abilities, snares etc. None of this is covered at all. Any of these could be quadrupled and your metric would not see it. You don't need a late game AI terminator squad if your have a Brummbar, similarly, IS need to fill more roles in a faction that has glaring holes.

Why have a build cost at all if the things you've listed are share no relationship to the cost of the unit?

Just make sections 1 manpower and rifleman 1000 manpower and the game will still play out the same right? After all its everything else that matters but the cost.

If what you say were true, why do we see so many meta changes while the prices of units are either barely touched or (most cases) not touched at all? Why is 95% of balancing done via combat stats and not via the purchase cost?

Because any function has a dependent variable and independent variable. It's arbitrary which one changes, but from a matter of practicality you do pick one. Balance could just as easily be done by keeping combat stats fixed and varying the prices.

With your purchase cost = combat value theory, OKW should spam Kubels all game (70 MP/pop). And even if they did not, Volks outperform Obersoldaten at any given moment in the game and Obers are similar to Sturms. Even more so, Pfusiliere should outperform Volks at any given moment. Yet, a viable Pfusi build starts with two Volks.

If Kubels could be repaired independent of a 340 manpower squad they actually would be built all game. This is an exception that proves the rule since a Kubels true cost is tied to sturms.

Pfusi builds start with volks because there is no pop-cap consideration in the early game, and the short term power boost from volks is temporally more valuable than the long term efficiency of pfusi.

We should also see Tigers, IS2 and Pershing all day long, also Elefant and JTs should appear in 1v1s (much higher cost density than Panther). Yet, we don't see that many heavies and literally 0 Elefants in 1v1.

Lets turn this question on it's head. If pop value density isn't a thing then why don't we see t34 spam winning every 4v4? Why is it the game mode with higher resources favors higher resource units if low resource units are just as valuable?

Having no pop cap means you are forced to remove any bleed if you want to go that high. It forces you to build vehicles and best case beefy vehicles that you will not lose and replace. This will force heavy units even more, the exact thing that you critisize.

How does pop-cap encourage low-value bleed units? If you're pop-capped for any substantial amount of time the last thing you want is low value units taking up pop. Manpower concerns are totally irrelevant to you since you can't spend it anyways. No one is building mainline infantry at 90 pop. They're building engies. They're throwing away mortars and MGs for more tanks because the only thing of value is having denser units at that point.

If you want to discourage heavy tank usage you need to reduce upkeep values. I'm perfectly happy with where they are now though. They're a long term investment with a high upfront cost.

With pop-cap though a player building mediums is prevented from fully exploiting short term cheap units that overwhelm heavy tank investments before the dividends become too big.

The worst thing you can do in a winning position is to build mediums instead of saving for heavys and elite infantry, yet I think most players agree that medium tank fights are far more exciting and skillful than 50 minute games of poke heavy tank forward for 1 minute, repair for 5 mintues.

that was basically a 50 vs 90 popcap fight since half of giaps army was out of position or back in base

So you still think he would have lost if he had been allowed to purchase one more p4 or stug or AT-gun? Heck, even a panther?