The British Meta - AT Boys and Recces

[kwok]

I don't want to make this suggestion so much about balance as I do about mixing up the meta while holding balance.

It would add more variety to the game if AT Boys were available before the LT and recces cost more fuel.
I'll give a short personal assessment of the meta, talk a bit about the shortcomings of British, then explain why my proposal will help keep things mixed but still balanced.

In the current meta, British openings is very stale and almost completely unbalanced in a 1v1 scenario. While BK isn't designed for 1v1's, the game can't help but run into "1v1 scenarios" even in a team game. This is most prevalent in the early game where team mates normally branch into their own "lanes" and fight an opponent in their lane. There are multiple popular openings for all factions except british vary between a mix of cars, infantry, and support weapons. There's a bit of a rock-paper-scissors element to openings. A car can have an edge against infantry with their durability and mobility, infantry can have an edge on support weapons with their map control and capping power, support weapons have an edge against cars with their superior fire power. This is just a general picture, there are obviously a lot more nuances which only lend to the point that there are a variety of openings.
This is true for all except British. Imagine being able to play rock-paper-scissors without being able to use one of the elements (only rock and paper for example, no scissors). The most common British build order is LT first, AT boys second, preferred unit third, then a rushed recce. This is because the "car opening" against British are often so effective, the "hole" in the British opening because they lack reliable and early AT and a car opening can really snowball into a huge amount of map control and sometimes a squad wipe. Meanwhile, Axis can exploit this meta by taking the infantry opening, or even sniper/mg opening, because the axis car opening is so strong that a British player will often want to play it safe with AT boys rather than gambit a counter-counter-meta strategy. The only way for British to come back from this position of disadvantage is the next phase of the game and reach the recce which can bypass the T1 axis AT. There is this really short window between T1 and T2 that the recce just pulverizes so that Brits can retake the game and get some sense of control. If this window isn't capitalized by the Brits, then they might as well type "gg" because they will often be losing in map control, thus resource.

By making AT boys available before the LT, you open up the chance for a brit player to be able to play rock-paper-scissors in the early game rather than just rock-paper-pray. The British player can make a meaningful gambit against a car opening OR choose to skip the AT and go for the infantry. This is a choice every other faction has, why not the British? I can see a reason is that the British do not need the hassle of building the first building, so they can get a center unit quicker (something really importnat in the early game, I'll prob try to write about BK opening thoughts later). But, building a building is so fast, that advantage is nothing compared the the map control axis can get by just having a car. Nonetheless, the advantage is still there so there needs to be a counter-balance action. By pushing the recce fuel costs enough so that it comes in during T2 rather than moments before so that axis can actually have time to react to a recce by building better AT will help take away that window of power British have. In the case that Axis are losing the early game, pushing the recce out later extends the T1 phase for axis to fight back in the British early game using tactics before the transition to where British pretty much have a single-unit counter to any early game units axis have. These two contrasting points on the British build order really drive the game and make it stale to play. By breaking up two forced moments in the British meta, the game can be more focused on strategy and personality rather than build orders and meta/formulaic gaming.

[Sudatus]

Nice point. I play CW only, and this lack of early CW flexibility is really disturbing... I remember how once u had to chasse HTs away with your rifle granades... It was really annoying...
For once I have an different idea, have the officers glider cost reduced, with 2 production buildings u can build quite some units...

[Warhawks97]

love reading your constructive posts Something nice to think about. Good points.

[kwok]

About the officer glider, I don't think it would make much difference purely because of the costs of the units themselves.
In low resources, CW only have enough manpower to make a single unit so dropping a glider doesn't open up an overlapped wait time to build like most other factions do.
On high resources, my build order is officer, glider, AT boys (maybe a second), truck. The cost of the glider doesn't really harm my build order, if anything I have more manpower than I can even deal with because british build times are so slow.

But, I think you have a good thought in maybe adjusting something to do with the glider. For example, making ATboys available to be built in the glider so a CW player can skip the ATboys build in the truck and go right into building the field truck. Sometimes if I have a consistent teammate who I can coordinate with, I ask him to build AT so I can skip AT boys and rush the recce and that has done wonders to mix up the opening game, except if we are against WM players with no early counter to the recce (pretty much revealing my secrets here).