Replacing useless tree upgrades from terror doc

[Wolf]

Its not 2 howitzers but 4 FFS.

Funny thing, removing VT would be exactly against what these guys said, as destroying stuff would be even more expensive, would be dependent on cooldown of "normal barrage" etc. It was like that before on inf doc and even that was playable, but I said okay, I will do it even when I am against it, and now its not enough? We need additional howitzers to even play the game? Cmooon...

[Panzerblitz1]

Wolf, stop acting like a dictator, rather ask the community with a poll, like the good old Xalibur.

First you need to understand one thing, WE know Xalibur, WE worked many years with him and WE are friend with him, even if at the moment he's out of action for personal reasons, Xalibur always made polls to feel the temperatures of members, NOT for deciding what will be implement or not, Xalibur ALWAYS made his decision by himself even if the poll wans't in favor, that being said, increasing arty in game is a pure crazyness and killing the general gameplay, and you don't have to be a dictator to notice it, after i can understand you disagree, you have the right to disagree, but we have also the right as developers of this mod to think different as well.

[Yummy]

Sorry, panzerblitz, but I have not seen you in 4v4 PVP games. And I would ask you the same question as I did with Wolf. What makes you to believe that you are more competent than a mere mortal casual member? And again, you both with wolf do write some offensive posts without even to read my posts. I am in favor to remove the limits of artillery howitzers ONLY if you remove VT ability. Exactly VT ability makes the artillery so overpowerful, because it allows the artillery to be used as constant supportive weapon AND breakthrough weapon simultaneously. And wolf it was just not fair everyone to has VT, but just USA not to.

And second you need to tell me how many times Xalibur did something against the poll's results?

[Panzerblitz1]

you have to show me where are my "offensive" post, im being nice here and not offensive as you pretend, im just replying to you regarding "the old good Xalibur polls" and tell you frankly and im sure if Xalibur was here he will tell you the same, Polls aren't a 100% choice maker for the team, no offence here, just facts, regarding your request Wolf is in charge and listen to him before using "dictator" in your sentences, that is offensive in my point of view, but hey no big deal, all is cool and we are listening to all new ideas and actually a lot are implemented in games, its a community here and debating is always good

[Wolf]

What you are saying is then exactly the opposite what others would want...
If they want more arty to destroy bunkers/emplacements, then increasing limits would not help because of arty prices. And prices are definitely not going down, so what do you want and why exactly, and why do you think I should listen to your suggestion rather than another individual.

[Warhawks97]

thats also an option. remove VT but no arty limit. Or remove arty limit and VT would only activate the guns that are in range at the same time (which arent many all the time).

I said not bunker= gg but almost without cw arty. You should know that 2 vs 2 is not permanent fighting and as player you ahve more time to think about how to destroy bunker. In 3 vs 3 you need permanent attention on all units and the bunker is simply the set up that cant be destroyed when allied first had to fight back the main axis force without arty. Its a huge material battle and the bunker is the last thing the remaining allied forces cant get. Ive been not talking about the one with mg. Just normal one. So during allied attack the axis puts the remaining units inot it (with lmg, schreck whatever, or just pioneers) and you need flamethrower to kill the guys inside.


Also its not only bunker. Just the game i played now axis got several paks, HMGS + their normal units like volks and bikes. I did try to interrup that with jeep, rifles, engineers etc but couldnt avoid that quickly pak or two just on one side, mgs got set up. When i got my 81 mm mortar there had been already trenches, two paks (one 50 mm), and bunker with sometimes grens or sniper inside. I tried combinations of mortar, rifles, captian, rifle nade, ranger and even stuart to crack it but every attempt was pointless. We tired several times charges with engineers and commandos (from RA player) and we pushed till their base but there had always been something that interruped planting the charge. Pios, a HT with rear mg, anything did always interrup. So finally Priest had to destroy the bunker.


And its not a joke that there are many players (often PE) that first push and defend with grens, pak (HE mode) and schwimmwagen as movable HMG. Those buy enough time to get two buildings and there are sometimes up to 2 50 mm paks very soon.

I am not joking when i say that there exist a 50 mm pak mass production which i face tooo often. Whatever i do, masses of vehicles combined with shermans and even when i destroy to paks there is often one which left and schrecks.

So one schwimmwagen or anything with Mg42, one 20 mm kwkw vehicle and then only paks and only the arty HT´s from arty doc can break it up effectively and clean up that mess. Sometimes more than 70% of the units (motsly axis side) are kind of defensives. In late game its party possible to use US masses but the first 15 min are so annoying. So many paks and mgs and NOTHING is moving. And the first unit that breakes the silence of sitting arround is usually the nebelwerfer.

Also, when i just had inf doc i had three howitzers which were not able to reach every area of the map. And i could never shoot with all three all the time even when we had literally the entire map. I could use it only against defenisve stuff like all the 88´s. We basically need two priests, 25 pounder, two 105 and 2x 75 mm pack howitzer from airborne doc just to crush the defense of two players which had many flak 20 mm and 88 mm and also bunkers and many paks. Even when we destoryed so many or their defense and when we thought the path is free there was still something left that destroyed our tanks and vehicles very fast. Afaik we used even calli.

During the game there came just 1 or two attacks form their side and rest was pure defense. So do you want pure defense playstyle for the win without any risk? i dont want that. Its like "overbuild the enemie" untill the 88´s and bunkers are next to their base. No joke, happend few weeks ago when i played without CW arty doc. Two randomly set teams btw.

And airplanes to almost nothng against bunkers. Damn three p-47 with bombs couldnt kill a single mortar HT with destroyed engine.

If you fail with US to interup enemie defense build up with incredible micro of jeep, rifles and engineers and when that failed and inf has to retreat and pak+schwimmwagen domintes and sometimes the first Bunker is build instantly as fast as possible.


And you really seem to underastimate thy psychological affect. Just when one side would know to get shelled by dozens of arty pieces they wouldnt build so much defense and thus the other side would also not build so much arty.

[Yummy]

There is clearly a problem with artillery and we all agree on that. Two steps were taken into account to reduce the artillery usage. Higher price, which is totally fine and limitations, which has its advantages (to lower the strength of VT ability), but mostly disadvantages for me (you can't move them, so if the front moves forward you can't provide artillery anymore, you can't use massive artillery fire to destroy bunkers since def pioneers repair really fast, you can't counter an enemy mobile arty just with 2 howitzers). Wolf mentioned that the limit is 4, because of the 2 entrenched howitzers, but I don't like this unit because it is too expensive and easy to hit by enemy artillery, at least i have such a feeling that it can takes 2/3 shots but it is easier to be hit therefore killed. Anyway... in general, I am sure Wolf made these limitations with good desire to limit the artillery but I don't think it has real impact in game.
And all players who state that people are forced to play artillery doctrines are right, because all other artillery got nerfed (expect WM blitz rocket truck) and artillery doctrines, which are still as overpowerful as they were before the limitation, because mostly mobile artillery is used.
My suggestion is rather experimental than categorically, everything is reversible, remove the howitzer limitation and VT ability for all doctrines. Then a player will have to decide how to use his artillery - either to provide constant supportive fire, or to pay big amount of ammo to kill a bunker, or counter movable artillery but then no arty spam will be available. But removing the VT will weaken the Artillery doctrines as well, they will no longer be able to use their arty to kill enemy howitzers then to fire ton of shells against a bunker for 75 ammo. If you sit and consider more carefully you will see there is reason behind this suggestion, though it might hurt the balance, which I doubt but you never know and we would never know if we don't try it.
Furthermore, removing the limitations with VT present would make things even worse.

[Wolf]

Meh, you are changing opinions rather fast, first it was Inf doc cant be without VT, because we need it against bunkers, now its not enough, and limits have to be removed and VT removed aswell. So we will have a lots of arty, which cannot be used against bunkers, because nobody will have enough munnition? VT with range limitation cannot be done "nicely".

2+2 howitzers are more than enough, yes, if you build them way too back, you will have them more safe, but you won't be able to fire that much on the front, thats strategic decision. Like I said, our goal is to make the game less arty dependent, however everything everybody is suggesting is just to add more arty etc. Sorry but psychological effect is none on these who were complaining a lot about enemy overusing arty. CoH isn't big scale warfare game, CoH is focused on individual units, their skills etc., and that should be in game too. Not - lets build 8 howitzers and bomb the shit out of them. Not - bunker - oh, we should use the simplest solution, destroy it from safe distance, preferably with one strike... its bigger vulnerability against satchels and perma mg limitation were exactly things which should be put in, not making easy solution easier.
As far as movable arty goes, there were changes too: nebels, 105, grille, probably other stuff too were limited. Wespe got much more normal price.

And again, I beg you, play more cqb/long range balanced maps. You can't expect that you will have same effectivity with infantry on open field map like in atleast half urban maps, which offer more posibilities.

[Wake]

Wolf does have a point. MANY players here almost exclusively play these maps:

4v4 Operation Goodwood
3v3 LaFiere/Road to Cherbourg
2v2 Duclair

All of these maps are almost exclusively made up of open fields. Operation Goodwood is a single gigantic field.

[Warhawks97]

I agree with Yummy.

So far nothing has changed in arty use (because all go for arty docs now). Also as yummy said when the eneme moves back a bit a recreate a new defensive line there is no more arty support.

And yes, the emplaced arty shit. They die faster than the unemplaced.

Also i supported the VT because it was absolutely impossible for me alone to persuade you to remove arty limit and so VT was the only hope i saw for at least some bunker breaker ability.

Thing is on larger aps (even 3 vs 3) that 3 howitzers doesnt cover the entire map to provide enough arty support. And an area can be usually reached by just one arty unit. There is VT but thats just to kill a single bunker or any other emplacment. But often there is an area crowded with 20 mm´s, fixed scoud cars, 2-3 paks (37 and 50 mm) and some movable units or even an aa tank as well. A VT would help to kill one of that but that wouldnt hurt much. And dont think that it takes long to create such a wall of defensive stuff that covers each other. Killing all that with mortar is a live time job and i dont want to play one game that lasts either 80 years or i give up before. To overrun this with masses would require a bot spam. So VT is basically needed either against a single Bunker or a strong CW RE emplacment.

What i would prefer more is that i am able to fiel like 4 howitzers just to clean one certain area. So when i see there are 3 20 mm, 2 88 and other paks i want to be able to set up like 5 howitzers (i just want the option), to spare 300 ammo and clean the whole area from that shit. And when the player then creates a new defensive area somewhere else of the map and out of range of my first arty battery i want to be able to create a new arty battery of 5 howitzers in range of it to clean that shit. If this is done i simply wont and cant keep shooting with all arty pieces simply as i would lack on ammo. But as soon as the players would figure out that they would get punished by dozens of howitzers when buidling a super defensive line they wont build so much defense anymore and thus the 10 howitzer would remain as imagination but the possibility would have an impact on the game already. But currently its really nasty. "Oh, my opponent has no arty doc? pak,pak,pak, emplacment,mg... etc.... attack or producing any offensive unit... not neccessary, we simply push them back with mgs and paks and set up a new bunker or emplacment all few meters." This sounds like a joke but often happend when i and my team did not use arty doc.

Also why dont you think about fixing that stuff that makes arty so neccessary? Some things that would help (time intensive but not that hard to do):

-Paks and tanks should not be able to turn arround in ambush and when doing so they would get revealed. Sometimes i am passing paks with several tanks and vehicles and killing one or two paks but one still remains behind me which turns arround (still in ambush) and giving rear shots to my units. Same for tanks. Moving chassis=revealed.

-Paks (and unemplaced weapons at all such as 88´s, quad cal 50, 20 mm, howitzers, neblers etc) dying faster by hits from tanks and enemie paks. Right now they take 5-2 shots from paks and tanks and hendheld at (thats often more than a tank can survive).

-HE mode for tanks. Its hilarious that a barrage of a 105 howitzer or 150 nebler salvo cost less than a Tank with HE rounds. Those need 25 for upgrade and then either 50 ammo to activate HE permant or even 25-35 ammo for a single shot (which drops right out of the barrel). Since HE rounds are usually basic for Tanks (at least battletanks) they could be cheaper. I would even ask to add HE toggle ability to all tanks. Switching between basic AP and HE rounds wouldnt cost anything, only some seconds of activation to load the other round. So fighting weapon crews and emplacments could be done by (battle) tanks as well and being cheaper than arty salvo.

- Rework TH doc from defensive into mainly offensive doc. Tank IV is the only real offensive unit currently. (see th topic).
- Limit bunkers to SE and def doc. Why have docs like BK or TH cement bunkers?
- Limit ranger to inf doc (ranger infiltration squad) which have grenades and satchels by default (instead sticky) without vet upgrade required.
- Armor doc has bsically only basic engineers with explosive charges to destroy bunker. Casaulty rate is about 2-3 engineer squads per bunker as they are very vulnerable during that act. Here we could need the combat engieers supporting the tanks and able plant charges, cut wire etc. Together with tanks (jumbo 75 as well) the units could protect and support each other. The combat engineers would be later available (unlock with motorpool) but therfore a bit cheaper as the act of removing tank traps and bunkers would cause some high casaulties.

THIS would really help to reduce arty use/need and also other cost effective ways to clean emplacments (see Tanks HE rounds). But still arty available as much as needed if someone belives he can win by just building one defensive unit and consturction after the other.

The VT would be removed or changed so that only arty units would fire which are in range for it.


But why is this in this topic? can you move the posts regarding arty into arty topic?


Wolf: "stragetic decision to reduce arty". Current strategic result: "Pak, emplacment and bunker mass production and 88´s for assault". Whenver you fail to break enemie defense with kind of skilled micro and unit combination the larger the defense becomes. Whenever you fail and losing some vehicles, tanks etc 3 further emplacments and paks can and probably will be be added. Often- when the first attempt fails to interrup enemie defensive build up with jeeps and rifles (and the few units available)- there will be a furher HMG, trench and a vehicle with auto canon/fixed scout car. When i play with some mates as allied we already have to combine off map arty, spotter, glider and cluster bomb airstrike at the same time just to kill this relatively little standard early game defense.

And about maps... i played all a few times (even the largest, most complicate and laggiest maps). On very large maps- even with many houses- and huge res income the situation is usually even worth. Emplacments (in towns often 360 degree weapons) just growing up like grass and the few arty units available cover maybe just 50% of the map but no area can be hit by all howitzers at the same time. In fact the games are a draw unless SE and CW arty is in there or unless there is a very good Airborne player who knows how to controle many units in hardcore urban fights and playing at full risk from right the beginning. And there it easily happens that -next to 6 88´s near enemie base and other defensive stuff- Panthers and tiger rolling out in masses which need to be dealed with as well.


Currently only at 2 vs 2 maps road to montherm, rails and metal and alsace moselle, linden ( and maybe others i dont play usually or which name i forgot) 2 howitzers had been absolutely sufficient and bunkers unhurriedly destroyed by charges and satchels.
Edit II: The stuff and experiences i am writting down were mainly made at villers bocage (yeah, even there and there even more than elswhere), Fields of engagment, (vimoutiers), Operation Goodwood, Reversed defense, La Fiere, Graves Brigdes, Hill 112, Road to cherbourgh, Wolfheze and hell even at Montargis where brits first builds dozens of emplacments near the two medium ammo points (where two nebles do a shit against it) and bashing later everything with Priests. And at Mortain the team that takes the hill first has 2 or 3 HMGs for free that are staying arround.

I also Made experiences at some of the giant maps (some with bridges and rivers). There i took about 80% of the map but then failed to crush and 6 88´s near base build by luft and def player. When then tigers, Panthers and KT from BK and terror joined the fight nobody could really win though axis started to build one 88 after the other. We had no CW arty as we thought a rush with airborne, RAF and us armor doc would work better with finally inf doc arty. But the few howitzers (two howitzers reached two 88´s) could never destroy one entirely, only decrewed. Teams were completely random iirc but axis did host. I guess he did host that map as he was aware that he just has to fight a bit at the middle of the map unless enough 88´s had been build up. After 1 hour without any move forward or backward one mate crashed or left and so the rest of our team left as well. Got simply sick that arty from armor and inf doc could do a shit against the damn defense near base. Near means not in base and the territory they still had was larger as players will controle on normal 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3 maps but it was just like 20-25% of that map what they defend. Simply the time we need to capture all the way to their base gave them enough time to create a defense strong enough to stand everything on arty availble on our side. This was the point where i simply wished 20 howitzers shooting the same time to shoot their a**** out of this world and solar system. I got so incredible angry that we lost due to stupid "rules" and limitations while laughed at us by building one pak, 88, bunker after the other.

[Wolf]

You are not supposed to have 10+ howitzers as INFANTRY doctrine, what the hell you don't still understand about it? Take it as a fact, you have 2+2 unmovable howitzers + 105 sherman + fhq howitzers. + Additional offmap arty + mortar VT and even that bloody howitzers VT was added.
I still wonder where people in these your "example situations" take resources, when they are pushed back, but they build tons of 88s and heavy tanks? , as you should have such an resource advantage, that you should be able to fight that off. Bunkers also take quite a bit to build, so...

Of course, that if enemy has SE, its better to have RA and vice-versa, however on non open-fields only maps you have other posibilities to destroy emplacements. Not mentioning that you can be okay with only decrewing for a while.

Also you are all making it like playing without arty doc was much more possible before ... erm when? Especially CW arty was used most of the time even in 4.02, along with all 4.xxx versions. There were a lot of changes since then too, with howitzers being generally cheaper and mobile arty more expensive. You are acting like nobody was building paks / 88s before. More than 2 howitzers were rarely built and if they were, it was mostly from people abusing arty, like that famous CW howitzers bug, or just campers with xxx arty pieces. Then you were really locked down, if you didn't have
arty doctrine to counter it.

[Warhawks97]

You are not supposed to have 10+ howitzers as INFANTRY doctrine, what the hell you don't still understand about it? Take it as a fact, you have 2+2 unmovable howitzers + 105 sherman + fhq howitzers. + Additional offmap arty + mortar VT and even that bloody howitzers VT was added.
I still wonder where people in these your "example situations" take resources, when they are pushed back, but they build tons of 88s and heavy tanks? , as you should have such an resource advantage, that you should be able to fight that off. Bunkers also take quite a bit to build, so...

Of course, that if enemy has SE, its better to have RA and vice-versa, however on non open-fields only maps you have other posibilities to destroy emplacements. Not mentioning that you can be okay with only decrewing for a while.

Also you are all making it like playing without arty doc was much more possible before ... erm when? Especially CW arty was used most of the time even in 4.02, along with all 4.xxx versions. There were a lot of changes since then too, with howitzers being generally cheaper and mobile arty more expensive. You are acting like nobody was building paks / 88s before. More than 2 howitzers were rarely built and if they were, it was mostly from people abusing arty, like that famous CW howitzers bug, or just campers with xxx arty pieces. Then you were really locked down, if you didn't have
arty doctrine to counter it.

I was regarding to maps. I start thinking that you are not aware of the dimensions of some 4 vs 4 games. The size of maps etc. Also that sample was regarded to one of the really large 4 vs 4 maps. So we had endles res advantage. Basically almost endless MP and ammo (just armor lacked fuel). So theoretically we could have crushed them with many guns but not with just 4. In old versions inf doc players did use up to 8 howitzers and 2 arty shermans in such situations on such large maps. Arty intensity was then comparable to 2 howitzers on 2 vs 2 maps. Also how do fight the 2 howitzers which are cheaper then movable against those when the limit doesnt allow to outnumber the movable arty? And no, in old versions they did not build so many 88´s. Now dozens of them and other defensive stuff when they realize that that enemie has no CW arty.

I also said that the 20-25% the enemie still had was as large as the territory of like 50% of goodwood. So 5 Tigers from 2 docs arent really much nor hard to get. They also operated mostly in 88 range. The 4 howitzers could partly shoot at the 88´s but later mainly used to interrup the construction attempts of further 88´s and to hold our territory. Also the range relation is different. Place a 105 near base at road to montherm and you reach all important areas. On some 4 vs 4 maps thats the area where the main battle rages. So the 105 had to be placed in the area the main fight took place to reach the 88´s. So two could be build in save area to strike enemie attacks if possible while two are placed close enough to reach 88 but in fact in the area where the main fight take place.

Simply number of units, simple map size, res income etc are so extremely different. 10 howitzers on very large maps arent really much considering that i already had 6 88´s at goodwood (which is small compared to the really large one). Recently a mate with RE had 8 or 10 emplaced 17 pounders at road to cherbourgh.

I dont get why you stick on that limit. As if 2 vs 2 maps provide ammo to shoot with more than 2 howitzers all the time. Even on larger maps it doesnt work. I want the removed arty limit to be able to clean the mess of 5 paks, panther bunker and 20 mm flaks in a single strike, sparing ammo before that. So when i see that enemie instantly starts setting 37 and 50 mm paks, fixed scout cars supported by mortar and stuff i want simply be able to get 4 howitzers, spare ammo and clean the path. If enemie dont build so much arty and have a balanced style of offense of defense then i just dont need so much arty. Also it is needed just to reach all the areas of the map. I am also not talking only about us howitzers btw.

[Yummy]

Exactly INFANTRY divisions had artillery batteries.
And why tanks are supposed to be repaired during combat. If that was possible tank losses would decrease with 50% in reality maybe. Why the tiger reverse its gun and shoots faster than a sherman? Why there is no side armour value? Why tanks survive heavy air strikes? Why the same caliber and varian weapons behave differently? Don't start with guesswork, because there are many "supposes" in bk.

And wolf, you just buff the arty usage and the power of artillery doctrines with that silly howitzer restrictions. So RA are able to snipe everything with their priests and I am not able to shoot at them back as defensive WM? And don't tell you have grille, because the priest shoot and kill it faster than the grille rises its gun (afak vision for RA is not a problem since they have so many spotters and planes).
Honestly, you just force everyone to play artillery doctrine because he would fear that nothing else can counter enemy artillery!
Your limitation of artillery just buffs the strenght of the actual artillery .

ANDDDDDDDDDDDDD don't write again these posts "How I make people to use more artillery when I actually limited the howitzers..." I told you why. You just nerfed every other artillery but not the artillery doctrines (and Blitzkrieg mule truck)!!

[Wolf]

Your assumptions are just funny, I mean, I am really surprised that removal of KCH doesn't lead to more arty too, or decreasing grenadiers price... Warhawks too, you are just masking some changes you would like as "it would help with arty".
Most funny on all this is that everyone is acting like usually having RA ingame is somewhat new... which is not, priests especially are long time counter against every big cat, and one of the most used doctrine in 2vs2, 3vs3 and 4vs4 for a loooooong time.

"You just nerfed every other artillery but not the artillery doctrines" - howitzers are generally cheaper, grille and sherman 105 got -1, nebelwerfers on WH side limited to 2 (PE nebels were already 2 btw., nobody complained), pack howitzers limited to 2. That basically means you still have around 6 possible arty pieces + offmaps in inf, def. Doctrines which should NOT be arty ones, that number seems low for you? Inf even got that bloody VT.
What the hell is your problem still? You are having problems with emplacements? Thats it? As armor you can clear out hidden stuff with calli, to clear out path for ground attack, or use planes for scouting first from another doctine, you know, play like a team. You can clear out some stuff from distance with AVRE, you can use pretty good tank arty even with armor doc, you can actually use smokes, did you ever notice, that mortar smoke has much bigger range? Stuff like that...
As terrors 5 nebels goes, you can't destroy emplacement with one wherever they are nebels strike? Sweet! But hey, don't forget, its not terrors only weapon and on axis side, you don't really need to destroy it completely, decrewing is very often enough, so no guys, nope, you have a lot of flame grenades/stuff to decrew, thats just enough. If you really want it destroyed for good, with help of second player, it probably will be.

We wanted to reduce use of arty, you are complaining, that you don't have enough arty to destroy emplacements now, but at the same time complaining that I increased arty? WHAT. If you want to destroy emplacements from behind, then yeah, you should have arty doctrine, like RA or SE.

1) Play non-open field maps
2) Try stuff you haven't before
3) The limitation went together with price decrease of most howitzers, and increase of mobile price, remember that

One thing I understand that warhawks and others might not like is that you can't have whole 4vs4 map covered from one place, but again, if you build it in your base almost, you can't expect it, so now its more about where to put it, to be useful most of the time. You should fight by another means primarily, and thats what we wanted to achieve.

[Yummy]

Wolf, you get the whole idea wrong, taht's why you don't see the problem itself. You limited and nerfed ALL posible artillery BUT not the actual artillery doctrines, which inflict the heaviest fire. With all that nerfing now in every team someone is forced to play artillery doctrine just to counter the other artillery, but since there are VT and sniper priests artillery doctrines bocome really annoying not just to kill each other howitzers.
Stationared howitzers are already pretty bad against priest, SE artillery (more unaccurate) is somehow more realistic than priests, though both fire really fast. And yes, you are right, RA was has been picked many times before, but you can't just weaken all other arty but to leave artillery doctrines untouched. Either balance everything or don't touch at all...

[Wolf]

Wolf, you get the whole idea wrong, taht's why you don't see the problem itself. You limited and nerfed ALL posible artillery BUT not the actual artillery doctrines, which inflict the heaviest fire. With all that nerfing now in every team someone is forced to play artillery doctrine just to counter the other artillery, but since there are VT and sniper priests artillery doctrines bocome really annoying not just to kill each other howitzers.
Stationared howitzers are already pretty bad against priest, SE artillery (more unaccurate) is somehow more realistic than priests, though both fire really fast. And yes, you are right, RA was has been picked many times before, but you can't just weaken all other arty but to leave artillery doctrines untouched. Either balance everything or don't touch at all...

You can see others objecting mainly not being able to bombard shit out of bunkers, cw emplacements.
Arty doctrine should have best arty, so obviously, lesser impact. It is lacking in other things. However you don't think that shared cooldown VT is pretty huge change and thus not really untouched? There are probably some problems with recce VT, but thats obviously a bug.

[Yummy]

I don't care about bunkers, they are not so hard to be killed, warhawks exaggerates. The problem is (again) you nerfed all artillery but not the artillery doctrines, therefore you increased their power indirectly.
Tell me how exactly you harmed SE and RA with your limitations? And tell me how you can counter priest nowadays without scorched earth howitzers and a lot of luck (everyone knows what a priest is capable of when it gets vet, and it does get veterancy really fast with command tank)?

[Kasbah]

I agree that artillery nerfs are a pain. When I play big maps (4vs4) I cannot do anything with my 4 emplacements when the front moves on. So I have to manually destroy them, loose resources, waste time, spend more resources, leave my units without protection and build them again forward with vet 0 so they can reach the new front.
With nebels it's the same. A limit of 2 in an aerial doctrine like luft is OK. But in Terror it's nothing. It cannot take out most emplacements, nor kill tanks with that. I don't say anything new but I agree with what has already been said before. BTW, I am in favor of increasing the cost of VT to make games more fair, but NOT to limit arty like this.

[MarKr]

It cannot take out most emplacements, nor kill tanks with that.

As said already, emplacements can be burned out (incendiary mortar HT/ Firestorm ability) and tanks can be destroyed by other tanks (P IVs, Tigers/KTs).

It seems that people got so used to VT with 5+ Nebels that they forgot they have other options. No wonder since VT with Nebels was very strong and cost ridiculously low amount of munitions so it was more cost-effective option. Now it was nerfed but other options are still there.

I sometimes wonder what would people say if the arty situation (limits, costs...) was like this from the start and then suddenly someone would show up and said "Hey, let's remove limits from arty.". I think that the reactions would mostly be "OMG WTF?! Are you trolling?"

[Wolf]

I don't care about bunkers, they are not so hard to be killed, warhawks exaggerates. The problem is (again) you nerfed all artillery but not the artillery doctrines, therefore you increased their power indirectly.
Tell me how exactly you harmed SE and RA with your limitations? And tell me how you can counter priest nowadays without scorched earth howitzers and a lot of luck (everyone knows what a priest is capable of when it gets vet, and it does get veterancy really fast with command tank)?

SE with wespe price, which went up, CW with a bit higher cost of basic howitzer, and shared VT (which has big impact!), along with VT time increase the patch before...
Not sure what it has to do with how to counter Priest, you mean that with 5 nebels you could counter priest and with 2 you can't? Nope. You still have same means to destroy priests as you always had, you primarily need to get to it, or planes, or paratroops, or other arty(that means offmap too), its almost the same like what to do with Wespe/Grille, and it wasn't changed much on that, -1 and -1 maybe, but small nerfs of said units should balance that out... so that question seems irelevant.

[Warhawks97]

I agree that artillery nerfs are a pain. When I play big maps (4vs4) I cannot do anything with my 4 emplacements when the front moves on. So I have to manually destroy them, loose resources, waste time, spend more resources, leave my units without protection and build them again forward with vet 0 so they can reach the new front.
With nebels it's the same. A limit of 2 in an aerial doctrine like luft is OK. But in Terror it's nothing. It cannot take out most emplacements, nor kill tanks with that. I don't say anything new but I agree with what has already been said before. BTW, I am in favor of increasing the cost of VT to make games more fair, but NOT to limit arty like this.

Pretty much that. Wolf, have you ever played on some 4 vs 4 maps? as if i place my howitzer in my base...

a Howitzer in the center of a 4 vs 4 map reaches only a small area. On goodwood a howitzer in center (main battle area) has range to lower left axis base.

And all the tactical stuff with little mortar... how sweet is that. You really dont seem to realize how chaotic, how large the "kill zone" and how much attention each unit requires to keep them alive and mortars in late game are rare as they will be killed pretty much in that kill zone which they have to enter to reach enemie defensives. Damn yeah i use smoke and Hell YES i did use EVERY unit in game, tested and evaluated some tactics with completely different units in combination (sadly US docs dont provide much room for big strategy changes). As if i would build a 60 mm mortar in late game just to shoot smoke...

Kill zone determines an area where the fire is so heavy that nothing can and could survive. Here i use it to describe the area which is full with attack and fights and were the main part of the battle takes place. Usually to dominate this area and to hold it artillery is required. That means as US inf doc player having two base on a save area (NOT BASE which is further behind). Lets asume one side finally dominates this area after a long and intensive fights he then needs further artillery to fight the final defense. Esspecially axis can fight and defend the final area arround the base very very long with a strong defense. To fight these defense the inf doc player (if no priests are on the field) needs again strong arty and at this stage of the game some very powerfull units are fielded (such as elephant) which are covered by base defense and other defense stuff. Strong arty is then required and yeah me and my mates used to field as many howitzers as needed to break these final powerfull defense which still starts counter attacks time by time with powerfull elite in i order to gain controle ver the kill zone again. So the remaining available arty that can be placed in the former kill zone is not enough to finally break the defense. So he may destroys his own veted arty which helped to gain controle about the "kill zone" to place enough there to finally break the last heavy defensive line. Thing then is when losing the controle of that area due to a counter attack of final axis elites and losing the howitzers against the final axis arty such as a grille or wespe then there is no arty left to defend this kill zone where battle will rage again just because the player had to give up the veted howitzers which helped capture the important middle/kill zone and so the player is left behind with no arty figthing against the final axis elite units which can take the fight on any opponent masses.
So even if there would be 8 howitzer on a field NEVER more than two would shoot at the same time and max three, finally maybe 4 would be in range on enemie units but at different areas of the battlefield. The remaining 2 (max 3-4) would be simply left behind without any range to the new frontline but still there and available as veted arty which can be used again when frontlines moving back and the forward which were placed where the new frontline is. The frontlines can move over distances in 4 vs 4 games that expand range of a howitzer. So booth sides have arty which supports the fight of the strategic points and kill zones but then no more arty to crush the final defense each side has just because its forbid to plant new howitzers forward as long as the (now usless) old howitzers exist. I dont understand why you dont get this and why you dont understand the size and dynamics of such games. Do you think in size of small maps like voch 2 vs 2 maps where two howitzers are already kind of "OP" "Overkill"?

An RA was used but NEVER so often as now. Me and my mates seldomly used RA doc. Now we always do. Always means always.

And yes we do teamplay. Mostly it looks like: MG´s, rifles and Jumbo hold the line, 75 mm Autocar and Priests killing the 50 paks and HMGs and fixed scout cars on the map which cover each other... units (101st, rifles, ranger, jumbo) go capping and killing the rest which remains from "Priest party".

And you are seriously talking about AVRE... Cant remember how this unit looks like because i havent seen it in ages. *sarcasam off*

Calli.... in previous games it couldnt recrew a flak emplacment and 88´s got instantly remaned if they even lost a men.... but i guess that was a joke right?

finally if arty limit is removed i am also OK for increase VT cost to 100 if neccessary. There can actually be dozens of arty pieces shooting at one point so 100-150 is ok then as the effect on that small area is huge. Total remove/rework would be ok as well then.

[MarKr]

When you gyus here debate about arty, VT removal etc. how about this:

Each static arta piece would get another barrage ability which would have:
- greately increased range (about double of the basic)
- much longer cooldown
- only about half the number of shells in a barrage
- slightly cheaper (-5 or -10 munition)
But the VT would get removed as well as static arta limit.

Since this just came to my mind the factors of new ability are only for you to get the picture.

You could build as many of them as needed or as you could afford, you could use the new barrage ability to reach at defenses behind the normal range but this ability would be less cost effective and thanks to longer cooldown also not spamable. Arty would be able to control larger area and for further push, if the arty doesn't reach somewhere, you would have to use movable arty which would advance behind the main attack force.

As I said, it just came up in my mind so maybe it's a colosal nonses...but still an idea

[Warhawks97]

When you gyus here debate about arty, VT removal etc. how about this:

Each static arta piece would get another barrage ability which would have:
- greately increased range (about double of the basic)
- much longer cooldown
- only about half the number of shells in a barrage
- slightly cheaper (-5 or -10 munition)
But the VT would get removed as well as static arta limit.

Since this just came to my mind the factors of new ability are only for you to get the picture.

You could build as many of them as needed or as you could afford, you could use the new barrage ability to reach at defenses behind the normal range but this ability would be less cost effective and thanks to longer cooldown also not spamable. Arty would be able to control larger area and for further push, if the arty doesn't reach somewhere, you would have to use movable arty which would advance behind the main attack force.

As I said, it just came up in my mind so maybe it's a colosal nonses...but still an idea

The ability with increased range is on axis side currently for 25 ammo more per salvo. Its a special round and probably based on some historical stuff. Idk if it would make sense to give such an ability simply to all.

What about:
-removal of arty limits that got added. This in order to follow the frontline since they are stationary and also to use the advantage of cheaper build cost compared to movable. This cheaper cost make sense if it is allowed to outnumber the movables which doesnt work due to limit.
- To avoid "overuse" increase current barrage cost from 50-60. I rather per more per salvo and have the ability to pulverize heavy enemie defense when i spare MP and ammo than having cheap cost for a barrage but unable to pulverize heavy defense due to limits and all i can do is to scrape the defense with occassionally salvos. VT could go up to 150 ammo (or more).
- Also rework HE rounds of Tanks. Upgrade and single shot cost as much as a arty barrage and sometimes even more.. upgrade and HE activation 75-100 and in bad case destroyed without doing anything. Remove HE round upgrade or remove cost for activation or reduce cost of booth. As long as an arty piece and barrage cost less than a tank with HE rounds and HE round activation its a bit obvious which unit to use mostly. And maybe add also that tanks and paks will be revealed when turning arround. HMG´s btw get revealed as well when turning arround without changing position.

[MarKr]

What you propose is what you talked about many times over. Since you guys argue about what to do with arty, I was trying to provide possible new solution but I didn't realize that WH def already has it...

Why not to give it to everyone? Historical reasons? If it helps with gameplay, historical accuracy is secondary... Or because it already is in Def doc? In vCoH VT was also only in CW arty doc and now everyone with arty has it...

[Yummy]

Markr, made very nice suggestions, maybe the only one from BK teams who realize the broken balance in this mod. If you allow me i would like to commend your suggestion carefully:
- greately increased range (about double of the basic) - this might be good, but then people might start to build howitzers in their base, which will make them unkillable by flanking with infantry or vehicles and might provokate base bombing and we don't want that. I think the current range is OK, but limitation does not allow to deploy enough howitzers when the fronline moves on.
- much longer cooldown - I agree, it is totally needed. At the moment you can shoot almost constantly with your howitzers.
- only about half the number of shells in a barrage - a half, idk, but we can surely see some reduction and reduction of rate of fire. As I said the big caliber artillery was able to shoot 2-3 shells per minuta of constant fire or a little more for rapid fire but then it has to cool pretty much time.
- slightly cheaper (-5 or -10 munition) - it can be cheaper than movable artilery, ya, since they are so much more accurate at least priest than static howitzers.
But the VT would get removed as well as static arta limit. - yes, that's what I want.
Furthermore, the ability of german artillery increase the range with very little... and costs 25 more ammo. It is not worthy.
Oliver, you want to make all artillery more expensive but still overpowered and unrealistic. Why is that? You can't play without artillery snipers?
A rework in artillery is absolutely needed!

Wolf, are you kidding? 50 man power in 4v4 and 3v3 maps is nothing. If you wan't to sligtly balance movable/static limitation artillery you should double the price of the movable artillery 1000 man power and 100 fuel and 1500 man power, but that would be insane. And do you know that as soon as allies see a heavy tank and there is RA spotter it dies in the next 10-20 secs?