Should the 95mm Cromwell stay in RAF doctrine?

[MarKr]

Hi, the arty Cromwell was added to RAF some patches ago mainly because people would not shut up about how it is absolutely needed in the doctrine but since then I noticed people (even some of those who were originally for the Cromwell in RAF) say that it is actually not really needed in the doctrine.

Given the changes that took place lately, do you think the 95mm Cromwell should stay in RAF or would you be OK with it if it was removed?

(btw: if it stays then it stays the way it is now, so no tech tree rework to make room for unlock or whatever)

[JimQwilleran]

Imo it should stay. Every other doc has at least a single indirect firing unit. Luft has nebels and 88 barrage, AB has rocket jeep and 75mm howizer. If you take away cromwell there will be only mortars left. If it comes to situation u have to kill a 88 emplacement (that outranges every other RAF weapon), how u gonna do that?

Actually who besides Toni says that cromwell is not needed xD?

[MarKr]

If it comes to situation u have to kill a 88 emplacement (that outranges every other RAF weapon), how u gonna do that?

The new Marine Commandos can crawl all the way to it and nade it/democharges...more risky but possible. Not to mention that one barrage from Cromwell might decrew the 88 but will most likely not destroy it. If it gets decrewed, then opponent will most likely recrew it immediately anyway. Smoke shells shot on the 88 from mortar make it unable to hit even tanks.

Actually who besides Toni says that cromwell is not needed xD?

Toni said it lately before him kwok, I think that in some topic even Sukin said it (not sure though)...

[JimQwilleran]

The new Marine Commandos can crawl all the way to it and nade it/democharges...more risky but possible. Not to mention that one barrage from Cromwell might decrew the 88 but will most likely not destroy it. If it gets decrewed, then opponent will most likely recrew it immediately anyway. Smoke shells shot on the 88 from mortar make it unable to hit even tanks.

We have no experience with marines yet, do we ?
Also that's true that 1 salvo wont kill an emplacement, but it would kill a naked flak already. Also after one salvo there comes another one, isn't that obvious? Unless enemy uses 10 repair squads in the meanwhile, you can pretty reliably kill emplacement with 2-3 salvos. Just like nebel would do with allied emplacement too.

And this isn't just about killing 88 emplacement. It's also about killing all sorts other units that sometimes are too far for mortar fire and too well defended for frontal rush. I am just pro-choice. The more ways to play the better.

[sgtToni95]

Well... we recently found out that smoke works only for tanks, while HE shots have no problem hitting inf through smoke, and this is one thing that does not convince me to just let the cromwell be removed completely.

One other aspect is that even with cromwell arty, 88's don't usually lose their crew: as you can see in the replay i posted some days ago on red ball, 88's lose their crews to flame bombs, but 95mm salvo just takes half (?) its HPs and opponent just repairs it. And I think flame bombing was so effective inly due to the map, and i strongly believe all that AA would have worked a lot better on any other map.

You guys are right when quoting me, and firstly Kwok, saying 95mm cromwell is too much for RAF doctrine, tho what i said has to be considered in that context: I'm kind of against it as something that makes a doctrine all-capable. So to say i'd be fine with cromwell being removed if other doctrines were reworked not to be all-capable.

Otherwise RAF would be the only doctrine to lack some indirect fire unit: what if opponent has some infantry/an mg next to the 88? (It's exactly the case of that Red Ball replay i mentioned)

Little example: BK doc has many units able to crawl, demo squad specialized to crawl and take down emplacements, not to mention stoss with all those nice nades abilities which are super effective against buildings. Now consider they don't have to face 88's or bunkers, but normal emplacements which they can probably decrew, and which (if there still is any need) can be blinded by smoke with only mortar pit exception which you can evade just by moving.
Take all theese things, and people came up some time ago (when ST was being introduced) saying BK doc lacked arty and maultier was not enough to deal with emplacements. (Oh and i forgot StuH)

Why did nobody ask for maultier to be removed from bk doc? Same reasoning can be done for luft nebel or panther "considering the recent changes".
Terror doc has strong arty, but it lacks reliable AA, and that's why it's not completely all capable, and same for good AT and anti inf in SE doc, but poor AA (not sure if i'm missing something).

I would actually really like it if even some allied docs lacked some arty/AA or anything expendable so to make them not all capable but still balanced and completely effective only when cooperating with different docs.

So i think you should definetly remove 95mm cromwell from RAF, but only in the same patch you'll decide to make little tunings to all/more other doctrines.
I hope you get what I mean because i consider such a change would make the game a lot better.

Now, told you what my favourite solution would be, and considered that such a big change would EVENTUALLY take a while to be planned and implemented without breaking balance, why reworking the tech tree is out of question?
I already said that, and i'm sorry if i sound insisting, but i think making infantry upgrades branch a little shorter by removing 2 CPs to dedicate them to the 95mm cromwell would be a nice compromise.
RAF infantry requires 13 CP with only 4 of them applying direct buffs to inf stats, while the others are mainly improving their equipment and abilities, making commandos very very good, but by far the longest elite inf to fully upgrade.

P.S: i bet Kwok will probably agree with me, but he'll add something about cromwell being fine where it is if only games were fought on 64v64 size maps with a maximum of 3 players per side.

Edit: nami reminded me bk doc even has mortar squads and mortar halftracks to deal with emplacements, while 2 inches range and mortar pits poor mobility makes it hard, very hard, to use them against emplacements.

[Krieger Blitzer]

I can see no reason to remove the 95mm Cromwell or even add command points to it, but I must say that it's kinda weird to see that the 95mm Cromwell does pretty decent damage against all kind of targets, as it even one-shots most Axis half-tracks.. when at the same time 150 Nebels apparently can't harm anything at all. I consider the 150mm Nebels to be utterly useless... They are more less used only to "suppress" incoming inf blobs so that they would retreat. Other than that, 150mm Nebels are completely useless against all type of emplacements. They literally deal absolutely no damage whatsoever! They are just fireworks, more or less. And guess what? The 150mm Nebel barrage costs 50 ammo, while the RA doc 75mm HT barrage costs only 25 ammo; but deals way much more damage. And 95mm Cromwell barrage costs 35 ammo only! Deals a lot higher damage than 150mm Nebels as well. You know what?
Even 81mm mortars deal more damage than 150mm Nebels so far...

[MarKr]

Well... we recently found out that smoke works only for tanks, while HE shots have no problem hitting inf through smoke, and this is one thing that does not convince me to just let the cromwell be removed completely.

This is because "AP" shots need to hit directly while "HE" has splash damage. When the gun is in smoke (or target in smoke) the gun calculates hit chance - with smoke it usually misses. After it calculates the miss, the game looks at "scatter" value (which is a radius around the target with set diameter) and randlomly places the "missed" shot somewhere into the "scatter area" since AP has no splash then the missed shot would need to land on some unit to cause damage (chance is low). While with the HE shots there is better chance that the "missed" shot lands somewhere behind the infantry but the soldiers still get caught in the splash area.
This doesn't change anything about the effectivity as you described it, just explaining why it happens like that.

Edit: nami reminded me bk doc even has mortar squads and mortar halftracks to deal with emplacements, while 2 inches range and mortar pits poor mobility makes it hard, very hard, to use them against emplacements.

Not trying to picky, but Commandos have mortar team too with same range as mortar pits but mobility of normal mortar team...why isn't that an option?

EDIT: I'm still interested in oppinions of other people but so far it seems Cromwel stays

[kwok]

Well, you know where I stand. The issue for me isn't the cromwell balance itself (because I don't think it's a real balance issue) but the fundamental design decision of doctrines.

[speeddemon02]

My vote is keep. RAF does not have much that could be considered long range indirect fire. The 76mm mortar is nice, but not the most effective against emplacements or armored vehicles. They do have planes yes, but they are costly and have long cool downs compared to the 95mm which fills in that role nicely. I would be open to replacing it with another indirect fire unit so that both the RAF and RA do not have the same unit, like the US 105 sherman/rocket jeep/calliope

[sgtToni95]

You actually answered to those i considred the least important of my points there hahah nvm

You're right, i forgot about commando mortar, tho that's still not so effective against flaks and bunkers due to its range and damage. I prefer it as a defensive weapon, as the 2 inch, thanks to their camo ability.

[Sukin-kot (SVT)]

Cromwell should stay, it prevents axis players from going into mindless defence (mg and paks spam) when facing raf doc, thus making overall gameplay less passive.

[drivebyhobo]

The new Marine Commandos can crawl all the way to it

Hope they like being instagibbed by a PE mortartrack.

[MarKr]

You actually answered to those i considred the least important of my points there hahah nvm

Yes, because reaction to your other points would take a wall of text from my side
Just in short - I understand your vision of less arty in doctrines and personally I like it too. But then you have players like Sukin who simply want arty in every doc and unfortunately the majority of players are like that. It is not impossible to do but quite frankly I am getting sick of listening how "fucked up" the game is when you cannot destroy one unit with arty and instead you need to use some direct units and take some risks.

RAF tech tree rework - don't want to change it because I still think that maybe in the future the Cromwell might actually be removed from the doc and so reworking the tech tree just to putting it there and later reversing the changes again would be a bit of waste of time.

Hope they like being instagibbed by a PE mortartrack.

This is again very situational, map dependent, player dependent...or are you really telling me that EVERY time you build an 88 you automatically place a mortar HT somewhere around to protect it from possible crawl attacks?

[autraymond]

I'm also for keeping it in RAF doc.

[Kr0noZ]

I say it should be dropped.

Imo it should stay. Every other doc has at least a single indirect firing unit.

Valid argument, but it actually points out another major flaw:

The issue for me isn't the cromwell balance itself (because I don't think it's a real balance issue) but the fundamental design decision of doctrines.

Exactly!

My vote is keep. RAF does not have much that could be considered long range indirect fire. The 76mm mortar is nice, but not the most effective against emplacements or armored vehicles. They do have planes yes, but they are costly and have long cool downs compared to the 95mm which fills in that role nicely.

This argument was used in tha past to sneak "off-topic-units" into most doctrines we have, leading to the current dilemma of all doctrines having somthing of everything instead of a real focus and a specific weakness. Trying to balance around that has made the effect worde over time.

Cromwell should stay, it prevents axis players from going into mindless defence (mg and paks spam) when facing raf doc, thus making overall gameplay less passive.

Unless you play vs. Def-Doc that shouldn't be the axis player's choice in the 1st place, but given that all doctrines have arty, it's actually a valid strategy by now to camp around with most doctrines... and works best with the (in a 1vs1-situation) usually slightly more powerful axis units, so.... meh.

But then you have players like Sukin who simply want arty in every doc and unfortunately the majority of players are like that. It is not impossible to do but quite frankly I am getting sick of listening how "fucked up" the game is when you cannot destroy one unit with arty and instead you need to use some direct units and take some risks.

And that's exactly the issue; as developers, sometimes the players wishes should be discarded for the sake of making a better product, but Xali couldn't stay true to that and neither has anyone since he left. Doctrines should get look at in general...

[kwok]

Agreed with Kr0zon on this last point. But I've explained it before probably more times than Markr wants to talk about it. But.... just to catch up others who may not have heard my rant... (I'll keep it short).

Balance problems will always exist in BK not because of minor value tweaks that push units one way over the other, but because doctrines are fundamentally designed different causing a mismatch in game experience between Axis/Allies players. It use to be Axis are more well rounded, Allied are more specialized. That difference was enough to drive players to always come to the forum with complaints on balance. Over time with changes applied, things got even more segmented within factions themselves which cause players to want to play only certain docs over others.
Example other than RAF: Luft is probably the most played faction for PE and was the most played faction in PE because it had elite inf, an elite tank (panther), artillery (nebel), and off-map air support only falling short of cheap inf (but by design PE doesn't have cheap inf). Meanwhile, tankhunter is probably least played even after the RE buff because it TH specialized making it more risky to play compared to luft. Same reason why Terror was and still is so popular. Same reason why Inf doc is so overplayed compared to others.

As long as inconsistent design exists, balance problems will exist.

[Redgaarden]

I was kinda against the change in the first palce to add the cromwell 95mm (Did not voice it though) And still feel this way. I literally picked RAF once because I needed good artillery. And as it stands now, RAF gets MUCH better starting arty than Artillery doctrine. I would rahter remove it since I dont see why defensive doctrine should be countered by RAF when RAF already is good counter to Terror Doctrine it kinda breaks the Allied way of being a speciliced doctrine and is leaning to become one of the all purpose doctrines like the axis ones.

I find it annoying that everything Artillery doctrine can do RAF can do faster. And the reason 95mm was added was not becuase of balance but because people complained.

But I guess I'm getting quite heavily outnumbered here and am thankfull just expressing my opinion.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Oh, btw.. this 95mm Cromwell actually has flank speed ability, or am I wrong? I think an arty unit shouldn't have such ability!

[Warhawks97]

About this faction design stuff. Its being discussed over years. At the end there was the saying that allied are specialised, axis multi role (which i always disagreed to) since it makes doctrines literally useless. We could axis just as well sepperate into WH and PE and forget about docs entirely.


Now since kronoz seems to be back i have just one question. Was TH doc from PE more something like a "beginning" of changing axis docs? I mean i still have that propaganda doc in mind that was supposed to replace Terror (it had good inf, cheap masses but also elites) and Stupa but in return bad tanks with just Tank III. I am just wondering what (if at all) was xali thinking about that? For me it looked more like that the PE doc was the only completed doc before the dev team broke appart and game development halted in the 4.7 beta version.



Coz that whole discussion is less about "should 95 cromwell stay in RAF" but rather how docs are supposed to work (in concjunction with others).

Gameplay wise cromwell should go. I mean: "Quick we need arty!" "Alright i go RAF." doesnt it sound stupid in itself?

Balance wise its true that it should stay. Why should RAF be the only guy forced to bother arround with campy shit while all others have happy arty hour? And more or less absolutely unable to effectively attack 88´s in many scenarios?

@Markr: About that 88 smoke thing..... its not about scatter.... 88 simply doesnt get affected by smoke when using HE rounds. Maybe RAF would have far less trouble.... sure scatter would still cause damage, but not insta whipe as if there is no smoke at all.

[Kr0noZ]

About this faction design stuff. Its being discussed over years. At the end there was the saying that allied are specialised, axis multi role (which i always disagreed to) since it makes doctrines literally useless. We could axis just as well sepperate into WH and PE and forget about docs entirely.

well, that never was quite finished tbh, so it's kinda half-assed; some doctrines worked really well, other weren't overhaules as much but got tons of small changes. Then 30 units got added in over the course of 3 years and the whole thing turned messy.

Was TH doc from PE more something like a "beginning" of changing axis docs?

It was supposed to be a specialized doctrine, but wasn't completely finished either. The others weren't touched up as much though, hence they ended up more versatile.

I mean i still have that propaganda doc in mind that was supposed to replace Terror (it had good inf, cheap masses but also elites) and Stupa but in return bad tanks with just Tank III. I am just wondering what (if at all) was xali thinking about that?

Never happened, the lead designer behind that (Ruhrpottpatriot) didn't hand the draft over to Xali before he left, and the other 2 guys involved with it felt the same way and left as well. I still have the draft, but no permission to distribute it (despite being personally friends with Ruhrpottpatriot - I talk to him at least 5 times a week). If that ever changes, I'll happily hand that file to Wolf and Markr ^^

Gameplay wise cromwell should go. I mean: "Quick we need arty!" "Alright i go RAF." doesnt it sound stupid in itself?

Agreed!

Balance wise its true that it should stay. Why should RAF be the only guy forced to bother arround with campy shit while all others have happy arty hour? And more or less absolutely unable to effectively attack 88´s in many scenarios?

The dev team feels that's not the best thing right now; It's being look into and some solution might be presented if one can be agreed upon.

[idliketoplaybetter]

Well, i vote for 95mm Cromwell to go.

First of all, i dont think it will ruin balance for doctrine "THAT MUCH", cause from my experience, most of games RAF players get arty, its not even needed.Like fact that Cromwell is that easy to get, simply makes it too sweety not to get one for game u might not find proper target for.

I know its not optional, least yet, but i think Toni was right, with his suggestion of making it Doctrinal/CP price, with maybe choice for a player between stupid bombing runs and arty itself, instead of both being available for player this early.Cause again, most of RAF players are nor better than those, "stall campy noobs" of axis.And that is RAF doc, meant to be agressive and attacker one lol.

Second thing, even if, what Warhawks called "balance wise" it will leave RAF dude with nothing against stall/defensive players, this might force people to change their styles and maybe, just maybe, changing opposite side with reworking those docs somehow too, cause "arty problem", when u can get but dont need it, applies not only for RAF, in my eyes.


Cheers

[Warhawks97]

Thx a lot for that detailed information Kronoz.
And greetings to Ruhrpottpatriot. he did a good job in the forum. I remember him quite well.