Fixing the 7-8 minute cromwell rushes

[MenciusMoldbug]

This has been a rather old problem, but as things have been ironed out and cromwell no longer bounces continuously vs the rear of a panther I think this is worth addressing now.

So we have cromwells, 390 MP 40 Fuel tanks, an average gun, very cheap perma-HE switch (15 munitions), and flank speed to retreat from any enemy tanks grasp or close the distance insanely fast. All around a great tank, sometimes feels even better than a Sherman.

The problem however, is you can get this a lot faster in building it and to the front than you can get a sherman in the same manner. Sometimes, not even having the best reaction times and foresight (knowing it is coming) can save you.

This has to do with the cromwell not requiring any unlock whatsoever other than having an armor truck setup, and all you need to setup an armor truck is to get a support truck into the battlefield and just set it up. You only have to setup the support truck once, so once you get it; and you have the fuel to get an armor truck. Setup the the support truck right where it came from, pack it, then move it where you want while you build the armor truck. Get the armor truck to where you want it (and by this time you will probably have 40 fuel), get cromwells, notice it's only the 7th or 8th minute into the game. Flank speed it to the front, kill a single Pak 50 that can maybe get off oneshot against it (and even then cromwell can survive that), kill that pak; end the game.

A sherman is more fair partly because it comes slower to the front than a cromwell. Mainly because it requires the motorpool upgrade that delays it by 1-2 minutes more. Imagine what it would be like if the tank depot didn't require this motorpool upgrade and you could get a sherman without it; That's the situation with the cromwell right now.

The cromwell itself is already a very good tank, so delaying it by a minute or two won't change much other than stop a quick of rush of them from ending the game very quickly. Consider how every combat vehicle in the support truck; including the RE stuart, the staghound, the 57mm halftrack, and the 75mm autocar are locked behind the Captain. With even the 17 pounder and 17 pounder emplacement being locked behind the Captain. I think the cromwell rush in itself was a game design mistake forgotten about because back then it was perceived to be of no threat to immediately shooting AT guns and shrecks. But now it is a very different story as it can easily bypass these units and kill them no problem before any vehicle that can take on a cromwell (aka Stug) comes out.

So to give people a reason to get these other vehicles locked behind captain than just getting a cromwell to deal with any light vehicle, PAKs, infantry, even early tanks, etc. I propose cromwell to be locked behind Captain. But to go really indepth with the teching changes for the British I would have it this way:

- Cromwell is locked behind Captain

- Command tank is buildable without Captain

- Firefly, Achilles, etc. Vehicles that were only locked behind the Command tank require both the Command tank and the Captain

So you can still rush an armor truck, but this time you can only get a command tank or the AA crusader in it without the Captain. Ultimately, the timing of later units like a Firefly or Churchill don't change much with allowing people to get a command tank faster. But it helps people who are forgetful of getting their Captain when they want to rush a Churchill for example (so this is more of a quality of life change).

In any case Cromwell rushing is broken and considering how Captain teching works in the support truck; it was not intended to be designed this way. It only requires 1 British player to pull it off to essentially ruin an otherwise pull and tug war going on in the early-mid game (imagine 3 or even 4 of them doing it at once). So this should be a priority issue to take care of in the next patch.

[Henny]

Support, cromwell cost's 390 Mp, 40 fuel, 15 ammo for HE munition, and is faster than a Bugatti
Sherman is 400 MP, 40 fuel and costs 90 ammo for HE and 30 munition for HMG, and is slower than the old lady crossing the street
Nerf the hetzer and take away it's flank speed

what's wrong with this picture

[TerrorsEnd]

Cromwell is broken!!! Everything from how fast you get it, to it's high explosive 15 muni cost, to it's flank speed, just broken. it made my friend panzer lehr quit. plz fix

[MenciusMoldbug]

Thinking about it more now, I don't really think the Captain should lock most of the vehicles in the support truck behind him. Vehicles like the 57mm halftrack than come too late to be of any good use when you can get better stuff, and it makes british teching too linear and stale; Very boringly predictable for both player and enemy.

If I redid british teching in the support truck it would be as followed:

- RE 57mm halftrack should not be locked behind Captain.

- Staghound should not be locked behind the Captain; it no longer has stuart armor so it's basically a greyhound by another name (maybe just lock its 50cal upgrade behind Captain if RA shouldn't get any good vehicle out of the support truck without teching).

- Daimler does not need to be locked behind Captain; but the johnny adapter gun upgrade can require the Captain.

- Tetrach 76mm/Tetrach, Stuart, 75mm Autocar can stay locked behind Captain. Former two because they are equivalent to US Stuarts. Autocar because it's really early artillery.

It would make the british mid-game more interesting rather than just getting PIATs ASAP because everything else in the support truck is locked behind the Captain.

[Warhawks97]

+1 Meniucs.


The stuart needs perhaps some slight revision bvi consider it as far less deadly than staghound/Greyhound or daimler while it would be later available than those.

[mofetagalactica]

Meh.... i don't support this they're fine this way, sherman come at the same time that cromwells depending on how the game goes. And rushing cromwells its a really risky move since the enemy can just spam those super magical armored pz4's and destroy all of yours cromwells easily, if you fail at your initial rush you're pretty much dead with cw. But yeah wathever just make CW even more linear and boring. Im up to the idea of the captain not locking some of the light vehicles.

[Viper]

yes. nice to see someone finally created topic about this.

cromwell really need to require captain. and other light vehicles should be available right away. so i support.

[MenciusMoldbug]

Thoughts on the reward sherman for british:

Perhaps this unit can be removed from the reward tree, and made a standard unit for all british docs that does not require the Captain. It's kind of hard to choose between this unit or the cromwell especially when you are RE. Because this sherman is the most effective in RE with its tulip launchers (these tulips should be locked behind Captain seriously they are super strong) while in other situations it is meh.

So you can rush an armored command truck to rush this sherman, or wait a bit longer to get the cromwell. This would require having a UI slot switch since the armor truck vehicle slots are full (so it will be in the second tab). But if more vehicles will be added to the british in the armor truck then it is good to lay the ground works early for it.

[Warhawks97]

Thoughts on the reward sherman for british:

Perhaps this unit can be removed from the reward tree, and made a standard unit for all british docs that does not require the Captain. It's kind of hard to choose between this unit or the cromwell especially when you are RE. Because this sherman is the most effective in RE with its tulip launchers (these tulips should be locked behind Captain seriously they are super strong) while in other situations it is meh.

So you can rush an armored command truck to rush this sherman, or wait a bit longer to get the cromwell. This would require having a UI slot switch since the armor truck vehicle slots are full (so it will be in the second tab). But if more vehicles will be added to the british in the armor truck then it is good to lay the ground works early for it.

+1 again. I am up for it.

[MarKr]

Perhaps this unit can be removed from the reward tree, and made a standard unit for all british docs that does not require the Captain. It's kind of hard to choose between this unit or the cromwell especially when you are RE. Because this sherman is the most effective in RE with its tulip launchers (these tulips should be locked behind Captain seriously they are super strong) while in other situations it is meh.

Isn't the "hard choice" the whole point of reward units? I mean, ideally all reward options should be a hard choice. I know it is currently not the case but hopefully we'll make the currently underused units a bit more interesting in the future so the choice there is not so one-sided.

[Warhawks97]

"Hard choice"?

No RE= No sherman. At least thats what i see. And even in RE most take cromwell as far as i can say. There are a few that put huge love in tulips but if its not clear what doc you go before starting the game, people go cromwell.

[mofetagalactica]

Thoughts on the reward sherman for british:

Perhaps this unit can be removed from the reward tree, and made a standard unit for all british docs that does not require the Captain. It's kind of hard to choose between this unit or the cromwell especially when you are RE. Because this sherman is the most effective in RE with its tulip launchers (these tulips should be locked behind Captain seriously they are super strong) while in other situations it is meh.

So you can rush an armored command truck to rush this sherman, or wait a bit longer to get the cromwell. This would require having a UI slot switch since the armor truck vehicle slots are full (so it will be in the second tab). But if more vehicles will be added to the british in the armor truck then it is good to lay the ground works early for it.

yes i aprove this +1

[mofetagalactica]

"Hard choice"?

No RE= No sherman. At least thats what i see. And even in RE most take cromwell as far as i can say. There are a few that put huge love in tulips but if its not clear what doc you go before starting the game, people go cromwell.

Unless we make this upgrade non doctrinal, it would have more scense between having to chose sherman or cromwell. But its true atm is pretty much no re = no sherman and i still preffer cromwell most of the time since you don't really need tullips in RE, you have those howitzer churchills that pretty much does the work.

[MenciusMoldbug]

Yeah I should rephrase myself as what I meant was it's a hard choice for RE but for the other doctrines it is an obvious choice what to go for.

Cromwell is 1000x better than the british sherman mainly because it is faster and has flank speed so it can actually get rear shots off on axis tanks, be fast enough to get behind paks, and even escape quickly out of weapon range of AT teams. The Brit Sherman lacks these qualities in the place of having stronger armor but at the end of the day that means nothing against any axis tank that has 75mm cannons on it (stug, p4, jp4, etc.). All they have to do is point the gun and armor at the sherman and sherman will very likely lose that fight. Cromwell is also better in the late stage because it has extremely cheap permanent HE while Brit sherman can waste around 100+ munitions using the single shot HE ability.

It really seems like a tank that you are supposed to rush as early as possible (because only in the early stages is it useful outside of RE doc). Hence my suggestion it should become a core unit to replace cromwell as a rush tank so as mofeta says british aren't so stale and linear that you only have a few choices to go for as the game progresses. Without tulips there's absolutely no reason to take this sherman over the cromwell at all.