[1.16] IMBA or did he just drop the ball? (147kb replay)

[Starfisher]

So I just played a game against an Airborne player, who frankly was owning me for the early part of the game. As the game went on, I started to get some good infantry out and cut off his supply, then teched straight to flakpanzer, got them out, and basically won. He complained that Allied Tanks were worthless and that he had too much worhtless fuel, that I got free vets (despite me not actually getting veteran troops), and that there was no way I could possibly afford two flaks and a panther over the course of the game.

This is the suble kind of imbalance that you can't just say is the result of a single unit. I'm thinking he simply didn't play as well as he should have - no sticky bombs, for instance, way too much defense bunkering on the points instead of pushing, no tanks - but hey. Here's the replay. At the time what he said seemed ridiculous, but maybe I'm just biased because I won what seemed to be a hard fought game.

[adisca]

M10 Tank Destroyers eat Flakpanzers alive. What he probably doesn't realize is while you were cutting off his supply he was receiving less resources while you were receiving more.

[ÜberJumper]

Allied troops HAVE to be agressive in this game to win.

[FatalTheRabbit]

As an airborne player I'd say it's true. Once german armor is on the scene things just go haywire even after kicking his ass in the infantry phase. I once had a player come back from 80 VP with my 500 and win because he got a panzer command.

Allied armor IS worthless and fuel always builds up as allies. After struggling with allies for so long switching to axis has made the game a breeze. It amazes me how people can argue that allied armor is good when even the stug gives supported shermans a run for their money. When something like the flak panzer comes out you're in extreme trouble because you rely so heavily on sticky bombs.

The sherman is massively overexpensive considering it's durability, and the M10 can't shoot for shit. Even allied light vehicles are overshadowed by the germans. The allied armored car has medium AT capability but it misses half the time, and takes an eternity to reload.

To me Allied armor is one of the things that once the game is released people in retrospect are going to wonder, in great aggrivation, how in the hell it managed to remain as such through the beta.

Too many people I think are playing team games and it's skewing their perception of how capable a single allied force is at managing the germans. It doesn't help that people seem to have the attitude that the imbalance is a myth and there is only player disparity. I'm sure in the DoW beta everybody thought things were peachy too, and look how that turned out.
:blah:

[ÜberJumper]

The thing is, this mirrors world war 2 fatal. If the allies had let the germans (or if the germans hadn't botched the eastern offensive) get resources, such as fuel, and let the germans keep producing their superior armour, they would have won the war.

Instead, faced with manpower and fuel shortages, the germans were forced onto the defensive. And as we all know, you can't win wars by being defensive.

It's ALWAYS the players that KEEP the germans from teching up to flak panzers that win. On 1v1 maps, as soon as the allied player has AT guns guarding the exits to the german bases, the german player won't be able to get his armour into play.

Airborne infantry is LIGHT infantry, and as such, is not designed to stand up to armour.

[Starfisher]

I just rewatched the game, and nevermind my first post. He lost because he played terribly. The only buildings he built were the barracks and weapons support center, and what seemed to me during the game to be bold use of Airborne was actually stupid.

You cannot win the game if you turtle and build a total of three airborne squads the entire time. I just never realized how fast they moved on "Fire Up", so it always seemed like a lot more.

I haven't lost a game in a while as Infantry, Fatal. Good ol' RO doesn't seem to be recording my games anymore, but yes, you can win as infantry. You do have to win early, though, and be ready to deal with the inevitable tanks.

[FatalTheRabbit]

Offensive? Offensive is the WHOLE problem! If you have to deny the germans use of a technology in order to defeat them that's not balanced.

[Epilon]

Acutally, with some AT guns, you should be doing a pretty decent job on the offensive, if you dont decide to build tanks. Airborn have stachels, that can blow up almost anything decent if you have around 3 of em. It is though somewhat ture that most decent defenses are fully capable of stopping any infintry attacks by themselves, and I think that is what Fatal's complaint is.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Nerf flaks!

[DatonKallandor]

If a Stug manages to kill a support Sherman somethings wrong with your playstyle/micro. Against a Stug the allied player chooses when to engage and the lack of a turret means quick death for the Stug the moment it's unsupported..


Daton

[FatalTheRabbit]

I dont think so at all. A stug supported by some storm troopers/volks or even an armored car can easily overcome a sherman supported by riflemen, and I'd be glad to show you. I don't see how you can say that a sherman takes the ability to force an engagement from the axis.

[DoltIncognito]

The only unit I consider imbalanced in this game is the Flakpanzer, and possibly the cost of the tiger is a bit low.

But I can and do win alot of games primarily playing Infantry. And by infantry, I don't mean Airborne. I've played airborne a few times and I consider it pretty worthless. Paratroopers are expensive and useless, useful for early game pushing and that's it. They have no useful endgame abilities, really, and air strikes miss far too often to be useful.

Infantry, on the other hand, is highly useful late game and early game. Rangers are effective vs everything but a flakpanzer, offmap artillery is pretty damn useful, and howitzers are the #1 best thing to prevent an Axis armor buildup.

Take the early game advantage, cut off their fuel supply, kill their infantry, then shell the shit out of their base with a howitzer. They won't be able to buildip critical armor mass. If you take out their HQ, they can't even call tigers.

And allied tanks are *not* useless. Shermans and m10s make short work of Flakpanzers - the only units that can reliably do that. What most people discount is the mobility of tanks. AT guns are nice, but they are vulnerable to all manner of things that don't bother tanks. And they have no speed or mobility. If a flakpanzer manages to get behind an AT gun, it's screwed. If a tiger gets angry at an at gun, it's screwed. Tanks can outrun and outmaneuver alot of things.

1v1 Axis armor might destroy allied armor. But if you're a good allied player, you should have the numerical advantage. You should have a supply advantage, and be able to build more. A Sherman might have a problem with a stug... but a sherman with an upgraded gun and a squad of rangers will make short work of a stug.

If after the initial tug-of-war for the middle and supplies ends up fairly even, the allied player has lost.

Flakpanzers might be a wee bit imba, but they are by no means unbeatable. Allied tanks are weak, but not useless. The allied advantage lies in the early game. If you don't make it your advantage, you will lose.

[Epilon]

If you have to deny the germans use of a technology in order to defeat them that's not balanced.
This isnt DoW Fatal...part of this game is denying your oponent the resources they need to get a good build up or to tech up to bigger tanks. I think Incognito says it best:

1v1 Axis armor might destroy allied armor. But if you're a good allied player, you should have the numerical advantage. You should have a supply advantage, and be able to build more. A Sherman might have a problem with a stug... but a sherman with an upgraded gun and a squad of rangers will make short work of a stug.
Allied tanks often will outnumber the german tanks...and if used properly can flank and kill off anything--even tigers if managed properly.
I havnt yet faced a stug so far, so I wont argue about IMBA when pertaining to it.

[FatalTheRabbit]

Wait... So you're saying that allies aren't supposed to be able to challange the germans late game? What sense does that make? Why would there be a late game at all then? Balance is about equal potential at all stages of tech. I'm really confused at the logic of designed racial superority at periods of the game. That's the definition of imbalance. The only superiority in total potential power should belong to the player himself not the race.

Allied armor isn't balanced simply on whether or not it can counter a flak panzer of course. The flakpanzer isn't anti-tank, so naturally a sherman could counter it. As far as the flak panzer is concerned the problem would be that your armor doesn't counter their armor sufficiently even with the M10 support, and your armor doesn't counter their infantry either, so if there is a flak panzer you lose your real AT force and become exposed to their tanks.

The allies don't actually have a numerical avantage in practice either, because their tanks cost loads of manpower, and so you end up having tons of fuel, and no manpower. In my opinion the problem with allied armor is the cost of the sherman, the attack capability of the M10, and the slow rate of fire/accuracy of the armored car.

As I suggested in another thread if you make vehicles cost more fuel and less manpower this will solve 75% of the problem, and allow allied players to actaully field shermans and m10s as proper support instead of being so dependant on their infantry. If that's done then you don't need to fiddle with the flak panzer.


This isnt DoW Fatal...part of this game is denying your oponent the resources they need to get a good build up or to tech up to bigger tanks.

I'm not talking about the unique circumstances of particular matches. I mean that the idea that the designed counter to something is purely to prevent it's creation is ridiculous.

[Epilon]

Remember Fatal, straight up conters dont exist to such a great degree here anymore, strategic counters are still there. I can easily kill a panzer...you know why? Cause, I can normally outnumber him and run circles around him and his turrent (he will get shots in...but most of mine will be agaisnt his flank) Though I find M10 useless--I normally play airborn and just drop ATs behind his flank--their mobility has their uses, and can do a somewhat decent--if underpar--amount of damage agaisnt his armor if flanked. I do agree though about makeing tanks cost more fuel, and less manpower, as it allows fuel to be a truely contested resource, rather than how its almost taken for granted now.


Balance is about equal potential at all stages of tech.
This is one of the most debatable points you have stated, as Balance is often subjective.

[FatalTheRabbit]

I'm not talking about single unit direct counters like a lone stug and a lone sherman. I'm talking about how individual units affect the interplay of a battle, yes, but I'm not trying compare axis and ally armor in a vacuum.


This is one of the most debatable points you have stated, as Balance is often subjective.

No it's not... That doesn't make sense. It can be innacurately percieved, but it's not subjective.

[Moe]

Actually it is. There is no perfect balance in a game with more than one side.

[FatalTheRabbit]

That doesn't make it subjective that makes it imperfect.

[Starfisher]

Fatal, I think you've just had some bad run ins or something. 1v1 with infantry I've been having some good games, that I've won, and I've killed flakpanzers and tigers and what have you. It really is about how you place your units. No one is going to be able to lay out in a forum post a perfect strat (as everything has a counter), and the only way to see how things work is to play all trees.

Having played all the trees, I think Airborne is pretty underpowered at the moment, Infantry is awesome, and I haven't had much experience with Armored. I play Blitz and Defensive as German, and both seem well balanced.

When I say "balanced" I mean I win with them. So far I've had some games where I wasn't on the ball, really, but I've always come out ahead with superior micro and tactics. I'm hoping that RO will start counting my wins soon so that I can move up in rank and probably start losing again, but until then, everything looks fine on Semois.

Your complaints that the M10 and Sherman are crap do not jive with my experience at all. I've used them both successfully against all German tanks, when combined with the rest of my forces. If I start losing consistently to a way of playing, then yeah, I'll cry imbalance like I did when I first started playing (we sound remarkably similiar, actually), but at the moment 1v1 seems prefect.

[FatalTheRabbit]

I've killed those things too, but not with armor support really. I guess I'm kind of taking this thread from being about flak panzers to allied armor...

I still think allied armor isn't appropriately viable. As axis how many players have you fought that have been of decent skill that actually used armor and won with it? Not many in my experience. The best tactic with Allies is to just leave armor out of the picture, because it's a dangerous liability that forces you make obscene sacrifices to your infantry.

The crocodile is pretty expensive and generally pointless, the sherman is too expensive to field many of even though it appears as if it was designed to be used in multiples, and the M10 doesn't fullfil the role of supporting the sherman which is part of why the sherman is not so hot. With such a dependancy on combined arms a single weak link throws everything out of order, and there's more than one weak link.

Most allied players I'm finding as I play more Axis have learned to just skip their tanks, and they're doing it for a reason.

:claw:

I'd like to see some replays of your good use of shermans. I need to see how you can reach the conclusions you have.

BTW where do I put replays? I'd like to watch this one.

[Starfisher]

For some strange reason, it goes in your My Documents> My Games> Company of Heros (BETA)> playback folder... instead of the base game folder. Unzip it there and it should be playable.

I'll start saving my Allied replays. I generally quit out of COH and go do something else for a while after a game, so I aplogize if I forget.

[Victrix Legio]

From my experience with Allied armor, it seems to me that the only way you can actually use them as you're supposed to (overwhelming Axis tanks with numbers and flanking them from multiple directions) is if you're using the Armor doctrine and have the Auto-repair, Quick Deployment, and Allied War Machine abilities unlocked. Otherwise, none of it is really even worth the bother: not enough damage, too weak hp-wise, too expensive, and takes too long to field.

[MirvShag]

I'm an above average German player. And I have at some good fights with Shermans. I have seen 5 Shermans on the field before and then V2'd them. But then 5 more were produced and they did win the 2v2 VP. Maybe not because of the shermans, more because they both were using offmap artillery and crushing any 88's I had. It was a good game with extensive use of Shermans against me and my ally.

Allies really have some things going for them, I have seen rangers used EXTREMELY well and effective. Then when a flakpanzer beats them everyone gets upset. But without the flakpanzer what on earth are the germans to do against mass Rangers???

THe game is pretty balanced, just a few minor tweaks need to be made, and they are even questionable.

Learn to use all the units.

[nintendogs]

I can't get it to work. Put it in the folder specified above, but the game loads and I can jsut view everything, i have 9999 resources, an the minimap is black. Nothing going on.

[FatalTheRabbit]

Watched the replay. That guy was terrible. He did terrible in combat. He never came close to winning in reality I thought. You must have let the fog of war, and the VP count fool you into thinking you were losing. If you had challegend him a bit with some flamers you could have taken the victory points he had pretty easily.

The way he had those mgs on the bottom right would have been easy if you had gone across the island to the farthest land bridge and flanked the turret with a pioneer squad.

[Trizzdog]

Yeah, that guy really dropped the ball :p

Anyways, we're discussing allied armour, right? A slight cost reduction manpower wise for every tank except the pershing and the catalowhactamacallems, M10's being worth a damn, done.
As allies I never have a problem with axis armour (even a tiger flakpanzer combo! ouch!), unless they do a certain "cheat" to get a resource bonus... :O

[TNT]

Solution - Raise fuel cost of flakpanzerse. A lot. Also, make shermans cheaper, and make the M10's gun more effective + give it an armor piercing ability. Make M10 cost less fuel so they can be pumped out in quantity.

Solves late game problems. A good german player has the advantage, but it is still possible for a competent Allied player to fend them off.

[macktheknifeau]

I played airborne a few days ago, pretty much the same thing happened to the guy in the OP as happened to me. It was an annhilate mission.

I owned him throughout the early and mid game, but was unable to land a killer blow (I had, at one stage, every point except the upper fuel point), because he was defenesive tree and had mg42s in his buildings (kept repelling my airborne), had a panzer 4 or stug or something stopping any armour I built.

He eventually teched up, and came back at me with a mass of elite infantry, with flakpanzers. No matter what I did, I kept losing points. The flakpanzer wasted the airborne, anti-tank guns suck for me, they never follow my orders, and if I drop them, they do not man the gun then get wasted by the flakpanzer.

I had something like 1500 fuel sitting doing nothing.

Allied tanks are worthless. It's impossible to get out the 4 or 5 you need to actually take on enemy troops. Any troops you build get blammed by the flakpanzer, anti-tank guns suck.

Now. I only ever go armour as allies, and blitz as axis. For allies I go for raid, then beat the axis with armour cars usually before they even have a krieg barracks. Axis I stall until I get manpower blitz, and usually end up retaking all the points with a tiger, 2 flakpanzers, and 3 squads of infantry.

I generally find that if I go anything other armour doctrine for allies, I win most of the map, then get slowly beaten back by heavily superior armour.

If I go something other than blitz on axis, I usually get hit by so much allied inf spam that I am struggling to actually build enough units to counter it, and whilst I might have the better of the game, the "6 allied squads rush VP" followed by "counter attack by flakpanzer and troops" then another 6 squads, combined with axis weakness early (which usually leaves allies with 2 or 3 VPs and axis with 1 or 0), means I lose on tickets.

[Starfisher]

If you have mass Airborne mid game you are losing, even though you might think you're wining. They are not anti-tank. You need Riflemen, AT guns, M10s and/or Shermans. I don't know how you guys are using them, but it doesn't seem like your using them well.

The solution to the late game Axis tank advantage is not to make each unit a carbon copy of another. That is literally the only way to achieve "balance" in the manner you all seem to want - unit rock paper scissors. You want an exact mathematical counter when there already exist counters that simply are not so simple. This game is about combined arms. I seriously do not understand these posts about "owning the whole map then losing to a mass of infantry and flakpanzers". If you own the whole map like you say, then he cannot mass elite infantry, and even if he did, why didn't you just strong point and mine the bridge, with all of two AT guns across it and an MG for good measure? Then the open field you can fill with whatever you want and he will have trouble.

You can also create defensive positions around the VPs and just wait for him to come in, then kill his tanks with your AT guns. Hint: AT guns have very long range. You do not need them on the very front lines, and if you are dropping them close enough to tanks that they are dying before they can be manned, you are not using them properly.

I would be far more inclined to accept that I have so far had an incredibly long and unobvious string of luck when playing Allies if you guys didn't just give the impression that you were using the wrong units in the wrong places. It's hard to argue like this, so maybe we should all simply make it a rule to save replays that we think show an imbalance. No more arguing in the abstract based on differing experience, as that is clearly not working.

[TheLoneKnight]

I can't imagine a single situation where I'd lose to any doctine, axis or allies, if I controlled all but one point. I just can't. Not even if he had somehow pulled out twin Tiger Tanks and a vicious support of 2-3 Ostwinds from his rear end could I fathom losing so entirely from a position like that.

macktheknifeau, your post baffles me. I suggest you look up some strategies in the other threads in this board, or at least create a thread asking for help with whatever huge problems you seem to have.

[Andkat]

macktheknifeau: If you own the entire map then maybe, you should, y'know, PRESS THE ADVANTAGE! Honestly, it shouldn't be difficult to accquire enough resources with such map control to build enough to easily level his base.

And AT guns have almost inane range; drop them further back and watch them wipe the floor with enemy tanks (you will need 2-3 guns, but they shouldn't cost you too much). Have some rangers or riflemen in the area to provide support if anything gets past, and then push on. Your AT Gun range should support you for much of the assault. And hitting-and-running with stickies is also quite efficacious.

[macktheknifeau]

I never said I had all the points for very long.

I tried to "press the advantage" and got my squads killed by machine gunners.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

All allied trees have good anti tank abilities.

Airborne can drop AT guns damn near anywhere, which is incredibly useful. RRs arn't so bad either. Airborne abilities are also as good at wasting base facilities as any tank rush. And their munitions superiority means they get a lot of use out of bombing/strafing run.

Infantry company's Off-Map Combat Group is easily equal to both the Tiger Ace and Armored Assault Force abilities.

And nothing needs be said about Armored.

[Epilon]

If youll have any replays and feel like posting them, pls do so in this thread: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=101535&page=2. Its there just for this purpose. (I got instructions on how to do so in that thread for all you new players out there)

I got another game under my belt as airborn (acutally all my games were with airborn--all 3 of em :frog: )...though I forgot to save the replay. I think shoe said it best: airborn have near unlimited mobility. Once you gain a prestigious map control, and think you cant take on this base; bunker down. Most defences are cheap and easy to pull off. This allows you to delay and outflank any tank or so on that they send at you. If they decide to mass them all in 1 location, you can bomb the crap out of them.

[Oryhara]

Shermans are pretty good in mass, only problem is that the Sherman is explensive. This one time in a 1v1 on Megheans(?) War, I was airborne and had early map control. It was my first 1v1 so I didn't push. Later on, I was been slowly beat back by 2 Tigers (he didn't push either, guessing to get more tanks). So after I lost a fuel point, started massing large amounts of Shermans using supply drop to help my dwindilling fuel supplies. I proceded to bum rush the Tigers with 8 Shermans.

They died.

Thing is you have to hit em from different sides so atleast 1 shot will always hit the back/flank.

[Epilon]

I think it was pure luck that 2 Tigers killed 8 Shermans--did you research the *I mean the Sherman gun upgrade? I've seen 2-3 shermans take out 1 tiger before; it was a head on attack too. If you were airborn, why did you not try dropping an AT gun behind the Tigers? But yes, I think you always want to expose the Tiger's slow speed by trying to outflank em.

[Oryhara]

I think I was misleading there.

The TIGERS died. And no, I didn't get the upgrade.

[macktheknifeau]

um, mcgethcens war is supposed to be 3v3 is'nt i?

[Oryhara]

2v2.

[CannibalKid]

Either Airborne units that get dropped in are too expensive, or Airborne players are over confident in their troops. I've seen a tendency to make very risky drops and lost 3x the MP because of it. I also think they believe they can avoid building their heavy weapons factory due to the abilities of their Command Abilities, and then proceed to find them without any fallback options when they take unplanned losses or face a hard counter to their obvious, Command Ability dictated, unit selection.

[Epilon]

Yea Cannibal, thats what I had done my first game, and the start of my second game. That was untill I saw my paras die to volkgranadiers. I've been using them now only for flanking manuvers and so on. They arent that expensive for what they offer, in that if done properly--scout then drop em behind an engagemnt outside the enemy's LoS--they can almost instantly win you any infintry only engangement. The same can be said about the AT gun.

[Dalamari]

Once the Axis get tanks, it's game over, especially if they get Tigers/a Tiger Ace, thankfully for the allies the Axis need to upgrade 3 times before they can get a Panzer Command, and that gives them a chance to light armor rush

[theBlind]

No game over with axis tanks. Simply no.

You are on equal footing the entire game but you can't bring out AT guns manpower for manpower to match the enemy tanks?
You don't have the stickybomb upgrade when the tanks hit?
You don't have the BAR upgrade on your Rifles to keep enemy infantry from moving on their feet opposed to on their bellies?
Your AT guns are not setup to cover the most likely paths of approach and in such a way as to make sure that they are not easily outflanked by tanks driving through their positions?
Your AT guns are not paired, giving one the ability to cover the other if one is flanked?


Then you did something wrong.