The soft attack nerf actually makes CAS even more powerful than ever before...I just demolished Japan as China with nothing but pure infantry and planes. Talk about unbalanced mechanics.
Did the soft attack nerfs go too far?
- Thread starter Lord of Beer
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I've noticed this as well. Weirdly low losses of equipment from both attack and defense.
In particular with a static defense of Russia, you will basically lose no infantry equipment.
Has something changed on the backend?
One thing to note, the Arty Nerf has made AA marginally more efficient for soft attack
This is really the big balance issue.
Air has always been king in this game. Now that Artillery is no longer co-king, it's that much more apparent how unbalanced air superiority is.
IMO, a fix to this (in addition to nerfing the damage dealt by CAS, which should also be done) is to implement a rolling range of "Air Superiority" more in line with the actual definitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_supremacy
Air Supremacy ---> Current buff, when you have 85%+ Air control of a zone. Simulating the complete and total free operation of air forces to attack and molest opposing ground forces.
Air Superiority ----> half the above buff, when you have 55%+ Air control of a zone. Simulating an aerial advantage allowing the operation of air forces without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces.
Air Parity ----> no buff/debuff for either side, when neither side has more than 55% Air control
Right now, the system is just WAY too binary, and the benefit too big for it to make any sense. If you manage to have 49% air superiority in a zone, and shoot down opposing air forces at a rate of 2:1, your ground forces are hampered just as if the enemy is flying TOTALLY uncontested. I don't see how that makes sense when the air war is literally a toss-up. (or maybe even favoring the "losing" side)
This will also make the air war much more interesting, as right now there is almost no incentive to fly planes in a zone if you can't get that 51% control, which is so not realistic.
I didn't even notice the nerfs to SA my first time through. I just rolled France and Benelux with old school INF divisions (basic 7/2 crap, no imagination to my build at all) and only Germany's starting tanks. But I had plenty of planes in the skies. It wasn't a fast defeat of France (not enough armor to move quickly), but I beat them without too much effort.
Then I realized that battles without ground attack were going a lot slower than I expected.
What I haven't tried, though, are high end divisions with MECH and lots of armor used in large numbers. With the nerfs to SA, I'm wondering what it looks like when high hardness units are in combat with ORG walls. I'm also wondering whether LARM has a new role to play in all of this. It's worth more testing.
Warfare is grindy now. Its not hard. it just means that armies just grind up against each other and whoever blinks first; as in runs out of manpower, infantry equipment, or enough planes, loses. If you honestly haven't experienced any of this, good for you. If you're one of those people who just say what amounts to "GIT GUD", how about you post a guide on how to be successful in 1.5 to help all of us who now live in this bizzarro world where 20,000 men armed with pointed sticks in an open field in northern France can stand up to an equal amount of men in medium tanks and motorized for weeks and possibly win.
Nope. If anything, France got nerfed big time. Since manpower now trickles slowly and democracies can only go beyond limited conscription when they are at war, means that France has to face the Axis with it's starting manpower. Combined with the slower industry buildup due to change in the requirment of economic mobilization laws, France is now near impossible to hold. You are doing something wrong.
But yea, against the USSR, I would agree. They are truly now monstrous now. Plus stupid German AI keeps wasting manpower and then stays at zero because the trickle is too slow.
I don't think Soft Attack is the culprit here. People just have to change a bit from their cookie cutter divisions templates and strategies. I find myself using airpower more now, along with focusing on high armour value etc. Earlier, your INF+ART could do everything pretty much by themselves.
A good side note though. With less soft atk overall in the game, your units get a decent chance to vet up and stay vetted.
The special SS divisions, which you get from the decisions, of mechanised and tanks actually achieved and kept their veterancy levels through the war.
I know that is a high hardness template but I even had infantry getting reasonable vet levels throughout the war. Usually before this nerf, infantry tumbled down in vet levels hard, once the combat hit.
I even had recruit level garrison divisions on the eastern front that eventually went to regular through combat! And those where 6 inf + engi.
The special SS divisions, which you get from the decisions, of mechanised and tanks actually achieved and kept their veterancy levels through the war.
I know that is a high hardness template but I even had infantry getting reasonable vet levels throughout the war. Usually before this nerf, infantry tumbled down in vet levels hard, once the combat hit.
I even had recruit level garrison divisions on the eastern front that eventually went to regular through combat! And those where 6 inf + engi.
I think a lot of the problems people are having are related to division design and using tanks properly. You shouldn't be running general offensives across the front with your tanks. You just need to look for a province with favorable terrain both in and behind it that can be attacked from 2+ tiles. Then you pool all your tanks into that multi-direction assault on the single tile, break through and rush through the gap as quickly as possible while leaving motorized divisions behind to occupy the breach as you go. In this way it's possible to encircle millions of troops relatively easily. I think people also have the habit of putting too much motorized in their tank divisions. They really need to be heavy on tanks and spgs and light on infantry. Infantry are for defending positions and that task should be relegated to pure motorized divisions.
This is EXACTLY what I do. ARM+SPG with minimal MOT to breakthrough by attacking from multiple directions and MOT divs to secure and encircle to your hearts content! Earlier, you just needed to draw a frontline, put in some air cover and make sure there is enough supply. Then click execute and win WW2 with a few months. Now, the Eastern front is a real slog and you have to seek opportunities, plan an encirclement, dedicate resources and massive air power to it and actually use "armoured spearheads".