Why we shouldn't be happy about Hard Caps for Special Forces

[StackOverflow]

Why was the Hard Cap introduced and what is the problem with it?
First we need to clarify why the devs introduced a hard cap.
The fundamental problem behind this decision was, that it was reasonably possible to
use special forces as "line infantry", whereas we (the community) want them to
be "special" in a form, that we can't afford lot of them.
Some people also argue with the fact, that it isn't historical to have lots of special forces.

Obviously the hard cap solved this problem.
So why do I say, that we shouldn't be happy?
It's because in my opinion the hard cap didn't solved the underlying real problem,
and instead only solved annother problem, that was caused by the first.

The real reason why people were building special forces en masse
was that they are stronger than regular Infantery in combat and that there were no real drawbacks in doing so.
Even the slightly higher industry costs didn't seem to be a reason not to deploy them instead of regular infantry.
(Marines for example need 150 Infantery equipment instead of 100 per Battalion)

Now we should take a look at real armies in WW2.
Did they have something like a hard cap that prevented them
from replacing regular infantery with special forces?
No, and still they didn't, cause it would have been a worse strategy.
I don't know the details, but I would assume that it was very costly to train and to maintain
special forces and that they were really great at their special tasks,
but it was not cost effective to use them in regular combat.

What does this mean in game terms?

I would suggest 2 things:

1. Make special forces more expensive
Why don't they cost Support Equipment? They use things like Parachutes, Skis and so on.
(1 Support Equipment is as expensive as 10 Tier 1 Infantery Equipment)
For example they could need 10 support equipment per battalion which would mean:

For example a Marine Battalion would cost:
150 Infantery Equipment (Tier 1) = 60 Industry Costs
10 Support Equipment = 40 Industry Costs

An Infantry Battalion now costs:
100 Infantery Equipment (Tier 1) = 40 Industry Costs

So the Marine Battalion would be 2.5 times more expensive (smaller factor for other tiers of Inf. Equipment)
compared to the Inf. Battalion and the upkeep also would be more expensive,
because more equipment is destroyed by battle and by attrition
when you simply are using more.

2. Don't make them more powerful in combat than Infantry(nerf Marines and Mountainers)
and give them instead "special abilities"
I think it's okay when they are slightly stronger than regular infantry,
but it leads to strange results if they are to powerful.
Instead they should have "special abilities" which would justify the higher price.

For example:
Parachute Infantery is the only unit in the game that can be dropped by planes.
This is an ability which allows new strategies, when you are able to afford the costs for them and their transport
planes. Ironically they were the only special force which wasn't build in high numbers, Parachutes aren't
stronger in combat.

I would like to see similar "special abilities" for the other two special forces:

Maybe Marines would be able to do see invasions without planning time.
(That would largely increase the flexibility of your army)

And Mountainers could get a 100% or 200% Movement-Buff in Mountains or something.
(I'm not happy with this one, but I do not have a better idea now, maybe you do)

Conclusion
In my opinion a Hard Cap wouldn't be needed if the devs would follow this approach to solve
the explained problem, because no one would longer substitute regular Inf. with Marines or Mountainers,
because it wouldn't be a good strategy in general.
Anyway it would allow you to increase the size of your special forces contingent,
even if you are a minor country (like Switzerland or Iran, where they have a lot of Mountains).

 

[Meglok]

This has already been discussed in multiple threads since release, and in the DD when it was initially announced by Podcat. The developers stated their reasons and they were valid. And I was on your side at first, but after playing with the new system it really isnt that big a deal for any major.

The cap is moddable if you choose.

 

[StackOverflow]

This has already been discussed in multiple threads since release, and in the DD when it was initially announced by Podcat. The developers stated their reasons and they were valid. And I was on your side at first, but after playing with the new system it really isnt that big a deal for any major.

The cap is moddable if you choose.

Many Thanks for the answer.

I followed some of these threads and the DDs, but I didn't found a valid reason for the hard cap.
Could you please help me to find it?

In my opinion it doesn't solve the underlying problem and instead it solves a problem,
which is caused by this underlying problem, like I am explaining above.

 

[Secret Master]

Maybe Marines would be able to do see invasions without planning time.
(That would largely increase the flexibility of your army)

Do you realize how insanely overpowered that would be? Geez, I can think of twelve different times in my last game where that could have changed the outcome of the war.

I have this vision of constantly rotating amphibious attacks against El Alamein in conjunction with ground attacks and PARA drops.

And Mountainers could get a 100% or 200% Movement-Buff in Mountains or something.
(I'm not happy with this one, but I do not have a better idea now, maybe you do)

Wow, yeah, that would be crazy, too.

 

[StackOverflow]

Do you realize how insanely overpowered that would be? Geez, I can think of twelve different times in my last game where that could have changed the outcome of the war.

I have this vision of constantly rotating amphibious attacks against El Alamein in conjunction with ground attacks and PARA drops.

Wow, yeah, that would be crazy, too.

Thank you for the answer.
I'm not sure if it would be overpowered and it was just an example.
Maybe something like a planning-speed reduction would be better for marines
and maybe a smaller bonus would be better for Mountainers,
but that's not what I wanted to discuss with this posting.

I wanted to say, what kind of approach I would like to see and how such an "special ability"
might look like. How to balance it and how strong it should be is another question.

 

[Th3master]

Thank you for the answer.
I'm not sure if it would be overpowered and it was just an example.
Maybe something like a planning-speed reduction would be better for marines
and maybe a smaller bonus would be better for Mountainers,
but that's not what I wanted to discuss with this posting.

I wanted to say, what kind of approach I would like to see and how such an "special ability"
might look like. How to balance it and how strong it should be is another question.

Marines already have pretty good bonuses to landings and with level 2 invasion tech you can plan fairly quickly.

I do feel that mountaineers are a bit lacking, they should get a small movement bonus and a higher defense bonus than the measly 10% given to them.

 

[Meglok]

Many Thanks for the answer.

I followed some of these threads and the DDs, but I didn't found a valid reason for the hard cap.
Could you please help me to find it?

In my opinion it doesn't solve the underlying problem and instead it solves a problem,
which is caused by this underlying problem, like I am explaining above.

Iirc there were 2 main reasons.
First, it was impossible to balance an ai where people were running around with 1 million Marines backed by artillery. People complained about the ai being easy and dumb, this was one of the steps PDS took to balance the system. No more armies of Space Marines.

Second, Special Forces were just that, special. And as such formed a small % of overall troops in WW2. PDS is just limiting SFs to historical deployment. With the base 5% you can have 50 battalions of SF per 1000 battalions AND support companies count towards the overall # of battalions from reports. That % can be boosted by tech. That is more than generous with the number of divisions possible from most majors.

 

[StackOverflow]

Marines already have pretty good bonuses to landings and with level 2 invasion tech you can plan fairly quickly.

I do feel that mountaineers are a bit lacking, they should get a small movement bonus and a higher defense bonus than the measly 10% given to them.

Such an defensive bonus unfortunately might lead to the problem we faced before the patch,
where a lot of people are replacing infantry with mountainers.

Iirc there were 2 main reasons.
First, it was impossible to balance an ai where people were running around with 1 million Marines backed by artillery. People complained about the ai being easy and dumb, this was one of the steps PDS took to balance the system. No more armies of Space Marines.

Second, Special Forces were just that, special. And as such formed a small % of overall troops in WW2. PDS is just limiting SFs to historical deployment. With the base 5% you can have 50 battalions of SF per 1000 battalions AND support companies count towards the overall # of battalions from reports. That % can be boosted by tech. That is more than generous with the number of divisions possible from most majors.

I tried to explain what would be necessary to stop players from doing this.
Players do it because it is viable(cost effective).
You get a division that is stronger in combat for slightly more Industry costs.

My approach is to nerf the special forces and increase their costs.
In return they should get some kind of "special abilities"
(My examples for "special abilities" weren't so great, but it's possible to find something more balanced)

It's just really important that they aren't stronger than regular Infantry in combat,
because that is the reason why people are deploying them in such a large amount.

Paratroopers indicate, that my idea might be correct, because i never saw someone who build his whole army around paratroopers.
I think the reason for this behavior is that it's more costly to use Paratroopers (due to the cost of Transport Planes)
and that they aren't stronger in combat compared to regular Inf.,
but they are the only unit that can be paradropped and sometimes it's a good strategy to use them, but not everytime.
So you have to weight the reasons for and against using a small contigent of them,
but it probably wouldn't be the greatest strategy to replace all your Inf. battalions with parachutes

And that is what I want for marines and mountainers.
A Hard is a valid fix for the problem, but it's on the wrong place in my opinion.

 

[Meglok]

Such an defensive bonus unfortunately might lead to the problem we faced before the patch,
where a lot of people are replacing infantry with mountainers.




I tried to explain what would be necessary to stop players from doing this.
Players do it because it is viable(cost effective).
You get a division that is stronger in combat for slightly more Industry costs.

My approach is to nerf the special forces and increase their costs.
In return they should get some kind of "special abilities"
(My examples for "special abilities" weren't so great, but it's possible to find something more balanced)

It's just really important that they aren't stronger than regular Infantry in combat,
because that is the reason why people are deploying them in such a large amount.

Paratroopers indicate, that my idea might be correct, because i never saw someone who build his whole army around paratroopers.
I think the reason for this behavior is that it's more costly to use Paratroopers (due to the cost of Transport Planes)
and that they aren't stronger in combat compared to regular Inf.,
but they are the only unit that can be paradropped and sometimes it's a good strategy to use them, but not everytime.
So you have to weight the reasons for and against using a small contigent of them,
but it probably wouldn't be the greatest strategy to replace all your Inf. battalions with parachutes

And that is what I want for marines and mountainers.
A Hard is a valid fix for the problem, but it's on the wrong place in my opinion.

Ideas similar to yours were proposed when the cap was announced in the Dev Diary. Like I said, I was fighting on your side of the argument. We lost. The developers decided against changing stats and such and went this way. Their opinion has more weight at the end of the day.

And after playing with the new system it is not a big deal to me.

 

[Zwirbaum]

If you'll nerf the special forces AND increase their cost, there will be barely any point in using them. If you'll up their cost (like with support equipment), that would probably also mean that beside some required for naval invasions, you would not use them at all. Mountaineers would be completely obsolete (too expensive for their boni) and paratroopers are already used pretty rarely.

 

[Lord of Beer]

Agreed OP. I think 1.5 should have just seen the improvements to AI behavior in isolation. Not suicide attacking for example is a huge fix to the AI by itself.

If this still wasn't enough, nerf all the stats in 1.6.

Instead Paradox have nerfed all of the things that human players used in their world conquests - tanks, special forces, artillery. The AI just has to sit there and not die, so it doesn't care.

Its made combat a lot more grindy for the attacker. Its also made big tank encirclements much more difficult. If people thought the game was a WW1 combat simulator before, its definitely moreso now.

To balance it, I'd like to see some adjustments to the defending side. Slowing the reinforce rate would be the biggest one - a unit that has been absolutely crushed and forced to retreat shouldn't be able to just spring back to full organisation in a few days. I think the recovery rate should be halved.

But, there's not much of an excuse for us as a community not to mod these things ourselves. Paradox have opened up a lot of things to modders and invested a lot of effort to support it. The hardcore multiplayer communities should collaborate a bit more and try to create an 'ultimate' multiplayer mod that adds no new content, but just fixes the things that the community agrees are imbalanced or not fun.

Folks propose that a lot of content is copied from mods and built into the base game - build a good combat balance mod and Paradox might just copy that ;-)

 

[fabius]

If you'll nerf the special forces AND increase their cost, there will be barely any point in using them. If you'll up their cost (like with support equipment), that would probably also mean that beside some required for naval invasions, you would not use them at all. Mountaineers would be completely obsolete (too expensive for their boni) and paratroopers are already used pretty rarely.

Exactly, keep the much better rarity.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I disagree with this being a hardcap to begin with.

A hardcap is something you can't avoid or go around, but the Special Forces limit have multiple ways to be expanded ranging from techs, decisions, NFs to simply expanding your normal non special force army.

That makes it the opposite of a hardcap.


I also struggle to follow OPs logic. If you both make Special Forces more expensive and nerf them the result will be that no one uses them. How can it be a good outcome for balance to get units that no one use?

 

[aono]

A hardcap is something you can't avoid or go around, but the Special Forces limit have multiple ways to be expanded ranging from techs, decisions, NFs to simply expanding your normal non special force army.

Hm. Yes. You can increase this hardcap, but it still hardcap - you can't create more divisions that cap allows you. It's dynamic hardcap, but hardcap nonetheless.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Hm. Yes. You can increase this hardcap..

Meaing it's a softcap, not a hardcap. The hardcap is something you can't increase/change, while the amount of Special Forces battalions any given nation can field keep increasing with their army size ( as well as other effects ).

The lower limit minimum of 24 would be an example of a hardcap, this can never go below 24.

 

[holoween]

Now we should take a look at real armies in WW2.
Did they have something like a hard cap that prevented them
from replacing regular infantery with special forces?

there was.
only a fairly small ammount of your manpower is suited to serve in special forces.
so between the time it takes to train every single replacement there arent as many to begin with.

the current limit actually represents that fairly well.

 

[Skjuld]

Now we should take a look at real armies in WW2.
Did they have something like a hard cap that prevented them
from replacing regular infantery with special forces?
No, and still they didn't, cause it would have been a worse strategy.
I don't know the details, but I would assume that it was very costly to train and to maintain
special forces and that they were really great at their special tasks,
but it was not cost effective to use them in regular combat.

Real armies face something like a hard cap. That is the limited pool of talented, motivated soldiers and officers. An elite force isn't just better trained, it generally takes only volunteers and screens them to keep only the best.
The argument was often made that a soldier in SF could have been an NCO in regular Infantry, and a SF NCO an officer elsewhere. And for talented soldiers, you also have to compete with other branches.
And it was not cost effective to keep such soldiers in regular combat, but the temptation was great. They were more resilient, agressive and effective, so commanders were reluctant to give them back. Witness what happened to the US Airborne in France.

 

[Mr.Bajskorv]

I think the cap works fine.

Though maybe they are to costly in terms of research, maybe some research time for som tech should ne nerfed a bit.

And I would also buff some things like, the marines get even better bonuses in amphibious and river attacks, mountaineers even better in mountain terrain. Though many would argue that isn't realistic but, it would make very much sence in terms of a game. With the cap as a limit, which works fine by the way.

 

[Meglok]

Just a little update. Playing China being the "Yellow Peril", just hit 1943. I have 20 divisions of 7/2 mountain troops and 4 more in the queue. And I haven't bothered to grab the tech boosting the cap. The change isnt that big a deal, unless you were in love with Space Marines.

 

[RELee]

I like the idea of the special forces requiring more support equipment thus making them much more expensive, but trying to balance the cost would be insane. The current caps work for me. They tend to represent the small percentage of the population who would be crazy enough to volunteer for elite training.

Despite my ambivalence, I fine with the current setup for special forces. FWIW.