Armored Units

(Please read the OP first) Are Armored Units in a balanced state right now?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, they are too powerful!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, they are too weak!

    Votes: 5 83.3%
  • No, they could use tweaking for other reasons (please post why and how).

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • Total voters
    6
  • Poll closed .
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Armored Unit Balance Discussion Thread

Took me a while to get this together as the issue turned out to be much more complex than I originally thought. There was a lot of testing to be done; I collected several hundred data points, did some analysis and thought about possible improvements. This thread is mostly for discussion on the balance of the Landship/Tank/Modern Armor, especially in comparison to the Rifleman/Infantry/Mechanized Infantry units (the two late game land melee lines); I'm less interested in the Giant Death Robot as he comes very late and is a bit of a gimmick anyway (I'll make a short comment on him regardless but he is not the focus of this discussion). When talking about Gunpowder Units I will usually mean Rifleman/Infantry/Mechanized Infantry (even though technically the Fusilier, Anti-Aircraft Gun and Mobile SAM are also considered to be Gunpowder Units by the game).
This thread should focus primarily on balance in the scope of this game, but let's not forget that armored units played pivotal roles in both World Wars and are still very important today: Germany is more than doubling it's Leopard 2 (main battle tank) assets, Russia is modernizing large swaths of their T-72s, T-80s and T-90s in addition to introducing the new T-14 and so on; just because countries like the US focus less on tanks now because of their doctrine (waging war far from home, which means prioritizing a powerful navy and air force) doesn't mean these machines have become irrelevant.

Resources
Spoiler Late Game Tech Tree for reference :

Tech_Tree_late_game.jpg

Spoiler Promotion Tree Armored Units :
PT_armored.jpg

Note: the Mounted Unit Promotion Tree additionally includes the Medic I & II promotions on the second level of the Shock line.
Spoiler Promotion Tree Gunpowder Units :
PT_Gunpowder_Units.jpg



Background
Late game balance is always tricky as testing by the community is limited (games may end before it arises, many people don't play games fully etc.), civilizations will be fairly differentiated (large gaps in power and Era progression are possible and even likely), all game systems are active (including all unit types), units will be strongly promoted (increases unit differentiation) and so on.
The creation of this thread was triggered by a discussion of buffing the "Formation" promotions in the promotion balance thread; I noticed that buffing "Formation", since it includes an anti-armored bonus, would mean yet another buff to infantry with respect to armor in late game, especially if Formation would be given to all Spearman-line units instead of the anti-mounted bonus (as pineappledan suggested). This made me worry about the viability of Armored Units in general, especially in comparison to Gunpowder Units, since several of the latter have received significant buffs this year.

Let's take a look at the benefits Gunpowder Units currently have over Armored Units:

  • Receive defensive terrain bonuses (up to +25% CS when attacked)
  • Can fortify (+20% CS when attacked)
  • Have significantly higher Air Strike Defense (deal more damage to attacking aircraft)
  • Cost significantly less Gold/Production
  • Don't require Strategic Resources
  • Don't have City attack malus and can choose special anti-city promotions
  • Have anti-armored promotions available (Formation and later Ambush)
  • Can specialize even more (more overall promotions available in addition to the ones mentioned)
  • With the exception of Special Forces, don't have any units that are specialized against them
  • Come earlier in the Tech Tree in the case of Mechanized Infantry vs. Modern Armor
  • Automatically receive special promotions that significantly increase HP and ranged defense (added in July '19)
  • (Have received CS buffs earlier this year in another July update)
In contrast, Armored Units haven't been given any buffs AFAICT in the last two years, at least; rather, they have become less and less competitive and their entry onto the battlefield has been further delayed by separating the discovery of Oil from the ability to use it (Oil Well is on the other side of the Tech Tree and there is a "stop gap" before those techs, requiring the entire line of preceding techs to be researched to get to both so one can start building Oil Wells to connect it, which will often need to be done before building the first Landships). This adds to their disadvantages, since it is now much harder to rush Landship to at least have some fun steamrolling previous-era units and it effectively means that the Landship also "comes later" with respect to the Rifleman, as is already the case with Modern Armor vs. Mechanized Infantry.
In "late late game" literally all land ranged units receive huge anti-armored bonuses and the Mechanized Infantry receives a 50% movement point buff (+1), such that the Tank and Modern Armor are now less than twice as agile and the latter is becoming so impotent that it raises the question whether it's worth building those units at all anymore at that point.

What do Armored Units have to show for it? Let's see:

  • More movement points (4 vs 2 in Modern, 5 vs 2 in Atomic, 5 vs 3 in Information; GDR has 8)
  • More CS (55 vs 50 in Modern, 70 vs 60 in Atomic, 85 vs 75 in Information; GDR has 100)
  • Charge promotions (CS bonus on attack in open terrain and against wounded units)
Charge are nice promotions for sure, but let's first look at mobility and combat strength.
Mobility is certainly useful, but with Skirmisher line units gaining a movement point again Armored Units are once again being nerfed in comparison. A Light Tank can shoot at a Landship and simply scoot off without that Landship being able to catch him the next turn (4 vs 5 MP); same with the Helicopter (5 vs 6), which is far more powerful anyway, due to its hovering ability and anti-tank bonus (and also special anti-tank promotions that add to it). Moreover, with the arrival of aircraft, Railroads and greater range for siege units (Range 3 starting with Artillery) the movement point advantage becomes further compromised; hit-and-run tactics are much harder to do in enemy territory because of these factors than they are with e.g. Horsemen or Knights etc. in early and mid game.
As for the greater CS, well let's see what that's actually worth in comparison to melee infantry when considering the huge amount of buffs that melee infantry gets:


Combat Strength Analysis

The following charts all show a "normalized damage differential". This value is basically the damage done to the attacker subtracted from the damage done to the defender, but expressed as percentages of HP, rather than absolute HP; this way the HP buffs of infantry units are taken into account and the different unit types can thus be properly compared. I tried to standardize data collection as much as possible and gave all involved units level 5 (so typically one advanced promotion; important promos are listed in the legend to the right of charts).
Every bar represents a combat simulation given by the game; I tried to eliminate possible confounds wherever they occurred; for example, I made sure that units which could receive defensive terrain bonuses weren't placed on Hill or Forest/Jungle, but in exchange melee infantry was allowed to fortify (with the exception of wounded units and some units on the last charts, were fortification is designated on the chart's legend to demonstrate its effect); River penalties were avoided and Flanking bonuses were controlled.
To the right of each chart / collection of charts you will see the legend for the different combat simulations, which are referenced by the numbers on the X-axis. All Logistics units are simulated to fire twice, but without taking into account potentially higher damage on the second shot; ranged units obviously don't receive damage when attacking. Promotion names in the legend always refer to promotions of the attacker; same goes for "Flanking bonus", typically the unit will then have Shock as well to boost that bonus. "Wounded" refers to the defender, however.

In the first chart you see Tank and Infantry (both Atomic Era) attacked by various units; the LOWER the bar the BETTER for the defender (Tank or Infantry); negative bars mean the attacker takes more % HP damage than the defender.
Spoiler Attack on Tank or Infantry :
Melee_being_attacked.png


As you can see, with the exceptions of a small advantage against Scouting line units and very few cases of parity, Infantry units fare MUCH better when attacked, compared to Tanks; the latter are obliterated by Rocket Artillery and Bazookas, especially, but also have severe issues against Helicopters and do noticeably worse when being bombed by air units or missiles, as well.

In the second chart you see Modern Armor and Mechanized Infantry (both Information Era) attacked by various relevant units; the LOWER the bar the BETTER for the defender; negative bars mean the attacker takes more % HP damage than the defender.
Spoiler Attack on Modern Armor or Mechanized Infantry :
Melee_being_attacked2.png


Demonstration of what it means when half the units on the battlefield are specialized against one unit type. Modern Armor gets obliterated by Rocket Artillery, Bazookas and Helicopters, faring not much better than its predecessor and has significant disadvantages against SAM units compared to Mech. Inf. (M. SAM can even specialize against them, as shown). Special Forces get a bonus against Gun Units, but still Mech. Infantry holds their own compared to Modern Armor.

In the next chart collection you'll see three land melee pairs (infantry / armored), one for each of the last three Eras, attack various units; the HIGHER the bar the BETTER for the attacking melee units.
Spoiler Melee attack pairs :
Melee_attacking.png


As you can see, while armor does finally have some consistent advantage in the Modern and Atomic Eras, that advantage is rather small in comparison and is completely annulled in the Information Era, where the Mechanized Infantry absolutely dominates in comparison to the Modern Armor; not a huge surprise, of course, since all three of the right side opponents have massive anti-tank bonuses, but Armored Units don't even get an advantage against Mobile SAM.

In this last chart collection you'll see two charts that portray fights between the two melee lines themselves. In the left chart LOWER bars are BETTER for ARMORED UNITS, while in the right chart HIGHER bars are BETTER for ARMORED UNITS.
Spoiler Melee vs. Melee :
Melee_v_Melee.png


The broad pattern here clearly is that specialized attacks bear fruits (anti-armor promos for infantry and flanking / charge against wounded for armor), but this is, again, not true for the Information Era where the Modern Armor loses in any case as long as the target unit is fortified; even without fortification the Modern Armor doesn't win by much and, considering the excessive punishment it takes from almost all other units compared to simple infantry, which is also not that much slower than it at that point, one must ask the question of whether it is worth building them at all, considering also the much higher building cost and need for Strategic Resources.

I think it's clear that despite Charge being a nice addition to that unit line and the line having more Combat Strength than comparable infantry, the results are underwhelming. If a default Formation promotion were now to be added to early game infantry (many of whom would survive through mid to late game), this would get even worse. Armored Units lack a clear specialization, they don't truly excel against any unit type compared to the performance of melee infantry, are worse at sieging, easier targets for air units and in the Information Era literally half the other land units are specialized against them and there are many more disadvantages that have been discussed above. Their move-after-attack capability is nice but significantly worse compared to the Skirmisher line, as they still lose all movement points when crossing a river for the attack or moving through ZOC while attacking and lose more than 1 MP if attacking into rough terrain. Ultimately they have simply become too weak in comparison, which, of course, also implicitly nerfs Germany (Tank replacement UU).

In addition to these relatively simple simulations I also conducted a few dozen "free form" multi-turn battles between relevant units to get a better feel for the state of armor aside from the damage numbers. Overall I did manage to win some fights that one may not expect from the above numbers but often this was due to superior tactics on my part compared to the AI, which is also not really made for these kinds of "duels"; in the end, however, my impression in these fights was still very clear: infantry melee tends to have a better shot most of the time, especially if friendly lands are not available (tank has it easier to run away to the nearest friendly city). The additional movement points make it easier to set up flanking and concentrate the attack and would also provide more opportunity for pillaging in enemy lands, but aircraft, greater range siege units and massive anti-armor specializations resulting in high damage against tanks more than negate this advantage.

Finally, here's an image to show the pitiful state of even the Giant Death Robot, which I didn't analyze in detail:
Spoiler GDR vs. MI :
DeathRobot_v_MI_WTF.jpg



Ideas for Improvements

Broadly speaking I think there needs to be an adjustment made on two fronts: first, armor needs to be generally buffed to become more competitive again; second, armor needs a specialization, preferably one that partially negates the massive anti-tank specializations in the game. These two aspects could be combined by:
  • Giving all Armored Units a +20% CS against Gunpowder Units (this would include AAG and SAM, if I'm not mistaken)
  • To prevent AAG/SAM from guarding against that, the Ambush promotions should be removed from them (probably this means that infantry melee needs to be given those manually for each unit in the SQL)
  • To prevent infantry melee from too easily guarding against that, as well, the anti-armor-bonus should be removed from the Formation promotions (they would then only give def. bonus on flat land and anti-mounted bonus). Infantry can still take Ambush promotions against Armored but now this is much more of an investment for them. As compensation Formation could be buffed in numbers (see promotion balance thread).
Instead of +20% against Gun it could also be something like +15% against Gun and +10% against fortified units, for example, or even focusing more on an anti-fortified theme. Or there could be a special promotion line added to Armored Units just like there was to melee infantry, such as:
Spoiler Armored Units special promo example :
Landship: Mechanized Terror: +10% CS bonus against gun units
Tank: Heavy Armor: +15% CS bonus against gun units and a flat damage reduction of 3 damage per attack from all sources
M. Armor: Mobile Fortress: +20% CS bonus against gun units and a flat damage reduction of 5 damage per attack from all sources
GDR: Meal of Metal: +25% CS on attack and heals fully on kill
Comment: since GDR is gimmicky anyway, I thought this would be a fun way to spice him up, but this idea is only semi-serious

This would give armor the specialization of taking out enemy anti-air units (they count as gun units in the game) and make them a more fearsome threat for enemy infantry, as they should be, while still remaining very vulnerable to all ranged units (the flat damage reduction from the special promos wouldn't change that by much). All of these values can be tweaked, of course; I tried not to overshoot with them, but it would simply need to be tested in a real late game war.

Another thing that could be looked at (in place of the aforementioned changes or in combination with a weaker version of them) is:
  • Making the anti-armor-bonus of the late game ranged units only count on attack, not defense. This could especially mitigate the massive dominance of Mechanized Infantry over Modern Armor in the Information Era since half the land units have anti-tank bonuses there.
Finally, I think rushing Landships should become possible, which could be achieved by:
  • Moving Oil to Industrialization
Overall I don't think the entire late game needs to be rebalanced; the other units can stay as they are but Armor does deserve a nice, juicy buff IMO. So let me know what you think.
 
I always appreciate it a thorough and well written argument (especially with charts). I will agree with some of your points, and disagree with others.

Let me start with the Landship/Tank.

Your charts are not wrong, infantry are more durable, and specialized units do more pain against armored units. So on face value the tank does look weak. But you glossed over their mobility, and that is truly the crux of why tanks are actually great units. I do a lot of industrial/modern warfare, and so I see this time and time again.

1) The power of pillage: Something I find with tanks is that there is so much to pillage at this point in the game. I will attack a unit, pillage, go move, and pillage again. Unlike infantry, I can erase the damage they take very quickly.

2) The power of withdraw: Infantry are more durable, but they are also more committed to their positions. If I push an infantry into enemy territory, its hard to save it when it gets low. If a tank gets low (assuming there is nothing left to pillage), than its much easier to pull back and save.

3) The power of flanking: Tanks are better at flanking, they can move in, provide flanking, and move out again. At this point in the game, overrun is a common promotion. We are now longer talking an extra +15% or so, we are often talking an extra +40% CS!

4) The power of march: March is not a great promotion on attacking infantry (defending inf sure but not aggressive ones), but its a wonderful promotion on tanks. Push in, attack, pull back, get a lot of healing.

5) The recent aircraft change. I actually really like the recent aircraft change. Aircraft are still powerful, but more limited in their ability to project force. So I find that I now spend more of my oil on tanks than I did before.

6) G Guns / Machine Guns: This one is easy to forget. Tanks not only take less damage from these units, but they also gets that bonus on attack. Machine guns rip through infantry, but tanks can rip through them.

So honestly I do not agree with your argument when it comes to Landships/Tanks. Infantry got a needed buff, they are now good units at holding territory and slowly pushing the line. But tanks still flat out attack better, when I want to crush the front line...tanks do it best.

Modern Armor

Now here I am in agreement with you. Modern Armor is in a bad place. First, the unit isn't all that great compared to its peers, you have stealth bombers, you have Xcom squads coming out soon, and mech infantry is quite good (I think your charts show this well). Second, they have lost the mobility war. Aircraft are much better at this point, Mech Inf has 3 movement, helicopters are crazy mobile. And third I do think that the anti-tank bonuses at this point are ridiculous....because they are not strong enough units to warrant being so targeted (helicopters already get a +100% bonus against tanks, why do they need a tank hunter promotion as well?)

So to me, I would give a big buff to the modern armor. I'd say 95 to 100 strength....let them be a terror unless you apply the appropriate counters to match them. I would also accept lowering the anti-tank buffs...but I think at this late point in the game you need units that can shake things up and force a player to wake up and counter you or you roll over them (similar to the knight in medieval times). Honestly at 95 CS I'd probably still use stealth bombers more often...but at least I'm getting some good bang for my buck.
 
It's late and I'm back from from work so sorry if I jump straight to the end :p

Finally, I think rushing Landships should become possible, which could be achieved by:
Moving Oil to Industrialization.

This, first and foremost. Or just go back to good ole Combustion. Afaik there was no discussion before the latest official version that moved Oil discovery to Biology on such big change, people only tried to give some in-game or historical justification after the swap had been done but I can't remember Oil at Combustion being called out as an issue in past.

Tbh with the recent betas I'm only playing games up to T100-150 so can't comment about the new infantry against tanks balance, but it boils down to you understimating the power of mobility, 4 vs 2 is huge and lets me take very little dmg on the old knights usually promoted through the shock/march/medic line.
 
I do think that moving oil makes sense. While I don't think landships are underpowered I do think they don't get as much time to shine as they should.

I always wanted to note that I love these charts! Regardless of my disagreement with their conclusion, there is some gold here to mine. First I just wanted to ensure I understand how they work, so I will use an example.

Lets say an Infantry (120 HP...I think) attacks a tank (100 HP). The infantry deals 30 damage and takes 20 (probably not realistic, just for the example). So the infantry lost ~17% of hp, the tank lost ~30%, for a normalized damage ratio of ~13%. Am I understanding the numbers correctly?

Also the OP mentions controlling for flank. So were flanking bonuses included at all?
 
Quick comments before I go to sleep (I may add more tomorrow or Friday since I'm really busy tomorrow):
@Stalker0: I agree that the most severe problem is the Modern Armor, but let me first clear up some points:
3) The power of flanking: Tanks are better at flanking, they can move in, provide flanking, and move out again. At this point in the game, overrun is a common promotion. We are now longer talking an extra +15% or so, we are often talking an extra +40% CS!
This is basically already accounted for in the data; wherever you see "Flanking bonus" in the scenario list then that attacker will have gone Shock line and usually Overrun, with +1 Flanker (enemy no flankers, attacker one, so also equivalent to [one, two] and so on). That hopefully clears up your second question about flanking.
6) G Guns / Machine Guns: This one is easy to forget. Tanks not only take less damage from these units, but they also gets that bonus on attack. Machine guns rip through infantry, but tanks can rip through them.
If you look at the first chart you see that Machine Guns actually do significantly more damage to Tanks than to Infantry, though. In the middle "sub-chart" of the third chart-spoiler you see that yes, Tanks do more damage to MGs but not extremely so; therefore I think it's a bit exaggerated the way you state this and doesn't seem to contradict giving Tanks a buff against Gun Units (which Machine Guns are not, they count as "Archery Units").
Lets say an Infantry (120 HP...I think) attacks a tank (100 HP). The infantry deals 30 damage and takes 20 (probably not realistic, just for the example). So the infantry lost ~17% of hp, the tank lost ~30%, for a normalized damage ratio of ~13%. Am I understanding the numbers correctly?
Yes that's correct, since the Infantry is attacking it would be a positive bar with value ~13 (didn't run your numbers, just validating the concept).

On the other points:
4) The power of march: March is not a great promotion on attacking infantry (defending inf sure but not aggressive ones), but its a wonderful promotion on tanks. Push in, attack, pull back, get a lot of healing.
Yes, I agree that March is better on armor than infantry, but it also makes armor a bit weaker: -10% in testing has shown to be the difference between a normalized damage ratio of -9 and -1, so 8 points when fighting Bazooka vs. Modern Armor, so it is significant; furthermore, March means you are not taking other promotions that may increase your damage (Charge, for example), and that means you will also take more damage when attacking because it's a melee unit, which now adds to the total damage you take from making this decision; so while in some circumstances it will help, that is not guaranteed at all and I also think that finding March useful indicates something I would comment with regards to your pillage point: you can't always pillage. Yes it's easier to pillage with armor than infantry, but Mechanized Infantry can already do [Pillage, Move, Attack] each turn and if you use your armor to pillage twice or more every turn you very quickly run out of pillageable tiles; when you look more closely at the damage armor gets dealt you also see that it can often be better to make one more move to evade a ranged unit blasting you until next turn than getting that 25 HP; for Modern Armor this is very often true but even for a Tank getting hit by MG or Light Tank if you look at the first chart again you see they will deal 25+ damage to it (Tank HP is 100 and ranged units don't take return damage on attacking so the Y value is the damage). I also included two sections in the OP where I detailed how the extra mobility isn't as useful for Armored as it is for Mounted in the earlier Eras:
Mobility is certainly useful, but with Skirmisher line units gaining a movement point again Armored Units are once again being nerfed in comparison. A Light Tank can shoot at a Landship and simply scoot off without that Landship being able to catch him the next turn (4 vs 5 MP); same with the Helicopter (5 vs 6), which is far more powerful anyway, due to its hovering ability and anti-tank bonus (and also special anti-tank promotions that add to it). Moreover, with the arrival of aircraft, Railroads and greater range for siege units (Range 3 starting with Artillery) the movement point advantage becomes further compromised; hit-and-run tactics are much harder to do in enemy territory because of these factors than they are with e.g. Horsemen or Knights etc. in early and mid game.
The additional movement points make it easier to set up flanking and concentrate the attack and would also provide more opportunity for pillaging in enemy lands, but aircraft, greater range siege units and massive anti-armor specializations resulting in high damage against tanks more than negate this advantage.

On the other hand, I must admit that the last time I've had a proper late game war between peers was before the melee infantry buffs in July, since in all games since then I was a runaway by that point (maybe I should finally upgrade from King/Emperor :o); that's why I tried to simulate some more elaborate battles in addition to generating the data seen in the charts...with some success, which did seem to more or less confirm my overall findings.
Lastly I just really like the idea of having more specialization rather than a "brute" CS buff, which is why I'm advocating for bonus against Gun units or fortified; I'm totally open to this bonus being small for Landship and Tank and large for Modern Armor. Also, have a look at the promotion balance thread where there is an adjacent discussion about Formation.
 
I would like to see the Bonus vs Tanks on Rocket Artillery removed and increase their base bonus vs Cities to 150%, from 100%.
Perhaps Bazookas should have a bonus vs Guns instead of Armors. Or they can have a bonus vs Fortified.
There should not be 3 Units with an innate bonus vs Armors.
Helicopters should have their base bonus vs Tanks lowered and Tank Hunter I & II raised: 50% each, instead of 100%, 25, 25%.
Oil reveal should be closer to Combustion than Biology, or just be on Combustion.

GDR's should have Amphibious so Rivers can't slow them down (maybe even Modern Armors). They need something besides base 8 Move and 100 Strength and not just higher stats.
Landships are in a good spot. If I were to change them, I would give them +1 Move.
Tanks have that +1 Move over Landships, however it's not worth the 90% increase in Production: Landships cost 1000, Tanks 1800, Modern Armor 2500; meanwhile, Rifleman cost 900, Infantry 1300, and Mech Infantry cost 1800. The Production cost difference can be justified.
I do like the idea of a bonus vs Fortified Units. I also want to suggest a bonus to Flanking or Healing from Pillaging as other ideas for them to use.
Modern Armor should have 6 Move like the Panzer.

I also want to bring up Panzers as they are the only Armor UU. I like their Armor Plating I and that they come earlier, at Ballistics. They also have +1 Move and +10 CS (6, and 80) That makes them an even earlier Modern Armor, -5 CS. Their higher cost can be mitigated due to the Hanse's Production +X% from CS TR's.
 
If you look at the first chart you see that Machine Guns actually do significantly more damage to Tanks than to Infantry, though.

Yes I saw this in your data, and I do think its worth consideration. The idea is that tanks are supposed to be resistant to these units, so maybe that penalty vs armored needs to be increased a bit. I still think g guns and machine guns are plenty strong, so a nerf against armored I don't think would break the bank.
 
Landships usually have fewer promotions than Riflemen since the former are usually left behind for an era or so as Lancers (they're so weak they die to everything). That also adds to the weakness they have compared to Riflemen.
 
I agree with the 3 main points, as I see them:
  • tanks are too weak in general
  • tanks could use more of a niche/role
  • oil needing 2 techs on opposite sides of the tree sucks
I'd say the oil problem should be addressed regardless of what we think about the balance of tanks. Keep in mind that even after discovering it and researching Combustion, you still need to spend significant time building the oil wells. Unless you got lucky and already have a city or GPTI on top of oil - which is pure luck, and luck is terrible for balance. As a solution, oil could be moved back to Combustion, or alternatively to Archaelogy or Industrialisation.

For making tanks more competitive, I do like all the ideas cp33 presented: bonus vs gunpowder, bonus vs fortified, and flat damage reduction. All of them make perfect sense thematically, logically and historically, and give tanks a better role on the battlefield. The bonus vs gunpowder would give them a clear role, some synergy with planes, and make them more distinct from regular infantry. The flat damage reduction would give them a niche as a killer of weaker units (e.g. from earlier eras), and give the player more of an incentive to rush tanks for a power spike. Of course rushing landships atm is almost impossible, as others have pointed out, due to the oil problem. The bonus vs fortified would be a completely new concept (I think) and could make for some interesting tactical gameplay, but it definitely would need to be tested.

The question for me is, how many of these suggestions are necessary to balance the units, and which ones would make the most sense from a gameplay perspective. I'd be open to try a few different options over different betas, but again we'll face the problem of the late game being very hard to test.
 
I agree that the moving of oil to biology has created a mess. From what I could tell using spies in a game as England, a Roman AI unlocked landships like 70 turns before he revealed oil. That's makes combustion basically a wasted tech for him. It means that landships are much later to join the battle than things like machine guns and artillery.

As for the power of tanks, it isn't common that I use them against weapons of the same era. I'm usually ahead in tech, or even if I'm only keeping up, I'll have a military tech that an AI doesn't (because they went for research labs or something like that). With that said, I don't see why everything has a bonus against tanks. The first thing I would do is ditch those bonuses; if only a handful of units have a bonus against tanks, that bonus will be more meaningful anyways. Modern armor does really bad in the data shown, so it probably should be directly buffed as well.
 
Do upgraded mounted retain cover and medic promotions?
I don't know what you mean by cover, since in base VP mounted units aren't eligible for that promotion, but Medic is indeed retained on unit upgrade, though you'll lose the ability to upgrade Medic I to Medic II after upgrading the unit as the Armored tree doesn't have those promotions available for choosing.
Alright, I'll make some tweaks. Strong work folks.
G
Great! Please don't forget about the Panzer, which is a very late UU (in fact, I think it's the latest of all UUs) and could probably use a small buff as well.
 
Increasing GDR to 125 feels right.

I know they’re kind of a joke unit, but I really don’t feel like GDRs are quite there yet. They are a joke unit, but they’re supposed to be a ridiculous death robot, and they’re only marginally stronger than modern armour

suggestion — GDR get a unique promotion:
Killing Machine
+200% attack
Heals 50HP on kills
Unit is not stopped by rivers

You gave up a nuke for this guy, after all.
 
Increasing GDR to 125 feels right.

I know they’re kind of a joke unit, but I really don’t feel like GDRs are quite there yet. They are a joke unit, but they’re supposed to be a ridiculous death robot, and they’re only marginally stronger than modern armour

suggestion — GDR get a unique promotion:
Killing Machine
+200% attack
Heals 50HP on kills
Unit is not stopped by rivers

You gave up a nuke for this guy, after all.

The attack bonus might be overkill, but I do like the idea of heal on kill (or auto march or something) and the river bonus. Ultimately to me its the unit that doesn't stop, it just keeps coming until the game ends...as its only going to be around for a handful of turns in most cases. If you wanted to take it one step further, let it walk on water (never has to embark), it just takes on everything land or sea!
 
I could agree with GDR's needing something unique, say being able to attack 3 times per turn. Also not being slowed down by Rivers.
 
I was slightly joking before but let me actually throw it out there. What if GDR was basically a hovering unit that never embarked (so helicopter but even deep sea was normal terrain). Is such a thing actually possible?

Considering that Xcom's already have incredible mobility, I think giving GDR the flexibility to literally go anywhere and kill things does make sense.
 
Well considering GDR have Walky-footies, and the current no-embark units are helicopters and zeppelins, floaty boys, I’m not gonna be able to square that in my brain. I think them being land terrors is enough
 
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