I think it's time to nerf ranged infantry...

[astero]

Seems like the easiest way to 5-star a base is to just load up on archers, add a handful of artillery+healers into the mix, and then watch them tear through everything with a bit of help from planes/tactics to deal with towers.

IMO archers should not be able to shoot over walls. Fair enough with artillery, but if tanks cannot fire beyond walls (and have to go around or through them) then why is ranged infantry allowed to do so?

This alone would help balance out the game.

 

[Veldan]

I tend to agree. I'm at the end of the Enlightenment Age, and just started to feel good about my defenses, when someone attacked me with roughly 80 ranged infantry, 1 supply train, 1 cannon, 1 horse. And it wrecked my base as if it was nothing. Sabotage or rally dealt with mortar towers and everything else got destroyed with ease. I'm starting to doubt whether defense is even possible against it. It seems to me that the only way to win is if the attacker makes a terrible mistake with rallying or something.

 

[jmemira]

there are a lot of ways to deal with heavy archer armies, especially in MP: upgrade your mortars/redoubts, they are still very fragile units. a heavy rifle comp going up against a base with mega mortar uni research is unexpectedly destroyed and no way to recover. On defense keep cannon types in your tc and watch them decimate the whole army. keep your mortars/redoubts away from each other for maximum effectiveness against sabotage.

 

[Chango]

Agreed 100%

 

[Veldan]

Mortar upgrades and uni tech does not matter if they get at most 1 shot through before being destroyed.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

I agree. In the early ages archers firing in an arc made sense, even if the damage against buildings was ridiculous. From crossbow on up it no longer makes sense. Those weapons do not fire in an arc.

Besides tc artillery, the only thing that ever slows them down is upgrading stable defenders and mortars in uni. If your defenders had the good sense to target the invaders high value units like carts and cannons it would be different, but they'd rather do a slow waltz into a pack of rifles and take one swing before dying. (Hypothetical, I know I've been the beneficiary of defenders ignoring my carts and cannons much more often. So don't change that!)

Besides boredom between the painfully long builds, why am I even upgrading walls if one of the cheapest troops in the game can just shoot right over them? Why even have mortars, saboteurs, machineguns that take so many rss and troop spaces if the archers are so cheap, quick to build and powerful?

Also, why are my attackers able to run halfway across the map to take out an ambusher or garrison troop, but fail to recognize the much more dire and direct threat of command post archers 90% of the time?

Though I can probably infer from the deafening silence that BHG/Nexon thinks the AI is wonderful, how about we get a response to these myriad complaints in writing?

1. Shooters shooting over walls.

2. Shooters shooting walls the entire battle.

3. Cannon's mysterious and nonsensical targeting preferences.

4. Carts and cannons complete inability to recognize threats and roll right into danger for no reason.

5. Shooters and footies separating from cannons at every opportunity compromising them both.

6. Saboteurs holding hands to go attack the same building regardless of where they are released.

7. Haven't gotten aircraft yet, but I can surmise their pathfinding leaves a lot to be desired as well.

You guys have a great game here. Thank you for banishing the I.C.E. Gremlin back to the 5th Dimension.

I can only speak for myself, but my love for the game is not unconditional like a baby loves its mommy. My love for Dominations has become more like a parent with an unruly teenager. The formerly straight A student's grades are dropping, it yells a lot but never talks, and its room is starting to smell really weird.

In my heart of hearts I want to believe it's good, and just going through an awkward phase. I'll do what I can to see it through. But when I see it hanging out with all those card armies from the wrong side of the tracks, all the while letting its grades slip and its room get cluttered with nary a word of explanation?

I really have to wonder.

 

[Navalis]

I'm pretty sure NERF wasn't introduced until the 70's and NERF blasters weren't around until the 90's so my guess is you have an Age or two before we see any NERF rifle troops

 

[astero]

I agree. In the early ages archers firing in an arc made sense, even if the damage against buildings was ridiculous. From crossbow on up it no longer makes sense. Those weapons do not fire in an arc.

Exactly. Allowing ranged infantry to bypass walls does not make sense: even tanks cannot shoot things behind walls, leaving the walls themselves intact.

This should be changed so that ranged infantry needs to either destroy a wall or go around it... just like tanks need to do.

Another issue that is bothersome is the whole supply truck/healing cart thing. IMO it's making battles less realistic as we should leave the healing till after the battle (the current model of units surviving a battle is good enough), otherwise the whole healing mess just brings us back to games that feature wizards and magic instead of a contemporary battlefield where units don't get magically healed by other special units every second...

 

[British Coffee]

Well asking for historical accuracy in this game is kinda pointless since in real life, walls kinda got useless since the invention of cannons and this game lets towers shoot down planes with arrows.
Anyways, back to the point. I think its other underused units like mortars and melee infantry that needs a buff rather than nerfing archers. Archers in current metagame are probably the most important unit and if they do get nerfed, underused units like gatlings mortars and melee infantry will have to get buffed to fill the gap. So I'd say the best solution would be general improvements on AI of all the units and do minor buff on archers and huge buffs on underused units.

 

[JNation]

Lol! Really, no one else saw this..

 

[JNation]

British Coffee, How about improvements to the healers? I think they should follow the largest group of troops rather than mosey off to heal that random fusilier that wants to take on the other half of the base by itself. As far as archers go, maybe we could beef up the defense more and introduce newer things. Maybe something like explosive rounds that get fired off from mortar every so many shots... i also like the sniper that was recently added, maybe we could have research in that which would allow it to shot 2 different targets at the same time or possible 3.

 

[Quang t legend]

in some pạtch ago any defenders (tank, general, garrison infantry..) can shoot over wall. It make sense and balance against the attackers, and make more realistic walled bases!!

 

[British Coffee]

I do agree that heal wagons have the dumbest AI out of all units but I think all units need AI improvements. Even if you exclude the heal wagons who constantly runs into tower range even though they can heal units outside it, all units are barely smarter than a brick ATM

 

[Mountainking]

You have to understand the AI and make use of it IMO. You will of course at times run into wtf situations, but knowing how each unit works is key to keeping them alive.

 

[JMoney]

Not to be the stick in the mud here, but as far as I know the devs call them "Light Infantry." The other ones with the higher damage, low range, and high hp are "Heavy Infantry." Just pointing that out to hope others can stick with the definition. It helps a lot more than calling Light Infantry "Rifleman," "Shooters," or "Ranged Infantry." I know the wiki states them as "Ranged Infantry" but if I can find the dev post they had used the term "Light Infantry" instead, which is a more accurate term.

*Edit* Found it. In the November spotlight post:

"A Factory upgrade in the Atomic Age unlocks the second new vehicle: the Armored Personnel Carrier (or APC). APCs continuously deploy Elite Infantry, or your nation’s unique Heavy Infantry troop, during battle. APCs are a very interesting troop because of their unique risk-reward profile among the ground troops. When they’re well-protected by Light Infantry or Machine Guns over the course of a battle, they can produce more than their twelve troop space worth of Elite Infantry, making them very rewarding over just bringing twelve Elite Infantry instead."

Maybe more dev clarification is needed with the naming, honestly. It's all over the place.

 

[Navalis]

You can always count on wall units! They always stay put no matter what! If only they were taller…

 

[Veldan]

If you read that carefully, you'd see the other troop type is called Heavy Infantry, not Elite. Also, ranged infantry, shooters and riflemen are actually more clear. I don't see a point in using the vaguest term of all, just because that's what some dev called it.

 

[astero]

Archers in current metagame are probably the most important unit and if they do get nerfed, underused units like gatlings mortars and melee infantry will have to get buffed to fill the gap.

Archers are not the most important unit but the most ABUSED unit in the game. They seriously need to be nerfed as at present pretty much the only tactic I see is a tons of archers just shredding everything to bits, with nothing but mortars to stop them. Allowing them to bypass walls should not be allowed - in fact this change alone might bring immediate and much-needed balance to the game.

Otherwise we all might as well just focus on archers, switch to the British, and then stroll through bases.

 

[Hammer]

So you NERF one unit, this will have at best a short term effect, until people figure out what has then become the most powerful and all base their armies around that.

Something will always be the strongest and most used or as the whingers put it "abused" unit.

Get over it and adopt better defensive strategies rather than moaning.

 

[Manifesto]

Perhaps you should all concentrate on changing your base to create roadblocks to slow the troops down and let your tower/defenders combo deal with the archers. Sure you might not get all of them but there ARE other options besides just nerfing a troop. Try to enjoy a challenge once in a while, its not that hard.