The enabling of airlift capability has, in my opinion, devalued several units and greatly increased the power of other units.
Let's first look at the MBT unit. I saw other people mass producing them because they were super powerful tanks that could dish out and take in huge amounts of damage. That is what made them good units to use. Used properly they could devastate, but they had one bad thing about them - mobility. As Germanico even said in a forum post, you can't transport MBTs via planes enough for it to make sense for it to be an in-game feature. But now that they can move 7 times as fast across a country and make it so these heavy tanks are both powerful AND mobile. Before, the tank destroyer was a counter unit to major tank offenses. Tank destroyers COULD airlift and heli assault because they're very light tanks (The BMPT Terminator is an IFV by the way, run out of Russian TDs?) but now they're weaker and almost as expensive tank units that can barely hold against tanks and CAN'T hold against infantry.
Towed artillery are almost entirely useless now, since self propelled and rocket artillery can both be airlifted - removing their immobility that kept them from jumping border to border quickly. If you enjoy killing civilians enough to use artillery, there's no longer any point to keeping around towed artillery besides its price - which doesn't really amount to any big advantage considering their lack of HP.
I'm not sure what to think of theater defense systems. They're long range anti-ballistic ballistic weapons, but now if the enemy fires an unupgraded cruise missile the defense system can run away from the missile if they're by an airbase. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, but I guess that makes their purpose pop out more? But what do I know, maybe if you fire a cruise missile at an active player's city every single unit they have there should be able to get across the country before the missile arrives?
I don't know if you guys wanted ballistic missiles to have short range because they'd be able to avoid armies that came nearby them with ease or not, but the range of the ballistic missile, personally, makes ballistic missiles look far less attractive than they used to be. Expensive warheads like chemical or nuclear are going to be treated with care. Players are going to want to put out as many missiles as possible (in the range of price) on an important city. They're also going to want to do it from safety. That is why there's theater defense systems right? And that's also why there's ballistic missiles, to fire at a distance to an important city like the capital. But when you change the range to the range a third of that to fully upgraded heavy bomber or stealth bomber, it changes things up a bit. Cruise missiles are pretty cost effective when dealing with cities and can get fired from bombers 3 times. So if 3 lvl 3 cruise missile can do more damage than a ballistic missile to a city, can have extra armor carrying it (bomber) and have 2 more chances to get past defenses, why would I fire ballistic missiles at the city? They take more warheads per missile so it'll cost more, with less missiles getting fired you'll have more of a chance to get your missiles shot down by SAMs and Theater defense, they still take awhile to reach the target so anti-missile units can be moved to the missile's target area...
Come on guys, I know you have a better sense than this. My ally in a game made made half his military MBTs so he could bunker in these SLOW but unstoppable units. Now he's going to tear straight through everyone who doesn't have MBTs.
If you really wanna keep this, i'd at least recommend increasing tank destroyer damage - since they were never good in the first place. Maybe make these heavy units use slower transport aircraft? The update noted decreased ranges of transport planes but I can transport a unit twice the long length of Europe, but can barely hit the capital of my neighboring country.
Let's first look at the MBT unit. I saw other people mass producing them because they were super powerful tanks that could dish out and take in huge amounts of damage. That is what made them good units to use. Used properly they could devastate, but they had one bad thing about them - mobility. As Germanico even said in a forum post, you can't transport MBTs via planes enough for it to make sense for it to be an in-game feature. But now that they can move 7 times as fast across a country and make it so these heavy tanks are both powerful AND mobile. Before, the tank destroyer was a counter unit to major tank offenses. Tank destroyers COULD airlift and heli assault because they're very light tanks (The BMPT Terminator is an IFV by the way, run out of Russian TDs?) but now they're weaker and almost as expensive tank units that can barely hold against tanks and CAN'T hold against infantry.
Towed artillery are almost entirely useless now, since self propelled and rocket artillery can both be airlifted - removing their immobility that kept them from jumping border to border quickly. If you enjoy killing civilians enough to use artillery, there's no longer any point to keeping around towed artillery besides its price - which doesn't really amount to any big advantage considering their lack of HP.
I'm not sure what to think of theater defense systems. They're long range anti-ballistic ballistic weapons, but now if the enemy fires an unupgraded cruise missile the defense system can run away from the missile if they're by an airbase. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, but I guess that makes their purpose pop out more? But what do I know, maybe if you fire a cruise missile at an active player's city every single unit they have there should be able to get across the country before the missile arrives?
I don't know if you guys wanted ballistic missiles to have short range because they'd be able to avoid armies that came nearby them with ease or not, but the range of the ballistic missile, personally, makes ballistic missiles look far less attractive than they used to be. Expensive warheads like chemical or nuclear are going to be treated with care. Players are going to want to put out as many missiles as possible (in the range of price) on an important city. They're also going to want to do it from safety. That is why there's theater defense systems right? And that's also why there's ballistic missiles, to fire at a distance to an important city like the capital. But when you change the range to the range a third of that to fully upgraded heavy bomber or stealth bomber, it changes things up a bit. Cruise missiles are pretty cost effective when dealing with cities and can get fired from bombers 3 times. So if 3 lvl 3 cruise missile can do more damage than a ballistic missile to a city, can have extra armor carrying it (bomber) and have 2 more chances to get past defenses, why would I fire ballistic missiles at the city? They take more warheads per missile so it'll cost more, with less missiles getting fired you'll have more of a chance to get your missiles shot down by SAMs and Theater defense, they still take awhile to reach the target so anti-missile units can be moved to the missile's target area...
Come on guys, I know you have a better sense than this. My ally in a game made made half his military MBTs so he could bunker in these SLOW but unstoppable units. Now he's going to tear straight through everyone who doesn't have MBTs.
If you really wanna keep this, i'd at least recommend increasing tank destroyer damage - since they were never good in the first place. Maybe make these heavy units use slower transport aircraft? The update noted decreased ranges of transport planes but I can transport a unit twice the long length of Europe, but can barely hit the capital of my neighboring country.
