Should Bombers be changed to Att:6 / Def:5? (Currently 6/6)

A few people think that Bombers are a problem. What do you think?

I do think they COULD be overpowerd but a poll like this will not be balanced because hardly anyone plays Sky Menace. Many people might vote yes to the nerf just because they never use sky menace and why not nerf those who do use it? Also because they do not use SM they will not under stand the issues and can we trust them to be able to take a informed view? (it only takes 1 second to vote will they even bother to think about it)

We saw something like this in reverse when PD was really over powerd but many people did not want a nerf because most people use this strategy but did not really explain why they think it's not over powerd.


Instead I think it should be discussed in the forums in a topic first and then see if there is a general consensus. Balance by vote is pretty flawed for the reasons I gave above. 5 votes for yes so far and no one posted why. I wonder how many would votes yes and give no reason, if I had not posted this comment? (well at least after reading this comment people will be provoked in explaining why I hope)

Napisano od King Cow, 26.03.2011 at 06:06

Instead I think it should be discussed in the forums in a topic first and then see if there is a general consensus. Balance by vote is pretty flawed for the reasons I gave above. 5 votes for yes so far and no one posted why. I wonder how many would votes yes and give no reason, if I had not posted this comment? (well at least after reading this comment people will be provoked in explaining why I hope)

This. People like to vote against units they don't use
I don't realy like to see that people use Bombers for defensive purpose. Someone attacking with 50-100 bombers and leaving them in your cap is quite annoying. I rarely see someone leave his Marines or Tanks in the enemies cap, but it's quite common with bombers.
But I don't know what impact that change would have for Sky Menace players, so I don't know what to vote. The Bomber stats are okay the way they are now, I guess.

Napisano od Clovek30, 26.03.2011 at 07:10

Napisano od King Cow, 26.03.2011 at 06:06

Instead I think it should be discussed in the forums in a topic first and then see if there is a general consensus. Balance by vote is pretty flawed for the reasons I gave above. 5 votes for yes so far and no one posted why. I wonder how many would votes yes and give no reason, if I had not posted this comment? (well at least after reading this comment people will be provoked in explaining why I hope)

This. People like to vote against units they don't use
I don't realy like to see that people use Bombers for defensive purpose. Someone attacking with 50-100 bombers and leaving them in your cap is quite annoying. I rarely see someone leave his Marines or Tanks in the enemies cap, but it's quite common with bombers.
But I don't know what impact that change would have for Sky Menace players, so I don't know what to vote. The Bomber stats are okay the way they are now, I guess.

God I just realised its even worse because people can vote from the front page without comming to the discussion thread at all. (here) I guess it might be strange to defend with bombers but remember SM comes with a nerf to inf defence. So what do they defend with? I have not voted becuase I really am not sure if they are overpowerd or not.

Napisano od King Cow, 26.03.2011 at 07:14

I guess it might be strange to defend with bombers but remember SM comes with a nerf to inf defence. So what do they defend with? I have not voted becuase I really am not sure if they are overpowerd or not.

errrr... Infantry Attack and ARB are nerfed with this strat... you defend with infantry. Bomber defense is overpowered. Name one weakness that bombers have aside from not being able to take a city without a transport. Yet, they enjoy better than average attack, defense AND range. As it stands now, the only thing that you can do when one of these stacks comesinto your territory is hide your troops until the bombers take a city and then move to recap the cities once the bomber stack has moved on. If you attack this stack head on, the casualties to your offensive force are rather significant.

So, marines have a 3 Defense because they Stealth.
Tanks have a 4 defense because of their high attack rating
You would think that Bombers would have a lower defense due to their massive Range.

Range is equally effective to Stealth when you think about it. For example, I have a stack of tanks, moving into your 'hood. As a marine user, you simply mass your marines until you have a large enough stack to take out my tanks. As a bomber user, you use the bombers' range to mass them while keeping them out of range of my tanks. Therefore, with both of these tactics, you have achieved the same result.

The difference is, when you use those marines to cap a city, you cant hold that city with those marines (usually). I think that bombers could use a nerf to their Defense rating. They have too many advantages compared to their disadvantages, and I have not mentioned Sky Menace yet. I think SM could lose the +1 to Bomber defense as well.

Citat:

... I think SM could lose the +1 to Bomber defense as well.

That would break all advantage SM has over things like PD... Nobody would run it anymore.(at least, I wouldn't)

That's strange I could sware that inf defence used to have a penality with SM, maybe I was dreaming...

Anyway one more disadvatage is that Sky Menace has is it's Micro heavy as you asked for one more, making them also suck at defence will only make this worse. I dare you to play sky menace in a 2 min game past the 15 turn if you are doing well and expanding, its a real pain.

I don't know why you are argueing with me about SM being over powerd I have said I DO NOT KNOW. I'm saying a poll like this is not a good way to find out for reasons I have already given. I do think there are bigger problems than skymenace by a long way, and would really like to see how much SM is actually used. I mean if it's still hardly ever used is it really a good idea to nerf it...

Strategy usage:

Tank General 1482
Perfect Defence 891
Naval Commander 350
Imperialist 228
Master Of Stealth 208
Guerrilla Warfare 186
Sky Menace 115
Blitzkrieg 24
Great Combinator 15
Lucky Bastard 3
Iron Fist 1

And sky menace is not used that much... don't break it!

I have to agree with Cow's original point that a general vote isn't the best way to judge whether or not something is deserving of a stat change because people who don't use bombers have no reason not to vote to nerf them while those who use them very often will take a serious hit from it. I think standard bombers being 6/5 would not be a problem but I'm not sure of how seriously this would effect SM so I would like to run some tests before making a decision.

No dont lower defence in other stratagys its harder to get back to your capital with ground troops so bombers though more expensive then infentry or melitia can sometimes be used for a quick defence on larger maps. I prefer bombers for a defensive air unit over stealtys and tanks for this reson+cost. nerfing there defence only makes there offence stronger vs other bombers giving the guy who is joining late and blitzing just for some quick SP an even bigger advantage. If anything i would like to see the defence go up on alot of units to slow down the game and ballance out defencive stratagys with offencive ones. as it is now its verry hard to win when your oponent has the gold. i will continue defending the defence stratagy till more people start seeing how much better a game is as the ballance of defence VS offence is inproved.

I would drop the defense to 5. It just seems logical that the Bomber shouldn't be as good as Infantry in defense and the nerf of one point would not probably break them but still make one unit-type spammers think more carefully what units to use when they are capturing territory they want to keep instead of just spamming Bombers. I think the unit is mainly just meant to drain defending units before attacking the cities with infantry (Infantry with Perfect Defense, Marines) or Tanks anyway.

Napisano od Solidamus, 27.03.2011 at 11:18

I would drop the defense to 5. It just seems logical that the Bomber shouldn't be as good as Infantry in defense and the nerf of one point would not probably break them but still make one unit-type spammers think more carefully what units to use when they are capturing territory they want to keep instead of just spamming Bombers. I think the unit is mainly just meant to drain defending units before attacking the cities with infantry (Infantry with Perfect Defense, Marines) or Tanks anyway.

trust me, dude: it would break them. I have lost 5 bombers to 5 militia once. Imagine what a nerf would do to that!

Napisano od Amok, 26.03.2011 at 12:06

Strategy usage:

Tank General 1482
Perfect Defence 891
Naval Commander 350
Imperialist 228
Master Of Stealth 208
Guerrilla Warfare 186
Sky Menace 115
Blitzkrieg 24
Great Combinator 15
Lucky Bastard 3
Iron Fist 1

Only 15 people use great combinator?? god I must be missing something here...

C'mon as i suggested[long time ago] have a dedicated AS[AirSuperiority] unit..purpose to balance/even-out Airpower...Bombers>bomb..AirTransports>airtransport..Steaths>sneak in Undetected[till SentryPlanes detect...hence EVENING out Stealth]...sooo why not have a AS unit EVEN out ALL TheAirpower...Bombers as interceptors STILL aint right..so +/- attributes is...quirky..just let Bombers bomb and have a unit to handle them..giving the game a AirPower Tier...along with the GroundPower Tier & the NavalPower Tier...just my opinion

If you really wana make bombers weeker and alottle more realistic change the stratagy not the stats.
right now people can win a battle with only bombers+1 air trans and a militia. in real life the bombers would not win becasue even if there were 2 troops in the city they would attack the ground forces first and take cover from the bomber so i propose changing it so land units target other land units first. isent that the way it goes in real life? you got a guy pointing a gun at you and a plane comeing in to bomb you who is the bigger threat? the guy who is pointing the gun at you because the bomber may not know where you are and could hit there own guy when bombing.

It's just so annoying to fight Sky Menace users since they can just ignore any defense lines without losing anything, they can simple ignore your stacks because of the high defense also, and if you don't suicide your offensive units on them your losses will be even greater.

I'm a Guerrilla Warfare user, but I'm sure I speak for PD and tank power users also when I say that, it's just UNFAIR to play against any Sky Menace user. There is only one way to counter them -> kill them early game. If you don't do then you have a high chance to lose.

Now imagine a whole world game where you pick Japan and a SM user has UK, let's go to the facts:

1 - You can walk there with stealth units, so you don't have the problem of being crushed by waves and waves of stealths, but you will take like 10 times more time to advance than his bombers with transports.

2 - You can use air transports scouted by bombers, which have less range and less defense then his and will much likely to be killed by stealths also.

3 - You can take country by country, but don't forget his range, that makes it possible to him to advance way faster than you in any situation.

4 - You can rush his capital (!!!) with marines on submarines, if you have lucky he forgot his capital unprotected, you can take it and even make reinforcements next week! [...] Too bad he can send like dozens bombers from every little city just in the very next turn, plus one air transport unloading Rambo at his capital to recover it.

Or you can just forget all of it, try fighting normally and lost your capital by a huge stack that you can't attack and then cry because his bombers have huge defense and you will probably be unable to reach your capital in time with land units, so you send your bombers (yay!) that will fight 6 atk vs 7 def (correct if I am wrong) and... if you send enough you and recovered it! just in time to watch his next huge stack just by your side ready to take it again. (and don't forget the stealths intercepting you in every litte corner).

So... yeah. Please nerf bombers.

Oh, sorry, I forgot something. SM users says "build AA and it's done", but please don't forget they don't really work the way they're supposed too, plus they are expensive and static units (I can't imagine anyone advancing with AA's stacks or in the middle of other stacks). So every time I decide to put an AA in any of my capitals it means I have one less reinforcement, while you still can send your bombers everywhere.

Dude... SM is way underused anyway... don't nerf it cuz of 113 people who use it versus about 2.5 k of PD, MS, and TG users. I makes it really unfair to the SM users... and you don't have to kill them, just ally them.

Just because many people use Tank General doesn't mean it's overpowered, actually it's really underpowered. These numbers just represent which are the easier strategies to play.

Sky Menace, just like as Blitzkrieg and Great Combinator are really good strategies, but not that easy to master, so people don't pick them up that much, but that doesn't mean you need to let them overpowered to those who can master it.

I can see a newbie PD winning from another newbie with any other strategy, but when you put a rank 6+ (Sky Menace player) against someone from a similar level of experience (any other strategy), the Sky Menace user will much likely to win (considering it's a 1vs1).

In my opinion, this is the order of power of strategies today, considering you are experienced with them already:

1 Sky Menace
2 Master of Stealth
3 Great Combinator
4 Guerrilla Warfare
5 Perfect Defence
6 Blitzkrieg
7 Tank General
8 Naval Commander (depends on the map)
9 Lucky Bastard
10 Imperialist
11 Iron Fist

I'm a rank 5, and I run SM perfect. Your list on strat powers is something I have to agree on. My question is: why don't more people use it? I picked it up in 1 game. Seriously, don't nerf it just 'cuz more experience players pwn with it... A really good solution is simply to dump ranks 0-2 into beginners lounge.

Also, Pinheiro: you're a rank 8. You should have nothing to worry about.

I don't intend to penalize SM users, neither they are a problem to me, because there is actually things you can do against it, but this is not about you or me, this is about the community of Afterwind. Yes, I think SM, as the other strategies, has some bad points too, specially in the early game.

However, what I'm saying is, there is a point in the game where we have to choose, we can pick up SM, master it (not that hard after you get used to the system itself) and keep with it until you get bored, or we can play another strategy and have a hard time against any other SM user.

I know that this can look selfish of my part, as a bomber nerf will benefit me, but don't forget that infantries already passed for it and same works for my dear militias, but that was no reason for me to quit playing my style. If you like playing as an Air Marshall you shouldn't worry that much about a little nerf to your strategy, I'm sure you would do fine even if bombers had 4 defence points, because, after all, SM is not for defence.

About the low number of users in certain strategies... well, I think people prefer to do the simple, it's easier and it's like that in any game at all.

Think about RPG's where people can choose between powerful, but complex mages and the click and wait knights. Now count how many of each do you got. Same to FPS games, look how many 'assaults' do you got and compare them to the number of snipers (way more deadly, if played well), for example.

In Afterwind, tanks and infantries are the knights and assaults, Stealths, Marines and subs are the mages, snipers, engineers, etc...

I mentioned ages ago in another thread that it is really hard to measure the benefits and drawbacks of sky menace.

How do you value their range and maneuver? Is it worth 1 attack, 1 defence? How bad is their micro penality? It can be unplayable in 2 min games after 5 turns but not a problem with 3 or 4 min turns. It might be something that should not be considered, but I do think it is one reason why it is not played as much as other strategies.

It's a hard one really, again because airtransports cost so much and you really do not want many at all. (this is less of a problem now since their cost was reduced for SM players but its still defines SM for me)

Anyway because you want few tranports you are forced to make big stacks which are easy to attack and pin down, if bombers defence was reduced would it have a much bigger impact than people realise for this reason?
I really do not know, prehaps Amok or Ivan have a win to lose ratio for all the strategies. I'm not sure it would give an accurate picture (so many people quit before they lose) and im almost certain it wont be a good idea to let players see it.

I do think a look at how much bombers and airtransports cost, or a buff to AA should be made before a much more dramatic change to the unit stats. (smaller nerfs)

ArrowHead Hit it right on the nose! Here is the real issue Bombers dont have a Vital counter troop as in real life.
this is what i think and i hope people agree.
Put Fighter into the game make it able to attack only other Plane and tank units but give tank units a bonus VS them to reflect that fighters are capable of removeing tanks but generaly a figher squad want take out a intire tanks squad on the first sorte.
Now as far as the stats go it would look something like this (for game ballance example only)

FIGHTER
ATT 7/DEF 5
Range (greater then bombers)
-2att vs tanks, ships
+6 Att/Def vs Bombers
cannot target Infentry Merine or militia(or drop att VS them to 1)
Price 200

This would make it so adding a few anti-air units and fighters to your city would slow down bombers conciderably and also add the defencive unit the game is lacking.

Giving them supirior range would alow you to distroy almost any incoming unit as long as it was not on the ground or in a boat.

I also feel this would increase the amount of naval units and land units built by players to advanve on forign countrys.

Napisano od UrlanderPendragon, 30.03.2011 at 01:04

ArrowHead Hit it right on the nose! Here is the real issue Bombers dont have a Vital counter troop as in real life.
this is what i think and i hope people agree.
Put Fighter into the game make it able to attack only other Plane and tank units but give tank units a bonus VS them to reflect that fighters are capable of removeing tanks but generaly a figher squad want take out a intire tanks squad on the first sorte.
Now as far as the stats go it would look something like this (for game ballance example only)

FIGHTER
ATT 7/DEF 5
Range (greater then bombers)
-2att vs tanks, ships
+6 Att/Def vs Bombers
cannot target Infentry Merine or militia(or drop att VS them to 1)
Price 200

This would make it so adding a few anti-air units and fighters to your city would slow down bombers conciderably and also add the defencive unit the game is lacking.

Giving them supirior range would alow you to distroy almost any incoming unit as long as it was not on the ground or in a boat.

I also feel this would increase the amount of naval units and land units built by players to advanve on forign countrys.

What would be the sense of Sky Menace than? Or what would be the use of Bombers?!
You could shoot down every bomber squad easy. Especially with the higher range and the insane attack bonus. Absolutely game breaking unit idea. Just because you don't use it, or you are annoyed by people who use it, you want to complete take a unit and tactic out of the game. Making it totally senseless to play Sky Menace or to build bombers.

The bomber unit is ment to include fighters it's just not stated. Thats why they are an all round unit. Also fighters are used as bombers sometimes against single targets like tanks. If you wanted it to be realistic then the 'bomber' unit would be even more powerfull and have a + 4 attack against tanks. They are after all the most powerfull weapon in modern times...

Anyway prehaps some kind of missile unit could be the counter to aircraft but I guess that is what AA is ment to be.

Your getting me all wrong.
I just played a game 2 seconds ago and like every other game it was all about bombers. Now if i could build a fighter that would kill lets say 2 bombers for the cost of 1 bomber then add Anti air to the defence the game would have been alot more interesting.
Now as far as stratagys go that give you better planes then you would get better fighters so there would be no NERF to the stratagy but it would make Bomber stacks easyer to kill WHEN! Not escorted by fighters.

Now thats my point your bomber unit is far supirior to all other units by a mileniem! Here is y.
Only good defensive unit vs bomber that incures a 2-1 losse ratio is not as mobile and killed easly when airlifted.
Bombers out range all other units
Bombers only need 1 infentry to take a city
Bombers with there superior move can stack and unstack at will to target multiple citys or units in the same turn at the FARTHEST distance
Bombers stop troop movement over sea and air in unprotected transports
Bombers Have NO ANTI BOMBER UNIT!

1bazillion bombers with 1 melita takes a city in china with a million troops? Realy the only one takeing the city is the 1 guy smoking his pipe on the air transport?

Now along come fighters
Bombers are still good
bomber stacks still alow you to do al the things you do now but a player with fighters can counter your bombers BUT NOT YOUR GROUND TROOPS! and wars are won with the troops on the ground.

ALL conflicts in the History of war were won on only 3 conditions when it comes to battle thats Tarain/fortifications,troops strenght(includs what kinda troops they used here) and stratagy/leadership/Diplomacy.

Now in AW 70% of battles are basicly won with bombers. They need a counter not a nerf. I too love bombers and would hate to see there defence go down i actualy belive there defence should be higher du to the proximity efect alowing them to launch more sorties from a shorter distance(IE war for brittonVS Germany)

My LAST Point is you can not win a war with air supiriority alone you need troops on the ground. and the curent bomber defence dont reflect this bombers should be the last target for defending troops not the first. Becasue if i got 1 militia and you got 1 billion bombers you still cant take my city till you send in ground troops. so ground troops should be fighting other ground troops first.

Well first of all the game is not trying to be totally realistic so this is not really a good argument either way.

Also there is no real anti tank unit, certainly no anti ship unit and no anti infantry except for special units. 2-1 losse ratio is pretty good in my book.

There is only really AA anti bomber unit and spy planes anti stealth unit. So would you also like a anti tank anti infantry unit to be fair?

You also are not listing the down sides to bombers, like the fact airtransports cost allot. Im not sure how people are going to aford 1bazillion bombers unless they have already won the game. To me bombers are a late game unit after people have collected a large amount of land and income which to me is fine, if people are not playing Sky Menace then it will be used early game but that's the point of sky menace.

70% of battles are basicly won with bombers is simply untrue from what I have seen.

I still have not voted but making bombers weak will just make the units even more similar and boring wouldn't it? If they have the same range as other units, are the same power and I assume will cost about the same, what's the point of them?

I can partly understand your problem, but it's not that bad. Defending against SM players or bombers works, though it might be a bit harder and more expensive as defending against a TG.

Basicly I build AA and intercept the incoming bomber squads with stealths. The most important thing is Intel. Build sentry planes and check what your enemy is up to, so you can build up early enough. Works mostly fine for me. I don't know what you do, but if you have that much problems with bombers you seem to fail in defensive. Lack of preparations? unsuitable tactic? Once the bombers are near your border you will have a hard time to take counter meassures.
Just my expierences with it.

Fighters would make bombers unusable. Why should someone stick to bombers if they are going to get shot down by some fighters anyway? I don't think Bombers need another counter unit.

The point about ground troops should fight ground troops first. Well, why? Before you send troops into a city you bomb the military infrastructure. You don't send in your infantry and after that start bombing. Those bombings wouldn't eliminate the complete defending force, that's true. But it's a game, if you wan't some real life war, join your local military. You sure will find realismn there.

Also stop reffering to World War II. Bombers from those times have almost nothing in common with modern bombers. Especially in the case of Britain, the purpose for bombers were mass bombardements on Germany. Bombers in modern wars don't work like that.

Napisano od Amok, 26.03.2011 at 12:06

Strategy usage:

Tank General 1482
Perfect Defence 891
Naval Commander 350
Imperialist 228
Master Of Stealth 208
Guerrilla Warfare 186
Sky Menace 115
Blitzkrieg 24
Great Combinator 15
Lucky Bastard 3
Iron Fist 1

Hey Amok. This is a really interesting stat... do you think you could share it once a week with us somewhere? That'd be really awesome. What time fork is this? Last week's players?

Napisano od Amok, 26.03.2011 at 12:06

Strategy usage:

Tank General 1482
Perfect Defence 891
Naval Commander 350
Imperialist 228
Master Of Stealth 208
Guerrilla Warfare 186
Sky Menace 115
Blitzkrieg 24
Great Combinator 15
Lucky Bastard 3
Iron Fist 1

Thats real creepy there amok.

Necropost ftw