Throughout the history of Coh games, the factions rarely stay the way they were designed for the entire duration of the game’s lifespan. OKW and USF changed substantially and PE had its fair share of changes (although not as many as they ought to have had) as well. So factions are usually re-adjusted as they become more played and the kinks are worked out. This thread aims at getting out in front of this early because having played with the DAK a bit, while they are fairly well designed, relative to some of the previous factions at launch, I feel there’s better options available here. 

To qualify my opinions, in Coh1 I was a top 200 ladder player and in Coh2 I’m currently 350ish, but I have not really played anywhere near as many games of Coh2 as I’ve been off doing real-life stuff ever since it came out basically. That’s my reference when I make the suggestions that I do.

Current design

Let’s take some observations of the current design and what personally I find stands to be improved:

Deployment System:

• Some people seem to be steadfastly against the deployment system, where the words ‘call in meta’ seem to be lurking beneath the resentment. Given the saga that was balancing Coh2 call in meta, you can absolutely understand why and I feel the deployment system has elements of these issues. My own main gripe with this mechanic is the ‘group’ and discount emphasis, which is balanced against having a long cooldown, which to me feels like not only a crude way of trying to balance this dynamic, it also skews balancing the individual units (as you’ll always perceive them after having been called in from a call in). You also always seem to end up with a plethora of 250 halftracks, regardless of whether you want them or not, and given that population cap is highly limiting in Coh3, not having the player agency to call in the unit you want without the burden of the 250, is a problem. Another problem is the way you upgrade the call in, it’s a blanket upgrade, either all the call ins change or none of them do, which again removes player agency (some players may always want that Pak call in). This really ought to be more granular. The upgrade also makes Panzer Jagers permanently unavailable, which isn’t great. However, having thought about it a bit, I actually feel the deployment system can be much improved and actually allow for significant strategic and build order depth if done correctly.

Tier 2.5

• I feel 2.5 (armoured support elements) is very much a pigeon holed tier which won’t see play. Both units are quite niche and the tech as a whole doesn’t play into the overall tech tree the same way tier 1.5 (fire support elements) does.

Linear Design

• The developers themselves admit the design is linear, which is not as interesting as non linear tech tress.

Healing Is Tied to A 6-Pop Vehicle.

• Its fairly annoying having 6 pop tied up in a vehicle that will for a majority of the time sit in your base.

These are essentially my main problems with the way the teching tree functions currently. This is what I propose gets changed:

New Design

The Description

I’m going to explain the changes first and then explain the rational after. The teching costs are rough and open to being changed.

First off, tier 0 stays basically the same except that it unlocks the grenade and 250 halftrack upgrades in the armoury immediately. Both of these upgrades should have a fuel cost added to them, it seems weird that they don’t have one already. I would also add another upgrade to the armoury for base headling which is also unlocked by tier 0. This means healing is no longer tied to the medical truck but the medical truck itself becomes more a unit you use for in field reinforcement and maintaining map presence. I feel simple base healing like this is a formula that should just not be messed with. Whenever a new take on healing is done it never ends up being better. Then after that, this is where things get different. Instead of being linear, you can now either tech T1 or T2. 

Tier 1 has as a default the MG34 and the Medical truck. Tier 1 also now has two side tiers instead of one, which I call 1.5 A and 1.5 B. 1.5 A has access to The Flakhalftrack and the Panzer Jagers and also unlocks the increased squad sizes upgrade in the armoury. 1.5 B has the ISG and the Pak, as well as the AP rounds upgrade. Incidentally, the hollow round and AP round ability for both the ISG and the Pak should be locked behind this ability instead of vet. Either T1 side tier unlocks the MP40 upgrade for the Panzer Grenadiers. 

Tier 2 has Assault Grens and the observation halftrack as standard. Tier 2 also has two side tiers instead of one, which I call 2.5 A and 2.5 B. 2.5 A has access to the the 232 Armoured Car and also the P3 E. I replaced the recover halftrack with the P3 E because the DAK have so many repair options already (too many to be fair) that it was totally superfluous. The Recover HT feels a much better fit for a doctrine or even Wehr. 2.5 A also unlocks the smoke screen upgrade in the armoury. 2.5 B instead unlocks the Stug III D and also the Marder, as well as the Blitz upgrade in the armoury. Either side tier unlocks the MG34 for panzer grens.

Tier 3 becomes available once any of the side tiers have been purchased. It contains the Panzer 3 L, the Panzer 3 Flamethrower variant and the Stug III G as well as unlocking a Panzer Schrek upgrade for Panzerjägers and the MP34 upgrade for Panzer Grens. The Panzer 3 Flamethrower variant is replaced by a 251 Call-in in the batllegroup. This tier no longer has a call ins upgrade but instead two side tiers; 3.5 A and 3.5 B. The first, 3.5 A, unlocks the tiger and also the global repairs buff (or whatever that is called) in the armoury. 3.5 B unlocks the walking stuka and the flak 36 as well as the emergency repairs upgrade in the armoury.

That’s the basic tier structure sorted, now for the deployment system. This radically changes. First off, I would remove all the 250 halftracks that come bundled in the deployment and also remove the infantry add ons for the deployments once they get upgraded. What you see is what you get. Also, all call-ins should cost exactly the same, if not a slight premium over, what they cost in the standard tech. The deployment balancing relative to normal tech should basically hinge on a trade off of instant build time but a long recharge rather than the discount system they have in place now. Next, all the deployments has individual upgrades in the Armoury, which change what the call in would be, so that you have more control over what units you have available to call in. 

Note that each deployment requires a different upgrade just to be used for the first time, this upgrade requiring any tier. For the first deployment level, all the units are the same as they are now; Assault Grens, Panzer Jagers, ISG and Pak. However, once you have any side tier, you can upgrade any deployment (presuming you already have the first upgrade of that respective deployment). For example, Assault grenadiers can be replaced with a 232, Panzer Jagers can be replaced with the P3 E, the ISG with the Stug III D and the Pak with the Marder. Finally, once you get any 2 side techs or T3, you can upgrade the deployment again. This time, the 232 becomes a Panzer III, the P3 E becomes a Stug G, the Stug D becomes a Flampanzer and finally the Marder becomes the Flak 36.  Its highly important to stress that each deployment’s upgrades are totally separate from the other deployment upgrades and also that the fuel costs are for demonstrative purposes.

The Logic

So this is how the logic goes. I’ll start with the tiers, a T1 vs T2 split in the early game is just more interesting than linear tech in my opinion. Tier 1 is now cheaper so it should allow players to get MG 34s faster, this is similar to when OKW had their tech and medic upgrades split to make their teching less of an up front cost. Likewise, since the most powerful units of T2 are locked behind side tiers, T2 is much less of a commitment, allowing you to get a Recon HT earlier.  In many ways, this works a lot like how the original PE worked in that you could build the tier to get access to some of the units but others were locked behind an upgrade. This allowed for a lot more flexibility in teching, as no one tech was so much of a commitment. Having T1 unlock the MG34 and T2 unlock MP40s for panzer grens is an interesting nuance that the original PE had and I can’t see how the DAK would be worse off with it. 

T1.5 A is the most infantry orientated tech path, however it lacks heavy weapons of any kind. Its aggressive and mobile. T1.5 B is much more static and support weapon orientated. It’s the most natural ‘camp’ tech path. T2.5 A is again aggressive but this time mechanised, its highly mobile and is somewhat reminiscent of Luchs and P3 E combo in OKW. Finally 2.5 B is mobile, but not quite as mobile, given the vehicles are turretless, their more focused on long range firepower. This setup also removes the original tier 2.5 that would have seen little play, as the Recovery HT is gone and Tier 2.5 B is much more well rounded relative to the other options available.

Once you have one of the tiers, your options become interesting. You can either go for the upgrades in the armoury, side tech into one of the other tiers, either from T1 to T2 from T2 to T1, or indeed for T1.5A to T1.5B or T2.5A to T2.5B, or any combination really, but you can also go straight to T3. You might want to do this to rush out a Flamepanzer in the same way you rush an Ostwind in Coh2, or go for that fast medium. Then in T3 you also have to decide whether to stall for Tiger or get those more powerful support elements. 

There are a plethora of teching paths basically. 

How do the deployments factor into this? Basically by making the other teching choices yet more flexible by giving you the option to call in units that you didn’t tech for in your tech path. For example, let’s say you tech T1 and then T1.5, leaving out possible doctrinal vehicles, how would you get a light vehicle to round out your composition? You could tech T2 or alternatively, you could upgrade Deployment 1 twice and call in a 232. Another example, let’s say you go T2 -> T2.5A, you get a 232 but you your opponent has gone Chafee and you don’t have the fuel for a P3 E or side teching Marder, you could either tech T1 or upgrade deployment 4 and panic call in a Pak. 

The advantage is you can augment whatever your tech choices are and react quickly to your opponent’s choices. Naturally you have to point out the disadvantages. This form of getting units is riskier because if you lose that unit you called in, you’re going to have to wait a whole 6 minutes to call it in again or do the teching afterall. This method, while seemingly a cheaper alternative to teching to certain units, its also is just much less efficient for getting access to all those units. In the example I’ve created, getting all the T1.5 units via deployments is 50 mp 5 fuel more expensive than if you had just teched those units directly, but a straight tech to a Pak is 10 fuel cheaper, assuming you already have T1 in both scenarios. It’s a trade off of flexibility and reproducibility for cheaper straight teching costs. The deployments also don’t give you access to the upgrades.

Changes to Some units

250 HT:

1. This really needs a Pak36 upgrade, for a unit that is clearly designed to add flexibility to the army comp of DAK, I can’t see why a light mobile AT option isn’t there. In my design, this would compliment T1.5A and T1.5B nicely. 

Battlegroup Ideas

The Bf 110 Autocannon Strafing Run would not only be a generally deadlier strafe but would also be of variable length. To illustrate:

Let's say X is your first click and Y is your second, which marks the end and direction of the run, the default run is diagram A, but you can drag the cursor of point Y as far as you want, with a maximum of either 35 range or when you don't have enough munitions banked up for the run. This gives you the flexibility of deciding how much you want to spend and where it will land. A well placed strafe on retreat could be devastating. The cursor should highlight the munitions cost as you drag from point x to point y.

The Supply Trailer requires some explanation. My thinking with this is that its a brand new unit type, which loosely can be defined as a support weapon. How it works is that infantry squads can crew it, push it around, vehicles can tow it, etc. When in a position, it provides an aura which in this case gives nearby units camo and additional construction options. However, the unit shouldn't require pop cap and moreover, you can actually manually decrew it and it will still provide you the benefits. So for example, let's say it spawns in your base and you want to get frontline camo you can crew it with a squad, wheel it over to a house near the frontline and then decrew it. Units within its vicinity would still be benefiting from the aura. When you want to move it, recrew it again, or tow it, to a new location. The beauty of this dynamic is that your opponents can steal these units from you like an ATG, so while they don't take up popcap and would be relatively cheap (say 100 to 150 manpower), you're still incentivised to protect them. You can also attack move them with AT guns etc, potentially with a large AOE explosion, would be interesting to play around it. I think it would make for an fun dynamic, but would need to be coded from scratch. It also indirectly makes tow yet more useful.

The Opel Blitz Fuel Truck should have two effects with the lockdown, when locked down on fuel, it should increase the rate of fuel supply, however when locked down in base, it should reduce fuel cost of the vehicles in the selected structure, so kind of like officer supervision. This would encourage more active micro management of the unit. When it dies it should have a large AOE explosion, meaning friendly units should avoid it and also that it can be driven towards enemy units, kinda like a less efficient Goliath that you can't manually detonate. Top Up Vehicle should be an ability that the unit can be targeted on friendly vehicles. Once done, the target vehicle has faster speed, acceleration and deceleration for a fixed distance. Note this is a fixed distance, instead of time, so if the vehicle doesn't move, it won't 'expend' the ability.

Conclusion

This design has a lot of advantages over the current design. 

• The teching options are signifficantly more diverse, with a non-linear tech tree and fairly esoteric tech options removed.
• the deployment system is tidied up and tied into the tier system more elegantly. It has a clear cut purpose of adding rounding out your composition and tech choices by allowing you to ‘tech’ certain units without all of the upfront costs while also hving considerable draw backs relative to teching itself. It’s a tradeoff. 
• Healing is easier.

This is just what I would do anyway, let me know your thoughts.

My Other Designs

- Brit Redesign.

- US Suggestions.

- Wehr Suggestions.

- Soviet Proposal.

- Ostheer Proposal.

- USMC Proposal

- Commonwealth Burma Proposal.

- Japanese Proposal.

- Free French Proposal.

- Italian Proposal.

- Hungarian Proposal.

- Luftwaffe Field Division

My General Feedback 

- Feature Request and Bug Fixes

Glad to see someone with similar thoughts. I've been playing around with a similar write-up, but I'm not nearly as far. The difference for me is that I went with trucks / medtrucks for my call-in replacements, but kept 250s as the basic call-in so that they can still be integral to the 'feel'. E.g. Pz. Pio in a medtruck / Pz. Grens in a regular truck that can be upgraded into a med truck / Pz. Jaegers in a 250 / 2x 250s.

Upgrades would look something like Pz. Jaegers + truck + Pak since the trucks can fit two units. Trucks would be sellable at full health for something like 25 MP/ 10 Munis.

I also integrated doctrines into the call-ins E.g. Italian infantry would upgrade the Pz. Grens in a truck to Gustatori in a truck. Armored support would upgrade 250s to 251s etc. I feel this is an easier sell to Relic's paymasters since it would drive DLC commanders more.

My biggest problem with the call-in system currently is you get to many 250s for them to be good, but then you have to basically throw them away. Also at 18 minutes I probably don't want any of the regular call-ins, but the whole economy is kinda based around getting practically a free unit every 6 minutes.

I'd also increase call-in cost to something like 300, and slow down the timer so there is an 'opt-out' option, and the regular units can be more reasonable. Something like 8 minutes for call-in, and each tier upgrade reduces call-in timer by 1 minute.

This will ideally be my last update for a while, here are the changes I made:

Removal of Free Abilities

A lot of abilities in Coh3 that would have had a cost in Coh2, have now had a cost added to them.

Adding Tow

I gave the medical truck tow, seems to be just a bug that it didn't have it before.

Passive Bonuses from Upgrades Rework

So having more or less fixed the tech structure issues, I went into the fine grain work of the actual abilities of the units. One of the elements of DAK that I really don't like are the passive abilities that most vehicles get as upgrades become unlocked. I think having utility abilities unlock from upgrades is fine, but my issues with it are 3 fold:

The first is the smoke abilities on a variety of the light vehicles. This the same as the Panzer Tactician ability in Coh2 and really should have been one of those abilities that didn't make it into Coh3. It often amounts to a get out of jail free card, takes no skill to use 95% of the time and relative to the smoke barrage ability, its not not as skilful, versatile or interesting. I basically replaced its usage in DAK in all cases except for:

- Utility Truck

- Medical Truck

- 254 Recon Vehicle.

- 250 Mortar Variant.

- Kradschützen.

Adding it to the Kradschützen was too much to resist, its incredibly satisfying zipping across an MGs arc and dropping smoke, only to zip through the other side. It really helps with its survivability too into the late game, when it can be basically 1 shot, so I feel this is an exception to the rule. 

The second the fact that most of the abilities are passive. Passive abilities basically take no thought to use and do not act as a player skill differentiator. Skilled players have the thought of mind to make use of abilities you must activate whereas less skilled players do not, but if they're passive it takes away that skill factor! You also end up with a weird situation where in the late game you basically don't need infantry anymore as your vehicles capture territory and can repair themselves, have a look at this game: 

https://youtu.be/duZBCVo5yck?t=2077

Note how the DAK player has 6 vehicles and only 1 squad of infantry, but they are still fine. 

The two changes I made were to make the self repair ability a timed ability that you pay munitions for and I also separated the Rapid Advance passive abilities (ie territory capture and speed buffs) into 2 separate abilities. Territory capture is still passive but requires the vehicle to be out of combat. Ideally it should function like the territory capture mode on T34s in Coh2 but I wasn't able to get that to work in. The speed buffs are moved into a Blitz ability which the player must pay munitions for and the passive elements of the upgrade are removed. 

Finally, one more experimental change I made was to actually make the abilities mutually exclusive on a vehicle by vehicle basis. So once you have the tech upgrades, which give their usual health and scaling bonuses, you have to decide of all the utility abilities you want each vehicle to have:

This is not only more interesting from an opportunity cost perspective, but it also makes vehicles for the DAK less 'all singing, all dancing, do everything' units in the late game. Relative to the MG and Side armour upgrades that most vehicles in Coh have, these are significantly more interesting. I also removed all these abilities from the Italian tanks so that they scale less and discourage players from relying on call-in meta. This one I'm a bit more on the fence about. 

Missing Changes

In terms of what I can't change which I would like to change, these include:

- Giving the 250 a 37mm AT upgrade. This would enable yet further build order flexibility and give you a light vehicle counter that is available from the HQ. 

- Giving Panzerjägers a Schreks upgrade once you have T3. 

- Swapping the Bolster ability for Bersaglieri for something a bit more interesting and merging this into the Squad Leader Upgrade as part of standard tech. The battlegroup bolster is just boring.

- Finishing the deployment system, due to mod limitations it lacks half of the call-in layers. 

- Giving the Utility Truck that comes with the Flak 36/Italian 105 a medical conversion. So if you lose the weapon you can still make use of the tow truck.

- Giving the P3 E a 50mm Upgun upgrade once T3 is unlocked. This upgrade exists in the game files but doesn't have the effect you'd expect it to have. This would allow this unit to scale into the lategame and basically be the equivalent of the same tank in T3. 

- Giving Panzerpios some buildable garrison. As a builder unit, they don't really have an interesting structure they can build that isn't tied to a battlegroup. I was thinking something Watchtowers:

So when I say watchtower, I’m thinking the tall wooden structures that are somewhat of a WW2 cliché. I’m thinking around 100-150 manpower. Garisonable but also vulnerable to small arms. It would allow players to take advantage of the COH3 ‘verticality’ mechanics by allowing garisoned squads to see over short buildings and shoot over walls etc. Upgrades you could have would be:

• Crow's Nest. This would basically increase LOS in all directions and be useful for seeing incoming attacks.
• MG Nest. This would outfit the bunker with an MG. However, unlike MG bunkers, you would be able to manually change the direction of the MG. 360 degree area denial but vulnerable to small arms.
• Sandbags. No longer vulnerable to small arms and has more health. Basically becomes a hardpoint. The ideal would be to put an MG in a watchtower with sandbags, but that would obviously be more expensive.

These are basically all the changes I would like to make but can't. If the mod tools get better I will have another go. Its in Relic's hands now!

Great suggestions, if i might, placing the Stug III G, Panzer IV, Panzerjaëger squad in T3 base building with the ability to upgrade with side skirts (Just like the Wher faction). Placing the Stug III G within the same space as the Marder III would (kinda) make an overlap and it is best suited alongside with the Panzer IV in T3, up there where the Crusaders, Shermans, M3 Grant and Matilda tanks and such would be a fair balance vs. their counterpart and timing production wise (Mid to late game). 

The current problems with the actual  DAK mid to late game design are several (but important points nonetheless) :

- The tickrate of VPs are 25% faster, which means that games end sooner than they were in CoH 2, and that lead to my following point, the upgrade cost to get the Stugs III G and Panzer IV call-ins are very expensive to invest (550 manpower and 280 fuel for both the Panzerarmee Kommand and the Armored Reserves) which is a ridiculous amount of resources to get these armors fielded just in time. In most games 3v3 and 4v4, while the Shermans, Crusaders and possibly Matildas and M3 Grant are fielded way earlier than these call-in forces, the DAK player had to strictly rely to Marder III and Flak 36 and Panzer III, and possibly Panzer jaeger with half-track call-in, plus mines to counter medium Allies armor spam and in the meantime he had to wait extra minutes or even wait a whole dozen minutes but then the game will already end before he will get to these call-ins most of the time.

- While the Marder III, Panzer III and Flak 36 are good anti-tank units in their own respective roles, they still remain vulnerable especially to Allies armor superiority (in terms of numbers) and to heavy intense artillery barrage (both off-maps and the fielded artillery/ SPG) plus the air call-in loiter especially during 3v3 and 4v4 matches. The Marder III despite having a good Pak 40 mounted on its chassis and being cost effective and having a long range, it's still vulnerable to flank, it had a squishy HP pool, very low armor and can die quickly. The Panzer III L with its long-barrel 50mm gun, with a thinner armor and a shorter HP pool than most mediums tanks in the game can't survive while battling against Allies armor spam especially to Shermans and M3 Grant even if you do spam them and taking account of the upgrades, it is still not enough. The Flak 36 while being a powerful anti-air and anti-tank gun, it is not flexible when you want to make offensives maneuvers, so it is best suited for defenses. But even in defense, the Flak 36 is a sitting duck to off-map artillery, to mortars, to other artillery guns, to infantry blob and plane bombing runs because it needs to be stationary in order to be operable. Meanwhile, the Panzer IV and Stug III G offers solutions not only via their firepower (because they got obviously potent 75mm KwK 40 anti-tank gun mounted on their chassis/turret) but they also have thicker front armor and a larger HP pool than both the Panzer III L and the Marder III in the game, so in team games, especially 3v3 and 4v4, not only they will get decent firepower against medium allies tank and possibly heavy tanks but also comes with more survivability, more durable during intense combat situations. 

- The call-in don't leave the DAK player any choice but to simply being forced to get tech upgrade to access these call-in which are themselves also expensive and always come with another unit instead of a single one and that always take a fifth of the overall pop cap, (in that case the Panzer IV comes with an Assault Grenadier and the Stug 3 with another Stug). That's why it is best suited to  leave an option for the player to produce a single StuG, a single Panzer IV or a single Panzerjaëger squad which cost are drastically reduced, and their pop cap are substantially reduced as well. Then it is also being able to spam multiple of those units individually and being able to mix them up in the army build which bring more flexibility in the end.

For the 8 Rad Armored car, it can be converted into a Sdkfz. 234/2 Puma instead of having two separate armored car, let the player decide if he want to keep his armored car vs. infantry or he want to upgrade with a 50mm gun (same way as CoH 1 Sdkfz 234) to counter vehicles such as the M24 Chaffee or the Stuart, and having an ability to flank enemy armor compared to the Marder III which seems to struggle since it's an SPG tank destroyer with a main gun fixed on its chassis, the Puma, on the other hand, have more flexibility with its turret.

Neo_1100 wrote:

Great suggestions, if i might etc

Literally all the issues raised in the post are addressed in the mod I created, not quite by the same approach.

Teching up is not only cheaper but more granular, allowing you to go for the units you actually want. The halftrack deployments are made more sane, although not quite to the extent which I want, by making them individual unit call-ins and the cost to upgrade the call-ins are spread out among several upgrades rather than 1 big bang upgrade. As for the 8 Rad, rather than a conversion, there's another unit which serves the exact same role as the one you described and it exists for the exact same reasons. 

Largely we agree on the issues, with slight variations on the solutions. 

The minor point I would disagree on though is adding armoured skirts to Dak units, at least without a battlegroup. Armoured Skirts are a boring upgrade in many ways because all it does is passively make your tank better against side armour hits. That's fine if there needs to be a method by which DAK armour scales better into the late game but that can be achieved, and is achieved, in the master version of DAK through those armoury upgrades. Now, one way of making side skirts interesting would be to make it mutually exclusive with the pintle machine gun. This way as a player, you have to decide whether you want to have your tank better against infantry or more survivable, which might change from unit to unit and situation to situation. That way these upgrades will have trade offs, rather than something you default buy because 'there's no reason not to'.  This is similar to Panzer Elite offensive vs defensive vet and also the choice in OKW between the Tank Commander and the Pintle. Those were interesting choices! This is what I think should happen to Wehr.

How this manifests in my mod is by making the late game utility abilities (smoke, blitz, self-repair) mutually exclusive. It works well, check it out!