Currently i'll list the units I think are not popcorn like since it's easier that way. (just the right amount of HP) The Inferno The Leveller Units that are absurdly beefy (too much HP) The Vanguard If air units as well as land units had the same or half the HP of the Inferno, I think engagements would be a little more lasting instead of it ending in a matter of seconds. It bothers me to see armies melt to a few defenses or a few levellers.
The vanguard's HP would be fine if it didn't do such an absurd amount of damage. The fact that both high hp and high dmg are combined in the same package lends itself to cheese tactics (pelican/orbital drops) which get around the one disadvantage it does have (speed). I think its HP would be alright if it had like twice the range but 1/5 of its current dmg. That way it would still be useful but not insta-kill anything it touches.
Especially air battles. It's hard to have some proper tactics with them when the winner is decided as soon as the missiles start flying. I think every unit and structure needs to have its HP buffed by at least 2x. Maybe increase nuke damage a bit to compensate.
That is like, Red Alert 3 hp. Idk, the concept is, this game is macro, macro lends itself to high unit count, high unit count is accomplished by cheap units and high production factories, high production factories create hundreds of cheap units in a minute, hundreds of units have to be spent for the interest of gameplay, so... ...them all being expended like toilet paper throughout the course of a game is mostly fine. Combat fabbers need something reasonable to heal, infernos and vanguards are okay. Levelers don't have terrific health either, just the range to engage with better odds of attacking versus taking a hit. Vanguards do have an exploitable amount of goodies unfortunately, its sort of cool and sort of not. Building hundreds of units and killing them all in battle to build a hundred more should stay. The strategy should be which units clash in what formation and what strategic locations. War of attrition, kill their hundreds of units using only fifty of your own, then send the other fifty to give their base a neighborly shoulder-punch.
huh.....I kinda felt like RA3 units had little hp too... But I get your point, and as for units like bots, im all cool for it. But having tanks and especially ships have a little more survivability on the battlefield would feel a lot better as a nice way to have a little more 'push' to tanks rather then having them all be about annihilating anything in range as a survivability measure. *shrugs* But that's just me.
Balance them with cost and overall power, and you have a deal. The bots and vehicles could use diversity after all. Red alert 3 definitely had enough health for a battle of 5 tanks to be as long as a battle of 20 tanks in PA. It took 5 shots for tanks to kill each other, and tanks fired 1 round every 3 seconds?
