impossible matchup?

[Thorveim]

I wonder, can rusviet win against Usonia? Most of their mech killers are melee.. and can't reach air troops as a result. Grozas, Serps, Ognivo.. its like the Nagan is their only option, and just one of them isn't oppressive enough. Even when it comes to the infantry early game, the Salem performs much better than the Ognivo or Kolokol, and their usual trump card of having flamethrower troops.. yeah Usonia gets these too (they can produce ALL infantry types in the game).

What is rusviet supposed to do against Usonia?

[Vovin]

I am just playing through the campaign, but early impressions are that Usonia is way over-powered. It just feels like Usonia has all of the elements I used the most from the other factions, all in one faction, and this is not even including the air units. I guess the only real drawback is that the mech units are weaker, but they feel much more aggressive and are certainly faster. The exosuit mechanics that can drop a field tent is crazy- their survivability compared to regular engineers is no contest.

The AI is definitely much more aggressive on hard now too. I noticed enemy mechs are using their secondaries like smoke clouds and artillery overwatch (the Katyusha walker).

[Thorveim]

Usonia is more agressive and faster, but usually doesn't deal well with the heavier mechs. throw an early isegrim at Usonia or better, a pair of them, and nothing they have can chase it off until much later in the game. Also since they have no unit with heavy armor, they are especially vulnerable to groups of heavy gunners (where other factions can make heavy armor mechs that are capable of shrugging off the hits)

What puzzled me really is that playing against the insane AI with saxony, i struggle but can manage (and eventually crush it once I get a Kaiser out, usually with 2 isegrims and a wotan for good measure, since the AI still doesn't group mechs together for heavy attacks), but when i tried with Rusviet, i got flattened while being basically helpless, especially as their flying hero came out. Doesnt help that not only usonia has a big close range threat with flamethrowers, but their basic troop massively outrange the shotguns.. rusviet has the same issue with polania, the superior range the enemy has making cover basically unusable, but here they don't even get to dominate at close range either)

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Thorveim:

(they can produce ALL infantry types in the game).

No they can't as they can't make Machine Gunners, which again is still stupid that they lock off infantry options to certain factions!

[Thorveim]

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

Originally posted by Thorveim:

(they can produce ALL infantry types in the game).

No they can't as they can't make Machine Gunners, which again is still stupid that they lock off infantry options to certain factions!

Just checked. they can make them (just need advanced barracks, like for polania)

[[AMB]Messer]

Originally posted by Thorveim:

Usonia is more agressive and faster, but usually doesn't deal well with the heavier mechs. throw an early isegrim at Usonia or better, a pair of them, and nothing they have can chase it off until much later in the game. Also since they have no unit with heavy armor, they are especially vulnerable to groups of heavy gunners (where other factions can make heavy armor mechs that are capable of shrugging off the hits)

What puzzled me really is that playing against the insane AI with saxony, i struggle but can manage (and eventually crush it once I get a Kaiser out, usually with 2 isegrims and a wotan for good measure, since the AI still doesn't group mechs together for heavy attacks), but when i tried with Rusviet, i got flattened while being basically helpless, especially as their flying hero came out. Doesnt help that not only usonia has a big close range threat with flamethrowers, but their basic troop massively outrange the shotguns.. rusviet has the same issue with polania, the superior range the enemy has making cover basically unusable, but here they don't even get to dominate at close range either)

Hopefully it'll be adressed in upcoming balance changes

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Thorveim:

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

No they can't as they can't make Machine Gunners, which again is still stupid that they lock off infantry options to certain factions!

Just checked. they can make them (just need advanced barracks, like for polania)

You 100% and aren't confusing the Anti-Armor gunners for the Machine Gunners?

[Thorveim]

Nope. They are both here. That and witnessed the ai making them without any machinegun either as a map drop or in reserves

[Dioh Brandoh]

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

Originally posted by Thorveim:

Just checked. they can make them (just need advanced barracks, like for polania)

You 100% and aren't confusing the Anti-Armor gunners for the Machine Gunners?

They're in the codex, go look.

[Thorveim]

Originally posted by Oh? You're coming towards me?:

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

You 100% and aren't confusing the Anti-Armor gunners for the Machine Gunners?

They're in the codex, go look.

The codex is a bad exemple... They are also in the codex for saxony or rusviet because you can get them through picking up weapons or as reserves, but it doesnt mean you can produce them while playing that faction

[Bomjus]

Originally posted by ak47sforeverybody:

I am just playing through the campaign, but early impressions are that Usonia is way over-powered. It just feels like Usonia has all of the elements I used the most from the other factions, all in one faction, and this is not even including the air units. I guess the only real drawback is that the mech units are weaker, but they feel much more aggressive and are certainly faster. The exosuit mechanics that can drop a field tent is crazy- their survivability compared to regular engineers is no contest.

The AI is definitely much more aggressive on hard now too. I noticed enemy mechs are using their secondaries like smoke clouds and artillery overwatch (the Katyusha walker).

the engineer exosuits are the only thing that feels "overpowered" about usonia (not counting commanders as they should be strong). in a game where the mechs are the biggest selling point (the most original part about this RTS) usonia feels boring to play with such weak mechs.

they have no good anti mech tier 1 unit. the mortar is easily dodged, or gap closed due to its short range. the machine gun mech is good, but to deal mech damage it has to damage itself. it's also squishier than other other tier 1 MG mechs like the saxony one. and finally the airship has extremely low mech damage and i'd wager it loses 1v1 to any ranged tier 1 mech. i'd take the saxony tier 1 walker over any of usonia's tier 1 mechs any day.


tier 2, the usonia melee mech feels like it's straight up bugged. the melee attack deals pitiful damage. the carrier is extremely tanky, but requires 7 population and is obviously expensive. and the knox is okay, but has short range, medium armor, a long reload, and only 550 health.

if usonians didn't have the tanky/fast repairing engineer exosuits i don't think i'd even consider playing them tbh

[Blackmage]

There might be some stat balances that need to be made, idk. The devs have had to address these things before. I think they actually gave Rusviet a stat bump a while ago because so many of their units are close-range combatants.

Tactically speaking, Usonia is over-powered because they can ignore terrain. While all the other factions have been given air units as well, they do not have the same degree of specialty. Paratroopers, Reveres and Samsons are all crazy good.

[Thorveim]

On the receiving side from the AI, the Usonian mech can deal monstrous damage to.. well, pretty much anything it reaches. But it doesn't have the durability too fool around against anti mech defenses like the Serp can

and I don't think stat buffs will cut it for Rusviet here. The issue is not their units being weaker, more the issue that all their best mech killers aren't a threat to air units at all, and the one that can, the Nagan, comes too late and deasn't deal enough damage to be capable to actually killing the damn things (that thing was always better at stunlocking infantry than it was at dealing with mechs.. its just that it wasn't as big of a deal when you could get a serp too. Air units aren't threatened by the Serp however)

[Vovin]

Originally posted by Thorveim:

On the receiving side from the AI, the Usonian mech can deal monstrous damage to.. well, pretty much anything it reaches. But it doesn't have the durability too fool around against anti mech defenses like the Serp can

and I don't think stat buffs will cut it for Rusviet here. The issue is not their units being weaker, more the issue that all their best mech killers aren't a threat to air units at all, and the one that can, the Nagan, comes too late and deasn't deal enough damage to be capable to actually killing the damn things (that thing was always better at stunlocking infantry than it was at dealing with mechs.. its just that it wasn't as big of a deal when you could get a serp too. Air units aren't threatened by the Serp however)

The thing I've noticed in campaign is that many Rusviet units can target air that really shouldn't, like the shrapnel walker or the rocket artillery. I don't have much experience with air units so I don't know if anything that shoots can engage them or not, but that AI with overwatch rocket artillery is basically using self-propelled surface to air missile launchers lol

[Creavend]

Originally posted by Thorveim:

What is rusviet supposed to do against Usonia?

I have to play test this more, but Kolokos seem to be the answer. They do well against air units, maybe because of the splash damage. Not perfect of course, they might lose against Salem. Gulay should out-gun and out-armor their mech though I think might struggle to actually get in range.

Originally posted by Thorveim:

(they can produce ALL infantry types in the game).

They can’t produce grenadiers. At least not in mp and skirmish.

[Creavend]

Originally posted by Creavend:

Originally posted by Thorveim:

What is rusviet supposed to do against Usonia?

I have to play test this more, but Kolokos seem to be the answer. They do well against air units, maybe because of the splash damage. Not perfect of course, they might lose against Salem. Gulay shold out-gun and out-armor their mech though I think might struggle to actually get in range.

Originally posted by Thorveim:

(they can produce ALL infantry types in the game).

They can’t produce grenadiers. At least not in mp and skirmish.

Update: I play tested some more in mp. They are indeed at somewhat of a disadvantage. All of Rusviet’s units can dish out some pain to all Usonia’s units, the main issue is range and speed. This applies to air units in general.

I tried multiple nagans, they lost hard to missiles, both from Reveer and Knox, and also shots from the gunship. One-on-one they can dish out some good damage to all air units, but their range is quite terrible, so they take one or even two salvos or bomb waves before they get a chance to even attack.

Kolokos worked better against bikes and all other medium units (They actually tend to beat the Saleem which I was concerned about) but get even more pain from splash damage so if you have large numbers of them, they all get damage at the same time. They more or less beat the Revere one on one, but it can very quickly get out of the way, even more if it has its ability.

As I suspected, Gulays do a much better job against Revere, Knox, and bikes. But they need to respect the Samson and Admiral. They can kill them, but they are slightly outranged and, depending on the map, the Samson can start attacking before the Gulays have line of sight, which is quite bad with the Samson in particular because you already have a full carpet bomb incoming by the time you even realize.

So TLR, most Rusviet units are slow and have short range weaponry, and most of Usonia’s units are quite fast and have excellent range, so the shortcoming gets really bad at times. I believe the answer could be Nakovalnyas, if they could shoot into the air.