1. Armored rush tactics, I am not the biggest fan of, I belive it could do better with more unique Tanks other than the IS-4 and remote controled mini tank. What I would do development wise is I would tweak with the damadge output of the IS-4 and maybe add upgraded T-34/85's with enhanced armor and damadge. As for the supporting infantry I would have more in the range of a balanced troop base, not being great at close or long range combat until you purchase upgrades for it. Simmiler to the trench warfare specialisation of infantry selections.

2. ROTP, Better known as 'Revolution of the People' I enjoy this sub faction alot. Im able to get hit and runs with my partisans, getting them leveled up untill I gan give them STG's and FG's What the ROTP lacks in heavily upgraded armor it makes up for in sheer numbers and shcok troops, in the form of partisans. Any diffrences I would enforce in the next update is very small, letting the Sabatour Partisans able to blow torch their way into tanks a small bit faster wither its in the form of base states or an upgrade. And have a ability to feild special partisan assult squads that can come out of buildings, but have the cooldown very high.

Also, I know this is a page to discuss the two already implimented specialisations, but for the two you have on paper, does one of them incude an artillery focus?

Would improving infantry for armored rush not simply make it the best infantry and tank specialization of the soviets, instead of being armored based? How would you implement T34-85 upgrades; the specialization already has flamethrower and armor upgrades.

For ROTP, do you find the tanks useful? You said yourself you mainly play ROTP as a spam and special forces doctrine.

The issue with ROTP and Armored is that both field enough of the other to not make much difference. I would suggest ROTP lose heavy tanks and some mediums all together. Instead, they should focus on infantry and infantry manned or carted artillery pieces and equipment like AT guns, and their armored forces should be vehicles like armored cars, light tanks, and the like. Armored though should stick to just that, Armored forces. Slow, expensive, but dangerous all the same with infantry focused on lightly armed engineers.

@The Roman Empire As For Implementing T-34/85 Upgrades, I personnaly would have them start out as defualt T-34's given to you via Logistical Companies in the Reserve Lines. But, as your specialisation goes, you would know how to configure them on the frontlines. As for the upgrades themselves. I would have 'Attempted reconstruction of german weaponry' I say this in a fassion meaning that a far less effective varient to where they use Exotic Particles Siphoned from German weaponry, and carefully infuse it with their tank shells. Then maybe have something simmiler to more effective reload speed like you had with the IS-2 before the russian armored warfare specialisation was finnalised.

As For about ROTP, I find usefulness with the tanks. But I rarely use much of them. I keep at most 1-2 feilded tanks or half tracks when I battle Hard and Expert A.I's

Most of the time I keep my tanks a victory point behind the front line. That way they can be speedy to renforce positions where my infantry was taken out or where they would need support. On rare occasions where I dont find even my most elite infantry suitable for a capture mission I send in the tank but I have it Vetted up first that way After taking out surrounding enemies I can capture it without a infantry force and thus saving manpower.

Alright.

For Armored Rush, removing infantry alltogether will introduce some unique problems, and essentially invalidate work done, but perhaps there exists a solution: players will need to choose between infantry elements via a mutually exclusive upgrade; an option that locks out say... machine gun squads in favor of tank guards, or something to that effect.

Alternatively, we could de-emphasize infantry by placing limits on the numbers of certain infantry squads allowed, but then buff those infantry squads, making a unit like tank guards stand out and perform well, but be limited to 1 or 2 units.

As another option, we could limit them more conventionally, raising population costs on almost all infantry, loweing them slightly for vehicles. The same implementation can and should be done for cost as well- think CnC Generals' tank general who had overpriced mediocre infantry to discourage their use. Importantly, no matter what action is taken for armored rush, they need to have vehicle options to replace their losses on the infantry front. light combat vehicles, US and British imports, whatever. I'll make sure Phylla sees this thread; in the mean time, do you think these changes would be enough, and if so what one works best?

For ROTP, it seems several of us agree the armored heavy vehicle side of the specialization is perhaps a little unusual. What should replace those tanks then, if anything? We have an entire tier IV structure sitting there almost completely empty.

To be specific as well, I think it would be wise to keep the SU-85, SU-76, T-70, Halftrack, Armored Car, Truck and Katyusha as specialization vehicle options.

The player will need new things to spend fuel on. Perhaps new upgrades or special troops called in via fuel? Maybe the structure can produce 'Elite Conscripts' or Veteran versions of prior units. I'm not sure. As far as an artillery focus for the specialization, I think thats already readily achieved via commander unlocks and the sheer numbers of mortars and katyushas you can easily field. What more could you ask for, since players playing ROTP are capable of severe artillery spam already. Perhaps access to the commander specific 120mm mortars?

However there is a good point made about ROTP's ability to hold sectors in the late game, which is often where they show a lot of weakness due to their mediocre infantry being severely outmatched by superior hostile forces. I can speak only for myself, but Guards blobs and Shock blobs just do not work like they used to in vanilla. How can we improve the specializations ability to take and hold ground in a stand up late game fight? Unit upgrades to old units? New units? I'd advise against any suggestions to make the army even more spammy, or we will run into performance issues.

@onesarcher: That actually sounds interesting. You mean that instead of the current system, have 'classes' for tanks that they can fill, like "Breakthrough" which might have the gun fire slower heavy HE shells and feature improved front armor, or "Tank Destroyer" which is more of a long range combat/slow firing AT concept, "Anti Infantry" which might feature, i dont know, incendiary shells and improved machineguns, etc etc? If thats what you were kind of getting at, that actually sounds like a really cool idea. I bet Phylla will go for it. I'll mention it to him. It's a clever way to implement lesser tank-commanders as well, since we both agreed on having one available early; this would be how you'd get additional weaker ones later on.

Thats what I was attempting to say yes. As most soldiers would have technical expirence in keeping the tanks running in that specialisation, It would allow them to configure with german weaponry to an extent, improving their own weapons, but the upggrades themselves would be expensive Say you have a class using chemical flames and NBC armor for a T-34, say stripped from a previous battle. Or for another class of upgrade having its machine guns be of retrofitted german design stapped to the hull or coxial mount. I would also have a unique upgrade for the IS-4 Where they took a formorly broken railgun from a destroyed elephant and did minor repairs. t where it functions but not at the same level. This Essentialy converts the IS-4 into a Tank destroyer with a slow fireing gun but retains a good enough speed to be useful in attacks.

I would also think of the IS-4 as a potential unit that could go against the Hardy German tanks and win if it was given a few upgrades mid battle. Like the Railgun idea, or have its main gun converted into a Quick fire 88 Caliber, mildly decreaseing damadge per shot but allowing it to sling shells on maybe a 3.5 second basis per shell. There are a few possibilities I'd conciter.

Acknowledged and noted

Both Soviet specializations could get both a unique hi-tech enplacements that are just made for dealing great damage.

For ROTP that would be "Kashtan", a enlarged shotgun spraying a lot of fletchees into hordes of OKW Zombies/ Japanese cannon fodders. However, this searchlight looking device is not cheap and has very low accuracy, so using it against big hordes of meatshields is the best choice.

For Armored Rush that can be "Sprandel" nest, the best view of that is TOW Section from Modern Combat mod for vCoH, a guided missile effective against both aircraft and vehicles, however at cost of long cooldown(reload) between missile locks.

@Cordie, look at this. This is cool. His kashtan works like a vulkan sherman, maybe with greater aoe. The other one would likely need to be an emplaced tank to fit the theme. T34-85 maybe?