OpenRA

I've played openra for perhaps 3 years now and have several hundred hours logged playing both allies and soviets. I'll put it out there that I don't think they are vaguely balanced. It's a subjective view, if someone has data to settle it that would be handy (like win % per faction).

In essence I feel allies have a fairly real and significant advantage

Something something it is to do with play style and how you use the relative strengths but in my view the same player playing allies will have more success.

Some reasons in no particular order:

1)Allied artillery behind defensive wall /troops is super hard to counter. Range is simply OP. I liked it when allied arty would explode and take out neighboring arty (what happened to that?) Soviet vehicles etc could do with some buff so make line busting easier and to counter the playstyle that most people dislike playing against (and tarnishes the game in my view).
2) Allied hinds > soviet yaks
In short the move and stop of hinds make them super easy to micro, they don't stray into anti air so easily and can generally be Marshalled more effectively. Coupled with the OPness of arty and defensive wall, you get a super simple and effective playstyle.
3) Allies have the more effective special units. Medics legitimately useful. Spies are game wreckers and pretty OP. Tanya also very handy in hectic game. Soviets have no actual useful specials. Never seen anyone use hijackers effectively. Someone explain why snipers were taken out please. Making dogs little more tanky would help here though a special unit for soviets (cough *yuri*) would be nice.
3) Chrono > Iron curtain. I'd say this is pretty clear, iron curtain is a real fiddle to use effectively as you need to stop the units some distance from enemy arrange and move, by which time the curtain effect has partially been used. if you could use it more dynamically (like with an area selection versus the cross) it would be better. Chrono is super hard to defend against and can effectively be used as a nuke.
4) Allied flak > soviet sam. OK so soviets have the mobile flak and allies do not but this doesnt balance against the huge range difference of Allied flak vs Soviet sams. In base versus base battles the flak makes the defense that much stronger.
5) Soviets have no good spotters. Allies have a 3 (?) units: hinds, rangers and chinook that are effective spotters for arty as well as improving battlefield awareness and the attack range of units in general. Soviets perhaps have yaks but the looping flying pattern mean it is intermittent or straying into unwanted AA.
6) Soviet advantages. So what do the soviets have that Allies legitimately fear? MIGs + yaks can be used very effectively surgically but allied flak is pretty strong so it doesnt really balance. Mammoths are not nearly as useful as they should be, with the maddening aggressive mode where they stray towards the enemy. Also too slow in my view. Demos are hard to use effectively. The watertight d of allies make sneaking one in a real art. Also clearly demos are nightmare for friendly troops also.
7) Allies edge the sea duel. It's, again , just my experience but I think the allies have the edge here. The stealth of soviets is not that strong and can be easily neutralised with those little f*cking ships. Destroyers c̶r̶u̶i̶s̶e̶r̶s̶ have anti air and anti land effectiveness that make them strong. You have the two long range units for each side which neutralize in this equation.


TL;DR It seems the Allies have system that is well integrated and easy to use with a number of strong special units and buildings for which the soviets do not have an equal. It seems that there is/was a philosophy to make the allies the a strong defensive, weak offense faction versus the aggressive strong offence soviets but with mobile bases the strong defense of of allies become both strong defense and offense.

Anyways, could ramble on. Thoughts?

I think they are more or less balanced. Both sides can be successfully played and enjoyed, if we are talking about across a variety of maps.

Artillery can be powerful and difficult to stop at times but then other times against a good soviet you just can't get anything going with them. Iron curtained flak trucks are a good counter which cut through them. Yeah you need to tech up for that but you can suicide yaks before that stage. Iron curtain generally is very powerful. Great for attacking or it can protect a nuke. Yaks aren't as good for vision but are better at base destruction. Mammoths do need more of a buff still.

If we imagine a 2 v 2 game on a smaller map, I'm not actually sure that 2 allies would have an advantage against 2 Soviets; but even if they did, I'm fairly sure they would have no advantage against a mixed team. Or actually, a mixed team would likely have the advantage against two allies. So any imbalance that does (perhaps) exist isn't that big of a deal.

Also parabombs are pretty useful. They can take out half a dozen artillery or largely take out a nuke with a yak or two helping.

I should say I usually play soviets but when I switch to allies I am stunned at how much easier it is. Against MOST players, using arty with troops or base defence is pretty OP. I'd say this issue is perhaps one of the reasons openra hasn't taken off as it is dispiriting to get rained on with not many options to counter. More generally the game is populated by a large hardcore that smash nubs but that is another issue.

Artillery was only recently changed (less range so less powerful). Mess with it further and you will have a different game. It's an advantage of allies yes. If you took it away what would the game be like??

Also if you play more open maps then artillery is less important to the game. So if you want mobile armies and tank games you can already pick that type of map.

I'm all for a tech option that would remove both artie and V2 if people want to do that sometimes.

Some of the concerns you brought I believe depends a lot of what map is being played and the size of the match regarding players.

The Allied "defensive wall" is highly attributed to cheap defensive structures. Raising price/buildtime has some promising effects, especially concerning sieging and turtling. This would in turn affect the use (and abuse) of Artilleries.

As for YAK/MiGs there's been various discussions on adding +1 extra vision in order to spot AA easier and offset the disadvantage of having an idle plane moving the fog-of-war back and forth. They're fast and sometimes you just won't spot the Allied AA on time, even when microing the unit. Other than that it's my impression that they function quite well.

Destroyers ought to have a range nerf. They currently have a range of 9 both in AA and AG and will clean up enemy shorelines in minutes with little risk.

I disagree with some of what you said, so my reply is below. Before you read, I wish to emphasize the one thing that you forgot and is, imho, the most crucial.

0 - allied defenses are OP as hell. pillbox cuts through infantry way too quick and is too cheap. turret has a high DPS and can easily win against tesla despite being much cheaper and not sensitive to power downs.

Here are my replies to your other points.

1 - if you hide behind a defensive wall with artillery, it means you can expand less. In general, the weakness of artillery is that it moves slow, slowing everything down.
2 - not if you count suicide yaks, not if you want better scouting (see 5)
3a - grenadiers/flamethrowers coming out from apcs are your friends. I do agree that allies have an advantage here.
3b - chrono can only be used as a nuke if you insist on concentrating your tanks in a very small position. don't do that. The same annoying cross selection of iron curtain is also a problem with chronosphere (unless you play germany). Also, I think that Iron Curtain is actually the more versatile one. You can make invincible flaks that chase arty, invincible tanks that act as armor, invincible apcs that kill an infantry blob, invincible v2s that mess up a building or two (good way to take down nukes), invincible critical buildings (i.e. you place iron curtain, and a-bomb next to each other, so you can curtain both when under attack), invincible teslas acting as barrier (this won someone a match against me once, he constantly curtained them whenever I came).
4 - true, but once again, I don't it is that critical.
5 - I disagree, mig and yak are better at scouting since they can easily evade missiles. Hinds die from rockets and flak trucks.
6 - actually, I think migs are not that good, except for maybe sniping some tanks or ore trucks. demo truck is high risk high reward, it's very good against a huge blob of infantry and tanks. It is smart to try and build another warfactory a bit far from the rest of the base to reduce risk.
7 - I didn't try it personally, but I heard that submarines have HUGE damage vs buildings, so you need to use them to ruin the shipyard BEFORE you do the other ships.

re: allied arty, i'd give flak trucks a bit of a buff so you can better disrupt the hinds and infantry.Perhaps to the range (of sight & attack). That and/or giving dogs more tank so they can break up infantry blobs. Other options might be to buff apc somehow, perhaps more tank.

You talk about yak suicide but that's a highly costly strat.

Like I say, not sure why the exploding arty was taken out as that also helped counter.



Overall though I struggle to believe it is balanced though there is no real way to settle it without numbers - so it's ultimately hot air. I think when you look over all the areas it's it seems like there is an advantage to allies. it also feels that way when I play.

There are numbers actually. In the rules folder of the game file you can see the attributes of the units/structures. Just be careful when comparing because while numbers are good to look at its about the action in the game as well.

AoAGeneral1 wrote: ↑There are numbers actually. In the rules folder of the game file you can see the attributes of the units/structures. Just be careful when comparing because while numbers are good to look at its about the action in the game as well.

No I mean numbers (%) of wins playing allies vs soviets. Across hundreds of games, it makes team-mates, individual player skill irrelevant.

I also think allies have the edge in almost every aspect, except for mobile anti air.

For numbers one could look at the current RAGL masters league wins of random players, how often they win with soviets vs. allies. You could also look at the other leagues and see how often the players pick allies over soviets.

The replay file should save this data, so maybe I'll write some script in python that extracts this information. Should not be to hard.

zinc wrote: ↑Artillery was only recently changed (less range so less powerful). Mess with it further and you will have a different game. It's an advantage of allies yes. If you took it away what would the game be like??

Also if you play more open maps then artillery is less important to the game. So if you want mobile armies and tank games you can already pick that type of map.

I'm all for a tech option that would remove both artie and V2 if people want to do that sometimes.

There are mods that had no arty, it was OK, different at least, though the games became long as it was hard to penetrate defences.

It seems that there is/was a philosophy to make the allies the a strong defensive, weak offense faction versus the aggressive strong offence soviets

I think it's kinda true. Soviets have the firepower, whether it's Russia or Ukraine.

I'd also point out that Soviets are more mobile, and with good micro, they can become a deadly faction. Think of Yaks, V2s, APC drops, ... you can do quick and powerful attacks with them.

On the other hand, I see Allies more as a static faction, which does great on choky or small maps. But on larger maps, soviets can outrun them with faster and powerful units, as said before.

But it requires more micro. Hinds, arties, ... require little to no micro. While shooting V2s on blobs, making APC drops, trying to get a suicide Yak, ... need a lot more of micro. I think that Soviets are a much more micro-intensive faction, thus seeming weaker than Allies.

Nevertheless, I do believe there are some balance issues, that makes it sometimes frustrating to play Soviets VS Allies. To respond to the points you made :

1- Allied artillery : true. But as said, it's a static unit. If it gets into the field, then it becomes extremely vulnerable, due to its slowness and low HP. On the other hand, V2s do (relatively) a better job on open grounds, especially a hit-n-running. So I'd say : V2 =/ arty, i.e. not the same unit
2- Hinds vs Yaks : true, Hinds are very good vs infantry. Yaks unfortunately do a bad job against blobs, except suiciding into it. But on the other hand, Yaks are faster, and can be used for base raids.
If Yaks could just do AoE damage vs infantry blobs, or shoot a burst in a straight line, that might help Yaks perform better vs infantry.
3a- Special units : Soviets rely on firepower, allies on special units. However, I agree that some of them are OP.
3b - Chrono > IC : not sure about that. IC can also deal a lot of damage, if used properly. And Chrono can be countered, especially if it relies on vulnerable arties.
4 - AA > Sam : totally agree. SAM sites are very frustrating and pretty much useless. AA guns are ridiculously OP (range and DPS)
5 - Spotters : Kinda agree. Although, yet again, Yaks are fast, so you can scout quite fast. But rangers do that very efficiently, at an earlier stage, and for a lower cost ...
6 - Soviet advantages : Mobilty and firepower.
7 - Sea duel : Well it's kinda complicated ... If you compare navy to navy, not sure if subs are better than destroyers or vice versa. Also, destroyers are only accessible via Radar Dome, which means soviets can rush subs and get sea control early game.
However, soviets have no means of air control over the sea. Yaks are useless vs destroyers, while Hinds can help destroying subs. And if Migs come into play, you can expect the Allied opponent to have Longbows, thus negating Migs intervention. Add to that the scandalous AA&AG range of the destroyers, I'd say : yeah, Allies have sea dominance, at least late game.

klaas wrote: ↑For numbers one could look at the current RAGL masters league wins of random players, how often they win with soviets vs. allies. You could also look at the other leagues and see how often the players pick allies over soviets.

The replay file should save this data, so maybe I'll write some script in python that extracts this information. Should not be to hard.

I'd love to see such statistics !

Allied units and buildings are cheap, fast, efficient, and easy to use.
Soviet units are expensive, slow, difficult to trade effectively with, and are buggy and/or have poor utility.

In a nutshell, even if you're good at using soviets, more often than not, you'd probably be able to do more with allied units.