Reworking Infantry

Games Halo Wars Series
1

First off i’d like to say I am disappointed with the unit composition and roles of infantry and halo wars 2. Most notably is the absence of the jackals and the presence of elites working along side brutes post schism. I know that the banished are a non-covenant faction but it still bothers me to see them working together especially under a brute leader. I do like the Idea of basic infantry being trained at the main base.

I also really dislike the limited nature of the cover system and would like to see it revised. Instead of simple garrisons that must be selected to eject units, each piece of cover can simply be move in and out of with move commands. both races should have deploy-able cover positions as abilities. The Banished could drop cover positions with shade turrets that must be garrisoned to fire (encouraging use of cheap grunts to hold territory). An expanded but more intuitive cover system also opens up more variety of counters like using grenades or close quarters combat (CQC) specialists against units in cover to disrupt their cover bonus. Or having sniper units able to ignore cover protection.

I have a revised infantry list for the banished that I would much prefer to see.

Main Base:
-Grunt Squad: cheap, rapidly trained, relatively low range unit. when the unit is reduced to 50% health, the grunts stop attacking and flee. later upgrades cause the grunts to become suicide grunts instead of fleeing. This makes them a strong counter CQC squad in the late game. still led by a brute minor with a spiker

Raid Camp:
-Jackal Team: A squad of 3 jackals with gauntlets and plasma pistols and 1 sniper jackal with a Plasma Carbine. more range and durability to small arms fire than grunt squads, jackals specialize in anti infantry and can be upgraded with needlers and beam rifle. Jackal teams are not so good in CQC as the sniper jackal has a minimum range. Gauntlet Jackals are considered ‘in cover’.
-Brute Predators: A squad of 3 jump-pack brutes 2 minors with spikers and 1 major with a brute shot. Engages in CQC to disrupt enemy infantry in cover. Can be upgraded with Maulers for increased damage and deploy flares to stun enemy infantry. Used as shock troops to assault dug in enemy positions
-Brute Pack: A squad of 5 brutes. 2 spiker brute minors, 2 major brutes with brute shot and led by a brute captain with a fuel rod cannon. Can be upgraded with a deploy-able shield and power drain. Tough, expensive, high durability squad that can engage enemy heavy armor. requires tier 2 tech.

Temple:
-Hunter Team: Hunters are now special infantry built at tier 1 of the temple. High durability, expensive, slow to train but proficient against all ground targets and CQC.
-Chieftain: Faction Champion requires tier 2, stronger stun effect and durability. can be upgraded with brute stalker escorts with regeneration fields in increase durability.

as you can see, I have combined the function of the grunt squad and suicide grunts into one unit. Jackals replace the functionality of elite rangers but have a bit more specialized anti infantry durability, jetpack brutes no longer have gravity hammers (it is silly) and instead smack enemy units around with brute shots, maulers and flares. The Hunter slot in the raid camp is replaced with the classic Halo 3 brute captain pack. They are your main line late game elite infantry and can deploy heavy cover (the bubble shield) and use power drain to stun enemy vehicles. Hunters are moved to the temple and can be built at tier 1 to stop enemy vehicle rushes. They are more expensive and slower to build however but are also more effective units overall. I would consider a unit cap on hunters to prevent spam (maybe 5 squads max?). The Chieftain is now a tier 2 unit but much stronger (more in line with the halo wars 1 chieftain minus vortex) and is now escorted by stealth brute guards with regeneration fields to increase his raw durability. The chieftain should be your primary damage soaking disruption unit in the late game.

For an Elite faction, you can replace all the brute units with Elite rangers / Elite Honor Guards / Zealot spec ops.

I really hope that Creative Assembly expands of the Infantry side of the game and brings it more in line with the classic Halo experience.

2

Also to expand on the cover system and the role of Infantry vs air.

Instead of artificially increasing damage of infantry against air units (as the game currently stands) I would prefer to see deploy-able turrets/cover positions via abilities to provide the primary field anti air.

For the Banished, dropping shade turrets with cover in the early game, and heavy anti air mantis emplacements in the late game (preventing enemy ability use near the mantis).

For the UNSC, in similar fashion, dropping rocket pod turret emplacements and Gauss Driver turrets in the late game (also preventing ability use nearby)

Tor these anti air structures to be active they would require garrisoned infantry. This makes them especially vulnerable to anti cover/cqc infantry.

With this system, the rock paper scissors system is modified to: Infantry>Structure Garrison>Air>Vehicles>Infantry

3

Well idk about everything I actually liked the idea of the elite rangers but the the leader power idea was interesting.

I would make it instead of a normal cool down it would have a a max of like say 3 shade turrets or equivalent per person. If one is destroyed then a cool down would start but otherwise they would be permanent. Small arms would only kill the garrisoned troops but things like tanks or hunters would destroy the entire building.

4

I like that infantry units have a greater focus so far, but they seem slightly too powerful as a whole. Vehicles are easily overwhelmed by mass infantry. Rather than further the infantry mechanics, I’d rather see a tighter balance reworked into the infantry/vehicle roles.

5

A bit of a cover system would be awesome! I found the garrisons to be completely useless with the limited 60 max population. I couldn’t hold territory AND get enough forces to go and destroy enemy bases at the same time.

6

> 2533274917493319;5:
> A bit of a cover system would be awesome! I found the garrisons to be completely useless with the limited 60 max population. I couldn’t hold territory AND get enough forces to go and destroy enemy bases at the same time.

That is a given. If you are leaving parts of your army behind in garrisons, then you will probably end up outnumbered at your other skirmishes. This isn’t RISK. You don’t need to leave squads behind piecemeal. Raising the population wouldn’t fix this because if you have a higher population then so will your enemy. If you still leave your squads behind from main attacks, you’ll probably still end up outnumbered.

Garrisons aren’t supposed to be a huge advantage. They are there to provide a slight edge to your infantry, not make them 10x stronger.

7

> 2533274809541057;4:
> I like that infantry units have a greater focus so far, but they seem slightly too powerful as a whole. Vehicles are easily overwhelmed by mass infantry. Rather than further the infantry mechanics, I’d rather see a tighter balance reworked into the infantry/vehicle roles.

Yeah marine spam was a problem in the beta for Domination, very easy to spam and rush all the objectives.

8

Here is a full ‘wishlist’ of mostly Infantry related mechanics that I think would fit this game:

Systems Changes:

Smooth Garrison Orders: Control change. Changes Infantry Interaction with Garrison Positions. Instead of having an exit button when selecting a garrison with infantry, the garrisoned infantry is selected and can be given orders as normal. a move order outside the garrison will automatically cause the unit to leave the garrison. This is to increase the smoothness with which Infantry interact with stationary battlefield objects. This could cause frustration for low skill players that rely on “all units” but desire for their garrison positions to remain manned. It would hopefully be mitigated by a more complete control-groups tutorial.

Aim and Cover Mechanic: Units and their abilities now have an AIM stat. This AIM stat relates to the time it takes to acquire a target or switch targets. Attacks with high AIM acquire targets more quickly than Attacks with low AIM. Units in Garrisons and COVER reduce AIM of attackers and in some cases increase the AIM of garrisoned unit attacks. Unit actions like reloading and being suppressed increase the COVER AIM reduction effect and/or transfers damage to the garrison structure for their duration at the cost of not attacking. Garrisons have health with a high armor stat that can be destroyed by heavy attacks.

Armor Penetration and Shredding Mechanic: Heavier infantry units and most vehicles and aircraft have an ARMOR stat that reduces incoming damage by a set amount. Attacks with less damage than its target’s armor will deflect every number of attacks based on how much higher the armor is than the damage. Many attacks have either a penetration or shedding effect to deal with higher armor levels. Penetration allows attacks to ignore a portion of target armor while shredding reduces target armor until repaired.

Structures and Security Mechanic: Base turret emplacements and main base structures are now garrison structures that are automatically manned by security teams. The emplacements can be garrisoned by other Infantry types for defensive bonuses. Base structures can now produce very cheap and rapidly trained uncontrollable security units that cost no population (max 10 per fully upgraded base) these units defend the base against infantry infiltration and man defensive weapons and equipment. Security units are good at stalling and resisting smaller amounts of enemy infantry but larger pushes can wipe out your security and disable your base structure to use it as a garrison. If a disabled base structure is recaptured, it can be restored to use by use of repair protocol that costs less resources and time than constructing a new base. Base structures have a very high health and armor stat requiring a large amount of heavy weapons to fully destroy. Disabling structures will be the primary method of delaying and raiding an opponent until the later game where heavy weapons are more prevalent.

Abilities Rework and Deployable Garrison Structures: Instead of deploying temporary turrets, both factions now have deployable defensive garrisons with various weapon upgrades. Light infantry can also deploy light cover positions. Medium Cover positions can have turrets installed like base turret emplacements but require infantry to be garrisoned for the turret to be active. Heavy Cover positions have much more health and armor providing better protection from heavy weapons and can install special defensive armaments (Covenant Tyrant or UNSC Onager MAC) that prevent enemy ability use and provides heavy anti air coverage within range. Max level main base structures can also install these heavy defensive armaments

Unit Abilities and Resupply Mechanic: Most unit abilities have limited uses per unit. Some structures, units and abilities can resupply unit ability uses extending peak effectiveness. Many unit abilities are automated but can also be used manually as well. Units in allied garrisons gain extra uses of abilities. This mechanic is designed to focus unit micro and control towards more positioning focused gameplay where units with dwindling ability charges should be retreated to friendly defensive positions to continue being fully combat-effective. This is designed to be a limited type of attrition that adds variety to the duration of peak combat efficiency for each unit.

Specialization and Rebalance of Infantry Units: Infantry units now have a much more defined and focused role. With the new garrison and cover system, Infantry that specialize in close quarters combat and anti-garrison tactics are much more effective against structures and emplacements than vehicles and are significantly weaker in combat against vehicles. Anti-Vehicle infantry tend to have weapons that are less effective inside garrisons and against close quarter combat specialized infantry. Most infantry is relatively weak defensively and relies on combining with garrisons, air and vehicle units to gain defenses and mobility.

Specialization and Rebalance of Vehicle Units: Vehicle units now are primarily support units that provide rapid scouting, rapid infantry deployment, heavily armored anti-armor, and mobile anti air. Warthogs and Specters/Prowlers (replacement for Marauder) can garrison an infantry squad and deploy them. If destroyed while units are garrisoned, the units eject with some damage taken. Anti-armor turret emplacements are mostly cost effective against vehicles and so vehicles are strongest at establishing a mobile front line that can be reinforced with deployed static positions.

Specialization and Rebalance of Aerial Units: Air units are now re-balanced as mobile response units. Phantoms and Transport Pelicans can be built and can transport multiple infantry units and singular vehicles while providing light suppressing fire (replaces the shade/nightingale). Hornets and Banshees are still mobile and strong against vehicles but are also decent against uncovered infantry. Hornets upgrade into Falcons which can garrison a single infantry squad, increasing firepower. Turret based anti-air attacks are now much more effective and basic infantry attacks are much weaker. This makes assaulting enemy strong-points more difficult with air but allows you to very effectively assault less entrenched positions to contest map control.

9

I just wished I got my units out a little faster in the beta.

10

You’re asking for a lot, Mr. Fly. I doubt we’ll see much of these ideas come to life and I can’t blame them for it. CA has bigger fish to fry.

They need to get the balance closer, work on glitches, and just get the game done in general. It was pushed back for a reason. It’s not nearly done yet, and that doesn’t mean that they have time to completely overhaul the current infantry mechanics.

Just my thoughts.

:wink:

11

I know but if I shoot for the stars I may just hit the moon.

If I keep asking for perfection one day I may get a piece of it. maybe in Halo Wars 3: age of reclamation?

I just want mechanically sound pseudo-simulation strategy games and no one seems anywhere close to delivering. I can only keep offering Ideas and hoping that someone somewhere will bite.

12

> 2533274809541057;10:
> You’re asking for a lot, Mr. Fly. I doubt we’ll see much of these ideas come to life and I can’t blame them for it. CA has bigger fish to fry.
>
> They need to get the balance closer, work on glitches, and just get the game done in general. It was pushed back for a reason. It’s not nearly done yet, and that doesn’t mean that they have time to completely overhaul the current infantry mechanics.
>
> Just my thoughts.
>
> :wink:

My only complaint is the staff doing the voice acting. And it’s not just for HW…