I will admit, I haven't liked the changes that went into EiR. The biggest reason I chose EiR over OMG, vCoH, and such was how the repairing worked. It encouraged you to not play like a moron. There is a balance required in game play between games smashing opposing equal costing and cost effective armies together and games requiring more strategy and focus than a human mind is capable of delivering in order to play effectively.
The old repair system exemplified this balance. It was too easy to repair tanks in vCoH. Only if you royally fucked up would they die. In OMG and the current iteration of EIR, EiR:R, damaging a tank heavily and killing it accomplishes the same thing. It isn't coming back because you can't repair. Oh sure, you can repair once, maybe more with doctrines, but it's the same idea. Damaging is the same as killing. Honestly, there are no games I can think of that suffered from the first problem I talked about. Maybe I just haven't found them, but too many games are just "Select army, Click opposing army, Hope win. If your army was worth more resources, you will, otherwise you won't."
This was why I always made a distinction between the kinds of AT. There is tank deterrent, and tank killing AT. Stuff that could fight tanks was at least tank deterrent (mostly manpacked). Stuff that could either deal damage that the enemy was not prepared for (Paks) or chase them down (Tank destroyers, sometimes RR's) were tank killers. Essentially, you had to be stupid or unlucky to lose tanks to tank deterrent, but they did stop you from attacking. TKAT was stuff that could kill a competent player's tanks. However, not many others made this distinction. AT was AT, and all AT should function in that role, said the complaining masses. If they wanted to mass manpacked as their only AT, without any TKAT, just TDAT, then they thought that was a viable strategy that should work.
The changes to the repair system simplified the meta-game so that there was no TKAT or TDAT, just AT. Simpler, easier to play, less interesting for those who know how to play the game well.
My preference has always been for strategies that extended a unit's longevity indefinitely. This was why my axis accounts tended to be mostly infantry, vetted to at least vet 1, that I would basically use to defeat endless amounts of foes so long as I didn't screw up because I payed close attention and cycled out squads that were in danger of losing a guy. Support weapons or tanks would be used to handle things that the infantry couldn't take, like massive rushes of infantry or kiting tanks. I would rarely lose a man that way; but it required a lot of strategy and instinct; good game play.
Or I'd go all armour and keep good repair options on the field, choosing doctrine abilities that either helped repair (allies) or minimized damage (axis, thinking of Lightning War and Improved Barrels here).
All of this required a lot of strategy, and that you didn't fuck up, but it was effective, and it was fun. Sure, there's still micro, but when I left EiR (against my will) I felt that the meta game had already been lost. It just allowed you to buy stuff and rush it at the enemy. Did you win? Doesn't matter, because you did it's amount of resources in damage to the enemy. Anyway...that's how I felt about it. I realize that there were other strategies; in fact, many effective players who I considered skillful didn't play anything like me, but I found it to be the most fun way to play, and it's basically been reduced to non-existence. I found some ways to play and still have some fun, but that old way was more or less gone, or dying out.
Anyway, as a last note, I'd just like to say this: people's hard work should always be appreciated, but a lot of hard work spent digging yourself into a hole doesn't mean you should keep going. It's hard but sometimes you have to look at what you've done and not just assume it was improvement just because you worked hard.
Whatever, my opinion doesn't even matter; I can't even play anymore
