[US Inf] Riflerush

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[TheVolskinator]

“If you Americans used infantry like the Russians do, you’d be in Berlin by now!” – German officer in Normandy

Preface: This is the first of several short “guides” (if you could call them that) that I hope to post here on the EiR forums. I’m EiR’s lead RGD coder and played mainly U.S. as I clawed my way up the 1v1 automatch leaderboards in vCoH—as such I consider myself to be relatively “in the know” regarding the U.S. as it exists in EiR.
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   The U.S. and, more specifically, the Regimental Combat Team, are mere shadows of what existed in realty. In Europe in Ruins (and in CoH itself) nearly all of the advantages enjoyed by American infantrymen are nonexistent. If you wish to survive, then you must learn to spam—playing the U.S. in moderation is asking to lose. This is not to say that it’s impossible to beat the Axis without resorting to spam. But what the U.S. boils down to is throwing infantry and vehicles away in fruitless frontal assaults time and time and time again to hunt down and destroy Axis units. The U.S. is a faction at odds with the very premise of Europe in Ruins—unit preservation and veterancy. You are the griefer, the scumbag, the tryhard who goes to literally any length to ensure that he wins, purely for the sake of winning. You don’t have fun in EiR, you work, and you work hard. You ignore keeping your units alive, building fun and interesting companies, and trying to just have a good time while playing Company of Heroes. You use numbers--raw numbers--and brute force to headbutt the Axis to pieces.

   The U.S. is a faction with little variety; all-or-nothing investment is the way to victory. You can choose to go full Russian Reversal and build companies of 40+ Riflemen, or you can use the .30 cal HMG as a crutch in order to fight at range—it has the best DPS of all the HMGs in EiR, and it doesn’t matter if your Rifleman DPS is crap when you can walk up to a pinned enemy squad and squat on top of them.

   The M1 rifle is tied with the M1 Carbine for the title of worst rifle in the game; at long range a single Grenadier model puts out as much DPS as three Riflemen. At mid range that number drops to a slightly more optimistic 1.5 Riflemen per Gren. Only at close range (7 meters or closer—basically the minimum throwing distance of any grenade) do Riflemen match Axis squads of any type man for man; even Volksgrenadiere put out more DPS (if only by a miniscule amount) per-man than Riflemen at close range!

   Non-doctrinally, you have a pair of B.A.R. M1918A2s, more commonly typed as BARs, on tap for 70 MU to bring ranged firepower into play. Indeed, a single BAR is roughly equivalent to three Riflemen at long range, and a single BAR puts out more DPS than an entire Rifleman squad up close. Functionally-speaking, a squad with two BARs equipped puts out as much DPS as a pair of vanilla Riflemen. It is best kept in mind, however, that munitions are a precious resource for the U.S. The faction is shackled to the easily-destroyed 57 mm ATG in order to deal with any type of enemy vehicle; it is ill-advised to bring fewer than 6 in any U.S. company, regardless of doctrine. This requirement drastically reduces the amount of MU that you have remaining; spamming BARs is nearly impossible.

   The depressing truth is that Riflemen fill only three roles in Europe in Ruins: acting as grenade-throwing platforms, capping, and re-crewing de-crewed support weapons. Any other role is theoretically within their ability to perform (they are versatile squads), but is not ideal. Speaking frankly, Riflemen suck.

   Riflemen are truly the least specialized infantry in the game, with all of the positive and negative connotations that come with that title. As mentioned earlier, they won’t win any fight at long range unless you have one or more squads than the enemy has in any engagement. At close range, squads with M.P.40s and StG 44s will tear Riflemen in two (unless you throw a grenade atop the enemy squad and are lucky enough to tear it in half).

   Lacking ranged firepower, the de-facto choice of U.S. players has been, is, and shall continue to be the Mk II frag grenade—it doesn’t matter if your DPS is the worst in the game if you nuke half or more of an enemy squad. The unfortunate side effect to this is that U.S. squads are rarely in cover; most of the time they are rushing over open ground toward the enemy. It is the American’s hope that the Axis player will be unable to dodge all of the grenades thrown his way; the name of the game is overloading the Axis player’s micro capacity.
  
   Coupled with this need to throw grenades is the fact that Riflemen have the lowest HP per model in the game (tied with crew weapons of all factions and U.S. Engineers), meaning you will constantly bleed (lose) models from your squad.

   The question will then inevitably be raised: “how do I fight enemy infantry at range as the U.S.?” The answer is that you don’t. As the U.S., you engage enemy infantry with artillery, MGs, or a vehicle of some type—usually an M8, T17, or Sherman variant. At times, a sniper might prove as useful tool, but above all else you leave the killing to a select few units in your company. Riflemen exist only to fill in the gaps in your line. In this context, their lives are meaningless: unit preservation serves no purpose, healing (the Triage Center or equivalent) serves no purpose, fancy micro serves no purpose, vet serves no purpose. If you have a squad on the field, even a Vet5 squad with a single man and no grenades remaining, then it goes to cap until the enemy finds and kills it. Anything less is not using the unit to its full potential.
  
   If you want to vet up your infantry then vet up Airborne, Airborne Riflemen, Rangers, or some other elite infantry—and then equip them with handheld AT. With its lack of ranged firepower, your elite infantry are best used as HHAT platforms while your vehicles rack up infantry kills. This single strategy will be the bread and butter of 99% of your U.S. play in EiR, and it is extremely predictable and boring. With that said, it is undoubtedly effective and you will win games with it.
  
   The other side of the coin is the previously mentioned 40+ Rifleman company. Typically referred to as Riflerush or Rifle Rush, this involves cramming as many Rifle squads onto the field as you can and capping your way to victory. Cap sectors, grenade any squads in your path, and generally avoid combat unless it’s needed—if your objective is purely to WIN at any cost then you can crank out multiple 15 minute wins in succession with this company build. Be warned, however, that Axis players can sic a single Ostwind or a few PE ACs on your infantry and rip you apart—Riflerush only works when combined with a competent team of players that communicate often and well. When it works, Riflerush is THE single most-effective strategy available in EiR.

   The strategy has little carry potential when not in the hands of the very best players in the mod. Sticky bombs can alleviate the vulnerability vehicles to some extent, but attempting to dislodge, say, some dug-in Grenadiers with LMGs, an M.G. 42, Panzer IV, and WM Officer will be tough going and you are likely to sacrifice 20 or more pop (4+ squads) in order to kill only a couple of those units. Additionally, skilled Axis players will simple back out of range of your stickies before the squad throws them, wasting the use of the ability without you actually damaging the vehicle. This is extremely easy to do; the only surefire way to get sticky bombs onto a target is to converge from all angles on the compass, leaving, literally, no avenue of escape.

   Note that you aren’t to blob the Riflemen, rather, you should aim to spread them out across several sectors in order to outflank and converge upon any target that you actually wish to engage. If you wish to protect yourself from vehicles, then you can bring M10s along for the ride; they will die in droves but they can and will destroy anything equal or lighter than a Panzer IV in a face to face slugging match.

   The Riflerush strat banks 110% on outlasting your opponent, winning purely on the merit that you have so many bodies that the Axis literally cannot kill them all. As mentioned with elite infantry earlier in this post, the Riflerush strat is only marginally entertaining to play and will quickly prove to be a boring, repetitive, and micro-intensive strat. Boring, yes, but you will be able to cram Riflemen into every corner of the map and grenade, sticky, and cap your way to victory.
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   For doctrinal unlocks, your choices are simple: the only tool that you'd want to consider using outside of your non-doctrinal grenades, stickies, and M10s are the smoke grenades that you can buy by selecting the "Standard Issue" lower unlock within the U.S. Infantry doctrine. To put other MU upgrades or any doctrinal MP upgrades on your Riflemen would be a waste. Selecting "Replacements" (also found within U.S. Infantry)  and reinforcing squads with a halftrack or ambulance is optional; if you can reinforce a squad so that itl'll live long enough to use its last grenade or sticky bomb then you should do so.

   The strategy is a blunt instrument with almost no finesse. It is micro intensive and will take time and practice to adjust to using properly--there is a difference between suiciding your Riflemen into unwinnable battles (and netting no kills at all) and sacrificing the entire squad after weaseling your way behind enemy lines to find and kill a Nebelwefer, Pak, or sniper. An alternative, albeit less effective build will be posted in the coming days by myself--a more conventional bread and butter build involving a combined arms strategy, with multiple unit types working together to push your lines forward.

[TheIcelandicManiac]

short “guides”

A decent guide and all that but i dont think this qualifies as short

[Bear]

Even though I do not play it that way, I've always thought spam in EIRR is the way to victory. A well-matched team spits out either inf or vehicles and wins 90% of his games.

I do not know the weapon values, but I think the infantry weapons of the Allies are better than those of the Axis.  Apparently, this does not apply exceptionally in the US for the standard weapon the M1 Carbine.

You could weaken a US Inf gun and make the M1 carbine better.

Also for the Axis Inf it is without HMG, Mortar and Flamenwerfer almost impossible to stop an Airborn blob and a P4 does not live long against three RRs units.

Apart from the fact that the P4 of the WE is hardly useful, the PE P4 with his Incendiary Rounds remains quite useful.
Ok, the HEAT WE Armor P4 is not that bad.

Against med. Panzer is an upgun Hotchkis or Puma always better but dies even faster against RRS blobs.

As written, it always requires a kind of blob. The scope Lee-Enfield is not such a good weapon in my eyes, but three units with scope Lee-Enfield eat each Axis unit in piecework.

Normally, you should realistically consider to be necessary, to make three units  with different weapon (long / middle / short range) in collaboration to do this piecework.

As for the fighting force in World War II, I would like to refer to the following:

Translated by Google:

Source is the german Version of:
Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945 (Contributions in Military Studies, Band 32)
Autor van Creveld Martin

"The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld recalls that it took only five months to reach the gates of Moscow, and the heavily defeated Wehrmacht, which was partly outdated and out-of-date. "To throw them back on their starting line, the hitherto infinitely superior opponent needed a full two and a half years."

In fact, the reputation of the Wehrmacht's fighting power is not based primarily on its victories. She fought in defeat, even though she was outnumbered one in seven.

An intelligence survey of the Allies revealed that even in April 1945, the German soldiers fought furiously, wherever the tactical situation was bearable at all. She fought on, as Creveld writes, "although Hitler's war was never really popular in Germany", "her home was shattered in ruins", she was still fighting "years after all hope of victory had passed".

She fought, even as her units shrunk to a few men.

Former American colonel Trevor Dupuy calculated that "the Germans consistently outperformed the numerically superior Allied armies to which they eventually succumbed." Whether in attack or defense, whether the Wehrmacht air superiority or not: The soldiers always inflicted their opponents losses, which were about fifty percent higher than their own.

While in the American Army many officers in the back area pushed a quiet ball and there were no good leaders at the front, the organization of the Wehrmacht was designed to produce and reward fighters. Unlike the American army, there was no science-based management, opinion polls or psychoanalysis in the Wehrmacht. She focused, in part necessarily, on the essentials.

The contract tactic, the right and the duty of all subordinate leaders to decide and act independently is an important example for this - the difference between them and the German military still decades after the war."

The veterans in EIRR are too strong not everyone can breed veterans and in the end it makes no sense to play against opponents who bring a Vet 5 Blob on the field.

This prevents many people from playing this game.

For the same reason, bad players were always expelled from EIRR at his most popular time. Nobody wanted a bad player in his team. In order not to jeopardize his rankings or veterans.

The basic idea of EIRR is great but the implementation is too strict.

[NightRain]

Volsky forgets to mention that Riflemen are second most cost effective squads in EiR, first being Volksgrenadiers. Can cap 2 vehicles and can fight most enemy squads with handgrenades on hand.

If riflesquad kills anything, nearly anything, they have paid themselves back. At 200 manpower they provide the backbone of U.S Force. They can sticky a heavy tank and if enemy repairs that engine and full health it is possible that 60 mun sticky bomb paid itself back in terms of repairs the enemy had to put their tank through to fix that engine. Nuclear pineapple is the thing that wins infantry encounters, decrews MGs and anti tank guns.

Like problem about Allies is not that they are BAD it is that they are BORING and have one playstyle and one playstyle only. Aggressive, either HYPER aggressive or just plain aggressive.
The current flock of Axis prefer to hide behind walls of support weapons, surprisingly annoying to fight but once those are taken out, they fold and lose their ground and ability to regroup and boom defeat.

Playing US with any support weapon style is a losing battle since HMGs lack healing and enemy artillery will nullify their effect. Generally the only support weapon, if any, that allied players should have is 57mm, the most cost effective unit in game. Fragile? Possibly, buffed? Yeah due to fausts no longer cracking it. Fairly mobile and decent durability and firepower against all but heaviest tanks and or the fastest vehicles.

Disclaimer, allies aren't bad, they are good, but they are so god damn boring to play with. The UK however is entirely different story and is quite strong, too strong imo.

[TheVolskinator]

Typing from my phone. What suggestions do you guys have for a theoretical redesign of the US? Do note that tank graciously agreed to continue funding EiR with the specific premise that any core balance change was only to go ahead with his say-so. Among these conditions he explicitly stated that Volk-Rifle balance was not to be touched, ever. Instead of buffing Riflemen, we got Marines, which roughly match what I had in mind for Rifles.

Unfortunately, Marines have thus far failed to mesh with the US. They feel out of place and people continue to use Riflemen or use doctrinal elite infantry instead. A simple solution in my mind would be to reduce the price of BARs, but that would lead to BAR blobs roaming across the map. I'm just at a loss about what to do if we ever get around to a core faction redesign.

[Tachibana]

I'm not sure I agree with the boring to play sentiment of US. Then again, I play once in a blue moon, so everything feels fresh to me when I do actually play. So, extrapolating on the complaint that US is boring from Nightrain and questions about altering the core vCoH design that makes US an aggressive/poor defensive faction from volsk, I think we can break things down.

Lets assume we only have 2 spectrums of playstyle, aggro and conservative. I know there are many variants of each of those and philosophies inbetween, but assuming there is availability at these two spectrum ends, it should mean there is availability at all the inbetween points and as such, for this thought process, lets exclude them. Also note that I say 'conservative' instead of 'defensive'. Defensive is a playstyle that will almost never wins games in EIR and as such I would want to avoid putting focus on it. Rather, I prefer the viewpoint of a conservative playstyle, which is one that looks to positivley trade kills and values things like vet.

Lets first breakdown the main aggro and conservative tools that are in theory available(whether the tool is good or bad) to each faction non-doctrinally on top of the general theme that seems to shape them. Im going to leave out mortars since with smoke, they fit in both roles regardless of faction.


US
General theme: Cost efficiency

Non-doctrinal aggro tools: riflemen, engineers, m8, chaffee, Sherman Croc, halftracks, non-upgun m10s.

Non-doctrinal conservative tools: Marines, 75/76 sherman, upgun m10, m18, 57mm, 30cal mg, Sniper, GMC


WM
General theme: Pop efficiency

Non-doctrinal aggro tools: volks, pios, puma variants, Stug, halftrack/flammenhalftrack, KCH

Non-doctrinal conservative tools: Grens, mg42, nebelwerfer, P4, Ostwind, pak 38., Panther, Sniper


PE
General Theme: Fastah

Non-doctrinal aggro tools: Almost everything

Non-doctrinal conservative tools: Pgrens, Marder, Panther, vampire/muni HT, Hotchkiss Stuka, Fall sniper


CW
General Theme: Relic dun goofed(survivability)

Non-doctrinal aggro tools: Bren carriers, Stuart, Staghound

Non-doctrinal conservative tools: Everything basically.

Now, before anyone starts, I know people will disagree with some of the positioning of the above units. For example, I am fully aware that a panther can be hyper effective in an aggressive strategy, but I still see it as a conservative unit as I'm pretty sure you will be a pretty sad camper if it dies with a single tank kill vs a Stug with a single tank kill you are probably happy with that trade. Even so, I'm aware there are discrepancies in the minutia of classification. Even so, lets take what information we can out of this.

When it comes to just the sheer availabiltiy of units for a conservative playstyle, there are definitley options available tot he US. If we exclude Brits, its even a comparable amount. I think it can also be generally agreed that even though PE has a comparable toolkit, the faction as a whole is still worse at playing the conservative game than the US. So, this leads to the conclusion that the inability to play a conservative style with the US is not a quantitative differance, but a qualitative one. Lets start with a direct comparison with the US units to their representatives in the WM and CW.

The Marine: As volskinator has stated, Marines were changed into being riflemen+. So, even though they are meant to be a conservative units, the changes they have received to their weaponry has basically made them less cost effective riflemen. So rather than being the US solution to grenadiers I think tank imagined them being, with their current weaponry, they neither beat grens, nor take ground as cost efficiently as rifles and engineers. Basically, they are currently a 270mp grenade delivery platform rather than a 270mp grenadier fighting platform. While tommies have almost the same combat ability as Marines, they cost a full 40 manpower less and have the abiltiy to be buffed by officers non doctrinally.

The upgun m10: The range and penetration bonuses are of negligable effect in most cases. The m10 already dicks on the p4 in a vanilla state and the upgun just makes it a dick more option. The penetration bonuses are not great enough to make a most high tier axis armor particularly care. The exceptions are probably the Stug and the Tiger. The tiger is in a similar situation as the p4 here. The stug does suffer however, the pop effiency and speed of the stug still make the m10 upgun a fairly poor counter when compared to atgs and fireflies.

m18: She is a very happy camper where she sits, but also flies in the face of the US concept of cost efficiency and is often overlooked to be replaced by the plethora less economically painful units.

The GMC is really not comparable to the nebelwerfer in any realistically conceivable scenario. Though, You can make agruments its better than the 25lb.

30 cal vs mg42 vs vickers is probably a wash. Although, I think the bren mmg is superior to all three of these options.

57mm vs pak38 is also a wash, though both outclass the 6 lb.

Sherman variants are in par with the WM p4 and perhaps slightly outclassed by the cromwell in survivability due to its on demand GTFO button and range and sight advantage provided by the CCT. Even so, I think this area is a wash also.


Taking these into account, lets look at what your bread and butter 25 pop conservative start would be between, lets say, WM and US.

12 pop: Sherman vs P4 --- Its a wash

5 pop: pak 38 vs 57mm --- Again, a wash

3 pop: mg 42 vs 30 cal --- advantage axis, but not an insurmountable disparity

5 pop: Gren vs marine --- Grens wipe the floor with marines.

So, what is a US player supposed to do? If they play the same game as the WM player, they put themselves at a disadvantage. So, the US player brings an m10 and 15 pop of sticky/nade/bar rifles and basically overwhelms the WM player. Maybe instead of the m10, its a chaffee and a jeep to even make avoiding the mg42 an easy feat. Or even further, 4 riflemen and a single AP round atg can probably win that engagement more easily than the sherman/mg/57/marine combo.

It simply doesnt make sense to play conservatively when your oppenent can do the same, but better. at the same time though, the disparity of those two call ins boils down to 2 things, Support weapons and infantry. So I think when it comes to the US armor pool, there is not need of any drastic change to the funcionality of units in their current state. The infantry and support weapons can be a point of contention though. However, that brings to heads the core issue you can run into here.

We CAN buff US infantry and support weapons, but SHOULD we?
And if we should, how should it be done. The options being;
1. the simple my mortar is = to your mortar, my mg = to your mg, my marine = to your gren, my rifle = to your pgren. Let the person with better micro win
2. the complex, abstract and assymetric balance.

Changing Marines in an assymetric fashion is not hard, especially for someone as creative as volsk.

Buffing support weapons in a assymetric fashion is far more difficult since the roles are not grossly different cross factionally.

There are other questions as well. Such as, even though the US does not have a Nebelwerfer equivalent, SHOULD it even have one?

There is also the danger of getting sucked into viewing things in a vacume. In making US more capable of Brit and WM playstyles, one must not forget the possible ramifications upon PE. For example, an mg42 is far more difficult to handle with an incendiary grenade than with a pineapple or Stielgrenade.


So, I hear you say, why fuck with base units, this is eir, lets makes things more survivable through doctrines. While this is true, you could. The problem is, they already do.

Armor gives access to meatier tanks, more pop effiencent shermans and repairs, some of the best artillery in the game with the calliope, upgrades to MGs and  tank destroyers.

US inf gives grit, cover bonuses, OTOA, sturdy elite infantry, and the master of all conservatism that is Reinforcements.

Airborne are actually pretty poor on the conservative front, in that they jsut give you AB and sturdier riflement and support weapons. However, you gain the ability to spend the entier match fighting in smoke cover.

The thing is, you cant just make callies better (as we have seen to our regret)
You cant just make reinforcements more cost effective (as we saw from the 2 weeks of 240 lost body US companies still winning games)
You cant make AB get even more smoke utility (as we saw from grenade buffs and offmap smoke walls)

The doctrines are already amazingly strong. Since the base unit was worse at the conservative game from the start though, they still lag behind WM and CW coutnerparts once you beging to include the buffs that they receive. So yes, in the end, the base unit is what is going to need changing and not the doctrines.


TLDR;

Buff marines
Tanks are generally fine
Rework support waepon interaction
Buff GMC maaaaaybe
You cant solve this by making doctrines stronger without creating more issues.
Don't fuck PE while doing this.

[Bear]

I am amazed that I am also of the opinion that the United States but are boring for a very different reason.

The Axis units tell me something about the great Axis War Machine and explain that my wish is their command and how great it is that the fight finally starts.

The US units complain constantly and do not want to fight!

I also think that you can play the Axis much more aggressively than the Allied. With vet5 officers in the blob you can also play Allied super aggressive.

That protects the front line or flank with support weapons is still normal, or not?

I would like it if the different factions had comparable weapons and unit strengths. So nobody can always demand a change because something is perceived as too strong or weak.
At some point should there be a final version?

The up gun Calli was nice.

[TheVolskinator]

For the record, Marines are 250 and have Assault Garand clones. I'd give the Marines Volk rifle clones with the option to purchase Marine Carbines for 20 MP. Drop base price to 240 MP. The 1919 LMG might have been slightly overnerfed as well.

[Mysthalin]

What I find somewhat ridiculous is volsky constantly referring to "fighting at range" in his post, as if it is some sort of god-given insta-win button when it comes to infantry engagements, and that it is this lack that somehow makes the rifleman.. even remotely bad.

Yes, the Gren rifle might have 3x the long range DPS of a Garand. It's still a pathetic 1.8 DPS, meaning you need half a minute to kill a single rifleman, on average, at long range. Assuming the rifleman stays in the open and nobody moves, of course, as that timescale will only increase when these things get taken into account. With just light cover this will increase to something like 90s for a gren guy to kill a rifleman, on average. By comparison, a MG42 will kill a rifleman with every burst, and the .30 cal has a good chance of nabbing 2 volksgrens in one of it's bursts. And we all know how quickly a tank, or light vehicle, can mulch up infantry at long range. Quads have the DPS of 2 full gren squads at long range (AB ones at around 2.5x-3x).

The simple fact is that infantry does not tend to fight enemy infantry at long range for extended periods of time. Staying in that sort of fight only invites the other team to bring up vehicles to do the job quicker, baring some.. critical balance issues with certain limey units *cough*. I fully believe we could buff the long range DPS of garands by +0.1 acc and it would not make riflemen any more interesting to play, even though on a squad-level, their long range DPS would suddenly rival grenadiers.

I would say the relative single-mindedness of the US playstyle is rather firmly rooted in the fact that the rifleman is just so damn efficient (OP or not? I would veer more towards no) with relatively few other credible options. I think with engineers changing rather dramatically we will see more of these builds when the capping is sorted out, but the marine continues to be a... Well, I don't know? A boring, less flexible version of a rifleman. Unlike grenadiers they feature few fun combat abilities such as medikits to make them work well in a way that is exciting, and all of their buffs are concentrated in one doctrine. A doctrine where you can just get the more efficient, and more fun to use ranger anyway. The only thing that sets them apart is a rather stupid LMG that, while powerful, doesn't really give a US player anything they can't have via BARs, or airborne riflemen. And the only company where they aren't competing from the get go (Armour) - you're better off bringing out anti-infantry tanks and letting the riflemen run wild with zooks or stickies.

I would propose that at this stage we should take a cold, hard look at the marine and decide what this utterly schizophrenic unit should actually do. Making it just a rifleman++ is.. neither wanted (as evidenced by it's lack of popularity) nor needed (as riflemen win games, soundly, just fine). If the unit filled a more distinct role at an appropriate cost it would give a reason for people to both go full marine, as well as mix and match them with riflemen. This could be in the form of making them specialists with unique abilities and equipment (old storm cloak with a base cost of 300 mp? Toggle-able sprint? Use-based, or reduced damage AP rifle-nades akin to fausts for a muni cost?), or by making them sturdy and customizable (heroic armour/crits and thompsons for a muni cost?).

Simply shouting buff won't work. At the moment it just doesn't fit with what the US would want to do and offers no excitement. In the past the lol-OPenis of the 1919 made it a boring terminator unit that was neither fun to use, nor fun to play against - and people still opted for the rifle 90% of the time. It just needs to become a different unit altogether.

[Mysthalin]

I would also like to add that a relatively recent gameplay change that affected all factions affected the US disproportionately - both in terms of how much it nerfed them, and in how much fun the US is to play.

I mean, of course, the off-maps.

In all of EiR's history US offmaps were always relatively poor compared to others found in other factions. The strafing run - a relatively poor, long to deploy off-map that made up for it with ease of use and spamability. The bombing run - not that great, but excellent for finishing off that engine-damaged KT. The Infantry offmap? Ok for clearing paks.. I guess. If you can drop the offmap fast enough. Calling it in? Literally not used once in the history of EiR because it's so trash.

Compare that to the henschel, firestorm or blitzkrieg. It is no wonder that the only US offmap used today is balanced arrow, given that it is more or less Henschel Run's white step-brother.

I have seen exactly two strafing runs in the past year (both missed), and the only bombing runs that do get used are in troll companies designed to try and counter 88s (why.. bother?). And the infantry off-map can go die in a fire, given that it costs as much as a FOO, is utterly worthless in comparison, and you get one use instead of being on recharge. I won't even dignify the armour off-map with a mention. Has anyone ever SEEN a recon run any more?

As such, I would say that the US should have its offmaps reinstated in the way they used to be. For free, but relatively few uses. On demand with no shitty offmap guy - but you're giving up a doctrine slot each time you chose one, and you only get 9 total! Perhaps not the best available, but always available, so long as you haven't used them all up yet.

It would work well with the general design of the faction, and give them a unique selling point that no other faction has.

[skaffa]

Make Marines a regular Rifleman squad but with 2 bars by default for x MP. No SF. In case of issues use hardcap over huge mp cost.

[Batgirl]

i have to agree with myst and skaffa and tachi on the earlier post - bear one can ignore as usual

1- off map spam is just fucked up, eirr was always fun since there was a very limited off map amount, off map guy is also a useless addition that doesnt bring anything extra - hardcap off maps at 1 or 2 and price accordingly on the doctrine price menu.
2- marinees are a useless addition, skaffas idea is good (elite marinees as a reward unit was fun ofc)
3- + myst on that "fighting at range" lulz
4- i totally dislike the doctrine tree - its way too strong and you can pick whatever you want - it was much better that you could either pick 2x tier3 benefits or 1x tier 4 benefit and the rest was mostly crap anyway. you would have 3 different builds for every company like iger build or storm trooper build or blitzfast cap + lv speed- build. now you just cherry pick the most broken stuff. imo old doctrines were million times better than the new ones as a whole.

theres lots of stuff that has been tried and nobody likes so cant we just go back to what everyone liked... off maps scum, boring m10, repair system, removal of newb advantages - we could do a poll and see how many would like to revert these changes

extra: omg the fucking engineers man - i want what you smoked

[Bear]

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4- i totally dislike the doctrine tree - its way too strong and you can pick whatever you want - it was much better that you could either pick 2x tier3 benefits or 1x tier 4 benefit and the rest was mostly crap anyway. you would have 3 different builds for every company like iger build or storm trooper build or blitzfast cap + lv speed- build. now you just cherry pick the most broken stuff. imo old doctrines were million times better than the new ones as a whole.
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I found it very good that you have the opportunity to find out which doctrine combination suits best for your own game, or as a counter against the game starters of others.

But that's only possible if you can rebuild the doctrine tree as well.

Someone who knows the game very well does not need it but otherwise it makes EIRR almost beginner friendly.

But this would not be necessary if you could just deleting a coy in the launcher and create it again

Can you get more slots in the launcher if it's changed? I would like 9 for Axis and 7 for the Allied.

[tank130]

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