As we all know, the British are the least popular faction to play with or against for most of the community due to their predictable play, expensive infantry, inflexibility and their reliance of a fragile officer to move through unfriendly territory. Plus if they do get enough officers, they are extremely hard for axis players to stop. Something needs to change.
I'd like to point out that I really think the current officer system is the biggest reason for their notoriety. It's not very well thought out in the fact that they are required to make already-expensive infantry useful and having more than one gives them excessive bonuses. Not to mention that the only infantry AT weapon the British have are on a another squad entirely and they aren't reliable on their own, increasing the size of the blob further.
These aspects don't help deter blobbing at all since it makes it more beneficial to blob, while at the same time, makes it dangerous to spread your forces out too far. These restrictions make them un-enjoyable to play for people who are used to the fast-paced and extremely flexible Americans and Whermacht.
I have some ideas that might save what remains of the British Army's popularity while at the same time, staying faithful to Relic's original concept and increasing the British Army's flexibility. My idea's revolve around the Lieutenant.
LieutenantAs we all know, they are extremely vital to the success of British Infantry in the game but they are vulnerable and losing them not only puts a halt to the British Offensive and their veterancy, but it also slows down your teching by quite a bit during the Early-Game to Mid-Game phase. The average British player doesn't want to risk losing him at all and keeps all his forces near him to not only benefit from his aura, but to better protect him from possible assassination attempts from the Germans. The current design makes him just too important.
Here's what I propose we do to change him. Here's a list of changes with their reasons below it.
1: Remove his Fuel cost and adding it to the Field Support Command Truck.
2: Remove his Stacking Veterancy.
3: Decrease his Capture rate to 0.5 or 0.75 (From 1)
4: Remove his offensive Heroic Charge's bonus and keep it's speed, received suppression and received damage modifiers.
5: Give him a new ability called "Mad Minute" at Vet 3, which basically consists of the offensive bonus of the current Heroic Charge (Decreasing their Cooldown by half) and temporarily decreases the infantry speed.
Reason for Suggestion 1I proposed removing the fuel cost because they are so vital to make British Infantry fight properly outside their territory and make them easier to replace when lost. This allows the the British to get more Lieutenants on the field earlier to help Infantry Sections spread out more. However, I wouldn't suggest this if they never had further changes.
Since he was also used as a prerequisite for the Field Support Command Truck, removing his fuel cost would have made a British Player capable of teching faster. So increasing the fuel cost of the FST from 30 to 45 would eliminate that problem.
Reason For Suggestion 2This is a massive reason for the overpowered British Blobbing that plagues the game right now. Have more than one accompanying Bren-equipped Infantry Sections with PIAT Sappers would tear everything apart. This promotes blobbing far to much and need to be put to an end to encourage British Players take advantage of spreading out more when they have more than one Lieutenant on the field.
Reason for Suggestion 3I'm suggesting this because a Lieutenant with no fuel cost would make for a tempting capping unit and aiding the British in their efforts to take a favourable position during early game, giving them an unfair advantage. So making them the slowest capping unit in the game should prevent this from happening.
Reason for Suggestion 4 and 5The current Heroic Charge is in my opinion, another reason that British Blobbing is so powerful. It makes infantry resistant to suppression and damage, makes them run faster and makes them fire twice as fast. The bonuses are far too excessive for one free ability. So I propose we separate the bonuses into two separate abilities. "Heroic Charge" essentially being a slightly improved fire up. "Mad Minute" being a 'stand your ground' type of ability.
"Mad Minute" halving the Infantry Sections cooldown alone is still an extremely powerful bonus. Making the ability do that and nothing else would make it too powerful. So I suggest that it decreases infantry running speed to normal Infantry Section speed in enemy territory and should still effect them that way in friendly territory for the duration of the ability. That way, you can't use it to storm an enemy position and destroy it very quickly. So it makes it a sort of defensive ability that's best used from a position of cover.
For those unaware of the concept of "Mad Minute", here's a small article about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_minuteOne final thing though. Those two abilities need to be on a shared timer to ensure that both can't be used at the same time.
Final CommentThese changes won't fix everything wrong with the British, but I think it would be a step in the right direction. It not only decreases the need to blob but also allows the British to move more freely -- earlier. It also makes the Lieutenant easier to replace when lost, allowing more room for error that other factions enjoy. The changes also decrease the power of the British blob, should the British player choose not to change his strategy after these changes.
If you play like me and want to keep and AI and AT infantry in separate control groups, these changes will make setting this up more quickly and easily without being tempted to keep the two groups close together in order to benefit from the stacking bonuses.
What do guys think? Are the changes worth considering?
