Tanks vs Soldiers

[Popeye]

I am sure this is covered someplace.

 

Anyway, as it seems that Land and Infra become the eventual bottlenecks for development, does it make sense to build Factories instead of Barracks?

 

It strikes me that the maximum "Battle Value" of a barracks full of soldiers is less than that of a Factory full of tanks.  Even though tanks cost more to build - does it make sense to build tanks instead because you get more "battle value" per infrastructure slot.

 

Discuss please!

[Phiney]

This question will get you very different answers depending on who you ask. Personally? No, tanks are almost never worth it. Most people would argue against that though.

[Franz Von Dietrich]

Aircraft and Soldiers are my prefered Units.  Aircraft can take out either Infra or Enemy units such as tanks, or Soldiers even other aircraft. But, Tanks are not really worth it, waste of steel in my opinion.

[elsuper]

Strictly from a long-term standing-force perspective, ignoring the exorbitant cost of steel:

 

If "1 tank is worth 40 unarmed soldiers":

 

and "Soldiers fight with 75% more effectiveness when equipped with ...Munitions."

 

Then 1 tank is worth 40/1.75= ~22.86 armed soldiers.

 

250 tanks per factory means each full factory is worth 22.86*250= 5715 armed soldiers, or 1.905 times as much strength per improvement slot as a barracks.

 

For upkeep, soldiers cost 1.25 and 1 food per 750 in peacetime, or $3750 and 4 food per barracks. Monetizing the food at ~$110 ppu gives you $4190 upkeep per barracks, or about $1.40 total per armed soldier unit.

Tanks cost $50 upkeep each, times 250 tanks per factory= $12500 upkeep, 2.98 times more upkeep per improvement slot, or, divided by 5715 soldier strength per factory= $2.18 per soldier strength, or 1.55 times more upkeep per soldier strength unit.

 

It's really only beneficial if that almost-1 improvement slot you save can make up the $8300 difference in upkeep, but it can't.

Edited March 16, 2015 by elsuper

[elsuper]

Soooo...... no tanks then? Or what?

 

In peace, economically, it's definitely a bad deal, even ignoring steel (which you shouldn't, and only makes it worse!). In a war, it's messier, because you may be able to protect infra from being destroyed in ground attacks if you can defend with tanks, but I don't feel like trying to figure out when that becomes viable.

 

I guess there's also a difference in casualty rates, but I don't know how it's quantified or how to factor it in.

Edited March 10, 2015 by elsuper

[MRBOOTY]

Tanks cost a lot more, but you are right. 

The thing is, they only provide the power of 40 unarmed soldiers, and cost as much as 40 *ARMED* soldiers, which can be a blight

But if you need slots, then yeah barracks suck

But if you fight a lot (like Phiney) the cost will make you say yuck

[Jodo]

I never use tanks. Air/sea power is superior.

 

Unless you have missiles.

[Pax]

Tanks are useful because if you have time to build them up to their max, they absolutely dominate compared to just having some stored up soldiers (by way of having about 2x the total strength per improvement slot). They may be high initial cost, but upkeep isn't as bad as elsuper is making it seem. Proportionally it is about 1.5x higher per strength, but soldier/tank upkeep is really next to nothing in the first place.

When you replace two barracks with a factory, your upkeep is going from:

 

6000 soldiers ($8524/day) to 250 tanks ($12500/day). That's $4,024/day. For reference, one bank (the lowest recommended commerce improvement) for me offers $10711 - and I'm a small nation by most standards, with only 1k infra per city.

 

But the real point is that in wartime, you need to have ground defense (unless you wanna get !@#$ed up badly or just missile turtle) and you need improvement slots for that. The less improvement slots you have to dedicate towards keeping your nation defended on the ground, the more you can put towards air and navy.

 

I do, however, agree that they definitely need their steel cost reduced. I may like tanks but they aren't feasible for a wide-scale war - replacing them will rack up more steel costs than your nation can probably handle.

[Jefferson Davis III]

In my own experience and practice, you need a good balance. When you are small, say one city, infantry is the only thing. once you reach 2 cities, then tanks come in and you should really keep about 250 tnks for every 10k troops, when infantry and tanks fight side by side, they end up being overall more effective.

[Bilal the Great]

In my experience tanks is something of an expensive force multiplier. For small nations (or during peacetime) a huge tank force is wasteful in the term of steel and upkeep. But if you're a medium to large nation, having some tanks could help strengthen your army. Mostly I keep my tank force size smaller than my soldier.

[Spooner]

 

 

when infantry and tanks fight side by side, they end up being overall more effective.

 

Is this actually true? I've seen this mentioned a few times now, but I'm skeptical.

 

If tanks do not work as a multiplier for soldier's effectiveness, they are a waste. You should not bother with tanks until you already have 5 barracks per city.

[Phiney]

Is this actually true? I've seen this mentioned a few times now, but I'm skeptical.

 

If tanks do not work as a multiplier for soldier's effectiveness, they are a waste. You should not bother with tanks until you already have 5 barracks per city.

Tanks do not work as a multiplier, but if they are used, of course your ground force will have more power.

[Thomas Paine]

I think you need a mixture of both because of their different costs, and weaknesses.

Tanks need gas and munitions to operate, they cost steel to build, and their effectiveness can be halved by air power.

Soldiers need food, their effectiveness can be increased by muntions, they are cheap to recruit, but are also easier to kill.

[Avruch]

The solution is obvious: get maximum tanks and maximum soldiers and maximum planes in every city!

[luciuskonst]

The solution is obvious: get maximum tanks and maximum soldiers and maximum planes in every city!

That's as good as 5 seconds before large-scale war

[Pax]

So, now that this has been necroed, it's worth bringing up that tanks are still ridiculously expensive for their use. Going into war, people with fairly good warchests can easily build up max ships, aircraft, soldiers, and like a few weeks worth of missiles and spies without burning through it all. But very few people keep enough steel to have their factories maxed and tanks maxed (most people don't even have enough to buy their max once!), and in damage-dealing capability tanks are still a lot weaker than all of those other units that are much, much cheaper.

 

Durability has always been brought up by sheepy, and if you're winning that's true, but they still go down very quickly even in a losing war. Units in this game die ridiculously fast (every single one), and tanks might die a little slower but they're still gone in the blink of an eye.

 

Going into a war, if you don't want to take tanks, you can realistically aim for like a third of your infra in steel with no issues. If you want to take tanks, even having three or four times that much won't last very long - and steel is a very, very expensive resource.

 

If tanks are going to ever be a really useful unit, some changes need to be made to them. Either

A) Reduce the steel cost (which could be tricky ish since we'd be getting into fractions of a unit)

 

Reduce the capacity that you can build, increase the strength proportionally (so you're buying less tanks overall, but still getting the same strength and having the same buy times)

 

C) Increase iron & steel production rate, possibly increase steel costs on anything else that requires steel (seems like an overly complicated solution imo)

Edited June 3, 2015 by Pax

[Pax]

my point B has been transformed into a cool dude with sunglasses and I am okay with that

[Avruch]

That's as good as 5 seconds before large-scale war

 

Worked pretty well for me overall.