OWB 5.0 Tech, Equipment and Unit Balance Changes

# 5.0 Tech and Units Balance Changelog

General Changes:

	Default Province Combat Width increased from 60 + 20 per additional province to 80 + 20 per additional province
		(Dev Note: We're interested in eventually exploring more diverse combat width for Old World Blues, but in the meantime we want to raise the base width as a temporary measure. Doing so should help to reduce stalemates--particularly in cases where nations have a large army size difference between them but width limits make the advantage hard to leverage. Conversely, this may also have some undesirable effects on nations that were balanced around these width limitations and now will be faced with wars that are more lopsided.)

	Base Civilian and Military factory output reduced from 6 to 5.5 (~8.3%)
		(Dev Note: These values are both higher than their Vanilla counterparts, and this remains the case to a smaller degree with these changes. We feel that industry is often in excess across the mod as expected factory counts have gradually increased. While we're interested in still tackling this problem by combating the overabundance of factories in the specific cases where that's a problem, doing so is a slow and continuous process, so a change like this helps us out. We'll be monitoring the impacts of this closely.)

	General and Field Marshal Attack Skill Attack per level increased from 1.5% to 2.5%. Maximum Attack Skill level reduced from 15 to 10.
	General and Field Marshal Defense Skill Defense per level increased from 1.5% to 2.5%. Maximum Defense Skill level reduced from 15 to 10.
	General and Field Marshal Planning Skill Max Planning per level increased from 1.5% to 2% and Planning Speed per level increased from 3.5% to 5%. Maximum Planning Skill level reduced from 15 to 10.
	General and Field Marshal Logistics Skill Supply Consumption reduction per level increased from -1.5% to -2.5%. Maximum Logistics Skill level reduced from 15 to 10.

	Supply Base Values multiplier reduced by 20%
	Infrastructure Supply value increased by 20%
		(Dev Note: Supply is still effectively a minor background mechanic, and there are discussions about changing this by finally opening up the railway system after some effort to make sure the system doesn't worsen the game for players. In the meantime, though, this change makes it slightly more relevant. Furthermore, to the extent that supply does matter, this makes infrastructure more important in managing it. Infrastructure is in a weird place in OWB, and could benefit from being more valuable, so this is a marginal improvement in that regard as well.)

	Intel Network enemy Max Planning penalty changed from flat to percentual
		(Dev Note: In Vanilla, the penalty for this was always percentual Max Planning, but the wrong value was assigned when porting La Resistance over to OWB and the oversight was never uncovered until now. Considering that AI actually uses Intel Networks frequently, this fix may have a far more significant impact than you may think, and generally should reduce stalemates as well as improve Automated and Conventional Warfare by increasing the value of planning.)



Infantry Changes:

	Horse equipment Soft Attack 3/4/5 -> 4/5/6, Hard Attack 1.5/2/2.5 -> 2/2.5/3, Production Cost 9.5/12/15 -> 9/11.5/14.5
		(Dev Note: There was a period where Horses were at an unhealthy power level, and the nerfs they received then were relatively justified, but they've since petered off as the game shifted around them. This should help give them back some of their former bite.)



Support Changes:

	Dog equipment Suppression 0.5/0.5/0.5 -> 0.3/0.6/1.0
		(Dev Note: Scaling Suppression was removed from Dog equipment because of undesirable impacts it had on how division Suppression scaled due to the weird math involved in equipment Suppression modifiers. That being said, where we made a mistake was in not considering how this would make further stages of Dog equipment not relevant to produce for Suppression whatsoever. This is more undesirable than how difficult it can be for players to evaluate how or why this bonus contributes to division values in the way it does, so we're going back on that decision--albeit with different values for now. We'll continue to monitor to see if this makes Suppression values too high.)



Vehicle Changes:

	Tank equipment Soft Attack 26/38/50/62 -> 32/42/52/62, Hard Attack 21/32/43/54 -> 26/34/42/50, Production Cost 55/65/77/92 -> 55/65/78/93
		(Dev Note: Aside from making the scaling neater, this should be hopefully the last push lower level Tank equipment needs to perform well outside of the most specific circumstances.)



Doctrine Changes:

	# Automated Warfare
	Automated Distribution Supply Range +10% removed, granted Army Fuel Consumption -15%
	Field Maintenance granted Encirclement Penalty -10%
	Networked AI Planning Speed +5% removed, granted Max Planning +5%
	Internal Replicators Robot Armor +10% -> +15%

	# Refined Warfare
	Refined Warfare (Starting Tech) Army Organisation +4 -> +5
	Concentration of Force granted Army Breakthrough +5%. Infantry Breakthrough +12% -> +10%, Army Organisation +6 -> +5
	Marching Fire granted Fireteams and Demoteams +10% Maximum Speed
	Integrated Support Non-Combat Support Reliability +2% -> +5%
	Adaptive Chain of Command granted Organisation Loss at Low Org -10%

	# Conventional Warfare
	Field Fortifications granted Entrenchment Speed +10%
	Radio equipment Production Cost 5 -> 4.5
	Suppressive Firepower Demolitions Defense +15% changed to Breakthrough +10%
	Mobile Fortifications equipment Armor 30 -> 45

	# Asymmetric Warfare
	The Gang granted Reinforce Rate +4%
	Nightstalker Tactics Army Piercing +15% -> +20%
	Cazadore Venom Infantry Maximum Speed +15% -> +20%

		(Dev Note: We're going to cover all of the doctrine changes at once here. Generally, though, a lot of these tweaks aim to improve stages of doctrines which were low power outliers and improve them in ways that are both flavorful and maintain the variety that allows all the doctrines to each have a unique niche.

		Automated Warfare is in an alright spot, but a couple of its techs were a little lackluster compared to their competition. Notably, the increased availability of piercing via Combined Arms units makes us more comfortable pushing the armor on Internal Replicators in an effort to make it slightly more competitive with Age of the Machine.

		Regarding Refined Warfare, this doctrine took some hits during a time where it was too reliably defaulted to even by nations without Power Armor. What makes us more comfortable putting some of this power back in is the prominence that Asymmetric Warfare's Ancient Tactics side has reached due to a mix of direct buffs and the new landscape created by 1-width demolitions. Fundamentally, we want the doctrines--or at least Refined, Conventional and Asymmetric--to be able to be used for varying army compositions and situations, because that makes for more interesting choice and player expression than if each is curated for one specific shape of an army. Now that a lot of the nations which once leaned into Refined for their generic offensive army doctrine now lean into Asymmetric, we think these minor tweaks should land it closer to the right spot.

		Conventional's buffs in 4.2.12 have not fully percolated, and we still believe it's underrated by players for reasons articulated in the changelog for that patch. This is especially because of the reversion of Entrenchment back to its full 2% bonus per level, which makes Conventional's entrenchment bonuses more impactful. Some room for improvement still exists, though, and we hope that slightly decreasing the IC investment demanded by Radios--one of Conventional's most substantial rewards--will encourage players to take a closer look at it alongside the small buffs listed.

		Lastly, we don't believe Ancient Tactics needs any major nerfs in its current state, but we will keep monitoring it. What is clear, though, is that Wasteland Tactics is still just not quite where we want it to be yet. Ideally, these changes will get it over the obstacles otherwise preventing it from shining in the right spots without it stealing the identity of other doctrine paths.)



Tribal Tech Tree Changes:

	Changed technology "Communal Projects" to require technology "Civilian Education" rather than the other way around.
	Construction techs Construction Speed and Factory Repair Speed +10% -> +7.5%
	Industry techs Production Efficiency Cap +2.5% -> +2%
	Integrated Tribe Elders Political Power Gain +0.2 -> +0.15
	AT Rifle Mastery Army Piercing +30% -> +25%