This article is meant to be a short look at a very basic part of balance design. It is a simplified outline of what exactly “overpowered” and “underpowered” actually mean. While there are more complex dynamics involved in what contributes to a unit’s status as being overpowered or underpowered, most of the attributes of a unit can be distilled to a single value: its cost-effectiveness.
Every unit has a set of attributes, such as its speed, build time, cost, health/armor, and damage/firepower, amongst other things. Too much or too little of one (or a combination of these) will result in a unit which is potentially overpowered or underpowered. However, that’s not the whole story. What exactly does “too much” or “too little” mean? In this case, it refers to a unit’s overall cost-effectiveness: how much damage it is capable of doing compared to how much it costs. If a unit is overpowered, it can be stated that it is too cost-effective. If a unit is underpowered, it can be stated that it is not cost-effective enough. Simply stating that it is too fast, too powerful, or too expensive is not a complete statement regarding the balance of the unit. What is really being implied is that the unit is simply either too good for its cost, or not good enough.
That said, there are two ways to adjust a unit whose cost-effectiveness is out of balance with the rest of the game as a whole: adjust its cost, or adjust its effectiveness. Each will have a significant impact on how the gameplay actually feels. Let’s use an example to illustrate this: picture a unit in a game which is underpowered (that is, it is not cost-effective.) One of two things can be done to fix the cost-effectiveness problem: either decrease the cost of the unit to match the unit’s effectiveness, or increase the effectiveness of the unit to match the disproportionate cost (this might be increasing its armor, its firepower, its movement speed, or a combination of all of these.) The first option will result in a unit which is not only terrible (and possibly not even fun to use) since it is so ineffective, it will also render the unit cheap and spammable*. The Nod Raider Buggy comes to mind here.
This change has basically made it so that although this unit is still very weak, it’s expendable, and given its accessibility, it is fairly mindless to use. In other words, it has been made cost-effective by making it spammable. The other potential change, making it more effective, has a decidedly different effect. The unit is now either more lethal, more responsive, or more resistant to damage, and has not been made spammable. Ultimately, this will lead to a unit which requires more attention and focus to use properly (i.e. more micro,) rather than a unit which requires massing and attack-move orders to be effective (such as the aforementioned Raider Buggy.)
Now, the key thing to consider here is the scale of the game's economy (in this case, Kane's Wrath.) Even with C&C 3’s changes to the game's economy, it is still very easy to generate a substantial income. Thus the question then becomes, what option would be better for gameplay: cheap, ineffective units, or expensive, highly effective units? Cheaper units that don’t do much damage in an economy that is quite overclocked would ultimately lead to unit spam overshadowing careful micro and tactics. In order to damage something, you would need lots of these cheap, ineffective units, and you would need to have a large economy to fuel your mindless production of them.
Thus, if there is ever a situation in Kane’s Wrath where a choice must be made to adjust a unit’s cost-effectiveness, it would be best to lean towards making underpowered units more effective (not less expensive) and making overpowered units more expensive (not less effective.) This will reduce the amount of unit spam and increase the quality of units, and hopefully, the quality of the gameplay.
