Red Rampage 10 - Weak Units

Since when does Elite = Weak?

Why are some of the new Elite units weaker than their regular counterparts?

Red Rampage 10 was just released on March 19-20, 2012 (depends on your time zone).  It introduced 5 new units:

• Elite Mantis Infantry (720 Strength)
• Elite Tarantula Artillery (760)
• Elite Badger Tank (720)
• Elite Sea Hive Carrier (645)
• Elite Yamato III (780)

These are the corresponding regular units:

• Mantis Infantry (700 Strength) (unlocked at Domination Rank 44)
• Tarantula Artillery (750) (DR 59)
• Badger Tank (800) (DR 74)
• Sea Hive Carrier (750) (DR 64)
• Yamato III (800) (DR 79)

The Elite Mantis Infantry has 20 more Strength than its regular counterpart, and the Elite Tarantula Artillery has 10 more Strength than its regular counterpart.  These are meager improvements, but improvements nonetheless.

On the other hand, the other 3 Elite units actually have lower strength than their regular counterparts.  Even more perplexing, the Elite Sea Hive Carrier is 1 Tier lower than the regular Sea Hive Carrier.

What's going on!?

There are several factors at play here:

1. You can purchase these Elite units, while the regular ones need to be unlocked by gaining sufficiently high Dominance Rank in World Domination.  (Let's ignore hacking.)  The Elite units that are stronger than their regular versions are the two with the lowest Domination Rank requirements.  If you could purchase the Elite versions and they were stronger than the ones unlocked by World Domination, then World Domination would lose much of its appeal.
2. There's not much wiggle room between the Strengths of the existing Tier 7 units and the Tier 8 units (the Chimera and its ilk).
3. These Elite units are buildable, while Tier 8 units are not.  (Ignoring hacking again.)
4. Tier 8 units are much more expensive than Tier 7 units.  (Ignoring hacking again.)

Tier 7 vs. Tier 8 Units

Let's take a closer look at the second factor.  Consider the Elite Badger Tank.  The regular Badger Tank has a base Strength of 800, while the Cerberus has a base Strength of 850.  When fully upgraded, these two units have Strengths of 960 and 1020, respectively.  There's not much wiggle room in between these two tanks.  If the Elite Badger Tank came with a base Strength between 800-800, then when fully upgraded, it would rival the Cerberus in Strength.  Even then, the Elite Badger Tank would be one tier lower, but most players notice Strength, not Tier.  Players who had bought the Cerberus would not be too happy about their purchases if the Elite Badger Tank came out too strong.

Similarly, the Yamato III has a base strength of 800, while the Poseidon USV has a base Strength of 850. So the same lack of wiggle room between 800 and 850 exists here.

What about the Elite Sea Hive Carrier?  No Tier 8 Carrier has been released yet, but we can expect one soon.  The regular Sea Hive Carrier has only 750 Strength.  We can expect the Tier 8 Carrier to have base Strength of 800 (more likely) or 850.   The same restrictive Strength range exists here.  It wouldn't be good for the sales of this future Tier 8 Carrier if the Elite Sea Hive Carrier already existed with nearly the same Strength.  Perhaps this explains why the Elite Sea Hive Carrier is the weakest of the Red Rampage 10 bunch in terms of Strength and the is only one that's a lower Tier than its regular counterpart.

Why does the Elite Sea Hive Carrier have to be so weak when:

• It matches the existing Elite Sea Horse Carrier (which just came out) in Tier and Strength;
• It Is outmatched by the existing Elite Leviathan Carrier, which is Tier 7, has base Strength of 675, and has a level requirement of only 50;
• The Albatross Carrier is Tier 7, has base Strength of 700, and has a level requirement of 70?

The Elite Sea Hive Carrier doesn't have to be so especially weak!  It would be a bit more reasonable for it to be Tier 7 and have base Strength around 700, making it a bit stronger than the recently released Elite Sea Horse Carrier--even if that doesn't make it stronger than the regular Sea Hive Carrier, which after all needs to be unlocked through World Domination.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this whole mess stems from greed and poor planning.  This resulted in the introduction of too many units and thus conflicts between:

• The strengths of the Tier 8 units being set around 1000--probably related to Tactical Nuke I dealing 1000 damage per unit.
• The release of the Tier 7 units with most base Strengths around 700-800 and upgraded Strengths around 840-960, which comes close to the Tier 8 units.
• The units unlocked by World Domination.
• The regularly timed release of Elite units, which are usually slightly stronger than their regular counterparts.