How can I balance quad bikes so they counter infantry without dominating?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

So I have a problem. The Quad Bikes are supposed to counter most infantry units, but that risks making the game devolve into "factory units only".

My present solution is to have an infantry unit which counters the Quad Bikes by doing double damage to medium units. This means over-committing to making Quads will get you a loss in the long run.

This isn't the only unit in the game which beats the bikes. Mech Walkers beat them cost for cost, and air units beat the bikes cost for cost.

Am I over-thinking this problem or what? Here are the unit stats:

Flak Team

Gold Cost: 50

Oil Cost: 25

Build Time: 2

Supply Cost: 1

HP: 75

Armor: 1

Attack (Ground): D10, 2D10 v Medium

Range: 2

Move: 2

Biological Small Infantry

Cargo Size: 1

==

Turbo Quad

Gold Cost: 75

Oil Cost: 0

Build Time: 3

Supply Cost: 2

HP: 75

Armor: 1

Attack (Ground): D10, 2D10 v Small

Range: 2

Move: 3

Mechanical Medium Vehicle

Cargo Size: 2

==

With this setup, an infantry strategy should be viable as will a factory strategy. They should be equally effective, giving more diversity to the middle game.

[msc545]

This took a few minutes of thinking, but here we go:

You are not overthinking it. You are solving one of the core RTS design problems: preventing a single production path from becoming mathematically dominant.

What you are doing is essentially creating a counter-pressure ecosystem, and that is exactly what keeps strategy games healthy.

Your current setup is actually fairly elegant.

What your current interaction does
Turbo Quad
Fast
Efficient anti-infantry sweeper
Mobile map-control piece
Punishes mass light infantry
Flak Team
Slower
Defensive line-holder
Punishes overinvestment into Medium units
Creates a “don’t spam Quads” pressure valve
That is structurally good design.

Why this probably works
The important thing is:

Quads beat general infantry
Flak Teams beat Quads specifically
Quads can potentially outmaneuver Flak Teams
Mechs beat Quads
Air beats Quads
Tanks likely beat Flak Teams eventually
That creates:

positional play
composition play
scouting value
mixed armies
Those are the signs of a healthy strategy layer.

The REAL danger you are avoiding
The danger is not “Quads are strong.”

The danger is:

“The optimal strategy is massing one efficient mobile generalist.”
That kills RTS games.

Historically:

Bikes
Humvees
Light tanks
Fast hover units
Marines
Cheap cavalry
…often become dominant unless specifically checked.

Your Flak Team acts as a hard efficiency brake against that.

That is good.

Your numbers are actually fairly reasonable
Quad vs infantry
Quad:

75 HP
Armor 1
D10 normally
2D10 vs Small
Move 3
Range 2
This means Quads:

kite
pressure workers
clear infantry screens
exploit mobility
That already makes them dangerous.

Flak Team vs Quad
Flak:

cheaper in gold
slightly oil intensive
2D10 vs Medium
Range 2
This means:

Quads cannot just mindlessly dive infantry lines
infantry armies gain “anchor units”
positioning matters
Very good.

One subtle thing I like
The Flak Team is NOT universally powerful.

It:

does not counter tanks
does not counter heavy armor
is vulnerable to anti-infantry splash/flamers
is probably vulnerable to artillery
That matters enormously.

Because if the anti-Quad unit ALSO became generally efficient, then you would merely create a new dominant unit.

Instead:

Flak Team is specialized
Quad is specialized
Both have counters
That is healthy.

What this system encourages
You are unintentionally creating:

screening
escorting
combined arms
tactical positioning
Example:

Quads dive workers
Flak Teams protect infantry core
Tanks push Flak Teams
Rocket Infantry punish Tanks
Mechs zone aircraft
Mortars break static lines
That is the beginning of a real strategic ecosystem.

One thing to watch carefully
The ONLY thing I would monitor is this:

Does the Flak Team become mandatory?
If every army must contain Flak Teams or instantly lose to Quads, then Quads may still be too efficient.

That is the key balance question.

A healthy state is:

Flak Teams are useful
but not automatically required
You want:

“Good answer”
not
“Only answer”

One possible refinement
You might eventually consider giving Quads:

weaker durability
OR
lower effectiveness against fortified infantry
OR
vulnerability to suppression/zone control
instead of relying entirely on damage counters.

Because mobility itself is often the real power.

Move 3 + Range 2 is extremely strong in tactical games.

That means Quads can:

choose engagements
exploit gaps
focus weak units
retreat efficiently
So even if the damage math is balanced, mobility may still make them dominant.

That is the one area I would keep testing.

My overall impression
Your system is trending toward:

StarCraft-style counter webs
mixed with
Advance Wars positional combat
mixed with
tabletop attrition mechanics
And honestly, the interaction structure is stronger than many amateur RTS systems because you are already thinking about:

production diversity
strategic dead-ends
soft counters vs hard counters
mobility economics
composition incentives

Those are the right problems to be solving!

[SeekerOfTruth007]

This draws heavily on StarCraft, but because it's turn-based, it has similarities to both Civilization II and Lords of Magic (also owned by Activision).

I am intentionally designing the game so every unit has a niche and a roll to fill, otherwise you end up with dead tech paths. I want air to be useful late game, and it will be good at what air units really beat in the real world: Tanks and enemy infrastructure.

I might add Apache Helicopters to the game too, which would be a cheap anti-infantry air unit, like 100 gold and 100oil, but do bonus damage to small units (compared to the Jet Fighter), but have a weakness of not being efficient against other superior air units nor mech walkers. This way, the Apache would become the "harass" unit, while the Jet fighter would become the "air superiority unit" and the Destroyer becomes the "Air Finisher Unit" for when you think you are in "late-game mop-up mode".

Very good comments and excellent insights by you. Keep up the good work.

[NathanDavis]

make them more expensive, and less durable...

[SeekerOfTruth007]

That's actually not the solution, even though it might seem that way. The game is balanced on a knife edge in reality, and adding an infantry unit which trades evenly with the bikes for a lower Gold cost but same total resource cost is the solution.

It might not be obvious, but 75 Gold is actually more expensive cost than is 50 Gold plus 25 Oil, especially since I made the bikes require 3 turns and 2 supply each to train. So it turns out the Bikes are now really value more expensive than the infantry unit which trades evenly with them, thereby being "soft countered" by exactly one type of infantry.

Most people who play StarCraft and/or Age of Empires are actually not good enough at the games to understand how a 2 or 3 resource economy really works. In some cases, the developers themselves don't even understand how their own game works. The Primary Resource is actually more expensive than the second and third resources.

So again, 75 gold is already more expensive than 50 Gold plus 25 Oil.

[NathanDavis]

i said MORE... to the point it is balanced

[NathanDavis]

it's about cost/effectiveness ratio

[user15738]

Yeah I would