Why not fix it before release if possible...
Because a fundamental Agile principle is to deliver a working vertical slice as quickly as possible and worry about fine-tuning the details in later iterations because you're almost certain to get them (the details) wrong if you try to plan them up-front
Note that the above should not be construed to be a criticism of the thought experiments being performed in this thread - it was simply that I saw a straight line that was too good to pass up I think the thought experiments/discussions are fine as long as they don't jam up the main threads (and kudos to the OP who pulled a topic that would get lots of discussion into a separate thread from the start), and if they turn up an egregious problem then it gives Steve an opportunity to fix it before release. But in terms of figuring out how the complex systems of rules will behave with one another, nothing beats actual experiments where a functioning game is in the hands of users who are trying to maximize their outcomes. So having Steve spend a lot of time trying to get the "20" (in the sense of 80/20) right upfront risks actually delaying getting to the end goal of having a good working game. From comments Steve has posted in the past I'm sure he understands this, so I'm confident that he'll fix whatever he thinks is sure to be a big enough problem to justify the schedule delay and defer the rest of it to Father Tim's 1.0.1
John
Yes... I don't think delaying the release of the game for this should be a priority.
I also agree that practical experience will quickly see any glaring imbalances.
Though... I think that things such as Artillery, Tanks, Air-force and Anti-Air should not just be a function of hits and kills. When you have it like that you will quite fast find the best solution to most problems (disregarding the rock/paper/scissor style of AP versus Armour).
Air bombardment and artillery should instead enable/disable attacks, tanks and infantry should have some impact on each others abilities other than pure combat hit/kills and Anti-air should mainly suppress enemy air-attacks rather then kill the air-craft as its main job. Bombardment from space should act like artillery but be suppressed by OTS weapons in the same way anti-air suppress air-force attacks.
If there is sort of a logarithmic effect of these weapon types you will have huge advantages with your air-force if there are no Anti-air as one example. The same with Artillery and Orbital bombardment... this is basically how things work in real life.
As is, the benefit of most support are basically just a shift to the left or right (and linear) and I guess there is very little difference from deploying just infantry in defence or back them up with some artillery and slightly less infantry.
If those support elements can give you huge benefits if unopposed it will be very hard to argue against a high supply draw even if it has a marginal effect since the enemy brought enough artillery and air-force to suppress it effectively and you the same. But if they did not have a counter to your artillery you would be almost unstoppable (given roughly equal ground forces).
This is of course just my opinion....