Great War land doctrines still take too long to research.

Gort11 · Oct 29, 2012

Just finished a Great War game as France. Here is when I finished each Land Doctrine tech. I used the best leader available, and I beelined research-improving techs.

February 23rd 1915 - Strong Point
September 18th 1915 - Mass Charge
February 13th 1916 - Static Defense
July 14th 1916 - Counterattack
January 5th 1917 - Schwerpunkt
July 26th 1917 - Defensive Attrition
March 22nd 1918 - Separated Arms Forces
November 10th 1918 - Forward Control
July 24th 1919 - Combined Arms Force

As you can see, it took me almost exactly five years to finish the tree (scenario starts in July 1914). That's 60 months. I would say ideally you should finish the tree by the end of 1918, which is 42 months. Therefore, we need to drop the cost of these techs by roughly a third in order to be in line with history. I would recommend dropping the cost of the last few technologies, since they take the longest to research.

^_AC_^ · Oct 29, 2012

I honestly think that Combined Arms Force should be really difficult to attain and so reaching it in 1919 is fine IMHO.

Cybvep · Oct 29, 2012

This doesn't look so bad, maybe it should be 10% faster, but that's it.

Baltasar · Oct 29, 2012

It's actually horrific when you think about it. Literally all these doctrines were employed before the date Gort11 was able to use them. Mass Charge should probably be given to all countries to start with, because the militaries around the world seemed to think that this was the way to go since the Japanese attack on Port Arthur in 1904/05. Likewise, some sort of static defense had been used at least as early as during the Boer war of 1899-1902...

Point being that land doctrines need to be revised, similarily to all other tech trees.

Cybvep · Oct 29, 2012

Huh? Those are just names, what matters is the in-game effects of doctrines. I could argue that mass charge was used in the antiquity...

Point being that land doctrines need to be revised, similarily to all other tech trees.

??? Can you be more specific? Tech trees are quite easy to change, so there are many possibilities here.

Baltasar · Oct 29, 2012

Where to start? With what techs should some countries start with already or with which ones I think should be available quicker (thus reducing their difficulty)?

For the former, Torpedo 1904 would be a good example. A newer version, invented a decade before, still needs to be researched by all countries?

Cybvep · Oct 29, 2012

For the former, Torpedo 1904 would be a good example. A newer version, invented a decade before, still needs to be researched by all countries?

Some countries start with this tech already researched, e.g. the UK.

Baltasar · Oct 29, 2012

...

Last time I checked, France, Germany, AH, Italy... didn't have it. So how about everybody except UK? -.-

Gort11 · Oct 29, 2012

^_AC_^ said:
I honestly think that Combined Arms Force should be really difficult to attain and so reaching it in 1919 is fine IMHO.

In that case, why even have the technology? Keep in mind that simply reaching the technology doesn't affect the war, you actually need some time spent fighting for it to mean anything. As things stand, if you have a historical World War 1, more than 20% of the land tech tree doesn't even see use, even if you spend every day of the war researching land doctrines.

I saw some other weird stuff during my game. I noticed that regular infantry have an air attack of 0, so I decided to get some free kills with a force of eight tactical bombers. I noticed they were very cheap, and thought, "Oh, that's good, means I can quickly build up the air force like in reality!" but for some reason the bombers lost organisation all the time, even when resting. It only seemed to affect the new bombers I built, not the old ones, and getting the 1916 tactical bomber doctrine tech did fix it, but it felt like those bombers were a bit of a waste of time since they were crippled by what I assume is a bug for most of the war.

And once again, I never managed to research and build any tanks before the war ended, and neither did any of the other powers. I was mostly focusing on the stuff I already had (artillery, engineers, infantry, and cavalry) so I didn't exactly beeline to tanks though. I might try to get them quickly in another game.

Cybvep · Oct 29, 2012

The problem is that the war often ends after two years, so there is not much time to research and build all this juicy stuff. Major powers should probably have more oomph in the mid-war period.

Gort11 · Oct 29, 2012

I haven't found that to be the case in this latest patch so far. A 50% penalty to attacking seems to have done the trick of creating a stalemate.

I think the war should start as a stalemate early on, then accelerate as technologies like tanks, stormtroopers, hurricane bombardments, creeping bombardments, aerial reconnaissance, infiltration of no-mans land, gas and mines make the trench and the machine gun less of the fortress they used to be. Unfortunately, you don't really get to that stuff because the research speed is a bit too slow on the doctrinal stuff, gas isn't implemented, aerial reconnaissance is of only strategic and not tactical use, and tanks show up too late (in my limited playtests so far) to do much.

unmerged(237424) · Oct 29, 2012

It's actually horrific when you think about it. Literally all these doctrines were employed before the date Gort11 was able to use them. Mass Charge should probably be given to all countries to start with, because the militaries around the world seemed to think that this was the way to go since the Japanese attack on Port Arthur in 1904/05. Likewise, some sort of static defense had been used at least as early as during the Boer war of 1899-1902...

You're talking about french doctrine right there.Massive artillery shelling followed by a bayonet charge. The germans instead, basically gave the initiative to their officers, therefore being able to later refine and develop the famous "Hutier tactics". British on the other, didn't really have a doctrine, they were more pragmatic. Later on, they founded the basic or proto blitzkrieg tactics. I read this on wikipedia.

Gort11 · Oct 29, 2012

merce_AR said:
It's actually horrific when you think about it.

I wouldn't go that far. Credit where credit's due, the devs are moving in the right direction. In the last patch it took until the middle of 1921 to finish the land doctrine tech tree.

Baltasar · Oct 30, 2012

Cybvep said:
The problem is that the war often ends after two years, so there is not much time to research and build all this juicy stuff. Major powers should probably have more oomph in the mid-war period.

That's impossible with RC1. -50% means that you better sit tight for a year or so before attacking.

Cybvep · Oct 30, 2012

Baltasar said:
That's impossible with RC1. -50% means that you better sit tight for a year or so before attacking.

When I'm playing as France, the war always ends in 1916. After the Germans are beaten in the first few decisive battles in 1915 and you start advancing, everything becomes very predictable.

Baltasar · Oct 30, 2012

Then play as Germany or Austria Hungary. Taking advantage of the poor German AI isn't a challenge currently. It usually loses lots of troops in the east.

Cybvep · Oct 30, 2012

Baltasar said:
Then play as Germany or Austria Hungary. Taking advantage of the poor German AI isn't a challenge currently. It usually loses lots of troops in the east.

Last time I played as Germany, France was defeated in 1916 and Russia became the SU in 1916. I captured Leningrad and was advancing towards Moscow in 1916/1917 and ended the game when all significant opposition ceased.

I haven't played as the A-H yet. Maybe I should

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Great War land doctrines still take too long to research.

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