My Totally Not Subjective Land Doctrine Rankings

[Ceorl]

Note: Revised after I learned how Military High Command worked on a division, rather than battalion, basis. Just gonna strike out what I changed.

This list will also include major nations for each doctrine. Please post your own list and reasons if you'd like. For background, I play SP, have about 1500 hours played, use Elite Difficulty and the Expert AI mod. For criteria, this list looks at what a nation's existing strengths are and whether a doctrine plays to said strengths. For example, a nation with an Infantry bonus in Military High Command is more likely to pair well with the Mass Assault Doctrine. No doctrine is worthless and part of the game's fun is trying out to different doctrines for each nation. Without further ado:

1. (Now 2) Grand Battleplan Doctrine (UK, France, Soviet Union)
2. (Now 1) Superior Firepower Doctrine (France)
3. Mass Assault Doctrine (Japan)
4. Mobile Warfare Doctrine (Germany)
5. Can Do Whatever They Want (USA) / In a Tough Spot Regardless (Italy)

Grand Battleplan Doctrine

While GBD is very weak in a mobile war, GBD works with any division template. Need defense? best defensive bonus in the game. Need offense? best planning bonus in the game. While SFD provides more attack (in both offense and defense), that's all it boosts. Entrenchment and Planning boost both attack and defense/breakthrough. Further, full SFD utilization is relatively expensive (normally full tree research with artillery or tanks and aircraft) although it will ramp up better than GDB over time. Still GBD works regardless of army comp and its strengths are felt immediately with +10 entrenchment and +10% planning. That flexibility is important when dealing with Elite difficulties penalties. For those reasons GBD get the #1 #2 slot.

For the UK, I recommend the GBD Infiltration branch. It synergizes best with Special Forces and pure Infantry Divisions (MAD is infantry only). The UK has a rifle production bonus and both an Infantry and Commando Military High Command bonus. All things being equal, a UK player will want to attack with Special Forces rather than Infantry so Infiltration better capitalizes on the UK strengths. Further, unless you plan to KO Germany early, most UK fighting will occur in high attrition, low supply areas which are better suited to infantry than armor. When combined with the UK's relatively low military production, there is a lot of synergy on focusing on GBD Infiltration. You can go MAD with Britain, but you'll pay more in manpower and lose out on the SF bonuses.

For France, I recommend the SFD Shock and Awe. France is the only major who can optimize Cavalry/Motorized/Mechanized Divisions with its Cavalry MHC. Further, Cavalry synergizes with Frances inability to doctrine tech until Victors of the Great is removed. GBD Assault branch as France has the best planning bonus in the game and no infantry or armor bonuses (apart from a production bonus in a focus line that I don't recommend). Ironically, because of its Cavalry MHC, France, and to a lesser extent Italy, are the only nations which synergize with MWD's Mobile Infantry doctrine though poor production makes the combination something of a pipe dream.

For the Soviet Union, I recommend the GBD Infiltration branch. The SU has no infantry bonus which is practically a perquisite for MAD. Still with the SU's manpower it should flood the map with infantry. Without an Infantry MHC, the GBD bonuses are equal to MAD's infantry bonus plus SU Special Forces synergize with GBD infiltration. Once the SU armor gets up and running, the GBD Infiltration Night Attack will work well even if MAD Deep Battle is arguably better. While the SU has an Armor Genius MHC (which requires giving up some nice noncombat bonuses) you really should prioritize infantry divisions.

Superior Firepower Doctrine

SFD is great as always, but I found it telling no major faction synergized with SFD. That said, while Airland Battle has the best Hard Attack bonus and Air Superiority I find armor overrated (just go around the tanks or bog them down with infantry, aircraft and/or AT) and winning the air war is so expensive that Air Superiority only matters if the fight has gone completely pear shaped. Meanwhile, Shock & Awe's is arguably the best doctrine in the game with unmatched Soft Attack DPS although the doctrine is built around Artillery which can get expensive (every battalion benefits but you really should build arty too) and no major faction has an Artillery MHC. You can't go wrong with SFD due its versatility with almost any division template. but at the end of the day the Superior Firepower reduction from 20% to 10% appears to have kept the doctrine in line with the others. The King is dead, long live the King!

Mass Assault Doctrine

MAD is the only doctrine built around pure infantry divisions (GBD infiltration works with both infantry and SF divisions). The pure infantry bonus is arguably better than SFD and GBD as MAD boosts an Infantry Division, with 25 rather than 20 battalions, firepower and breakthrough by 25% with an entrenchment and, potential, planning bonus. SFD boosts infantry firepower only by 25% with a potential 50% support company firepower boost. To maximize MAD's bonus a nation needs 1. High Manpower and 2. an Infantry MHC. While most factions can finagle enough manpower, if you lack the requisite MHC you should really look for another doctrine and this specialization requirement pushes MAD down the ranking. Fun note, Mass Mobilization's Mass Charge expands combat width which can synergize well with a powerful air force.

Only Japan can get both manpower and an Infantry MHC early on. As an added bonus the otherwise relatively worthless Pocket Defense synergizes well with Japan's naval invasion needs, better allowing Japan to drop troops off adjacent to the port in order to form a pocket.

Mobile Warfare Doctrine

MWD is the weakest because MWD's strength is the tank breakthrough bonus. Tanks, imo, are overpriced and underperform. The only real reason to build tanks to create enough breakthrough for the armor division heavy hitters: SPA and SPTDs. MWD is perfect in this regard (the raw firepower of additional SPAs and SPTDs outweigh SFD's bonuses imo). But, to capitalize on MWD, you need two things: 1. High MF Production and 2. an Armor MHC.

Only Germany can allocate a high portion of its MFs to armor and easily obtain an Armor MHC (the Soviets should prioritize infantry and go down a specific focus tree for its Armor MHC). In fact, to successfully invade the relatively open but narrow front Low Countries on higher difficulties, Germany is almost required to build armor which is tailored made for that kind of operation. It speaks to Germany's enormous power that it, and it alone, can optimally utilize what is arguably the weakest Land Doctrine.

---

Finally, we come to the USA and Italy. Honestly, I don't play USA much as its boring. But once the USA gets rolling there is really no wrong doctrine to take with its high population, production capability, and MHCs to do almost anything. Shoot, only the USA can realistically produce the insanely expensive strat bombers. GBD might be the least suitable as its bonuses are more early game fronted, but take whatever you want as USA and have fun.

Italy, for now, is tough. It's obvious expansion point is blocked by French guarantees and the country lacks manpower, production, and raw materials. This isn't to say Italy can't make a difference, Italy is much stronger than France in the early game, but any strategy, and related doctrine, you choose faces an uphill struggle. If someone put a gun to my head, I'd probably say MAD is the best Italian doctrine. If you stay in the Axis, Italy desperately needs planes and ships, and the necessary synthetic refineries, to conquer the Med and most potential European operations will occur in poor armor terrain. Therefore, you need a cheap and relatively effective land army which MAD supported by the Specialist Infantry MHC can provide.

Thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts.

 

[Voigt]

Mobile Warfare gives the highest Org value to Infantry, you get higher movment speed on Mot, lower org loss on movement, higher org regain, and a gigantic 5% manpower, which is extremly powerful for someone like Canada, Australia, Hungary.

This makes Mobile Warfare a very good doctrine.

You can also make something like 8 SPART for extreme high Soft Attack for cheap, 2 ARM for breaktrough and 6 Mot for Org divisions. With only 2 ARM you are far from overkilling breaktrough, so improving that is very helpful.
Tanks are one of the most powerful tools there is in HoI4.

Superior Firepower can give even higher Soft Attack on such tanks, but looses out on breaktrough. It also makes SpecialForces much stronger, since you can't have planning bonus for naval invasion (unless you do some exploity shenangians) so having more raw soft attack from support arty and support rocket arty is great.

Finally Mass Assault and Great Battleplan can work, Mass Assault works well in low supply regions and the 5% manpower works great for like India.
The other path is decent aswell and the high reinforce chance can be a gift from god if you are on the defense with hordes of Infantry like Soviet Union.
Great Battle Plans is great for port duty divisions because of the very high entrenchment, or from,changing a static war into a dynamic one, if you get the time to plan up. For example in El Alamein, Suez or the 2 rivers in Soviet Uniin, If the war is already always moving, or you don't have any front and instead need to do naval invasions, Great Battle Plan really is quite bad.

 

[Iskulya]

GBP is the worst doctrine, not the best one.

Planning bonus is only usable to its maximum extent if you let the AI control your divisions for you, and it will never do so in an acceptable way. We don't even have the ability to set some parameters for it like...

1. Never attack while out of supply.
2. Never attack across rivers.
3. Never attack into specified, toggleable terrain(mountains, swamps, deserts, mud, etc).

You can set up a front line, draw an offensive plan, and then manually control the divisions anyway, but this is

1. More micro intensive than just flat out microing your units without any plan at all.
2. Huge planning decay rate from manually microing attacks means you will never come close to getting the most out of the doctrine that you could otherwise.

I'm the kind of player that doesn't mind literally microing all my units and not using any kind of front line tool at all. Even as the Soviet Union; and even by my standards, it's just way too much micromanagement to benefit from battle plans for me to bother with.

I'm not sure why you specified that you play with EAI. It can create more of a challenge, but it is still just as exploitable as the vanilla AI, frankly. In some ways, even more so because of its predictable production strategies and templates. EAI loves putting support AT battalions in basically every single division every AI country makes and it's a colossal waste that is easily exploitable, for example.

Mobile Warfare is also one of the best doctrines, not the worst. You have things backwards.

I'd rank them with superior firepower being the best, followed by mobile warfare, followed by mass assault, and then GBP as a very, very distant fourth.

Mass assault isn't actually bad. It can actually be extremely good, just that it's bonuses are more situational and not every country will be able to take advantage of them. This is why I rate it third. It's not necessarily actually worse than SF or MW, it's just that it's more situational. But where you can make use of all its bonuses, it's a powerful choice. The Soviet Union is a very obvious example as the supply consumption reductions can be incredibly useful.

The only reason I ever have taken GBP since I learned how the mechanics worked years ago is to save research time. Especially if you're playing as a Commonwealth country, you will have access to large tech sharing bonuses for it, which would be a shame to waste even as bad as GBP is.

Planning needs to be totally reworked before I would ever consider it. If you were able to make use of battle plan without these micro intensive battle plans and leaving things in the hands of the AI or risk increased decay rate, then GBP would probably go from being the worst doctrine and my least favorite to being my favorite. Slow and methodical is how I like to roll.

I overall agree with Voigt's assessment. TBH it's very difficult for me to really say whether superior firepower is better than mobile warfare. They're both extremely good doctrines. I sometimes also consider GBP if I don't plan to do any ground offensives at all and use my ground forces purely to defend my own territory, and defend my own and allies' ports and such. The entrenchment can make it useful for that, but this is a very niche use. The doctrine is overall bad in light of the limitations of how planning bonus works.

I'm really crossing my fingers that 1.11 finally reworks this loathsome issue of planning bonuses into a more logical and less micro intensive way. That and a logistics rework. I've been waiting for the past 4 years for GBP to finally become something worthy of my desired playstyle.. we're still not there yet. But one day. I hope.

 

[pheonicia]

Grand battle plan is ok. I rarely let my divisions build up max plan bonus so I like sf better, but I also don't have the patience to micro hundreds of divisions across multiple fronts so the ai is perfectly acceptable for me. If I get the choice I tend to pick sf though since the boni are easy to use and I don't have to do anything specific except maintain air superiority.

 

[Putuna]

I disagree I think this is more of a case of single player and maybe you just really don't like microing very much (which is fine I suck at micro personally). Mass assault is excellent for the Soviet Union because you can spam infantry bricks supported with decent enough tanks, grand battle plan is awful for the Soviet Union as it completely realize on a static front something that will not happen on the Eastern front in MP. Also for the love of God never go mass assault Japan mass assault is a defensive doctrine and Japan is a nation that will be very offensive at the start but move into defense. Grand battle plan is actually decent for Japan of you don't go SFD.

 

[mursolini]

I'm not sure why you specified that you play with EAI. It can create more of a challenge, but it is still just as exploitable as the vanilla AI, frankly. In some ways, even more so because of its predictable production strategies and templates. EAI loves putting support AT battalions in basically every single division every AI country makes and it's a colossal waste that is easily exploitable, for example.

Could you please explain? Why is that a colossal waste and how is it easily exploitable, in single player context.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Mh in short...

SF IMHO is the best "allround" doctrine for countries that are on the middle ground of all relevant paramters (OKish industry, OKish Manpower) but nothing to brag about

Mass assault can be funny with SU, India or Japan. But Japan can go with SF too.

GBP...I tried it. Problem is, if you really wanna be efficient on the offensive you gotta micro a little which kills GBP.

MW is great for Germany and can also work for SU or USA - basically any Nation that racks up industry early and fast.
And yes, MW Tank divisions backed by Mot/Mech Divisions will just shred GBP Divisions no matter what.

Yes, in SP you can exploit AI stupidness to an extent and if you manage to set up good defensive positions and want to wait until the AI is out of Manpower or Equipment then ... yeah. Otherwise GBP is overall weaker than SF and MW.

 

[tksolway]

Could you please explain? Why is that a colossal waste and how is it easily exploitable, in single player context.

'Triggered'

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Could you please explain? Why is that a colossal waste and how is it easily exploitable, in single player context.

Because it doesn't help against Infantry Divisions and doesn't really help against proper Tank Divisions but uses Resources and MIL better spent elsewhere.
AA would be the better choice overall if you want to mix Arty with anything else.

 

[tksolway]

Gotta back the rest of the people replying here. GBP has its uses, but those are when you don't intend to attack much. It is easily the worst doctrine. Most people just Auto-Pick SF for a reason, it's very good, and it works with pretty much everything. Personally I think MWD is the best, and I think your explanation suggests why you've missed it, you never go right on the first choice, you should always go left, the ORG bonuses there are massive, and your tanks really don't need too much help with breakthrough. I've played MAD with China, but I generally use MWD on the Soviets as well.

Basically, if I'm going to have industry for tanks and trucks I go with MWD, and if not I go with SF. The other two are very situational choices that are useful when they make sense, but otherwise don't compete in a "tier list".

 

[blahmaster6k]

I also agree with all these replies, particularly @Iskulya .

GBP is reliant on using the battle planner to attack, which is a massive pitfall. Its main competitive use is in an exploit in multiplayer involving sending expeditionary forces whose original owner has SF or MW to a country with GBP, to make use of the planning bonus stacking with the original country's doctrine bonuses. It can also be used for guarding ports as others have said, but that isn't particularly useful in any single player context. It doesn't provide any permanent bonuses to attack or defense, and breakthrough isn't important enough of a stat. Either you have plenty of breakthrough already (tank divisions), or no matter how many bonuses you apply to it it won't be high enough to get over an enemy division's attack stat (infantry). As for entrenchment, it's not good because as soon as you get pushed off of one tile you lose all the entrenchment and your divisions are weak.

Superior Firepower in my opinion is the best doctrine because of the boosts to soft and hard attack as well as air superiority. The support company org boost is also very beneficial. The stats boosted by SF are the most important stats, and generally speaking the stats boosted by other doctrines are not as generally important. Your divisions will inflict more casualties and take fewer, and meet thresholds for getting over enemy divisions' defense stats much easier, while keeping your defense higher than enemy breakthrough.

Mobile Warfare has its uses, it allows for a higher armor value on tank divisions since it lets you put in a higher ratio of tanks, while also giving org boosts to infantry. The breakthrough it gives tanks becomes overkill after a point, which is why I don't prefer it over SF. The manpower it gives can be useful to certain minors but if you go down that path you're playing to lose less rather than playing to win. Volkssturm is a terrible doctrine path that assumes you will be taking heavy casualties, and the other bonuses given by mobile warfare don't assist a minor in taking fewer casualties, since minors can't afford to make lots of 17/3 heavy tanks. Superior Firepower (and even grand battleplan but in a much weaker form) help their user take fewer casualties by nature of defense and attack boosts on vulnerable infantry. The org boost from MW doesn't do any of that, just lets them fight longer while taking and inflicting casualties at the same rate.

Mass Assault is a pretty niche doctrine. In particular the combat width reduction for infantry can provide pseudo-superior firepower boosts to infantry, since it allows your infantry divisions to have more attack and defense per combat width. The supply reduction and out-of-supply penalty reduction are also great for situations where you're either fighting in low infrastructure regions, or you're launching naval invasions/paradrops with special forces. It's a niche doctrine, but when fighting in its niche it has potential to be far better than the other three doctrines. Deep battle is great for a competently equipped army of tanks and defensive infantry, and mass mobilization is great for memey defensive strategies that rely on small divisions and stacking recovery and reinforce rate.

 

[Lupis Volk]

Mobile Warfare gives the highest Org value to Infantry, you get higher movment speed on Mot, lower org loss on movement, higher org regain, and a gigantic 5% manpower, which is extremly powerful for someone like Canada, Australia, Hungary.

This makes Mobile Warfare a very good doctrine.

You can also mike something like 8 SPART divisions for extreme high Soft Attack for cheap, 2 ARM for breaktrough and 6 Mot for Org. With only 2 ARM you are far from overkilling breaktrough, so improving that is very helpful.
Tanks are one of the most powerful tools there is in HoI4.

So Is that a division template with 8 spart, 2 armoured and 6 mot or are they different templates?

 

[mursolini]

'Triggered'

Curious

Because it doesn't help against Infantry Divisions and doesn't really help against proper Tank Divisions but uses Resources and MIL better spent elsewhere.
AA would be the better choice overall if you want to mix Arty with anything else.

What helps AI against proper tank divisions better, what AI should spend those mils on and what to do with "improper" but significantly cheaper tank divisions?

 

[Jays298]

I think part of the reason why Mobile War works for Germany is that Germany may have difficulties trying to win conventionally because time, manpower, industry, just aren't on their side in the long run. They can defeat a superior force like the USSR via encirclements. But if the player doesn't want to micro the divisons then I think superior firepower is better (better use of artillery and support companies, defensive buffs). To me superior firepower is easier for Germany, plus it reduces their need for fuel via artillery.

A lot of it just comes down to how people play. I struggle to produce armor in significant amounts no matter who i play, so I find it easier to just spam 7/2 infantry and churn out artillery, and to use tanks just to cause front line movements. Plus tanks have attrition issues on various terrain and are very model specific, whereas I can get a lot of use out of the 1936 artillery.

Italy actually is a fairly easy nation to play if you know what you are doing. You aren't, for instance, attacking France. You hide behind Italian forts, and the french hide behind theirs, and true to history, let Germany do the work until its time to demand Savoy. With two tank divisions and maybe two armies of infantry, I would take the Suez, and make minor gains around Ethiopia. Italy doesn't have great manpower, but they have much better manpower than the UK or Free France. So in the long run they do fine in Africa and have enough manpower to have a spare army north of the alps to respond to invasions and enough divisions to spare to garrison some Atlanicwall ports.

Its true they can't do any early expansion in Europe. But Greece shouldnt be a challenge once the war is in effect and Yugoslavia might join the axis. But their main job is to just protect what Germany can't. Like for instance if Italy has 72 divisions in Africa and 24+ in Europe by 41/42 (excluding port garrisons), successful allied invasions are unlikely.

Grand Battle Plan is great for countries that win by just surviving.

As USA I like Superior Firepower due to the support company bonuses.

 

[tksolway]

But their main job is to just protect what Germany can't. Like for instance if Italy has 72 divisions in Africa and 24+ in Europe by 41/42 (excluding port garrisons), successful allied invasions are unlikely.

I'm sorry, but are you suggesting that Italy be a GOOD ALLY! That is Blasphemous Sir! Blasphemous I say! Italy is required to completley screw the pooch in Greece after Hitler demanded they not invade, forcing the Germans to delay Barbarossa for two months. Noooo, nooo, I get it, they are a great ally... to the Allies. I see what you did there.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Curious

What helps AI against proper tank divisions better, what AI should spend those mils on and what to do with "improper" but significantly cheaper tank divisions?

The thing is, it is not only against tanks. The bulk of your units will be Infantry. If playing Germany maybe Mot/MotArt or RArt to backup and defend against cutting off the Breakthrough Divisions.
I don't have the numbers in my head to 100% but I think AT guns use less width than Arty. Anyways. At some point one has to decide what the template is for the bulk of the forces. It's the same for AI otherwise the Economy gets messed up. So, if one side has 14/4 Inf/Art vs the other side's 14/2/2 Inf/Art/AT or the like, the former is at an advantage in offense and defense.
Now you throw in some 40w Tankdivisions or even Spacemarines (Inf + HArm or HSpArt).

First off, early AT doesn't have enough pierce AND Tanks relocate faster. So you either have ALL Infantry with AT guns or only a part of it. In the latter case the Tank Divisions look for another opening. In any case, the breakthrough of MArm Templates with MW doctrine just smashes through Infantry (in proper terrain like Russia's plains or most of central europe).
Second point is, your Standard Infantry lacks the punching Power against the "Soft" Divisions that secure the breakthrough (see above).
If you want to stop Tanks you either have more Tanks or more Air Support (Fighters and CAS or TACs if you need the Range and want to Stratbomb but don't have enough resources or MILs to split up construction).
This is before 1944 Tech. If you really focus on AT then the Infantry Buffs you can research and ATs do become viable. But we all know, in Germany SP (as our example here) you have either beaten the USSR already in 1944 and prepare to invade the US or you're done for anyways.

All in all, there are more viable options IMHO from Start to End (meaning which are useful throughout the game) than AT guns. The resources can be used to produce Arty, Medium or Heavy Tanks. And Air Superiority helps anywhere anytime so instead of using CIC to build MIC that produce AT I'd rather build Airports and planes.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

So Is that a division template with 8 spart, 2 armoured and 6 mot or are they different templates?

Need to try it but it only makes sense as a division Setup, my guess would be around 40W. 8 Arty would be cannonfodder and deorg too fast.

 

[Voigt]

yeah those batallions are in a single division template and are 40W together, To make it even cheaper you can use LSPART II converted from old captured LT1 a d LT2 and them MARM2 or better MARM3. Then you have the armour of MARM, decent breaktrough and org but still over 500 Soft Attack to push easily against enemy Infantry but also tanks with not to high hardness, and all that for 5k IC per divisions (cheaper if LSPART are converted)

 

[donald dawkins]

I find Italy does well with grand battle plan in mp etc

this is because the fronts Italy will fight on are narrow (French border/suez) and so you can create a frontline and know fairly comfortable that the ai won’t screw it up, allowing you to gain the planning bonus. It also works well in defence, and so you can use your defensive bonuses to wait for German armor to arrive, and use your infantry as D-day defence. This altogether gives you leeway to produce less equipped infantry and spend your mils/industry in planes or ships, which both the German players and axis will appreciate.

alternatively, a slightly more memier approach as Italy is to rush down mobile warfare, going down the left side of the branch first to get the org bonuses for infantry. THis should eventually net your 20 width divisions something like 60org (with AA and engineers) allowing you to buy time for axis armor in case of enemy d-day by simply org walling the coast. Even enemy air superiority will have difficulty de-Orging you! This then allows you to either do a fortress Italy or invest in 40 width motorised divisions with rocket artillery to act as exploiters in the eastern front.


mobile warfare is all about breakthrough and ignoring org walls, Germany can use this or a minor that is fairly protected from invasion to produce very good tank divisions, like new dlc Bulgaria for instance. However, Germany/Bulgaria can alternatively go down Superior firepower to melt infantry walls, but is less effective against an armor focussed Russia. This can lead to a great synergy for axis teams, having Germany be your tank contested and general breakthrougher against the soviet armor, while your Bulgarian armor divisions maximise SPA to melt enemy infantry.

I have seen mixed success with a Great Britain going deep battle, as it allow them to field unending hordes of infantry which it can then use as garrison defence/ a gimmick to make more marines while focussing on other areas, like planes and navy.

The USA can profit either or mobile warfare or superior firepower due to its industry, allowing it to either have adequate tanks and very well equipped infantry or just rely on tank hordes.

deep battle for Soviet Union, hands down due to late doctrine armor buffs and being able to fit more infantry (and therefore more org) into a low infrastrcuture eastern front. I have seen soviet unions go grand battle plan and role infantry hordes covering 3-5 tiles wide on a front and therefore maximising entrenchment buffs, which is a great meme to delay a German advance for decades and make it bleed equipment, but then leaves you wholly dependant on the allies to win, as you will not be able to push particularly well.

I haven’t played New France very much, so cannot comment on its strengths of weaknesses.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Great discussion here- I'm bookmarking this thread.

If your nation really needs the manpower help, which branch makes the most sense- MW Desperate Defense or MA Mass Mobilization?

My gut tells me that if I'm a country with terrain, supply, and/or industry challenges (like South Africa, Mexico, India, Australia), I should pick Mass Mobilization branch. I'm unlikely to use lots of Tanks or Motorized anyway, and the recovery rate and width reduction buffs really help regular Infantry. No point in using scarce resources on tanks just to have them attrition to nothing attacking in the mountains or low infra provinces.

Otherwise, I feel like I should pick the Desperate Defense branch, since that has far better boosts to Org and Speed, the 2nd best Infantry Recovery rate buffs, and also gives some decent tank bonuses as well.