Doctrines to easy to research?

[Skigle789]

After watching the latest World War Wednesday video it felt to me like Doctrines were too easy to research. With all the benefits and bonuses they give it seemed too easy to "Doctrine rush" because there is no penalty/cost to researching them before the war even starts. Unlike equipment which has a huge cost for researching ahead of time it looks like you can research doctrines anytime without even gaining the experience necessary to improve/modify your battlefield tactics.

In the WWW video the British were over half way through their Doctrine tech tree before 1939 even rolled around. IMO I feel like there should be either a cost in maybe army/navy/air force experience points or a threshold of points that need to be met before you can research the next level of doctrines in the tech tree otherwise Germany could be invading Poland with modern style Blitzkrieg before the first shot of WW2 has even been fired.

This is just something I noticed while watching the game footage and was wondering what other peoples opinions are.

*Doctrines TOO easy to Research?*

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Yes, and I think Johan mentioned this. There is no reason not to alternate between spamming doctrinal and national focus research. I think this is something they will fix before release.

 

[Denkt]

National focus do cost political points.

 

[eddyill]

Didn't The UK have Montgomery as army chief that provides a massive boost to grand battle plan research. Some of the research multipliers might need some tweaking

 

[Victor Cortez]

Balancing is not done I suppose.
Maybe a XP Political Power cost would make sense.

 

[D Inqu]

If you focus and research only doctines, you would do so at the expense of industry, military techs etc.

 

[dav77-b]

Balancing is not done I suppose.
Maybe a XP Political Power cost would make sense.

XP is indeed a good idea. You can use XP for changing divisions, researching new doctrines or improving equipment.
This makes XP a scare ressource you have to plan about.

 

[KiwiNoob]

XP is indeed a good idea. You can use XP for changing divisions, researching new doctrines or improving equipment.
This makes XP a scare ressource you have to plan about.

And more importantly it's something you get from actual combat which means you're not going to be able to unlock many doctrines until the fighting starts.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Balancing isnt done yet. Besides that on the stream Jakob actually mentioned that there is an ahead of time penalty for doctrines. At 27:08 he said "I think land doctrine is ahead of time, right?" Then he hovers over the time it takes to research and it shows him that the tech initialy takes 300 days but due to bonuses its reduced to 249 days. Export policies, your advisors and technology reduces that time. Think about it, that are 10 months of research where your slot is blocked (without reduction) for just that one doctrine.
This also shows that if you spend political power on the right advisors you can heaviely influence your doctrine research speed. Heinz Guderlan alone reduces the research time by 30 days.

You also need to keep in mind that both germany and the UK actually start with the first 2 land doctrines finished.

Using experience would be an interesting approach, but means that you wont be able to do alot, if any doctrine research before the war and that communist and facist countries actually have an huge advantage when they send equipment to spain for example, which democracies cant do due to world tension limitations. Division training doesnt yield that much experience either and is quickly spent when you upgrade your divisions. Overall, alot of doctrine research was done before WW2. The germans spent alot of time analysing WW1 and developing new tactics before the war. Thats one reason why they managed to defeat the french army, which on paper was stronger than the german one.

 

[KiwiNoob]

There are no dates on the doctrine tree. Cant have 'ahead of time' penalty if there is no time (though maybe that is something they are putting in but just isn't in the build they are playing)

Germany did learn a lot from it's time in Spain about their equipment and the way they used it so that is realistic. An XP cost for doctrines makes a lot more sense than PP and both can be re-balanced accordingly. I.e. slightly increase the amount of XP generated by combat/training. Reduce PP generation. Make the first few doctrines relatively cheap so people can still potentially grab a few before the war, etc...

 

[LordOfWar16]

I still dont see an issue with the doctrine research speed. All they managed in 2 sessions were 1 or 2 doctrines since, as i said before, germany and the UK actually start with the first two. Why shouldnt the germans be able to research blitzkrieg in 1938/1939?

Even if all doctrines up to modern blitzkrieg would all take 300 days, that would still be about 3,5 years of constant research up to modern blitzkrieg and i doubt that they all take the same amount of time in the final version of the game. Advisors, policies and technology make them less time consuming to research, but overall i dont see an issue in germany actually having blitzkrieg when the war breaks out.

Sometimes it is probably better to hold off untill you get one of those 50% research bonus tokens for land doctrines rather than straight up b-lining doctrines.

 

[Ivan_W_S]

There are no dates on the doctrine tree. Cant have 'ahead of time' penalty if there is no time (though maybe that is something they are putting in but just isn't in the build they are playing)

Agreed and to balance it out somewhat, you can only research 5 techs simultaneously, so I think it's not as unbalanced as some might fear.

 

[Axe99]

Looks like a balance issue from my angle. While I like the idea of experience as an input into doctrines, there's no way to do exercises to get it (which many countries of the period did - Germany developed their approach to warfare before they invaded Poland, after all, although they got better with practice).

 

[theJ]

I'll agree with unlocking it via experience;
I would also give doctrines their own tab, and expand them to cover things such as division-setup(extra brigades unlocked globally for all templates, thus encouraging the use of several different templates, rather than punishing players who want varied and specialised divisions), new unit-types(could be a great way to introduce "exotic" unit types such as coastal battleships and AA-cruisers without overloading the player with too many "active" options), "civilian" doctrines(mobilization efficiency, propaganda vs free thought, etc.), and/or minor OOB-style organisation options(thus allowing them and their bonuses, without forcing them upon players who don't want them - those who prefer to play without 'em(such as me) can just pick up more effective training or whatever instead...).

I would also consider letting people start out with a handful of experience, to allow basic specialisation from the get-go(Swedish coastal battleships, OOB for whoever wants it...)

On the positive side, this would open up for interesting choices and options, while also feeling more "fluffy" than telling your vehicle designers to figure out how to orchestrate an optimal Schwerpunkt maneouvre.
On the negative side... it's untested, presumably really hard to balance properly, might make experience a bit TOO important of a resource, and would take up precious development time for a game that's already been postponed more than enough...

hrm... might be better as a DLC feature...

 

[No idea]

Didn't The UK have Montgomery as army chief that provides a massive boost to grand battle plan research. Some of the research multipliers might need some tweaking

Monty can get to Army Chief¡¡?? (I cant think of anybody more "controversial" among the british military to get such post) In what paralel universe did they think about that?

 

[grandad1982]

Monty can get to Army Chief¡¡?? (I cant think of anybody more "controversial" among the british military to get such post) In what paralel universe did they think about that?

The fun one where people might want the most famous British general to run their army?

 

[GsusNSV]

Well to be fair, he is in the game as a Theorist. And that position is not even under Military Staff.

 

[Jazumir]

I thought having doctrinal research come from XP goes without saying? I´d rather not have division-templates cost xp. Cause: Why? It´s a PITA having to pay just for trying something different (aka: "playing"). Have limits on division-templates, which can be raised by certain doctrines, and have those cost xp, instead...

The advantage that follows for the interventionist and aggressive regimes is desirable! It´s exactly (one of the aspects) what should give them an edge in the early stages of the war.

Just my 2c, though.