Have I been sleeping on Grand Battle Plan this whole time?

[DaleDVM]

Since the Superior Firepower nerf and since I am playing Japan for the first time in forever I took another look at Grand Battle Plan to see if it is feasible. Obviously the entrenchment and infantry breakthrough bonuses help the Japanese quite a bit.

The one thing I never paid enough attention to is the night assault tactics that provides +25% to land night attack. Does this mean you go from -50% to only -25% for your stats at night while on offense? If so... that is a true 50% bonus to half of the combat you are engaged in since nobody stops attacking at night. Or... do you go from -50% to -37.5% attack at night?

That +25% to night attack seems impressive to me considering it affects both soft and hard attack, front line units and support companies of every type. No other bonus in the tree is this big or this comprehensive.

I do understand that combat at night does less damage anyway since rarely are you going to exceed the defense values of the units you are attacking. But in a tough fight, in bad terrain, where you never exceed the enemy defense value anyway it seems like this could be an incredibly powerful bonus.

Am I seeing this correctly?

 

[bitmode]

Am I seeing this correctly?

You are correct, it is one of the best individual doctrine techs.

 

[Casko]

GBP in general is often overlooked, simply because of Superior Firepower's superior damage output is still superior. And the fact that planning has its manual control nerfs, which makes it less than ideal for micro intensive fighting, which MP tends to be 90% of the time.

In single player however, GBP is just as usable as any other, as long as you understand that your planning bonus is going to suffer the moment you micro or adjust manually what way your units attack.

.... That siad GBP can be used by a very high octane meme power USSR even in MP if done right, by minmaxing entrenchment multipliers from field marshals and generals.

 

[Emren]

Also, if you choose the Infiltration branch, Grand Battle Plan is the only doctrine that will unlock TWO unique tactics that have no counters ( if you go Assault, you will only get one). All other Doctrines only unlocks a single tactic that cannot be countered.

 

[bitmode]

Also, if you choose the Infiltration branch, Grand Battle Plan is the only doctrine that will unlock TWO unique tactics that have no counters ( if you go Assault, you will only get one). All other Doctrines only unlocks a single tactic that cannot be countered.

One of those two doctrines only has a weight of 2 (https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Combat_tactics#Overwhelming_Fire), so in the maybe ~10% of cases where your general picks it the enemy loses their ~20% chance to counter it, which would make you lose its 10% bonus. That's a 0.2% bonus overall.

 

[Emren]

One of those two doctrines only has a weight of 2 (https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Combat_tactics#Overwhelming_Fire), so in the maybe ~10% of cases where your general picks it the enemy loses their ~20% chance to counter it, which would make you lose its 10% bonus. That's a 0.2% bonus overall.

I'm talking about Well-Planned Attack and Infiltration Assault, both of which are offensive tactics (Overwhelming Fire is defensive), and both have a weight of 4.

If you're going down GBP, your standard offensive tactics will be Attack or Shock, both with a weight of 4 (assuming fighting in non-Urban and no rivers). Those two extra tactics, with the same weight and no other prerequisites than getting to level 4 and 5 in the doctrine tree, mean that basically 50% of your offensives will be un-countered.

 

[bitmode]

I'm talking about Well-Planned Attack and Infiltration Assault, both of which are offensive tactics (Overwhelming Fire is defensive), and both have a weight of 4.

Oops, I got it mixed up with Assault somehow

 

[seattle]

GBP is tailor-made for Japan for 2 reasons:
- best entrenchment by far (no other country has so many ports to defend)
- bonus in terrain that Japan mostly fights in

The left branch with the battle plan bonus isn't that great because Superior Firepower is the better offensive choice, considering the flaws of the battle planner.

 

[Secret Master]

The one thing I never paid enough attention to is the night assault tactics that provides +25% to land night attack.

Here's where it gets really crazy.

Nothing stops you from stacking GBPs bonus to night fighting with night vision techs.

Ever want to fight at night with no penalties? That's the path to do so.

 

[seattle]

Here's where it gets really crazy.

Nothing stops you from stacking GBPs bonus to night fighting with night vision techs.

Ever want to fight at night with no penalties? That's the path to do so.

They only come out at night
The day is much too bright,
They only come out at night.

Sorry, can't take a pass on a Billy Corgan reference.
I wonder if the following would work:
Start full battle planner bonus attack at sunset, stop at sunrise. Rinse and repeat with the planning bonus fully replenishing at daytime.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Start full battle planner bonus attack at sunset, stop at sunrise. Rinse and repeat with the planning bonus fully replenishing at daytime.

Doesn't work in the majority of Eastern Hemisphere: bonus ticks in at 00:00, so you bound to miss on some of that nighttime fighting if you want the bonus to increase. Not to mention, pause allows enemy to properly entrench and recover whatever losses were inflicted.

 

[Anaraxes]

They only come out at night

Sorry, can't take a pass on a Billy Corgan reference.

I thought you meant the Hall and Oates reference.

She'll only come out at night
The lean and hungry type
Nothing is new, I've seen her here before
...

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Grand battleplan is great - particularly for France which gets a further +25% planning bonus. You can stack planning bonuses to nearly +100%... Nothing else comes close.

However, it's really only useful in single player - there's no way you're going to be sitting there on the front line that long in MP because your opponent is likely to react and it's usually better to keep moving to keep them guessing - players don't react as fast as the AI (so you can encircle more easily), but change their decisions more often (so you can't guess what they're doing as easily). Hence sitting there waiting for planning bonuses to build up doesn't work that well in MP.

That's why it's less used/discussed - most "metas" come out of multiplayer games.