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Developer Diary | Small Features #2

Greetings all,

We’re still well in the middle of Swedish vacation time, but our regular schedule is not entirely interrupted: today’s diary covers a few of the smaller features being added in AAT.


Special Forces Doctrines

For a while now we’ve wanted to give countries a way of specializing their special forces. Numerous militaries relied heavily on these elite troops, and some branches of what HOI4 terms ‘special forces’ really found their identity during and around the second world war.

I believe we’ve reached a good saturation point for equipment designers, and I wanted to tackle special forces in a manner that better befits strategic capability over detailed stat modification. The prolonged global conflict our game portrays led to significant doctrinal development when it comes to how militaries employed elite forces, and this seemed like a good place to start.

In AAT, a fourth doctrine page has been added:

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While any country can continue to make use of the Mountaineers, Marines and Paratroopers they are familiar with simply by researching the tech, doing so will unlock the ability to choose the corresponding special forces branch specialism.

These doctrines will also cost experience, however unlike the other military doctrines each branch here will use the corresponding experience type: Army XP for mountaineers, Naval XP for Marines, and Air XP for paratroopers.

The number of branch specialisms you can pick is limited however: initially to 1. Some nations earn the early ability to unlock a second (and final) branch specialism in their focus trees, but all nations that reach major status (this condition may be relaxed) will eventually earn the right to pick their second branch during the progress of the war.

Why not all 3? The [Insert Country Here] military used all three of these!

Well, partly for balance reasons, and partly because these specialisms don’t represent the ability to use paras, mountaineers or marines, but the adoption of their capabilities as part of a military’s core doctrinal philosophy.

We also wanted these doctrine choices to do more than give you stat bonuses - although of course these will be present. We wanted the choices you make here to a) change how you consider designing your divisions, and b) potentially change how you actively use your special forces on a strategic level.

Mountaineers

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Initially, elevating the mountaineers will grant you a mountaineer supply usage reduction (decimal bug noted!), and some general special forces combat bonuses. Importantly, you’ll also unlock the Rangers support company: a more combat oriented alternative to mounted recon, with higher organization, bonuses in adverse terrain types, and which can be further specialized by the mountaineers branch specialism in the following two doctrines:

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Here you are making the choice to train your elite ranger companies in rough+hot or rough+winter terrain. I’ve added a Snow adjuster here (usable by mods, of course - although for performance reasons this does not extend to one adjuster per weather type I’m afraid) which means you can guarantee improved combat performance in your preferred terrain/weather type, and the support company now also exerts a division-wide buff to cold/hot acclimatization.

While I won’t go through each doctrine individually, we’re making use of the new battalion modifiers to adjust how you are incentivized to build divisions:

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Mountain artillery gives you a good reason to use artillery support in your mountaineer divisions, at the cost of a mutually exclusive choice with the following option:

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Balance subject to change, of course.

The final choice (and a choice which exists in each of the branch specialisms) is to decide between adopting your mountaineers as the core of your elite armed forces, or integrating them more widely:

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The new modifier ‘[Type] Special Forces Cap Contribution’ is a dynamic modifier that reduces the cap consumption of that special forces type, when counted against your cap. So, you’ll be able to support significantly more mountaineers, but not more paratroopers or marines.

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Here you’ll get bonuses that are more applicable to a wider array of circumstances. If you plan on unlocking and utilizing a second branch of special forces, this option might be more your cup of tea.

Marines

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The initial investment for the Marines branch will net you some similar small bonuses to special forces efficacy, a slight increase in naval invasion capacity (which can be acquired quite early), and you’ll unlock the Pioneers support company.

Pioneers are used here to represent marine-trained sappers and combat engineers, and will be an alternative to standard military engineers. They have increased offensive capability in notably hostile environments, and can be further specialized as shore parties or jungle climate specialists:

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The second mutually exclusive choice in the Marines tree is as below. If you want to go all-in on highly elite, more self-sufficient marines, you can go down the Marine Commando route. Marine commandos are a new line battalion that have the ability to perform quick hit & run naval invasions with an equally quick getaway plan - they no longer need to be at a port in order to exfiltrate. All battalions in a division must have this ability in order for it to function.

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Further down the tree you can capitalize on the hit & run playstyle:

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The alternative path will take you down a combined arms path, integrating more closely with other branches of your military:

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Paratroopers

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Elevating the paras will grant you tougher air transports, generally improved special forces, and the ability to field a small amount more paras.

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The first choice you will have to make is which paradrop effect you want to adopt. Aimed at disruption, the recon and sabotage doctrine will damage enemy constructions after a successful landing.

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Combat insertion is intended to augment well-planned general advances. If utilized carefully, this approach can put a hole in even the best fortified enemy frontline - however, the risk is high.

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It had to be done.


The mutually exclusive branches for paratroopers once again distinguish between a focus on paratrooper combat and support ability, or a wider combined-arms benefit:

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Make use of signals companies to coordinate a hasty defense after a drop.

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At the cost of increased training time, ensure that only the toughest recruits find their way to the paras.

Or choose to integrate the paras more traditionally into your armed forces:

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That’s all I have to show this time - as always, feedback on the details is encouraged; constructive criticism welcomed.

/Arheo
 
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Overall this looks excellent, but I am very concerned about the exp cost of these, particularly the marine tree. Exp is difficult to come by in the prewar period, and there are now so many things calling for its usage: doctrines, division design, tank design, ship design, aircraft design, high command etc. Naval exp is particularly hard to come by if you aren't at war and don't have the luxury of a large navy and fuel supplies to do constant exercises with. I think a rebalance is in order, either of exp costs across the board or rate of exp gain.

I feel it would work ok if paratroopers & Marines got exp from training/combat in line with their military branch? That would mean that your special forces actively contribute to their own development and hopefully account for the wide demand in exp useage. Sure, it'll still be difficult making special forces in the early game, but I suppose thats the point that you need to make decisions about what comes first.
 
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Awesome changes, but will you increase xp generation? I think it's fine that many nations cant do it all but I think even majors like the US will struggle to do everything - unlike what they accomplished in real life. Too many sinks of xp, not enough sources
 
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It saddens me a bit that paradrops are going to remain human-only.

I'd love to see some solution to paradrops that allow me to use them versus the AI without feeling like I'm cheating, and I bet most MP groups ban them because otherwise you'd see a million annoying single-battalion paradrops the moment you forget to garrison a victory point or an airbase or a port, so nobody's happy.
 
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In Finland every soldier can fight in forests and ski, those were and are ordinary infantry skills in Finland.
On the other hand, not so many countries have mountains acting as borders. So Spain, Italy, France, Austria among others are more familiar with these special units.
 
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The USSR should have a national spirit "Parachute Towers". In the USSR, there was a parachute tower in almost every park
major city. Which popularized parachuting in the country. Possibly reduces the speed of airborne training or increases the percentage of airborne forces in the USSR.
 
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Sorry, something is still unclear to me: what's specific to new AAT DLC and what's to be included from generic 1.13 patch forward? I'm afraid adding new mechanic just for a DLC is not future proof, and the integration with rest of the game in future might suffer. We're still doing fine tuning with air war/BBA air designer, same with naval designers/MTG.
At least, when new mechanics (except focus trees maybe) get included in the main game, like infrastructure after NSB/1.11, everyone gets used to it but especially everyone's using it, so there's an incentive to debug and maintain the said new mechanics.
 
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This new feature will be something I have to get used to and I am a little skeptical, although the general concept is great.

The idea I struggle a little bit is that some specialization are tied to specific unit types. Maybe that is a wrong perception, but we‘ll see.

Examples:
Why are cold weather experts tied to mountaineers? There are military units that are cold weather experts too, but do not necessarily operate in mountains only.
Demolitions experts appear to be limited to Marines. Other nations used them largely too to sabotage structures behind enemy lines.

What might work would be to separate some specialization from a specific branch, so it could be picked up as a general qualification for all three?

Interested to get more feedback from you guys.
 
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Curious on how exfiltration works.

Will Naval Comandos simply be able to sail back from any coastal province, as if it had a port there, or will they have a special mission, like a reverse naval invasion, to retreat back to a friendly port from any province?

In other words, will they be able to instantly retreat, or will there be some preparation time where the defender could react quickly and destroy them before they escape.
 
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Wouldn't it be better to ditch the whole Mountaineer name and switch it to more generic Ranger (and change the bonuses a bit into more generic rough terrain bonuses)? Would also make the updates more distinct when actually choose to specialize them into Mountain combat.
That is what I thought when looking at the content of that branch. And yet, I would like to create both rangers and mountain troops. It would be great if some of the capabilities (not necessarily all) could be accessed by all three unit types.
 
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Eeeh... Ranger doesn't mean anything in many countries, besides UK/US and recently Canada/Ireland... Also, it seems ranger terrain is more varied, or focused on forest rather than mountains.
Mountaineers has a longer tradition I believe, especially in Europe. So maybe only for localized content?
Brandenburger?
 
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Yes, and? These were special forces, but where have you seen them called "rangers"?
Look at some of their missions on the Eastern Front. If being a ranger does not include long range reconnaissance, sabotaging structures behind enemy lines (and that means deeply) or supporting local uprisings, then I don’t know what else you would call being a ranger.

Really, I highly recommend some reading, if you are interested.
 
Look at some of their missions on the Eastern Front. If being a ranger does not include long range reconnaissance, sabotaging structures behind enemy lines (and that means deeply) or supporting local uprisings, then I don’t know what else you would call being a ranger.

Really, I highly recommend some reading, if you are interested.
Oh yes, I'm familiar with that. But the point made by AnssiA was: let's rename Mountaineers to Rangers, probably because some countries didn't have any of for former.
These are all land special forces, and probably each country should have different naming. Just "rangers" as a generic term doesn't seem appropriate to me, including for Germany's.
 
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Oh yes, I'm familiar with that. But the point made by AnssiA was: let's rename Mountaineers to Rangers, probably because some countries didn't have any of for former.
These are all land special forces, and probably each country should have different naming. Just "rangers" as a generic term doesn't seem appropriate to me, including for Germany's.
Good point. What would you suggest?
 
Look at some of their missions on the Eastern Front. If being a ranger does not include long range reconnaissance, sabotaging structures behind enemy lines (and that means deeply) or supporting local uprisings, then I don’t know what else you would call being a ranger.

Really, I highly recommend some reading, if you are interested.
I also suggest you read more on the Brandenburgers. The were special forces of the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence), not Army Rangers. They were trained to ground combat together with the (Heer) Grossdeutschland division, but Brandenburgers were mostly used on smaller scale operations. The Brandenburgers infiltrated and sabotaged, many of them spoke many languages, they were paradropped and they also formed a marine commando battalion. They fought on all fronts until Sept 1944, when Hitler ordered them converted to an Army Panzergrenadier Division, since in the aftermath of Operation Valkyrie he did not trust the Abwehr any more. After that what remained of the spec ops were transferred to the SS.
 
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I also suggest you read more on the Brandenburgers. The were special forces of the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence), not Army Rangers. They were trained to ground combat together with the (Heer) Grossdeutschland division, but Brandenburgers were mostly used on smaller scale operations. The Brandenburgers infiltrated and sabotaged, many of them spoke many languages, they were paradropped and they also formed a marine commando battalion. They fought on all fronts until Sept 1944, when Hitler ordered them converted to an Army Panzergrenadier Division, since in the aftermath of Operation Valkyrie he did not trust the Abwehr any more. After that what remained of the spec ops were transferred to the SS.
I agree - when I said rangers I did not imply that they were Army. When created, most of them were even civilians that were drafted for their knowledge and skills. Their officers were however (mostly) Army officers that were pulled from all posts because of their skills.
 
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