Dunno about the other people who play this mod, but I find myself longing back to the days of the vanilla land doctrine tree. I think CORE is an excellent mod (or I wouldn't bother writing this), but in all honesty I think the land doctrines section leaves something to be desired. I'll try to sum up my feelings in a few points:
- I know the intention behind the land doctrine tree was to create a situation where players would have to choose away some land doctrines unless they wanted to lag behind in other areas of development. This seems to work...at least partially. While it's true that researching all the doctrines leaves limited time for other research, this drawback is mitigated for nations with major powers as allies, as a smart player will coordinate his research so he's able to snatch lots of doctrine blueprints off his allies. In practice, it is possible (without negative modifiers to research) for most majors to keep up with all the land doctrine techs and still not lag notably behind in other areas (the SU lacks trading partners for doctrine prints, but can afford to neglect naval techs).
- But in all fairness, it is more than a slight bother to do this and requires you to be clever not only with what blueprints you trade for but what prints you give to your AI allies. So what if you're forced to choose between the different doctrines? In all honesty, it's not easy to choose. The list of modifiers from each is long and all seem minor. For all the +0% ones they're indistinguishable. Personally, after looking at them for a few minutes I decided to just research whatever doctrine I had someone suited for researching available instead of looking much at the specific effects. I'm sure the differences would matter
- The naming is distinctly uninspired. The entire land doctrines window is one giant bore to look at, and as a player it doesn't make me feel involved at all. I feel involved when I'm researching blitzkrieg doctrine or regimental combat, I don't feel involved when I'm researching defense 1939 (static). This works for industry, but not for combat-related techs!
- Doctrines are all about promoting a certain kind of tactics from the generals as the way to 'do things by the book'. Realistically, an army cannot both have static and elastic defense as a doctrine, because this is equivalent to having no doctrine at all! You can't simultaneously equip an army for trench warfare and blitzkrieg. Certain doctrines SHOULD eliminate others, and the player should be forced to make a definite choice between, for example, static and elastic defense doctrines.
- Also, I miss the way doctrine paths matured at different times. Like the spearheads path would be nice and ready early in the war, while human wave would mature a few years later. It provided both flavour and historically plausible outcomes.
Discuss.
- I know the intention behind the land doctrine tree was to create a situation where players would have to choose away some land doctrines unless they wanted to lag behind in other areas of development. This seems to work...at least partially. While it's true that researching all the doctrines leaves limited time for other research, this drawback is mitigated for nations with major powers as allies, as a smart player will coordinate his research so he's able to snatch lots of doctrine blueprints off his allies. In practice, it is possible (without negative modifiers to research) for most majors to keep up with all the land doctrine techs and still not lag notably behind in other areas (the SU lacks trading partners for doctrine prints, but can afford to neglect naval techs).
- But in all fairness, it is more than a slight bother to do this and requires you to be clever not only with what blueprints you trade for but what prints you give to your AI allies. So what if you're forced to choose between the different doctrines? In all honesty, it's not easy to choose. The list of modifiers from each is long and all seem minor. For all the +0% ones they're indistinguishable. Personally, after looking at them for a few minutes I decided to just research whatever doctrine I had someone suited for researching available instead of looking much at the specific effects. I'm sure the differences would matter
- The naming is distinctly uninspired. The entire land doctrines window is one giant bore to look at, and as a player it doesn't make me feel involved at all. I feel involved when I'm researching blitzkrieg doctrine or regimental combat, I don't feel involved when I'm researching defense 1939 (static). This works for industry, but not for combat-related techs!
- Doctrines are all about promoting a certain kind of tactics from the generals as the way to 'do things by the book'. Realistically, an army cannot both have static and elastic defense as a doctrine, because this is equivalent to having no doctrine at all! You can't simultaneously equip an army for trench warfare and blitzkrieg. Certain doctrines SHOULD eliminate others, and the player should be forced to make a definite choice between, for example, static and elastic defense doctrines.
- Also, I miss the way doctrine paths matured at different times. Like the spearheads path would be nice and ready early in the war, while human wave would mature a few years later. It provided both flavour and historically plausible outcomes.
Discuss.
