Best land doctrines

[HunterFromAbove]

Which land doctrines in this game do you consider to usually be the best for most countries and strategies?

[Field Marshall]

Superior Firepower and Grand battleplan are generally regarded the go too doctrines for almost all nations.
Mass Assault is only to my knowledge used by nations with large manpower like India and china, even then some go for the two previous mentioned.
The only nations that do and can use the Mobile Warfare is Germany, USA, USSR and maybe France maybe.
Most secondary powers in Europe go with Superior firepower there's only 1-3 that might go for Grand Battleplan if they are targeted by a 1st power. Any other secondary power or 3rd for the rest of the World go for Superior Firepower.
I believe Superior Firepower is generally the go to is because like it says in it's description it throws bullets at the enemy other then lives. It pretty easy to make decent infantry Divisions with Artillery for a semi cheap and good division and allows some use of Armor. The big issue for most secondary powers is manpower so it nice to go for.

[Ruges]

So much of that depends on what country your in. With the main aspect being whats your manpower and whats your production situation like. And then it also depends on what your strat is going to be.

Personally I am a fan of 15/5 armor divisions. So going mobile warfare blitzkrieg is my normal route. However some nations gets some pretty hefty bonuses going down other lines, so they are worth looking it.

Grand battle plan. The only reason you choose this line is if you are going to let the AI move your units around. IE you set the front line and the battle plan, but let the AI move each unit.

Mass Assault doctrine. If you have manpower and train time bonuses (looking at you Russia and China). Mass Assault doctrine is for you. specifically the deep battle, relentless assault ability. You have a long line of troops constantly attacking, the enemy will run out of supply and man power over long periods of time. Its extremely powerful at stopping a German advance into Russia. Or Japan advance into China.

And then we have the Superior firepower doctrine. So why choose this one?
Your going to control you units. so your not using the grand battle plan. You dont have the production to pump out enough tanks so your not doing the mobile warfare, You dont have hte manpower or want a more offensive doctrine front them Mass Assault. Your going to be running allot of artillery in the main division and the support division. You should also have 5 support units in each template.

[mk11]

Why does Grand Battleplan require you to let the AI move your units? It expects you to get planning bonuses but you can use planning bonuses while managing your own troops. Just delete the front-line when you launch the attack. Recreate it and a plan when you pause.

You also need to look at when you will get doctrine bonuses. For example, with USSR if you go Mass Assault then you get the key doctrine that reduces infantry combat width in time to defend against a 1941 German assault. If you go Superior Firepower you are 1 and a bit doctrines behind and don't have some of the best doctrines at that time.

[HunterFromAbove]

Originally posted by mk11:

Why does Grand Battleplan require you to let the AI move your units? It expects you to get planning bonuses but you can use planning bonuses while managing your own troops. Just delete the front-line when you launch the attack. Recreate it and a plan when you pause.

You also need to look at when you will get doctrine bonuses. For example, with USSR if you go Mass Assault then you get the key doctrine that reduces infantry combat width in time to defend against a 1941 German assault. If you go Superior Firepower you are 1 and a bit doctrines behind and don't have some of the best doctrines at that time.

I believe thats because if you manually order your troops to attack instead of letting the AI do it you lose planning bonuses faster than you would have otherwise.

[HunterFromAbove]

Thanks for all the answers. Yeah, I understand that mobile warfare and mass assault are more nation specific then other doctrines. I'm always torn whether to go superiror firepower or grand battle plan. I like the defensive and entrenchment bonuses you get from grand battle plan doctrine but I constantly hear that this doctrine is not really that good and that superior firepower is the generic one to go for most nations.

[Songbird]

I like Mass Assault because I prefer creating elite armies with majors.

If I play minors I usually take Superior Firepower because it is really cheap to get going.

I am too lazy to use Mobile Warfare correctly and I think it really only shines in MP anyway because the above two are enough to encircle AI effectively. As you know Mobile Warfare is all about the motorized tentacle plays.

Grand Battleplan while doing the top damage of all the doctrines is really unflexible and not need for AI aswell.

So yeah, if I want to tryhard MP I pick Mobile Warfare/Grand Battleplan because those exploit players the best. If passive laidback and if I have the ressources I play Mass Assault if I am poor I play Superior Firepower.

[TasteDasRainbow]

As any major there is almost no reason to not use superior firepower. You should reasonably be able to dedicated industry to having artillery in every infantry division, adding significant soft attack, defense, etc.

All in all, superior firepower is for drawn out games that don't use exploitative maneuvers, like paradropping on a capital or what have you. The additional equipment like arty and support attachments will largely outscale the value from grand battleplan, and will synergize further as the game proceeds and your industry scales to give better equipment.

[Mikey]

Superior Firepower and Grand Battleplan are generally the better suited ones for most situations, with superior firepower being better if you are a more aggresive power.

Mobile and Mass Assault are more niche which can be good if your forces are specialised. Mobile ofc being for motorised/mechanised and armoured divisions and Mass Assault being primarily infantry based with armour secondary.

[Kinski]

Superior Firepower would be the best choice for most of the minor and some of the major nations (Italy) because you can build cheap yet effective 7-Infantry/2-Artillery divisions early in the game and those divisions benefit a lot from this doctrine. It's also a more offensive doctrine that allows you to invade other countries quickly but also spares your manpower pool from big casulties.

Another great doctrine is Great Battleplan - but you need to be patient. In the beginning of the game it gives you a lot of defensive bonuses only but once you reach the 2nd half of the tree then you'll also get some great attack bonuses. Attacking with 60% (+10% from the field marshall) planning bonus is just insanely effective. If you play this doctrine defensively as it is intended to be then you will deal a lot of damage to your enemies.

Mobile Warfare should only be chosen if you plan to build up big tank armies that will do most of the attacks for you. Therefore it's a doctrine that should only be taken by countries with very strong economies from the start. (Germany, USSR, USA) Otherwise it doesn't make sense. Another option would be to rely on big numbers of motorised and mechanized divisions but that's also a very expensive army to build up.

Mass Assault can be a good choice if you have an endless pool of manpower without a strong economy and you plan to send masses of big divisions with cheap equipment to just overrun your enemy by sheer force. One of the later techs reduces the combat width and makes big divisions even more effective. Another doctrine that can be used by a few countries only (USSR, China) but it's worth a try if you play those countries.

[CaptainCadet]

In my opinion as someone who likes to play minor's, Grand battleplan is good if you don't plan to do to much offensive but it is great for defense and if you wan't you can probably get some damage out of it, superior firepower is probably the go-to though because of the flat damage you get out of it, Mobile warfare would be good for a country I think like Romania because of their industry, you could field a large army and have the factories to supply it, also don't forget the manpower bonus in mobile warfare so it isn't all that bad to go with as a minor if you have enough industry to make some tanks, mass assault is like this to, they get some entrenchment bonuses and some combat width modifiers aswel and the manpower bonus which can be really helpful for minor's without much manpower.

Again this is my perspective and opinion, there is a nation for each of them, ultamitly it's up to you'r strategy, what you hope for, and you'r nation. :)