Technology Tree: Land Doctrines

Black Guardian wrote:
We have to think about the consequences for the other technology-fields. If we add 4 kinds of Infantry for each major doctrine path we have to re-script all other techs influencing infantry stats (Weaponry, Gear, etc.)

If we use events, we have to write one for every technology (using sophisticated triggers we can minimize the number of events required)

The question is, which one is easier, more convenient and disrupts the playability least.

Probably the tech-solution, on the other hand people would ask why we have "Inf: SA + 0,5" displayed 4 times.

Furthermore, it all makes the doctrine-switching much less convenient (regardless of wether using tech or events to bring the units into their respective shape). Thus, the question arises: Disable doctrine-change at all?

I think at least for the first releases, it has a low priority anyway - so, disabling them is not hard, changing the code in later releases is also not that hard, if we ever want to approach this problem. Until then, everyone sticks to his school of thinking.

I´m also leaning towards the event-based solution since I´ve already seen similar, working solutions on other mods - and most importantly because it keeps things simpler and more universal - diversity in units without a good reason is not a good thing in my books.

I´ve had my doubts towards the goal of changing doctrines as well. If and when (hopefully) Paradox decides to alter the way different techs affect unit stats we can easily re-implement the original approach, but for now restricting the AI and player countries to one doctrine path seems like a good starting point. Since the first version of the modified vanilla land doctrine stats are ready, all we need now is the events to activate the modified unit stats and we can finally start playtesting.

Well, give me the list of effects per technology that can not be realized through tech (the unit-overlapping bonus per researched level) and I will give you your events

Your posts so far only contain non-complete data or summed up values of Morale / Org, which is of no use for me, as I need the marginal increase, as they are coded into the doctrine-tech-file.

Should not be too hard, only needs triggers for the respective Tech-level. However, I will use a monthly trigger, as this will save ressources, while not hurting the player too much. The time until the beginning of next month is then "training time" to "indoctrinate" (nice word in this affair ) the troops to use the new approaches.

Black Guardian wrote:Well, give me the list of effects per technology that can not be realized through tech (the unit-overlapping bonus per researched level) and I will give you your events

Your posts so far only contain non-complete data or summed up values of Morale / Org, which is of no use for me, as I need the marginal increase, as they are coded into the doctrine-tech-file.

Should not be too hard, only needs triggers for the respective Tech-level. However, I will use a monthly trigger, as this will save ressources, while not hurting the player too much. The time until the beginning of next month is then "training time" to "indoctrinate" (nice word in this affair ) the troops to use the new approaches.

Check your PM.

Edit: I´ll prepare the actual list tomorrow since I´ll have to do more testing to find out whether effects like supply values and attack delay overlap as well - I sented you the whole doctrine list for now so that we both know what we´re dealing with.

It seems that the other, non-unit specific tech effects work just fine, so we "just" need events that provide the unit stats included on all techs once they are researched.

Phuuuu - a lot of work over here, but things are taking shape.

Still a lot of errors, some things won´t work whatever I try (no errors in the code but in the game ) for example tech-disabling, as you can see. Works fine for some doctrine, for others not - but nevertheless, I wanted to show you the progress.

I renamed doctrines for better overview, as I got confused with those old names. Furthermore, I rearranged the interface, as you can see.
As I said, not everything is perfect, but right now there are sooo many errors in the game (like every country having the non-existing old doctrines in their history-files) that I am really happy that the game loads at all!



aaaand:





I haven´t tested yet wether it works in a running game as well.

Edit: Playtest result - command doesn´t work with technologies; events needed. Time for bed.

Very interesting, but confusing discovery -
I just wanted to test wether I can reproduce Karelians problem with his doctrines by moving the gbp_initial_stats back (Grand Battle Plan) into gbp_initial and loading the game.

No overlapping doctrines.

Well, I thought, now lets include Germany here as well and modify the spearhead_initial in the same way -
still works, no overlapping doctrines

Now I included a spearhead_initial = 0 into Englands country file.

Still works, no overlapping doctrines.

And the techs still have stats for units like infantry? Puzzling.
But hey, if all the tech effects are in and the overlapping problem is gone...time to start editing country starting techs and begin playtesting!

Karelian wrote:And the techs still have stats for units like infantry? Puzzling.
But hey, if all the tech effects are in and the overlapping problem is gone...time to start editing country starting techs and begin playtesting!

Forget about it, I just moved all stats back to the original doctrine and we have the same problem again ô.o
But I have everything else prepared, events are written and you can probably start with the rest soon anyway - just have to move all things back into place

Well, it sounded too good to be true, since I wrestled with the same problem a long time and I recall trying a similar approach once before.
Good to hear that we are getting closer to playable version nevertheless.

Gentlemen, thanks to the efforts of Black Guardian and guidance from other modders the first test version of land doctrine system of Fatherland II is up and running.


By 1944 the Red Army has learned the hard lessons of Eastern Front well. Notice the frontage of regular infantry - Soviet Large Front doctrine allows the Red Army to fully utilize their numerical superiourity and at the same time forces them to pay a bloody prize for such tactics, as this doctrine increases their casualty rates by a large margin.


German Spearhead doctrine allows their Panzer Divisions to fully utilize the new theories of combined arms warfare.


...but their infantry, despite their modern tactics, still marches on foot and the supply system, based on horse-drawn supply convoys and railways, is always hard-pressed to keep up with the spearheads.


The troops organized along the Superiour Firepower Doctrine take full advantage of the industrial might of the United States. They are extensively motorized (and in this example mechanized) and lavishly equipped with mass-produced and reliable weapon systems - and as a result they consume such amount of fuel and supplies that they are lucky to be supported by the best supply system of the day.

Feel free to put this developer-update into the Paradox-thread as well
People shall see that things are finally progressing!

Karelian, check your mail;-)

I send you a working version of your new land doctrines;-)

It works with the mod folder.

I will rework the techsquares, so it looks better. And move everything a bit more to the left;), but atleast you have working doctrines templates.
The background for land doctrines is something you need to add;-), or I will do it if you send a pic.

Excellent work, a thousand thanks for your help once again!
Now we just have to add the final names of the doctrines (I´ll do this ASAP) and edit the event system to use the new names.

As for graphics, I´d prefer a single operational map on the background, something like this perhaps?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/3173812693_8f1159593a.jpg
or
http://www.rkka.ru/maps/dvs5.gif

Do state your opinion about this matter, since we haven´t really discussed our graphical style so far.

Karelian wrote:Excellent work, a thousand thanks for your help once again!
Now we just have to add the final names of the doctrines (I´ll do this ASAP) and edit the event system to use the new names.

As for graphics, I´d prefer a single operational map on the background, something like this perhaps?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/3173812693_8f1159593a.jpg
or
http://www.rkka.ru/maps/dvs5.gif

Do state your opinion about this matter, since we haven´t really discussed our graphical style so far.

If I had to choose between the two pictures given by you I´d chose the second one... but apart from that I have no special preference for any style, in my opinion fancy graphics are a nice bonus but nothing to worry about too much.

Edit: In that case here´s the background image for doctrines -

Will you add the background or do I it?
Are there other techs that I need to add? Armour, Inf?

Do add the background please ^^
We are concentrating on infantry techs next, I´ll post the plans for reworked tech layout once they are ready.

I will do it, I am not really happy with the techsquares and there are some graphical glitches (like progress bar and such). I will polish it up.
Ofcourse this can take some time;-)

But at least now you can implement your techs better;-)

When you have infantry layout, post it and I will try to add it in game.

The land doctrines are 100% finished? If so, I can draw some squares and arrows to connect everything together.

Karelian, could you send me your modified country-history files with the new doctrines in setup? Right now, it produces some errors because I don´t have that for all countries yet (at least I suppose thats the reason, after consulting the validator) - as you already did that, it would spare me a lot of work.

Check your email.

Even if economy causes trouble right now, could you check whether the events for land doctrines work as intented at the current version? Testing the doctrines further in current vanilla scenarios would be something I´d really like to try right now while editing the last border changes in Russia.

I´m almost done with the province files, but right now it seems that some change I made causes the scenario to crash while loading province files
Oh well, I´ll focus on land doctrines and theory techs next.

I´ve done a short survey of the disciplines of engineering, right now I´m trying to come up with a number of different subfields in order to find a good compromise between balance and realism.
The scenario crash seems to be persistent but since I´m starting my summer vacation by the end of the month I´ll have more time to try to solve that matter.

Karelian wrote:I´ve done a short survey of the disciplines of engineering, right now I´m trying to come up with a number of different subfields in order to find a good compromise between balance and realism.
The scenario crash seems to be persistent but since I´m starting my summer vacation by the end of the month I´ll have more time to try to solve that matter.

We are not in hurry here, I think. Right now my willingness for contribution is very limited either since my last attempt to implement the economic system failed again and there is still only us two committed to the project.

You´re right, the fact that I met a similar stop with map editing is indeed an effective way to kill all inspiration for this stuff.
Well, I´m still a natural optimist and already waiting for Semper Fi

Karelian wrote:Excellent work, a thousand thanks for your help once again!
Now we just have to add the final names of the doctrines (I´ll do this ASAP) and edit the event system to use the new names.

As for graphics, I´d prefer a single operational map on the background, something like this perhaps?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/3173812693_8f1159593a.jpg
or
http://www.rkka.ru/maps/dvs5.gif

Do state your opinion about this matter, since we haven´t really discussed our graphical style so far.

Surely if this is Cold War, we should have a DEFCON/War Games (movie)-style computer map of the world, with ICBM trajectories trailing across it

The problem is that this doesn´t fit our timeframe. Computer maps with ICBM-trajectotries are technology of the late 70s and 80s, not the 50s and 60s ;-)

Oh cock... that might be a problem

Perhaps if you are a Comintern country, you see some sorta background Communist Propaganda posters plastered on a wall... if Allies, you see Newspapers of current affairs... but maybe not for doctorines...