How to play the Allies doctrine: day to day report with British Columbia on World at War

Day 21: War with mighty Ma-Clique

Both Communist China and Khabarovsk were good and capable players. Fighting as Allies against the Comintern doctrine is pretty straightforward as both doctrines are well balanced.

Ma-Clique was their leader and driving force. Even when his allies were taken out he fought on and he managed to withstand us for another 3 days!!! Fighting Pan-Asian with Allies is simply broken, the speed gap I just too large. Devs really need to look into this.

Ma-Clique has been able to fight both me and NW USA for two days and managed to diminish our troops. Ma Clique was Pan Asian and so he was 30% faster than us. He has level 4 light tanks with a speed of 107km an hour. He moved faster in our terrain with his 50% speed buff in enemy territory than we did in our own territory at 100%. It was simply madness. Please note that in the 11th November Patch they made Pan-Asian Light tanks even 5% faster!!!

What ever territory or city we took, he simply took it back. Our armoured cars trying to take his empty territory got picked off one by one by his faster air force. Pan Asian has OP interceptors, he was faster, had larger range. He could attack our air force and move out before we could do something.

A popular tactic of his was to patrol his tactical and attack bombers over armoured cars to kill them. So we send in our interceptors but then he pulled back his bombers and attacked us with his super fast interceptors. On top of it they were higher researched than ours too. This game started before the 11th November patch so attack still had double damage than defence so I was losing both planes and armoured cars in a fast pace.

llies is simply too slow and it took forever to move SP artillery where we wanted them. I spammed interceptors and armoured cars as long as I had the manpower and resources to do so. I was lucky that Communist China had been so kind building a lot of level 4 air factories for me. We had the advantage of attacking him in Asia two to one and he also had the Western front to worry about. We could afford to lose units but he couldn't. This came a war of attrition.

Both in the West as in his capital he had high level bunkers with railroadguns protected by AA and land units. He was always overstacking but he was moving so fast that he always held the advantage.

The great loss:

Before going to bed, Ma clique sent his 16 LT stack from his capital on force march to my SP artillery stack in Jinchang. It covered the distance in 10min or so. I just came back online on time to split off my SP artillery with the half of my SP AA and force march them out of the 5min radius where they could get locked in battle. Those LT were sooo fast that my SP artillery wasn't able to get far enough. Both my SP artillery stack and my stack with Tank Destroyers and commandos were locked in combat. Even though I was in a forest where my TD get 50% bonus it was over fast. He flew in my air force, I moved in my air force, he moved his RRG stack out of the bunker in his capital and started pounding me with 4 railroad guns. The battle was over in 2 hours and I've lost the best units that I had. He lost almost all of his interceptors but one with 0.5 health. My planes were heavily damaged too.

When I saw that the LT stack and his RRG wasn't moving, I figured that he was asleep. I tried taking out the 16 LT with my air force but my planes dropped in health fast and was forced to pull them back. I was decided to pull an all nighter and pounded him all night with my day one artillery stack. I've killed 4 LT and the remaining 11 had a very low health just to be able to advance into his core provinces to take out 3 cities while he was asleep. Still he took them back when he came back online but the damage was done. I had killed and damaged a lot of his Light Tanks over night. Captured vital airbases and parked planes. I took out his air force too while it was patrolling over his capital.

Even though that two players were attacking him in the West, still it wasn't enough. He kept resisting, spamming militia to occupy all his cities so that we couldn't take them easily. Khabarovsk had sent his armies into his cities in Russia too before he went inactive so there was no easy points to be grabbed.

Day 22: the arrival of Alberta

Alberta was on the way with his forces as he finished off the last South American bots. On the end of day 22 the forces of Alberta had finally landed in Asia as well

Picture taken at day change

We tried to sabotage the fortifications in Hainan but Sasketchewan lost 25 spies. Ma-Clique must have had a lot of spies there on counter intelligence.

Ma Clique moved his Capital to Shazia and tried to pull the same trick to lock NW USA into battle. This time however we were ready for it. His 12 LT got bounded by our combined artillery and the way lay open to advance.

Day 23:

Alberta could make the difference and eliminate those fast Light Tanks that had harassed us for so long. As Alberta had large numbers he could cover all the lines and the dots so Ma-Clique couldn't dance around us anymore. Finally we were able to advance speedily and take out those militia that were garrisoned in most of his cities. (As some of you might remember this was the period where planes were doing no damage to stealth units. A bug which Ma-Clique had smartly exploited).

Picture taken at day change, we lacked 82 points to end the game one day sooner.

The winner takes it all

We might have won the game but the real winner here was Corwin of Amber playing with Ma-Clique. He managed to fight us of both East and West for days and he never gave up. Corwin has been the best player that I've faced since a long time. Thanks for this wonderful game Corwin!

Our last impressions about the Alliance doctrine:

"To be honest, when playing allies it's best to ignore any infantry types other than commandos"

"It's just so goddamn slow."

"Slow, Tactical Bombers and SP artillery are a must. I didn't even bother researching RA since I needed the resources for the planes"

"Well personally I feel like allies doctrine is very depended on units like SP artillery and tacs, it is a doctrine that doesn't have many good options and it mainly has to do with speed reduction debuff, in my opinion if you're playing as allies, day one, tacs Is like your best friend, hard to counter so early in the game."

"Also from seeing the comments from the internal it looks like the strategic bomber tactic to bombard production cities is very effective."

"Fighting as Allies against the Comintern doctrine is pretty straightforward as both doctrines are well balanced. Unfortunatly I didn't have the opportunity to match Allies against Axis. Fighting Pan-Asian with Allies is simply broken, the speed gap I just too large. Devs really need to look into this."

Nice play through. However, I kind of feel that joining with 5 alliance mates handed the win to you and would make things easy. If you ever do another play through, it would be interesting to see what you could do with no alliance mates. Salutes to Ma-Clique, too. And allied is the best doctrine, no doubt about it. Sorry.

Hats off to Ma-Clique with the legendary last stand

Not many players would take their time congratulating an opponent, only winning. That is something I really respect.

BrutusTrump wrote:

Nice play through. However, I kind of feel that joining with 5 alliance mates handed the win to you and would make things easy. If you ever do another play through, it would be interesting to see what you could do with no alliance mates. Salutes to Ma-Clique, too. And allied is the best doctrine, no doubt about it. Sorry.

Another of playing with alliance mates is that you don't have to depend on randoms whom do whatever, which can be frustrating. You can't get backstabbed, you won't have an ally that goes inactive and so on. It's just more fun playing that way.

With my YouTube channel I will solo a World at War map and I'll do it with all the doctrines.

BMfox wrote:

BrutusTrump wrote:

Nice play through. However, I kind of feel that joining with 5 alliance mates handed the win to you and would make things easy. If you ever do another play through, it would be interesting to see what you could do with no alliance mates. Salutes to Ma-Clique, too. And allied is the best doctrine, no doubt about it. Sorry.

Completely true, joining the game with a well oiled alliance machine is a great advantage. Still as an alliance it's a perfect occasion to evaluate recruits and to give gameplay feedback to junior member. They learn how to play as a team and together with internal games this is the best way to train an Alliance versus Alliance team.

Another of playing with alliance mates is that you don't have to depend on randoms whom do whatever, which can be frustrating. You can't get backstabbed, you won't have an ally that goes inactive and so on. It's just more fun playing that way.

With my YouTube channel I will solo a World at War map and I'll do it with all the doctrines.

Thanks for the detailed playthrough and your Doctrine summary!

I wonder how the opinions of the Allied Doctrine would be in a playthrough in the newer balancing version, as I understand that this game was created pre-patch.

freezy wrote:

Thanks for the detailed playthrough and your Doctrine summary!

I wonder how the opinions of the Allied Doctrine would be in a playthrough in the newer balancing version, as I understand that this game was created pre-patch.

The Allies doctrine is pretty much well balanced versus Axis or Comitern. But it is impossible to fight Pan Asian 1 vs 1, the speed gap of 30% is simply broken and the superior and faster Pan-Asian interceptors can kill the Allies air force easily. Pan Asian level 4 tanks have 107km/h and and an additional 5% was added in the November 11th patch. I'm wondering what the win ratio on a Pacific map between Pan-Asian and Allies?

BMfox wrote:

freezy wrote:

Thanks for the detailed playthrough and your Doctrine summary!

I wonder how the opinions of the Allied Doctrine would be in a playthrough in the newer balancing version, as I understand that this game was created pre-patch.

I'll try to solo a World at War map with the 4 doctrines and film it for my YouTube channel.The Allies doctrine is pretty much well balanced versus Axis or Comitern. But it is impossible to fight Pan Asian 1 vs 1, the speed gap of 30% is simply broken and the superior and faster Pan-Asian interceptors can kill the Allies air force easily. Pan Asian level 4 tanks have 107km/h and and an additional 5% was added in the November 11th patch. I'm wondering what the win ratio on a Pacific map between Pan-Asian and Allies?

BrutusTrump wrote:

Allies has one thing that could help against Pan Asian. Nukes. Allies can, due to doctrine buffs, have nukes ready a few days before Pan-Asian. Allies also has the best airforce in the game.

Yes, Allies can start researching nuclear at day 18 instead of day 20 but most players won't survive up to that point. Still then you need a couple more days before you have a level two nuclear bomber as a level one bomber isn't really interesting. Afterwards you still need to transport your nuclear rockets or nuclear bombers over the Pacific.

So your nuclear plan sounds good in theory but that's it. There are a lot of if's and a lot of compromises.

Secondly, Allies doesn't have THE best airforce in the game. That's completely false. Yes they have the best tactical bomber in the game but it's also the slowest. The allies tactical only gets 15% more damage versus light armoured units where as the Axis Attack bomber get's 15% more damage both versus unarmoured and armoured units. Yes the Allies Tactical bombers have a 15% larger range but that doesn't help much as good practice is that you need to stack them with interceptors and those have a smaller range.

The biggest difference however is with the Pan Asian interceptor. It is 30% faster than Allies, it has 15% additional damage versus ALL planes. Due to it's speed the interceptor will always have the advantage of attack and Allies can't chase it to counter attack due to the 30% speed gap. On top of it it has a range that is 15% larger than allies interceptors.

Allies simply can't compete with a Pan Asian interceptor, they are too powerful, too fast. It is very easy for a Pan Asian player to gain air superiority against an Allies player.

BMfox wrote:

Day 5: Kamchatka

Another 10 players have left us today. Combined with yesterdays AWOL's 43 players have now left the game. Only 32 active players remain so 25 have already been killed.

This is the situation at day change. Most nations have been wiped from the map. Only Quebec and South Mexico remain.

Yesterday I've sent an AC to Kamchatka, unfortunately the province of Uelen rebelled so I had to turn back my AC. I'll take as much of Kamchatka as there are only 3 provinces remaining and they are closest to my east. Often Kamchatka is the stage of an Asian invasion into the Americas. So if I can safeguard that passage, they will be forced to cross the Pacific and risk of being detected and destroyed by our navy.

The weirdest thing happened, even though Uelen rebelled at day change I received a notification that Kamchatka took back Uelen which suggests that it wasn't a rebellion after all. But when i send back my AC there's no unit in sight. When I check the newspaper it clearly said that Uelen rebelled at day change. And that's not the only thing. The newspaper suggests that I've lost a unit in Lome but I haven't. As a matter of fact the battle isn't over yet and I'm gonna win it with the next fire round.

North Argentina

The North Argentina situation keeps nagging me. There are 5 players in SA that can attack him and he only makes AC and LT so how hard must it be to finish him off right? I mean even if they are below mediocre players they still should be able to counter armoured units. I can understand that they might not know that also artillery, SP artillery and attack bombers are anti armoured units. However, It doesn't take an engineering degree to figure out that an anti tank and a tank destroyer will stop an armoured unit? So I decided to contact them. Finally it seems that it's only a 2 vs 1, South Argentina made peace and the other two players are cowards and don't want to get involved. I guess they never have read the Gallic wars written by Julius Caesar. Otherwise they should have known that if they stay divided they will get conquered.

Other advantages of diplomacy with AI

Another advantage of giving ROW exclusively to player AI countries is that you can see in the diplomacy if a player turned back active. If a players comes back and is active again I put him back on peace. This way I also know what player is highly inactive and keep that in mind when I expand in that direction. Today two players turned back to green and became active again: Pakistan and Indochina.

Construction: industry in a rural goods and in two rare material provinces

Production: 1 interceptor, 2 tactical bomber

Research: Anti Air, SP Anti Air, Attack bomber

Upgrades: 11 infantry to level 3

6thDragon wrote:

BMfox wrote:

Day 5: Kamchatka

Another 10 players have left us today. Combined with yesterdays AWOL's 43 players have now left the game. Only 32 active players remain so 25 have already been killed.

This is the situation at day change. Most nations have been wiped from the map. Only Quebec and South Mexico remain.

Yesterday I've sent an AC to Kamchatka, unfortunately the province of Uelen rebelled so I had to turn back my AC. I'll take as much of Kamchatka as there are only 3 provinces remaining and they are closest to my east. Often Kamchatka is the stage of an Asian invasion into the Americas. So if I can safeguard that passage, they will be forced to cross the Pacific and risk of being detected and destroyed by our navy.

The weirdest thing happened, even though Uelen rebelled at day change I received a notification that Kamchatka took back Uelen which suggests that it wasn't a rebellion after all. But when i send back my AC there's no unit in sight. When I check the newspaper it clearly said that Uelen rebelled at day change. And that's not the only thing. The newspaper suggests that I've lost a unit in Lome but I haven't. As a matter of fact the battle isn't over yet and I'm gonna win it with the next fire round.

North Argentina

The North Argentina situation keeps nagging me. There are 5 players in SA that can attack him and he only makes AC and LT so how hard must it be to finish him off right? I mean even if they are below mediocre players they still should be able to counter armoured units. I can understand that they might not know that also artillery, SP artillery and attack bombers are anti armoured units. However, It doesn't take an engineering degree to figure out that an anti tank and a tank destroyer will stop an armoured unit? So I decided to contact them. Finally it seems that it's only a 2 vs 1, South Argentina made peace and the other two players are cowards and don't want to get involved. I guess they never have read the Gallic wars written by Julius Caesar. Otherwise they should have known that if they stay divided they will get conquered.

Other advantages of diplomacy with AI

Another advantage of giving ROW exclusively to player AI countries is that you can see in the diplomacy if a player turned back active. If a players comes back and is active again I put him back on peace. This way I also know what player is highly inactive and keep that in mind when I expand in that direction. Today two players turned back to green and became active again: Pakistan and Indochina.

Construction: industry in a rural goods and in two rare material provinces

Production: 1 interceptor, 2 tactical bomber

Research: Anti Air, SP Anti Air, Attack bomber

Upgrades: 11 infantry to level 3

Is this a bug? I've had these phantom units being reported as being lost, it just says ...Military unit in the running text of the conflict, however they aren't listed as a unit you report being lost in the newspaper, and I do get a notice. I've seen this at least twice in the last week. I'm fairly sure I didn't actually lose one, but since I was sleeping at the time, there is some doubt.

6thDragon wrote:

Is this a bug? I've had these phantom units being reported as being lost, it just says ...Military unit in the running text of the conflict, however they aren't listed as a unit you report being lost in the newspaper, and I do get a notice. I've seen this at least twice in the last week. I'm fairly sure I didn't actually lose one, but since I was sleeping at the time, there is some doubt.

BMfox wrote:

Day 2: Attacking Yukon

This is how the map looks just at day change:

I started attacking Yukon as I need another city to build a tank plant. Whitehorse was the closest to my cores and so Yukon it is. Next on the menu will be Alaska. As it's a perfect landing stage for the Asians, I want to be there for when the time comes.

Alberta and me are the only players with the luxury of being able to attack AI. My four other friends are fighting their neighbour of which one at least is a player which is golding in front of our nose. Saskechewan fought him all day and both bled dry up to the point that they have called it quits. North USA asks during the peace deal to work together to attack Kansas but he makes no move to do so himself. He also contacts Alberta offering to attack Saskechewan together. Finally North USA also contacts Kansas to attack Alberta. He's a cunning player that needs to be watched. He's trying to instigate a war between his neighbours and to clean up afterwards, with the help of gold if he is in need.

Assist:

I send 4 infantry with 3 AA to NorthWest USA to garisson just in case. He's attacking California which is giving a good fight. Due to the slow march they haven't made a difference. I've also sent my 5 interceptors to kill the 3 Californian tactical bombers. Finally I've sent my 3 cruisers escorted by 3 destroyers to San Francisco to take out that airbase there and to stop any production.

North US is golding tacs. Luckily Saskechewan used his remaining gold to produce interceptors so they are going head to head. Before I go to bed I'm sending my interceptors, infantry and AA from NW USA to Sashketewan just in case. In the morning I've also sent my 5 tacs. I'm in the pocket of the map so I can't really get attacked so I have the luxury to help my friends in need.

Construction:

One tank plant in White Horse

Research:

Interceptor level 2, Infantry level 2, destroyer level 2, Light tank, Tank destroyer, finally I also started the Tactical bomber level 2 but as it takes over 13 hours it will be day 3 when that one is ready.

Production and upgrade:

Upgraded all my infantry to level 2, upgraded 3 destroyers to level 2, upgraded my 5 interceptors to level 2

I also produced 4 tactical bombers so now I have a nice stack 5/5 stack of ints and tacs.

BMfox wrote:

Due to it's speed the interceptor will always have the advantage of attack and Allies can't chase it to counter attack due to the 30% speed gap.

Imagine a stack of Interceptors being 3min away from your own Interceptors, and you give the attack command on them. Even though the enemy Interceptors are faster than yours and increase their distance between both stacks, your Interceptors will still arrive and attack after the 3min (as long as the enemy is still within your flight range). The attack timer basically never goes up once your attack flight started. When your attack timer is up your Interceptors simply perform a "jump" and get teleported to the new location of the enemy Interceptors and fly back to base from there.

I wouldn't call it intended since this is a bit wonky and unexpected, but that's how it currently works, which actually benefits Allies.

freezy wrote:

Imagine a stack of Interceptors being 3min away from your own Interceptors