Why Pan-Asian is the only doctrine without a built in solution to its handicap.

by contrary, i would say panasian are good enough, they don't need a buff, but maybe a nerf.

the ppl usually try to do the same strategy but with different doctrines, that doesnt work, panasian should go for a fast conquest in order to compensate for their lack of production boost, and the fastest units will allow you to do that.

also if you know how to use the terrain bonus always in your favor you can get the atttack of axis doctrine or even more without have more production cost.

panasian are more dificult to master but they are not weak, if you know how to use their advantages this doctrines its arguibly the best.

at least for me they always give very good results.

Danieliyoverde123 wrote:

also if you know how to use the terrain bonus always in your favor you can get the atttack of axis doctrine or even more without have more production cost.

panasian are more dificult to master but they are not weak, if you know how to use their advantages this doctrines its arguibly the best.

Meaning that you have to be the one using the terrain and hoping/assuming that the enemy does not otherwise the flaw in your doctrine won't be compensated enough. Thats not a good thing. Any sane player would figure a way around this, fighting troops in places they do not have a terrain bonus.

The second part of your answer surprises me, since I have not played with them myself I do not know so I guess ill take your word for it. Is the always taking advantage of terrain not to much of a chore though I wonder? Since in the other doctrines compensating for the doctrine's weakness happens somewhat automatically but Pan-Asian needs constant organising.

Its true that smart player usually avoid the the use of terrain in a way panasian get the advantage but this is not the whole story. As panasian you should force favorable matchup and avoid unfavorable ones, always beeing on to offensive.

Panasian player should know how to use the speed as a weapon, go for weak points in the enemy line and take all undefended provinces you can in order to reduce enemy economy, something than speed and extra vision can help.

You only have to mix light tanks armored car and maybe motorized for this task in order to not lost speed and infiltrating the enemy base.

your defensive units should be infantry+artillery, panasian infantry have the normal hp and panasian artillery have more attack against unarmored plus more hills and mountain bonus.

Avoid use aa and just produce interceptors for deny enemy air superiority, and then you have it, the perfect army for panasian early game.

Again, ppl should not go for the same strategy with different doctrines, doctrines are for different play styles.

I you are not comfortable with panasian play styles you should avoid using them if you want to win, for example allies doctrine it's the weakest one for me and my play style.

Nice discussion.

2-3 months ago we actually nerfed Pan-Asian slightly by reducing the terrain bonus from +25% to +20%, because we indeed saw in our stats that Panasian had a slightly higher win rate than the other Doctrines, plus feedback from experienced players pointed into the same direction. It is harder to use than the other Doctrines, but when used well it is quite effective.

The Doctrines are not only balanced for direct combat power. As was stated by Danieliyoverde123 the other factors are important as well. One could argue that Panasian is able to conquer more provinces in the early game due to higher speeds and buffed early game units, which would then translate into better economy and more unit production, while also being able to avoid losses easier because of seeing dangers earlier with the higher view range.

Probably it is indeed more about how you can match your playstyle to the strength of the Doctrines. Probably a player who plays Pan-Asian the same way as Allies (or the other way around) won't achieve the best results. I think that overall they are all quite balanced now.

But I am curious to hear more opinions on Doctrine balance

When I read the doctrine descriptions the first time, I immediatly thought "Wow I want to be panAsian, it sounds almost OP"! Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to actually play it, it is very rare and doesn't seem to occur very much in non-100p maps (I don't play too much anymore, but I didn't see it in any European maps).

I won't bore you TOO much with classic military literature, but the great writers all agree (and are supported by historical battlefield proof) that there's more to war than just accumulating as much firepower as possible. The application of superior force on a PART of the front zone, concentrating a disproportional amount of power there, is a key to victory ("Schwerpunkt", Clausewitz). Basically, winning this key battle will make the (enemy) troops not participating irrelevant. Victorious generals succeed in picking their own schwerpunkt (the one the enemy HAS to respond to), while avoiding the enemy's one ("making him hit air").

This principle works in a war game like this one as well: for example, when you have one army of 100 troops and the enemy has two armies of 50 each, and you manage to fight one of them first, you will lose something like 20-30 troops destroying half his army; so after it, the remaining force balance is 70-50 or better.

To achieve concentration you need manoeuvre (because please, DON'T confuse concentration with creating a doom stack and marching it around... if one of those opposes you, it is your job to make something ELSE your Schwerpunkt!), and it is easy to see that panasian doctrine is SUPER DUPER superior in that, both by speed and by information. This is not about achieving something like 217-203 or similar numbers like in your case; this is about achieving 400-200. Yes, it requires tactical finesse and (especially) online activity, but when you do, you can wipe your enemies away much easier than the 217-203 could.

PS - there's an error in your calculations btw, 200 minus 10% is NOT 190.

Danieliyoverde123 wrote:

Panasian player should know how to use the speed as a weapon, go for weak points in the enemy line and take all undefended provinces you can in order to reduce enemy economy, something than speed and extra vision can help.

You only have to mix light tanks armored car and maybe motorized for this task in order to not lost speed and infiltrating the enemy base.

your defensive units should be infantry+artillery, panasian infantry have the normal hp and panasian artillery have more attack against unarmored plus more hills and mountain bonus.

Avoid use aa and just produce interceptors for deny enemy air superiority, and then you have it, the perfect army for panasian early game.

Again, ppl should not go for the same strategy with different doctrines, doctrines are for different play styles.

You say it perfectly in the statement above, Pan-Asian players have to use a speeds based early game army, with infantry (no HP decrease) and artillery. My doubt here comes from the predictability in this. You kind of HAVE to use these certain units in the beginning, more so than in other doctrines.

If Pan-Asian doctrine is indeed somewhat dependant on doing an early offensive in order to compensate for their doctrine, Freezy also mentions this, this could have consequences.

freezy wrote:

One could argue that Panasian is able to conquer more provinces in the early game due to higher speeds and buffed early game units, which would then translate into better economy and more unit production, while also being able to avoid losses easier because of seeing dangers earlier with the higher view range.

I do also see the answer to this being the Pan-Asian player though, using the larger line of sight and re positioning your own artillery to avoid damage, hit and run and whittle down your enemy defences that way. I do also recognise the need for activity here though.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

When I read the doctrine descriptions the first time, I immediatly thought "Wow I want to be panAsian, it sounds almost OP"! Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to actually play it, it is very rare and doesn't seem to occur very much in non-100p maps (I don't play too much anymore, but I didn't see it in any European maps).

This principle works in a war game like this one as well: for example, when you have one army of 100 troops and the enemy has two armies of 50 each, and you manage to fight one of them first, you will lose something like 20-30 troops destroying half his army; so after it, the remaining force balance is 70-50 or better.

To achieve concentration you need manoeuvre (because please, DON'T confuse concentration with creating a doom stack and marching it around... if one of those opposes you, it is your job to make something ELSE your Schwerpunkt!), and it is easy to see that panasian doctrine is SUPER DUPER superior in that, both by speed and by information. This is not about achieving something like 217-203 or similar numbers like in your case; this is about achieving 400-200. Yes, it requires tactical finesse and (especially) online activity, but when you do, you can wipe your enemies away much easier than the 217-203 could.

PS - there's an error in your calculations btw, 200 minus 10% is NOT 190.

What you describe is something I know to be called ''defeat in detail'' and I expect this strategy can be exploited with every doctrine. I think the new SBDE limit of 10 per army does very well for the game here.

I think I see your point, it's just that manoeuvring only gets you so far and in Pan-Asian case it requires a LOT of active play. For Example, Comintern also needs a lot of active play in the beginning, but more so to produce units and do upgrades which is not the case anymore when you units reach a higher level, but for Pan-Asian it stays true the whole map.

If Pan-Asian is on enemy territory their speed bonus somewhat disappears, as it should. But that means that you can not endlessly manoeuvre out of trouble.

Also, going around the enemy troops and getting behind an enemy line is great and all, but since provinces light up when captured, there is indeed very little sneaking and surprising done it seems to me. Just keep your lines closed. As mentioned above, the way to break a line being Pan-Asian again seems to depend heavily on activity here.

My calculation is spot on the way I presented it, but I understand the confusion. The number 200 comes from the assumption a standard unit has 10 power and 10HP which when added makes 20 in total. When comparing 10 units to 10 other units that gives 200 which I named 'combat capability'. Of this 200 there is 100 power and 100HP. So when decreasing 200 with 10% of either power or HP you get 90 + 100 = 190. If you have 100HP and then have 10% less that means you add 90 instead of 100. If you calculate 200 X 0.9 = 180 by decreasing 200 with 10% you are decreasing both power AND hp.

Pan-Asian does indeed seem harder to master than the other doctrines and the activity might be a problem at times, so I do still wonder if this is a side effect that should be maintained. I have taken your comments to heart and will definitely try out Pan-Asian for myself. Though I am not fully convinced Pan-Asian does not suffer a larger drawback than the other doctrines I can however say that now I am at least exited to try it out for myself.

Thanks for the comments so far.

Edepedable wrote:

My calculation is spot on the way I presented it, but I understand the confusion. The number 200 comes from the assumption a standard unit has 10 power and 10HP which when added makes 20 in total. When comparing 10 units to 10 other units that gives 200 which I named 'combat capability'. Of this 200 there is 100 power and 100HP. So when decreasing 200 with 10% of either power or HP you get 90 + 100 = 190. If you have 100HP and then have 10% less that means you add 90 instead of 100. If you calculate 200 X 0.9 = 180 by decreasing 200 with 10% you are decreasing both power AND hp.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

You shouldn't add power and HP in that case; it is easy to see that a 19-1 or a 1-19 unit is WAY weaker than a 10-10 unit. For this kind of "rough" calculation, multiply them instead. A 20-5 is a better comparison.

To serve its purpose for me to show that Pan-Asian doctrine does not have a built in solution to its doctrinal weakness while the other doctrines do it does just fine. That is also why I do not feel like doing the extra hassle of making sure the numbers are correct

Just weighing in, I played a game as Japan in the 100 player map prior to the terrain nerf and the doctrine seemed very strong relative to the others. For an active player the visibility and speed are huge advantages and the terrain bonus seemed borderline overpowered. It's not a straightforward math calculation like the other mechanical advantages, but the ability to put yourself in the most advantageous position for battle every time is huge. Now with the nerf and the splitting of hills and forests it's probably a little closer to balance.

THIS POST IS EIGHT MONTHS OLD.

But actually with pan-asian doctrine foot infantry, artillery, and light tanks can be primarily used instead of mechanized units, saving tons of costs.

On the contrary the comintern needs a buff and pan asia a nerf as comintern has -10 dmg which is huge there is a -10 hp for pan asia just use ranged units. Go LT and AC spam with couple of ints on the way they have buffs to all those terrain isn't the most useful thing in the world but can certainly be helpful larger range is also their scout ur enemy find the suitable battles like units on terrain battle them pick ur fights calculate the result

The terrain is incredibly useful! Put a pan-asian elite infantry unit in the forest and it deals 28 damage defending against infantry and costs much less than a german mot infantry unit

based on the way I play, I feel pan asian is the strongest doctrine, and the most fun to play. Axis second, Then allies, and finally Comin tern (I hate loosing units so why would I want more units that do less damage?, plus artillery/navy are my favorite and reducing their attack slows me down a lot.).

You may be right about the no-build in counter to its reduced HP weakness, but the speed, viewrange, and terrain advantages far outweighs the negative if you actively take advantage of it and they allow you to suffer less damage, thus countering the weakness.

If there is a place to vote, let me know and i will cast my vote for Pan Asian as the strongest doctrine.

Here's a poll. I'm giving 2 votes per person as I can't choose between pan-asian and axis.

I do not love criticizing others, but I like to see the correct information on the forum. Please don't take personal offense but this is just a failure, I don't seem to find a better term to describe that.

Edepedable wrote:

My conclusion is that the Pan-Asian doctrine is the only doctrine that has a handicap in it that the doctrine itself does not also fix. By making compensating for the weakness in this doctrine fall on how the player plays I think this doctrine is disadvantaged in relation to the other three.

People tend to overlook speed way too much. A fast army can easily take out the most vulnerable enemies and avoid the strong ones, eventually resulting in the fast armies having way too much advantage over the enemy slow ones. The view range does the same, just makes the units better at avoiding bad and finding good engagements.

This is an aspect that is very difficult to measure as it depends on the individual skill of the players. As a player who's been playing all day for a long time, I will prefer Pan over any other doctrine in like 90% of all situations (of course that statement is nowhere near the truth but just saying, Pan IS better than any other doctrine if the player has the suiting abilities).

Edepedable wrote:

Comintern has 10% less power, Pan Asian has 10% less hitpoints. In a way though, this is the same handicap it seems to me. If a unit has 10 power and 10hp than under comintern it has 9 power with 10hp and under pan Asian it has 10 power with 9 hp. When added together if another doctrine has a total of 20 when combining power and hp then Comintern and Asian both have 19. In this the Allies have 20 where nothing directly affects combat capability and axis has 23 with 1.5 added to both power and HP.

This does not factor in damage efficiency. It turns out that if you ram 4 tanks one after one into an army of 2 tanks, the 2 tanks will lose. But we still say the army is 4x stronger as that's its current strength. In that meaning, if the army is 4x stronger it means it will end the fight with 75% health left.

That will usually be slightly more though, as the stronger army's health % goes down slower, so the damage efficiency does as well. This causes an army of 100 units to win against an army of 10 with 94% health left (in this case 100-army is capped at only 10 units dealing damage, so its damage is still equal to the other army, making the numbers a linear advantage).

Axis would have 11.5 health and 11.5 damage, so the strength would be 132.5.

For both Comintern and Pan-Asian the strength will be 9 * 10 = 90.

Edepedable wrote:

One could argue that the discount on upkeep warrants another extra unit (or several) making the Comintern doctrine have 12 troops totalling 19 X 22 = 228 combat capability or even more than that. But since their build time is not reduced in any way (except some troops) I will keep the comparison to 1 extra unit. Just keep in mind that there is some extra benefit that could be turned into units or growing the economy. I could ad another 9.5 for the 5% but I will not.

To the upkeeps, they actually balance out with the cost nicely.

Part of my post about Axis vs Comintern:

There are 22 Comintern units per 17 Axis ones. Upkeeps are about 4.6% of the unit cost for Axis. Therefore, they will be 4.511% of the cost for Comintern (both are daily). That means, the Comintern player will lose about 99.24% of the cost of one unit per day, Axis will lose 78.2% (but 78.2% of a more valuable unit).

99.24-78.2=21.04%.

This means, Axis will gain an extra unit per 10 units every 8 days, 1 hour and 42 min. That's a very insignificant advantage, but still...

Again running a test with 8 hp and 1 damage units, 10 units against 11. The 11 win with 17.8% health left. This time simplified as it assumes damage is equally spread across all units (they don't get killed), but still shows how much an extra unit can add to an army.

Note that if we factored units getting killed in the test above, the army of 11 would win even more decisively...

Edepedable wrote:

Well, the move speed and view do not improve your combat strength.

Even if just the speed and view range weren't good enough, Pan have buffed Interceptors, artillery, armoured cars, light tanks, flying bombs and infantry. Flying bombs are 90% useless and some of the other bonuses are rather insignificant, but wait for the interceptors. They also have more range, which can be really valuable in blitzkrieg. Forward airports are easy to destroy, but as Pan you can use one quite a distance away and still be able to cover units with the Ints. Also can build a very forward airport, and scout way further in enemy territory than other doctrines.

Can't forget the armoured cars. AC are amazing scout units, in fact some people prefer them over mot infantry even as Axis (I always go mot infantry with them though). Give the AC the Pan speed bonus, and then +20% attack against infantry. Good luck to your enemy! It naturally means nothing against tanks but you never want to use AC against tanks. Regardless of doctrine you need to avoid those and possibly kill them with attack bombers. With the extra speed, running away with the AC is easier than ever...

Edepedable wrote:

If your 190 combat capability units encounter an equal enemy with 200 combat capability the enemy gets 50% power bonus and thus has 250 total combat capability (50% on the power only, which is 100 because the other 100 is HP). You yourself get 70% in this case which means you get a total of 190 + 70 = 260. So just for clarity, out of that 260 there is 90HP and 170 power.

9 * 17 = 153 (Pan) against 10 * 15 = 150 (regular), so we're really close. Your outcome was fairly accurate, but imagine if we were against Axis. Your calculation would conclude that Pan will have 26 strength compared to the 28 for Axis.

In reality, Axis get +15% health AND damage, plus the regular terrain bonus. That means Axis will have 115%.150% attack power (result is 172.5%) and 115% health.

115% (health) * 172.5%(damage) = 197.825% combat strength. Compare to Pan Asian with 90% health * 170% damage = 153% combat strength. This means Axis would be way stronger here with equal numbers. That sounds like an argument against Pan-Asian, but if you think that means they lose you've never encountered a good player with them...

Sorry. I just like the statistics to be right.

Hornetkeeper wrote:

I do not love criticizing others

But fully agreed that good information is needed in the forum.

Hornetkeeper wrote:

underestimate speed way too much.

Just wondering @Hornetkeeper, what do you normally have in you pan-asian army?

Hmm I wonder if there are some units that have huge terrain benefits and don't have to directly engage in combat, thus starting HP doesn't matter as much? I wonder if these units can also take advantage of increase view range and moving faster to kite and shoot and scoot.

I guess no one knows cause their LT have already overrun the whole map and don't need to try anything else.

Heinrici wrote:

Hmm I wonder if there are some units that have huge terrain benefits and don't have to directly engage in combat, thus starting HP doesn't matter as much? I wonder if these units can also take advantage of increase view range and moving faster to kite and shoot and scoot.

I guess no one knows cause their LT have already overrun the whole map and don't need to try anything else.

Elaboration: Panasian arty has 70% terrain boost and faster speed that allows them to have roughly the same pace as infantry when running away (from other arties). Their extra view range allows them to spot units within arty range for themselves while other doctrines cannot. (Most likely intentional)

TomtheBuilder wrote:

Heinrici wrote:

Hmm I wonder if there are some units that have huge terrain benefits and don't have to directly engage in combat, thus starting HP doesn't matter as much? I wonder if these units can also take advantage of increase view range and moving faster to kite and shoot and scoot.

I guess no one knows cause their LT have already overrun the whole map and don't need to try anything else.

Experienced players know this, the almighty artillery.

Elaboration: Panasian arty has 70% terrain boost and faster speed that allows them to have roughly the same pace as infantry when running away (from other arties). Their extra view range allows them to spot units within arty range for themselves while other doctrines cannot. (Most likely intentional)

I confirm that the speed of their artillery, the additional terrain bonus and speed makes the Pan Asian dangerous. Additionaly they receive an extra 15% vs unarmored units, -10% production cost and the knowledge upgrades that are available earlier makes them OP.

However, all the bonuses of Pan Asian are exclusively for early game units. Their bonus isn't consistent like the Comintern that gets the cheaper troops all game, where Axis deals more damage with all units or with Allies where they can research and upgrade all units cheaper and faster. Pan Asian might start OP, but in mid game they become mediocre compared to the other doctrines.

Their handicap, and a very important one is that they have 10% less hitpoints. Meaning that they drop 10% faster in health and that the enemy needs to attack 10% less to kill a unit. If you compare that to Axis where you have the opposite, an Axis vs Pan Asian battle should be very interesting.

Well does pan-asian not have an economic bonus in the way by which the units have bonuses? Surely if you use foot artillery and foot infantry instead of SP arties and mech infantry it is cheaper?