Should Allies build infatry past day one?

Really, it depends on your strategic location and your playstyle.

If you are active enough and prefer artillery, infantry is fine to use as meat shields in front of artillery or later on SP artillery). Usually if you invest in that early on, you won't need as many offensive units, diminishing need for motorized infantry. However, if you focus on planes (tactical bombers to be precise), motorized isn't a bad investment because of its speed in capturing provinces bombed to the ground (although really, you should use armoured cars for that). Mechanized infantry is alright to use late game, but don't bother before you get a level 3 barracks. The speed and cost isn't worth it until you can mass produce them and your industry can keep up. Usually you shouldn't really focus on infantry anyways with this doctrine, since your starting infantry units are more than enough to last until you cacn really focus on mass production.

Just to note, commandos and paratroopers have buffs as well, so it doesn't hurt to use them as elite infantry (although for paratroopers, I find their status as elite infantry more useful than their actual job). You usually don't need an anti-infantry ground unit, as your tactical bombers and artillery can deal with that pretty easily...

Just my two cents

Tysm for the in depth response! Ill be sure to use it in my game. Good day to you too.

The way I play is inf, LT, TD and AC spam. inf is mostly as light unit to guard cities and these units are important to counter Allied speed. Inf can also be, as python said, be a meat for arty. Ur free to use Mot inf but its not defensive so can't man cities, u'll need ACs but that'll just overwhelm ur steel needs and because i have inf i get AC last as fast thing to run over terrotorial and to fight Mech inf is just AC with extra AT and Defense with lower speed, LT is better. Commando and paratroopers were always useless

I usually never build infantry as allied doctrine, when you start off you have so much infantry that you don’t even know what to do with them all. Early game I use them for some conquering and city protection but late game is when I switch to more powerful infantry types (commandos, paratroopers, and mechanized infantry). As for other doctrines like Comintern and pan Asian with infantry buffs I like to use infantry a bit more. Pan Asian infantry is powerful because they preform well in forests which pan Asian nations usually have a lot of. As for Comintern I just spam them as a cheap and powerful defensive troop.

Thanks guys! I'll take this into consideration in my future games.

Also check out militia... they may be a bit slow, but their power/cost ratio is really great and the stealth comes in handy often as well.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Also check out militia... they may be a bit slow, but their power/cost ratio is really great and the stealth comes in handy often as well.

Especially at level 1, which are quick to produce when you need something in a hurry, and especially when attacking by sea, when everyone moves at transport speed so why waste oil and other resources on a unit that's going to sit in a boat and then soak up damage after it lands?

I think you should produce a balance of troops. If you want to produce only one type of unit, go for it. But then, your opponents could invest in a counter-unit. So, I think you should produce infantry together with other types of units such as armor and artillery.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Also check out militia... they may be a bit slow, but their power/cost ratio is really great and the stealth comes in handy often as well.

Mech Inf for attacks is good (little pricey and long to build if not lev3 barracks or more) .. thus I use Motorized, but again more for def than attack.

Its all about costs and what you get out of it.

You could likely drop motorized and use AA and AT with a couple militia.

So many combos.

thegreasegun wrote:

I think you should produce a balance of troops. If you want to produce only one type of unit, go for it. But then, your opponents could invest in a counter-unit. So, I think you should produce infantry together with other types of units such as armor and artillery.

But a good balance is king, I agree

For some definition of balance

What I see all the time are stacks with a random mix of units:

AA, infantry, light tanks, medium tanks, motorized infantry, mechanized infantry, motorized artillery....

I can basically see all the random stuff the player has research and produced.

Typically all at level 1, with no thought to unit speed, terrain advantages, or offensive/defensive role.

This "kitchen sink" stack is good for nothing.

I can kill it with a stack of bomber or a stack of artillery, or just go around it and trash the enemy's core.

Instead of talking about "balance" in the abstract, it's more helpful to think of:

1. What is my current or future opponent using, and what are they likely to build next? This is what I need to counter. If they are building a ton of AC, then it makes no sense to build infantry. I'm literally producing paper knowing the enemy is making scissors.

2. What are my doctrine and resource strengths (and weaknesses) to plan around? Am I an Allied player with decent good production, and the enemy is into heavy armor? I should be cranking out the motorized artillery.

3. What gives me a clear, long-term path in terms of upgrades? Say I'm a Pan Asian country and I built lots of artillery in the early game. In that case, I should stick with it, and keep upgrading my artillery. It's of excellent quality and it's fast enough (because Pan Asian), so why restart at level 1 motorized artillery?

Maybe this means you ignore everything except 3-4 units. That may look "unbalanced", but it won't matter if it's cost effective and well matched against your opponents.

z00mz00m wrote:

For some definition of balance

What I see all the time are stacks with a random mix of units:

AA, infantry, light tanks, medium tanks, motorized infantry, mechanized infantry, motorized artillery....

I can basically see all the random stuff the player has research and produced.

Typically all at level 1, with no thought to unit speed, terrain advantages, or offensive/defensive role.

This "kitchen sink" stack is good for nothing.

I can kill it with a stack of bomber or a stack of artillery, or just go around it and trash the enemy's core.

Instead of talking about "balance" in the abstract, it's more helpful to think of:

1. What is my current or future opponent using, and what are they likely to build next? This is what I need to counter. If they are building a ton of AC, then it makes no sense to build infantry. I'm literally producing paper knowing the enemy is making scissors.

2. What are my doctrine and resource strengths (and weaknesses) to plan around? Am I an Allied player with decent good production, and the enemy is into heavy armor? I should be cranking out the motorized artillery.

3. What gives me a clear, long-term path in terms of upgrades? Say I'm a Pan Asian country and I built lots of artillery in the early game. In that case, I should stick with it, and keep upgrading my artillery. It's of excellent quality and it's fast enough (because Pan Asian), so why restart at level 1 motorized artillery?

Maybe this means you ignore everything except 3-4 units. That may look "unbalanced", but it won't matter if it's cost effective and well matched against your opponents.

Its happened even to me, an assemblage of units through displacement. But we talking one or two stacks in some random places that were kind of abandoned lol

That said, you are right, its vague to say balance. I know what i mean by it, not sure what others mean.

I totally concur with your first point.

I agree with using your strengths in your doctrine, and terrain factored in, as well as enemy. And, though I love SP Artillery, against heavy tanks I would recommend SP ART + Tank Destroyers. As well as back up with Attack Bombers.

point 3 seems to depend on terrain and play style. If you are a more cautious slow attacker, then motorized arty or AA is maybe a waste of material. Also, sometimes not leveling up a certain unit is to give you the ability to produce volume instead of quality. Again, its play style.

Thus why I like the game so much, there are many combos to be used.

Regarding point 3: I think people over-focus on the units which are buffed in their doctrine. Usually these amount to an increase of effectiveness of about 10-15%, which is nice of course, but not a the only or even the most important factor in deciding your unit set. Just an example, Axis doctrine have early attack bombers, and many players decide to build them purely based on that. The problem with it is of course, that your opponents didn't even have the chance to build tanks yet, especially the heavy armor against which they excel. The bulk of the stuff that you'll have to defeat that early in the game is unarmored. If you want to go air force early, the tactical bomber is a much better option, even if it isn't buffed. There's many more examples like that: TD's for allies (questionable, situational unit), flying bombs for pan-Asian (questionable to say the least), AT guns for comintern (situational). Going for them should be based on the current game situation (my enemy is using tanks, so I build TD's), while many players decide to build them just because they are buffed.

I think that falls under having a balanced arm forces.

Someone had mentioned balanced, we were not sure if he meant in a single stack or across your armed forces.

Experience will make you more adept at balancing your forces, and then singling out certain units you enjoy using, and kind of mass stacking them. I am not a crazy fan of mass stacks.

More multiple smaller stacks.

As for TDs .. they good to add to a combo of mobile units but thats me