Worst doctrine is comitren

I disagree with you! Comintern is one of my favorites. In the hands of a skilled player, Comintern can be a powerhouse in the late game. With day one access to rocket artillery, you can be a powerhouse around days 3-4. Just be sure to not skimp on AA. With the reduced production and upkeep costs, you can easily have the largest military in the late game if you manage your economy well and expand in a way that minimizes casualties.

The keys to victory with Comintern is:

1. Patience with early game expansion. You start weaker (with the damage reduction penalty) and it takes a few days for your reduced production costs to pay off.

2. Focus on your economy in the early game but know when to stop building it up.

3. Decide how to defend against air. There really are three choices: mass produce inferior commie interceptors, rocket fighters, or ground based AA.

4. Skip level upgrade your units to the maximum extent possible.

"Skip level upgrade your units to the maximum extent possible."

Please elaborate more on this. I'm not necessarily opposed to your argument, I just want to understand it better. Please give a few examples and your general thoughts/guidelines on this aspect of using Comintern doctrine.

Thank you.

Skip level means build a bunch of level 1 units say 10 level 1 artillery. Then research 2. Don't build any more. Then start research level 3. Before the research is done, start upgrading all your level 1 artillery, timed to finish upgrading after the research. That means you pay the cost of upgrading from 1 to 2, but since the upgrade finishes when level 3 is done researching, your actually get level 3 artillery.

This accomplishes two things:

1. Cheaper upgrades. You're always paying for one level less than you're getting.

2. Faster builds. Since you are only building level 1 units, you can produce them quickly from one or two level 1 factories. The upgrade takes another 1-2 hours. You don't need to upgrade your factories, saving a bunch of time and resources.

you can extend this to even higher levels, jumping straight to level 4 or 5. Especially popular with planes, which to be honest are rather crappy at the lower levels (but GREAT at the higher ones!)

That means upgrading skipping a level, for instance going from 1 to 3, is the most common. It's really situational, but with some units (Allied or Pan Asian interceptors) it's easy to go from 1 to 4.

There is a trick to upgrading however. When you initiate an upgrade, you pay the upgrade costs equal to the highest level available at the time. Also when you finish an upgrade, they become the highest level available. So the most optimal way to upgrade is to initiate the upgrade before the last level of research is finished, just ensuring the upgrade doesn't finish first. Yes, you have to plan it out and save up resources. But this is relatively easy to do. Just do the math on what you'll need, or click on all of the units and hit upgrade and it'll show you the costs (just don't actually do it until you're ready). In the lead up to the upgrade, stop building new units or ask allies for resources so you have what you need on hand.

This is an aspect of the game mechanics (and associated strategy) that I hadn't considered.

Thank you very much!

z00mz00m wrote:

Skip level means build a bunch of level 1 units say 10 level 1 artillery. Then research 2. Don't build any more. Then start research level 3. Before the research is done, start upgrading all your level 1 artillery, timed to finish upgrading after the research. That means you pay the cost of upgrading from 1 to 2, but since the upgrade finishes when level 3 is done researching, your actually get level 3 artillery.

This accomplishes two things:

1. Cheaper upgrades. You're always paying for one level less than you're getting.

2. Faster builds. Since you are only building level 1 units, you can produce them quickly from one or two level 1 factories. The upgrade takes another 1-2 hours. You don't need to upgrade your factories, saving a bunch of time and resources.

I'm far from sure there even is a 'best' or 'worst' doctrine, as they all suit different playing styles. I haven't played Comintern, although I'm planning to once I have a bit more spare time, but my operations generally depend on shoving cheap units towards the front line, and constantly having my cities producing whatever I can afford, rather than spending lots of time and/or money making a handful of hugely powerful units, so it sounds like exactly what would suit my playing style. Whereas Axis would frustrate me; especially in early game, I usually have trouble funding even an Allied army without borrowing heavily from allies.*

Myself, I have yet to see an Axis power win without joining a coalition with non-Axis countries, but then I haven't joined very many games.

6thDragon wrote:

The keys to victory with Comintern is:

1. Patience with early game expansion. You start weaker (with the damage reduction penalty) and it takes a few days for your reduced production costs to pay off.

2. Focus on your economy in the early game but know when to stop building it up.

3. Decide how to defend against air. There really are three choices: mass produce inferior commie interceptors, rocket fighters, or ground based AA.

4. Skip level upgrade your units to the maximum extent possible.

*Unrelatedly, the speed penalties in Allies have been really getting to me lately after a stint at Pan-Asian. I never used to notice them but now they get on my nerves.

I don't like it but I use it