Thoughts on Terror

[Walderschmidt]

Collect your thoughts on Terror here:

So far, not a fan. Probably because I'm not using it properly, but here's thoughts anyway.

1) Volksturm still don't feel useful at all. They're not THAT spammable at 190MP, can't get even 2 for 1 for volks, but they're not even half as combat effective and cap slow. Three of these guys and an officer lost to engies in red cover (see screenshot). Their HP being so low makes even 30. cal jeeps feel like 50. cals. They can't even build sandbags or wire. At this rate, if I play Terror I don't even want to get them. But then there's no point to 1/4 of doctrine unlocks.

^nearly 900 mp vs 180mp in red cover and were capping at outset of engagement


2) Having walking stukas so early is awesome. But they along with sturms don't feel useful at all in 1v1s.

3) Terror right now feels like weak sauce which is probably compounded by the fact that I am rusty. At least give terror AT rifles or something. Two .50 cal jeeps would overpower schwim and rape every single sturm out there.

4) Honestly - while I like the idea of a propaganda doctrine and big tanks, those two seem diametrically opposed to being used with a spam unit. In fact, I hate the idea of a spam unit like volksgrenadiers as Axis. If I was the soviets, it would sorta make sense.

5) Officer is interesting, but it feels like he dies so easily. Would at least like ability to allow his bodyguards to pick up weapons if I can't upgrade him. If he's gonna be in the thick of combat and priority target, I'm honestly surprised his guys don't have MP40s or STGs. I would prefer if his debuff ability was cheaper by 10-20 muni. Still need to test its efficacy but I notice it just hurt hurts the munis, especially early game.

I know I need to play more, but Terror in its current iteration tests my patience. Sorry I don't have any good suggestions to counteract this.

Wald

P.S. Bugs

1. Rally to officer seems to bug out when he enters half track
2. Volks don't get suppression ability when you upgrade LMGs, which if they had would help out a lot with making sturms useful

[MenciusMoldbug]

My problem with volkssturm is you want the unit to be an alternative to the volksgrenadier and not simply a weaker version of them. Because no matter how cheap you make volkssturm (you can make them 150 MP and 15 MP to reinforce) it doesn't change that volksgrenadiers are always going to be the better option because of their weapon upgrade choices. Volkssturm by stats/weapon upgrade perform the best at closer ranges and how many allied units also perform the best at closer ranges?

Actually, it's kind of funny to me that defensive doctrine pioneers are overall better than volkssturm even with all their upgrades unlocked. As they get 4 MP40's, increased overall HP with the the pioneer training unlock and defensive cover bonus. So I'm going to be comparing the volkssturm to them while I make the case for their buffs.

First thing, they vet way too slowly; they share the same xp requirements as volksgrenadiers: Which is 8 > 16 > 32 > 64 > 128. Killing a riflemen model gives you 1 xp; killing a jeep gives you 3 xp. To get their first veterancy level unlocked they need to kill 8 riflemen or 3 jeeps. To get veterancy 5 they need to kill 128 riflemen or 43 jeeps. I would not have patience to get them to veterancy 5 in skirmish/ai-vs-bk-fun mode, and I don't think they will ever get even veterancy 3 in normal games because of this high xp requirement. Their weapons and weapon upgrades are simply not up to par to get them to even vet 1; no matter if they have the officer buffing them through a xp boost or not. I would personally change it to half of that of volksgrenadiers: Going from 4 > 8 > 16 > 32 > 64

Second, health is a bit too low; they should be at 40 HP each (squad leader to 45). You want them to become capable soldiers with veterancy so it shouldn't take 2 veterancy levels to get the same HP as pioneers.

Third, they should get more MP40's as an upgrade when they reach a certain veterancy requirement; so they don't lag behind completely later in the game if you manage to keep them alive.

Fourth, the faust upgrade should honestly be an ability they unlock instead of upgrading it. Fausts on volkssturm by itself isn't great because paying 50 munitions for the faust upgrade and then 35 to fire is too much for a filler unit. They shouldn't have to pay for the upgrade; only to fire the faust. Volksgrenadiers should also be affected by this having to no longer get the fast as a munition upgrade if unlocked in the CP tree.

Now about the Tiger, I think Tiger comes a bit too late and Tiger ace comes a bit too early. You should swap the CP points so the Tiger is 3 CP's and the Tiger Ace is 2 CP's. Having the fourth CP on the Tiger doesn't matter that much anyway but having only 1 CP on the Tiger Ace makes it the go-to choice when deciding if you want to buff your single/no Tiger or possibly have more Tiger Tanks.

That's about it for now, the propaganda abilities by themselves are good but most of your munitions are also going to be spent there instead of getting faust upgrades on volkssturm and stuff.

[kwok]

1) recommend moving this into the current propaganda thread

2) why

3) I know you play high resources. I recommend 2 pak gun openings. I do the same for allies, sometimes three 37mm against PE. It doesn’t matter if it’s volkssturm or something else, 50 cal jeeps will kill axis inf. It isn’t just a vsturmm thing. If anything, having spammed vsturmm helps against 50cal jeeps because extra k98s will give higher chance of killing the Jeep.

4) eh we don’t have soviet models. In my personal opinion the “axis few but strong” is so cliche, it exists in many other doctrines and limits options of play styles for axis. You have the right to your preference and my suggestion is don’t play terror. The reworks lets you play as other doctrines without the worry of being countered!

5) adding extra men is adding durability only. We didn’t want officers to be pure combat units (like the PE officer). Otherwise the officer can get vet through kills instead of leading like an officer should. We knew officers died too easily before so the solution we though instead of Hp buffing the officer to be some bullet immune super solider, we give the officer some squad mates/sergeants to body guard.

Ps
1. What do you mean? Replay?
2. Might be an oversight or UI problem. Will look into it.

In the future it will help to put your concerns and topics in existing threads. I’ll address them here since some don’t fit perfectly into existing topics, but it will be a lot easier to track and make fixes if we keep the forum organized.

[Walderschmidt]

^1) Done. Also reposted Mencius' comment there.

2) Given that they now cost muni upkeep, I'd like to see their barrage cost slightly lowered. Maybe by 10-15 muni? As for why I don't like using them 1v1, I feel like if waste command points getting them that leave me so far behind in tech when I already feel behind by having only volks and sturms that going for them is only something I'd do once I already had the upper hand and all but won the game. Sturms feel useful like kettenkrads where I feel like their almost useless in combat, even with officer buffs and are better at just having numbers to cap fast. In a team game, they could at least soak up bullets that more damaging units might otherwise take, but in a 1v1 I don't feel like I can spam sturm and get one or two good combat units. People would just focus fire on the dangerous unit like the sturms don't exist and then switch fire and still waste them.

3) I've never given that a try I admit. But I would say I feel like against brits this would fail hard against recces which are even deadlier now and then I'd end up not using propaganda abilities on sturms because I'd try to use the 36s as supplementary anti-inf. If my sturms already have a hard time 3 or 4 to one v an engie in red cover, brits would fucking annihilitate them.

4) Fair. We disagree on this.

5) Maybe give him health upgrades through vet as well so at least he gets more survivable rather than a killing machine?

PS. Will do separate thread on bugs.

Wald

[Echo]

I think if you could give the new troops a debuff that would help them instead of a straight buff

[Echo]

A debuff to put on enemy troops* sorry

[mofetagalactica]

They do the work for me, but that dosn't mean they're totally fine tho, for example they give 2xp if the enemy kills it (should be 1xp) and the panzerfaust consumes way too much ammo for being cp locked (they should get them for free and the hability cost could rise up to 40 ammo) , current panzerfaust cost dosn't give you too many options on the use for other habilities such as officer debuffs and general buffs.

About what mencius mentioned of the veterancy gain i think i need a few more games to think about it, cause the veterancy gain raises a lot when you have officer (with officer cp unlock) near your volkssturms and with vet 1 in end phase you can make them a 7 man squad then they become a pretty good unit.

Watch out about buffing this unit slighty too much because you don't even know how strong the late game of this doc is, im afraid that the tiger is currently super strong with their new tigerphobia debuffs (i hope that this debuff dosn't affect pershings).


In the scenario you showed where the engies where in red cover you lost because you're trying to use them as volks and also you forgot that the garands were buffed againts enemies in open cover (no cover), you could have had more chances if your volkssturms where in yellow cover that drops the garand max accuracy by a lot.

[MarKr]

The panzerfaust upgrade/ability/cost has been brought up before and it will be addressed. The 2XP per kill is an oversight and will be changed. The costs of debuff abilities can be tweaked too, there haven't been any real feedback on those abilities so far and I've watched just one replay (you vs Wald) and I think I saw it used there only once at the very end of the game so hard to say about this, more feedback is needed.

Tigerphobia "aura" does not affect Pershings, Pershing Ace, Super Pershings nor Churchills (the latter are not relevant in current builds as CW hasn't been worked on, just mentioning for future reference). The idea here was that the Tigerphobia should not apply to tanks that can withstand or at least somewhat reliably deflect a Tiger shot, with this in mind, the "immunity" could be applied to Jumbo Shermans too.
Kingtigers have the "aura" too - however their aura applies to all enemy tanks.
Aura effects of several Tiger tanks or Tiger+KT do not stack.

In the scenario you showed where the engies where in red cover you lost because you're trying to use them as volks and also you forgot that the garands were buffed againts enemies in open cover (no cover), you could have had more chances if your volkssturms where in yellow cover that drops the garand max accuracy by a lot.

Actually, Engineers have their own weapon "file" which means their stats are different from Riflemen and Rangers - Engineers with garands do not have the increased RoF of Riflemen and still have their accuracy same as they've had it for past years. However, putting the Sturms into cover would definately help. Also I don't know what the whole encounter looked like but I can see a mortar there too so if some of the squads got hit by a mortar, it is possible they lost some men and retreated...it is hard to analyze the situation from a screenshot.

[idliketoplaybetter]

Hi,

Actually, i have to agree on Mencious words of Volksturm. Currently, there is not much need of using them IF u have possibility to reach Vgrenadiers.

In other words, this aspect of changes on the doctrine, wouldnt really affect on players meta feeling of how doc's should apply to the playstyle and gameplay in general.

What i would suggest, is to take away Vgrens from Terror doc, making Vsturm rather less of a weak unit, but reliable and versatile, with an ability to upgrade for AT rifle or Faust for free(?), let them place small anti inf mines, or something like that. For free.., but with high cooldown. Let them build anti-tank wreckage things, to prevent movement early on.

Right from the start of the game.

Imo, in terms of inf-to-inf combats, they should be fighting more less like Vgrens now, but cheaper. In opposition to that, i would take away triage center from them, or at least healing should be off, as that is not a matter for Terror doc to care of units.

Vsturm should become special thing about Terror doc, completely changing early game for both sides, with its Anti tank capabilities and price, but in reliance for further game..

If i could go further, i'd let Terror doc access for MG42 squads consisted with Vsturm soldiers. - Weaker in health, than normal squads and less accurate/suppression rate, but cheaper and earlier.
WIth the new changes of how HMG and supressions work in general now, i would make those HIgh cooldown abilities too. Giving it a drip of realism, since to make good 1 round of suppressive fire, squad, for example uses all the ammo it can carry..

In exchange to that, hmm, no one is using Opelblitz for transportation. Make it supply truck. Stationary id make it sort of a med tent also.

So yes, u have more options to start game with Terror doc now, cheaper options, but u would have to support it with something later on to hold ground.


In my eyes, concept of Terror (i didnt vote for Volksturm doc) on this stage, should really look like:

Powerfull early game - access to many versatile units with good veterancy upkeep and so on.
Weaker mid game - basically u rely on a teammate and support him with more arty that is now available.
Same powerfull late game - Heavy tanks, eh, make KT cheaper..

[Warhawks97]

Hi,

Actually, i have to agree on Mencious words of Volksturm. Currently, there is not much need of using them IF u have possibility to reach Vgrenadiers.

In other words, this aspect of changes on the doctrine, wouldnt really affect on players meta feeling of how doc's should apply to the playstyle and gameplay in general.

What i would suggest, is to take away Vgrens from Terror doc, making Vsturm rather less of a weak unit, but reliable and versatile, with an ability to upgrade for AT rifle or Faust for free(?), let them place small anti inf mines, or something like that. For free.., but with high cooldown. Let them build anti-tank wreckage things, to prevent movement early on.

I partly agree. Right now i dont really think they are worth it. For 6 or 7 men to pay in total 230 MP and be stil less effective. I would make the squad size upgrade for free after a certain HQ upgrade is reached or simply an upgrade in the HQ just like it is for PE Pgrens.
I would also agree that the faust should be for free once unlocked and barbed wire to be given to them, so that they have some ways to restrict enemie movment, like jeeps in early game.

Imo, in terms of inf-to-inf combats, they should be fighting more less like Vgrens now, but cheaper. In opposition to that, i would take away triage center from them, or at least healing should be off, as that is not a matter for Terror doc to care of units.

I would rework triage centers in general and splitt the healing and collection of wounded into two seperate buildings, just as in vcoh.

Vsturm should become special thing about Terror doc, completely changing early game for both sides, with its Anti tank capabilities and price, but in reliance for further game..

Well, what you mean with reliance. I have access to early arty and heavy tanks so the infantry capabilties have to keep in check at some point.

If i could go further, i'd let Terror doc access for MG42 squads consisted with Vsturm soldiers. - Weaker in health, than normal squads and less accurate/suppression rate, but cheaper and earlier.
WIth the new changes of how HMG and supressions work in general now, i would make those HIgh cooldown abilities too. Giving it a drip of realism, since to make good 1 round of suppressive fire, squad, for example uses all the ammo it can carry..

you mean some sort of suppression squad with lmgs in Vsturm variant or HMG Vsturm variant? I do like the idea to have not just a Vsturm unit, but a composition of that. Kind of cheaper version of AT squad, cheap squad with two lmgs and so on.

In my eyes, concept of Terror (i didnt vote for Volksturm doc) on this stage, should really look like:

Powerfull early game - access to many versatile units with good veterancy upkeep and so on.
Weaker mid game - basically u rely on a teammate and support him with more arty that is now available.
Same powerfull late game - Heavy tanks, eh, make KT cheaper..

Not powerfull early game. BK is the early pushing doc. Powerfull early means that you can dominate there which means you and almost skip the mid game and jump right for walking stukas and tigers. So giving Terror a powerfull opening would directly lead into quick walking stukas and tigers. And that combo is probably going to be deadly with Tigerphobia (the impact is quite noticable on enemie tanks) and heavy rocket barrages. These units should be the match maker, not just finishers. So the early needs to be more medicore and defending core areas and then waiting for the heavy material to take over controle.

So that means, Weaker early game where you have to stay your ground (and enemie should try to take some ground before getting pounded by rockets and armor) -> Average to decent mid game where situation is improving due to numbers and boosts to your inf, perhaps first arty.->Quite Powerfull late game with fearfull armor and heavy hitting arty.

[idliketoplaybetter]

Thank you for the reply

Its just vSturm now reminds me of conscripts from vCoh Eastern front mod now. There, they were sort of a conceptual (soviet meta) way you had to play around, for the most part they were useless unless crowded or maybe luck..eventually being changed for stronger units and never remembered.
With vCoh and EF balance systems it was ohkeaj..
At bkmod, eh, when u really have Volks and ur economy wont suffer much from getting them, u will prefer them. Also, or mostly, because dmg system and early balancing feels different from example above.

Regarding triage and wound centers.., again, since there is a lot about Command tree - volksturm line to fill up, i believe giving drip of special features for terror doc could be also interesting.
As ive said about those Blitz trucks, i think right from the start, they should only provide sort of Supply/cooldown reset ability in range of effectivnes. They are still cost MP and time to build so people will have to think twice what they want to do, but eventually, whilst going through the CP tree, you could open ability to make it either heal station or wound collector.
*im sorry, not sure if that is technically possible and so on though, just thinking out loud

Considering lower price and healths of vSturms, it could balance it out a bit for additional/optional price for Terror player.

Reliance.., well, as said before, vSturms are still weaker than well played rifles, but should hold, vet and so on till further game tiers come up. They are weaker anyway, eventhough capable, so access for early arty and heavy tanks aint specifically an argument for total Terror player dominance over the scene.

I was specifically think of HMG (one you had to set and camo before using(?), though idea is to make units cheaper and ready to confront very fast.., but to compensate that with dmg/accuracy/health.
vSturms could be given early choice of going AT rifle or later Faust, for free. So it would make them weaker in terms of inf-to-inf fights, but capable of dealing combined attacks of jeeps and so on right from the beginning.

I still consider making such a versatile unit more a bennefit for the Axis side, so i called it Powerfull start.

[CGarr]

After having read the above responses, I think we might've reached a good compromise for incorporating the core values the new doc is aiming for in a way that is more fun to play. To summarize their responses (or at least how I interpreted them) and add some of my own thoughts on the topic, here's a list that consolidates all of these ideas to one group of changes to make the desired end results clearer for the dev team.

1. I think most of us agree that Vsturms should get a starting durability increase, as it is currently very difficult to keep them in combat long enough to vet them to a useful level seeing as how they drop like flies even in green cover. My own suggestion for this would be giving them a slightly lower received accuracy (to simulate represent their tendency to hide in cover rather than fight because they are untrained) that goes away when they reach vet 2. Others have also suggested health increases or lowered vet requirements.

2. Weapon upgrade choices: Jeep-spam openings have been brought up multiple times as an issue for the doctrine. So far, 2 ideas have been presented as means of dealing with this: a) Fausts being made free and b) AT rifle weapon upgrades being added to Vsturms. I myself think fausts should be a default ability with the only cost being use of the ability. However, I personally think a grenade launcher upgrade (implemented in the same way as the US riflemen one) would suit the doc better than dedicated AT rifles, as after a certain point AT rifles become less useful, but grenade launchers are always useful for both lobbing grenades to kill inf / light vehicles and for deploying smoke to cover inf pushes (smoke would be especially helpful given how squishy the Vsturms would be out of cover, even with the buff mentioned above).

3. Healing and triage should be seperated into different buildings, and the proposed triage center should be somewhat expensive given how it would likely constantly be pumping out new Vsturms due to their tendency to die quickly. On a similar note, increased squad size upgrades should be put into the proposed triage center or HQ to cut down on unnecessary micro, as this doctrine is already extremely micro heavy due to the reliance on large numbers of inf, heavy use of abilities, and its late game armor being costly to lose and therefore requiring babysitting.

4. Assuming squad size upgrade is moved to triage center or HQ, having an explosives upgrade would be an interesting addition to propaganda doc. This upgrade would give 2 abilities to the squad but would not be compatible with the grenade launcher. Firstly, it would allow the Vsturm squad to place small demo charges anywhere (think commando demo charge but weaker) for maybe 20 muni but these charges would light the surrounding area on fire. They could have the same stats as a nebelwerfer oil rocket explosion but in the form of a manually triggered explosive. The second ability would be to deploy a goliath the same way halftracks do (if possible), presumably with the cheap cost that they had in terror doc.

5. Vgren Unit Cap: Vgrens should be given a unit cap (3?) since they take the place of elite inf when being used alongside but do not have the same manpower cost/drain as elite inf that keeps normal inf from being obsolete, in this case Vsturms. After some of the tweaks I mentioned above, the Vsturms will likely very directly fill the role that Vgrens currently fill in docs with actual elite inf. As such, Vgrens would essentially just be "elite" versions of the Vsturms given the fact that they have better stats immediately alongside better weapon upgrades. I personally don't like the idea of a unitcap but the alternatives are either removing Vgrens or making them more expensive (which would probably make Vgrens themselves obsolete).

6. Heavy Officers If Vgrens do end up getting removed, it would be nice to be able to have a much more expensive heavy officer squad alongside the normal one as a means of frontline fire support since this doc wouldn't have any form of elite inf. In the wehrmacht quarters, it would take the place of Vgrens, but only be buildable after teching to assault phase. The unit would have the same aura as the normal officer (not stacking) but would not have the same abilities as the officer. Functionally, we could use the PE heavy SS squad here but renamed and with a command aura, as well as officer style vet rather than straight stat buffs to the unit itself. Cost wise, they should have the same (or slightly higher) MP cost as the heavy SS squad. This squad should definitely have a unit cap if it gets implemented, maybe 2 max.

Edit:Forgot Vsturm unit variations

7.Variations of current support units: Its been suggested that the current weapons teams (MG's, shrecks, maybe sniper) should be replaced or complemented with Vsturm variations that are comparitively weaker but cheaper.

[MarKr]

7.Variations of current support units: Its been suggested that the current weapons teams (MG's, shrecks, maybe sniper) should be replaced or complemented with Vsturm variations that are comparitively weaker but cheaper.

This has been considered for the current beta already, but in the end there were quite a few issues with it - one of them being that these vstorm units would be Propaganda-specific so they would be available only after selecting the doctrine. This means that a player would either be able to get the "normal" units before choosing the docrine and so still have HMGs/Mortars crewed with "grenadiers" OR it would mean that HMG/mortar teams would be locked out to players until a doctrine is chosen - that would force players to choose a doctrine very early.
I also think that people would cry about "historical accuracy" (even when it is not a main argument in BK) that equipment such as Mortars required special training which Volksturms most likely did not have (I don't know for sure but I pressume the training they received was mostly in easy-to-operate weapons such as small arms and Fausts).

Also, the type of squad that is produced by Triage centers is set per faction and it is impossible to change it based on selected doctrine. This means that all WM docs will always get the same squad (Vgrens) from triage centers. This has been taken into account for Vsturms because they die easily and so any Propaganda player would get a lot of Vgrens out of Vsturms, therefore the "collection time" for Vsturms is significantly lower than for other infantry - this means that Vsturms soldiers die faster when they are wounded and so medics from triage centers have less time to collect them from the battlefield, resulting in (give or take) same ammounts of "free" squads as with other infantry types.

Finally, the Propaganda doctrine was expected, or we could even say "designed", to be micro-intensive, especially in their infantry-play. That is why we made the bigger squad upgrades squad-specific instead of global. It allows for increasing the squad sizes for the squads you need, without increasing the cost of Vsturm squads globally (global upgrade would increase the cost of squads in HQ/Barracks) and you can have even in the late game the "basic" 5-men squad as a recon where you just send them somewhere and once they find enemy, they will auto-retreat with the first few losses, but revealing enemy presence. If you want a meat-shield squad to support attack, bigger squads are more suited for that so it offers flexibility at the expense of some extra clicks.

[Black Panther]

I'd say autoretreat is actually micro-helping ability, because vsturms with less 2-3 members is already not useful unit. Funny.
But yeah, it is too much micro-heavy. Btw, would you consider making a doctrines, that comes from reward choices, so you can switch them?

[kwok]

I'm not saying you all are "playing wrong" but so far I've been doing pretty well with terror without using a lot of micro. This is actually kind of unintended because, as Markr said, it was meant to be a high micro high reward doctrine. Specifically regarding volkssturm, i don't use them for complex tactical actions, I use them in a macro sense to backcap and gain map awareness. Having the volks essentially lets me build two units at a time while US usually only builds out of one barracks. So I can make a volksgren or MG to face off against whatever build order US sends while simultaneously building volkssturm to act as a capturing/scouting force. So... it's true that volksgrens are "just better" than volkssturm and it makes sense to get grens over sturm every time... but the fun part of volkssturm is that I can have both... i dont need to make the decision of one over the other. i get soooo much map control that way.
I almost treat them like kettengrads until i work up a strategy to control a specific area on the map. From there, I just line up my volkssturm and win fights on pure volume.

so yeah... like playbetter said, i just use them like russian conscripts (because they are conscripts...) and manipulate the "luck" by using propaganda abilities. Turns out it's a lot less micro intense than I thought.

I haven't played too much though and haven't really gone against someone extremely challenging since I mostly let you all try out the new doctrine while I act as a guinea pig.

[Walderschmidt]

Finally, the Propaganda doctrine was expected, or we could even say "designed", to be micro-intensive, especially in their infantry-play. That is why we made the bigger squad upgrades squad-specific instead of global. It allows for increasing the squad sizes for the squads you need, without increasing the cost of Vsturm squads globally (global upgrade would increase the cost of squads in HQ/Barracks) and you can have even in the late game the "basic" 5-men squad as a recon where you just send them somewhere and once they find enemy, they will auto-retreat with the first few losses, but revealing enemy presence. If you want a meat-shield squad to support attack, bigger squads are more suited for that so it offers flexibility at the expense of some extra clicks.

If anything, I might like a buff for support units in terror. Or have zeal come enabled with doc.

But for sturm, please have the sturm upgrade for extra men be free or automatically reinforce unit because otherwise you have to pay for the extra man twice and do micro that is useless. I don't mind microing units. I *()*)&*^&&( hate microing upgrades.

Wald

[CGarr]

I'm not saying you all are "playing wrong" but so far I've been doing pretty well with terror without using a lot of micro. This is actually kind of unintended because, as Markr said, it was meant to be a high micro high reward doctrine. Specifically regarding volkssturm, i don't use them for complex tactical actions, I use them in a macro sense to backcap and gain map awareness. Having the volks essentially lets me build two units at a time while US usually only builds out of one barracks. So I can make a volksgren or MG to face off against whatever build order US sends while simultaneously building volkssturm to act as a capturing/scouting force. So... it's true that volksgrens are "just better" than volkssturm and it makes sense to get grens over sturm every time... but the fun part of volkssturm is that I can have both... i dont need to make the decision of one over the other. i get soooo much map control that way.
I almost treat them like kettengrads until i work up a strategy to control a specific area on the map. From there, I just line up my volkssturm and win fights on pure volume.

so yeah... like playbetter said, i just use them like russian conscripts (because they are conscripts...) and manipulate the "luck" by using propaganda abilities. Turns out it's a lot less micro intense than I thought.

I haven't played too much though and haven't really gone against someone extremely challenging since I mostly let you all try out the new doctrine while I act as a guinea pig.

I definitely get what you mean, but I feel like having the ability to do that kinda goes against the theme of the doctrine. If a good chunk of the doctrine tree is going to be dedicated to supporting or directly improving the Vsturms, you should have to deal with the fact that they are garbage until you get that much needed support. As such, you should be forced to fight with them too rather than just flooding the map with them to cap. I think this what above replies in this thread were talking about when they mentioned removing the volks. Surely you could pull off a similar playstyle to what you described with the Vsturms instead of Vgrens, especially if the suggested buffs are taken into consideration so they don't also share the same combat effectiveness as the kettenkrads. This is why I suggested having a Heavy officer squad to fill the fire support role that removing Vgrens would open, you'd still get firepower similar to that of a vetted Vgren squad late game but with an upper limit due to the suggested unitcap. This would come at the cost of having to deal with the consequences of choosing a micro intensive doc* that is meant to slowly snowball.

* If you actually use the Vsturms for combat early game the doc becomes extremely micro intensive due to how shit they are at staying in combat without the use of a ton of support abilities/units.

[CGarr]

Finally, the Propaganda doctrine was expected, or we could even say "designed", to be micro-intensive, especially in their infantry-play. That is why we made the bigger squad upgrades squad-specific instead of global. It allows for increasing the squad sizes for the squads you need, without increasing the cost of Vsturm squads globally (global upgrade would increase the cost of squads in HQ/Barracks) and you can have even in the late game the "basic" 5-men squad as a recon where you just send them somewhere and once they find enemy, they will auto-retreat with the first few losses, but revealing enemy presence. If you want a meat-shield squad to support attack, bigger squads are more suited for that so it offers flexibility at the expense of some extra clicks.

If anything, I might like a buff for support units in terror. Or have zeal come enabled with doc.

But for sturm, please have the sturm upgrade for extra men be free or automatically reinforce unit because otherwise you have to pay for the extra man twice and do micro that is useless. I don't mind microing units. I *()*)&*^&&( hate microing upgrades.

Wald

@ Markr this is the issue I was talking about when I mentioned putting the upgrade on the HQ or something, right now it's just annoying without really adding anything. If you remove Vgrens I promise you the player will have plenty to deal with already in terms of microing the Vsturms in combat, and in practice the extra man upgrade isn't really a hard decision to make even for scouting, as it doesnt cost much and lets you scout a bit longer under fire. With that being the case, there is functionally very little reason to keep the upgrade on individual squads rather than making it global.

Also, I like the idea of making zeal a default rather than costing CP. It might remove the need for a durability buff, since they wouldn't need to stay in combat as long to deal out a significant enough portion of damage to get vet.