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Writing is hard work and I thoroughly believe in "killing your darlings". I don't apologize for that, as not all ideas have equal merit. Killing things off is where quality actually comes from. If you think I'm harsh as to how I rate things, you should see r/4Xgaming. I always approach things according to commercial viability in front of a critical audience. I can't assume they'll "see it my way". Winning them over, "securing audience buy-in", is pretty much The Job.
"Doctrine: Whatever". There is a risk in overloading this, in becoming repetitive and boring. The original game has 5. Is it now to be 8 ? Or will the unnamed ones be dropped?
"Offense vs. Defense" may not be interesting distinctions from a screenplay "crafting of dialogue / lines / hooks" point of view. Are they interesting words ? Personally I say no, they are not. And as such, they do not reflect the writing sensibility of the original game, which was paying attention to the nuances of writerliness for at least 4 of them. I don't think "Doctrine: Air Power" is anything special, it's perfunctory, but the other 4 show that they put some thought into why they chose those words.Are Offense and Defense interesting concepts? I say they are not, as military operations generally do have both offense and defense. Exceptions might be, massed tank formations ala Patton and Rommel in WW II, which was an interesting evolution compared to the tank-and-infantry formations of previous wars. And the building of the Maginot Line which 1) didn't work, or 2) did exactly what it was supposed to do, at the cost of the Germans simply going around it.
"Doctrine: Rule" is more interesting to contemplate, although I do wonder if it's straying too far from military doctrine. Meanwhile, we already have "Doctrine: Loyalty". Why rewrite, as opposed to repurpose? The voice acting is a quote from Machiaveli, it's straight up about how you rule. I had it giving Fundamentalist / Extremist for awhile. Now I've got it as the thing that gives you a Command Center. The hand wave is that loyalty is how you make your command structure and build elan in the corps. I don't think I'm wrong in that, but I do know that I'm repurposing materials and not composing from scratch. So the tailoring can be a little off.
This is almost enough for now, to see if we can manage to discuss. Since the above is all under the bailiwick of "military concepts", I will take on "C4I". All I can say to that is, wat ? A Three Letter Acronym (technically alphanumeric) doesn't start out meaning anything to anybody. It's a bad choice. For guidance on this point, consider "the warrior's bland acronym, MMI" in the game's lore. Lal teaches us that it means something. We wouldn't know it without his teaching, and we wouldn't care about it absent his voice acting. And don't assume a game can carry more than a very few specially designated acronyms. Done once, it makes an authorial point. Done several times, it becomes a lot of "...wat?"
Possibly a better approach would be: “Doctrine: Aggression” and “Doctrine: Attrition.”
That said, I almost think it is more interesting to go with words that a general rather than words that are more precise because I feel that there is kind of a transparent and narratively troubling “techno-vibe” that happens when one veers toward “Doctrine: Bleed” or “Doctrine: Fortify.” It feels like I’m trying too hard to be cool. Whereas Doctrine: Offense and Doctrine: Defense are both immediately intuitive. Players can ask themselves, “How do I usually approach combat?” Is this clear?
I never understood Doctrine: Loyalty. Some of the Datalinks entries that accompanies the Techs were disappointing to me, and this was one of them. If I remember correctly, the entry for this tech in particular left me feeling like I’d read words with no meaning. But to me, loyalty evokes a sense of espirit de corps—attracting people to follow you.
Doctrine: Rule seems more iron-fisted.
I suppose one direction could be to chop some of the late and add early.
Why is Mobility not offense? Particularly wrt the game's actual combat mechanics.
I don't know that defense, i.e. armor in the game's actual combat mechanical terms, is worth calling out with its own category. I put armor and weapons in Conquer and call it done. But if one convinces oneself to specially call out armor, it may be wise to do so without seeking dichotomy with anything else. For instance, "Doctrine: Stability". That's how Montgomery fought in WW II, pretty much the opposite strategy from Patton. He intended to never give Rommel the chance to do anything tricky. I'm not recommending D:S, but it does reflect the manner of thought of the original game categories.
Chairman Yang starts with it, so it's part of his narrative. It gives Police State. He can also build the Command Nexus immediately. He also gets a Perimeter Defense that he doesn't need. I didn't find these things a great fit to task either. Yang doesn't instill loyalty, he instills obedience and fear. He's Stalinist, totalitarian.
My one exception has been the Copter chassis, which has been hard removed. Overwhelming numbers of modders over the years have agreed with this idea. The funny thing is, with my mega-expensive weapons nowadays, I wonder if I could reintroduce it, just at an unusably expensive price point?
