European Tree part I – Introduction of the Concept

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Hello everyone,

today, we are going to talk about one of the not-so-many things left to implement, when it comes to adding new tanks: the European tree concept. We’ll talk about what it is, what it could bring, how it is interesting for YOU and why it would be a big mistake to scrap it. It’s going to be a long read, so I’ll just make it into several parts and hope you like long texts, when it comes to FTR :)

What is it

Sometimes, people get confused, when “EU tree” is mentioned. “What is it” they ask (usually followed by “and why the hell would we want that”). In short: the EU tree would consist of all the European smaller nations, that actually had their own tank development, but didn’t make it to the game, because (in some cases) they do not fulfill the criteria for introducing the entire tree (the condition for that currently is that the nation in question has to have ALL the classes, researchable up to tier 10). These nations are actually many – the prominent ones are Italy, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and a few others. The development (or rather, “tank use” in some cases) in these nations ranged from pretty much copypaste (Bulgaria for example) to very original and interesting development (Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia) – there is this myth going around that European nations other than those in the game just used copypaste US/Soviet stuff, but that’s not true, not by a longshot. Well, at least in some cases anyway – some copying (or “inspiration”) is obviously inevitable, but it’s nowhere near the “world of T-54 clones” China (or even Russia) has for example.

A note on the name though: I tend to use the term “EU tree”, but obviously, it has nothing to do with the European Union. It’s just a handy shortcut – don’t expect EU flag to fly over this tree, especially when during the WoT timeline, some of the candidate nations for this tree were hostile-neutral (Czechoslovakia vs Poland vs Hungary), while others were outright enemies (Romania vs Bulgaria). Russians (yes, there is a substantial Russian playerbase interest, thanks to efforts of players such as alex_mitsch) refer to it as “evropeyskoye derevo” (“European tree”).

The Issue of Originality

In his recent interview, Big Boss V.Kislyi noted that EU tree might not have such a high priority (obviously), because – and I quote (the interview can be watched here):

Let’s be honest to ourselves, adding another European tree will not add much of the variety.

This statement actually has three aspects that need to be adressed:

- do we actually need more tanks?
- what actually IS “variety”?
- do European tree tanks offer more variety?

The first point is actually a question, that certain vocal minorities (usually tied to e-sports, CW etc., the same people who want the disappearance of RNG and all the Counterstrike-y gamebreaking stuff) brings up every now and then. The answer is simple: yes, of course we need more tanks. The reason for that is that in the end, for very casual players, new tanks are the only way to progress. This game is not aimed at 0,05 percent of unicums, who cry over each percent of winrate lost – it is aimed at masses of (as SerB says) “daddies”, who come home from work and play. Of course, such players do have enough tanks to play as it is, but nevertheless, for these players, adding new tanks is the only “progression” the game makes. And of course, there is the other crowd of people like me, who are not interested in team battles or CW (it was an interesting experience – for a month or so), new tanks are pretty much the only way of progress we can see in the game. Third group would be players from countries, who do not have their tanks yet, but want them. This is for example the Czechoslovak and Polish community (2 out of 3 biggest communities on EU server), but also the Hungarians from what I’ve seen and Italians as well. There are many fans of Swedish tanks too.

The second point is also something quite important. Sometimes, I have the feeling that a lot of players live in the WoT two or even three years ago. I was there pretty much from the release, I remember how it was too. Three nations – USA, Germany and Russia and that was it. Under those circumstances, it was not hard to have each tree “original” (Germans: boxy snipers, Soviets – round brawlers, Americans – comfortable mobile rapid fire). Time has moved on however and the differences were washed away. Germany now has round tanks, autoloaders do not belong exclusively to the French anymore, Americans have hard hitting massive tank destroyers and such. The cold hard truth is, there is very little original (gameplay-wise) stuff left to implement (the only somewhat original remaining thing is a SPG/TD hybrid such as Sturmtiger and personally, I have my doubts now that it will ever see the game, but who knows). In other words, even if there was no EU tree, what original stuff would be there:

- French heavies? Yea, mobile 120mm-grade heavies with sloped frontal armor are in the game already
- French AMX-30 line? AMX-30 is pretty much a clone of the Leopard 1 (low armor, 105mm gun, mobile)
- Firefly? Run-of-the-mill rapid fire, accurate but fragile medium tank
- British turretted TD’s? That we have already (American turret line)
- Chinese TD’s? Those are just Soviet clones on different suspension
- Japanese heavies? Big slow boxy armored tanks, yup, already there

And so on. Does that mean any of this should not be implemented? Of course not, I would play many of those vehicles. All I am trying to demonstrate is that “originality” – or the “something special” element is simply gone, the concepts already mixed amongst the branches and that’s how it is, that’s how it was even in real life (development schools always influenced one another).

Third point answer is “definitely” and we will get to that in part II. I promise you that when you see some of the potential EU tree stuff, you will think “damn I would definitely play that” at least once – even if you won’t admit it :P

What, wall of text and no pictures?

Okay okay… a teaser…

MECwR9d

62 thoughts on “European Tree part I – Introduction of the Concept”

  4. If an EU tree means I get to see and play tanks like the BT-42 and P40, then I’m all for its implementation. EU tanks sure beats China’s T-54 clones any day.

      • I dont think EU tree should get a lot of attention because featuring vehicles from different nations in one EU tree means that you cannot take your crews from one tank to the other if you switch nationalities.
        It wouldnt make any sense to research a swedish tank by playing a italian tank.
        In the lower tiers will be a lot of different models because a lot of nations developed their own tanks up to a certain level but everything beyond lets say tier 7 would be pretty much fantasy.

        • I’m guessing they will probably just waive the nationality requirement for EU tree. EU tree tanks will get EU tree crewmen.

          This is a game, after all.

          As for nothing beyond Tier 7…you do realize a lot of the nations in EU developer tanks during the late 40s and early 50s right? Not just Germany and France?

    • Implying Finland will have it’s own tree…
      BT-42 is like the only even semi-original succesful tank project. And by succesful I mean they were used, not that they were any good.

  6. Then why do we got Chinese vehicles,m? They are just a borrowed tanks with chinese implements…
    Oh, sorry… We gonna get a lot more imaginary tanks like last german TD line, who’s jobs was to be howitzers NOT TDs…
    Give me European tech-tree. Its gonna be largest and most players from EU is gonna play that tanks. End of story. Thats why they dont wanna let us have this tech tree.

      • Dude, Chinese have 1.5 billion people world-wide. 1% of those to play WoT, and they have EU+US servers players beaten by numbers.

    • Trying to say marder 38t, pz.slf. IV, nashorn, sturer Emil are all fantasy? If I remember correctly the rhm, waffen IV were real developments only leaving WTE100 as fantasy so try telling me the second German TD line is fantasy ey

      I’m all up for tanks from other nations gameplay wise might be nothing new but it prob be the closed we ever get to driving those tanks for real.

      • Real developments? Maybe on paper. Is there any real photo of them? As a prototype? No.
        German tanks+ autoloader= dream fantasy tanks.

  8. It’s also a good odea for HB: EU Tech tree would also allow to players to particiate to invasion of Poland or battles in Italia (and so on), which are also historicals. ;)
    If WG implement that..

      • You are correct, this is not a Stridsvagn 103, it has very distinctive side skirts, and this picture does not have this feature. Im going to guess at some European concept from one of the smaller more defense-based countries. It also looks like the transmission is in the front, and the driver and radio (I’m guessing) vision ports are slightly different – this also sets it apart from the S-103.

  11. What i realy want to see as a tree is the “insanity tree”… obscure tanks with weird playstyles.
    Like Kugelpanzer as a scout that can only harm you if it rams you (but then he loses mobility thus ruining his own game); the T-100 that is an SPG-like creature within a heavy tank (he must camp and you can blow it up easily but he can oneshot you); or the T-27 as an assasin and an annoying little fly… Or something like that.
    It would be a FUN thing that “daddies” and “kids” can turn into when they got frustrated.

  12. *sigh*

    I’ve played WoT on both “Closed Beta” and “Open Beta” times, and boy, the T-34-85 and KT was amazing at that time…

  14. As a casual player of WoT, I run tanks that I enjoyed learning about in real life. I tend to avoid “paper panzers” with a few exceptions. I mainly run TDs from all the lines, and esp. enjoy the ARL V39 (yeah, I know, I’m weird that way) so seeing a ‘unified’ EU tree from all the little nations around would be great fun, esp. with all their TD designs, even if a lot of them never made it off the drawing board.
    So, in short, more tanks to choose from in the game is *never* a bad thing.

  16. SS…
    Which Bulgarian tanks lol :P
    Why not just the Panzer 4 with the Soviet gun and gun mount on top as a tier 4-5 premium?
    I cant think of other. We mostly copied what worked or used what we got.

  17. - British turretted TD’s? That we have already (American turret line)

    1 TD doesn’t define a line.
    FV215b 183, Charioteer, Avenger, FV4004 and FV4005 for example.

  18. Grinding tanks was my motivation to play, now I’m at the last tiers where the grinding is slow and not fun!

    I used to play half a day grinding 5-10 tanks at once, doing their doubles, now only 2, which gets pretty boring!

    And I’m waiting for EU tanks, but WG keeps failing at providing what I desire!

    • Completely agree. Grinding new tanks is biggest motivation to play. New tanks makes game different with every patch so there comes new golas and new thing to learn (I remember British TDs and my “How the hell can i kill that thing???”)

  19. “- French AMX-30 line? AMX-30 is pretty much a clone of the Leopard 1″

    …a line is more than its T10 capstone you know. This one would presumably *also* have the early-war Cavalry tanks that varied from featherweight pipsqueaks like the AMR 35 to the fast all-rounder AMC 35 to the semi-fast steelwall H39 and the famed SOMUA S35. Presumably at least one of the still-unused Char G1 designs would turn up too.

    Granted I’m kind of scratching my head over what there would be in the upper tiers before the AMX-30 though.

  22. I would love to see a European Tree.

    I only play tanks that I am interested in mostly because I want to drive and shoot in my favorite tanks I read about when I was much younger.

    I am also a 1/35th scale armor hobbyist and its one thing to build a model kit of a tank. Its another to be able to go in game and play that same tank in combat.

    When I first started playing WoT the first premium tank I purchased was a Valentine II LL. While everyone sings the Matilda II’s praises I have always been a big Valentine tank fan.

    There are several European tree tanks I would love to see in game because I find them interesting and would love to play one in game. Swedish L-60, Hungarian Toldi II, Turan, Zyrini, and T44M TAS tanks.

  23. …it’s nowhere near the “world of T-54 clones” China (or even Russia) has for example.

    I hope that they’re as different from other tanks as the Chinese ones are. Someone who thinks that the T-34-1, -2 and -3 are “clones” of the T-54 has clearly never played them.

  24. “while others were outright enemies (Romania vs Bulgaria)” not right, they where allies.

  25. Pingback: European Tree part II – Tanks of the EU Nations | For The Record

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