What do all the numbers mean?

[qossuth]

Okay, I've been playing the game for months and I still don't really know what all the numbers on the strategic map mean. There's almost nothing in the documentation, all I can find is this: "Ships are deployed in an area, either a home area or on a foreign station. The number of ships that can be deployed in an area is dependent on the base value of the area."

Dependent how? What's the function? What do the numbers mean?

Let's start a new game, a default Great Britain with very large fleet, no historical resources, no manual build of legacy fleet, 100% research, no varied tech. Looking at Northern Europe, here's what I find:

1) On the left side, where the sea zones are listed I find: Northern Europe 266,500 (280/460)
2) When I hover over Northern Europe I find: 9BB, 8CA, 13 CL, 31 DD (182)
3) When I click on Northern Europe I find: Force requirement: 0; Force in area (adjusted): 266,500; same list of ships and value as when I hover; and base capacity 460

In line 1 above, 266,500 is indeed the total displacement tonnage of all the ships I have in Northern Europe (I checked). And the 460 in the parentheses (though it's not clear what that number actually means -- tonnage in thousands? some function of tonnage?) is clearly the total base value for GB in Northern Europe. Cool! But what the heck is that "280" in the parentheses, and what is it based on and what does it mean? By the way, when I look at other regions, it soon becomes clear that the 266,500 value is NOT the total displacement, but the total displacement IN EXCESS OF REQUIREMENTS. Since Northern Europe has no force requirement, all the tonnage there is "excess." But we're still stuck not yet knowing what the 280 is.

In line 2 the ship amounts are self-explanatory (and match what we find on the "in service" tab for Northern Europe). But the "(182)" is pretty inscrutable. It appears to be based on the ships in the region. In my sample game there are two regions (West Africa and Northeast Asia) that are held by two 4700 ton CLs each. Line 2s for those regions are: 2 CL (6). So not displacement (in thousands), at least not 1:1.

About blockade, the documentation offers: "To blockade a nation, you must have 110% of the enemy’s naval strength in the build area of the enemy nation. Naval strength for this purpose is computed as a sum of all ships in the area, weighted by type." My guess is that the line 2 values are "naval strength" and that the (182) value relates to blockades (and probably invasions, though for some reason the latest manual seems to have excised all mention of invasions?). Perhaps CLs are given a type weighting of 3? Okay, going with this and looking at other regions I'm able to figure out that the game, for the purposes of those parenthetical values, seems to weight ship types by the following scheme: B = 8, CA = 5, CL = 3, and DD = 1. (I assume greater amounts for BBs and BCs, but it should be pretty easy to figure out those values when such ships arrive.)

No matter what I do I can't come up with a way to generate the parenthetical 280 in line 1 above. A logistics weighting scheme based on B = 11, CA = 7, CL = 5, and DD = 2 almost works, but CAs seem to give weird results. For instance if I move four CAs into West Africa while moving other ships out, I wind up with a line 1 West Africa result of 28. That checks. But when I add another CA, instead of the expected result of 35, I get 37. To add further complication, five CAs in The Mediterranean = 39. Sigh.

So if anybody can shed light on exactly what's going on here and how the values for line 1 logistic weights are determined, I'd love to hear it!

[JagdFlanker]

i'v been playing for over a year and a half and i have no idea what it all means, but i find hovering the mouse over the seazone gives me all the info i need anyways - once i have more ship points than the enemy and blockade them i can start to relax and only accept battles i enjoy and let the blockade take care of ending the war

the rest of the info looks more like 'nice to know' as opposed to 'need to know', but i'm with you where it'd be 'nice to know' what the numbers mean lol

[qossuth]

As far as I can tell, one critical number would be the "naval strength" value (my line 2 "(182)"), and determining that seems pretty straightforward. You should be able to know with certainty how much naval strength you will have after movement.

The other important number is probably the difference between the parenthetical values in my line 1. Somehow the game is calculating a logistic load and I believe it is outputting that number as the first number inside the parentheses. If greater than the base value (second parenthetical value) than I guess your ships are (more?) vulnerable to getting a "*" or suffering a hit to crew quality (?). It would be "nice to know" how to calculate that logistic load (before moving to a region and observing the result). At present I don't know how to do that precisely and can find nothing in the documentation that explains the effects I'm observing.

Why do five CAs "cost less" base value in West Africa than in The Mediterranean? Does anybody know?

[boomboomf22]

Dunno, maybe it is a ship matinence thing. Never really thought much aboot the game mechanics before. I just make botes and smah em together

[srndacful]

I've always figured that those two numbers represent the current tonnage of ships being supplied from that area, and the maximum tonnage of ships that can be supplied in that area. So, you're currently using 280 thousand tonnes of your 460 thousand tonne capacity. 

The catch here is that the game takes the tonnage of each individual ship, and then rounds it to the nearest full thousand - so, for example, a 7100 tonne ship is rounded to 8. This is why you have 266.500 tonnes of ships - drawing 280 points of supply. 

So, for the West Africa, I'm guessing you had 4 CA's weighting about 6100 to 7000 tonnes, and then added another weighting 8100 to 9000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, in the Med, you have 3 CA's in 6100 to 7000 tonne range, and 2 more in 8100 to 9000 tonne range. 

Let me know if I guessed right. 
Cheers!

[bcoopactual]

Mar 21, 2017 22:21:46 GMT -6 srndacful said:

I've always figured that those two numbers represent the current tonnage of ships being supplied from that area, and the maximum tonnage of ships that can be supplied in that area. So, you're currently using 280 thousand tonnes of your 460 thousand tonne capacity. 

The catch here is that the game takes the tonnage of each individual ship, and then rounds it to the nearest full thousand - so, for example, a 7100 tonne ship is rounded to 8. This is why you have 266.500 tonnes of ships - drawing 280 points of supply. 

So, for the West Africa, I'm guessing you had 4 CA's weighting about 6100 to 7000 tonnes, and then added another weighting 8100 to 9000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, in the Med, you have 3 CA's in 6100 to 7000 tonne range, and 2 more in 8100 to 9000 tonne range. 

Let me know if I guessed right. 
Cheers!

That's an interesting guess srndacful.  One thing to keep in mind with force in area (adjusted) number is that that takes into account any ship with the colony service trait.  Any such ship(s) will count as 1.25 its actual tonnage in that total number.  Of course there might not be any ships in Northern Europe with that trait so then it wouldn't matter.  Either way, none of that seriously undermines your guess.  I'd be interested to know if it's right as well because I'm not sure how the 280 out of the (280/460) is calculated either based on what qossuth wrote.  

[srndacful]

Mar 22, 2017 22:16:33 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

Mar 21, 2017 22:21:46 GMT -6 srndacful said:

I've always figured that those two numbers represent the current tonnage of ships being supplied from that area, and the maximum tonnage of ships that can be supplied in that area. So, you're currently using 280 thousand tonnes of your 460 thousand tonne capacity. 

The catch here is that the game takes the tonnage of each individual ship, and then rounds it to the nearest full thousand - so, for example, a 7100 tonne ship is rounded to 8. This is why you have 266.500 tonnes of ships - drawing 280 points of supply. 

So, for the West Africa, I'm guessing you had 4 CA's weighting about 6100 to 7000 tonnes, and then added another weighting 8100 to 9000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, in the Med, you have 3 CA's in 6100 to 7000 tonne range, and 2 more in 8100 to 9000 tonne range. 

Let me know if I guessed right. 
Cheers!

That's an interesting guess srndacful .  One thing to keep in mind with force in area (adjusted) number is that that takes into account any ship with the colony service trait.  Any such ship(s) will count as 1.25 its actual tonnage in that total number.  Of course there might not be any ships in Northern Europe with that trait so then it wouldn't matter.  Either way, none of that seriously undermines your guess.  I'd be interested to know if it's right as well because I'm not sure how the 280 out of the (280/460) is calculated either based on what qossuth wrote.  

IMHO, and other than the fact that both deal in the same ship's tonnage, there's no other point of contact between those three values:
1. You have the 'Colony patrol' - which is basically the tonnage + 1.25 modifier - and which deals with the tonnage required to keep the people 'happy' & prevents your Prestige loss due to 'unhappiness'.
2. You have the 'Blockade' value - which is the same arbitrary value mentioned by qossuth above (DD = 1, CL = 3 and so on) and it deals with the 'force' required to keep the enemy 'penned in' & losing. 
3. You have the 'Supply' value - which is basically the total tonnage currently in the area, rounded up + the total tonnage able to be supported by the area, and deals with prevention of ship breakdowns/scuttlings/internments.
A bit confusing, true - but that's all in a Grand Admiral's job description, and noone said it's be easy.

Cheers!

[konstantinua00]

there isn't just 1.25 modifier
there's a short range (or was it cramped) decrease modifier too

[qossuth]

Mar 21, 2017 22:21:46 GMT -6 srndacful said:

Let me know if I guessed right. 

Hm, I've moved on so I can't be sure if the discrepancy is from "rounding up" but my memory from a few weeks back is that this did NOT account for the weird numbers. In my OP I said "No matter what I do I can't come up with a way to generate the parenthetical 280 in line 1 above" and my memory is that I tried a variety of "rounding up" schemes (including the one you propose where 7,001 becomes 8,000, etc.), but nothing "worked." I'm also pretty sure that the difference I found for 5 CAs in The Med vs. West Africa used the same CAs.

Overall I feel that the three different weights deliver, roughly, very similar results, and I think using three numbers presents the obvious potential for confusion, not to mention bugs and balancing/tuning. Hardly the system that most needs work in this game (really, proper documentation would go a long way to "fixing" the issues I've pointed out), but it does seem like unnecessary complexity.