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Post by aeson on Dec 8, 2017 18:39:36 GMT -6
It was quite useless the way the AI used it. Ran it facefirst into a squadron of battleships with 16" guns. I very much doubt that any battlecruiser would have done much of anything particularly useful had it been run into a squadron of battleships with 16" guns, no matter what its main battery armament looked like. One on many is not a good fight to take even with very heavily armed and armored ships, and it's an even worse fight to take when your opponents are more heavily armed and armored than you are.
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Post by joebob73 on Dec 8, 2017 19:33:42 GMT -6
It was quite useless the way the AI used it. Ran it facefirst into a squadron of battleships with 16" guns. I very much doubt that any battlecruiser would have done much of anything particularly useful had it been run into a squadron of battleships with 16" guns, no matter what its main battery armament looked like. One on many is not a good fight to take even with very heavily armed and armored ships, and it's an even worse fight to take when your opponents are more heavily armed and armored than you are. Not just one of them, a full class of them. 6 of them vs 4 BBs. Meanwhile, their own BB line ran at full speed away from the fight, which they should have won. Most of the AI designed BCs could have at least made that a tough fight, but not these.
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Post by bramborough on Dec 12, 2017 13:17:41 GMT -6
So, after a couple more campaigns (still not much, but, twice as much experience as when typed OP), some refinements.
Ship design AI. While some folks have pointed out valid examples ITT, I am backing off just a little from the "AI builds weak ships" bit in OP. Just a little. It does do so sometimes, but also sometimes builds some really good ones. I don't know that we want a game where the opposition always builds optimum ships, or always uses them in precisely the role for which they were optimized. It doesn't always work that way for the player, nor did it in real life.
When I first typed that comment, I had in mind a few very lightly armed (but not particularly fast) AI CL's (just a few 4") which had posed no challenge. At the time, I wondered why the heck the AI had bothered to build such a useless vessel. Then later, in another campaign, with different strategic considerations and budget, I found myself building a few cheap ships very much like the weak AI vessels I'd scorned earlier. (and obtw...that wound up being an unsatisfactory experiment and I'd not be likely to repeat it. But the fact remains that I did build them, in at least one iteration of the "RTW universe". One thing we cannot expect of the AI is to learn over multiple campaigns like the player does).
Sometimes lousy ships have a place (cheap blockade value or colonial presence). Or reflect failed experiments/doctrines. Or represent ships that simply get caught in situations for which they were never intended. Perhaps the ship-design AI does need just a bit of tweaking, but I think I'd be pretty conservative and try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sometimes I click the auto-design and think "Oh goodness, that will never do...", but sometimes I think "dang, that's pretty good...I may not have to tinker with this at all".
Battle AI. The battle AI-related item which has most frustrated me is my own ships' maneuvering actions when heavily damaged. I do play in Admiral mode, and I accept that I can't micromanage each captain's action. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a ship on the razor's edge of flotation damage should slow to bare steerageway and *stay* there until it's safe to increase speed again (which may not be for the remainder of the scenario). I also think it's realistic at the Admiral mode level to expect a little more control (or "persistence") over detach/rejoin orders; more than once I've steamed near a detached vessel fighting flooding, and see it rejoin and suicide itself by ringing up 18kts. I'd recommend that any ship detached should stay detached until expressly ordered to rejoin, regardless of proximity.
I understand one should not and cannot expect AI captains (and RADM division commanders) to do precisely what the boss wants. That chaos of battle needs to be there. But I think all AI captains - unless ordered otherwise - should be pretty uniform in doing whatever they can to save their own ship...plowing ahead at clearly dangerous speed, whether detached or not, needs to be looked at. (I do recognize that "clearly dangerous speed" may not be as "clear" to the AI as it is to the player, and may not be quite as simple to code as might appear).
Coastal Fort Minefields. Interesting observation: in my last campaign (Russia), I built quite a few coastal fortifications, more than I had before (initially to see if it would significantly help against the inevitable Japanese sneak attack at Port Arthur. Lol, it didn't). In a war vs France, I noticed that enemy ships started experiencing a few mine strikes ("off-camera" messages, not during tactical battles). This by itself wasn't new, but this time I noticed it started happening before I had deployed any mine-equipped ships or submarines (for some reason the DD/CL mine-rail tech "skipped", and was very slow in coming this campaign). Those mine strikes could only have come from the coastal forts' defensive minefields. This was first evidence I'd seen that coastal fortifications do have tangible strategic value (separate from whatever they offer in some tactical scenarios). Spamming a lot of cheap 4" batteries in some ports may be a worthwhile investment after all.
I guess this does lead to a question after all (which I've seen posed before in these forums, but not sure I've ever seen an answer); whether there's a relationship between the strength of the battery and the strength of its associated minefields. Even if there is, I'd suspect it would still be more cost-effective (from a minefield perspective) to build several 4" batteries instead of one or two larger ones.
OR...did those mine strikes simply come from having the Active Mine Warfare tech, and "strategic-level" mine strikes occur independent of one's forts and mine-equipped ships? Every country has that early tech within a year or so of game start, I'd think.
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Post by bcoopactual on Dec 12, 2017 16:45:05 GMT -6
OR...did those mine strikes simply come from having the Active Mine Warfare tech, and "strategic-level" mine strikes occur independent of one's forts and mine-equipped ships? Every country has that early tech within a year or so of game start, I'd think. My understanding is coastal forts increase the size of minefields during a scenario in which they are present but I don't believe they contribute to strategic mine warfare (the events that occur outside of a scenario). At the strategic level each ocean area has a strategic mine value for the player and for the enemy. Enemy mine equipped ships in a particular area that are not in RF or MB status will raise the value for that area. Friendly minesweepers not in RF or MB status in that ocean area will lower the mine value. The higher the value the more likely you will get a message that one of your ships has struck a mine. The opposite works the same for your mine equipped ships and enemy minesweepers. The earliest ships that can be equipped with mines are AMC's. I don't know if Active Mine Warfare needs to be researched for them or not because the description for the tech only talks about defensive minefields. CL's and DD's have a specific tech that needs to be researched. Coastal forts do have the strategic effect though that they make it less likely that a territory will be invaded during a strategic turn.
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Post by bramborough on Dec 12, 2017 17:16:28 GMT -6
Rats. I thought I had stumbled across a compelling reason to build lots of coastal fortifications. Thus far their utility in tactical map has been underwhelming.
Maybe that strategic rationale exists, however, from the invasion-prevention perspective. I've thought from start that coastal forts must have some role, but I haven't found anything about the mechanics thereof (which would help greatly in decisions about level of investment, caliber vs quantity, etc). I'd guess it must be something similar to the blockade calculation. I've read (or heard) somewhere that a 3-to-1 naval points superiority in an area opens possibility of invasion (true? not true?). Presumably number/size of coastal fortifications modifies that ratio somehow, with big batteries probably counting more than small ones. So maybe a 4" battery counts like a DD, 6" as a CL, etc? Is this at least ballpark-correct in concept if not details, or completely wrong?
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Post by bcoopactual on Dec 12, 2017 18:11:18 GMT -6
Rats. I thought I had stumbled across a compelling reason to build lots of coastal fortifications. Thus far their utility in tactical map has been underwhelming. Maybe that strategic rationale exists, however, from the invasion-prevention perspective. I've thought from start that coastal forts must have some role, but I haven't found anything about the mechanics thereof (which would help greatly in decisions about level of investment, caliber vs quantity, etc). I'd guess it must be something similar to the blockade calculation. I've read (or heard) somewhere that a 3-to-1 naval points superiority in an area opens possibility of invasion (true? not true?). Presumably number/size of coastal fortifications modifies that ratio somehow, with big batteries probably counting more than small ones. So maybe a 4" battery counts like a DD, 6" as a CL, etc? Is this at least ballpark-correct in concept if not details, or completely wrong? I believe the ratio to open the opportunity for an invasion is 4-to-1. As far as how and how much coastal forts affect the chance for invasion, I have no idea. If you are interested and weren't aware, tbr posted a mod that makes coastal forts much more effective and cheaper so you may find more incentive to use them. Careful, the people who have used it (I don't use any mods in this game personally) have reported that, assuming you sail within range, the forts are dangerous at all times and really Deadly in the late game. The mod gives the forts quality 1 guns, better fire control and increased elevation if I remember the description correctly. The link is down the page in this thread.
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Post by bramborough on Dec 12, 2017 23:46:48 GMT -6
Good to know. I may try it out sometime. Or may not; lol, I usually play games with few or no mods, especially ones which significantly change gameplay. Sounds like you have similar habits, at least where RTW is concerned.
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