Fleet Readiness Discussion

[generalvikus]

I've been playing through my first game as Britain - also my first real game on large fleet size. So far, I have enjoyed it immensely; it is almost certainly the best game I've played so far. Britain forces players to deal with problems that are new to me - the necessity of maintaining a truly global defence network. 

My initial policy was to maintain large battle fleets in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and South East Asia at all times, and to juggle forces according to tensions, while colonial service cruisers and gunboats would take care of tonnage requirements in low priority areas. However, I soon found the costs of projecting power around the world in peacetime to be prohibitively expensive. After the Dreadnought race began, funds became scarce enough that I decided to abandon my initial policy. I decided that I would simply satisfy the minimum tonnage requirements of all stations during peacetime, while the rest of the fleet would remain in home waters. I would maintain a comfortable lead over all opponents in Northern Europe at all times; ships that were not required to maintain this lead would be placed in reserve. 

Even with this policy, which sacrificed a great deal of readiness in order to save costs, I found that my maintenance costs rapidly overtook my construction costs. I began having to make difficult choices, chipping away at the battle-ready forces on foreign stations until only skeleton crews remained. As I began to anticipate war with France over the course of 1911, I deployed a large force to South East Asia to meet the large battle fleet they had there, but when war took me by surprise at 50% tension, I found myself unprepared. 

Clearly, then, the question of readiness vs construction is one of the major dilemmas of the game. In periods of peacetime with low tensions, I tried to maintain a roughly 50 / 50 balance between the construction and maintenance budget. Even this modest measure made me feel exposed. Ships that had not yet outlived their usefulness went into reserves and mothballs, and yet still more ships that were rapidly approaching obsolescence (and deserve to retire) could not be replaced with the available budget.

My question to you, then, is this: What are your guiding principles regarding fleet readiness? What rough ratio do you maintain between the construction and maintenance budgets in peacetime? What sort of readiness levels do you maintain at various levels of tension? Specifically regarding Britain - what measures do you take to maintain a cost - effective Imperial Defence? 

[bramborough]

I'm pretty new myself, only now finishing up my second campaign. I've played France & USA so far. Neither quite has Britain's global presence problem, but neither is Austria either, with several regions that do need continuous presence. I've dealt with same problems albeit smaller scale (but usually smaller budget, at least until USA's late game). My own thoughts on this still evolving, but this is kinda where I'm at right now.

- I've gotten pretty tolerant of many ships going into RF. "Fair" crew quality isn't a disaster, and takes just a couple of turns to ramp back up to Good. Assuming that the adversary is bound by the same constraints as the player, remember they probably have a lot of RF/MB ships as well...they'd have to, to support the level of BB/BC construction one often sees from the AI. Also notice that the Almanac and the force levels on the strategic map often don't match. For example, the almanac might say Italy has 8 B's, 10 CA's, and 14 CL's...but most of them don't appear on the map, so obviously a lot of those ships are at least in RF.

- ASW/CP vessels I just outright mothball. I like building lots of MS's, and about 8-10 yrs along, my legacy-fleet 400/500t DD's also go into this duty. As far as I can tell, crew quality means little or even nothing in the abstract calculations of the submarine campaign, so the Poor crew quality doesn't seem to be a big deal at the war's outbreak. The ships are small, the individual savings are paltry...but there's usually a lot of these little ships, and it adds up.

- Raiding cruisers. I haven't actually done it yet, but in my next campaign I'm going to experiment with the same idea for purpose-built dedicated raider CL's. Like submarines/ASW, their contribution is abstracted outside of tactical battle, so I suspect that raiders mothballed at start of a war might be okay.

- Submarines. May or may not be relevant to one's playstyle...some folks don't use subs much. But, what I do is build submarines, but then halt construction on them with 1 turn left before completion. That way I'm not paying any maintenance or construction cost on them at all in peacetime, and can still activate them all in 1 turn simply by resuming construction. Subs don't have crew quality or different operational statuses; they're just built or not built.

- Overseas presence. I still haven't settled on a preferred method. I've tried purpose-built legacy cruisers, built "Lc" at game start. I've tried using large MS "colonial gunboats". I've tried using superseded legacy B's for the more developed regions requiring larger tonnage. They all work to some degree, but all have drawbacks as well. On a strictly cost-per-ton basis, the 1500ish-ton MS is probably the cheapest way to meet the tonnage requirement in peacetime...with the obvious drawback that they're absolutely good for *nothing* else when the war starts. Plus the fact that MS's wear out after about 10 yrs, so require a bit of micromanagement every few years to cycle them in and out of a blank-refit (of course, the regular ASW/CP MS's have the same problem, but they're all in home waters anyway, so don't require relief-on-station).

[rockmedic109]

I usually keep everything active till the last five years or so. England gets enough money and the increase in crew quality coupled with gunnery training and good Fire Control systems will win most engagements. In the later stages of the game, I'll but older dreadnoughts into Reserve. Mothball Fleet is used for those ships that might be required to maintain a blockade if I loose a battle.

I build good, solid ships without being great ones. 20 knots for the Battleline. 12" armor for BB and 9" for BC. 14-16" guns. Going for such ships saves money for a larger fleet, which the Brits need due to overseas commitments.

A dozen or two cheap MS. Mothballing them or DDs doesn't really save much money. I usually use war to increase the financial coffers. Then I'll have 100-150 mil to play with after the war.

My legacy fleet is built around two classes of cruisers. A huge 16,000 ton AC with a speed of 24 knots, 7" Belt, Turret, CT armor; 4x10", as many 6" secondaries and 5" tertiaries as I can cram onto them. These pseudo-battlecruisers can kill all the other ACs in the game and provide enough size that they can spring an invasion. The other class is an 8,000 ton Protected Cruiser with as many 6" guns as I can shoehorn into it, 24 knots and then as much armor that can be bolted on. These ships are built as colonial ships and serve most of those needs. Going big and fast early allows them to have a service life of over 20 years. This will allow more future money to be spent on battlecruisers as you are not constantly building new and improved Armored Cruisers and Light Cruisers.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way. Just your way. Game goes quick enough that you can always try other ideas out in the next game.

[rockmedic109]

Dec 2, 2017 17:02:38 GMT -6 rockmedic109 said:

I usually keep everything active till the last five years or so. England gets enough money and the increase in crew quality coupled with gunnery training and good Fire Control systems will win most engagements. In the later stages of the game, I'll put older dreadnoughts into Reserve. Mothball Fleet is used for those ships that might be required to maintain a blockade if I loose a battle.

I build good, solid ships without being great ones. 20 knots for the Battleline. 12" armor for BB and 9" for BC. 14-16" guns. Going for such ships saves money for a larger fleet, which the Brits need due to overseas commitments.

A dozen or two cheap MS. Mothballing them or DDs doesn't really save much money. I usually use war to increase the financial coffers. Then I'll have 100-150 mil to play with after the war.

My legacy fleet is built around two classes of cruisers. A huge 16,000 ton AC with a speed of 24 knots, 7" Belt, Turret, CT armor; 4x10", as many 6" secondaries and 5" tertiaries as I can cram onto them. These pseudo-battlecruisers can kill all the other ACs in the game and provide enough size that they can spring an invasion. The other class is an 8,000 ton Protected Cruiser with as many 6" guns as I can shoehorn into it, 24 knots and then as much armor that can be bolted on. These ships are built as colonial ships and serve most of those needs. Going big and fast early allows them to have a service life of over 20 years. This will allow more future money to be spent on battlecruisers as you are not constantly building new and improved Armored Cruisers and Light Cruisers.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way. Just your way. Game goes quick enough that you can always try other ideas out in the next game.

[generalvikus]

Dec 2, 2017 12:20:21 GMT -6 bramborough said:

I'm pretty new myself, only now finishing up my second campaign. I've played France & USA so far. Neither quite has Britain's global presence problem, but neither is Austria either, with several regions that do need continuous presence. I've dealt with same problems albeit smaller scale (but usually smaller budget, at least until USA's late game). My own thoughts on this still evolving, but this is kinda where I'm at right now.

- I've gotten pretty tolerant of many ships going into RF. "Fair" crew quality isn't a disaster, and takes just a couple of turns to ramp back up to Good. Assuming that the adversary is bound by the same constraints as the player, remember they probably have a lot of RF/MB ships as well...they'd have to, to support the level of BB/BC construction one often sees from the AI. Also notice that the Almanac and the force levels on the strategic map often don't match. For example, the almanac might say Italy has 8 B's, 10 CA's, and 14 CL's...but most of them don't appear on the map, so obviously a lot of those ships are at least in RF.

- ASW/CP vessels I just outright mothball. I like building lots of MS's, and about 8-10 yrs along, my legacy-fleet 400/500t DD's also go into this duty. As far as I can tell, crew quality means little or even nothing in the abstract calculations of the submarine campaign, so the Poor crew quality doesn't seem to be a big deal at the war's outbreak. The ships are small, the individual savings are paltry...but there's usually a lot of these little ships, and it adds up.

- Raiding cruisers. I haven't actually done it yet, but in my next campaign I'm going to experiment with the same idea for purpose-built dedicated raider CL's. Like submarines/ASW, their contribution is abstracted outside of tactical battle, so I suspect that raiders mothballed at start of a war might be okay.

- Submarines. May or may not be relevant to one's playstyle...some folks don't use subs much. But, what I do is build submarines, but then halt construction on them with 1 turn left before completion. That way I'm not paying any maintenance or construction cost on them at all in peacetime, and can still activate them all in 1 turn simply by resuming construction. Subs don't have crew quality or different operational statuses; they're just built or not built.

- Overseas presence. I still haven't settled on a preferred method. I've tried purpose-built legacy cruisers, built "Lc" at game start. I've tried using large MS "colonial gunboats". I've tried using superseded legacy B's for the more developed regions requiring larger tonnage. They all work to some degree, but all have drawbacks as well. On a strictly cost-per-ton basis, the 1500ish-ton MS is probably the cheapest way to meet the tonnage requirement in peacetime...with the obvious drawback that they're absolutely good for *nothing* else when the war starts. Plus the fact that MS's wear out after about 10 yrs, so require a bit of micromanagement every few years to cycle them in and out of a blank-refit (of course, the regular ASW/CP MS's have the same problem, but they're all in home waters anyway, so don't require relief-on-station).

In the manual, it states that ASW / CP ships are affected by crew quality. I assume therefore that raiders are the same, and also keep in mind that they often get intercepted and have to fight an on-screen battle. I have never actually used dedicated raiders before, or at least only in a very limited capacity. As for my ASW / CP ships - I used to keep them mothballed like you, but now they stay in reserve. 

I use a mixture of all three at the same time for my overseas presence requirements. In low priority areas, at the start of the game, I had one colonial cruiser and two gunboats to meet the tonnage requirement. Nowadays, higher priority areas get about three cruisers, but when playing as Britain so far I`ve found that you often rely on ad hoc solutions to foreign tonnage - send whatever`s closest until it can be relieved by something else. My system is far from rationalised at the moment, and that`s on my to-do list after this war. I also may revert to maintaining a battle fleet - even a small one - on all stations at all times, and perhaps keeping a greater portion of the Home Fleet in reserve / mothballs to compensate. 

[fredsanford]

How about training? That has dramatic impact on O&M cost, so I usually don't do it in peacetime, until I get up to orange tension, when I'll turn on gunnery. Late game, I don't bother with training as I'll generally outshoot the AI anyhow using improved/advanced directors.

[generalvikus]

Dec 2, 2017 20:56:42 GMT -6 fredsanford said:

How about training? That has dramatic impact on O&M cost, so I usually don't do it in peacetime, until I get up to orange tension, when I'll turn on gunnery. Late game, I don't bother with training as I'll generally outshoot the AI anyhow using improved/advanced directors.

I considered cutting down training during this game - it would certainly reduce costs massively. However, what prevented me from doing so was the 12 month cool down period - meaning that once you cancel training, the soonest you can have it back again is 24 months. Its actual combat impact is of course difficult to judge - as it should be - but I have noticed throughout this game so far that my ships, even old protected cruisers which have never been refitted, have demonstrated superior accuracy compared to the enemies they've faced (on the other hand, the age of those old cruisers is balanced out by the fact that their crews are extremely elite.) I always thought that Japan, for example, should pursue its historical strategy of focusing on night fighting and torpedo warfare from around 1910 - 1915 onward when torpedoes get good, allowing it to go toe-to-toe with the larger British and American fleets. I have yet to test this strategy, though. 

I think that it must be more of a necessity with countries that are outnumbered, and therefore have to rely on quality over quantity. That is, of course, not the case for the Royal Navy. The only way to tell how necessary it is, I suppose, is to try out your method in my next game as a large country and compare the two experiences. 

[bcoopactual]

There are two ways to stop training. One way is is to hit the 'stop training' button and the other is to uncheck the boxes and hit 'apply' just like you would if you wanted to switch training focuses.  If you click on the stop training button you'll get a warning but if you follow through the training and costs end after that turn. Unchecking the boxes and updating takes a full year to be in effect. So you can get your training back within 13 months by using the stop training button.

I do similar to what fredsanford does. I start training whenever tension gets to 9 with anyone and end it as soon as the peace is signed. I do it through the whole game however.

[aeson]

In general, I keep my fleet training continuously from fairly early in the game all the way to the end, typically focusing on Gunnery and Night Fighting. I've seen too many wars start in relatively few turns from a bad string of events even with fairly moderate tensions prior to that point for me to be comfortable switching off training while tensions are low and assuming that I can get things back into shape before the outbreak of war when tensions start creeping up again.

My views on placing various types of ship in mothballs or the reserves:
- Unless you have a very large number of them, the money you save for putting destroyers and small minesweepers into the reserve fleet or in mothballs is negligible. Even the ~20-30k/month for a late-game destroyer is peanuts compared to your operating budget, and if you can't afford to operate at a deficit so minor that it can be corrected merely by sending the minesweepers and destroyers into the reserves or placing them in mothballs then in my opinion your finances are in serious trouble.
- The only use I can see for large minesweepers is as colonial gunboats to fulfill foreign station requirements, as they're really too expensive to mass for coastal patrol and antisubmarine work and for the cost a small cruiser would probably be better for trade protection. Since ships in the reserve fleet or in mothballs cannot be stationed in colonial areas and probably wouldn't count towards the tonnage requirements even if they could, I see no reason to keep such a vessel if it isn't going to be in active service or explicitly on foreign station.
- I feel that old, slow cruisers are generally safer in colonial areas than in home waters, especially for powers which share home sea zones with potential enemies as is the case for the European powers, so if I'm going to keep them, I don't usually want to keep them at home, and since I cannot keep ships in the reserves or in mothballs anywhere but at home, I don't really want to keep my old, slow cruisers in the reserve fleet or in mothballs. When a cruiser class becomes too obsolete for fleet service, it gets a refit for colonial service; when it becomes too obsolete for colonial service, at least one newer fleet cruiser class is likely ready to become a colonial cruiser class, and can replace the old colonial cruisers, which are then scrapped. I don't want old, slow cruisers handicapping my faster modern ships by getting paired with them, and I really don't want them doing that in home waters while suffering a crew quality penalty when my enemy's most modern ships are likely in the same sea zone. Small, relatively slow cruisers may additionally have much the same issue as the destroyers and minesweepers - you don't save enough money by mothballing them for it to really be worthwhile.
-- Old CAs are a bit of a special case in that I rarely bother replacing them with more modern equivalents, unless you consider the 'dreadnought armored cruiser' (better known as the battlecruiser) to be their more modern equivalents, and sometimes I don't bother keeping them in any kind of service once I've built my first battlecruiser or two. If they make it to the colonial cruiser fleet, they will normally end up being replaced in that service by CLs as soon as I can manage to do it, because I have thus far not built a reasonably economical CA which I have found to be anything other than a liability once battlecruisers have entered service. Now and then I try it again, but they keep running into battlecruisers and getting mauled or sunk if I try to use them for anything other than service in relatively safe colonial areas, and if all they're going to do is fulfill tonnage requirements in a relatively safe colonial area then I really don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth out of them, because for about the same price as two of them I could've built around four midsize or large CLs which can babysit relatively safe colonial areas about as well as the two armored cruisers can (maybe somewhat better, maybe somewhat worse depending on the number of stations and the tonnage required at each), or I could've built a battlecruiser and had a far more useful heavy unit than the pair of armored cruisers.
- Old battleships might actually be worth keeping around in the reserve fleet or in mothballs, especially if you don't increase the speed of the battle line too drastically after withdrawing them from peacetime active service. Unfortunately, reactivating a decent number of them after the outbreak of war can be quite painful - especially if they were mothballed - even with wartime funding increases (wartime AF upkeep is if I recall correctly 1.5 times peacetime AF upkeep, three times RF upkeep, or 7.5 times MB upkeep, and I think overseas service adds another 10-20% on top of that if you need the reactivated ships outside of home waters), and if you can't really afford to reactivate a decent number of them when a war breaks out you almost may as well have gotten rid of them, because even if they're 'only' in the reserve fleet they don't seem to count towards the blockade score even for preventing the enemy from blockading you, and I don't recall ever seeing a ship that wasn't in the sea zone and set to something other than AF, FS, R, or CP show up for a battle.
- Old battlecruisers are either worth keeping in the active fleet or not worth keeping at all, at least in my opinion. A pre-1910 battlecruiser probably has little enough armor that 10" guns start to become something like a serious threat in the mid-1920s, the guns it carries are probably on the light end of the capital range and are probably also of poor quality unless you gave it an expensive reconstruction, and it's probably also slow, at least by mid-1910s and later battlecruiser standards.

- Raiding cruisers. I haven't actually done it yet, but in my next campaign I'm going to experiment with the same idea for purpose-built dedicated raider CL's. Like submarines/ASW, their contribution is abstracted outside of tactical battle, so I suspect that raiders mothballed at start of a war might be okay.

I'm not positive about this, but I think that crew quality impacts the likelihood of a ship gaining the * status when in a region with inadequate base capacity, and the * status indicates that a ship should return to a base soon for resupply and maintenance or it risks being lost to scuttling or internment. Might not be an issue if you use very light surface raiders, but it could be more problematic if you're using something heavier and thus more valuable.

Also, I personally like to leave my surface raiders at their war stations during peacetime unless I really need to cut expenses, especially if I'm playing a power which is relatively vulnerable to blockade (whether due to me being silly and building a fleet with an overabundance of undersized cruisers that were only really meant to serve as raiders or for more rational reasons), which tends to be difficult to do if they're mothballed or in the reserve fleet.

[bramborough]

Dec 2, 2017 20:18:42 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

In the manual, it states that ASW / CP ships are affected by crew quality.

Hmm. So it does. I had missed that before. Looks like I need to settle for RF. Also while I was hunting down that reference, I re-read the bit about mine warfare, and now wonder if I need to put some MS's overseas anyway (not for presence tonnage), which I had not been doing. Although admittedly, hitting mines hasn't been a problem so far; I can only remember one mine strike over two (both now complete) games.

And aeson brings up a good point about the raider intercept encounters as well. Guess I'm not gonna be MB'ing my raiders either (although might RF). His bigger point is important though: the ships which hurt least to RF/MB are the ones which don't generate much savings anyway...or if they are numerous enough to result in significant budget cuts, then that might be an indication that you've built or kept around way too many of them in the first place. Since my last post, this was brought home to me by the final years of my USA game. I'd retained 11 old CL's for foreign tonnage and raiders. Two classes which had been quite successful pre-1920 (in those roles) were mercilessly pummelled in 1924-25; they were in a "sighted=sunk" situation. Clearly I'd kept them around "one war too long", and was just handing France/Russia free VP.

[bcoopactual]

Dec 3, 2017 4:12:58 GMT -6 aeson said:

In general, I keep my fleet training continuously from fairly early in the game all the way to the end, typically focusing on Gunnery and Night Fighting. I've seen too many wars start in relatively few turns from a bad string of events even with fairly moderate tensions prior to that point for me to be comfortable switching off training while tensions are low and assuming that I can get things back into shape before the outbreak of war when tensions start creeping up again.

That's definitely a risk.  I've had a war start from a tension as low as 7 (and it might have been 6, I don't remember now) because I insulted the AI's new cruiser and crew when they arrived for a port visit.  That time I had to wait the full year for the training to apply.  Usually if the war happens before the year of training-up is complete it's by about 3-4 months.  I just play defensively and try not to risk my more valuable units in combat until the training goes into effect.  I think the benefit of the extra money when tensions, and your budget is low, is worth that risk but I see the other side as well.  

Dec 3, 2017 7:51:50 GMT -6 bramborough said:

Also while I was hunting down that reference, I re-read the bit about mine warfare, and now wonder if I need to put some MS's overseas anyway (not for presence tonnage), which I had not been doing. Although admittedly, hitting mines hasn't been a problem so far; I can only remember one mine strike over two (both now complete) games.

I would definitely have a number of minesweepers anywhere you station your larger fleet units.  Not out with surface raiders but anywhere you have large units based.  Anytime I deploy my battleships out of my home areas (to Northern Europe or to Southeast Asia as the USA for example), I try to deploy between 4-8 minesweepers with them.  There is no perfect number to have, a lot depends on what the enemy AI is doing towards laying mines in the area.  If you start getting ships mined, move more MS's into the area.  You can still use them in the CP/ASW role once you have moved them (they can't move ocean areas while in CP/ASW mode) and they will lookout for mines while they are patrolling.  

[generalvikus]

In my next game as UK / USA, I will definitely forgo training in peacetime. It's now 1923 in the UK game I mentioned, and the USA has managed to establish a comfortable lead over my battle fleet with a considerably smaller budget; this was despite my attempts to save costs by combining the BB / BC roles into large fast battleships (designated BCs) and the aenemic nature of my cruiser force (since neither my legacy armoured cruisers or protected cruisers could be satisfactorily rebuilt, they have mostly been scrapped - apart from the legacy fleet cruisers, half of which are still in active status (!) since they couldn't be replaced after all this time. One thing I never went so far as to do was begin to place the earlier BBs / BCs into reserve; I may have to consider doing so next time tensions are low.

In every war I have fought, my ships have demonstrated far superior gunnery to their opponents. This is no doubt partly due to my very advanced fire control, and partly to the gunnery training. However, my shortage of cash has been chronic despite maintaining the largest budget for the entire game so far. I don't believe that the cost is justifiable for Britain. I believe this is most likely to be different for smaller powers who expect to be outnumbered and choose to focus on quality to offset the disadvantage. Japan is the archetypal example.

[dorn]

I usually put in reserve or mothball old dreadnoughts or pre-dreadnoughts in 2 occasions:
a) to use them to increase blockade points or for the defence against the blockade
b) to support the fleet where I want to invade
There are not expected to be in battle so their training does not matter. And in your fleet battles if you have enough modern ships they are not generated to be part of the battle.

I mothball or put into reserve fleet old raiders cruiser which are not strong enough to fight so their is no issue about crew quality. There are usually used in remote areas.

[Airy W]

The only special training I ever use is night fighting. For the other training, it's expensive and I could get the same effect by mobilizing my fleet sooner.

Speaking of mobilizing my fleet, I usually keep part of my fleet on reserve status until tensions are high. It's useful to time the shift into reserve status around ship rebuilds because those lower crew quality anyways. The savings from reserve ships are substantial and allow me to keep my fleet more modern. Crew quality will quickly rise during wartime, ship quality will not.

[garrisonchisholm]

Dec 3, 2017 9:59:54 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

In my next game as UK / USA, I will definitely forgo training in peacetime. It's now 1923 in the UK game I mentioned, and the USA has managed to establish a comfortable lead over my battle fleet with a considerably smaller budget; this was despite my attempts to save costs by combining the BB / BC roles into large fast battleships (designated BCs) and the aenemic nature of my cruiser force (since neither my legacy armoured cruisers or protected cruisers could be satisfactorily rebuilt, they have mostly been scrapped - apart from the legacy fleet cruisers, half of which are still in active status (!) since they couldn't be replaced after all this time. One thing I never went so far as to do was begin to place the earlier BBs / BCs into reserve; I may have to consider doing so next time tensions are low.

In every war I have fought, my ships have demonstrated far superior gunnery to their opponents. This is no doubt partly due to my very advanced fire control, and partly to the gunnery training. However, my shortage of cash has been chronic despite maintaining the largest budget for the entire game so far. I don't believe that the cost is justifiable for Britain. I believe this is most likely to be different for smaller powers who expect to be outnumbered and choose to focus on quality to offset the disadvantage. Japan is the archetypal example.

Some may deem it wasteful, but I use the contrary approach, and win 90%+ of my wars & games.  I start training Night Fighting & Gunnery on turn one, and leave it in place all game.  Perhaps my fleets are smaller or "less modern", but winning is possible all the same.  Focus on gunnery and gun tubes, steer as steady a course as possible, and win.