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Post by generalvikus on Jan 26, 2018 18:47:02 GMT -6
nah, that's fine, we might not have things to vote on every six months. also, theirs a Great War history project on youtube, one week of the war, every week, been running since 2014 I happen to be watching an episode right now! |
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Post by Enderminion on Jan 26, 2018 20:30:26 GMT -6
nah, that's fine, we might not have things to vote on every six months. also, theirs a Great War history project on youtube, one week of the war, every week, been running since 2014 I happen to be watching an episode right now! why is it that every time a notification pops up my first thought is "Oh **** what did I do now" |
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 26, 2018 22:25:07 GMT -6
To all those interested in joining this game:
Two of the three polls I've made so far have clear winners which are unlikely to change; out-of-character is beating role play 5 - 2, and very large fleet size is beating large 4 - 1. If anyone who wants to join the game would likely to cast their votes here, please feel free to do so.
On the other hand, the vote on countries is much closer; 3 for Germany, 2 for the USA, and 1 for the UK. I'm hesitant to start the game until we have a clearer winner on this question, so I'd like to encourage anyone who wants to join the game to vote in that poll.
I've been thinking about how to start; my view is that we proceed as we mean to continue. A discussion period will be opened for January 1900 during which players can make proposals for a formal ballot on the major issues at hand; overarching strategy, fleet composition, technology priority, diplomacy, and so on. Once we've decided on a fleet composition (that is, the rough proportion of the budget to be spent on each ship type, rough specifications for each ship type, and the tactical doctrine) we'll have our first design competition to fill all of the necessary roles. Once that's done, I'll start the game.
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Post by fredsanford on Jan 26, 2018 22:45:28 GMT -6
I voted UK because many people seem intimidated by the colonial complexity, so maybe a public group effort would be instructive. Also, their tech and shipbuilding is advanced so there's more possibilities as well as a greater variety of needs. Yet they're oddly vulnerable as well...so a rich yet fraught strategic situation.
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 26, 2018 23:22:43 GMT -6
I voted UK because many people seem intimidated by the colonial complexity, so maybe a public group effort would be instructive. Also, their tech and shipbuilding is advanced so there's more possibilities as well as a greater variety of needs. Yet they're oddly vulnerable as well...so a rich yet fraught strategic situation. I tend to agree - we need the game to be complex to keep it interesting. As I have said, a big country is needed to have enough room for more than one player. I played my last game as the UK and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The necessary variety of ship classes and the strategic dilemma of Imperial Defence would fit very well with this game format. On the other hand, I can see the other side of the argument - we want a decent challenge, after all. To some extent, the game is as challenging as you choose to make it, but it is unquestionable that being the most powerful navy in the world goes a very long way. I haven't voted, because I'm equally happy with all three options. I'll cast a vote if there's a tie, but until then I'd like to leave it for everybody else to decide. |
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Post by boomboomf22 on Jan 27, 2018 3:23:31 GMT -6
I've never been able to get a handle on the UK. I just can never seem to be able to build the sheer numbers the AI builds to the point where in basically every UK game I have ever had I have been regularly out built by Germany and/or France
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Post by dorn on Jan 27, 2018 3:44:26 GMT -6
I voted UK because many people seem intimidated by the colonial complexity, so maybe a public group effort would be instructive. Also, their tech and shipbuilding is advanced so there's more possibilities as well as a greater variety of needs. Yet they're oddly vulnerable as well...so a rich yet fraught strategic situation. I agree, I will add vote for UK too. USA - too easy, not needed to much cruisers as USA is separated from other great powers. Germany - could be interesting however UK - I think it could be most interesting, especially if game funds are used instead historical. Than your funds are huge but limited with your commitments. In this case making special designs are the must and could be much more interesting. I really sugest others who has already voted to reconsider as UK with game budget will not have so much superiority in capital ships and to achieve this the design of DD, CL, CA, BC need to be much more cost efficient than other nations. |
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Post by dorn on Jan 27, 2018 3:45:43 GMT -6
I've never been able to get a handle on the UK. I just can never seem to be able to build the sheer numbers the AI builds to the point where in basically every UK game I have ever had I have been regularly out built by Germany and/or France This is reason I will vote for UK. To look how others meet this difficulties. If they use different strategy. I think UK could be most experience play. |
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 27, 2018 4:13:24 GMT -6
I voted UK because many people seem intimidated by the colonial complexity, so maybe a public group effort would be instructive. Also, their tech and shipbuilding is advanced so there's more possibilities as well as a greater variety of needs. Yet they're oddly vulnerable as well...so a rich yet fraught strategic situation. I agree, I will add vote for UK too. USA - too easy, not needed to much cruisers as USA is separated from other great powers. Germany - could be interesting however UK - I think it could be most interesting, especially if game funds are used instead historical. Than your funds are huge but limited with your commitments. In this case making special designs are the must and could be much more interesting. I really sugest others who has already voted to reconsider as UK with game budget will not have so much superiority in capital ships and to achieve this the design of DD, CL, CA, BC need to be much more cost efficient than other nations. Personally, I always prefer to play with historical budget in all games, and I think that's the most popular route for people on the forums. I can see your point, but as for making the UK challenging - to some extent, the game will be as challenging as we make it. If we were to play in a reserved manner and pick our fights carefully, then of course the UK is quite easy, but if we throw caution to the wind and go for the highest possible prestige and the biggest possible fleet, I think it would be quite challenging enough. |
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 27, 2018 4:21:56 GMT -6
I've never been able to get a handle on the UK. I just can never seem to be able to build the sheer numbers the AI builds to the point where in basically every UK game I have ever had I have been regularly out built by Germany and/or France Do you play with historical budget when you get overtaken? If so, consider the following factors: Ship quality - if you're building lots of big, high quality ships, then your total number of ships is obviously going to be relatively lower than other countries that focus on quantity, which in my experience the AI seems to do. However, your total tonnage will most likely be relatively lower as well, as building a small number of very high quality ships is less cost efficient that lots of cheap, mass produced, expendable ships. Training - Training costs are huge, even if you only have gunnery. After my last game, I've decided that in future I'll cancel training in periods of low tension, and only start to ramp it up again when war approaches. Readiness - Having a large portion of your fleet constantly active is a huge drain on the coffers, and combined with training costs, it'll leave you really strapped for cash. You really have to be ruthless - ships sometimes have to go in the reserves even when they're not obsolete. During my last game as the UK, I eventually decided to adopt a certain doctrine for fleet readiness - only the minimum tonnage would be kept on foreign stations unless war looked likely to break out in a certain region, while I would maintain a small margin of superiority over the next biggest fleet in the North Sea; any ships not needed to fulfill these requirements went into the reserves and then mothballs, of course starting with the least useful. If you're not careful with all of these things, maintenance costs can grow to be double or triple your construction outlays. Readiness - both in the form of training and status - has to be sacrificed to some extent. |
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Post by fredsanford on Jan 27, 2018 8:15:31 GMT -6
One thing that I believe negatively impacts ship numbers is the temptation to do extensive (and expensive) rebuilds. Don't touch that Replace Machinery or Upgrade Guns button! Fire control and blank (O) removal refits only.
Training is really expensive for the UK- Gunnery training when tensions go high as Gen Vikus says is ok early when it is proportionally most effective. As better fire control (director) comes along, the +10 from training becomes proportionally less important. Good tactics matter more. Maneuvering to get the downwind so the opponent has a -40 smoke interference, or launching a flotilla attack so the enemy formation gets scrambled (big minuses for turning and/or ships fouling range) is much more important. That +10 is worth 2-3 BB's building, and can be more than offset by better fire control and tactics. Maybe it's a better idea for a small navy, but I believe extra training is overrated.
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 27, 2018 8:58:01 GMT -6
IMPORTANT UPDATE
The polls have clearly decided upon Very Large Fleet size and on an out-of-character game. Other game settings will be:
- Normal technology speed
- No randomised tech
- Historical Budget
As for the country - with 10 votes and no clear winner emerging, I've decided to pick the UK because some strong arguments have been put forward in this thread in favour of it. Its strengths, naturally, is that it will present us with the maximum opportunity for strategic decision making when it comes to designing different classes of ships, building the fleet, deploying it to take care of imperial defence, and so on. The equally obvious downside is that it may be lacking in challenge, but I believe this problem is only as great as we make it. We can always choose to throw caution to the wind in diplomacy and max out tensions regardless of the cost, or stand and fight in battle when it might be more prudent to retreat - in short, if we feel the game is too easy, we can go for higher risk and higher reward. I would have preferred to let the poll play out to pick a clear winner, but since 10 people have now voted I doubt there will be very many more participants, and I'd like to get started with the game.
Since we have around ten players, we can go ahead and pick specialised roles for ourselves, which in my opinion will make things a lot more fun. So far, I've thought of the following specialised roles:
Theatre Commander - Home Waters, Mediterranean, East Asia, Rest of the World (we'll call it the 'foreign station' theatre) As I said before, the role of the theatre commander will be to advise the admiralty on the kind of forces which should be deployed to their respective theatre, and to provide me with standing orders (make them as detailed as you like) for combat in their zone of operations. If we end up getting even more players, we might add more theatre commanders, but right now if we had a commander for every station, some of them would have far too little to do.
Design Board - The role of this group will not be to design the ships - any player will be able to enter a design competition - or to choose the winners in competitions - that'll be down to the whole group - but to analyse the strategic situation and then set specifications for entries in design competitions. (For example: we need a new cruiser, approximately 6,000 tonnes, at least 24 knots, and specialised for colonial defence.) Needs about 3 members.
Board of Construction - Once again; study the strategic situation, and provide the Admiralty with different alternative plans for ship construction. Once again, this will go to the ballot and all players will have a say, but it'll be the job of this group to concern themselves particularly with drawing up plans for everyone to consider. Needs about 3 members.
If we have four commanders and three members of each board, that comes to ten players - which is the rough number I think we have at the moment. Of course, there's no reason why one person can't do more than one role.
If anybody has more ideas, let me know; I think the more we get into these specialised positions, the more fun the game will be.
I'll create a thread for people to register for various positions, and we'll begin the preliminary discussions / ballot shortly.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Jan 27, 2018 13:59:04 GMT -6
I've never been able to get a handle on the UK. I just can never seem to be able to build the sheer numbers the AI builds to the point where in basically every UK game I have ever had I have been regularly out built by Germany and/or France Do you play with historical budget when you get overtaken? If so, consider the following factors: Ship quality - if you're building lots of big, high quality ships, then your total number of ships is obviously going to be relatively lower than other countries that focus on quantity, which in my experience the AI seems to do. However, your total tonnage will most likely be relatively lower as well, as building a small number of very high quality ships is less cost efficient that lots of cheap, mass produced, expendable ships. Training - Training costs are huge, even if you only have gunnery. After my last game, I've decided that in future I'll cancel training in periods of low tension, and only start to ramp it up again when war approaches. Readiness - Having a large portion of your fleet constantly active is a huge drain on the coffers, and combined with training costs, it'll leave you really strapped for cash. You really have to be ruthless - ships sometimes have to go in the reserves even when they're not obsolete. During my last game as the UK, I eventually decided to adopt a certain doctrine for fleet readiness - only the minimum tonnage would be kept on foreign stations unless war looked likely to break out in a certain region, while I would maintain a small margin of superiority over the next biggest fleet in the North Sea; any ships not needed to fulfill these requirements went into the reserves and then mothballs, of course starting with the least useful. If you're not careful with all of these things, maintenance costs can grow to be double or triple your construction outlays. Readiness - both in the form of training and status - has to be sacrificed to some extent. I tend to err on the side of Quality at all cost, I am pretty bad at actually figuring out what my readyness is, and regarding colonial fleets I probably do tend to use more than I should. I have ended up out#ed in games where I had training on at all times and others where most of the game was spent without any training at all. |
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 27, 2018 19:50:13 GMT -6
fredsanford , since you've made extensive reccomendations for both areas, could I tempt you to sign up for the board of design or construction in addition to your theatre command duties? The board of construction needs at least one more member, and another design board man wouldn't hurt.
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Post by fredsanford on Jan 27, 2018 19:58:36 GMT -6
sure
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