Request for 1 battle/turn per nation at war per area

[dizzy]

Jan 30, 2019 15:55:09 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

I appreciate that you are valiantly articulating your point, but let us consider WW1. You had 4 and eventually 5 major naval powers engaged with 3 naval powers (for the point of argument we will say that the Ottomans could have used Goeben in an interesting way to a gamer.) In a war lasting 4+ years, 51 "turns", the world saw Far Less than 51 'significant' naval engagements.

Sometimes you may build a remarkable fleet, and the dice say that the battle line never gets to fire its guns in anger.

This community has dozens, dare I say scores, of historically minded people who have never in the 2+ years I have been involved here expressed the opinion that 1 battle/turn is unsatisfying. The opinion *was* expressed (as I recall the conversation) that perhaps the player could "ramp up the difficulty" by having an options setting to increase the number of randomized battles per turn, but that was to my understanding a difficulty argument, not a failure of the game to be accurate.

We are under quite a crunch here to provide a product on a schedule so I of course cannot guarantee that such a difficulty setting will make it to the final product, but I think we can all agree that Fredrik's design provides more than the historical number of battles as is than one would have in reality.  If you could decline engagements each turn and count, you would probably be offered 150+ battles in that 51 months, as each turn you are seemingly offered 0-5.

Well, I appreciate the consideration... It's quite possible I may be in the minority here simply because it's something that hasn't ever been done. And change is scary. So I can see why my point isn't taken seriously by some. But I think we can agree, that Fredrik's argument aside, this game has a 'scaling' limiter when you factor in 1 battle per turn is sufficient for a nation at war with another, but when there are 4 or more nations, more battles per turn is the way to scale it up. I mean, what sick sadomasochist here would ever want to fight Britain, USA, France and Russia with just Japan? Isn't it the game already daunting as it is taking on the British with their massive budget and numerous BB's? Well, I spent a lot of the game preparing for just what I did and the game sure could use more than one battle per month because I had fleets of ships sitting in enemy sea zones sipping tea together and playing crumpets. 

Anyway, Thanks for listening, and if this 'feature' of a toggle for +1 more battle per month per area per nation at war, or however you guys decide to do it, makes it in... I'll buy 2 copies of your game and tell everyone I can about how awesome it is and you'll also get a huge thank you from me. Guess that's all that needs to be said, we kinda talked this argument into the ground.

[sittingduck]

Dizzy, may I ask how you got into a war with four enemies at once? I can count the number of times I've fought against three by using just two fingers. What happened to bring four against you?

[JagdFlanker]

the easiest way to get into a war with multiple opponents is to do an unrestricted sub campaign using a ton (80+) of med range subs later in the game - all the non-participating countries' tension will slowly creep up and eventually join the war

i'v been at war with all 6 enemies at once a few times before, it's fun if you'v got a decent navy

[dizzy]

Jan 31, 2019 4:54:53 GMT -6 JagdFlanker said:

the easiest way to get into a war with multiple opponents is to do an unrestricted sub campaign using a ton (80+) of med range subs later in the game - all the non-participating countries' tension will slowly creep up and eventually join the war

i'v been at war with all 6 enemies at once a few times before, it's fun if you'v got a decent navy

Yeah, it is fun till you realize that one battle per month isn’t enough of a slice of cheese to cover the whole sandwich.

[kungfutreachery]

I don't see any controversy in saying that the engine doesn't handle multilateral wars as well as it handles bilateral wars. I also don't see why that matters so much. Did any world power ever actually fight two significant fleet actions in two separate theaters in the same month, even when they had dreadnought fleets opposite enemy forces in multiple theaters?

[dizzy]

Jan 31, 2019 5:17:52 GMT -6 kungfutreachery said:

I don't see any controversy in saying that the engine doesn't handle multilateral wars as well as it handles bilateral wars. I also don't see why that matters so much. Did any world power ever actually fight two significant fleet actions in two separate theaters in the same month, even when they had dreadnought fleets opposite enemy forces in multiple theaters?

The engine handles it fine. It's designers choice that is at issue.

Your pov is interesting! It's like saying on December 16th, 1903 that cars and boats are fine modes of transportation! Who ever needs anything else?

[archelaos]

Jan 31, 2019 5:12:29 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Yeah, it is fun till you realize that one battle per month isn’t enough of a slice of cheese to cover the whole sandwich.

Well, RTW2 will have multi national battles, so you will be able to fight them all at once. You should be happy that nations in RTW go all Mahanian - if they were more inclined towards Fleet in Being you will see a battle a year, if any. Like Italian Navy that had capital ships at sea for what? 70 HOURS throughout Ist world war...

One problem though, that I have with additional nations joining war is complete clearing of VPs every time.

[abclark]

Jan 31, 2019 15:26:06 GMT -6 archelaos said:

One problem though, that I have with additional nations joining war is complete clearing of VPs every time.

Oooh, that’s something to ask about. Is that going to be carried forward or a new system put in place?

[dizzy]

I just wanted to revisit this due to in game experiences and update my observations. I really tried playing devil's advocate here and seeing the other side, but after my last campaign, I firmly believe in this concept of more battles per nation at war per turn per area.

In my latest campaign, Japan and GB signed an alliance to thwart my aggression and went to war with me. The war lasted 4 years, ending after some 48 months. During this time I had exactly ONE fleet battle against Japan. Despite sinking every one of GB's BB and BC classes, and Japan having them in abundance, I had Japanese conflict less than a dozen times. The majority of the combat was in Northern Europe. At the end of the war, GB ended up without any significant fleet tonnage, while Japan had a decent sized navy. This is despite similar fleets in both areas of Northeast Asia and Northern Europe.

So it looks like there are two problems with the game. One is that by limiting me to one battle per turn I wasnt able to be threatened by the collective forces of my enemy. The second is that the game prioritized one nation over the other in terms of battles chosen and type.

This still leads me to firmly suggest that there be some type of mechanism to allow at least an occasional battle per turn per area when fighting multiple nations. And I think it might be good to look under the hood to see why GB was prioritized in battle over Japan which lead to a disproportionate end of war result in tonnage remaining.

[mycophobia]

From a realism perspective, I’d say rather than not delievering enough numbers of battle per war, the inaccuracy comes from inability to show the potential of multiple engagement over different sea zones in the same month. Take a ingame situation where America is fighting in both Atlantic and pacific against say, both Germany and japan. If there is only 1 battle per turn, either japan/germany’s Fleet needs to magically teleport across the world to assist each other, or you can technically fight the entire war without ever touching the other theatre of operation. Yes you can argue that turning down all battle against say, the japanese means you lose VP, but that’s not significant since you won’t suffer prestige hit as long as you still fight battles in the Atlantic.

I think there is value in having the occasional 2+ battle a turn in different sea zones against different enemies. This will require the player to plan ahead with placing his fleet and manage engagement in multiple fronts. This does not need to be a common occurrence by any means, but it’s not impossible to imagine a coordinated naval operation by Germany and japan launched at the same month from both the pacific and the Atlantic in order to overwhelm us fleets.(again this is a hypothetical scenario, but one that could happen in rtw2)

Ofcourse for the majority of the game I agree with earlier points that 1 battle per turn is more than sufficient, but I think 2 or mandatory battle perturn when facing multiple enemies on different sea zones can at least be a interesting addition.( given the release schedule there is no rush tho)

Edit: only realized after typing my post that dizzy have more or less stated my points above. Though I note that I believe in rtw2 the enemy can already join force if they have ships in the same area. But in the above Germany/Japan situation that is highly unlikely. In any case I am in agreement with points he raised, though I understand if this can’t be a release feature.

[ccip]

It's interesting - when I wrote my review for Subsim, I didn't have the number of battles per turn in mind at all, but I did mention that RTW does have the curious trait of presenting as a 'sandbox' game... but at the same time being quite harsh and punishing if you stray from the 'normal way' of playing, by driving home a particular quasi-Mahanian take on naval history. By the logic of its world, purposely getting into a war with 4 opponents and building a navy to fight 4 major battles in one month makes about as much sense as trying to build a peacetime navy without battleships - not because it couldn't happen logically, but because there was neither precedent, nor doctrine, nor political will for that during the historical period covered. It was not anticipated by anybody historically, and so the game does everything it can to discourage it and thwart the player's efforts to go in that direction, both passively (by stacking game variables against it) and actively (by just not letting you do certain things at all). 

I actually think it's a strong point of the game - because that actually helps me understand the mindset of the time period, and keeps me grounded (or keeps me on my sea legs, at any rate) in the shoes of a grand admiral-type figure, rather than a reality-bending overlord. More than anything, RTW is a kind of window into the ideology of how most naval leaders saw the world at the start of the 20th century, after reading Alfred Thayer Mahan's work and projecting it on their own nation's position. It wasn't a terribly open-minded world view, and it took for granted a number of assumptions that in retrospect seem like arbitrary bad choices - except the world was such that, really, they weren't actually choices at all. RTW is very committed to that world view, warts and all. It assumes things for you, and doesn't directly reveal those assumptions directly, instead letting you figure them out for yourself. So yeah, I can see how this can be frustrating if you go into the game with a different mindset than what the design is based on. I don't think it's a fault with either the game or the player in that case - just a difference in designs and expectations.

My two cents on that are: I like that RTW has a very focused design, and while I'd welcome it being made more flexible (by allowing the rules to be loosened up a bit, by player choice) - I think it's better if the core game of RTW 2 and its 'normal way' of playing is nailed down first, and then from there maybe branch out a little. Sort of like RTW, when it allowed things like optional tech development rates and ability to play past 1925, but only some time after release!

[dizzy]

It's interesting the amount of resistance to my request in my OP considering there exist Varied Tech options and non historical budgets. When the game allows for expansion of the type I explained, and positions itself in such a way as to allow it to happen where one nation, so bent on naval supremacy goes up against most of the world's nations, it's not so far off from existing options. To have a little 'check mark box' at the start of the campaign to allow one battle per turn per area per nation is in keeping with existing options. I'd like to see it, hope it makes it in RTW2.

[fuzzmunster]

Jan 29, 2019 14:34:04 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

One naval battle per month will give you far more battles in an RTW war than were ever fought historically, even in WW2. If anything, the rate of battles is too high in RTW compared to reality.

I appreciate the desire to have a historical game. In real life fleets were reluctant to fight major engagements except under specific circumstances. But this is a game. If the player wants to build a 70,000 ton battleship with 20 in guns they can. Nobody ever did that...  The point of a game is to have have and it is not fun when you can't fight. I'd add that the lack of major fleet battles is mostly due to one side knowing they're going to lose. The German's kept their ships in port because the British had a lot more ships. They tried various ways of getting around it which ultimately lead to Jutland. After Jutland, the Germans did not believe they would win a major fleet engagement so they didn't go out again. Nations engaged in major fleet actions when they either 1. had too (like the US at Midway) 2. thought they could win (Japanese at Midway) and wanted an engagement (British and Germans at Jutland). I think the "decline to engage" button simulates this really well. When the AI has insufficient ships it declines battle unless it has to either through forced engagement or invasion. I decline battles when I think I'll lose (I don't fight Russia in the Baltic after airpower is a thing. A few carriers does not protect against 6ish land bases + carriers). The history of naval warfare is pretty asymmetric. One side is clearly stronger than the other. This is not the case in RTW. This is a good thing because that'd make for a boring game. Imagine if you could only play historical budget. GG if you end up at war with Britain as Italy. The budget differential is really fun. It's a challenge. But an accurate budget differential would be lame (especially with larger fleet size). The relative parity in fleet sizes means that large engagements should occur more often. I'll end because I'm starting to ramble. TL;DR: a games purpose is to have fun. More battles is more fun. It should have more battles (especially against more opponents. If my ships are all damaged in an engagement with Italy Austria hungary would definitely pressure me in the month they're unavailable due to repairs.)

[fuzzmunster]

Feb 5, 2019 11:52:18 GMT -6 dizzy said:

It's interesting the amount of resistance to my request in my OP considering there exist Varied Tech options and non historical budgets. When the game allows for expansion of the type I explained, and positions itself in such a way as to allow it to happen where one nation, so bent on naval supremacy goes up against most of the world's nations, it's not so far off from existing options. To have a little 'check mark box' at the start of the campaign to allow one battle per turn per area per nation is in keeping with existing options. I'd like to see it, hope it makes it in RTW2.

I'm very late to this but I'd like it too. I had an engagement as the UK in a 4 front war in the Med. My forces were extremely stretched because of colonial obligations and different opponents having separate build areas (and therefore different locations for a blockade). This is to say if for some reason ships in one area were unavailable there wasn't really any way to reinforce without building new ones or a serious global redistribution of forces. Italy tried to invade Malta. I slapped them down. Italy's fleet was decimated. I lost some ships. Most of my fleet was intact but since I didn't have force supremacy in the region my victorious forces were heavily damaged. Short of a few destroyers every single ship needed repair. Luckily for me, the next 6 turns my battles were fought outside the Mediterranean and when the French Med fleet decided to do something my Med fleet was fully repaired. This is rediculous. There's no way a navy would go "oh golly gee. It looks like them there tea sippers have temporarily lost control of this region. I guess we should just do nothing because the American's had a cruiser skirmish across the pond." A "historical" game would not deal with this because a "historical" game would not have the British in a 4 front war with no allies. The British weren't stupid. It's more accurate to call this a "realistic" game which is why you can do ahistorical things like budget changes and tech changes. A realistic France would have jumped on the chance to take portions of British Africa while the Brits were down AND other navies likely would have cooperated by keeping pressure on other fronts knowing that soon more British ships would be available from the Mediterranean theatre to threaten their shores. This means that in the month or too where 20% of fleet functionally didn't exist there would likely be significant engagements across multiple fronts. No nation is going to go "Oh Lordy it seems that the Italian fleet has been destroyed. I guess we'll soon see a lot more British ships along our coast. We have superiority now, but best wait until the British reinforce to invade Weiwei and deny the Brits a base in our home areas. That would be quite rude don't you think?" To simulate a realistic response would require more battles per turn. 

It's not like navies didn't often conduct multiple operations in quick succession. Mostly during invasions, navies had many engagements in a short time frame to secure the sea-lanes to their troops. Guadalcanal and the invasion of Norway come to mind. Plus after an enemies defeat they were often pursued and new fronts were opened to pressure them. Guadalcanal comes to mind again as the US pressured the Japanese after midway. They didn't occur in the same month, but imagine if US warships had been deployed to the Med (say Torento didn't happen and the British needed assistance to secure something like Torch would be successful once the forces reaches Mediterranean Africa). The US would not have gone "we can't invade Japanese islands and prevent expansion into Australia. We skirmished with the Italians this month."

I thought your point was very clear. I don't understand why the resistance was so fierce.

[captaintrek]

I know this is an old thread fuzz has seen fit to dig up, but I for one absolutely agree that there should at least be a chance of an additional battle per additional opponent nation. Contrary to what ccip seemed to be implying, we don't need to be fighting a global war with large fleets in four different sea zones facing the principal navies of four different nations simultaneously to see why this would be a good idea. Consider a campaign I played as Germany: I went to war with France at the start of 1936. I was quickly forced to bust my submarines down to fleet support to try and prevent exactly the sort of situation Dizzy actively pursued in his example. But despite my best efforts, tension with the US kept ticking up anyway, and in July 1937, they came to France's aid.

Now, compared to Dizzy's example, mine is relatively sober. We have a large American fleet in Northern Europe based out of France along with the remnants of the French fleet (I'd already dealt pretty catastrophic damage to their fleet by that point). The overwhelming majority of my own ships are also in Northern Europe, countering America's attempts at a blockade. I do have a secondary fleet in Africa taking French colonies, which consists of an ad-hoc collection of re-classified old battlecruisers and legacy CAs, anchored by a couple of modern FBBs and a few CVs and CVLs, but the French cannot challenge the Africa squadron and the Americans don't care to challenge the Africa squadron. With this and with the French fleet barely able to muster a challenge, this means that despite the notionally two-on-one odds, what we actually have in effect, here, is a single front being contested by a large fleet from just two opposing nations (Germany and the US), something the BG shouldn't have any issues with. This is especially true by the end of 1937, at which point more-or-less all remaining French capital ships were gone.

And yet.

Despite the Americans having specifically made the point to come to Europe to aid France... to place their ships where my ships were (not even the other way around like in Dizzy's case)... I only fought the Americans a single time between July of 1937 when they joined in, and February of 1939 when France's government finally collapsed. And that was still a nominally French engagement (a coastal raid in support of land combat off Madagascar), which a single American battlecruiser just happened to join in.

You must agree, this doesn't make any sense. And it all comes down to how the BG was prioritizing France as the "primary" belligerent in the war, similar to how Dizzy observed the BG giving GB total priority over Japan in one of his own campaigns earlier in this thread. This sort of thing devalues alliances significantly, and hangs a question mark over why alliances exist in the game at all if ccip's ideas about what the game is trying to emulate are indeed correct.

And again, I wouldn't have needed to see a battle against the Americans every turn during those 18 months when I was at war with both countries at the same time, but a couple of decent sized engagements during that time, even if some random crap just happened to also be going on in Africa, would've been nice and wouldn't have been unreasonable, you know...?