kch
New Member
Posts: 27
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Post by kch on May 9, 2019 2:03:13 GMT -6
I am currently fighting France as Austria Hungary and even though I think I am doing fine, I am not sure. Where can I find the VP level and see whether I am ahead in the war?
Secondly, how do I start raiding? I have sent a light cruiser to the Caribbean with the intention to annoy the French. Do I need to do something with the ship or do I simply "park it" in the zone and it will start raiding by itself.
Regarding MS and ASW, currently I have most of my destroyers tied up doing ASW. Can I build MS and have them do the ASW and free up the destroyers?
And finally, submarines.. I really dont understand how to use the early submarines. Do I do anything with them, or do I just build them and they will assign themselves to activities?
thanks
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Post by dorn on May 9, 2019 2:11:11 GMT -6
I am currently fighting France as Austria Hungary and even though I think I am doing fine, I am not sure. Where can I find the VP level and see whether I am ahead in the war? Secondly, how do I start raiding? I have sent a light cruiser to the Caribbean with the intention to annoy the French. Do I need to do something with the ship or do I simply "park it" in the zone and it will start raiding by itself. Regarding MS and ASW, currently I have most of my destroyers tied up doing ASW. Can I build MS and have them do the ASW and free up the destroyers? And finally, submarines.. I really dont understand how to use the early submarines. Do I do anything with them, or do I just build them and they will assign themselves to activities? thanks Tension level: It is just bellow tension graph and buttons "Messages", "Intel reports", "Almanac" on ride side.
Raiding: You need to right click on that ship in ship list and choose "raider" from context menu.
MS and ASW: Yes, you can do it. And it is most efficient way to free up your destroyers, especially new ones.
Early submarines: You can have some success with them but they are limited. In early stage till medium submarines raiders are usually more effective. Early submarines are limited range and thus by your zone. As you are A-H it could be effective against France but submarines need to be in large numbers to be effective. So I usually do not bother with them to much, as early raiders can be cheap and quite effective and start to build submarine force from medium submarines.
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kch
New Member
Posts: 27
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Post by kch on May 9, 2019 2:59:09 GMT -6
Thanks for the quick answers!
I will use your tips when tonight when I get home.
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Post by bcoopactual on May 9, 2019 6:22:33 GMT -6
A couple of notes to expand on what dorn wrote. For raiders, they have a chance each turn to be scuttled or interned due to lack of fuel or mechanical breakdown. Immediately take them back to AF status and return them to a friendly port if you see an asterisk next to their status "*". It means they are in need of maintenance. You won't always get the asterisk before a breakdown event so keep in mind that there will be some non-combat attrition to your raiders. For medium range ships I usually don't leave them overseas (areas where you don't have bases) in raider status for more than two or three turns at a time. Then I will take them back to AF status and move them to an area with a base for a turn and then move them back if I am not rotating another ship in. Long range ships are better at raiding for a number of reasons including this. When I can though I try to rotate ships. I get fewer mechanical casualties and "ran out of fuel" events. The downside is you don't have as many raiders operating at one time which can reduce your results because it is easier for the enemy to interrupt your raiders using fewer ships. Try out a few different variants on those ideas to see which work out best for you or try another method if anyone else pipes in because I'm sure there are almost as many raider strategies as there are players. In your example, if your ship has been overseas for a few turns, I would take it back to a friendly port for a turn and then send it back to the Caribbean and set it's status to raider. For ASW, MS and DD are better choices than other types because they are more efficient at ASW than larger ships but primarily because they are cheaper per hull and for ASW it's mostly a numbers game. Keep your MS in repair though. If they get the (o) symbol, meaning they need a refit, for more than a couple of turns they could self-decommission on you. In general, ships need a refit every 10 years after first commissioning and every 8 years after the last refit. Legacy ships will need a refit somewhere in 1908 at the latest. Any ship with an (o) is less effective at its role and that includes ASW/CP. JagdFlanker recommended this once and I always do it now. For MS (which don't generally get fire control or other refits based on technological inventions), refit them soon after the previous war ends and then they will be good to go for the next eight years and you don't have to worry about forgetting to refit them. Eight years is usually more than enough time to get into and fight through the next war. That way they will always be available and and it limits the number of front-line DD that you have to assign to ASW/CP to cover while you are refitting your MS. I will also keep my older DD classes around to supplement my MS in ASW but I play the USA which has a larger budget. That may not work for a nation with a smaller budget. The size of the MS is not important for the most part. A 200 ton MS will do ASW just as well as a 700 ton MS. Smaller MS do seem to always lose spirited gun battles with surfaced submarines ( a periodic random event, more likely with medium range subs I believe) though so you will need to build a few to replace losses. My 700 ton MS don't do any better but I keep them realistically armed and don't put 5 inch guns on them so that may make a difference. Submarines do their thing automatically. As dorn pointed out, coastal submarines mainly only work in your home area (The Med for Austria-Hungary) which is fine against France which also has a home area there but would be significantly less effective against say the USA or Japan. Medium range subs are more effective over a number of sea zones so they are when you really see submarines start to take a bite out the enemy merchant fleet. All that happens behind the scenes though. Other than the event listing merchant ships sunk or submarines lost you don't see it or have much control other than choosing prize rules or unrestricted submarine warfare. (A choice found near the VP list under the tension graph on the right of the screen). Submarines and ships in ASW/CP are a global pool so it doesn't matter where the ship in ASW/CP mode is physically located in the game it still contributes to the ASW calculations. Since MS in ASW/CP mode do double duty as actual minesweepers I do still keep a number of them traveling with my battlefleet when I deploy it.
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Post by dorn on May 9, 2019 7:45:08 GMT -6
I will add one thing about ASW.
As bcoopactual mentioned minesweepers can be sink in spirited gun duels. This 200 tons minesweepers cost about 600-750k depending design and about 5k maintenance costs per month. What I sometimes do at start of game is designing small destroyer, practically torpedo boat about 300-400 tons. Their advantage is that early in the game destroyers are not efficient and they barely hit anything and they are most useful to finish damaged ships dead in water. So 300 tons destroyer can do same job as 500 tons destroyer. However if you build 300 tons destroyer, it costs you only around 1.1M. You can use it for several years and after as reserve fleet destroyer or you can use this destroyer as ASW ship. Especially as submarines are much more threat this destroyer is never sunk in gun duel by submarine. With later technology you can build them even around 800-900k. So you can build around 70 of them just around 60M which is less than half of battleship at that time.
In my experience having more than 3 times ships on ASW than requirement does not have any visible effect. At one time I have around 150 ships (around 140 minesweepers, rest destroyers) on ASW duty and I can see any improvement neither of convoy protection either submarines sinkings.
But I have not try going only destroyers on ASW as I always try to keep several minesweepers against mines.
Relating to raiders I use medium range quite often and I can not see much difference vs. long range. I usually have interned less raiders than AI. So if you have a lot of cruisers and need more raiders I will not bother using some older fleet cruisers without long range. Usually these older cruisers has advantage being quite powerful and keep faster and new cruisers at bay. If this old cruiser sink enemy cruiser and than is interned because of damage I always consider it as good transaction. And not mention that loosing cruiser without battle did not give your opponent VP.
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Post by aeson on May 9, 2019 11:04:37 GMT -6
Some comments on submarines and surface raiders:
I find that you usually need to commit relatively heavily to commerce raiding before it becomes likely to pay off. If you have just one or two surface raiders, you'll get a negligible trickle of victory points and aren't likely to jack your opponent's unrest up high enough to collapse their government any time soon, and similarly with submarines but with the added 'benefit' of occasionally sinking a neutral liner, thereby provoking the ire of the neutrals.
If you're considering committing to submarines, be aware that they often have a relatively high loss rate and, as a result, can be a very expensive weapon if you want to maintain force levels. Additionally, unlike any other tool the game offers the player, the use of submarines can provoke the ire of the neutral powers. With regards to submarine policy, note that there is some minimum number of submarines required before unrestricted submarine warfare really becomes effective. I don't know off the top of my head what that number is, but the game will give you a warning if you don't have enough.
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kch
New Member
Posts: 27
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Post by kch on May 14, 2019 4:02:50 GMT -6
As a general comment, for how long do you keep a destroyer in service? I guess the torpedoes update automatically, so the main weapon does not become obsolete, which would allow them to operate for many years.
Also, does the game compensate for it being more difficult to hit things from a small vessel if the weather isnt great? I.e. it should be very difficult to hit anything from a 2-300 ton vessel.
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Post by dorn on May 14, 2019 5:22:45 GMT -6
As a general comment, for how long do you keep a destroyer in service? I guess the torpedoes update automatically, so the main weapon does not become obsolete, which would allow them to operate for many years. Also, does the game compensate for it being more difficult to hit things from a small vessel if the weather isnt great? I.e. it should be very difficult to hit anything from a 2-300 ton vessel. Small old destroyers are perfect for ASW duty. So they can be kept in service quite long.
However they are completely useless in fleet duty as their have no fire control and just 1-3 torpedo tubes.
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Post by bcoopactual on May 14, 2019 6:48:02 GMT -6
As a general comment, for how long do you keep a destroyer in service? I guess the torpedoes update automatically, so the main weapon does not become obsolete, which would allow them to operate for many years. Also, does the game compensate for it being more difficult to hit things from a small vessel if the weather isnt great? I.e. it should be very difficult to hit anything from a 2-300 ton vessel. As with dorn, I will keep my first couple of classes of DD (500-600 tons) around for most of the game to use as ASW/CP forces once they have been supplanted as front line forces. I don't know if this will work as well in RTW2 since ASW gear is actual equipment that must be shipped (like weapons, ammo and armor) and so needs to be refitted on if not part of the initial loadout. Depends on how much we will have to take off to make up the weight. I want to say that there is an accuracy penalty for smaller ships in rough weather, (I know they are under the threat of taking damage if the sea state is high enough) but I can't tell you for certain. I don't spend a lot of time looking at the accuracy modifiers so I don't remember them or have a comprehensive list.
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Post by aeson on May 14, 2019 8:35:10 GMT -6
I tend to try to get small destroyers (700 tons or less) out of front-line service shortly after developing 900t destroyers, so usually by about 1910-1912; midsize destroyers (900 to 1100 tons) tend to last a bit longer in front-line service and are replaced more gradually, both because early large destroyers somewhat often aren't all that much better than at least the larger midsize destroyers and because a lot of heavier ships tend to need replacement between the early 1910s and early 1920s - the cruisers and battleships of the predreadnought period are on their last legs by the mid-1910s, and the ships of the early dreadnought period are often little better off - so usually only a handful of large destroyers get included in the construction programs of that period and as a result I'm usually only really getting started on withdrawing the midsize destroyers by the standard 1925 end date.
Small destroyers almost always go into the ASW/CP pool after being taken out of front-line service and remain there until sunk; midsize and early large destroyers sometimes join the small destroyers in the ASW/CP pool and other times get scrapped, depending on budget, how comfortable I am with the size of my ASW/CP force, and whether or not I want to keep the midsize and early large destroyers around as a reserve that I can draw upon if I should need destroyers in a pinch.
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Post by dorn on May 14, 2019 9:00:31 GMT -6
I usually build 900 tons destroyers as I have double torpedo mounts. At that time 900 tons destroyers could be handy as have more torpedo tubes and later could be refitted with director fire control. This mean that these destroyers are still reasonable strong even later and are excellent for secondary duties as escorting capital ships in distant areas or just as increase of number of fleet destroyers.
In same games it could happen than 900 tons destroyers are more efficient than large destroyers as some curves determinating tonnage can go wrong. In same games I can put more guns, torpedoes on 900 ton destroyers than up to 1400 tons destroyer.
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