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Post by julianbarker on Jun 10, 2014 14:41:55 GMT -6
I never tire of playing the stock Jutland scenario and must have played it 40 times. What I have discovered is that it is almost impossible for Britain to score a decisive victory, but much easier for the Germans. This is because the durability of the German ships mean that even if losing it is difficult to finish off damaged German dreadnoughts before dark, whilst isolated and pounded British ships will tend to blow up eventuality.
So far so good, the results I have seen seem reasonable, however, when Britain has done well, kept in contact with the Germans during the night, maybe even having blocked their route home, the scenario absolute limit always stops the game at dawn on 1 June just as the British are about to bring their superiority in dreadnought numbers to bear.
This makes it impossible for the British to do precisely what Jellicoe was aiming to do, and which could have happened if proper contact with the Germans been maintained.
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Post by Fredrik W on Jun 10, 2014 15:16:10 GMT -6
Good point! It is easy to modify the scenario to increase the time limit if you want to experiment with that.
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Post by julianbarker on Jun 10, 2014 15:38:29 GMT -6
I agree, and plan to experiment with a longer absolute limit. Just pointing out that as stock the scenario can be tough on the Brits as they can't get enough force to bear for long enough before night.
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Post by randomizer on Jun 10, 2014 16:38:22 GMT -6
Suspect that part of the problem is that as noted and what happened in the event, the onset of darkness tends to favour the High Seas Fleet making it difficult to force a decisive gunnery action through bringing the entire British Battlefleet into battle.
That said, a few questions even without speaking to the toughness of the average German capital ship:
1. Was a decision dependant on guns even possible?
2. Was the British Battlefleet too large and unwieldy to force a decision?
3. Could the British have forced a tactical decision using their flotillas and superiority in light cruisers as the decisive arm?
I would also recommend the Jutland Operational scenario. A surprise every time even when that surprise is no contact between the opposing fleets. When the Royal Navy can catch the HSF with 12-14 hours of daylight remaining things can often turn out quite different from the event. Particularly in good visibility where the British can keep the range open and their 13", 14" and 15" guns can hit the German's hard.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2014 22:28:05 GMT -6
Ive just bought the game a month ago and trying the scenarios and campaigns. I've actually scored a 9mil VP advantage in the stronger German campaign. But amazed at the time it takes for these dinosaurs to destroy a capital ship indeed. Usually summer season and a morning encounter seems a important factor for a decisive victory. Also the turret flash fires haunt the brits numerous times, it's latest victim being the Hood... Having great fun all in all, the grand fleet is solely relying on its reinforcement US BBs.
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Post by julianbarker on Jun 10, 2014 23:21:02 GMT -6
Even if you successfully launch a torpedo assault as dusk approaches, scoring a dozen or so hits, it is difficult to kill off the cripples without bringing guns to bear and the dawn absolute limit stops that happening.
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Post by julianbarker on Jun 13, 2014 0:39:15 GMT -6
Editing the scenario less successful than I hoped. It seems absolute time limit is linked to the time limit. What I would like is a limit that stops the game if contact is lost the first night, and an absolute limit that ends the game at the end of the 1 June.
Another problem is that a longer time limit means minefields, batteries and subs all come into scope so a lot more work is needed.
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Post by randomizer on Jun 13, 2014 7:30:23 GMT -6
Correct, as I recall the absolute time limit is 2-times the scenario time limit and there is no mechanism that I know of to terminate a scenario should contact be lost as you describe.
Sorry.
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Post by Fredrik W on Jun 13, 2014 11:01:00 GMT -6
The absolute time limit is 2 times the normal scenario length as Randomizer says. However, the scenario will end if the normal scenario length is exceeded AND no ships have been in sight of each other for 30 minutes.
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Post by julianbarker on Jun 13, 2014 13:20:36 GMT -6
Yes, and it is balancing those two requirements - ending the scenario at night if contact is lost, and keeping it going if contact is maintained.
The stock scenario is designed so the first is triggered at sunset so lost contact means end of the game. If contact is maintained, the game ends just as the sun comes up. That is very frustrating when you have kept in touch with the Germans, avoided losses to German torpedoes in the dark, and have your battleline between the Germans and their bases, and just as the German line comes into view the game ends as the absolute limit is reached.
As the resilience of German ships, and the tendency of Brits to blow up means that up until then the Brits have lost more ships, the Brits lose despite being about to annihilate the Germans.
The game has panned out like this for me a couple of times.
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Post by Fredrik W on Jun 13, 2014 13:24:31 GMT -6
Maybe then just increasing the scenario length by 2 hours or so will give the desired result? If contact is maintained, that will give 4 hours of fighting on the morning.
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Post by julianbarker on Jun 13, 2014 23:39:16 GMT -6
Worth can try.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jun 1, 2016 14:51:58 GMT -6
After the battle Jellicoe was criticized for not having closed the range after the second clash with the German fleet, at 7 30 pm on May 31th. I wonder if anyone has tried to simulate the exact situation that was then created, playing SAI as Jellicoe with the German BBs retreating and German BCs and DDs attacking. I would like to do so, but I came across to the following difficulty. The behavior of Scheer should be "cautious", while in the meantime the behavior of Hipper and even more so the behavior of the German DDs should be "aggressive". Is it possible to set different AI behaviors of different parts of the same fleet?
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Post by andyhall on Jun 2, 2016 18:43:27 GMT -6
I played it again Wednesday evening, although in that case Hipper's battlecruisers retreated and Scheer's main body ended up in a scrum with both Jellico's Grand Fleet and Beatty's battlecruisers. The Germans spent most of the night in a disordered clump, while the British steamed clockwise around them. (Three of Beatty's battlecruisers made a complete circle around the Germans; Lion itself had been sunk.) It was a confused and violent action, lots of destroyers and torpedoes going in every direction. I don't really think Jellicoe would have gotten into that if he could help it, too much that would have been beyond his (or anyone's) control.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jun 3, 2016 0:47:06 GMT -6
You establish a good point. With an hour and half of daylight remaining Jellicoe would face the risk of a messy night action. My previous question about AI setting remains unanswered.
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