Interesting AI behavior - what happened to the cruisers?

[polyarmus]

I am playing large fleet, 1900 game as CSA and it has been ... interesting

I wonder, to what extent do the player's design and fleet structure decisions influence the behavior of the AI. 

When designing the starting fleet, I decided not to purchase any Bs. I have invested most of the funds into CA's with 4 battleships in the queue. I was quite astonished to find out, that all the other countries did the same. Only Britain had battleship in the fleet at the start of the game.

Unsurprisingly, CA's were the work horses of the early years. I fought France in two wars. Battleship encounters were really rare, but I managed to sink 9 of France's initial fleet of 19 CAs. 

Fast forward 25 years and the situation couldn't be more different. 

By roughly 1925, I was the almost the only one to have any cruisers at all. Globally there were I think 6 CA's and 5 CL's and I had 5 and 4 respectively!

Here is print screen from 1931 (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture earlier), when there are already some cruiser around, but still, the overall fleet balance is extremely "top heavy". 



Did anyone had similar experience? 

[dorn]

Jun 7, 2019 6:59:13 GMT -6 polyarmus said:

I am playing large fleet, 1900 game as CSA and it has been ... interesting

I wonder, to what extent do the player's design and fleet structure decisions influence the behavior of the AI. 

When designing the starting fleet, I decided not to purchase any Bs. I have invested most of the funds into CA's with 4 battleships in the queue. I was quite astonished to find out, that all the other countries did the same. Only Britain had battleship in the fleet at the start of the game.

Unsurprisingly, CA's were the work horses of the early years. I fought France in two wars. Battleship encounters were really rare, but I managed to sink 9 of France's initial fleet of 19 CAs. 

Fast forward 25 years and the situation couldn't be more different. 

By roughly 1925, I was the almost the only one to have any cruisers at all. Globally there were I think 6 CA's and 5 CL's and I had 5 and 4 respectively!

Here is print screen from 1931 (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture earlier), when there are already some cruiser around, but still, the overall fleet balance is extremely "top heavy". 



Did anyone had similar experience? 

I would like to know how UK manage foreign station requirements.

[rodentnavy]

Yes, I had that playing as Britain. I had numerous light and heavy cruisers but the Germans had two light cruisers built to the kind of design I had moved on from in the teens and the Japanese had one heavy cruiser and that was the rest of the great powers cruisers. I mean I am used to AI GB deciding that light cruisers are for wimps and policing its colonies with BCs in RTW1 but everybody doing without cruisers? Would have been annoying had there been a war in that 1930s given the propensity of the 'random' force selection to pick light cruisers for the player and whatever is heavier in lieu for the AI.

[archelaos]

Jun 7, 2019 6:59:13 GMT -6 polyarmus said:

I am playing large fleet, 1900 game as CSA and it has been ... interesting

I wonder, to what extent do the player's design and fleet structure decisions influence the behavior of the AI. 

When designing the starting fleet, I decided not to purchase any Bs. I have invested most of the funds into CA's with 4 battleships in the queue. I was quite astonished to find out, that all the other countries did the same. Only Britain had battleship in the fleet at the start of the game.

Unsurprisingly, CA's were the work horses of the early years. I fought France in two wars. Battleship encounters were really rare, but I managed to sink 9 of France's initial fleet of 19 CAs. 

Fast forward 25 years and the situation couldn't be more different. 

By roughly 1925, I was the almost the only one to have any cruisers at all. Globally there were I think 6 CA's and 5 CL's and I had 5 and 4 respectively!

Here is print screen from 1931 (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture earlier), when there are already some cruiser around, but still, the overall fleet balance is extremely "top heavy". 



Did anyone had similar experience? 

It is not surprising that with those insane BB and BC numbers no one has money for cruisers... But to me the distribution of funds feel completely wrong. Bug maybe?

[thestabman]

If you just wait for a few years Armored Cruisers turn into heavy cruisers and the AI starts building them again

[wevets]

I feel like the number of heavy cruisers in the real world was pretty much the result of arms limitation treaties, and the navies involved would have bought fewer of them if they were allowed to spend the money on battleships and battlecruisers instead.

[stevethecat]

The AI seems to heavily favour CAs for its starting fleet and then catch up on the battleships after.

Think its just one of the games quirks.


I have one play through going which kind of cheesed this behaviour as I started with a fleet of cruiser killer battleships, although once the AI started pumping out 13 and 14 inch gun ships mine were horribly inadequate.

[majorsid]

The AI normally stays top heavy with it's building programs. BCs stay very popular once introduced and you can run into issues fighting their fleet because of it.

[polyarmus]

Jun 7, 2019 10:23:15 GMT -6 majorsid said:

The AI normally stays top heavy with it's building programs. BCs stay very popular once introduced and you can run into issues fighting their fleet because of it.

Agreed

I think we are missing certain measure of fleet balance. Every Navy needs to do some patrolling, convoy protections etc. For these duties every Navy should have some lighter units.

You can of course send your battleships for patrol, but then their maintenance cost rise (these are very expensive machines consuming huge amounts of fuel) but more importantly, they would not be available to face the concentrated fleet of the adversary.

Therefore, not having enough light ships should result in smaller number of heavy units being available for fleet engagements and maintenance cost being higher than otherwise.

[warlock]

Jun 7, 2019 9:48:50 GMT -6 thestabman said:

If you just wait for a few years Armored Cruisers turn into heavy cruisers and the AI starts building them again

Yeah I noticed myself that at some point, I don't recall exactly when, the AI started building Heavy Cruisers.  I think it was around 1940 or so and seemed to start occurring about the time the AI got heavy into building CVs.  I think when they start building CVs, it makes BBs cost prohibitive so they start building Heavy Cruisers to act as escorts for the CV squadrons and stop or at least limit building BBs/BCs.

[yemo]

I d report it as a bug.

I m seeing the same behaviour. Extremely top heavy AI fleets.