Newbie questions....

[Tactical Wargamer]

OK I must be missing something....played with RTW 1 and noticed the same.....Use to playing Jutland by Norm and controlling several divisions and detachments when damaged. I have fought at least 4 battles and I must say the UI is a little to clunky. Obviously I must be missing something.

Some newbie queries please.....

1) I'm the USA and at war with the Germans.....why am I always fighting with in essence the same OOB every battle. They are also. I out number them at least 4 to 1 in BB and 3 to 1 in all other categories. However we keep fighting the same battle every single time. How is it that we fight with about 1 to 1 odds if that...usually I lose buy points. He has a CA and I get a few DD's and maybe a couple of CL's. Everytime? Is this WAD? 

2) How do you transfer ships from one division to the other

3) Is there a hotkey list? I didn't see one in the manual

4) Jutland campaigns covered large surface areas also but you could pick and choose which ships left port to engage in a area. Can we not do this? Why is it just light forces that I ever see. A significant German force is suppose to be sitting off the east coast. For months all we see are the same CA's (2)

5) How do you get the AI ships to coordinate at all? They seem to just float around in random or maybe AI set search areas. They have never shot off a round.

Thanks guys...

[alsadius]

1) Different battle sizes will happen. If you keep big fleets in the same zone, expect 1-2 fleet battles per year on average. But most battles are little cruiser actions. The player with more forces will tend to get bigger fleets on average, but it'll vary - the various German raiders in WW1/WW2 occasionally had local superiority, despite massive inferiority overall.

2) You can't. The OOB is generated by the AI.

3) No idea tbh. The only "hotkey" I know of is shift-click to set a division's course.

4) Unless I misunderstand you, that's pretty much historical. Big fleets mostly stayed in port unless there was a particular task for them, especially if they were outnumbered.

5) Switch your preferences to captain mode between battles, and control them all yourself. Not worth fussing with the AI, IMO. (EDIT: You mean the AI-controlled squadrons not in your OOB? They actually do shoot sometimes, and I've even seen them sink enemies once or twice. But you don't get notifications for it, so they can look ineffective.)

[mycophobia]

1, The battle generator create battle based on fleet disposition, but does not always ensure that the side with numerical superiority will always enjoy it in generated scenarios. If you are confident with your fleet size, considering turning down battle like cruiser actions with size: small/perhaps medium, these battles usually do not have enough ship in battle to give you an numerical advantage.

2, I believe as of now there is no way to transfer ships between division, only transferring divisions to follow another division.

3, There is one, if not in the manual I am sure it is accessible in the game somewhere, if that fails also give the RTW wiki a try.

4. RTW1/2, unlike SaI abstract each theater of battle into relatively large sea zones. Therefore there is no way to actually place a ship in any specific location within that zone. If you really don't want a ship to see action you can put them on reserve status.

The issue with not seeing major fleet engagement might be due to AI moving their main fleet back and forth. Germany have no base in the East coast, therefore AI is extremely reluctant to keep a fleet there for more than a turn. As a result, while you see their fleet on the east coast, it is likely they are leaving by the end of the turn, only to come around later. My recommendation is that if battle generator gives u missions when you know there is large enemy presence based on estimated enemy force, turn down the smaller battles and hope the game gives you a fleet battle. (You can also take it to the Germans, I feel AI are more inclined to accept fleet action if they are at risk of being blockaded.)

5. By AI ship do you me squadrons completely not under player control, or AI controlled part of the player fleet? Non-Player controlled squadron are not meant to coordinate with you, the represent other squadron that happens to be in the area, but not under command of whatever officer that is commanding the player controlled fleet. They will investigate enemy sightings, and can pursue enemy once engaged, but do not count on them for really anything.

If you mean player controlled squadron under AI management, it is important to give them proper role and make sure they are following the correct division. I actually find the game does a fairly decent job with this so I am pretty sure that is not the issue you are having?

Lastly as a note, bear in mind RTW have a different emphasis from Jutland/SaI, there is less focus on the action and positioning within a theater. The focus is more on the management of the navy coupled with SaI style tactical combat.

[Tactical Wargamer]

Thanks, guys.....find it still strange not to be able to take command if I desire with squadrons literally on my port bow 200 yards away
I would assume I am the ranking commander on the scene....maybe not. Frustrating to see that I have significant forces in the area and always seem so far to be outgunned and my hapless subordinates do little to nothing to intercept enemy naval forces. Surely I'm on the wireless begging them to engage or assist

[mycophobia]

Jul 9, 2019 12:20:45 GMT -6 Tactical Wargamer said:

Thanks, guys.....find it still strange not to be able to take command if I desire with squadrons literally on my port bow 200 yards away
I would assume I am the ranking commander on the scene....maybe not. Frustrating to see that I have significant forces in the area and always seem so far to be outgunned and my hapless subordinates do little to nothing to intercept enemy naval forces. Surely I'm on the wireless begging them to engage or assist

"WHERE IS TASK FORCE $%(# THE WORLD WONDERS"

"500 yards to our left sir, we are actually on a collision course if we don't start turning right now."

That said it depends on the force type, uncontrolled BB squadrons seems to be pretty happy to engage but they tend to get lost on their way to assist. Other squadron generally just run away from the actions.

[gimlet]

There's a list of hotkeys in the battle screen, one of the icons at the top? Or F1? Will bring it up...

ED:  Oh and a tip:  there is no autosave outside of battle, so remember to manually save every few months.

[rs2excelsior]

I feel the frustration of AI support forces being completely useless. I had a mission (it was either an enemy coastal raid or bombardment mission, I don't remember) where I had a division of 4 destroyers (pretty early game, too, like late 1900s/early 1910s--early enough that dreadnoughts weren't really a thing yet). There was a friendly battleship under AI control in the vicinity. I spot one enemy ship which turns to run, I pursue. Then the enemy ship turns around... it's a battleship. I run to my battleship, the enemy ship is literally like a couple hundred yards outside of the capital ship's visual range but my ship refuses to get any closer. My DDs had to try and fight off the enemy battleship, two destroyers were lost, and I like to think the battleship captain got court-martialed afterwards.

[mycophobia]

Well as a counter example, I've had a battle where two of my BCs pursuing a pair of enemy BC losing track of the enemy in a storm, who then bumped into two AI controlled BBs, who proceeded to wreck one of the enemy BC without me doing pretty much anything that battle

[alsadius]

Jul 9, 2019 15:55:26 GMT -6 gimlet said:

There's a list of hotkeys in the battle screen, one of the icons at the top? Or F1? Will bring it up...

ED:  Oh and a tip:  there is no autosave outside of battle, so remember to manually save every few months.

Wait, what? I thought it saved monthly. I've been really lucky...

[aeson]

Jul 10, 2019 7:44:08 GMT -6 alsadius said:

Jul 9, 2019 15:55:26 GMT -6 gimlet said:

There's a list of hotkeys in the battle screen, one of the icons at the top? Or F1? Will bring it up...

ED:  Oh and a tip:  there is no autosave outside of battle, so remember to manually save every few months.

Wait, what? I thought it saved monthly. I've been really lucky...

The game writes to Autosave.BCS every time you hit 'end turn,' and if you do not have a more recent mid-scenario autosave (Autosave.SAC) then Autosave.BCS is the file which will be loaded when you load the game from an autosave. If you're loading an autosave mid-war, though, it's likely that Autosave.SAC is the more recent autosave and so would in general take precedence over Autosave.BCS.