The problem with British Colonial Station Requirements

[seawolf]

I've heard quite a few complaints about the British having a lack of cruisers so I looked into why it was occurring.

Unlike other nations, Britain has a global_naval_power modifier that requires that 20% of its tonnage to be put on foreign stations.  AFAIK this also existed in RTW1

However, in RTW2 only 6000 tons (7500 with colonial service) per ship count towards foreign service.  

Therefore, as the total and individual tonnage of battleships, battlecruisers, heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers increases, it creates a colonial service requirement that is unreasonable to be met. 

Either 20% of fleet tonnage must be dedicated to small scout cruisers, or more probably about 40% of your fleet tonnage must be put on foreign stations (assuming 12,000 ton cruisers), which for most navies is the entirety of the cruiser force, leaving nothing for combat or the home fleet.  

This 20% requirement should be moved to 10% of total tonnage, and/or the limit for colonial ships should be moved from 6000 to 10000 tons to allow historic colonial cruiser classes (County?  Crown Colony?)

[mycophobia]

I am fairly certain that it’s not tonnage above 6000 doesn’t count, but rather suffering a diminishing return. The situation is not as severe as implied here.

Although I feel US generally have too easy a time compared to UK, so maybe lowering UK’s penalty a bit but upping requirement per possession value across the board slightly will be a good idea.

[bakara]

To be fair this is a problem the UK had historically that lead to the first(?) London naval treaty and the splitting of light and heavy cruisers to allow the UK to build more cheaper cruisers (arethusa and leander class) while not having to be afraid of the US being able to build larger treaty cruisers.

[aeson]

I'm pretty sure that the 'problem' with British colonial station requirements has nothing to do with the Global Naval Power modifier and everything to do with the fact that Britain has an absolutely massive colonial empire compared to pretty much any other power in the game - and has by far the highest proportion of its empire's aggregate possession value outside of home waters, to boot (well, of the standard powers, anyways; kind of hard to beat Spain's 100%-overseas empire when speaking of proportions). Consider the following table of tonnage requirements and aggregate possession values in January 1900 for a V. Large Fleet Game Budget start:

The 'normal' station tonnage requirement seems to be 1,000 tons per point of possession value in the sea zone, with a pass for stations that are also home sea zones or which would require less than 3,000 tons, some nonlinearity at very high aggregate possession value (station requirement of 21,000 tons for Britain's aggregate possession value of 58 in the Indian Ocean, for example), and a few sea zones apparently having a modifier applied to the tonnage requirements (Germany and Britain both require 4,500 tons per point of possession value in Northeast Asia; the US requires a bit under 450 tons per point of possession value in the North Pacific and a 41% or greater reduction in local station tonnage requirements would explain why Russia has no station tonnage requirement there if the "zero if less than 3,000 tons" check occurs after the reduction is applied).

Does Britain appear to have disproportionately high station tonnage requirements as compared to other powers, given the empires that each power has? I would say no - it looks to me as though all the powers' station requirements are computed using more or less the same rules. (It's not shown in the table, but if you take out the value of the possessions in home sea zones before computing average station tonnage per point of possession over the entire empire, every power except Russia comes in somewhere between 750 and 1000 tons per point of possession value, with Germany, Japan, and Spain requiring 1000 tons, France requiring 829 tons, Britain requiring 821 tons, and the USA requiring 762 tons of ships on foreign service per point of possession value outside of home waters.)

Jul 11, 2019 18:54:45 GMT -6 mycophobia said:

I am fairly certain that it’s not tonnage above 6000 doesn’t count, but rather suffering a diminishing return.

Ships above 6,000 tons count as 4,000 tons plus one third of the design displacement. If they're fitted for Colonial Service, the 1.25 multiplier is on the modified displacement so for example a 7,200t cruiser fitted for colonial service counts as 8,000 (= (4000 + 7200/3)*1.25) tons rather than, say, 7000 (= 7200*1.25/3 + 4000) or 8200 (= 7200/3 + 4000 + 7200/4) tons.

[swang]

It's actually 6000 + (Ship Weight - 6000)/3, potentially multiplied by 1.25 if you have FS.

As to the question posed by OP, I don't see it as a problem. The tonnage being calculated is the unmodified tonnage. So a 12k ship counts as 12k for the 20%, but only 8k for FS. I've never ran into a tonnage issue with the Brits.

[aeson]

Jul 11, 2019 22:41:37 GMT -6 swang said:

It's actually 6000 + (Ship Weight - 6000)/3

6000 + (ShipWeight - 6000)/3 = 6000 + ShipWeight/3 - 6000/3 = 6000 + ShipWeight/3 - 2000 = 4000 + ShipWeight/3.

Also, it's specifically the design or nominal displacement - the number the game shows for the ship's tonnage in the ships list or in the details window, or the displacement you set in the design menu - and not the ship's weight, which can be anywhere between 5% under and 3% over the target displacement that you set in the design menu (possibly even more than 3% over the design displacement, if you get a 'ship is found to be overweight on trials' commissioning event, though I think the only thing that the game does to the design when that event triggers is add a flotation penalty on top of any that's already there - it doesn't adjust any of the design weights, so far as I am aware).

[dorn]

I have played UK with very large fleet and 1920 start.

I have no issue with fullfilment of foreign stations except at start when starting fleet was very bad. But as I have built new cruisers it was done only by cruisers. I used similar strategy real UK had having a lot of small cruisers from 4800 to 7200 tons and it works fine. These cruiser were very effective on foreign station duty and as I have a lot of them and a lot of destroyers they have no issue fighting larger cruisers of enemy nations as I have usually numerical superiorty easily overhelming enemy cruisers.

I lost from 1920-56 only 10 cruisers, 3 of them were sunk by submarines and 7 by surface actions. So it was less than 300M, 12M per year, it is not a lot within UK budget.

[tc27]

Have to say I have struggled to meet GB's foreign tonnage requirements in my games and keep a fleet in Northern Europe big enough to be viable against (let alone blockade) France/Germany/Russia.

I solved it by doubling the budget in my save game file (for everyone not just me).

Agree the logical solution are lots of cheap light cruisers (the historical approach of the RN in the 1920s/30s).

[alkiap]

From a historical perspective, the requirement does not seem unreasonable.
Britain had a huge empire, spanning the globe, and the "cruiser problem" did indeed exist. Trade protection was very much a priority for the Royal Navy, and the game reflects this.

[dorn]

Jul 12, 2019 7:43:34 GMT -6 tc27 said:

Have to say I have struggled to meet GB's foreign tonnage requirements in my games and keep a fleet in Northern Europe big enough to be viable against (let alone blockade) France/Germany/Russia.

I solved it by doubling the budget in my save game file (for everyone not just me).

Agree the logical solution are lots of cheap light cruisers (the historical approach of the RN in the 1920s/30s).

Point is using numbers as UK. Not only for cruisers but for capital ships, carriers, everything. As you have more ships you can split them much easily.

As UK I am always looking at economical point of new ship. What is the threat? Counter it by new ship but only that threat, not future threats. they will be countere by future ships. This strategy is quite cheap as you are not building top class ships as Japan did before WW2 saving a lot of money having much more of them. Why to build 55000 tons battleship if nobody has larger capital ship than 41000 tons.  By this way i was able to even match USA till end of 40s even if USA has higher budget and no worries about colonial empire. In 1956 at end of game USA has 40 % higher budget than me but they have only little large fleet.

GB/UK

Capital ships: 800kt vs. 600 kt

CV: 400kt vs. 600kt (1020 vs. 1150 airplanes) and it includes 6 armoured carriers of Royal Navy

CVL: 13kt vs. 114kt (34 vs. 120 airplanes)

CA: 134k vs. 275k

CL: 167k vs. 6k

DD: 56k vs. 60k

KE: 24k vs. 7k

airplanes total: 2300 vs. 2800

As you can see USA had only advantage of light carriers and heavy cruisers. But their heavy cruisers were small 6" guns similar to my own (I had only 2 cruisers with 10" guns). All my cruisers had 6 torpedo tubes with reload for night fighting.

note: the game was at that time limited to 21 level so I expect that in middle of 40s this strategy would not work so good because in my game if light cruisers maneuver rapidly heavy cruisers have difficulties to disable their destroyer escort.

[bobert]

I like managing the colonial fleet personally. Lots of ships to name and I enjoy juggling ships between refits and fs. Of course that's just me.

[dorn]

Jul 12, 2019 20:53:43 GMT -6 bobert said:

I like managing the colonial fleet personally. Lots of ships to name and I enjoy juggling ships between refits and fs. Of course that's just me.

I do not like micromanagement so much but if you want your cruiser be on TP and be used for foreign station limit, it is the only way.

[stevethecat]

You really have to grind out a lot of CLs, wihch unfortunatly in the early game is a bit of an issue as CL's are very poor combat ships if they get their sorry selves draged into a battle. I have found that it's not until the 1930's that you can build an effective and versatile CL and have them useful for foreign service.


I have completed full length run throughs of all nations now bar Spain, and Britain was easily the hardest. Meeting requirements and not getting stomped in other areas due to larger localised enemy fleets took a lot of juggling.

I see it as the games 'hard' mode, if it was a console game a platinum 'First Sea Lord' achievement would pop up for succesfully making it through an entire career.

[dorn]

Jul 13, 2019 2:03:22 GMT -6 stevethecat said:

You really have to grind out a lot of CLs, wihch unfortunatly in the early game is a bit of an issue as CL's are very poor combat ships if they get their sorry selves draged into a battle. I have found that it's not until the 1930's that you can build an effective and versatile CL and have them useful for foreign service.


I have completed full length run throughs of all nations now bar Spain, and Britain was easily the hardest. Meeting requirements and not getting stomped in other areas due to larger localised enemy fleets took a lot of juggling.

I see it as the games 'hard' mode, if it was a console game a platinum 'First Sea Lord' achievement would pop up for succesfully making it through an entire career.

I found CLs most versatile ships. They scout for fleet, they hunt other CLs, they can lead destroyers, they can raid, they are useful for foreign station.
They are fast enough usually 3-5 knots slower than destroyers which as time progrese is smaller and smaller difference. They can take hits on opposite to unarmoured destroyers.
And they are cheap.
Protected cruisers ar start of century are a little large for about 20 to 25 M but in 10s they can cost around 15 to 18 M only later after double turrets, aircrafts, DP secondary guns they are going large and cost 24 to 34 M. And cruisers from middle 20s can be useful for decades.
The first cruisers from 10s achieving 28-29 knots are useful on foreign stations for long time. They are usually powerful with 5 to 6 6" guns as small cruisers with 3x2x6" guns built later, cheaper and without good AA guns or aircrafts, but still useful for foreign stations mostly because they are cheap and still reasonable powerful.

I have usually lot of cruisers to destroy enemy cruiser force and after that they are very helpful to main force as they detter enemy capital ships. It is similar role which was used by UK in WW2.
If you hit fire control or radar by 6" shell it is quite nice how these little ships can influence battle between large capital ships.

[alsadius]

Early protected cruisers can be surprisingly well-gunned, too - 4x 8" isn't a bad battery for 1900, and it can do some damage even to heavier ships.