Should colonial tonnage requirements be modified?

[wlbjork]

Colonial tonnage requirements can be quite harsh early game, whilst not increasing as ship tonnages increase. Additionally, they force emphasis onto lighter ships over heavy ships due to the penalty that heavier ships incur which can be inappropriate with larger forces (e.g. Britain and the Med in the 1900 start requires 38,000t - but a B would be penalised despite being appropriate as a flagship)


Proposal: Rather than a pure tonnage requirement, a local fleet has to be provided. The make up of this fleet shouldn't be overly rigid but should have a balanced structure.


Each point of "value" of a colony equates to 1 unit of naval force to defend the area in time of war whilst providing anti-piracy patrols and disaster relief in peace-time. This needs to be multiplied by a modifier defining the relative importance of the zone to the owning power (e.g. Britain places a higher value on the Mediterranean than many Asian possessions)

Example:

KEs and DDs fulfil 1 unit of naval force

CLs and AVs fulfil 1 unit per KE or DD present (to a maximum of 3)

CAs and CVLs fulfil 1 unit per KE or DD present (to a maximum of 5)

Bs fulfil 3 units per CL, CA, AV or CVL present (to a maximum of 9)

BCs fulfil 4 units per CL, CA, AV or CVL present (to a maximum of 16)

BBs and CVs fulfil 5 units per CL, CA, AV or CVL present (to a maximum of 25)


The intention is that each ship only gets counted once when the larger ships are calculated - that is, 2 DDs and 2 CLs only generate 4 points, whereas 6 DDs and 2 CLs generate 12 points.

This should help out early game by requiring ships rather than the hefty 38,000t of ships in the Med it can be handled by, say, 6 DDs or KEs, 2 CLs and 1 B - still a good chunk of tonnage but not as obscene. Later on in the game, with tonnage creep etc. there could well be a 200%+ increase in tonnage to cover the same area whilst maintaining the same proportion of forces as opposed to the static effect we have now.

Colonial Service could remain as it is - effectively a 1.25 multiplier to the force value of each ship so equipped. 

[dorn]

I do not agree and find actual colonial requirement quite historical accurate at start of the game.

If you play with historical resources there is no issue to fullfil the demand.
It needs to plan it and historically navies built ships specialized for colonial service and even later in 20s and 30s Royal Navy had exact numbers of cruisers they need to control seas and colonial trade routes.
In game ships assigned to trade protection is counted against colonial requirement.

[wlbjork]

Yes, and no. An examination shows that - if anything - the tonnage requirements are probably a little light.

Right now, any ship above 6,000t takes a penalty to be used for any form of Foreign Service. This would be fine, except that the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet around the start of the game consisted of no less than 12 battleships - and 1st-class battleships to boot (second class were used further afield), 3-5 armoured cruisers, not sure how many 2nd- and 3rd-class protected cruisers but looks like a good half dozen, and well over 20 destroyers.

As the number of hulls decreased to match shrinking fleets, tonnage does match better than I initially thought. However, that doesn't help with the penalty to tonnage that the big ships suffer. It does still need to be balanced - sending an unsupported B or BB should be a bad idea and not just because they're asking to get defeated piecemeal if war should break out. Mind you, there is also the issue that destroyers prior to the River class aren't really ocean going, and are lacking in the range required to really patrol a sea zone.



Revised proposal: The tonnage penalty suffered by heavy ships can be removed *only* if lighter ships are present in sufficient numbers.


Useful link on distribution of RN ships between 1900 and 1914: www.naval-history.net/xGW-RNOrganisation1900-14.htm#4

[dorn]

This was mainly because of tension in that area and importance in that area.

Colonial requirements is more like ship support of colonial administration as it happens at start of century that crew help land forces.

Later patrolling sea was more important.
There is only one system in RTW2 and it spread through 55 years even if things changed during this long period. So there is abstraction which is main advantage of RTW but sometimes it looks strange as 55 years period is too long.

[cabalamat]

Nov 22, 2019 14:22:49 GMT -6 dorn said:

In game ships assigned to trade protection is counted against colonial requirement.

Do this mean that if a ship is in TP it doesn't count as part of the colonial requirement, or the opposite?

[dorn]

Nov 25, 2019 13:43:59 GMT -6 cabalamat said:

Nov 22, 2019 14:22:49 GMT -6 dorn said:

In game ships assigned to trade protection is counted against colonial requirement.

Do this mean that if a ship is in TP it doesn't count as part of the colonial requirement, or the opposite?

The opposite. Ship with status TP is used for colonial requirements.

[cabalamat]

Nov 25, 2019 13:53:27 GMT -6 dorn said:

Nov 25, 2019 13:43:59 GMT -6 cabalamat said:

Do this mean that if a ship is in TP it doesn't count as part of the colonial requirement, or the opposite?

The opposite. Ship with status TP is used for colonial requirements.

Thatt's good. I've never played the game as Britain but will have to try it some time.