Several questions from a noob about ship placement

[touchmetwice]

Hey guys,

So I'm playing my first game as the US and Russia decided to go to war with me even though I tried to keep the peace.  However, I'm a bit confused about where to put my ships and why Russia always seems to have huge and large fleets vs. a few of my CL's.

So, I had fleets stationed on the West Coast and the East Coast, as well as a few ships with a foreign station setting (I had several CL's and a few DD's on FS, should I place larger ships on FS also?  I read the manual but am still a bit confused, what's the difference between placing a few ships on FS vs placing them directly on colonial bases?)

I had about 5 B's and 10ish CA's and 10ish CL's on the west coast, however every time a fight broke out I was constantly outgunned with the Russians having 4 B's and an entire fleet vs me having maybe a CA and a CL.  How am I supposed to win a battle like that?  Why isn't my entire fleet deploying?  Have I placed my ships wrong?

Also, while probably an obvious question, but do I need to deploy ships on hexes where the Russian bases are in order for me to attack them?  Can ships just stay in enemy territory or do I have to rotate them out, or do they just rotate out automatically?  I'm kind of confused about how to go on the offensive.

Final question: how do I ensure that my ships fire torpedos?  I've built my DD's mainly as torpedo platforms but they always seem to line up with my capital ships in a firing line...

Thank you for your help!  I tried to read the manual and it cleared up a lot, but there's still a bunch I'm confused about.

[wlbjork]

The fleet generator is a little...odd at times. Three or four battles in a row I had completely inadequate forces deployed against entire fleets - but then the same can happen to the AI so it balances out over time...not that it helps when you're outnumbered and outgunned! By the way, if a ship is in Reserve (R) or MothBalled (MB) then it will not get chosen for a battle.

I prefer to place ships on a station, rather than use the Foreign Service setting. Firstly, ships on FS will downgrade to a Poor quality crew, whilst ships on station can have their crews rise up to Elite quality. Secondly, ships on FS move randomly through the zones, so will only be available for combat in the zone they occupy.

In order to invade a colony, you do indeed need naval superiority in the sea zone.

Ships may only stay in a sea zone long term if there is sufficient basing capacity to support them, otherwise consider moving them in one month and out the next. The area/base tab will tell you what strength can be supported. Ships do not automatically rotate - this is something you must do manually. Note that if you are operating in an area without a fleet base (e.g. the USN operating in Northern Europe) and a ship develops engine trouble or runs out of fuel, it may get interned or scuttled - so consider carefully range and engine reliability when constructing ships.

Torpedoes are fairly unreliable, especially early game. Remember that they are very range limited, so I prefer to have crews hold fire whilst they batter a ship with guns until it's stationary then allow torpedo attacks to sink the enemy ship. Above deck tubes should fire at any speed, but submerged tubes will only fire at sub-25 knot speeds and have a very limited fire arc, so try reducing speed to cruising.

As for ship size when it comes to Foreign Service, my current starting deployment: 1*KE fitted for minesweeping, 1*KE fitted for ASW, then add 1-2*CL with 1*DD escort per CL. If more ships are required, I'll consider adding 1*CA with 2*DD escorts, and for a really large fleet (UK in Med, for example) then I may add 1-2*B with 3*DD escorts apiece. Whilst bigger ships do suffer from a tonnage contribution penalty, I consider the additional combat power to be useful if (when!) a conflict breaks out in that sea zone.

One last thing - don't be afraid to build weaker ships to keep costs low if needed. An early game 2000t cruiser with 8 single 4" guns and 20kn top speed is perfectly adequate to fend off enemy DDs, for example.

[jwsmith26]

Smaller ships are fine on FS. Ships on FS will randomly move to different foreign locations. As they are moved around by the AI, ships on FS will not necessarily be located in regions that require a ship garrison, but regardless of where it is located the displacement of a ship on FS will be applied against the worldwide garrison requirement. Any friendly ship located in a foreign location that requires a ship garrison will also serve to satisfy that requirement or a portion of the requirement even if they are not on FS.

The game tries to create relatively balanced battles but it will occasionally put you into an untenable combat situation. In such as situation your best bet is likely to run. This was not an uncommon historical result. Unbalanced battles seem to be happening more often in the latest versions and is being looked at. From what you describe I doubt what you are seeing with unbalanced battles is a result of poor ship placement on your part.

By "hexes" I assume you mean "regions" (as in Mediterranean region). To generate the potential for a naval battle you don't need to be in a region with an enemy base but you do need to be in a region that contains enemy ships. Even then, the chance for a battle in any particular region is relatively low, but is higher in regions with many ships from both sides present. You can also create conditions conducive to the creation of naval battles if you invade an enemy possession or they have invaded one of yours.

You can leave your ships in any region indefinitely but there can be consequences if you park them in a region that does not have a sufficient base value to support all of the ships you have in the region. If this happens the game will begin reducing the battle effectiveness of random ships in the region. Ships so affected are marked with an asterisk next to their status on the "Ships in service" tab. Except for ships on FS, ships will not move between regions unless you order them to do so. You should probably consider rotating the affected ships back to a home region where the asterisk will be eventually removed.

In most wargames you can easily "go on the offensive" by simply moving your units into position and ordering them to attack. It doesn't work that way in RTW2. You can attempt to blockade an enemy region by overmatching the ships the enemy has in the area, which will sometimes, but not always, precipitate battles. As I mentioned above you can invade a possession, which often but not always, engenders a reaction from the AI as it attempts to thwart the invasion. Battles are more likely to occur if your forces are approximately equal to the enemy forces in a region; they are less likely to occur if you have overwhelming force in a region. I will often reduce my strength in a region, even placing some capital ships into mothball status if in my home region, to try to precipitate a battle with a weaker opponent.

Getting ships to fire torpedoes is a widely discussed issue on this forum. You might want to look around for some threads discussing the issue. The bottom line is that early destroyers (until perhaps 1920) are quite reluctant to fire their torpedoes. You can issue a "flotilla attack" order to make it more likely but you'll probably still be disappointed with the results. Positioning your destroyers correctly is critical to getting them to fire. You should be aware that enemy ships, particularly capital ships, are quite leery of destroyers and will turn away when threatened by destroyers, even though there is really very little threat early in the game. You can use this to your advantage to break enemy lines, sow confusion in the enemy battleline or delay the enemy force if you are attempting to escape.

[rimbecano]

Dec 15, 2019 8:59:13 GMT -6 touchmetwice said:

So, I had fleets stationed on the West Coast and the East Coast, as well as a few ships with a foreign station setting (I had several CL's and a few DD's on FS, should I place larger ships on FS also?  I read the manual but am still a bit confused, what's the difference between placing a few ships on FS vs placing them directly on colonial bases?)

FS is more for when you suddenly have a sea zone without sufficient FS coverageand don't have time to manually move ships there without prestige penalties, or when you don't want to micromanage and don't anticipate combat in any particular sea zone.

Final question: how do I ensure that my ships fire torpedos?  I've built my DD's mainly as torpedo platforms but they always seem to line up with my capital ships in a firing line...

Keep in mind that torpedoes aren't much faster than ships, especially in the early game, so the direction and distance that a torpedo has to travel isn't always obvious, due to the need to pull significant amounts of lead to hit the enemy. This can lead to a seemingly clear shot being out of arc, out of range, or blocked by friendly fire considerations. And with the short torpedo ranges early on, out of range is especially common.

[touchmetwice]

Is there any advantage over submersed torpedoes over above deck tubes? Would you pretty much always put above deck tubes on DD's?

[wlbjork]

Submerged tubes are harder to hit. Loaded swivel tubes may explode and damage the ship they are mounted on, but I don't think submerged tubes do.

[JagdFlanker]

Dec 15, 2019 8:59:13 GMT -6 touchmetwice said:

Hey guys,

So I'm playing my first game as the US and Russia decided to go to war with me even though I tried to keep the peace.  However, I'm a bit confused about where to put my ships and why Russia always seems to have huge and large fleets vs. a few of my CL's.

So, I had fleets stationed on the West Coast and the East Coast, as well as a few ships with a foreign station setting (I had several CL's and a few DD's on FS, should I place larger ships on FS also?  I read the manual but am still a bit confused, what's the difference between placing a few ships on FS vs placing them directly on colonial bases?)

I had about 5 B's and 10ish CA's and 10ish CL's on the west coast, however every time a fight broke out I was constantly outgunned with the Russians having 4 B's and an entire fleet vs me having maybe a CA and a CL.  How am I supposed to win a battle like that?  Why isn't my entire fleet deploying?  Have I placed my ships wrong?

Thank you for your help!  I tried to read the manual and it cleared up a lot, but there's still a bunch I'm confused about.

the best way to win a war in RtW2 is to either blockade them until they collapse or sign a peace deal, or doing enough damage to their merchant shipping with raiders or medium range subs until they collapse or sign a peace deal - in both cases you are trying to increase enemy unrest, and you want the enemy unrest to pop before yours does

if you have a base in the enemy home seazone you can station your fleet there and whittle the enemy fleet down to the point where you can blockade them, and if you maintain the blockade sooner or later they will collapse or sign a peace deal

if you do not have a base in the enemy home seazone the best chance you have to make the enemy collapse/win is to build raiders and/or medium range subs -  i much prefer raiders since they are cheaper and disappear when the war ends

countries like the USA/Japan will have to exclusively use raiders/subs to achieve these kinds of victories since neither have colonies near any other country's home zones, while all other countries might have colonies in enemy country home zones depending on their opponent

sure, a country like the USA with a massive fleet could blockade most other countries without a nearby base but they will lose ships to attrition over time - however they could likely get away with it

i bring this up because a USA vs Russia war is likely to have little combat, but of course you still want to win the war

blockading is pretty straightforward - if you outnumber the enemy enough (different countries are easier/harder to blockade) they will likely eventually collapse or give up

using subs to attrite merchant shipping is also pretty straight forward - build a ton of medium range subs, and keep building them because you will lose a lot

raiders are more work but i think work better than subs.  the key to building raiders is to build a lot of cheap AMCs early in the war (i play with very large fleets and build 40-50), group them up in a single 'swarm', and most importantly keep them moving - the 'swarm' should be taking a world tour of all the enemy colonies to have the best chance of maximizing damage and to minimize losses

do not build warship raiders, stick with AMCs only - raiders work on quantity, never quality.  build cheap, and build a lot. always auto-resolve raider battles because who cares if you lose a cheap AMC.  if the war carries on for a few years and your AMC fleet is reduced to half or so you can build more to refresh the 'swarm' and keep up the pressure

here's the AMC design i used in my previous games - cheap and disposable

[sloanjh]

Dec 15, 2019 13:29:47 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

Submerged tubes are harder to hit. Loaded swivel tubes may explode and damage the ship they are mounted on, but I don't think submerged tubes do.

Submerged tubes can explode when hit and cause severe damage.  OTOH, they can be reloaded without the (late-game) reload tech for swivel mounts.

[aeson]

Dec 15, 2019 15:15:37 GMT -6 JagdFlanker said:

do not build warship raiders, stick with AMCs only - raiders work on quantity, never quality.  build cheap, and build a lot. always auto-resolve raider battles because who cares if you lose a cheap AMC.  if the war carries on for a few years and your AMC fleet is reduced to half or so you can build more to refresh the 'swarm' and keep up the pressure

The cost of a light raiding CL is competitive with that of an AMC once you factor service life into the equation.

[jwsmith26]

JagdFlanker wrote:

"the best way to win a war in RtW2 is to either blockade them until they collapse or sign a peace deal, or doing enough damage to their merchant shipping with raiders or medium range subs until they collapse or sign a peace deal ..."

Let's define our terms here - in this case "best". If by best, you mean easiest, then OK, I'll agree with that. 

For myself, I would also describe this method as the least fun way to win a war in RTW2. The most fun way to win a war in RTW2 is to meet the enemy in battle, sink their ships, see them driven before you and hear the virtual lamentations of their women*.  But everyone plays the game differently. 





*I think it goes something like that.

[Enderminion]

note on Submerged Tubes, they cannot be fired above 25 knots and have a more limited Arc

[JagdFlanker]

Dec 15, 2019 16:48:03 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

JagdFlanker wrote:

"the best way to win a war in RtW2 is to either blockade them until they collapse or sign a peace deal, or doing enough damage to their merchant shipping with raiders or medium range subs until they collapse or sign a peace deal ..."

Let's define our terms here - in this case "best". If by best, you mean easiest, then OK, I'll agree with that. 

For myself, I would also describe this method as the least fun way to win a war in RTW2. The most fun way to win a war in RTW2 is to meet the enemy in battle, sink their ships, see them driven before you and hear the virtual lamentations of their women*.  But everyone plays the game differently. 





*I think it goes something like that.

i 100% agree - the only reason i mentioned all this was because a USA vs Russia war in RtW2 isn't (generally) going to be a war with lots of battles when neither share any seazones

also over an entire game/campaign of playing Japan/USA i find you are (generally) not going to be fighting as many wars compared to playing other countries in the game so it's good to have an idea of how to maximize your results when you do get a war

[jwsmith26]

I can't argue with that. Japan can be quite frustrating to play if you want actually fight naval battles.

[anthropoid]

Questions about "Raiders" (and also to some extent about "TP" setting). I think the manual does cover some of this stuff, but memory is a bit fuzzy and I'd like to be certain how these game mechanisms work.

Now, obviously, if a ship is stationed in a zone (region or whatever the game calls them) and on AF, it will ONLY be involved in the battles generated for that zone/region. Does it work the same for Raiders and TP? I have the impression it doesn't exactly.

1. Lets say I build a bunch of "short" range AMCs and stack them all in my home waters even though I have possessions and the enemy has possessions in many other zones. I would think this was a NOT GOOD strategy in that (a) those ships would only be able to range into one or perhaps two neighboring zones per month? and wouldn't be able to relocate to station at distant zone during war time? (b) Zones with enemy possessions which were out of range would not suffer raiding?

2. Better I build say . . . enough long range AMCs to put 2 to 4 ships in ALL zones where enemy has possessions?

3. Even better to build say, enough extreme range with colonial duty AMCs to have 3 or 5 in EVERY zone?

4 & 5. Same for TP? Better to have some TP in all zones where I have a possession and best to have some in ALL zones?

[dorn]

Jan 9, 2020 13:35:00 GMT -6 anthropoid said:

Questions about "Raiders" (and also to some extent about "TP" setting). I think the manual does cover some of this stuff, but memory is a bit fuzzy and I'd like to be certain how these game mechanisms work.

Now, obviously, if a ship is stationed in a zone (region or whatever the game calls them) and on AF, it will ONLY be involved in the battles generated for that zone/region. Does it work the same for Raiders and TP? I have the impression it doesn't exactly.

1. Lets say I build a bunch of "short" range AMCs and stack them all in my home waters even though I have possessions and the enemy has possessions in many other zones. I would think this was a NOT GOOD strategy in that (a) those ships would only be able to range into one or perhaps two neighboring zones per month? and wouldn't be able to relocate to station at distant zone during war time? (b) Zones with enemy possessions which were out of range would not suffer raiding?

2. Better I build say . . . enough long range AMCs to put 2 to 4 ships in ALL zones where enemy has possessions?

3. Even better to build say, enough extreme range with colonial duty AMCs to have 3 or 5 in EVERY zone?

4 & 5. Same for TP? Better to have some TP in all zones where I have a possession and best to have some in ALL zones?

Ships can be only in battle in that region. There are some exemptions from that rule for some missions. I do not know all of them by mind but some defence missions of convoy can take ships from others areas as example. 
1. If ship has short range it cannot be raider. a) you cannot relocate except home zones b) Raiding is per zone/area. Ships in raiding duty will raid only such zone. The most merchant traffic is considered in Northern Europe and home zone of enemy nation. 
2. Long range help with effectivness of raiders and chance to evade interception for raider and increase chance to intercept raider. I would say numbers are more important but I cannot prove it, as it is not known exactly.
3. Extreme range is even better than long range but  I have never seen practical for the costs
4. TP is mainly used against submarines. I think (not certain) that it increase chance to be in defend convoy mission. TP works globally so it should be no important in what region your ship is.