Battle generator creating artificially equal fleet battles

[generalvikus]

Hey guys,

I've just had my second fleet battle in a row with nearly identical forces on either side, despite a considerable disparity in forces (though in my favor) in the strategic region:


Friendly Fleet

Battle - 23 B, 4 CA, 5 CL, 32 DD
Map - 31 B, 11 CA, 20 CL, 61 DD

Enemy Fleet

Battle - 22 B, 4 CA, 6 CL, 34 DD
Map - 23 B, 10 CA, 9 CL, 40 DD

The previous battle was nearly identical. 


Fleet size is 7; it seems possible to me that there may be some kind of soft cap on the number of ships in a battle for a given fleet size which is causing this to happen, so I'm not sure if it's a bug or working as designed. I've reverted the version of v 1.16c because of the simultaneous battle bug. If this is an issue with fleet size, then I'd to know - how does fleet size affect budget, and could I change the fleet size of a save mid - game (adjusting national resources accordingly) without trouble? 

[noshurviverse]

I've noted similar trends, such as recently in a France vs. Italy war. Despite having 6B in contrast to the Italian's 3, no battleship engagement granted me use to more than 3 of my ships, while the Italians brought all 3 of theirs each time. While I can think of plausible explanations in-universe, none of them quite match all the traits of how these battles occured.

[evil4zerggin]

This is my impression as well, and if we're not just imagining things, it's a major factor favoring fewer, more powerful ships. Sure, there's blockade score and trade protection, but that doesn't really encourage light combatants so much as it encourages spamming 200-300t DDs while the real fighting is done by a smaller number of "maximum" ships.

[generalvikus]

noshurviverse

What was the fleet size in these engagements?

[Deleted]

Well, I encountered something else: if I have less ships in total, I have less ships in the battle. But if the enemy has less ships in total, he has about the same number of ships in the battle as I do.

[garrisonchisholm]

Unfortunately I haven't had any extremely large battles in ages, so I can't confirm or deny this personally. If you would tally some solid numbers over multiple games though that would be some really useful data for us, as I am sure no-one would prefer the state of affairs you describe.

[generalvikus]

I've modified the fleet size to 8, and am now waiting for another fleet battle to see if there's a difference; if there is none, I'll keep increasing the fleet size and proportionally decreasing the national resources to see if a large fleet size will solve the issue. I've been moving slowly through this game as I've been writing an AAR as I go, so it might take me some time to collect reasonable data, but I'll try to maintain a large disparity in numbers with my enemies as best I can in order to examine this issue.

If anybody else wants to collect data, then I'm playing the 'Historical 1900 Legacy Fleets' mod as the UK, which has been a very enjoyable experience so far which I would highly recommend.

[generalvikus]

Feb 22, 2020 16:38:07 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

Well, I encountered something else: if I have less ships in total, I have less ships in the battle. But if the enemy has less ships in total, he has about the same number of ships in the battle as I do.

As I haven't been in the reverse situation recently, I can't comment on the matter. garrisonchisholm, how about you? 

[garrisonchisholm]

Feb 23, 2020 1:01:03 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

Feb 22, 2020 16:38:07 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

Well, I encountered something else: if I have less ships in total, I have less ships in the battle. But if the enemy has less ships in total, he has about the same number of ships in the battle as I do.

As I haven't been in the reverse situation recently, I can't comment on the matter. garrisonchisholm , how about you? 

I haven't noted that either, but as I said it has been a while since I've run into any rather large battles.

I'm about done with my current test game, I'll be digging into another soon and tailor it to try to investigate these issues.

[akinesia]

I had this occur in my last game as CSA. With small fleets my fleet was 4 to 6 DN or BC against a fleet of 3 large ships. Over several turns i had 3 on 3 or 2 on 2 battles.

[generalvikus]

Feb 23, 2020 16:12:38 GMT -6 akinesia said:

I had this occur in my last game as CSA. With small fleets my fleet was 4 to 6 DN or BC against a fleet of 3 large ships. Over several turns i had 3 on 3 or 2 on 2 battles.

Did you ever see that before now? 

[akinesia]

Feb 23, 2020 21:17:59 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

Feb 23, 2020 16:12:38 GMT -6 akinesia said:

I had this occur in my last game as CSA. With small fleets my fleet was 4 to 6 DN or BC against a fleet of 3 large ships. Over several turns i had 3 on 3 or 2 on 2 battles.

Did you ever see that before now? 

Not that I remember but I have only had the game a few weeks.

[griffin01]

While the forces available for each side in my current game were always reasonable (sometimes I get more ships, sometimes they do, sometimes the number is equal), I have noticed a worrying tendency where my heavy cruisers are consistently matched against their battlecruisers, even if my battlecruisers significantly outnumber my heavy cruisers. This was the case in ~8 generated battles, with ~5 in a row, so while a larger sample could be useful, it might be something that you would like to look at.

[Deleted]

I played as Great Britain. I fought a war against Russia. One may say "hey, even with the need to send half of your fleet across the globe, your home fleet is still at least two times bigger than a whole Russian navy", and I say yes, you are correct. But the problem is that my fleet in the tactical battle is hardly ever at least a little bit bigger than theirs. For someone like me, with about 200 hours in RTW 1 and 2, its not a problem. I can fight with 3 pre dreadnoughts against 8, sink 2 and loose none, but for someone new to the game it may be horrible. Imagine that you are desperately trying to win your first war, only to see the enemy constantly taking his whole fleet against half of your fleet, when the other half is just sitting in ports, battle after battle after battle.

[generalvikus]

Feb 24, 2020 12:52:13 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

I played as Great Britain. I fought a war against Russia. One may say "hey, even with the need to send half of your fleet across the globe, your home fleet is still at least two times bigger than a whole Russian navy", and I say yes, you are correct. But the problem is that my fleet in the tactical battle is hardly ever at least a little bit bigger than theirs. For someone like me, with about 200 hours in RTW 1 and 2, its not a problem. I can fight with 3 pre dreadnoughts against 8, sink 2 and loose none, but for someone new to the game it may be horrible. Imagine that you are desperately trying to win your first war, only to see the enemy constantly taking his whole fleet against half of your fleet, when the other half is just sitting in ports, battle after battle after battle.

I was also fighting against Russia in both of the examples I listed - one action off in the Atlantic, one deep in the Baltic. I don't know if that might be relevant. What fleet size were you playing on?

Could everyone who lists examples please give some details - numbers on either side vs total available forces on either side, friendly nation, enemy nation, and location of battle; fleet size modifier?

I think that if this issue exists, it's bigger than a question of challenge: it goes to the core of the most basic strategic decision in ship design and building - quantity vs quality. If quality were artificially privileged even in fleet battles, ship design and building would be constrained.