How to enter in the battle with multiple ships?

[nimrod]

Sounds like I how I play and my experiences.

Germany, two double forward turrets in 15" or 16", 8-12 12"-14" secondaries in double turrets with 4"-6" secondaries at around 28-31 knots and 28-38K tons tends to make a good pocket BC or BB that's won me a lot of battles. The larger 40K+ designs with three triple turrents don't seem to get into battles very often. I've only lost one to a turret flash fire. For some reason, the design doesn't work as well when I play as the Italians. I suspect it is lower armor, machinery and or shell quality.

As Germany I see some possibilities (pre-airpower) of getting the battle line behind the enemy fleet and charging in from the other side with DD's. Seems to work well in the Baltic against Russia and also against France in a couple of battles. French line got held up on England as my battle line went south and into the channel while my DD's were herding them to the Thames river. I've been able to do this in the Indian Sea and also in the North West Pacific zone. This doesn't seem to very effectively elsewhere. As such my main ships are becoming super fast heavily torpedo dependent DD's and CL's.

[detjen]

I dont have 2 yet and only played one a little but my experience with the battle thing that led to frustration was the feeling that everything was truly random and there was no strategy going on in my fleets. I could understand my ships having to hunt the enemy down so having contact with just part of my fleet or indvidual ships made sense, but why was there no progression? why didnt my ship contact the fleet and try to organize the rest to engage. there should be some sort of system in place to simulate this, where after a battle where your one ship has to run off from the fleet that you can then attempt to gather the rest of your ships, in a risk reward sort of situation the longer you wait to gather your fleet the chance you lose contact and have to start again, so you can decide to go full in and risk losing them or take a risk on smaller numbers because you really really need to end that fleet now.

[Deleted]

Oct 12, 2020 23:08:03 GMT -6 detjen said:

I dont have 2 yet and only played one a little but my experience with the battle thing that led to frustration was the feeling that everything was truly random and there was no strategy going on in my fleets. I could understand my ships having to hunt the enemy down so having contact with just part of my fleet or indvidual ships made sense, but why was there no progression? why didnt my ship contact the fleet and try to organize the rest to engage. there should be some sort of system in place to simulate this, where after a battle where your one ship has to run off from the fleet that you can then attempt to gather the rest of your ships, in a risk reward sort of situation the longer you wait to gather your fleet the chance you lose contact and have to start again, so you can decide to go full in and risk losing them or take a risk on smaller numbers because you really really need to end that fleet now.

Yeah, you as a player can only slightly adjust the odds, but remember, when the game throws some BS at you, task manager is your friend.

[williammiller]

We are always open to player feedback on game systems, so I will talk with Fredrik W and our Beta testers about the above.

Please bear in mind that AI system design is almost certainly the most complex part of simulation design - the AI has already been adjusted a number of times in several areas, usually in response to player feedback. Of course sometimes you will have some players saying "too much of X" while other players say "not enough of X", and yet others saying "don't change X". Its a complex balance between detail and degree of achieved 'realism', and what can actually be designed & programmed given the finite resources that we have.

Thank you for the feedback, and for considering what I have written above.

[eaterofsuns]

Oct 13, 2020 7:37:51 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

Oct 12, 2020 23:08:03 GMT -6 detjen said:

...

Yeah, you as a player can only slightly adjust the odds, but remember, when the game throws some BS at you, task manager is your friend.

I try very hard to save task manager overrides for times when there are truly egregious screw ups, such as the handful of times the battle generator has interpolated opposing battle lines and scouting formations at the start of the battle, or the tiny number of times my DD AI has confidently launched a spread of torpedoes straight into the side of my BB. The danger of force quitting a poor battle is that you loose out on getting to experience a Jutland, because it becomes tempting to assume any battle that doesn't go your way is some kind of screw up, not just the vagaries of fate. "What is this BS? The AI must be cheating, there's no way I could loose 3 BC's to flash fires in the same fight. I'll just quit and start over."

[nimrod]

Oct 13, 2020 8:30:54 GMT -6 williammiller said:

We are always open to player feedback on game systems, so I will talk with Fredrik W and our Beta testers about the above.

Please bear in mind that AI system design is almost certainly the most complex part of simulation design - the AI has already been adjusted a number of times in several areas, usually in response to player feedback. Of course sometimes you will have some players saying "too much of X" while other players say "not enough of X", and yet others saying "don't change X". Its a complex balance between detail and degree of achieved 'realism', and what can actually be designed & programmed given the finite resources that we have.

Thank you for the feedback, and for considering what I have written above.

Understood, and thank you for reading and considering our comments. I also understand that if the AI is too aggressive it will run itself into the ocean floor against experienced players while dominating new players, too defensive and experienced players don't get the challenging battles we crave. You have a hard task finding the common ground that most players are comfortable with.

I think the current AI setup is very good, for the most part, with mid 1920 and later air power. Keeping its distance and relying on planes is a valid tactic. While valid, this tactic can be frustrating for players, so nerfing aircraft development was instituted... Having multiple AI's might be a fairly easy option to implement / mod - as you already have a valid template established.

Anyway, in convoy defense missions, I find that I'm able to fairly consistently hold off pretty strong task forces with multiple BC's or CA's with just a handful of DD's and CL's. In convoy attack missions, even if I'm massively outgunned I can still force my way into the TR's with near certitude. I personally feel that in the convoy missions, the AI might rightly need to be near or semi-suicidal. The one time I lost a convoy defense mission, I had a DD and an old BC. The DD was lost defending the BC until night, when it was able to make its way to port after a couple of torp hits. Everything else sank.

I totally agree with eaterofsuns - "The danger of force quitting a poor battle is that you loose out on getting to experience a Jutland, because it becomes tempting to assume any battle that doesn't go your way is some kind of screw up, not just the vagaries of fate. "What is this BS? The AI must be cheating, there's no way I could loose 3 BC's to flash fires in the same fight. I'll just quit and start over.""

[hawkeye]

Oct 12, 2020 11:50:37 GMT -6 aeson said:

Oct 12, 2020 9:02:40 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

2: Ah, dont tell me... It did not arrive? Anyway, lets wait for the BB fleet, they will deal with this nasty business.
1: I doubt that sir. Half of the Queen Elizabeth class and half of the Revenge class did not arrive.
2: WTF?!
1: Well, that just happens... 

At the time of the historical Battle of Jutland, the three newest classes of battleship in the Royal Navy were the R (Revenge or Royal Sovereign), Queen Elizabeth, and Iron Duke classes.

- Three R-class battleships were in commission. Of these, Royal Sovereign was left to sit out the engagement in Scapa Flow due to being considered unready for battle by reason of the recentness of her commissioning, so only two of the class were present at the engagement.

- Five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were in commission. Of these, Queen Elizabeth was in drydock, so only four of the class were present at the engagement.

- Four Iron Duke-class battleships were in commission. Of these, Emperor of India was under refit, so only three were present at the engagement.

Thus, 33% of the three newest, 25% of the eight newest, and 25% of the twelve newest battleships of the Royal Navy missed the Battle of Jutland; it would also be accurate to say that 33% of the nine newest battleships of the Royal Navy missed Jutland, as Emperor of India was the last of the Iron Dukes to be laid down (one day later than Benbow), launched (two weeks later than Benbow), and commissioned (a month later than Benbow). "Half" would be an exaggeration, but not by nearly so much as you seem to think.

It is also worth mentioning that period practice was to have four or five ships in a battle squadron so that you could expect three or four of them to be battle-ready when you needed them, and also that it's easier for large percentages of a class of ships to miss an engagement when there are fewer ships in the class - and, at least the way I build ships in the game, two or three ships is much more common than four or five ships in a single class of battleships.

I'd like to throw in my 2 (Euro) cent into this discussion and especially address this Battle of Jutland thingy.

So (in game terms) Royal Sovereign was still working up --> no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.
Queen Elizabeth is in drydock, so she is probably under repairs --> no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.
Emperor of India is under refit, so, in game terms, I am re-building her and no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.

What I'm trying to point out is, that not a single ship of the ones mentioned above wasn't present due to some "random" events because the BG felt like it, but for reasons the player (in the game) could 100% understand and most would have been caused by the player in the first place.


Don't get me wrong, there 100% should be some random elements on what ships meet each other. I mean, if my old legacy CL is at sea, there is a chance it will be intercepted by a modern AI heavy and I don't have a problem with the BG not giving me my latest heavy cruiser that could wipe the floor with the AI's CA. 
Or if the enemy is conducting a coastal raid, sure, the enemy has the initiative and I have to use to defend against the attack with whatever ships are available at the moment.

However, if I'm doing an attack mission, I am the one who has the initiative, I decide when to attack with what part of my forces and if postponing the attack by three days allows me to amass overwhelming force, then I'll wait those three days, thank you very much, my dear BG.

Ask yourself this: Would Jutland have happened, if the High Seas Fleet could have mustered just 2 BC and 5 BB?
Or would they rather have postponed the mission until they could field a slightly larger force?

As I said, if a ship hasn't worked up yet, if a ship is undergoing repairs or if a ship is under refit, all of those are perfectly fine reasons for a ship not to take part. Hell, a ship (as in ONE) might suffer from engine troubles and have to turn back (that's about the only "random" event I'd agree to make sense) 


Of course, this all comes down to the lack of operational planning on the player's side.
Like, instead of offering several battles per month with the player and AI deciding to accept or decline battle one after the other, put all of them up there at once, have the player allocate forces to each battle and then give the player the option to fight each battle or have the game auto-resolve it, similar to the raider-intercept battles.
This would force the player to distribute his forces over multiple battles, thus preventing a murderball approach and engaging the player on an operational level.
Hey, if I only allocated a pair of obsolescent CLs to that raid, I can't really complain that the AI, which allocated three modern CA to the mission, sunk both of them.

[aeson]

Oct 13, 2020 10:00:06 GMT -6 hawkeye said:

Queen Elizabeth is in drydock, so she is probably under repairs --> no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.
Emperor of India is under refit, so, in game terms, I am re-building her and no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.

Queen Elizabeth was in drydock for maintenance, not for major repairs, and equating the type of refit that gets done in the game with any old refit a ship happens to have undergone in history is dangerous as the three-month duration and the lack of reason to do it more than once a decade outside of fire control upgrades strongly suggests that the in-game refit is a fairly major overhaul whereas most refits undergone by historical ships are much more minor affairs lasting perhaps a couple of weeks.

[hawkeye]

Points taken

[retsof]

Oct 13, 2020 10:20:51 GMT -6 aeson said:

Oct 13, 2020 10:00:06 GMT -6 hawkeye said:

Queen Elizabeth is in drydock, so she is probably under repairs --> no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.
Emperor of India is under refit, so, in game terms, I am re-building her and no player would expect her to take part in an engagement, so not including her is just fine.

Queen Elizabeth was in drydock for maintenance, not for major repairs, and equating the type of refit that gets done in the game with any old refit a ship happens to have undergone in history is dangerous as the three-month duration and the lack of reason to do it more than once a decade outside of fire control upgrades strongly suggests that the in-game refit is a fairly major overhaul whereas most refits undergone by historical ships are much more minor affairs lasting perhaps a couple of weeks.

Maybe have ships accrue a maintenance penalty over time, that will force the player to occasionally give them a 1 turn drydock as if they had taken light damage?
they could also choose to ignore the maintenance requirement if they really need that ship, but at the cost of reduced performance, and a reduced time until another month of maintenance is added to it?

[jwsmith26]

retsof, most ships in the game spend most months inactive, that is, not involved in a battle or moving between areas. It would be reasonable to assume that minor refits, which generally take less than a month, are taken care of during these periods of inactivity. It would probably be counterproductive to burden the player with scheduling these ongoing maintenance activities since they would not substantially alter the behavior of the ships in the game.

To address the original issue, I personally don't find that the battle generator creates excessively unbalanced battles very often. I think it does a very good job of generating battles that are reflective of the battles that actually took place during the two world wars (which often resulted in unbalanced battles). That has been my experience across many hundreds of battles fought in the game.

[jwsmith26]

Oct 13, 2020 12:40:23 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

retsof , most ships in the game spend most months inactive, that is, not involved in a battle or moving between areas. It would be reasonable to assume that minor refits, which generally take less than a month, are taken care of during these periods of inactivity. It would probably be counterproductive to burden the player with scheduling these ongoing maintenance activities since they would not substantially alter the behavior of the ships in the game.

To address the original issue, I personally don't find that the battle generator creates excessively unbalanced battles very often. I think it does a very good job of generating battles that are reflective of the battles that actually took place during the two world wars (which often resulted in unbalanced battles). That has been my experience across many hundreds of battles fought in the game.

I should emphasize that this is my personal opinion and is not in any way an official NWS statement. 

[rimbecano]

Oct 13, 2020 12:40:23 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

To address the original issue, I personally don't find that the battle generator creates excessively unbalanced battles very often. I think it does a very good job of generating battles that are reflective of the battles that actually took place during the two world wars (which often resulted in unbalanced battles). That has been my experience across many hundreds of battles fought in the game.

I'd actually say that it generates balanced battles *too* often.

But I'd really like to see either an operational layer, or else the option to run full-length missions (from casting off to returning home, instead of just from first contact (or shortly before) to a time limit).

[Deleted]

It should produce at least a bit unbalanced battles. Neither the battle of Jutland, nor the battle of Denmark strait, nor the battle of Falklands were balanced. The side with bigger navy had a bigger fleet available in all of those battles.

[garrisonchisholm]

For the record I too have noted battles where I get a pair of DDs or 2 old CLs selected instead of my fleet for my Fleet action, but I have been unable to pin down what the circumstances are that lead to this odd battle generation. I would say on the whole less than 10% of my battles might be a non-competitive mismatch that I doubt would be intended by a designer (ie, there is likely a bug somewhere), however I can also have a run of wars where I don't see it at all.

I am theorizing that the mismatch battle might have to do with fleets that have been reinforced recently by light forces, but it is difficult to know exactly what the AI has done. I will try to focus on this in the coming days.

It would be helpful for those who note this battle generation behavior to advise what era it occurred in, as to my recollection it happens more often in the 20s & 30s.