Transition Time Between Sea Zones

[Emma de Normandie]

Recently I found a cool website that would show you the sea route between any two ports and give you the time it takes to travel between them at any given speed. Naturally I ran a few numbers, for example, from Portsmouth, UK to Shanghai, China takes 49 days at 10 knots with no stops. Now, in game that would take 4 months: Northern Europe to the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and then finally Northeast Asia. Even with port calls, refueling, and replenishment, I can't help but feel that it's way too long.

Force Z left Scotland on October 25 and reached Cape Town on November 16. That included a stop in Freetown, Sierra Leon. That is only 3 weeks. It later arrived at Ceylon on November 29, and finally, Singapore on December 2. With the many stops along the way and multiple merges with other ships, Force Z still managed to go from near Glasgow to Singapore in exactly 39 days. In game time, this would have taken 3 months. 

My proposal is to rework the transition time for between sea zones based on range.

In peace time, short range moves 1 sea zone per month, medium moves 2 sea zones per month, long range and extremely long move 3 sea zones per month.
In war time, short range cannot move, medium moves 1 sea zone per month, and long and extremely long move 2 sea zones per month.

This would actually give the players a very major reason to think and strategize on the topic of ship range, meanwhile offering a more dynamic and more realistic side of the game.

Please let me know if my thinking if flawed and why. I'm sure there was serious thinking and reasoning behind the way this game mechanic works currently. Also would love to hear what others think.

[gurudennis]

Love this idea. The devs should of course tweak the actual values and thresholds, but the principle of it sounds about right.

I would further suggest that any ships within the same squadron should automatically adopt the speed of the slowest ship in said squadron for the purpose of strategic movement if these ships are being moved as a group (IDK if group movement is even a feature).

[ludovic]

I like the suggested stats for peacetime speed. Wartime speed would not change much for me because I rarely have enough of my fleet with Long range to make a big difference. If you could have a fractional movement for Medium range ships in wartime that would make a difference, where they have 1 zone of movement the first month, and then as long as they stay on course they can then move 2 the next month, and then back to 1 the next month, etc. If they change their course they lose the movement bonus, which is realistic.

You could even implement this for Short range ships in wartime, where they don't move at all the first month and then if they stay on course they can move 1 zone the next month. This would also be realistic as long as you have enough base capacity in both zones (and, if you're moving across open ocean, that the ships in question don't also have other defects like low freeboard and cramped conditions.) As it stands right now, I never make ships with Short range, and this would make me consider it.

[williammiller]

Interesting suggestions, thanks.

[rs2excelsior]

Biggest issue I can think of right now is trying to operate ships with different ranges together - you'd practically need some sort of task force organization on the strategic level (which I would love to see in general), or else your long-range carriers get to the area of operations months before the medium-range escorts they're supposed to operate with. Or else have some sort of control to vary the speed on a per-ship basis, which would be kinda tedious to deal with.

I'd be curious to compare some other long-range fleet movements to how they'd translate in RTW2 - the 2nd Pacific Squadron's trip and the Great White Fleet come to mind. Was there any significant difference in practical strategic speed from the start of the game's time frame to the end?