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Post by ranger9000 on Apr 26, 2016 12:20:55 GMT -6
From what I remember reading when I lurked around here before. Costal batteries do add minefields around them. I've seen a few minefields dotted around some of my more out of the way batteries (like one 8" battery built into the Florida Keys as CSA)
Generally I actually buy alot of Costal batteries but that is mostly because I either player as AH, Italy or a highly defensive CSA. Biggest success was the last of those with one superfort in the keys (the game stacked 2 turreted 12 inch batteries, 3 7" batteries and 3 more 4" all overlapping eachother) managed to sink 3 American battleships and some half dozen other smaller ships around 1912 when I pulled the Americans under its guns during a fleet action.
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Post by tbr on Apr 26, 2016 14:26:23 GMT -6
Coastal batteries "enable" a minefield when they are placed on the tactical map (upon generation of the engagement). But potential battery sites are limited, if you have more batteries than sites you get several batteries in the same site. but not more or denser minfields. Density of the minefields depends on the length of the current war and technology.
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Post by chaosblade on Apr 30, 2016 18:28:23 GMT -6
also, torpedo mounts for forts would be interesting, yeah they weren't all that useful, but they did had some impact even in WWII, as the Blutcher can attest.
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Post by director on Apr 30, 2016 21:55:08 GMT -6
I tend to fortify places like Gibraltar and Singapore, or places where I think there might be combat nearby like Panama. Given that they were funded and manned by the army (in the US), I do somewhat resent paying for them out of my precious budget.
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Post by admiral on Jun 7, 2016 14:07:29 GMT -6
I generally consider coastal forts useless. They're both strategically and tactically inflexible (can't transfer between regions, can't move in tactical battles) and aren't that much cheaper than a ship with equivalent sized guns. On top of that, they can't chase what they can fight and they can't flee what they can't fight. no matter how big the gun, any coastal fort is completely neutralized just by staying out of range. Whenever I see an enemy coastal fort, I see an inconvenience at worst and free victory points at best.
If coastal forts were cheaper I would certainly use them (any extra firepower is good), doubly so if I had a more defensively minded strategy or had lots of possessions, but at the end of the day they literally aren't worth it. Buy ships instead.
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Post by thatzenoguy on Jun 7, 2016 21:58:26 GMT -6
I have to say, coastal forts are nigh useless...
The AI literally stays out of their range, so their only use is to keep pesky giant ships away from your weaker ones, if they corner you...
As I understand it, coastal weapons were grossly more accurate, and far longer ranged, due to higher elevations, larger chambers, and pre-aimed firing locations.
However, to be honest, they were rather useless for the most part, as ship fire control caught up.
I still think scrapping capital ships should allow you to use the turrets as batteries, at the cost of some money.
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Post by rimbecano on Jun 7, 2016 23:12:44 GMT -6
There is one thing Coastal Fortifications are good for: If you plan on a war with the Japanese, it pays to have your Pacific bases well defended if you maintain a large fleet presence there.
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Post by director on Jun 8, 2016 8:41:23 GMT -6
I agree... my last game as Germany I packed Tsingtao with 4x4", 2x6", and 8" and a 12" battery. The Japanese surprise attack was a 'surprise' all right... for them. I lost one of my 3 light cruisers, had one 'in the shop' for a long time and one got away clean. I think Japan lost 3-4 DDs and had a couple of B's crippled. Overall, well worth the money - equivalent funds spent on ships would have gotten those ships sunk, I think.
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Post by ccip on Oct 1, 2016 1:00:23 GMT -6
Wouldn't it be an infuriating pop-up to get the "boss wants you to build x 12" coastal batteries"? Just saying. Also, I like the deadly batteries mod idea. Since they are stationary and have pre-plotted fire capability, IMO shore batteries should be better than the equivalent guns on a ship. OK, here is a link. This replaces the coastal battery files in the Data/IDes folder. Do not forget to backup. Maintenance cost severely reduced, 20% bonus on rate of fire and 150% bonus on accuracy of coastal batteries, all batteries have quality 1 guns and increased elevation. They start with central rangefinders and get the better firecontrol through technology progress. Dangerous in early game they become deadly in mid- to late game. www.dropbox.com/s/uuzgtvujnmtb1dj/rtw-coastal-batteries.7z?dl=0Just bumping this up since I wanted to save a link to tbr's files, which I do find very very useful!
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Post by srndacful on Oct 7, 2016 5:37:46 GMT -6
Wouldn't it be an infuriating pop-up to get the "boss wants you to build x 12" coastal batteries"? Just saying. Also, I like the deadly batteries mod idea. Since they are stationary and have pre-plotted fire capability, IMO shore batteries should be better than the equivalent guns on a ship. OK, here is a link. This replaces the coastal battery files in the Data/IDes folder. Do not forget to backup. Maintenance cost severely reduced, 20% bonus on rate of fire and 150% bonus on accuracy of coastal batteries, all batteries have quality 1 guns and increased elevation. They start with central rangefinders and get the better firecontrol through technology progress. Dangerous in early game they become deadly in mid- to late game. www.dropbox.com/s/uuzgtvujnmtb1dj/rtw-coastal-batteries.7z?dl=0Great work with that mod, tbr! *thumbs up* I just had 1st battle vs. new & improved fortifications, and all I can say is: holy s#it! I got a bombardment mission up on Norwegian coast as Britain vs Germany in 1902. (And no, I have no idea what they were doing there either. Smuggling codfish through my blockade perhaps?) 3 of my CA's (13 ktonnes, 22 knots, 14*7" guns) ran into German patrol (5 CA's @ ~10 ktonnes, 21 knots, 10" & 6" guns) and managed to see them off without a lot of hassle - yes, I could have sunk some, but I wanted to see the new coastal artillery at work - if there was any. At this point all of my cruisers had Light Damage from the preceding scuffle but all of their guns were intact, so I sailed on in high spirits & blissfully unaware of the 'shark' (in a form of a single 8" battery) nearby. It took just 4 passes before first two CA's of mine got utterly crippled (one sank on the way home) and the last one & one supporting CL barely managed to get away with (just) Medium Damage, while the Bombardment target & 8" battery took some Light Damage each. According to the reports, the coastal battery was scoring about 4 hits to each one of mine. So: kudos, man! This should definitely be in the vanilla game.
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Post by RoranHawkins on Oct 7, 2016 7:03:20 GMT -6
Nice mod indeed! While playing as the Italians I heavily fortified the chokepoint of Sicily. Repeatedly the target of enemy coastal night raids at one point, where I kept patrolling the bombardment target out of fear of losing more battleships to chance encounters with torpedoes. When dawn rose I found two pre-dreads I had damaged and a CA which I had crippled before burning or sunk 3000 yards off of two 10'' batteries overlooking the strait. The enemy had sailed their retreating fleet past the point and lost a destroyer and those three ships to sudden, accurate and wholly unexpected battery fire.
I've also begun having a care for hostile coastal guns. I only engage them with well-protected ships or at night from point blank range where they can be subdued through volule of fire relatively quickly.
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Post by tbr on Oct 7, 2016 20:56:58 GMT -6
In my own games I have toned it down a bit by reducing ROF of the forts. But they are still deadly and any 8in or larger battery is a danger to any ship, with 11in or larger being deadly to dreadnoughts if they do not combine a squadrons worth of fire.
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Post by ccip on Oct 7, 2016 21:37:52 GMT -6
In my own games I have toned it down a bit by reducing ROF of the forts. But they are still deadly and any 8in or larger battery is a danger to any ship, with 11in or larger being deadly to dreadnoughts if they do not combine a squadrons worth of fire. Just curious - can you add those files or just paste the values you're using for the forts now?
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Post by galagagalaxian on Oct 7, 2016 21:53:09 GMT -6
The files modified by this are the ship design files for the batteries, so they should be retroactive.
Fun fact related to this. You can theoretically cheat the game by replacing one ship with another, as long as the file names are the same. I've used this in the past to fix superstructure mistakes*. I'd scap the offending ship(s), redesign them, save the new design, quit without saving, and then reload, causing the new design to be applied to the existing ship.
*there used to be a bug that would forget the "line" setting on the superstructure drawing)
I like the idea of the above mod, but I feel personally it might go a bit far (I admit I have no played it yet). I think I might do my own version that adds the improved elevation (which seems like a given to emulate exactly that and also high ground locations) and a milder accuracy bonus to the batteries, but not make them cheaper or higher quality (the were usually older guns anyways).
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Post by ccip on Oct 7, 2016 22:33:28 GMT -6
Well, there's lots of ways to cheat this game anyway The file structure is very open, but luckily since it's single player only, it's not something to worry about. And despite playing Austria-Hungary (which has to be one of the nations that benefits from coastal artillery most) in my current nearly-finished game, I don't think I've actually got to use them even once, and the only enemy batteries I've encountered have been Italian 4in guns. So it's played very little role. Personally, I'm less concerned with the details of what the guns do, and more with the result. And the result I want to see is preventing the player from getting into extended duels with big guns on terra firma and winning, and preventing the enemy from basically sailing right up to my harbors and slaughtering my ships with the coastal guns shooting but doing nothing. Since I don't have any control over the batteries anyway, they could be shooting lasers from space for all I care - as long as they're creating a realistic measure of area denial. Though again, at least in this past game, both my and enemy AI have been pretty smart about staying away from the guns. This may have just been AI logic that was tweaked sometime in the last year - or I've just been lucky.
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