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Post by smacktoward on May 11, 2016 10:55:03 GMT -6
Hey all... I've written another piece on my blog about RtW, this one focusing on the different strategic problems each country in the game faces and has to overcome to succeed. (Or at least, the different strategic problems as I perceive them -- your opinion may differ.) Thought it might kick off some interesting discussions/objections/death threats among other fans of the game, so I'm sharing it here, since this the place where fans of the game can be found  |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 11, 2016 12:26:23 GMT -6
Very nice write up, smacktoward. That's a good review of the game on your blog as well.
I'm not sure I would advise new players to start with either the US or UK, primarily because their extensive overseas possessions considerably complicates gameplay for these nations and the explanations of the mechanisms involved are especially poorly explained in the manual. Personally, I would advise starting with Germany because it is relatively powerful and the player can largely ignore the overseas possessions if he chooses and still do well. But other than this minor point I have nothing but admiration for this article. Well done.
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Post by director on May 11, 2016 21:04:42 GMT -6
A very nice summation of the strategic and geopolitical issues.
I do think you should edit one line: however much the player may hope for a war between Britain and the US, unless he is playing one of those nations that war will never happen in RtW.
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Post by JagdFlanker on May 12, 2016 6:40:02 GMT -6
i actually think Italy is the 2nd easiest country to play after UK, and the easiest for a new player - as long as you avoid conflict with UK. i got my best scores as Italy, with my best being 73 prestige. a big reason for this is outside of the UK and France (and A-H, but they'r easy to handle anyways) no other country can/will blockade you so you can be at war with them for a longer period of time and make the big war cash safely. by halfway though the game the Italian navy can be pretty formidable against anyone except maybe UK
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Post by smacktoward on May 12, 2016 9:02:02 GMT -6
Personally, I would advise starting with Germany because it is relatively powerful and the player can largely ignore the overseas possessions if he chooses and still do well. Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves with the game -- losing overseas possessions doesn't really seem to affect your prestige all that much. So it's true that there's a degree of role-playing in the way I thought about Germany; most of her strategic problems are tied to holding on to those colonies, but the game doesn't punish you overmuch if you just ignore them and focus on building up your battle-fleet in Northern Europe. In Germany's case I can understand why this is, because in real life her colonies did end up getting snapped up quickly, and nobody really cared because they had bigger problems to deal with. But even though the game treats all overseas possessions the same way, in reality they are not all created equal; it may not mean much for Germany to lose, say, the Bismarck Archipelago, but it should mean a whole lot politically for (say) the U.S. to lose Maine. (The state, I mean, not the battleship.) |
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Post by smacktoward on May 12, 2016 9:06:02 GMT -6
I do think you should edit one line: however much the player may hope for a war between Britain and the US, unless he is playing one of those nations that war will never happen in RtW. That's interesting! I'd fought that war while playing as both powers, so I just assumed the AI could stumble into it too. It hadn't occurred to me that the AI might be wired to prevent/suppress particular scenarios. Are there certain pairings that the game is hard-coded to prevent, so long as it's AI on both sides? Or weights/handicaps that are applied to make some wars highly unlikely? |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 12, 2016 9:43:13 GMT -6
I do think you should edit one line: however much the player may hope for a war between Britain and the US, unless he is playing one of those nations that war will never happen in RtW. That's interesting! I'd fought that war while playing as both powers, so I just assumed the AI could stumble into it too. It hadn't occurred to me that the AI might be wired to prevent/suppress particular scenarios. Are there certain pairings that the game is hard-coded to prevent, so long as it's AI on both sides? Or weights/handicaps that are applied to make some wars highly unlikely? The game will never have two AI nations go to war with each other. There can be plenty of battles between AI nations if one of the nations is your ally and the other is a nation you are at war with. You get reports about these battles but you don't participate or witness them. AI vs. AI battles only occur if one nation is your ally and you are at war. |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 12, 2016 10:24:36 GMT -6
Personally, I would advise starting with Germany because it is relatively powerful and the player can largely ignore the overseas possessions if he chooses and still do well. Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves with the game -- losing overseas possessions doesn't really seem to affect your prestige all that much. So it's true that there's a degree of role-playing in the way I thought about Germany; most of her strategic problems are tied to holding on to those colonies, but the game doesn't punish you overmuch if you just ignore them and focus on building up your battle-fleet in Northern Europe. In Germany's case I can understand why this is, because in real life her colonies did end up getting snapped up quickly, and nobody really cared because they had bigger problems to deal with. But even though the game treats all overseas possessions the same way, in reality they are not all created equal; it may not mean much for Germany to lose, say, the Bismarck Archipelago, but it should mean a whole lot politically for (say) the U.S. to lose Maine. (The state, I mean, not the battleship.) I agree with smacktoward here. I believe that historically there was certainly a political/cultural predilection for acquiring new and retaining existing colonies that went far beyond the way the game portrays colonies. In the game, colonies provide two primary benefits to the player - monetary income and basing ability. Neither of these is a particularly compelling reason to go after or protect colonies if you have no interest in doing so. They can be ignored if you want to simply protect your home waters and fight battles against neighboring nations. A third benefit can occasionally present itself in the form of oil in a colony. If your nation doesn't currently have oil it may be worthwhile to attempt to capture such a colony, but the game mechanics make this very difficult to control as the game, not you, decides when and where to invade. This assumes you have created the environment to foster an invasion - a preponderance of naval force in the region that significantly exceeds both the region's basing requirement and the enemy naval presence in the region. In fact, the monetary benefit is actually a negative in some ways because if you refuse to take a colony as reparations after winning a war then the game awards you twice the monthly income that you would get if you had acquired the colony. If you are aggressive and want to expand your empire you can certainly do so in the game but the consequences of expansion are additional garrison duties that typically exceed the monetary benefits of most colonies. I do go after colonies and then improve them if I am trying to expand my empire or attack a specific nation. But this is really just a personal goal; in most cases I don't need to do this to "win" (winning itself is a rather ambiguous goal in the game). Other than the monetary benefit and this personal urge to expand there is nothing in the game itself that drives me to acquire or protect colonies but I believe there was such a drive historically. As smacktoward mentions I think it would be a nice addition to the game to provide a prestige benefit to acquiring new colonies and a negative prestige consequence to losing them. I think this would add another layer to the game that is currently missing but was certainly present in many nations of the period - a national drive to expand and conquer new territory. |
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Post by smacktoward on May 12, 2016 10:52:35 GMT -6
The game will never have two AI nations go to war with each other. There can be plenty of battles between AI nations if one of the nations is your ally and the other is a nation you are at war with. You get reports about these battles but you don't participate or witness them. AI vs. AI battles only occur if one nation is your ally and you are at war. Oh, duh, of course. I have no idea why that did not occur to me when I wrote my earlier reply. Please disregard, I'm an idiot |
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Post by Fredrik W on May 12, 2016 11:58:09 GMT -6
Other than the monetary benefit and this personal urge to expand there is nothing in the game itself that drives me to acquire or protect colonies but I believe there was such a drive historically. As smacktoward mentions I think it would be a nice addition to the game to provide a prestige benefit to acquiring new colonies and a negative prestige consequence to losing them. I think this would add another layer to the game that is currently missing but was certainly present in many nations of the period - a national drive to expand and conquer new territory. That is a good idea! |
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Post by kamuka on May 13, 2016 7:53:38 GMT -6
Lose n prestige when you lose a colony of value n, maybe? I'd also like to see victory point values for events like army offensive/controlling seas around/allied operations/etc increased by a lot, and the players influence on ending a war reduced. Currently it is very easy to stay in any war until a revolution occurs in one of the countries. I feel like that should be rather rare and not completely in the players power to decide. The simulated goverments shuld be able to agree to conditional surrenders against the players will. This and NP nations going to war with each other (even if simulated to a very rudimentary level)would add a lot if immersion to the game. I feel like the player is a bit to powerful in political decisions. (I'm well aware that there are players who have the opposite opinion and I'm glad I don't have to decide that.  ) |
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Post by fredsanford on May 13, 2016 8:08:44 GMT -6
Perhaps some victory points during the war for capturing/losing colonies as well. Speaking of wartime VP's, I don't think players are awarded/lose points for ships lost to events like SS, mines, raider scuttles, etc.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 13, 2016 8:08:51 GMT -6
Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves with the game -- losing overseas possessions doesn't really seem to affect your prestige all that much. So it's true that there's a degree of role-playing in the way I thought about Germany; most of her strategic problems are tied to holding on to those colonies, but the game doesn't punish you overmuch if you just ignore them and focus on building up your battle-fleet in Northern Europe. In Germany's case I can understand why this is, because in real life her colonies did end up getting snapped up quickly, and nobody really cared because they had bigger problems to deal with. But even though the game treats all overseas possessions the same way, in reality they are not all created equal; it may not mean much for Germany to lose, say, the Bismarck Archipelago, but it should mean a whole lot politically for (say) the U.S. to lose Maine. (The state, I mean, not the battleship.) I agree with smacktoward here. I believe that historically there was certainly a political/cultural predilection for acquiring new and retaining existing colonies that went far beyond the way the game portrays colonies. In the game, colonies provide two primary benefits to the player - monetary income and basing ability. Neither of these is a particularly compelling reason to go after or protect colonies if you have no interest in doing so. They can be ignored if you want to simply protect your home waters and fight battles against neighboring nations. A third benefit can occasionally present itself in the form of oil in a colony. If your nation doesn't currently have oil it may be worthwhile to attempt to capture such a colony, but the game mechanics make this very difficult to control as the game, not you, decides when and where to invade. This assumes you have created the environment to foster an invasion - a preponderance of naval force in the region that significantly exceeds both the region's basing requirement and the enemy naval presence in the region. In fact, the monetary benefit is actually a negative in some ways because if you refuse to take a colony as reparations after winning a war then the game awards you twice the monthly income that you would get if you had acquired the colony. If you are aggressive and want to expand your empire you can certainly do so in the game but the consequences of expansion are additional garrison duties that typically exceed the monetary benefits of most colonies. I do go after colonies and then improve them if I am trying to expand my empire or attack a specific nation. But this is really just a personal goal; in most cases I don't need to do this to "win" (winning itself is a rather ambiguous goal in the game). Other than the monetary benefit and this personal urge to expand there is nothing in the game itself that drives me to acquire or protect colonies but I believe there was such a drive historically. As smacktoward mentions I think it would be a nice addition to the game to provide a prestige benefit to acquiring new colonies and a negative prestige consequence to losing them. I think this would add another layer to the game that is currently missing but was certainly present in many nations of the period - a national drive to expand and conquer new territory. I believe that gain or loss of prestige and funds due to gain or loss of colonies should be based on a national requirement. For Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary and the US, overseas colonies had no real value except to draw resources away from the primary geographical region. For England, that isn't really true and its less so for Italy. For France overseas colonies did not actually provide any real advantage for her, she had sufficient natural resources within the national borders to easily build a national economy. As nations entered the 20th century and industries expanded, then the national requirements began to change, but not to the extent that their national economy was jeopardized. If the system of loss of prestige and money is implement, it should take into consideration what overseas locations are gained or loss, and what nation has had that effect. |
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Post by julianbarker on May 13, 2016 13:52:55 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 13, 2016 15:41:24 GMT -6
During the age of sail, colonies were important to guard trade routes to sources of economic resources. However, with the advent of the railroad and roads, countries like Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, Turkey and France, not to mention Spain had an alternative mode of transportation for their goods. The trans-Siberian was very important for Japan to get goods from Europe. With the advent of steam and iron ships, this process went even further. Colonial activity by this time was more about prestige than actual economic need. The wars referenced, even the Russo-Japanese was not critical to the economic needs of losing nation or either side. The Japanese had sources of natural resources for her burgeoning industries. As to the requirement for food and living space, there was plenty of room on the home islands to expand to, the war was about prestige. |
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