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Post by theexecuter on Dec 2, 2016 13:28:45 GMT -6
Now there is an idea for an AAR...no ships bigger than 8k tons, with all classes represented...
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Post by theexecuter on Nov 17, 2016 13:42:58 GMT -6
Another way to game the AI is to spam destroyers. You can build hundreds of them and be completely immune to blockade due to the way the game calculates blockade.
I was able to blockade the other European powers as Austria...with my fleet of hundreds of torpedo boats. No need to fight any battles at all. Just a boring click fest of building more boats.
If someone can post the link to directors AAR mentioned above I would be grateful. That sounds like a fun read!
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Post by theexecuter on Oct 12, 2016 8:55:35 GMT -6
I played a lo of campaigns with Germany. I start in most cases with 4 Bs and have a cheap class with 10 inch guns, one with 11 inch guns and one with 10 inchguns capable of service abroad. I started also with 10 inch CAs but in my opinion they are not worth the high costs. I have now a class with 9 inch guns and ac lass with 8 inch guns. I will test smaller CAs instead of the 8incher for service abroad. Concernign lioght cruisers I set up a class of heavy armed and amoured CLs for combat purpose in the North sea with 6 inch guns, a a lighter version with 4 inch guns to garrison the colonies and a 2.100 t cruiser as pure raider. By increasing this core force I am able to quickly blockade F, R and also Italy. I never buy coastal batteries and rarely increase bases. I rely on capturing additonal ports in wars. Considering that this is very large fleets I had 9 battleships at game start, and 14 by the time the war with Russia began. I'm also not playing historical resources, so cost is less of an issue. This means I had roughly 10 battleships, five armored cruisers, 10 light cruisers, 20 destroyers and 20 minesweepers by 1901. I really have no need of adopting a quantity over quality strategy. Regarding cruisers, the high cost early on is driven by speed, not armament. Also, its cheaper not to lose ships...IMO. A bit of upfront investment more than pays off in the certainty of survival and of knowing that your enemy raider problem can be solved. No raider can possibly provide its number of victory points in merchant losses. Once your small, cheap raider is found by a hunter...you lose, permanently. I see no reason to use smaller ships in the colonies. I just send my older cruisers there. Intentionally designing poor ships just leads to them being sunk, IMO. Besides, on very large fleets, you don't have enough initial base capacity in the german colonies to handle splitting cruiser types into specialties (and your captains don't recognize specialization anyway!). Far better to design ships that will be successful at what your captains will use them for then to try to manage everything from the top down. My early light cruisers are therefore survivable raiders (can take on anything but a big CA), with sufficient speed to act as screens for my battle line. Anything else in the early game I find to be a VP drain. Basing: I never base units in a zone in which I do not have a base. This is 1900, not 1944. We do not have practical underweigh replenishment. If you need to wage trade war against an enemy you can't reach...build Subs and AMCs. You won't lose as much through hunters and internments. I like to have superior base capability to any enemy in a zone in which I have a colony. This allows me to bring more offensive force than anyone else to an area if I want to invade and seize colonies. It increases my strategic flexibility and improves the certainty of offensive success. It also means I can base sufficient forces to prevent any invasion of my colonies should I choose to do so. Base infrastructure is foundational to your ability to project power to that area of the globe. Neglect it, and your few little colonial cruisers will be overwhelmed by my squadron of battleships and support vessels.
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Post by theexecuter on Oct 12, 2016 0:28:01 GMT -6
Ive played a lot of USA lately, and while it is fun to spend a large budget...you never really get into serious battles because no one can base a dreadnought fleet on the east coast and blockade you for long.
This means you really only play for cruiser battles, and your epic dreadnoughts never fire a shot.
So, I decided to take a stab at Germany. Plenty of foes in my home area.
Game settings: Manual build Game resources Very large fleets
Initial fleet composition ratio: 2:1:2:4:4 B:CA:CL:DD:MS
I don't find destroyers useful until you get destroyer screens. Once that happens I'll double my destroyer force.
Cruisers spread equally across my regions with bases for maritime protection. Some destroyers as well. All battleships based in home waters.
I have spent a significant amount of money improving the bases in my biggest colonies, with the exception of northern Asia. Japan / Russia can always out base me here and I don't see much benefit to trying to take colonies there.
6 in batteries installed in south Asia and north asia.
Pretty typical predreadnought designs 11 in guns, 24 six inch guns...adequate armor.
CAs have four ten inch guns and sixteen six inch guns, with 25 knot speed and 5in belt, 1 in deck armor.
CLs have 12 six inch guns (single turrets) and 2 in belt and 2 in deck armor. 23 knots. Long range (for raiding).
DDs have three 3 in guns and two torpedo launchers.
All in all pretty standard stuff. Managed to get into a war with Russia in 1905...so still predreadnoughts predominantly and only slightly improved DDs coming out 4! Three in guns...
Early fleet battles are an exercise in chicken.
You know you are taking damage inexorably...but how much are you dealing out? Its hard to do anything fancy since signal errors are so common. You would think that there would be decisions to be made all the time...but not really.
You deploy so as to maximize your firepower and fire control. Changes screw that up, so once deployed you are committed. You watch the reports come in and fret about how much damage you are taking and wonder...should I do something about it? Will I miss my opportunity to get one of his battleships out there in the haze? If I change course, what will that do to my firecontrol?
Best to keep on. That battleship will catch up or limp back to port. The battle doesn't seem to be going too badly, and I trust my men are better trained than that Russian rabble...I hope. Damn, Preussen took another hard hit. That lead Russian ship has taken half a dozen hits in the last 10 minutes. Looks likes she's on fire? Ok, we stay the course.
Etc. Etc.
In my last battle, my lead battleship had her rudder jam amidships, and thus my whole battle line was locked onto the committed course. The range dropped to a few thousand yards. Absolute carnage as everyone's mains and secondaries were hitting. The Russians blinked first and fled the field, leaving one hulk which foundered after dark.
This is much different than a cruiser battle...and awesome, IMO.
I've got to head to bed as I have work tomorrow. Will update this thread with more detail about the game later.
Feel free to ask questions.
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Post by theexecuter on Oct 8, 2016 22:23:12 GMT -6
...then go from that extremely unlikely to hit reality to radar guided guns...where hit percentages go up immensely (at night fighting range, every shot is a hit).
After reading some of the gunnery analysis of Guadalcanal and Philippine sea battles, I pity the poor Japanese officers.
Who could fathom how an opponent could essentially hit you with every salvo...?
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Post by theexecuter on Oct 6, 2016 9:21:17 GMT -6
I think the people who rely on massive tonnage ships and maxed-out tech level might be playing the game a bit "wrong" - not wrong as in they should follow some kind of rule, wrong as in you're pushing it way beyond what it was ever designed for. It was never designed to be played much past 1925. Once you go there, you're playing at your own risk - can't expect it to always make sense. The limit is there only as a courtesy to prevent you from breaking your own save games, really. Not a feature so much as a safety switch. I can sometimes get 52 kiloton ships by 1919... XD In my current USA game, I'm building 52k ton monsters in 1914...
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Post by theexecuter on Sept 25, 2016 8:21:39 GMT -6
Another thought not touched on here is that the increased effective range of the treaty cruisers over other battle line units opened new theaters for exploitation.
The US would never have chosen Guadalcanal as an attritional theater without the capability to project sufficient surface power to the region.
Realistically, they knew only north carolina, Washington, and south Dakota had the fuel efficiency to deploy that far away...but this also ruled out Japan's fuel hog battleships.
Without the known treaty cruiser range capabilities, naval logistics would have dictated different solutions to the naval wars.
Discuss.
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Post by theexecuter on Sept 20, 2016 16:25:38 GMT -6
Has anyone built a navy by Jeune Ecole/Guerre de Course principles and tried it out against a significant enemy naval power? I played a pair of campaigns emphasizing destroyer builds rather than capital ship builds. One as Austria, and one as Russia. I found it game breaking. You can have (on very large fleets, nonhistoric budget) more than a hundred destroyers at game start...and you can rapidly approach 200+ destroyers. This essentially means your hordes of destroyers blockade any opponent in your home area...and having only a few light cruisers and two or three armored cruisers (no battleships) means that the battle scenario has a hard time creating meaningful battles. Interestingly, there is a cap on number of ships that a fleet battle will pull...as my entire horde of destroyers wasn't present... Most opponents will decline fleet battles against your fleet anyway, which makes the game merely a 'build more and more destroyers' click fest. Not very fun. I think this is exploitive because the blockade weight for destroyers is too high for jeune ecole philosophy.
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