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Post by srndacful on Oct 7, 2016 1:39:33 GMT -6
Just out of curiosity: has anyone here read "Supremacy" by Arthur C. Clarke? Sci-Fi, I know, but (like most good Fiction) it has a tendency of making you think by divorcing emotional from factual parts of history.
Meanwhile, as an offering to the thread gods, and for the record: I have been building 52 ktonne ships at the beginning, but I find that smaller ships (with proper handling & tactics) get to kick the stuffing out of the enemy as well as big ones - with the added bonus that there's usually more of them to go around.
So, most of my BB's are usually up to about 39 ktonnes (letting me build 4 for the price of 3) - while my BC's go up to about 42 ktonnes (giving me 5 for the price of 4) since they get to be more active and less armored, and thus need all the edge they can get.
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Post by srndacful on Oct 5, 2016 6:50:15 GMT -6
Ah Ha! thou hath forgotten the first rule of combat. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. However, now that you have cleansed your soul of the haunting battle, you shall now be forgiven remembering that pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall. That's in case running away is an option, of course. Sometimes, though, you get the '**** out of luck' hand, and can only try to lose as little as possible. 'And then THIS happened' in those kinds of situations is very satisfying. I've just (i.e. half an hour ago) been in one of those: Big Bad Evil Gods of Dice threw my small & innocent (misguided, really) South American Union into a war against an outraged & misinformed (naw, man - there's no dictatorship here - everyone's happy, see? What? Naw, man, they ain't doin' drugs, that's ... uh ... second-hand sugar, yeah) USA in December of 1925. Battlefleets in Carribean: 10 BB's & 5 BC's (my entire battlefleet) vs. 20 BB's & 20 BC's (about 1/2 of the entire US battlefleet) Right off the bat, I get a battleship ambush: apparently some of my boats have been caught smuggli ... uh, doing reconnaisance off Miami Beach, yeah. Main Battleship section: 2 BB's: 15000 tonne, 20 knot, 6* 11" Dreadnoughts (hats off, and no laughing, people - these Oldsters sank a Frog Battleship 15 years prior - also my first Dreadnoughts built) Independent detached squadron under main Battle Section: 2 BC's: 24000 & 27000 tonnes, 28 knot, 6 & 8* 12" guns Scouting section of the fleet: 2 BC's: 20000 tonnes, 27 knots, 6* 11" guns (my first Battlecruisers - no major successes though, so feel free to laugh your ass off) The battle starts with me going NW towards Miami, with both of my BC divisions right next to one another, and BB's close behind, in broad daylight, on a nice sunny day, with 3 or 4 hours 'till dark, with only one, solitary, CL as scout - for the Battleships. So, basically, right behind my BC's. Right off the bat, my Independent detached squadron spots ships coming out of Miami (naturally) - so I can finally give them orders to rejoin the BB's - who are currently ordered to do a 180 (head SE) & Full Steam ahead. Scouting half of the fleet also gets Flank Speed, but breaks away SW. Alas, the ships spotted are the 3 US BC's (36 to 42 ktonnes, 27 knots & 10 to 15 14 to 16" guns) coming from Miami. Independent detached squadron is closer, so they target it first. I order Destroyers forward to cover the retreat, but one of my BC's crippled before they arrive & slow down the US BC's. Scouting section has just turned to new heading when another 3 US BC's (similar to above) come in sight due W. I quickly turn it to SE as well & a running battle begins. Well, battle in name only, really. More like a slaughter tbqh - at this point all the reports are from several of my ships being hit each minute, and, every once in a while, one of the enemy's. DD screen covering the retreat loses 3, holds them off a bit, and then heads back to BB's (& last BC that managed to re-attach) - but not before spotting 4 US BB's (30 to 40 ktonnes, 8 to 15 14 to 16" guns) coming in from Miami, as well. So, no ****, there I was, running SE @ 20 knots with overheating bearings, 2 BC's sinking, 2 more full of holes, out-of-torpedoes DD's & 10 p***ed-off 'Murricans baying for my blood - when all of a sudden I see the whole bloodthirsty wolfpack veer to the NE. I actually sat there staring at that screen for a whole minute not believing my luck, before checking what just happenned: In one of the more freakish examples of C3I insanity (which is one (if not the) reason I love it so much) - one of my destroyers got too far through the enemy fleet - and out on the other side. Once others started to retreat, it found itself cut off, and tried to get away from the enemy the only way it could (to the NE) - and the entire US fleet chose to follow it, instead of me. After all my slaughtered AH BC's - finally, someone got away. Cheers!
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Post by srndacful on Sept 11, 2016 5:11:44 GMT -6
I always found the "110% of the blockaded side" part particularly funny in a war between two closely matched sides: Lose a battleship to a mine (even if it's only '5 months in dock' verdict) & suddenly you find yourself Blockaded instead of Blockading. It turns the whole war into a Soccer (or maybe Tennis) match as the 'Blockaded' ball jumps from one court to another. IMHO, the Blockading side should be clearly superior, but hey - Blockades are not the main point of this game, anyway, and the rest of it is so awesome that little things like that are easy to overlook.
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Post by srndacful on Sept 1, 2016 21:16:35 GMT -6
2nd on the entertaining. As I'm sure you're now aware, Prestige is the only score that counts. FYI, playing as the USN is probably the easiest. IMHO, playing as Great Britain on non-historical setting gives just the right mix of high budget and high maintenance (i.e.lots of overseas territories = not a lot of ships in Reserve) for a Campaign just below A-H / on par with Italy in difficulty.
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Post by srndacful on Sept 1, 2016 7:11:47 GMT -6
And in the news today, we can see the Glorious German Engineering at work - as they build a 32500 ton BC Lutzow on a 27000 ton slipway. It might be being built in a foreign yard. It might - but, unfortunately, the biggest ones support 28000 tons, so ...
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Post by srndacful on Aug 31, 2016 22:58:05 GMT -6
And in the news today, we can see the Glorious German Engineering at work - as they build a 32500 ton BC Lutzow on a 27000 ton slipway. Attachment DeletedIn other news, savefile sizes have grown, and have to be split in half to obey the 1MB limit. We apologise for the inconvenience, and promise to sink the Lutzow as atonement for this gross (but still amusing) coincidence. Attachment DeletedAttachment DeletedCheers!
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Post by srndacful on Aug 22, 2016 9:21:41 GMT -6
I just wanted to post this. I've removed CSA from the host of nations in the game. Had the CSA survived, it would have been a slave nation whose ships would have been funded by the work of slaves. It was already putting out feelers in 1862 to reinstitute the African Slave Trade. I am not playing against nor am I playing a slave nation. Question: At what point do most of you begin scrapping ships to build new ones. Example is the armored cruisers, initially they are 1899 era ships, by 1905 they probably should be rebuilt, not replaced. But that is just my idea, how do most of you play that. I want to learn to play better now that my daily babysitting is over. IMHO, had the CSA survived, it would've been a 2nd (or more likely 3rd) world nation with a fleet to rival Turkey, Brazil, Chile or Argentina (just to name a few examples) - at best. OTOH, I'm somehow really partial to the name CSA James Longstreet ... no idea why, of course. As for scrapping - Pre-Dreadnoughts, and Armored/Protected Cruisers (i.e.Light Cruisers built before Light Cruiser armor scheme) unless with a speed of at least 27 knots (natural or refitted) - get scrapped after about 15 years of service (except during war) - everything else serves for about 20 years.
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Post by srndacful on Aug 17, 2016 5:46:12 GMT -6
Well, the first thing that they might be carrying - to my mind - are supplies: food, water (with 1 litre extra if 'pasta rule' applies), troop replacements, spare parts, ammo, torpedoes, oil, paint, lubricant, top secret communications (too secret to be sent over the radio), general mail (letters to/from wives and/or girlfriends - except for the 'dear john' ones - those fuckers can get sunk anytime) - in other words, everything a healthy base of several tens of thousand of people needs to keep on functioning away from home.
Now, currently the system has the 'Naval Base Capacity' in an area which represents the amount of ships that can be 'serviced' there. However, it never gives a hint about what they are being serviced with. All the goods required are not produced in a base, but at home - which is tens of thousands (nautical) miles away - and they have to be shipped in (in most cases). Sure, there are things readily acquired from the area that base covers - but not everything.
And please note that it's not just a matter of bringing stuff over to the base from homeland - it's also a matter of bringing stuff to homeland. England in WW1 and WW2 was completely dependent on imported food which it needed just to survive. And that's not even mentioning everything else it needed to fight the war.
This, IMHO, is what those escorted convoys represent.
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Post by srndacful on Aug 15, 2016 21:33:50 GMT -6
So, I got tired of ACs going to crap late game but I felt the continuing compelling need to build expensive ACs never the less. Unfortunetly they keep running into BCs and getting very badly shot up and sunk. So a new idea. I have designed the "heavy light cruiser". It is basically a sub 8000 ton cruiser with light armor and 8 inch guns which gives it a armored cruiser armament. Hopefully the battle generator wont pull these into battles with BCs while they can still add some decent firepower to fleet battles and take on old ACs with some ease. Way ahead of you there, man. I tried it already - and semi-discarded it. It performs well against other Light Cruisers, true - but it still gets dragged into BC battles. The only way to avoid that (that I could think of) is to outrun the BC's. So, 33-35 kts speed with 7" + 4" guns & 6 TT. Armor will, obviously, be mostly minimal ...
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Post by srndacful on Aug 11, 2016 12:42:24 GMT -6
Is there any sort of timeline for RTW 2, one year, one to three years or three plus years. I am just curios and don't consider it to be an official timeline IIRC, there has been nothing said about it...Or what it is... I'm betting its 1925-1945. Honestly, I really hope they can make it a standalone AND expansion game... So you could start in RtW, then move onto 'RtW2' with the same save...
I'm calling your bet, and raising you '1875-1900'. (that's 1875-1945 ante for the rest of ya)
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Post by srndacful on Jul 22, 2016 2:42:03 GMT -6
Did you get that C3I acronym from somewhere else? It's pretty awesome. It comes from the US Navy and stands for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence. You can expand on his with Chaos, Confusion, Cowardice, Incompetence, Stupidity and Recklessness or C4ISR which is the real definition plus surveillance and reconnaissance, if I remember. I'm more inclined to replace Stupidity with Sackville-ness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Germain,_1st_Viscount_Sackville) as the latter seems to encompass more types of fails than the former.
That "... someone keeps sending me these messages ..." part is why I still can't decide if he was jealous, malicious (saboteur) or just really stupid ...
Edit: in case anyone wants to read the account: www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1759-08-01_-_Battle_of_Minden
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Post by srndacful on Jul 21, 2016 11:46:06 GMT -6
Chalk up another vote of approval for the awesome AI & realistic C3I in this game (at least in Admiral's mode: haven't played in any other)
P.S. Realistic C3I as in: Chaos, Confusion, Cowardice & Incompetence - don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
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Post by srndacful on Jul 9, 2016 6:26:19 GMT -6
I had a flash fire on a 3kt CL with 4" guns several times already. (and always on mine, I might add) I'm just happy it wasn't on a CA or BC ...
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Post by srndacful on Jul 6, 2016 5:30:18 GMT -6
Good to know - thanks Fredrik!
Cheers
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Post by srndacful on Jul 5, 2016 0:03:49 GMT -6
I don't know if this will work for everyone, but based on my research of early 20th century textbooks on Naval architecture and engineering, these are the five research areas that I immediately put to high: Ship Design Subdivision and Damage Control Fire Control Hull Construction Machinery Development That is my simple design philosophy.
Let me see: (aka the things I set to High)
Ship Design - until AON & superimposed turrets on CA - then switch to something else Fire Control - until Improved Director & Secondary director - then switch Fleet Tactics - until about 1915 (I take whatever I can get) - then switch
I usually take another research - which one depends on who I'm playing as. For example: AH or Japan get Light Forces or Torpedoes, Germany gets Armor, etc ...
Oh, and a friendly reminder: (so you don't waste research on things you'll never get) Machinery: 18 lvls Armour: 14 lvls Hull: 17 lvls Fire Control: 20 lvls Dmg Cntrl: 15 lvls Turrets: 14 lvls Ship Design: 19 lvls AP Projectiles: 14 lvls Lt Forces: 14 lvls Torpedoes: 17 lvls Submarines: 15 lvls ASW tech: 12 lvls HE Prjectiles: 13 lvls Fleet Tactics: 12 lvls
Cheers! (and happy hunting)
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