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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 8, 2017 11:45:26 GMT -6
Combination of things I think.
I decommissioned my first four three-turret "BB's" where the only other country to decommission any BB's has been the British with their first, the ex-Goliath. So the German AI is holding onto his older ships where all of mine are full big-gun dreadnoughts (or Goliaths as I call them in this game). I know a lot of players hold on to their older BB's and some B's for blockade purposes but I tried something different this game and it seems to have made a significant difference towards how many times I've had to halt production to stay in the black. So my number is a little lower then it could be but I don't have any useless tonnage in my current figure.
I think the single biggest reason though is because between 1918 and 1920 (it's currently Oct 1922 in a 100% research rate game) I got both 12 inch (+1) and 14 inch (+1) guns so I have spent a LOT of funds and time re-gunning all of my older capital ships. All of my ships down to my newest two classes of 1,500 ton destroyers now have +1 guns for their main armament. Every one of them. In fact the only gun I still want at +1 that I don't have is the 5 inch guns so I can switch to using those as my secondaries.
That is a bit of a gamble on my part. It cost between $20-28 million per ship to refit the +1 guns. My current class of BB and BC cost $132 million and $145 million respectively. So I refit 18 capital ships (one class of 4 BB was built with 16 inch +1 guns at the start) at a rough average of $24 million a piece for a total cost of $432 million. That's roughly 3 modern capital ships not built as the price for up-gunning my entire battleline and battlecruiser fleet.
Looks like we'll see soon if that pays off.
[Edit - I looked at other causes as well and I also have 28 medium and 12 minelaying subs where Germany has 6 SS/SSM and a dozen or so coastal subs. That's not an inconsiderable expenditure on my part at $3.2-4 million per sub since most of mine had to be constructed after 1917 to rebuild my submarine fleet after a brutal undersea war with France.]
[Edit2 - Huh. Well, war came in Jan 1923 but it was the Russians. An "unexpected foreign crisis" event pushed tensions with Russia from 7 all the way to war. My big mouth didn't help but it's an event where the only choice that doesn't say -> Tension++ has -> Prestige-- and that's just not acceptable. But I still have Germany and Japan sitting at 9 tension each so I doubt they will stay out forever. I also have no ally this time so I have to sit back on my side of the ponds and be less aggressive. Send out my subs and cruisers. We'll see how my prototype heavy cruisers do as raiders even though they don't have long range.]
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 8, 2017 11:13:47 GMT -6
Now that's just unfriendly. I haven't fought a war in over four years, the Germans in sixteen years and have yet to take on the Japanese. The upshot of that treaty is German tension stayed where it was at 8 but Japanese tension jumped from 5 to 9. Looks like I'm going to have to divide my battlefleet. That will be interesting because Fritz has been a busy beaver.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 8, 2017 3:17:57 GMT -6
I don't know how it translates to damage within the game, but: - High-caliber guns having greater range than low-caliber guns at the same elevation implies that high-caliber shells move faster than low-caliber shells, at least at long range. Neglecting air resistance, the curvature of the earth, and muzzle height above sea level, the ratio of the shell velocities can be estimated by the square root of the ratio of the guns' maximum ranges. Looking at your gun ranges and penetration spreadsheet, it looks like a 14" gun should produce roughly a 5% higher shell velocity than a 12" gun of equal quality from 1914 onwards (and possibly earlier, but I'm only looking at the information in the spreadsheet). - Assuming shell density and proportions are constant across calibers, the ratio of shell weights can be estimated as the cube of the ratio of the gun calibers. As such, a 14" shell should be roughly 58% heavier than a 12" shell, a 6x14" broadside should have roughly 20% more throw weight than an 8x12" broadside, and 20 14" hits puts about 13% more weight on target than 28 12" hits. If the damage that a shell does is proportional to its volume or weight, then a single 14" shell is about 58% more damaging than a single 12" shell; if the damage is proportional to momentum, then a single 14" shell is roughly 66% more damaging than a single 12" shell; and if the damage is proportional to kinetic energy, then a single 14" shell is roughly 74% more damaging than a single 12" shell. In all of those cases, 20 14" hits are more damaging than 28 12" hits, and this will be exaggerated when fighting things that have armor which is at least somewhat resistant to heavy guns as 14" shells are in general more likely to penetrate the armor than 12" shells are. On the other hand, more hits also means a greater likelihood of hitting something important, and if the 12" shell can penetrate the target's armor at the hit location, that might be all that's necessary; a 14" shell might be more powerful than a 12" shell, but I'd bet that doesn't matter too much to the average engine room or magazine if the shell penetrates the armor and explodes in such a space (it still probably matters for flooding and structural damage; a 14" shell should make a bigger hole than a 12" shell and has better odds of damaging major structural elements even without factoring the difference in bursting charge size). My personal opinion is that if you want a battleship or battlecruiser to have a long service life, heavier guns are generally a better bet than heavier armor as long as you don't sacrifice "too much" to get them, at least up until you get 15"-16" guns on them (I've never yet made an economical design with 17" or 18" guns that I felt was satisfactory). Sorry for not getting back to this before the thread moved on but I wanted to say I thought this was a very well-reasoned argument and that you and rimbecano have mostly convinced me that I (and the Germans) have probably been building my battlecruisers wrong this whole time. Thank you both. My last question would be about the number of gun barrels. I thought I've read somewhere that the tactical minds of the day believed eight barrels was the minimum to quickly gain the range on the target. Anyone has any information on if that were true and if so does it have any sway in the argument back to the smaller caliber?
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 8, 2017 2:59:01 GMT -6
The most aggravating and frustrating events for me are the loss of 4-6 submarines every month to an enemy WHO IS BLOCKADED IN PORT. And you can't pull your subs out of an area, can't put them in reserve, can't do anything but spend millions and millions just trying to rebuild the subs you've already lost. Very True. I just had this happen in my last war with the French. They were under blockade for most of the 4 years we were at war because I was allied with the British (Hey, no one ever said war was fair). I never had more than 24 submarines in commission and I lost 29 submarines to all causes. 1 never returned in a scenario, 2 to Q-ships and the rest during the Merchants Sunk/Submarines Lost phase. It was brutal to be a submariner. Only 4 submarines of the 24 in commission/building at the start of the war survived till the end. The French submariners didn't have it any better. The last couple of years the AI started sub spamming because I had his capital ships bottled up and was steadily knocking them off in major battle after major battle. You could almost walk on top of the Bay of Biscay from Gijón, Spain to Brest, France in this game. The French lost 50 submarines taking 148 merchant ships. Back to your point it would be very much appreciated if RTW 2 had a Recall or Refit/Replenish button where you could bring your submarines in once you had the blockade well established.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 7, 2017 8:26:24 GMT -6
That sucks. I would be curious to see in the autosave.sac file if there was a fractional value of flooding that maybe got rounded to zero on screen. No idea if fractional values are a thing or not in game. That's the best I got.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 7, 2017 8:04:40 GMT -6
bcoopactual don't forget that with 14" you get more range and thus higher angles of falling shells My understanding is, and there are exceptions but in the game in general, larger caliber guns of the same quality have a greater max range than smaller caliber guns therefore at ranges within the reach of the smaller caliber, the larger caliber is going to hit at a flatter trajectory. Interestingly enough for my example though, at 1904 fire control tech levels, the 12 inch guns actually have a greater range than the 13 and 14 inch guns and it's not until the 15 inch guns of equal quality that you see the ranges exceed the 12 inch guns. So the 14 inch guns would hit at the same range at a steeper trajectory. No idea why that is although not many nations are going to have 14 inch guns or greater by 1904 so that may have something to do with it. But by 1914 fire control tech levels the 13 inch and 14 inch guns of the same quality exceed their 12 inch counterparts. I guess I need to make a 1908 and 1910 pages to go between the 1904 and 1914 pages. I think in general, gun quality plays a major factor in this decision one way or the other. The exception to this is "fast battleships". Because the game classifies any sufficiently fast battleship as a battlecruiser sometimes you will start making all your BBs fast enough to turn them into BCs. Dont be worried if this starts happening in the late game. As long as those ships have the armor and guns to work as battleships, just ignore the "BC" label and treat them like BBs. I agree with you, battlecruisers are one of the more interesting ships to build in game. Late game I actually have more trouble with the game designating my well armored battlecruiser a battleship. That's more problematic than the reverse I believe because battlecruisers are more useful because they can be selected for more mission types because they count as both cruisers and battleships.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 7, 2017 6:01:49 GMT -6
I've just got a convoy defence battle I lost, as my 3 DDs were no good against 2 CL and DD force As the only surviving my DD fled, enemy force was sinking TR one by one... And then... their DD torpedoed their CL xD I would assume the junior most torpedoman on that tube has already been shot and scapegoated before that destroyer pulls in.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 7, 2017 5:50:37 GMT -6
Preferably, you want to be able to crack the armor carried by the enemy's line, so you don't want a German-style design, either, freeing up weight for propulsion by sacrificing gun calibre. That leaves gun count as the only thing left to sacrifice to get the weight you need for propulsion. That is a very interesting idea. I've always gone the German route. When my BB's move to 14 inch guns, I stay at 12 inch guns with my BC's. 16 inch armed BB's are generally built with 14 inch armed BC's. I went back and opened my original BC design (well, the 1920 version of it anyway) with its 12 inch gun design and went and generated a 14 inch armed design. There are other ways to do it of course, you could go with a two x triple turret design to get six barrels with less weight. I don't like that concept personally but others will. Going to fewer, larger barrels also gave me a little more weight to work with but if I understand your point, your primary consideration was hitting power. My real concern is accuracy and volume of fire. My early battlecruisers probably wouldn't have Director fire control for their first war. I usually get 14 inch guns sometime in 1910 and Directors sometime in 1912. If you assume 3% accuracy, the 12 inch ship above would score 27.6 hits going through their full ammo supply. The 14 inch ship would score 20.7 hits. Those are lab numbers and in-game results are affected by a lot of factors but does the extra hitting power of the 14 inch shell overcome the 33% greater number of hits you could get? Taking into account that every hit has a chance to knock out a turret or damage the fire control. (I could take the weight savings above and have 150 rounds per barrel and that would give me 27 hits at 3% but of course it would take many more game turns to go through that ammo so the ship would have to be assumed to survive longer with no additional protection since I used the weight for ammo.) It seems to me a fascinating question that could go either way and I'm curious if you have any additional thoughts you want to make on the subject. It certainly seems to me to be more and more viable of a strategy as fire control technology improves.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 7, 2017 0:03:31 GMT -6
That Italy game was brutal. I don't have a good answer for you. It's possible you were just really unlucky that game. I'm curious if any other Italy players have seen the same thing?
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 6, 2017 21:57:47 GMT -6
P.S. Well, okay, there is one other piece of advice I can give you: at nightfall, turn your capital ships (B's, BB's, BC's and CA's) around and disengage. No matter how much you've pounded them, no matter if they're already beaten, no matter if you'll only do a quick run to sink a couple of those cripples lagging behind - when night falls: get out of dodge! No if's - no but's - no do-you-mind-if-I-don'ts - get out of there - fast! (For Confucius says: 'Launch fish - sink ship.' Lesson brought to you by 'My Private Ironbottom Sound' martial arts school.) (OTOH, it's not really a Ship Design advice, so feel free to disregard it.) LOL, most of us have learned that lesson the hard way. I would add the following: Any mission that calls for a cruiser could see a light cruiser, armored cruiser or a battlecruiser being selected. Add to that the fact that most cruiser duels end up being stern chases one way or the other and you definitely don't want your light cruisers to be slower than the armored cruisers and eventually battlecruisers of your potential enemy because in general, light cruisers don't have much of a shot against either. There are exceptions of course. So when you design a light cruiser, try to keep it's speed at least 1-2 knots greater than whatever you see the speed listed at for the enemy's ships in the Almanac. The AI will eventually counter your ships with ships of their own that are as fast or faster so every generation needs more speed to keep your superiority. I generally don't worry too much about speed for my battleships. Battleships battles tend to be less of a stern chase and more of a series of passes so speed is not as important although late game it can be if you want to keep your ships at long range to take advantage of better fire control or having heavier deck armor than the enemy. I'll generally pick one speed for my pre-dreadnoughts like 18-19 kts and build them all to that speed so they stay together in the battleline and don't get separated. You don't have any control over which ships are selected for which divisions in a scenario. So if you have some ships at 18 kts and some at 19 kts for example and then they get put together in the same division, the tonnage used to get that extra knot ends up being wasted because the max speed for the division will be 18 kts. For Dreadnoughts I usually go to 21 kts although I've seen some players who go higher to like 24 kts but I do the same thing and make them all the same speed. Like the Standard battleships of the US Navy and for the same reason.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 6, 2017 21:32:41 GMT -6
Maybe this is simulating the AI getting the event where a shipyard offers to build an additional ship of the class at 10% of the cost? Those seem to be built in less time. Good point, that could certainly be it. I should have thought of that possibility. That might explain why it's not showing up in the message page if it is happening as an event and not being built during the AI "construction phase". Technically it should probably still show up in the messages as being laid down but it's a trivial thing.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 6, 2017 21:23:33 GMT -6
Nice ships. Those lattice masts have always bugged me (Not that you used them, just their historical existence). Not one of our finer design moments I think.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 6, 2017 21:18:24 GMT -6
So either my intelligence service made an error decrypting and transcribing this report or that French destroyer must hang mines over the sides like they were tire bumpers on a tugboat.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 6, 2017 17:09:21 GMT -6
That's actually the standard number of guns I use on my battlecruisers and battleships. 12 in casemates, 14 in single turrets or 24 in doubles. With casemates and single turrets I often have tertiary armament. I think I probably need all the help I can get against said destroyer flotilla with that level 1 torpedo protection. I have really bad luck when it comes to getting torpedoed in the middle of the night at point blank range. I understand. It wasn't a criticism. I just run away at night. I've had ships get torpedoed by enemy ships that my crew hadn't "identified" yet so I couldn't fire on them.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 6, 2017 10:01:17 GMT -6
Welcome to the forum.
To my knowledge there isn't a beginners guide that has been put together in one convenient place. There are several threads that address beginner questions so you may find some of the answers you are looking for in those threads. If you can't find them or have a specific question, don't hesitate to ask in this thread and I'm sure somebody on the forum will be happy to give you an answer.
At lot of what happens and what you need and/or want to do depends on the nation you select and the budget it has. Playing as the US is relatively easy because of the large budget where playing as Austria or Italy requires much harder choices.
Large scale, I would say for a beginning that you generally want to not be last (fewest) in any major category of ship as far as tonnage is concerned because you will start getting messages about the Navy League or the Press being unhappy with your Navy's perceived gap in strength and they will start penalizing you prestige points which is really the only scoring in the game.
However, in my opinion, the game favors quality over quantity most of the time so you don't need to try to outbuild everyone either. Nations with a lot of overseas colonies need more ships to cover their commitments (you have to have a certain amount of tonnage on overseas stations or you risk revolts and rebellions which could result in independence for those colonies) and to account for ships sent to the yards for refits compared to a nation with very few overseas colonies.
Small Scale, I would recommend starting out using the autodesign feature. You select a class of ship and then tell the AI to design one for you. Click the button (in the ship design screen it has the image of a desktop PC on it) a few times to see a few different designs and then once you see something you like you can use that as a foundation and then tweak the design as you like. You can also look at historic designs for inspiration as well of course. Look to the manual for a description of what the various design choices mean like low freeboard or colonial service.
One thing to keep in mind if you haven't already read it on the forum is if you try to recreate a historic design the armor thicknesses historically are not going to translate into the game well because of the way the armor and tech progress systems work. Effectively you probably won't be able to make the armor numbers match a historic design. For larger ships like capital ships that can carry enough armor, I usually look at the armor penetration figures for the guns my ship is carrying to figure out how much armor to put on. Smaller ships like CL's have harder choices to make regarding armor because you usually can't armor them completely against their own guns, at least once you get to the late early-to-mid game when your AP techs finally start making a difference.
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