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Post by klavohunter on May 13, 2017 20:15:10 GMT -6
For capital ship support and random engagements in home waters, I cut my CLs down to the bone for cost savings. They're still pretty effective. This time around I decided to make my starting CLs Cross-deck-fire ready, a quick upgrade after my first war is keeping them dangerous. Those Protected Cruisers with 8" guns are pretty tempting in the early game if I feel the need for a super-CL to stomp enemy CLs with. Sometimes, for the hell of it, I'll make tiny 2100-ton CLs in the late-game that also have 4x8" main guns, as a kind of a joke.
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Post by klavohunter on May 11, 2017 8:16:03 GMT -6
Okay... I want to know how many subs you were building each turn and how many you actually had in your fleet. I had between 90 and 140 subs in commission and under construction for pretty much all of the war. I saw all the AI nations making significant number of minesweepers, at least 60 per nation. I do not remember precise numbers of enemy subs, but they were not insignificant, they sank two of my Dreadnoughts.
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Post by klavohunter on May 10, 2017 20:15:09 GMT -6
At the turn of the new year 1935, World War Japan was ended with the stroke of a pen after 70 months of unrestricted submarine warfare on a scale never before seen.
What began as a simple war between the Empires of Japan and Russia over Japanese-owned Sakhalin soon drew in Germany and the United States when Japanese submarines repeatedly sank innocent passenger liners while destroying Russian merchant shipping. The Imperial Japanese Army was eager and capable of invading the Philippines, denying the US Navy's formidable battle-line a home port in Southeast Asia. Russia was forced into a compromise peace, and the submarine war against Germany and America intensified until England, France, and Italy joined the fight also in outrage over passenger liner sinkings.
Reluctant to directly engage the battle-proven Imperial Japanese Navy and be punished the way the Russians were, all nations held their capital ships back, and engaged in a war of dueling minesweepers and submarines, with the occasional heavy raider cruiser. Even mighty Britain was forced to take a compromise peace before the rest of their co-belligerents, perhaps memories of their past loss to Japan made England's protesting peoples weary of another war.
With 9 Unrest and mutinies in the fleet, I advised my government to accept the white peace that the world coalition offered.
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Post by klavohunter on May 10, 2017 18:01:30 GMT -6
I find that it can be useful to retain the puniest and most Low-Maintenance predreadnoughts as far into the game as you need after the enemy has scrapped theirs, to use them for Blockade points. The Battle Generator basically won't put them into any battles (Except Fleet Battles) if there are suitable Dreadnoughts to use instead.
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Post by klavohunter on Feb 23, 2017 20:00:30 GMT -6
Why overgun when you can undergun? If you go for a square gun layout you can pack a lot of torpedoes on small destroyers without sacrificing accuracy. Yes it does mean you have to drop the guns down to 2 inch but the point of a destroyer is not to fight fair. I used this pattern for my first few generations of Destroyers in a slow-tech Austria-Hungary game, but I used 3", 4" and then 5" guns on those designs. Yes, early destroyers' torpedoes are anemic and unlikely to fire: But, piling 3 or 4 centerline torpedoes on early DDs keeps them dangerous if you still have those destroyers later in the game, and find yourself using them.
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Post by klavohunter on Feb 19, 2017 18:59:28 GMT -6
So, playing as Austria-Hungary on Very Large fleet size, I'm running out of names for capital ships.
A predreadnought class name was re-used for a new class of Battlecruiser after the predreadnoughts were scrapped.
It is possible to 'refit' those battlecruisers into the central-firing refit of that old Predreadnought, since the names match up! The game even allowed me to go through with the refit, transforming a proud battlecruiser into an obsolete heap of scrap. I of course saved my game before experimenting with this, so no harm done.
Edit: Testing shows that ships retain the classification and tonnage of its originally-built incarnation, but end up with the armor and armament of its replacement. I have not tried taking one of these conversions into battle.
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Post by klavohunter on Jan 15, 2017 17:01:47 GMT -6
A Battlestar Galactica moment just happened... The wing-turret Museum Battlecruiser Tsukuba just somehow came out of retirement for a battle, I saw it as an AI Support force ship in the event log of a battle, and then I later saw it in the Ships In Service tab, damaged, and now as active-duty after the war was over. www.dropbox.com/s/wwbkgnqq4dokf7p/New%20WinRAR%20archive.rar?dl=0
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Post by klavohunter on Dec 13, 2016 21:33:59 GMT -6
but did the test again, this time didn't scrap the CLs, and the Cls got into one vs enemy CAs and BCs. maybe there are pros and cons with this one.. You found the same downside to the Fast BB fleet build that I did, that your CLs are now in great danger. As Britain, I was able to grit my teeth and accept CL losses in exchange for the occasional guaranteed BC kill, putting me way ahead in VP. Fleet battles array an incredible amount of enemy firepower against your Fast BBs, but you ought to be able to separate the enemy BCs from their BBs and tear them apart, before engaging the enemy BB line from a favorable angle. Or running home, that's a valid choice!
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Post by klavohunter on Dec 13, 2016 5:30:39 GMT -6
I've run into (Fast) Battleships spawning in for certain missions in the past, including Cruiser Battles. I actually encouraged this to happen in my games by moving my Fast BBs to the sea zone where I want them to engage, stripping away any BCs and slow BBs in that sea zone so they don't get picked instead.
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 23, 2016 16:16:17 GMT -6
When it comes to "4 single-turret B's not being labeled BBs", I figure that covers my B's with single turrets in the 1234 spots.
Does this also apply to, say, a battleship with single turrets in the ABXY positions?
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 11, 2016 20:38:02 GMT -6
I'm still playing through my Varied Tech USA game that gave me the hilariously early 'BBs'. I think I have gotten most every Bad Tech event possible - Multi-gun turrets are inefficient, torpedoes suck, and now my scientists declare Long-Range Gunnery is really hard, as they invent the Improved Director.
I'm at a bit of a loss as to what is effective, then. I just started a bunch of large 6"/Torpedo CLs, figuring that closer-range actions would be more decisive. This is quite annoying, since I built all my recent capital ships for long-range engagement with heavy deck armor.
I figure I should just ignore the scientists and tough it out with long-range gunnery with my 4-gunned BCs and 6-gunned BBs. I get to afford lots of ships while the AI ploughs along with making typical triple-turret ships...
Does Improved Triple Turret tech remove all the maluses, or only some of them?
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 8, 2016 8:03:29 GMT -6
This is one of those Historical-styled ships that the AI can build that a player cannot.
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 4, 2016 14:39:26 GMT -6
I will note that Cross Deck Firing turrets currently do not display their extra arc. Will report back if USS North Carolina's F and K turrets fire across the deck when she's built and sees battle.
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 3, 2016 12:09:36 GMT -6
I am playing Varied Tech as the USA, and I just designed my first new Battleship in 1901 in accordance with the notification that single turrets are more efficient. I went with 4 single turrets in the 1, 2, 3 and 4 positions... the game decided my ship is a BB. The definitions in the manual state that an old battleship cannot have more than 2 main turrets. That's why the game classifies it as a BB. Shouldn't have an effect in game should it? It seems to have prematurely started the Dreadnought Race - other nations have started building suspiciously advanced vessels with hexagon-pattern main turret layout, in 1903. Maybe I'm just unlucky and behind on research?
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 3, 2016 11:31:18 GMT -6
I am playing Varied Tech as the USA, and I just designed my first new Battleship in 1901 in accordance with the notification that single turrets are more efficient. I went with 4 single turrets in the 1, 2, 3 and 4 positions... the game decided my ship is a BB.
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