Post by bramborough on Dec 1, 2017 20:29:04 GMT -6
Picked this up a few days ago after seeing some interesting gameplay videos. Have played through a France campaign, and about 8 years into a USA run.
I played France quite cautiously, as I didn't have a good feel yet about what to expect. Lol, I was a pretty pusillanimous Grand Admiral. Lots of appeasement, and ended the game with same Prestige level I began with. Only fought two wars over the 25 years. One was rather successful however (the other was a status quo ante bellum draw), and France ended the period with a pretty credible navy...so I think I got a bad rap in the press.
Now that I have a better idea about how tension & budgets work (as well as the fact that they interrelate...took me a while to catch on to that), the US Chief of Naval Operations in current campaign is rather more belligerent. And am now in a rather trying scrap with Japan, proving far tougher than either of the previous France wars. Primarily because it's being fought before the Panama Canal opens, and therefore hard to get sufficient force to bear quickly in the Pacific.
Things are going well now, but got roughed up pretty good early on....which I guess is probably how a US-Japan war during the period would've gone.
Observations:
- I'm pretty impressed so far with the AI, particularly the tactical one. We've all seen really interesting games that were somewhat ruined by an idiotic or easily exploitable AI. I don't quite find that here...or at least, only modestly so. The battle AI seems to act in a reasonably rational manner...it presses when stronger, evades if weaker, and seems to do an adequate job of target prioritization. The campaign AI also seems logical (if predictable) in force structure composition and allocation. If there's a weak spot, it would have to be in ship design...the AI does build some rather funky and unnecessarily weak or un-balanced vessels.
- Interestingly, the one viewpoint - that of a senior Admiral - in whose seat RTW purports to put the player, is the one which we don't get to actually play in wartime, at least at a regional level. On the strategic map, we play a combination of, say, SecNav and CNO in allocating forces to theaters...but little say in how those forces are used once arrived. We just watch from afar in the Washington Navy Yard as a seemingly random string of low-level battles occur. And in those we jump into the bridge chair of a relatively junior admiral (or even captain) on the spot. RTW is a high-strategic and tactical level game...with a pretty big gap at the low-strategic/operational level.
For example, an enemy puts a significant battle fleet into a contested area. I counter by pushing my own fleet into the area, with intention to bring that enemy to battle. And nothing happens but the usual series of low-level cruiser actions. So far I've found it pretty difficult to get B/BB/BC's into meaningful action. One effect has been that I've begun to pay a lot more attention to CA/CL designs...those are the ships that are actually going to be fighting the most.
I understand this is somewhat reflective of the period, which saw really only two major fleet actions - Tsushima and Jutland (and only one of those decisive). I also recognize that introducing an entire operational-level map with a lot of detail would be a major undertaking and perhaps not make sense from a cost/benefit perspective. But perhaps there could be more options for "postures" or regional level fleet orders in order to influence the generation of encounters. For example, one could put one's Southeast Asia force on an "offensive", "standard", or "evasive" footing, with different patrol and recon/search priorities, as well as costs. These in turn could modify the relative chance of various encounter types.
Questions:
- What does the [O] annotation signify in the ship list? Obviously from context it means "obsolete", but is there any in-game penalty associated (other than the fact that the ship is probably outclassed anyway in many encounters)? Is it simply age-related (usually seems to show up roughly 10 years on), or also influenced by other navies' capabilities?
- Coastal fortifications. I've read other threads here on the subject. I'm aware (and have seen firsthand) that they generate local minefields but otherwise aren't much useful in battle. Based on this, they just don't seem worth the investment. What I haven't seen discussion (yet) on, however, is this: Do fortifications affect the chance of invasion, and then of its success? If so, that would change my thinking, at least for certain key overseas bases.
- "Rebuild" vs "Refit". I've figured out how to rebuild ships...and also seen how expensive it can be. In the message log, however, I see the AI nations rebuild, but also often "refit" (so far I've only seen this with regard to fire control systems). If there's a separate "refit" option solely to upgrade FC equipment, I haven't found it. I'm guessing the player does this simply using "rebuild" but changing FC only?
I played France quite cautiously, as I didn't have a good feel yet about what to expect. Lol, I was a pretty pusillanimous Grand Admiral. Lots of appeasement, and ended the game with same Prestige level I began with. Only fought two wars over the 25 years. One was rather successful however (the other was a status quo ante bellum draw), and France ended the period with a pretty credible navy...so I think I got a bad rap in the press.
Now that I have a better idea about how tension & budgets work (as well as the fact that they interrelate...took me a while to catch on to that), the US Chief of Naval Operations in current campaign is rather more belligerent. And am now in a rather trying scrap with Japan, proving far tougher than either of the previous France wars. Primarily because it's being fought before the Panama Canal opens, and therefore hard to get sufficient force to bear quickly in the Pacific.
Things are going well now, but got roughed up pretty good early on....which I guess is probably how a US-Japan war during the period would've gone.
Observations:
- I'm pretty impressed so far with the AI, particularly the tactical one. We've all seen really interesting games that were somewhat ruined by an idiotic or easily exploitable AI. I don't quite find that here...or at least, only modestly so. The battle AI seems to act in a reasonably rational manner...it presses when stronger, evades if weaker, and seems to do an adequate job of target prioritization. The campaign AI also seems logical (if predictable) in force structure composition and allocation. If there's a weak spot, it would have to be in ship design...the AI does build some rather funky and unnecessarily weak or un-balanced vessels.
- Interestingly, the one viewpoint - that of a senior Admiral - in whose seat RTW purports to put the player, is the one which we don't get to actually play in wartime, at least at a regional level. On the strategic map, we play a combination of, say, SecNav and CNO in allocating forces to theaters...but little say in how those forces are used once arrived. We just watch from afar in the Washington Navy Yard as a seemingly random string of low-level battles occur. And in those we jump into the bridge chair of a relatively junior admiral (or even captain) on the spot. RTW is a high-strategic and tactical level game...with a pretty big gap at the low-strategic/operational level.
For example, an enemy puts a significant battle fleet into a contested area. I counter by pushing my own fleet into the area, with intention to bring that enemy to battle. And nothing happens but the usual series of low-level cruiser actions. So far I've found it pretty difficult to get B/BB/BC's into meaningful action. One effect has been that I've begun to pay a lot more attention to CA/CL designs...those are the ships that are actually going to be fighting the most.
I understand this is somewhat reflective of the period, which saw really only two major fleet actions - Tsushima and Jutland (and only one of those decisive). I also recognize that introducing an entire operational-level map with a lot of detail would be a major undertaking and perhaps not make sense from a cost/benefit perspective. But perhaps there could be more options for "postures" or regional level fleet orders in order to influence the generation of encounters. For example, one could put one's Southeast Asia force on an "offensive", "standard", or "evasive" footing, with different patrol and recon/search priorities, as well as costs. These in turn could modify the relative chance of various encounter types.
Questions:
- What does the [O] annotation signify in the ship list? Obviously from context it means "obsolete", but is there any in-game penalty associated (other than the fact that the ship is probably outclassed anyway in many encounters)? Is it simply age-related (usually seems to show up roughly 10 years on), or also influenced by other navies' capabilities?
- Coastal fortifications. I've read other threads here on the subject. I'm aware (and have seen firsthand) that they generate local minefields but otherwise aren't much useful in battle. Based on this, they just don't seem worth the investment. What I haven't seen discussion (yet) on, however, is this: Do fortifications affect the chance of invasion, and then of its success? If so, that would change my thinking, at least for certain key overseas bases.
- "Rebuild" vs "Refit". I've figured out how to rebuild ships...and also seen how expensive it can be. In the message log, however, I see the AI nations rebuild, but also often "refit" (so far I've only seen this with regard to fire control systems). If there's a separate "refit" option solely to upgrade FC equipment, I haven't found it. I'm guessing the player does this simply using "rebuild" but changing FC only?