RULE THE WAVES 2 PRE-RELEASE DISCUSSION THREAD

[noshurviverse]

Nov 9, 2018 2:06:15 GMT -6 dorn said:

I am really interested how land will be integrated into RTW2.


In case of RTW1 it was minimal by victory points and possibility to transfer some resources from navy to army. This system was simple, has sense at times of trench warfare. 
However extending RTW2 to 1950 give us mobile warfare when naval warfare has less impact on continental Europe where most of major naval powers were. As there is no more stalemates in trenches the war is moving quite quickly on land. This mean that resource situation for several nations could shift dramatically. In times of RTW1 naval blockades were far more devastating in Europe than in times in RTW2 where conquering land could give you additional resources so you can be less dependent on naval trade routes.

Would be there any changes how land warfare impact RTW?

I've considered this too. One thing I noticed is that it is extremely rare that I find the ground warfare events to have real impact on the course of a war, in the sense of VP. In general, I always tend to give them the money, just so I don't get a naval victory negated by a offensive failure. Perhaps there could be a hidden stat for each nation representing the strength of their ground forces, which could be altered by accepting/denying the proposals to divert funds to the Army. And of course during a war the Army might start asking for increasingly large sums of money to make up a difference. Having a ground forces rating much lower than an enemy nation could lead to the possibility of all-out collapse among the ground forces, leading to a forced peace in favor of the enemy, Fall of France style.

[mycophobia]

To pitch in the discussion about land, I feel from a gameplay perspective it might be problematic if land is given decisive weight when the player have so little controls over it( it also seem out of place for us to dicatate “land funding” as a naval minister).

I feel land battle, if included, can serve as an additional mechanic that makes naval battle relevant beyond getting VP or extensive blockade. At beginning of the war, there should be a relative land strength between nations, which need not be equal but shouldn’t be so large to the point of making Navy almost irrelevant.

Certain kind of naval battle will impact land balance(convoy/coastal attack should prob have most impact), and so will blockade. As the balance of land power shifts, more and more fund will be diverted to the army to show the need to hold the line( technically that may be the case if the army is winning too, but for gameplay reason this way is more impactful). A war can be lost if the balance rips beyond a point , or alternatively tickling vp/unrest is generated.

Therefore one must take the land war into account when planning the Navy. Germany for example may have a favourable land army compared to say, France and will be mainly concerned with preventing the French Navy from tipping that balance, and so can play more cautiously at sea. GB on the other hand prob want to go all out with blockade, naval fire support and such to give its army all the advantage it needs.(though I don’t know if island nation really should be subjected to large penalty from land warfare, perhaps a modifier lessening the effect of a loosing land war?)

[aeson]

As long as most wars in the game are limited wars between powers which do not share terrestrial borders and lack internal terrestrial lines of communication to their own or their opponents' possessions, I do not believe that the absolute strength of any given power's army is particularly relevant to the outcome of a war involving that power. For most powers, most of the army's resources come from and the main part of its strength is concentrated in the homeland. If that power does not have internal terrestrial lines of communication between its homeland and its colonial possessions, its opponent's homeland, or its opponent's colonial possessions, then the main part of its army can be rendered impotent and the rest can be cut off from supplies and reinforcements by naval power.

It's true that Rule the Waves better models the Crimean War than the Franco-Prussian or the Western Front and colonial campaigns of the First World War than the invasions of Poland and France in the Second, but adjusting the game's models to better reflect the effects of army strength on the outcome of the wars which might be fought within the game, if done well, would be a lot more involved than just assigning an 'army strength' score to each of the various powers and comparing them each turn in wartime, and I don't think it's particularly likely to add all that much to the game.

[mycophobia]

I think the problem is more that while half the playable nations(UK/US/Japan) are probably unaffected by relative land army strength, the other nations (AH/Italy/Russia/France/Germany) are. Most battle between the continental European nations are bound to involve land combat which in practice will be decisive.

I mainly feel that incorporating land score helps better reflect countries whose naval strategy are supplementary to their land army( such as Soviet Union) to develop different approach to naval build up.

That said, I do agree that this is not a significant addition and may not be worth the effort to implement. From a gameplay perspective I’d be perfectly happy with the currently proposed poession invasion system. Maybe scale up the “army wins/pushes back” event to give the land battle a bit more influence might be nice.(right now 1500vp is really insignificant in longer wars where single large fleet engagement easily goes into thousands of VP.

[orkel]

I'd rather the game was kept about the navy to be honest. Land wars can rage on in the background just like in RTW1, but it should have very little effect in how you play the game. I don't want to have negative effects on my naval gameplay (penalties and such) because of land battles.

[garrisonchisholm]

Yes, we have to remember that this is a Naval simulation, and that factors beyond that realm are likely to be abstracted at best- however, it is William & Fredrik's baby, so they will choose how to raise it.

("I'll take 'Odd Figures of Speech to apply to a Game' for $400, Alex.")

[aeson]

Nov 9, 2018 16:36:58 GMT -6 mycophobia said:

I think the problem is more that while half the playable nations(UK/US/Japan) are probably unaffected by relative land army strength, the other nations (AH/Italy/Russia/France/Germany) are. Most battle between the continental European nations are bound to involve land combat which in practice will be decisive.

Assuming a two-power war, there are ten potential match-ups between Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. In four of those potential match-ups, the powers involved have no ability to reach one another without going through another power's territory or crossing the sea.

	Germany	France	Russia	Italy
Austria-Hungary	Adjacent	Cannot Reach	Adjacent	Adjacent
Italy	Cannot Reach	Adjacent	Cannot Reach
Russia	Adjacent	Cannot Reach
France	Adjacent

Unless you have a general European war rather than the more limited wars typical of Rule the Waves, the strength of each belligerant's army isn't as relevant to wars between continental European powers as you seem to think.

[thatzenoguy]

So uh...Any pics of the anti aircraft system? Or details? ;V

[dorn]

Nov 10, 2018 5:27:10 GMT -6 thatzenoguy said:

So uh...Any pics of the anti aircraft system? Or details? ;V

I am interested in limitations.
There was no limitation for sec and terc guns on ships in RTW however for RTW2 such limitation should be important. You cannot put on small hull battleship amount of AA guns even if you have enough tonnage for that.

[ursamaior]

The germans converted old and captured ships into floating AA batteries sporting incredible amont of 88 and even bigger guns. Alas they could hardly move on their own power.

[aeson]

Nov 10, 2018 5:58:33 GMT -6 dorn said:

There was no limitation for sec and terc guns on ships in RTW however for RTW2 such limitation should be important. You cannot put on small hull battleship amount of AA guns even if you have enough tonnage for that.

There are limits on the number of guns allowed in the secondary and tertiary batteries, actually. It looks like the rule determining the maximum allowable number of secondary or tertiary guns on a ship in Rule the Waves is that in order for a ship to carry N pairs of secondary or tertiary guns of caliber C, it needs to have a displacement of (N - 1) * C * 200 tons. The limit reaches the maximum number of guns allowed for secondary/tertiary batteries at 4,400 tons for 2", 6,600 tons for 3", 8,800 tons for 4", 11,000 tons for 5", and 13,200 tons for 6" guns, so it'd be an abnormally-small dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser which ran into a limit on its secondary or tertiary battery, but a slightly-small predreadnought battleship could run into the limit with a 6" secondary battery, the number of 7" secondary guns on most powers' legacy battleships and armored cruisers is technically restricted if the ships are built within domestic dock limits (a displacement of 15,400 tons is necessary for a 24-gun 7" secondary battery, and of the standard powers only France and Britain can build ships of that size at the start of the game), and the size of the heavy secondary battery is technically restricted on many of the ships that carry them within the game, though in a practical sense it's generally far more likely that you'll run into overweight issues before you run into the secondary gun limit ... at least unless you're doing something silly.

Attachment Deleted

Increase the design displacement to 19,200 tons or reduce the secondary battery from 14 to 12 16" guns and the "too many or too heavy secondary guns" error goes away, making the design legal.

(Note: I created that in a post-game save; it's not something I've actually built or generally would build.)

[garrisonchisholm]

Nov 10, 2018 5:27:10 GMT -6 thatzenoguy said:

So uh...Any pics of the anti aircraft system? Or details? ;V

I can't really say more at this point.  I know we, or at least I, have published images showing the anti-air suites on "mature" (1940-ish) ships, but as to how exactly they will work by game logic there isn't much to say.  We have discussed the factors and issues involved with AAA, but as we've had no word yet on final implementation, there is really not much I can say without crossing the line.  williammiller, feel free to amend my statements if needed.

[williammiller]

The AA system is not yet fully implemented into the code, so it will be a bit before we can go into any details about the final version of that system. I can say right now that the system as designed well reflects the differences between differing types of AA systems and their uses, along with advances in technology that affects those systems and their net effectiveness during different time frames and against differing types and models of aerial targets.

[noshurviverse]

I remember hearing a while ago that a 2018 launch was expected, is that still the case?

[ccip]

Well, after looking at this forum, I have concluded that the more likely release date is going to be by...

March