VP->OP exchange and OP->Ship purchase

[Deleted]

Was able to achieve victory with just 12 turns in the north sea campaign. 2 major fleet actions and... it was done. So I pressed the ignore button and went on. As the enemy gradually lost out capital ships there was nothing much left to do. So I thought for some way to introduce some 'dynamics' into the campaign and here's what came up:

Victory points can be exchanged to OP points in a ratio of 250:1.
Ships can be purchased at 10 times its OP cost.

Basically this enables sort of self-sustained constant operation in the campaign. British side has constant OP inflow and can afford a new capital ship division every few turns, to replenish the losses. German side can increase their OP by gaining VPs.
The numbers were found by only trial and error. Sinking 1 battleship provides ~60,000 VPs. That exchanges to 240 OP points. Purchasing a battleship costs ~200 (20*10) OP points. Plus some training OP, that's about equal.

Got an excel sheet to calculate all the numbers and after that it's editing the campaign save file. If I have more programming skills the whole thing can probably be automated but oh well. Anyway, that's just my very dumb idea. Anyone else tried something similar or got better ones?

[fredsanford]

I'd like to see more optional reinforcements similar to some things already in the game. But conjuring up BB divs seems kind of over the top IMO. To increase the difficulty above what's available now, I'd like to see an option for "Realistic" submarines- I recall Randomizer saying the SS's have been deliberately reduced in effectiveness. I've also thought about modifying the campaign scripts to call for some 'reach' objectives for substantial light force sorties on both side. I think it overemphasizes large vessel sorties right now, which leads to results like your campaign in some cases.

[fredsanford]

I've also considered how to use the campaign scripts to add variability to the campaign. From what I see, the mission objectives are tied to a particular Force. Say around 1915-16, an option appears for the Germans saying "Ireland is on the brink of rebellion against British rule. Do you want to provide arms to the Irish rebels?" If the option is chosen, a Force is created with a few fast transports in a manner similar to the 2nd Pacific Squadron in RJW. This force will have some mandatory 'reach' objectives off the Irish coast, and would provide some difficult long-range missions. By the same token, perhaps the British could be presented with a similar scheme to implement a variation of Fisher's Baltic Proposal with an "invasion" of Denmark in lieu of Gallipoli. Or maybe a Norwegian gambit...

[insert obligatory Campaign Editor request here]

[Deleted]

Nice ideas indeed. By reading here and looking at BNat.dat I realize SAI was intended for a much bigger scale. Hope it gets finished one day eh.

Jun 30, 2014 9:01:46 GMT -6 fredsanford said:

I've also considered how to use the campaign scripts to add variability to the campaign. From what I see, the mission objectives are tied to a particular Force. Say around 1915-16, an option appears for the Germans saying "Ireland is on the brink of rebellion against British rule. Do you want to provide arms to the Irish rebels?" If the option is chosen, a Force is created with a few fast transports in a manner similar to the 2nd Pacific Squadron in RJW. This force will have some mandatory 'reach' objectives off the Irish coast, and would provide some difficult long-range missions. By the same token, perhaps the British could be presented with a similar scheme to implement a variation of Fisher's Baltic Proposal with an "invasion" of Denmark in lieu of Gallipoli. Or maybe a Norwegian gambit...

[insert obligatory Campaign Editor request here]

Actually what do you think of the objectives. The most VP I've seen for an obj is 9000, mayhaps you can earn 15,000 by completing 2 obj in a sortie, but you can earn much more than that by sinking some merchant ships. Why not just ignore them and go TR hunting? (except the mandatory ones ofc)

[randomizer]

Some interesting and thoughtful input.

I do not know and will not speculate as to where FW might take the franchise but continued constructive input is certainly appreciated.  Some personal thoughts follow.

My understanding is that an essential design paradigm for Steam and Iron was that it be insofar as practical, based upon the real history of the naval war in the North Sea.  It should be noted that there were only a handful of capital ships on either side (in fact only HMS Repulse and Renown) that were begun after hostilities commenced.  Even for these two ships, built under the Emergency War Programme considerable material had already been accumulated for the "R" class battleships Renown and Resistance that were ordered in May 1914 and cancelled upon the outbreak of the War.  

The big real world delimiter was not so much building the hulls or engines but the big guns, mounts and associated hardware.  There were only enough spare 15" guns to build the two 6-gun BC's and later, also under the EWP, the two Large Light Cruisers Courageous and Glorious.  I do not count these as capital ships (their captains were paid as light cruiser captains) although they invariably show up in the lists of British battlecruisers.  The German's faced a similar issue with Salamis being built for Greece but utilizing American 14" guns as Krupp informed the Naval Staff in early 1915 that it would take over two-years to complete the additional eight 35.5 cm guns necessary for her mostly completed hull.  Almost immediately after this work on the ship was stopped.

So there is some variation with the Stronger Germany campaign and the options to purchase ships that were started before the war for VP in the long campaign.  I do know that I really underestimated the demand from the community for non-historical or fantasy campaigns or fictional strategic options but with 20/20 hindsight I was very obviously wrong.

That said, some of the suggestions would likely require features such as an event engine and/or some sort of naval/land war simulation model to enable a reasonable recreation of Fisher's ridiculous and probably strategically disastrous Baltic scheme.  To do this well would require capabilities far outside the practical scope of the SAI engine as I understand it but FW would need to comment.  By definition, including non-historical or fantasy tends to create situations that cannot be anticipated and would no doubt alienate segments of the Community whose own particular visions have not been included or do not work as they might have envisioned.  While currently every game is essentially non-historical they are, at least within the bounds of the game's design parameters and capabilities for the most part historically reasonable in my opinion.

More effective submarines has the historical effect of chasing the battleships from the North Sea and ultimately SAI game play revolves around the capital ship by design.  So be careful what you wish for.

I know of no plans to release a campaign editor but please do not let that stop you lobbying for it!  That said there are some edits that Players can do to modify their campaigns particularly in the *.crf campaign files.  I would recommend copying the associated *.cam, *.msn and *.txt files and renaming them all to correspond to whatever new name you might give your modified campaign.  Editing text files can be an enormous drag but at least the SAI files are pretty straight forward and not comma-delimited like some games.

Thanks to you both for sharing your thoughts and suggestions.

[Deleted]

Randomizer,

I think it's been clear to myself that the line of thought SAI follows is historical progression, i.e. ships, upgrades etc become available on their historical enter service date and on the big scheme, course of WWI is preset. I was somewhat surprised when finding out the P and V commands in the crf files for ship completion/withdraw options, "hey that was a nice touch!"

I think the player base will always have diverse preferences but you guys should keep doing what's considered best. Meanwhile myself (and reckon Fred too!) appreciates the relatively open structure SAI's built on so I can have a little fun with it

otoh if one day the operational elements in SAI becomes a reality which I believe was you/FW was hoping for too, that would be quite swell indeed!