Stop Fighting in Bay of Biscay!

[onewhosaysgoose]

I am fighting France as USA, and my only base there is Finland, but every single battle is in the Bay of Biscay, surrounded by entire enemy fleet and hundreds of french aircraft.

This is obviously very dumb. My ships would have had to sail PAST the French channel ports to get there, and those channel ports make great raiding targets.

Please add a map for the southwest corner of the north sea to the map pool for fighting France, and make sure that countries with bases east of France use it.

The destroyers involved were on trade protection, the cruisers were active fleet, and the active fleet carriers were staying home every time for some reason.

Edit: It would be really nice to have a target selection with coastal raids. I would gladly accept different objective VP rewards for attacking a lower value target that was less likely to murder my fleet.

[dougphresh]

I have to agree. Some of the battle placements are downright weird.

[pirateradar]

Fighting France while playing as Russia I recently ran into a situation where I was just turning down any battles in the Bay of Biscay or English Channel (far too close to their land-based air) while accepting battles in the North Sea or Baltic.

[dizzy]

Here's a novel idea, when you turn down a battle, it should TELL YOU HOW MANY OTHER BATTLE opportunities you have, just not what they are. So if you dont like a battle option or dont care to play it, you'd at least know there are 2 or 3 or 4 other battle opportunities you can opt for, you just won't know what they are other than you'll be in the know the one you're turning down isn't the only one.

[pirateradar]

May 26, 2019 22:20:06 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Here's a novel idea, when you turn down a battle, it should TELL YOU HOW MANY OTHER BATTLE opportunities you have, just not what they are. So if you dont like a battle option or dont care to play it, you'd at least know there are 2 or 3 or 4 other battle opportunities you can opt for, you just won't know what they are other than you'll be in the know the one you're turning down isn't the only one.

I'm okay with the way it is now as an uncertainties-of-war thing. I did have one very funny turn where I turned down two battles and then accepted the third--which my enemy turned down--then the fourth--same--and then the fifth--ditto. I came out ahead in VP from a turn where no fighting happened...

[dizzy]

May 26, 2019 23:07:40 GMT -6 pirateradar said:

May 26, 2019 22:20:06 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Here's a novel idea, when you turn down a battle, it should TELL YOU HOW MANY OTHER BATTLE opportunities you have, just not what they are. So if you dont like a battle option or dont care to play it, you'd at least know there are 2 or 3 or 4 other battle opportunities you can opt for, you just won't know what they are other than you'll be in the know the one you're turning down isn't the only one.

<snip>I'm okay with the way it is now as an uncertainties-of-war thing.<snip>

Well I'm not. I'm pretty far from okay. When you keep getting the SAME mission as the 1st one offered, with no guarantee of another one, that's frustrating, abnd a game design issue. It's downright horrid. What is agreeable between us is that if that Battle Notification window we accept or turn down a mission would have at the bottom a notice of another mission choice after it, we would still have an 'uncertainties-of-war thing' because we wouldnt have a clue what or where any subsequent missions would be. So it's an improvement.

[ramjb]

"Sir, we have an opportunity to engage the enemy in the Bay of Biscay. Seems that just the same as last month, the enemy refuses to come to our airplane-filled homeground in the baltic so we can sink them by the dozens..."

"and as last month we shall refuse- going there is stupid and I also refuse to go to their air-filled homeground in the Atlantic so they can sink US by the dozens. The All-Knowing-Oracle at St.Petersburg has notified us we have 2 more battles to choose from this month, so no biggie"

"Aye aye, sir".



Meaning...no. First of all if the encounters are being close to France that means that the AI isn't dumb and doesn't want to do what it's trying to make you do. If it's stupid for you going there, is as stupid for them to go to the Baltic. What did you expect, for them to sail in just for the sake of getting sunk?.

I get your frustration but this is a game that represents the very random things that happen in war. One of them is that you don't know where you'll have the next battle...other is wether you'll get a battle at all. And there are no fortune-seekers to tell you how many chances you have to accept a fight, or if declining one will give you a shot at another one in the short term.

If you think you're doing the right thing by declining those battles, keep doing it. If the war drags on because of it, that's the nature of the beast; some wars are easier than others. But what you can't expect is for the game to give you information you wouldn't have so it serves you victory on a silver plate like "If you turn down this fleet engagement now don't worry, you'll have the chance to pick between two more battles". It just goes head on against the immersive nature of the game design and from making your choices meaningful while not doing information you aren't supposed to have.

And yeah we've all have had those "slog-like" wars. When they happen it's time to get the raiders out, focus on submarine warfare, or send a squadron to their colonies to have fights over there. But being annyoed because they keep you waiting for them to come to your homestep when you don't want to go to theirs (which is perfectly understandable in both cases) and do nothing other than decline battles without doing anything else to swing the war in your favor, why do you expect the game to babysit you so you can win?.

[dougphresh]

Maybe VP could determine battle location?

If I'm winning a war, I should be able to set the operational tempo, and it's unlikely that a battered enemy would be trying to raid my largest ports.