AI-rbases: Running the gauntlet in late-game
May 28, 2019 11:10:47 GMT -6
jwsmith26, skor81, and 1 more like this
Post by akosjaccik on May 28, 2019 11:10:47 GMT -6
I thought for a fairly lenghty time about opening this topic, as it might be somewhat controversial and I tend to avoid conflicts by nature. However, to be frank, I realized that a specific part of the game pretty much breaks the flow for me in the late stage of the campaign, which is the airbase-mechanic. Remember that part of the reason the player does not get to use them is their "excessive effectiveness, and in reality cooperation between air stations and naval units were less than stellar?" Well, the issue remained, it's just that the AI gets to play with that power, not you. TL;DR the "if all else fails, spam dive bombers" is the AI's new "spam submarines", it's just this time it's a lot more annoying.
Note, I tend to play on medium game size, 90% RR. To my knowledge, airbase capacity per level does not change with game size.
Now, I have precious little screenshots to illustrate this, but I'll throw in some examples.
On my laptop, I played with Germany. For a long time, I did not take any concessions to inflate my base budget, then finally broke into the Mediterranean, where at this point Italy pretty much reigned supreme. Won my first war, grabbed Sardinia, then in a later war proceeded with invading Dalmatia. That... was a mistake.
After checking the almanac, I sent up heavy CAP, closed the formation and started praying. I fully expected that none of my ships will come out of there alive. For the time being I was only saved by priorizing damage control and passive defences extremely high.
Let me show you, why:
Despite the land-based funfest, my strikes did connect with the Regia Marina - ...and they retreated into port the second that happened.
However, you might want to say that maybe, just maybe I should not go into the middle a fully enclosed area littered with long-range bombers - literally a thousand of them.
And you know, what? You'd be right. I thought, I screwed up: I let Italy to fortify the Mediterranean, and I attacked right the middle of it. What else did I expect, right? Maybe I'll cobble together some armored carriers, it will be an interesting experience and situation to deal with. (Later by the way two of my CVs went down with 21 and 22 bomb hits respectively. There were... stuff in the air.)
Fast forward to my desktop PC's A-H campaign. Situation is similar, late-game, except that I am fairly well estabilished myself as well this time in the region. Exact same thing happens. I brought out four of my own carriers, AI opens the floodgates, my maxed-out CAP that day alone shoots down about two hundred aircraft (again, in a 'medium' game), but what's the point? Next turn, new aircrafts; what did the AI lose, experience? Come on now. Suppressing the land bases with friendly medium bombers again does not do much noticeable, apart from pausing the game nigh every turn, which at this point I should turn off probably.
Either way, someone had a massive hard-on for bombers again:
Still, I thought, this is how the game is, fight or flee.
However, my last battle was what ultimately made me open this topic. The situation: A destroyer pair of mine attacked a convoy, night battle. Cool. Sunk the escorting warship, sunk all of the transports, then before the dawn came, I tried to gain as much separation as possible, meaning I murdered the engines on flank ahead all night long.
Did not matter.
After maybe about two or three waves (did not care much about counting at this point to be honest), the first destroyer slowed down, stopped dead and foundered. With the second I still kept flank speed and tried to change course between attacks and while the enemy finished off the first destroyer to maybe throw off their squadrons.
Again: Did not matter whatsoever. I might as well have ended the scenario at dawn, asking the computer to just write off the two destroyers and spare both of us the pointless busywork. But what exactly is the problem, then?
M-hm. Do you see the pattern? Let's slap that onto a map.
With the data above I was very, very generous.
At this point I do feel like I have to point out: I am not salty because "boo-hoo, someone got bombed back to the stone age, deal with it, play by the rules or perish" etc., in fact - I am winning. Two destroyers are not the end of the world, and if I can utilize my carriers, I have a fairly good fighting chance as long as the AI does not decide to escort their strikes; besides I am actively blockading. My problem is that all of this is tedious, irritating, involves practically zero player-input, and mainly due to the latter it feels like a waste of time. I mean, it would probably not make for an interesting AAR that "we succeeded with the ojective, then three hundred dive bombers ripped us to shreds. As always."
After all, utilizing acceptable deck armor, bringing fighter mules, inflating my own land-based numbers etc. are all valid points, but when the dice decides to put my destroyers in the middle of Hell, there is really not a lot to do. Realistically speaking, my destroyers should not have reach the operational area in the first place.
...so, what do I want, then? Well, I'd like to ask the community if someone could come up with a mod handling this issue. Let's say, something like (new airbase capacity/level)=(old airbase capacity/level)*(1/5), maybe - if it is not hard-coded. Maintenance costs could even stay as it is. Note that all of this might very well be a late-game issue, or even a "post-endpoint" issue which is maybe tied to the AI building and maybe priorizing 120-slot ABs. With just two full playthroughs, I do not have enough experience with this. Other idea is that possibly tie the base capacity / level values to game sizes. Either way, my judgement might be clouded by the fact that both of my active campaign is past the official end-date by now; then again, I do play with 90% research rate.
I fully except this to be a fairly subjective problem of mine and a non-issue for others, but I am now at the point that "You know, this is simply not fun in terms of gameplay experience."
Maybe all I have to do is just cut the game off at 1950, and problem solved, but of course it's tempting to continue.