Events for AI at war with other AI - Ship and Colony losses

[dizzy]

I'd like to occasionally see some events where AI nations fight each other and a possession changes hands. This would be a great equalizer imho because these events would sink their ships causing AI to rebuild their fleets. Currently the player is disadvantaged as AI nations don't deal with that. It would also make the world feel more alive.

EDIT: Here's some cool ideas!

Jun 1, 2019 21:43:28 GMT -5 noshurviverse said:

If you are set on the AI having ways of losing ships, I would think a better way to do it would to be have random events that detail the most commonly encountered accidents that befell ships. Such events could be:



The Spanish ship BB España has run aground! Attempts to raise her have failed and the ship is declared a total loss!

The British ship DD Duchess has been rammed and sunk by the ship BB Barham during a training exercise!

The Japanese ship CL Matsushima has suffered a magazine detonation and been destroyed!



Of course, these events should be able to affect the player as well, but with 6 AI nations you'd generally see them hit them.

[noshurviverse]

May 31, 2019 9:58:34 GMT -6 dizzy said:

I'd like to occasionally see some events where AI nations fight each other and a possession changes hands. This would be a great equalizer imho because these events would sink their ships causing AI to rebuild their fleets. Currently the player is disadvantaged as AI nations don't deal with that. It would also make the world feel more alive.

While I agree that AI conflicts would be a fantastic addition, I have never understood the idea that AI wars would serve to "equalize" nations fleets to the player. If anything, I would argue that the opposite would occur.

Both the player and the AI are constrained by their budgets. Ships must be constructed, maintained and eventually scrapped as the budget allows.  Predreads give way to semidreads which begin the generations of Dreadnoughts before the carriers arrive on scene. A natural result of this is the "aging" of fleets. Except in the very early and very late game, fleets will almost always consist of a mixture of outdated and modern ships. Outdated ships remain in fleets largely because the costs to replace them all are too great to undertake at any given time and it is thus done gradually. Of course, this gives time for the next generation of ships to arrive and obsolete the once-modern ships, thus continuing the cycle. The AI follows this too, scrapping the old to make way for the new. As a result, if you enter your first war with a nation in 1920, the ships they built in 1900-1905 are typically gone.

But once you get into a war, two things happen: Your budget is expanded and (typically) you begin losing ships, most often the older variants. So when an AI nation would go to war, they'd not only receive more money to construct new, modern ships, but they'd also take losses which would allow them to replace those with new, modern ships. So I really don't think that aspect of your idea makes much sense.

Also, out of curiosity, do you reserve/mothball ships in peacetime? Do you relax training standards similarly? I ask because I tend to do both things, especially when playing smaller nations and I don't seem to have a major issue with the AI having fleets significantly larger than mine.

[dizzy]

You say two things happen. One is your budget expands. Everyone's budget expands. So moot point. Second, you say by losing ships you're getting a favor done to yourself so you can build newer ships while the enemy is saddled with older ships. Getting your fleet destroyed costs more to replace than upgrade them and then you run into critical shortage of ships while being seriously outnumbered by those enemies not at war.

[alsadius]

If losing ships outright was advantageous, they should already have been scrapped.

[noshurviverse]

Jun 1, 2019 2:08:02 GMT -6 dizzy said:

You say two things happen. One is your budget expands. Everyone's budget expands. So moot point.

I believe you've misunderstood what I meant. What I mean is that, while at war the player's budget is greatly expanded. This obviously permits the construction of many more ships, leading to a general expansion of the Navy that is only counteracted by losses in combat. I did a simple experiment to demonstrate this:

I loaded up a US 1930 save and advanced the game to the point where a war seemed likely. In June of 1932 I recorded the budgets and tension levels of each nation. Two months later a war broke out with Germany. I then recorded the budgets and tensions again, then compared the two to see what kind of difference was seen.

USA (player): 36% increase
Germany (enemy nation): 9% increase
Great Britain, tension steady at 8: 4% increase
France, tension from 3 to 6: 11% increase
Soviet Union, tension from 4 to 8: 5% increase
Japan, tension steady at 3: 12% increase
Italy (ally), tension steady at 0: 6% increase

(As an aside, I find it very interesting that there doesn't seem to be a unifying theme from tension/budget relations, as well as how small of an increase Germany got)

Anyways, my point is that with such a budget increase the player can expect their fleet to expand in wartime, not shrink. At this point I have to point out a couple things: 1) It is entirely possible these results are skewed as the result of the player nation being USA, and 2) my personal playstyle tends to be quite cautious, only risking major ships (CAs and larger) in favorable situations. As a result I may suffer much less severe losses than someone who is more of a risk-taker.

So what I have to ask is: Do you expect these AI wars to only factor in the expected loss of ship, but not the associated increase in naval budgets and thus expansion of fleets? Sure, I'm sure you could justify it by making wars one-turn only and assuming there was a single major naval action followed by a negotiated peace, but that seems to me like a very poorly implemented and underwhelming solution. It would also make the AI play by a worse set of rules, locked into wars that can only hurt them. If ships are being lost and colonies in the peace deals, someone should be gaining those resources, no?

If you are set on the AI having ways of losing ships, I would think a better way to do it would to be have random events that detail the most commonly encountered accidents that befell ships. Such events could be:

The Spanish ship BB España has run aground! Attempts to raise her have failed and the ship is declared a total loss!
The British ship DD Duchess has been rammed and sunk by the ship BB Barham during a training exercise!
The Japanese ship CL Matsushima has suffered a magazine detonation and been destroyed!

Of course, these events should be able to affect the player as well, but with 6 AI nations you'd generally see them hit them.

Anyway, I'll say again that I totally support the idea of AI wars, I just disagree with the idea of it being a way to shrink AI fleets.

[dizzy]

Well, I don't think they all need to be shrunk, noshurviverse , but the thing I see, playing less economically advantaged nations compared to the U.S., is that when you take ship losses from combat, it starts putting nails in your coffin for recovery for quite some time to get back to any sort of competitive ship numbers to face an enemy that has suffered no ship losses who undoubtedly is going to be your next wartime opponent. And when that happens, you're down a number of sips in every class and your budget allows replenishment of only a few ships at a time. Eventually you'll get competitive again, but a bad war can make it hell for you for quite some time.

Now if an enemy had a war of its own, well that'd be an equalizer, wouldnt it?

I think your event idea for enemy ship destruction is brilliant. I'm going to quote you on this in my OP. The only thing I can tell you for us to see eye to eye better is to go play Italy, it's a good eye opener, and good luck bouncing back after a war with the French or Brits if you've had a bad fleet battle or two. ;-)

[dorn]

Jun 1, 2019 20:43:28 GMT -6 noshurviverse said:

Jun 1, 2019 2:08:02 GMT -6 dizzy said:

You say two things happen. One is your budget expands. Everyone's budget expands. So moot point.

I believe you've misunderstood what I meant. What I mean is that, while at war the player's budget is greatly expanded. This obviously permits the construction of many more ships, leading to a general expansion of the Navy that is only counteracted by losses in combat. I did a simple experiment to demonstrate this:

I loaded up a US 1930 save and advanced the game to the point where a war seemed likely. In June of 1932 I recorded the budgets and tension levels of each nation. Two months later a war broke out with Germany. I then recorded the budgets and tensions again, then compared the two to see what kind of difference was seen.

USA (player): 36% increase
Germany (enemy nation): 9% increase
Great Britain, tension steady at 8: 4% increase
France, tension from 3 to 6: 11% increase
Soviet Union, tension from 4 to 8: 5% increase
Japan, tension steady at 3: 12% increase
Italy (ally), tension steady at 0: 6% increase

(As an aside, I find it very interesting that there doesn't seem to be a unifying theme from tension/budget relations, as well as how small of an increase Germany got)

Anyways, my point is that with such a budget increase the player can expect their fleet to expand in wartime, not shrink. At this point I have to point out a couple things: 1) It is entirely possible these results are skewed as the result of the player nation being USA, and 2) my personal playstyle tends to be quite cautious, only risking major ships (CAs and larger) in favorable situations. As a result I may suffer much less severe losses than someone who is more of a risk-taker.

So what I have to ask is: Do you expect these AI wars to only factor in the expected loss of ship, but not the associated increase in naval budgets and thus expansion of fleets? Sure, I'm sure you could justify it by making wars one-turn only and assuming there was a single major naval action followed by a negotiated peace, but that seems to me like a very poorly implemented and underwhelming solution. It would also make the AI play by a worse set of rules, locked into wars that can only hurt them. If ships are being lost and colonies in the peace deals, someone should be gaining those resources, no?

If you are set on the AI having ways of losing ships, I would think a better way to do it would to be have random events that detail the most commonly encountered accidents that befell ships. Such events could be:

The Spanish ship BB España has run aground! Attempts to raise her have failed and the ship is declared a total loss!
The British ship DD Duchess has been rammed and sunk by the ship BB Barham during a training exercise!
The Japanese ship CL Matsushima has suffered a magazine detonation and been destroyed!

Of course, these events should be able to affect the player as well, but with 6 AI nations you'd generally see them hit them.

Anyway, I'll say again that I totally support the idea of AI wars, I just disagree with the idea of it being a way to shrink AI fleets.

AI budgets do not increase in same time but they eventually do it.

Another thing is if other AI nations that are not in war have increase maintenance costs and probably can have some part of fleet mothballed.

As time goes to 30s, you need usually a lot of ships that are mothballed in peace time I cannot see high increase of budget for construction later however your reserch budget is nicely increased.

[noshurviverse]

th

Jun 1, 2019 23:05:39 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Well, I don't think they all need to be shrunk, noshurviverse , but the thing I see, playing less economically advantaged nations compared to the U.S., is that when you take ship losses from combat, it starts putting nails in your coffin for recovery for quite some time to get back to any sort of competitive ship numbers to face an enemy that has suffered no ship losses who undoubtedly is going to be your next wartime opponent. And when that happens, you're down a number of sips in every class and your budget allows replenishment of only a few ships at a time. Eventually you'll get competitive again, but a bad war can make it hell for you for quite some time.

Now if an enemy had a war of its own, well that'd be an equalizer, wouldnt it?

I think your event idea for enemy ship destruction is brilliant. I'm going to quote you on this in my OP. The only thing I can tell you for us to see eye to eye better is to go play Italy, it's a good eye opener, and good luck bouncing back after a war with the French or Brits if you've had a bad fleet battle or two. ;-)

Actually, I almost only play "underdog" nations. The 1930's US save I used for that example was just a game I started up and spamclicked "next turn" until 1930 for testing something else. In fact, I don't think I've played a single campaign as the US or Great Britain. Italy was my main nation to play in RtW1, and so far in RtW2 I've enjoyed post-WW1 Germany a ton. Although this might highlight something else I brought up, which was the difference in playstyles. As I said, I tend to play extremely cautiously with my large ships, while heavily relying on night attacks with Destroyers. As a result I likely suffer less difficult-to-replace losses than you do if you focus on more stand-up fights. One last thing, for people who do play US/Great Britain, would this mean their already weaker enemies would get even weaker?

Now, the way I see it you've got a few ways you could go about having AI Wars work.

1) Single-turn resolution:
A war between AI nations begins, ends, ships are sunk and possessions exchanged within a single turn. I dislike this method alot. I'd honestly say I think it's worse than not having the conflicts at all. It would be clearly artificial and (in my opinion) rather immersion breaking.
2) Utilization of current AI conflict models
When a war breaks out, the two nations behave similarly to allied nations in war. Like when you have an ally, battles between the two nations happen sporadically, with ships more or less randomly being removed. While I don't care much for it, this is what I'd expect to see in a implementation. Of course, this could lead to the rather odd situation of seeing battle results of one side losing a BB and the other a KE, which always felt off to me.
3) New conflict model
This is kind of the ideal here, but I'll avoid speculating on what it could be, since we know most of what we'd like, it only needs a system to be designed, created, tested and implemented.

However, I would like to bring up one question on this matter, which is this: How would tensions work with this idea? We need a whole new system to track AI tensions with one another, complete with ways for the player to interact with it. That's alot of work that's got to be put down, but I'd be eager to see it accomplished.

[dizzy]

nws-online.proboards.com/thread/2552/ai-wars-mod?page=1&scrollTo=48921