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Post by radiorobot on Jun 1, 2019 21:19:42 GMT -6
Have played a few runs of Japan from 1900 to around 1920-25 with Large or Very Large fleet, and I've been finding that I can never afford to build any BCs as Japan even with game budget.
I also have almost no CAs compared to the AI. Usually just the couple from my legacy fleet and a small class in the early 1910s. These have been very effective with decent primaries and heavy secondaries at engaging other CAs, CLs, and DDs. They usually end up getting vaporized by enemy BCs in convoy raids once the Europeans bring them over.
I've only dipped my toes into carrier game play with little success from my max capacity CVLs but I think that's an issue of early technology and subpar mico on my part.
Completely forgoing BCs I find myself still relatively behind on BBs but that's been okay because the European AI doesn't seem to send many of their own BBs to the Pacific. When they do our capital ships almost never engage. However when I do find myself in BB engagement the AI usually wipes the floor with my own battleline usually with 1.5x to 2x as many BBs facing a mix of my own early BBs and legacy Bs.
My CLs and a strong DD force end up being my primary combatants and in that they've done very well sinking multiple BCs and a few BBs with torpedo runs. Is this just the optimal strategy for Japan budget and technology wise?
Due to the lacking performance from my BBs I'm thinking of starting a new game with a philosophy of few very heavy armored BBs to soak damage when I'm forced into full fleet engagements. The rest of my capital budget would go towards BCs with heavy secondary batteries until CVLs come along since the AI seem to constantly bring them into cruiser engagements. The rest of the budget would go towards a very large fleet of 1100 ton DDs and supporting CLs.
Tips and criticism on my strategy appreciated. If anyone wants to see the designs I'm fielding I'll put them up tomorrow.
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Post by rodentnavy on Jun 2, 2019 3:56:35 GMT -6
Well I used to regard playing Japan as hard mode on RTW1 so I feel your pain. My only tip though is fairly standard. Try for a budget ship design in each rate, decide what is the most important quality for your battle style and emphasise that and save money elsewhere. So for me TPS was more important than speed (even to a degree on BCs but more later) as I kept eating torps in my early campaigns and the fear instilled has never left me. Gun calibre tended to be less important, keeping up with Joneses was nice for bragging points but after the early game the guns will often shoot right through most enemy ships at the ranges you are going to score hits. I tend to emphasise armour even on BCs with deck armour and turrets tops being priority and trying to hold the foe at range being the order of the day. BCs need speed more than firepower and BBs the opposite (despite that firepower often being less ton for ton than a foreign design).
That said in time you will discover what works for you and different people have arrived at different design philosophies which work equally well for them.
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 2, 2019 3:59:58 GMT -6
I have never felt this to be much of a problem at all playing on very large with historical resources AND AI handicap on.
I have usually had a couple of successful wars against France or Germany and they rarely send any large forces to the pacific.
Granted in my current game I play on even bigger budget than very large (modded the save to make the fleet size from 7 to 11) I do have in 1914...
2 Modern BB (+2 soon to be finished BB) 3 Modernised old B (now BC at 22kn) 2 BC 6 CA (mostly older but still viable designs) 10 CL (varius statement of refit) 41 DD
I'm fighting Russia who have a bigger but less modern fleet in the North Asian area and I sunk a few older pre dreadnoughts and lots of their armoured cruisers to the loss of one old pre dreadnought and a couple of armoured cruisers in return. Have been quite interesting war actually.
I build all my major warships in either the UK or USA... I only build CL and below in my own yards. This make my ships way better... try get an alliance with them if you can.
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AiryW
Full Member
Posts: 183
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Post by AiryW on Jun 2, 2019 4:55:16 GMT -6
Well you are playing Japan which means you are a small economy at the start and should expect to be outnumbered. However your statement that you have legacy ships facing dreadnoughts suggests that you might be keeping your ships around too long and wasting money. Ships grow more efficient as time goes on so keeping an older vessel means keeping something bigger, and thus more expensive, then an equally effective ship built later. And older ships make you want to do engine refits, they are very, very expensive if you make them to high speeds. Only refit engines for a modest speed or you might as well replace the ship. The historical Japanese and Italian refits of ships for high speeds weren't done to economize so much as to spend more money within the constraints of the naval treaties. Just because you CAN make it so a ship will be viable for 15 years doesn't mean you should.
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Post by radiorobot on Jun 2, 2019 9:10:02 GMT -6
jorgencab Maybe I'm pushing to hard to maintain BB parity with the European powers then. In my current 1929 VL Game budget I'm at 6 BB 3 of which are 12-18 yrs old one of which is very anemic on the guns. 2 legacy CAs which I'm not sure why I still have around probably because designing a new class was delayed indefinitely by trying to build capitals. 4 CLs which are 10 years old but to be replaced with a new class of 6. Then 66 DDs and KEs combined (40 to 26) since I just converted a class to KEs and scrapped old designs. A new lot of 12 1500 tons is probably in the near future. Finally 2 CVs one of which is a crappy conversion and 4 CVLs two of which are meh conversions. AiryW That may be my issue. I've been aiming for 10-15 years before mothballs and backline service but seeing as NEA is almost secure and they were getting devastated by Russian battlelines anyways I should look towards shorter terms of service. Have been avoiding engine refits like the plague though and only really messing with their FC and secondary/tertiary batteries.
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Post by Noname117 on Jun 2, 2019 9:39:55 GMT -6
jorgencab Maybe I'm pushing to hard to maintain BB parity with the European powers then. In my current 1929 VL Game budget I'm at 6 BB 3 of which are 12-18 yrs old one of which is very anemic on the guns. 2 legacy CAs which I'm not sure why I still have around probably because designing a new class was delayed indefinitely by trying to build capitals. 4 CLs which are 10 years old but to be replaced with a new class of 6. Then 66 DDs and KEs combined (40 to 26) since I just converted a class to KEs and scrapped old designs. A new lot of 12 1500 tons is probably in the near future. Finally 2 CVs one of which is a crappy conversion and 4 CVLs two of which are meh conversions. AiryW That may be my issue. I've been aiming for 10-15 years before mothballs and backline service but seeing as NEA is almost secure and they were getting devastated by Russian battlelines anyways I should look towards shorter terms of service. Have been avoiding engine refits like the plague though and only really messing with their FC and secondary/tertiary batteries. Perhaps too much of your fleet is active all the time? When at peace with low to medium tensions you don't exactly need to have your entire modern navy mobilized and ready to fight war. Don't feel bad at moving all but your couple most modern warships from each class (or a couple modern ones with elite crew) into the mothball and reserve fleets even if they're still fairly modern. Also check your training; you don't need to be funding it until a year prior to war breaking out. Also make sure you don't have too many aircraft on active status; that can eat into your funds and you can just build them back up prior to war anyways.
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Post by aeson on Jun 2, 2019 10:31:10 GMT -6
Construction costs are about 8-10 times higher than upkeep on a comparable vessel. Putting ships into the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs helps a bit, but it's not going to have a big impact on your construction programs in the short term unless you're putting a lot of ships into a reduced state of readiness - especially in a period where modern ships are considerably larger, considerably more capable, and considerably more expensive than most of the ships you currently have in service, such as the first decade or two of the dreadnought race.
Additionally, reactivating ships from reduced states of readiness can be a problem. It takes time for crew quality to recover - especially when reactivating from mothballs - which can be a bit of a problem in battles, and going from RF to AF in wartime triples a ship's upkeep while going from MB to AF in wartime increases upkeep by a factor of 7.5 (MB is 0.2, RF 0.5, peacetime home waters AF 1, peacetime overseas AF 1.2, and wartime AF 1.5 times nominal upkeep). Before you put a ship into a reduced state of readiness for a long period of time, take some time and think about whether or not you're actually going to want to reactivate it for the next war. If the answer's no, you might want to scrap the ship instead.
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Post by deeznuts on Jun 2, 2019 11:37:32 GMT -6
You should definitely scrap all your really old ships, particularly Battleships with anemic guns, especially if you are entering the twenties, by the twenties you should be looking at Battleship designs for the rest of the game, so fast Battleships with a good number(9 at least) of high calibre(15-17 usually is the sweet spot) guns all centreline with a strong armour of at least 12 Inches belt(preferably 20 using magazine box) and 4 Inches deck(though if possible 7 is the ideal, not many guns can pen 7 Inches even at perfect ranges)
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Post by Noname117 on Jun 2, 2019 12:34:58 GMT -6
Construction costs are about 8-10 times higher than upkeep on a comparable vessel. Putting ships into the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs helps a bit, but it's not going to have a big impact on your construction programs in the short term unless you're putting a lot of ships into a reduced state of readiness - especially in a period where modern ships are considerably larger, considerably more capable, and considerably more expensive than most of the ships you currently have in service, such as the first decade or two of the dreadnought race.
Additionally, reactivating ships from reduced states of readiness can be a problem. It takes time for crew quality to recover - especially when reactivating from mothballs - which can be a bit of a problem in battles, and going from RF to AF in wartime triples a ship's upkeep while going from MB to AF in wartime increases upkeep by a factor of 7.5 (MB is 0.2, RF 0.5, peacetime home waters AF 1, peacetime overseas AF 1.2, and wartime AF 1.5 times nominal upkeep). Before you put a ship into a reduced state of readiness for a long period of time, take some time and think about whether or not you're actually going to want to reactivate it for the next war. If the answer's no, you might want to scrap the ship instead.
Well, yeah, putting large numbers of ships into the mothballs does help a bit. By the numbers you gave you'd have to scrap about 9 ships or put 14 in the mothball and reserve fleet (assuming 50% in both) to afford a new ship. But yeah, then you're talking about losing 9 older ships for a new one (or maybe 10-11 ships for 2-3 new ones if you're talking about smaller vessels) or doing the same by keeping the 9 ships and reducing them plus another 5 ships in readiness I mean, you get to keep those 9 ships around for the next war in a reduced state of readiness at the cost of 5 ships having a worse crew than they'd otherwise have. Naturally, there are times when you want to scrap ships and times when you don't. Primarily based on whether you want to have those ships around for the next war or not (as you said). But yeah, reducing your fleet in readiness is always going to save you a bit of extra cash, which might get you 1-2 extra capital ships or several light ships between one war and the next. The main loss, as you stated, is poor crews, but all that means is you need to activate your ships a few months before war to let their crew work up. Good crew might not even be necessary on some older ships held on to for numbers (and for directing some fire away from your main damage dealers). And also, some people don't like to do this to keep elite crew around. The problem with this line of logic, in my opinion, is twofold; you lose elite crew status on refit, which means it's pointless to keep your elite crew if you plan on refitting the ship between wars, and elite crew isn't going to matter much if your ship is outdated, and mostly there to add numbers to your fleet. It really only makes sense to keep elite crew on your most modern ships, which will still be decent 4-6 years down the road when you find yourself at war again. But yeah, his budgetary problem may be more than just one thing. There's probably 2-3 things going on. Not scrapping ships, not mothballing and reserving ships, and keeping training on in peacetime can all contribute to budgetary problems in this game.
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Post by dizzy on Jun 2, 2019 13:29:11 GMT -6
Additionally, reactivating ships from reduced states of readiness can be a problem. It takes time for crew quality to recover - especially when reactivating from mothballs - which can be a bit of a problem in battles, and going from RF to AF in wartime triples a ship's upkeep while going from MB to AF in wartime increases upkeep by a factor of 7.5 (MB is 0.2, RF 0.5, peacetime home waters AF 1, peacetime overseas AF 1.2, and wartime AF 1.5 times nominal upkeep). Before you put a ship into a reduced state of readiness for a long period of time, take some time and think about whether or not you're actually going to want to reactivate it for the next war. If the answer's no, you might want to scrap the ship instead.
What's this? The manual doesnt say anthing about addition maintenance costs on page 7. So if I'm in RF, and in peacetime I change to AF, is there an additional cost? And is it really 3x cost to do the same in wartime? And for how long? Permanently? While youre at war? or for a few months?
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 2, 2019 13:50:42 GMT -6
My pre 1900 pre-dreadnought ships are still going pretty strong in around 1920... they might not be fast at 22kn but their 13" guns with quality 1 pack quite a punch for its age. Use older slower CL and CA as raiders and for trade protection during war. Even if they are slow they will be a nuisance to the enemy.
You should just mothball older ships until you really need them... you can even have them mothballed during a war until you feel you need the extra weight in battle, the more ships the more targets there are for the enemy.
Just keep a few elite crew modern ships in active status and pretty much mothball and reserve the rest... starting bringing ships up into reserve and then active status as you get closer to the next war.
You also can do fleet exercises just prior to war to get some additional experience on your ships.
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Post by aeson on Jun 2, 2019 14:05:52 GMT -6
What's this? The manual doesnt say anthing about addition maintenance costs on page 7. So if I'm in RF, and in peacetime I change to AF, is there an additional cost? And is it really 3x cost to do the same in wartime? And for how long? Permanently? While youre at war? or for a few months? Look: Wartime AF upkeep - 1022 Normal (peacetime) AF upkeep - 681 RF upkeep - 340 MB upkeep - 136
Normalizing to peacetime AF upkeep, you get 0.2 for MB, 0.5 for RF, 1 for peacetime AF, and 1.5 for wartime AF.
Another illustration, showing that the ratios between MB, RF, and peacetime home waters AF upkeeps remain the same in peacetime, that ships cost more while stationed overseas in peacetime, and that the upkeep cost listed in the build menu is the peacetime home waters upkeep: Peacetime home waters AF upkeep - 95 Peacetime RF upkeep - 48 Peacetime MB upkeep - 19 Peacetime overseas AF upkeep - 114 Upkeep listed in build menu - 95
Normalizing to peacetime home waters AF upkeep, peacetime home waters AF upkeep is 1, peacetime RF upkeep is 0.5, peacetime MB upkeep is 0.2, peacetime overseas AF upkeep is 1.2, and upkeep as listed in the build menu is 1.
Reactivating a ship in wartime raises its upkeep by a factor of three if reactivating from the Reserve Fleet, or by a factor of 7.5 if reactivating from Mothballs. Reactivating the same ship in peacetime raises its upkeep by a factor of two if reactivating from the Reserve Fleet, or by a factor of five if reactivating from Mothballs.
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Post by Noname117 on Jun 2, 2019 14:18:42 GMT -6
Wait, how long does the reactivation upkeep last for?
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Post by dizzy on Jun 2, 2019 14:18:47 GMT -6
'Reactivating a ship raises it's upkeep by a factor of x' For how long?
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Post by radiorobot on Jun 2, 2019 14:33:44 GMT -6
It's just the set value of maintenance I think not a reactivation cost.
So for any given ship, you're going to have different maintenance cost for Peacetime AF, Wartime AF, Peacetime RF, Wartime RF, and Mothball. Plus an adjustment for Home Waters or Overseas. (I don't think mothball cost changes during a war but AF and I think RF both do.)
Mothball is 1/5th of Peacetime AF according to the poster above but it's 1/(7.5)th of Wartime AF. So if you bring a ship out of mothballs during a war then it's maintenance cost is 7.5 times what it used to be and will remain so until you change it to some other maintenance state by either achieving peace, moving it, or changing its readiness.
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