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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 11, 2019 16:46:28 GMT -6
Has anyone noted an unwillingness on the part of the AI to design an "economy" sort of Light Cruiser? If I am building 10 for a budget demand I very likely don't want an 8,000 tonner, but the game seems unable to offer up a 3000 ton design. It would be nice if there were a significant variety in the ship offerings, but I always end up needing to design "small" CLs from scratch. I've noticed that. It would be irritating on a larger ship but any 4000 tonners I build have so little armour that it's hardly tiresome. I know what you mean though. I suppose there aren't enough small CL templates to base them off (mod time - I'd do it myself but I'm in the middle of exams now).
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 11, 2019 17:56:19 GMT -6
Has anyone noted an unwillingness on the part of the AI to design an "economy" sort of Light Cruiser? If I am building 10 for a budget demand I very likely don't want an 8,000 tonner, but the game seems unable to offer up a 3000 ton design. It would be nice if there were a significant variety in the ship offerings, but I always end up needing to design "small" CLs from scratch. Worst yet, late game most CL design you autogen ends up being CA instead.....
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Post by dorn on Jun 11, 2019 22:16:17 GMT -6
Has anyone noted an unwillingness on the part of the AI to design an "economy" sort of Light Cruiser? If I am building 10 for a budget demand I very likely don't want an 8,000 tonner, but the game seems unable to offer up a 3000 ton design. It would be nice if there were a significant variety in the ship offerings, but I always end up needing to design "small" CLs from scratch. I've noticed that. It would be irritating on a larger ship but any 4000 tonners I build have so little armour that it's hardly tiresome. I know what you mean though. I suppose there aren't enough small CL templates to base them off (mod time - I'd do it myself but I'm in the middle of exams now). I have 4000 tons cruisers with 3" belt armour without any difficulty. The most costly thing is speed and for economic al cruiser you can go always 1 knot slower which is nothing to worry about.
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 12, 2019 0:26:04 GMT -6
I've noticed that. It would be irritating on a larger ship but any 4000 tonners I build have so little armour that it's hardly tiresome. I know what you mean though. I suppose there aren't enough small CL templates to base them off (mod time - I'd do it myself but I'm in the middle of exams now). I have 4000 tons cruisers with 3" belt armour without any difficulty. The most costly thing is speed and for economic al cruiser you can go always 1 knot slower which is nothing to worry about. Yes... this was something that annoyed me a bit so I modded my game so smaller cruisers get a slight HP to weight ratio advantage with a few knots. Historically these ships were built in a way that they favoured speed over stability as a weapons platform. The game already simulate the instability in that they don't allow you heavy guns without penalties but don't assume the ships are sleeker and built for being able to sprint better than a similar bigger ship to a much smaller cost. The reason to build these small colonial cruisers and scout cruisers was cost... if you pay a huge premium on their speed it sort of defeat the purpose. Machinery is the most expensive part of any ship. In real life they often needed less HP per tonnage since their hull form favoured speed over stability, like destroyers but just not that extreme.
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Post by aeson on Jun 12, 2019 6:02:31 GMT -6
I have 4000 tons cruisers with 3" belt armour without any difficulty. The most costly thing is speed and for economic al cruiser you can go always 1 knot slower which is nothing to worry about. Yes... this was something that annoyed me a bit so I modded my game so smaller cruisers get a slight HP to weight ratio advantage with a few knots. Historically these ships were built in a way that they favoured speed over stability as a weapons platform. The game already simulate the instability in that they don't allow you heavy guns without penalties but don't assume the ships are sleeker and built for being able to sprint better than a similar bigger ship to a much smaller cost. The reason to build these small colonial cruisers and scout cruisers was cost... if you pay a huge premium on their speed it sort of defeat the purpose. Machinery is the most expensive part of any ship. In real life they often needed less HP per tonnage since their hull form favoured speed over stability, like destroyers but just not that extreme. How much cheaper do you want small cruisers to be? You can build a 2,100t 22kn 5" colonial/scout cruiser for 8-9 million or a somewhat better armed and armored 2,400t 22kn 5" colonial/scout cruiser for about 10 million whereas even a 4,500t 22kn 6" cruiser will run you about 20 million and a 5,000t 23kn 6" cruiser closer to 25 million per ship.
Also, historically, specifically-colonial cruisers have tended to be relatively slow cruisers because things like seakeeping, crew comfort, reliability, and endurance were more important for a cruiser that's going to be operating on the far side of the world than the speed to act as a fleet scout. 22 knots would have been quite fast for a period-appropriate colonial cruiser - most historical cruisers of this type would've been somewhere around 18 to 20 knots in 1900; it's mostly the small dedicated fleet scouts and the big raiding/raider-hunting cruisers that were good for 21+ knots.
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 12, 2019 6:25:29 GMT -6
Yes... this was something that annoyed me a bit so I modded my game so smaller cruisers get a slight HP to weight ratio advantage with a few knots. Historically these ships were built in a way that they favoured speed over stability as a weapons platform. The game already simulate the instability in that they don't allow you heavy guns without penalties but don't assume the ships are sleeker and built for being able to sprint better than a similar bigger ship to a much smaller cost. The reason to build these small colonial cruisers and scout cruisers was cost... if you pay a huge premium on their speed it sort of defeat the purpose. Machinery is the most expensive part of any ship. In real life they often needed less HP per tonnage since their hull form favoured speed over stability, like destroyers but just not that extreme. How much cheaper do you want small cruisers to be? You can build a 2,100t 22kn 5" colonial/scout cruiser for 8-9 million or a somewhat better armed and armored 2,400t 22kn 5" colonial/scout cruiser for about 10 million whereas even a 4,500t 22kn 6" cruiser will run you about 20 million and a 5,000t 23kn 6" cruiser closer to 25 million per ship.
Also, historically, specifically-colonial cruisers have tended to be relatively slow cruisers because things like seakeeping, crew comfort, reliability, and endurance were more important for a cruiser that's going to be operating on the far side of the world than the speed to act as a fleet scout. 22 knots would have been quite fast for a period-appropriate colonial cruiser - most historical cruisers of this type would've been somewhere around 18 to 20 knots in 1900; it's mostly the small dedicated fleet scouts and the big raiding/raider-hunting cruisers that were good for 21+ knots.
And neither of that have changed because of my changes... now I just can build historically more accurate cruisers. I can choose to build them a bit faster or slower with more comfort etc... Without these changes there were many historically built cruisers I could not build due to machinery simply being too large in small hulls. When I play I try to replicate historical designs the best I can and it was just not possible without some minor tweaks.
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Post by alsadius on Jun 12, 2019 6:50:28 GMT -6
Has anyone noted an unwillingness on the part of the AI to design an "economy" sort of Light Cruiser? If I am building 10 for a budget demand I very likely don't want an 8,000 tonner, but the game seems unable to offer up a 3000 ton design. It would be nice if there were a significant variety in the ship offerings, but I always end up needing to design "small" CLs from scratch. I don't use auto-design, but most CLs I see from the AI in my current game (1918) are in the 5k-7k ton range.
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pcasey
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by pcasey on Jun 12, 2019 7:19:15 GMT -6
I have to agree with the OP here; in my experience light cruisers aren't particularly useful.
Early game, CA can function as scouts just as well, and with more ability to survive combat if they happen to steer too close to an enemy.
Friendly destroyers are perfectly capable of keeping AI destroyers away from your own fleet, and they are far cheaper than a CL, both in terms of production cost and VP cost if you happen to lose a few.
I suppose they make decent raiders in the early game, but cheap CA can do the same thing, albeit at a higher cost, and also do something useful in a battle if they happen to find themselves there.
It just feels like a ship class searching for a unique in game role to me; too expensive to be a disposable asset like a destroyer, but too frail to stand up to combat and survive.
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Post by ramjb on Jun 12, 2019 7:31:13 GMT -6
I don't use auto-design, but most CLs I see from the AI in my current game (1918) are in the 5k-7k ton range.
Which is historically correct for the era. KĂ–nigsberg had a full displacement of 7200 tons, Danaes had around 5900 tons. USA wasn't building light cruisers at this stage. The french intended to build a class of cruisers on the 6000 ton range (La Motte-Picquet class). The italians didn't build any for a long time (in fact they kept their german-prize CLs in comission all the way into WWII) but their proposed designs during WWI also were around 5500-6000tons. Even the Spanish Navarras displaced 6400 tons at full load.
Only exception were the japanese with the Tenryus (4400t full displacement), but those were designed not as standalone cruisers but as destroyer leaders, and they turned out to be too small for the role (that's why the later iteration of the concept was in the 5000-5500 ton range).
It's not surprising, thus, that the AI designs period-correct ships for 1918. What frankly would be surprising is that they went for much smaller ships, as by the end of WWI cruisers in the 3000-3500 ton range were exceedingly rare. In fact, that I can recall, there was only one: Yubari. And Yubari was a conceptual failure as she was of little combat worth.
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Post by ramjb on Jun 12, 2019 7:45:04 GMT -6
I have to agree with the OP here; in my experience light cruisers aren't particularly useful. Early game, CA can function as scouts just as well, and with more ability to survive combat if they happen to steer too close to an enemy. Friendly destroyers are perfectly capable of keeping AI destroyers away from your own fleet, and they are far cheaper than a CL, both in terms of production cost and VP cost if you happen to lose a few. I suppose they make decent raiders in the early game, but cheap CA can do the same thing, albeit at a higher cost, and also do something useful in a battle if they happen to find themselves there. It just feels like a ship class searching for a unique in game role to me; too expensive to be a disposable asset like a destroyer, but too frail to stand up to combat and survive. "Early game CAs can function as scouts just as well": At which cost?. Depending on exactly how you design it an early game armored cruiser can be more expensive than a predreadnought. For scouting roles your run-of-the-mill 20 knotter won't do, you need 21 knots minimum, and 8'' or bigger guns are just overkill so you're paying an extra you don't need for the role. You can build, with ease two CLs for the price of one full sized CA. Two widely separated CLs in a scouting line see more than one CA. Of course you can go for a limited-size "Monmouth-like" CA with only 6'' guns, small size, 21 knots and not as expensive. But then your CAs won't be able to take part in battlefleet actions (Something that's actually key in early game when 12'' guns still can't properly deal with 6'' or thicker armor) and they're themselves food against enemy proper CAs with proper 8-10 inch guns. "Friendly destroyers are capable of keeping AI destroyers away from your own fleet": I disagree. To the extreme. Early game DDs are nothing but glorified bathtubs with a couple 3'' or 4'' guns on local control that are more an afterthought than anything else: they struggle to hit anything, and whatever they hit doesn't get specially hurt. Early game DDs have two roles: filling the wartime trade protection requirements, and be a permanent torpedo threat. Against each other they're hardly of any real worth, and certainly you won't stop an enemy DD division charging your battleline by putting some tiny bathtubs with 3'' peashooters in the way. Meanwhile a single CL with 8x6'' and a secondary battery of half a dozen 3'' has a devastating overwhelming firepower superiority against a whole early game destroyer division, and will be more effective than one accuracy wise too as they have central gun control vs the destroyer's local only. Just one 6'' hit will disgrace any of those 400-600 ton batthubs ability to charge, and the fast firing backup battery of 3'' means demolishing firepower for anythign that strays too close. A DD can be cheaper than a CL indeed, yet a whole division of DDs is NOT cheaper than a single CL, tho...and the CL will still be FAR more of a deterrent against enemy DDs than a whole DD division.
"CAs make better raiders". Nope. Not at least in economic terms, no they are not. Efficiency wise (investment/return wise), a CL is several times more efficient as a raider than a CA is. Again CAs in the early game if properly designed can not only take a place in the battleline, they can actuall shine there (Ask the Japanese). They're your "early game battecruiser" of sorts; using them for raiding purposes, unless specifically designed for the role, is quite a waste. An if they're specifically designed for the role they'll be as much as dead meat against enemy proper CAs as a CL is, so the extra cost is not really worth it. Ships don't have to be killers to be useful, nor need to have insane combat ability in order to be worth it. I've had early game battles where enemy DD divisions were coming straight on for my battleline, where I moved a couple CLs in front of it, and they had to turn tails well before they could try to make a torpedo run. Given how brutal torpedoes are in that stage (even if mounted in single tubes and with very low range, just one of those things hitting your battleships will ruin your day), the pure deterrent factor of having a couple CLs moving behind my battleline to move out to stop destroyer charges is something I, personally, don't want to give up. MAybe I'm the unlucky sod out here, but in my experience, early game torpedoes are TERRIFYING, and I've had many a battle gone to the shitters because a single torpedo hit on one of my big guys since the days I was playing RtW1. I'm not sure everyone shares that kind of experience (again, this might be me being the unlucky one out who eats AI torps in the early game while everyone else never does), but I see a lot of lack of care from other players for the ability to mess up destroyers that early game CLs put on the table. All I know is that since I stopped disregarding them in the early game, the times I've gotten hit by torpedoes have drastically deminished (and they happen mostly in night encounters where rules are different). So, again, maybe is just me being unlucky against AI torpedoes, but yes, for me early game CLs won't be killing much on themselves, but being useful doesn't necessarily mean killing stuff. Sometimes just being there de facto limiting the tactical choices of the enemy is already being useful enough.
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Post by dorn on Jun 12, 2019 7:48:34 GMT -6
I have to agree with the OP here; in my experience light cruisers aren't particularly useful. Early game, CA can function as scouts just as well, and with more ability to survive combat if they happen to steer too close to an enemy. Friendly destroyers are perfectly capable of keeping AI destroyers away from your own fleet, and they are far cheaper than a CL, both in terms of production cost and VP cost if you happen to lose a few. I suppose they make decent raiders in the early game, but cheap CA can do the same thing, albeit at a higher cost, and also do something useful in a battle if they happen to find themselves there. It just feels like a ship class searching for a unique in game role to me; too expensive to be a disposable asset like a destroyer, but too frail to stand up to combat and survive. I found light cruisers most useful ship whole time period.
When you put you armoured cruiser, I can use light cruiser which are much cheaper usually maximum 50 % of cost of armoured cruiser, quite often it costs much less. My light cruisers usually cost between 15-20M in 1900-1920 period, quite powerfull with 3" belt, 5-6x6" broadside so they can handle enemy light cruisers and destroyers. From 20s they usually rise on tonnage between 4500 and 7500 tons making them a little more expensive but not too much. With float planes, torpedo tubes they are the most versatille ship in fleet, can engage enemy ships (even capital ships) at night, provide scouting using planes and their fast speed, have reasonable firepower and still are protected against destroyers guns within reasonable distance.
Destroyers are for screening capital ships but they cannot be so versatille as light cruisers and for all these tasks heavy cruiser is usually to expensive. Top of that my cruisers are usually fast, from 1920 usually 31 knots, which is enough speed to escape heavy cruisers in unfavourable circumstances.
Look what historically did light cruisers. Look on British light cruisers during WW2 as they did most versatille job, protecting convoys, hunting raiders, scouting, AA protection, torpedo attacks. All this can do ligth cruisers too, destroyers are not capable of such tasks and heavy cruisers can do it too but usually with twice expenses.
During my playthrough of UK very large fleet 1920-56 I have build about 60 light cruisers (last one in 1942) on top of about 20 not scrapped at 1920 start loosing 10 of them which is nothing. From 10 cruisers, 3 were sunk by submarines, 7 in various battles by aircrafts, ships, mines. These cruisers sometimes accompanied by destroyers regurarly sunk enemy light and even heavy cruisers. I get several mission when light cruiser was accompanied by several destroyers in different divison but practically served as flotilla leader. Combination of light cruiser and destroyers are perfect as leading ship - cruiser is much more survivable. And at night it is the most dangerous formation to any larger ship.
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Post by ramjb on Jun 12, 2019 8:05:29 GMT -6
I agree. CLs retain usefulness during all the playthrough, even if they morph a bit in what roles they do cover the best. Lategame CLs can be absurdly brutal, specially if well used. I've had battles of 9x6'' 2CLs vs 2 12x9'' CAs where I just moved away during daytime to then, as night fell and with help of radar, charged the pursuing CAs and massacred them at close range. The 6'' lategame gun capability to mess up cruisers at mid to close range is just incredible. And if autoloaders are factored in, they just don't stand a chance... (of course if you engage in a slugging match at 15000 yards the 9'' gunned cruisers will rip you a new one, but it's all about using the right tactics in the proper situation, ain't it? )
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Post by aeson on Jun 12, 2019 8:17:38 GMT -6
It's not surprising, thus, that the AI designs period-correct ships for 1918. What frankly would be surprising is that they went for much smaller ships, as by the end of WWI cruisers in the 3000-3500 ton range were exceedingly rare. In fact, that I can recall, there was only one: Yubari. And Yubari was a conceptual failure as she was of little combat worth. If we're going by standard displacement, which for Yubari was about 2900 tons, then there are also the Chinese Ning Hai (~2500 tons standard), the Dutch Tromp (~3350 tons standard), and possibly the Italian Capitani Romani (~3750 tons standard) classes, though all of these are somewhat later designs - ~1931 for the Ning Hai class, ~1936 for the Tromp class, and ~1939 for the Capitani Romani class.
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Post by southkraut on Jun 12, 2019 8:56:50 GMT -6
I see CLs as an intermediate step in the food chain between destroyes and capital ships. They keep enemy destroyers from getting too close, and do so more efficiently than my own destroyers would.
Of course, just having even more DDs solves the problem as well.
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 12, 2019 10:38:50 GMT -6
It's not surprising, thus, that the AI designs period-correct ships for 1918. What frankly would be surprising is that they went for much smaller ships, as by the end of WWI cruisers in the 3000-3500 ton range were exceedingly rare. In fact, that I can recall, there was only one: Yubari. And Yubari was a conceptual failure as she was of little combat worth. If we're going by standard displacement, which for Yubari was about 2900 tons, then there are also the Chinese Ning Hai (~2500 tons standard), the Dutch Tromp (~3350 tons standard), and possibly the Italian Capitani Romani (~3750 tons standard) classes, though all of these are somewhat later designs - ~1931 for the Ning Hai class, ~1936 for the Tromp class, and ~1939 for the Capitani Romani class. There is also the 1650 ton Yi Xian launched in 1931. Then again you'd ask with that size can she really be called a cruiser(she is classified as light cruiser). But she did have a 6in gun and is too slow to be a DD. (In game she'd be a large KE)
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