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Post by rimbecano on Jun 13, 2019 16:37:25 GMT -6
There are no reason to build or keep any Armoured Cruisers or Heavy Cruisers around if there are no limitations in place to force you to build them. They don't really serve any purpose beyond the first few years of the game until battle cruisers are available. You can even send out your BC as raiders once in a while if there are enemy CA trying to raid you, they will promptly thwart the enemy cruisers. Otherwise CL are way more cost effective for raiding purposes, numbers are more important than quality when it comes to raiding anyway. The only reason I put a BC on raiding would be to counter some enemy CA operating in the area. Later on I tend to build significant numbers of heavy cruisers for fleet screen/scout duties, to push away enemy light forces without incurring the cost of a full BC. |
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Post by alsadius on Jun 13, 2019 19:25:50 GMT -6
With Japan a group of my newest battleships went their entire careers with never being spawned by the battle generator, even with engagements in home waters. The battle generator certainly leaves something to be desired, at times, but keep in mind that HMS Dreadnought was never once spawned by the battle generator either. ;-) Sure it was. It's the only BB ever to kill an SS. (Good luck coding that into RTW!) |
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Post by polyarmus on Jun 13, 2019 23:00:40 GMT -6
While I agree with your conclusion, the actual reality of the game is quite a bit different, at least in my experience. The issue are the BCs the AI is building, as these are generally fast BBs and the fact, that often the AI does not have anything else then BCs... Yes, if you focus heavily on slow BBs in the early game then you risk being outmatched in cruiser battles until your BC and BB lines merge into 27+ knot fast battleships sometime in the late 20s-early 30s. Well, I would like to fight cruiser battles with cruisers, not battleships...  |
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Post by rimbecano on Jun 13, 2019 23:23:40 GMT -6
The battle generator certainly leaves something to be desired, at times, but keep in mind that HMS Dreadnought was never once spawned by the battle generator either. ;-) Sure it was. It's the only BB ever to kill an SS. (Good luck coding that into RTW!) No, that's an interturn event, not a battle spawn:  Our BB Dreadnought has sunk an enemy submarine in a spirited ramming duel! Bunga-bunga! |
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 14, 2019 2:03:19 GMT -6
There are no reason to build or keep any Armoured Cruisers or Heavy Cruisers around if there are no limitations in place to force you to build them. They don't really serve any purpose beyond the first few years of the game until battle cruisers are available. You can even send out your BC as raiders once in a while if there are enemy CA trying to raid you, they will promptly thwart the enemy cruisers. Otherwise CL are way more cost effective for raiding purposes, numbers are more important than quality when it comes to raiding anyway. The only reason I put a BC on raiding would be to counter some enemy CA operating in the area. Later on I tend to build significant numbers of heavy cruisers for fleet screen/scout duties, to push away enemy light forces without incurring the cost of a full BC. Unless there is a treaty to force me to build smaller ships I generally go CA with 11" guns in the legacy fleet and then to BC with 12"-14" guns and then to fast BB with 15"-16" guns and then carriers. All the while I keep building CL in different shapes and sizes. I sometimes build the occasional protected or "light" cruiser with better armour so they are classified as CA. But otherwise I rarely see the need for them that often. Instead I try to keep my BC powerful but small (20-25000t or so).. They also make very good carrier conversions once I can use them as such. |
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Post by splashell on Jun 17, 2019 11:40:06 GMT -6
Battleships, beside countering enemy battleships, also have the important job of preventing your nation becoming blockaded (quantity counts here) or blockade the enemy nation. Blockades of course, as the war drags on, slowly strangles the enemy. For example in WW1 and the British distant blockade doctrine, the BBs were there to basically secure cruisers who did the actual blockading work patrols in the North Sea and English Channel and contributed a big amount to Germany running out of supplies and resources on the long term. Likewise German battleships were there to tie up the Royal Navy and cause them concern, and also blockade Russian Baltic ports, which contributed to the defeat of Russian empire.
So in game terms it might actually make sense to build more smaller displacement battleships than large ones if you can't afford the large ones, if just for blockading purposes. Quantity counts.
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 18, 2019 13:42:28 GMT -6
As Japan I keep my old pre-dreadnoughts in mothball status for exactly those reasons. With updated fire controls and high quality 13" guns they actually will also pose a threat in a real fight if I really will need them. But for the most part they will be in mothball even in wars to about 1920 or so.
As a fact I rarely scrap ship at all... I always find a way to reuse the. Old dreadnought era battle-cruisers become excellent raiding ship which defeat pretty much any CA at any era in any game. With refitted engines the usually end up with around 29-30 knots and can be fitted with sea-plane for better raiding. With added AA they also become excellent screening vessels for carriers or at least light carriers.
The ship I mostly scrap are smaller cruisers that can't be refitted to serve much useful purposes or destroyers and corvettes that gets replaced with better versions.
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Post by Noname117 on Jun 18, 2019 14:00:42 GMT -6
With Japan a group of my newest battleships went their entire careers with never being spawned by the battle generator, even with engagements in home waters. The battle generator certainly leaves something to be desired, at times, but keep in mind that HMS Dreadnought was never once spawned by the battle generator either. ;-) Yeah, but she was spawned in an enemy submarine sunk event. |
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