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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 9:24:18 GMT -6
Alright, I've started by adventurous trip into the nether world of RTW2. My ultimate goal is not to win a game, but to test my ideas on ship building, aviation, tactical and strategical ideas that were never explored in real history. Essentially, I am going to take the "path not taken" and see the results. By training and nature, I am an historian but importantly, a researcher and tester. This is what I did for over thirty years for the government. But it is something I enjoy. Now, where do I start? Well, I need to focus initially on the manual and learning the game. That is number one. Number two is to test ship and aviation designs. I have chosen my first country and that will be Japan. Japan has a unique position. She is an island nation, close to China and Russia and with easy access to Southeast Asia. With her position in the western side of the Pacific, she has a simple problem. She needs to establish a set of naval and air bases in strategic locations on her islands to protect her from her possible opponents. Aviation, in her geographical position, is absolutely critical. Anyway, more on this later. I will be doing other nations that are unique. Italy, Germany, A-H and possibly Russia are on my list in that order. This will be much later. I have started a new game as Japan. I am at January 1928. Things are heating up with France and Russia, but no problem. I've handled them before. With a treaty in place, I can't replace my older battleships which are cramped and too slow to stay with my seaplane carriers and two light carriers. I have build air bases at Truk, Saipan and on Formosa equipped with seaplanes and fighters along with my new torpedo bombers. So, I decided to build a heavy cruiser class. Here is the design. In my designs of battlecruisers and heavy cruisers, speed is essential because the carriers will eventually have to attain at least 30 knots to launch the heavier aircraft as aviation advances. This means that the support ships have to be able to accompany her and not slow her down. This is just basic to carrier aviation. This is why the real IJN used its battlecruisers to accompany the carriers. Question: Can I import this design into DesignShip2, latest version to examine it more? I've tried the older version and the file types are different. Problem: If I minimize RTW2, I cannot maximize it. The game has to be closed down. Has anyone seen this problem?
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Post by dorn on Oct 7, 2019 9:48:03 GMT -6
Quite interesting target. I am interested what is your strategy which has not been taken in history.
Relating your question, I do not know what you mean "DesignShip2"? You can design ship, save it and reopen anytime.
If you minimalize game, it is in left bottom corner. However if you have another applications opened you cannot see it as it is in background. Try to minimalize all aplications if you can see it. But all the time it is in bottom panel as one of application. May be you have another issue.
Relating to your cruiser, it seems interesting design giving it TPS lvl 4 protection. I am suprised you did not used AoN armour scheme which is same as in RTW1.
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Post by JagdFlanker on Oct 7, 2019 10:11:13 GMT -6
Problem: If I minimize RTW2, I cannot maximize it. The game has to be closed down. Has anyone seen this problem? if you have 'scaling' at 125% or more in the win10 settings/display then you can find the minimized game by setting 'scaling' back to 100%, look in the bottom left corner of the screen for the RtW icon and maximize the game, and then setting the 'scaling' back to what it was
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 11:21:36 GMT -6
Quite interesting target. I am interested what is your strategy which has not been taken in history.
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Relating to your cruiser, it seems interesting design giving it TPS lvl 4 protection. I am suprised you did not used AoN armour scheme which is same as in RTW1.
My strategy for Japan has always been about the same. Do not fight wars with the US and Britain, make pacts and stay friends. I can handle the German's, Russia and the French easily without making things worse. This was my first design in the new game, I will use AON on my next one, and I certainly appreciate your pointing that out. Do stop, it does not hurt my feelings at all. I am here to learn. Contrary to popular opinion, I certainly do not think I am perfect. I only make one mistake per day and I am now on the year 5050.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 11:36:53 GMT -6
So what new strategy am I going to follow for Imperial Japan. Well, the one that they should have followed. First, the Japanese got 80% of the oil from the US. It was a low sulfur oil, and much easier on their engines. Borneo's oil and Java's was high sulfur and without extensive processing actually ruined their engines in 1944. So, don't upset the US and get the good oil from them. The US doesn't really have much land in the Far East that we care about except the Philippines and the protection of the Australians. The British should be able to protect the Aussies. The Philippines is essentially not protectable, by the US. This is why War Plan Orange was eliminated in 1940. The Philippines will be or should have been given their freedom and possibly they would have survived.
So, that is my new strategy, not new, just the "path not taken" by the Japanese.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 11:52:17 GMT -6
These ships, two of them, are older battleships, cramped and short ranged. I can't build more battleships due to the treaty. So, I am rebuilding these two and increasing their speed, converting them to oil, and adding two seaplanes and a midship catapult. I've made some other changes like improving the director etc. My goal is to use these two ships as coastal defense ships with their two seaplanes for reconnaissance. There were some additions that I did not use, but I will use them later, one step at a time for my testing. In testing, you try not to make to many changes to the variables, it makes assessment hard.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 12:07:56 GMT -6
Just a note: on my cruiser design, I went back in and changed the armor scheme to sloped armor. It was set for aircraft carriers and I forgot to change it. Thanks guys.
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Post by dohboy on Oct 7, 2019 13:15:14 GMT -6
If I had been advising the Japanese I would have said to do absolutely anything to keep the US happy leading up to WW2, including pulling out of China with tails between legs. Declaring war on the United States was only slightly more fatal than having economic sanctions imposed by them. Getting 80% of their oil from the US was bad enough, but only a start. They relied on imports for a laundry list of important things like copper, iron, rubber, wheat, etc. And if they didn't have to import it directly from the US they had to get it from somewhere the US could put serious pressure on. I've heard it said that there were two winners in WW1, the US and Japan. Japan got a couple possessions while Germany was distracted, the US got the keys to the worldwide economy.
In the game I always play super aggressive as Japan, fight everyone all the time. Works out better than it should.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 13:32:39 GMT -6
If I had been advising the Japanese I would have said to do absolutely anything to keep the US happy leading up to WW2, including pulling out of China with tails between legs. Declaring war on the United States was only slightly more fatal than having economic sanctions imposed by them. Getting 80% of their oil from the US was bad enough, but only a start. They relied on imports for a laundry list of important things like copper, iron, rubber, wheat, etc. And if they didn't have to import it directly from the US they had to get it from somewhere the US could put serious pressure on. I've heard it said that there were two winners in WW1, the US and Japan. Japan got a couple possessions while Germany was distracted, the US got the keys to the worldwide economy. In the game I always play super aggressive as Japan, fight everyone all the time. Works out better than it should. I am always non-aggressive although in my current game, I just finished a war with France. They were having riots and lost most of their warships in the Far East. But I was magnanimous and let them off the hook. It might work to my advantage later. Someone tell me why I can't build a full fleet carrier without 8 x 8 inch guns. That is absolutely ridiculous. The Sara had hers taken off just after her torpedoing on January 11th, 1942, for good reason. Am I doing something wrong, it is 1933.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Oct 7, 2019 13:46:22 GMT -6
It only applies to the first CV that you convert or scratch build. You can actually immediately put it through a rebuild and replace those guns. The requirement is dropped after building your first CV.
This reflects the naval thinking at the time. It was done historically because the carriers were deployed in the scouting force which would make it possible that they might encounter enemy cruisers.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 14:03:46 GMT -6
It only applies to the first CV that you convert or scratch build. You can actually immediately put it through a rebuild and replace those guns. The requirement is dropped after building your first CV. This reflects the naval thinking at the time. It was done historically because the carriers were deployed in the scouting force which would make it possible that they might encounter enemy cruisers. Thank you very much, mate. These kinds of advice and information are speeding up my learning process. I've just built my first fleet carrier and it is operational, I have a second one building. Great.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 7, 2019 17:54:52 GMT -6
Well, my game as the Japanese has ended. I learned much from playing, I understand the building process better, but I have to work on the deployment of aircraft. I beat the Russians, lost to the French and Russians both against me, but came back to whip the French and then the Germans. My war victories were due to submarine blockades. My opponents lost 259 merchant ships to my 63. I still have much to learn. My prestige was adequate for me, and I had two fleet carriers and two light carriers along with 2 seaplane carriers, I had about six to eight air bases. Two in Japan, one on Formosa, one on Truk, one on Saipan and one in Korea. I used the strategy of attacking his ships but I may change that to attacking is air bases for protection. I will see.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 8, 2019 13:00:20 GMT -6
In my current game as Japan, I am adopting two new ideas. I am building more corvettes for trade protection and more MTB's for Korea and the narrow seas between Japan and China. I am also going to build them for SE Asia, next game. Just some ideas to play with. I am providing newest fleet carrier design, the Akagi and Air wing components. I have another, the Hosho. _
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 8, 2019 13:20:15 GMT -6
Question: Is there a way to improve air bases. When the AI tells me I can build bases with 100 aircraft capacity, I would first like to improve the bases I already have, it could save money.
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Post by akosjaccik on Oct 8, 2019 13:29:32 GMT -6
Question: Is there a way to improve air bases. Yes, under the "Coastal fortifications" tab right-clicking a given airbase and selecting "Expand" upgrades said base to the next capacity level. This will increase the base's maintenance cost.
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