Possible solution to RtW2's operational level problem.

[srndacful]

Hello folks!

Well, with all the coronavirus quarantine stuff going on, I finally got the time to 'mull over' an idea I've been holding onto for ... well, a long time now.
Basically, it's (i.e. I envisioned it as) an answer to all the people asking: "Why do I get X ships instead of Y when I fight battles?" - and please note that this covers a wide amount of questions: from "Why are my worst BC's involved instead of my best?" through "Why is only a part of my fleet actually fighting?" to "Can we have task forces so I can put specialised ships in?"
So, my thought was (essentially): 'Why don't we show them just how stretched they really are?' with a side bonus of 'And give them what they want at the same time.' ... Yep - a 'carrot and a stick' all in one - it's just how my mind works, I suppose.

Anyway, the basics of the idea is this:
Players will get to assign Missions to their available ships  - or send their available ships on Missions, depending on how you look at it - every turn of the war. 

Now, since they'll have to do this every turn (month) - and since there will probably be those among us who are uninterested in (and/or actively annoyed by (*cough* me *cough*)) excessive micromanagement - the available ships will automatically be distributed by the AI to the available Missions at the start of the turn, and the player will be able to re-organise them at his leisure (or not at all).
Available ships would be all those ships on AF in the Area not currently in transit.

Missions are, basically, a 'battle type' (e.g. Shore Bombardment) in a given location (e.g. 'Sicily') which would then be assigned any number of ships (including none at all) to it. Each available ship could only be assigned one Mission per month. 
Missions should be divided into 'Defensive' and 'Offensive' (ho hum) - with each Offensive Mission generating a Battle against the appropriate enemy Defensive Mission.
Missions should be grouped by Area - by Territory (or even Port(s)) is also possible, but would be a bit (way) more complicated - with all the possible Missions in that Area (Territory/Port(s)) listed, and ships assigned to them listed right underneath them - so as to enable group selection and drag-and-drop shuffling. 

So, for example, if I was playing A-H, and at war with Italy, a possible list of Defensive Missions would be: 
Coastal Defense of Dalmatia (against Italian Coastal Raids, Bombardments and Invasions),
Coastal Defense of A-H (against Italian Coastal Raids, Bombardments and Invasions), 
Defense of Convoy no.1 (against Italian's Convoy no.1 Interception), (if there is any)
Defense of Convoy no.2 (against Italian's Convoy no.2 Interception), (if there is any)
   ... etc ... depending on how many Convoys the RNGods generate that turn - I'd say 1 per 10 ports per turn, but that's just my 0.02$.

Then there are Offensive (ho hum) Missions available to me: 
Coastal Raid on Italian East Coast, (defended by Italian Coastal Defense of Italian East Coast)
Coastal Raid on Italian West Coast, (defended by Italian Coastal Defense of Italian West Coast)
   ... etc ... as I think you got the picture, and don't want to bore you with (bigger) wall of text.

In any case, this would provide a nice visual overview of how stretched your fleet really is, along with a possibility of making your own task forces (with all the specialised ships you want) and making the best of the situation.

Please note that I'm not wedded to this idea, and I don't expect Fredrik will have the time (or even inclination) to add this into RtW2 - since, I expect, it will be tricky and time-consuming to configure and balance the AI - but if it sparks a discussion (and possible improvements) - I'm happy.

All comments/insults/ideas/threats/thoughts/preaching/criticisms welcome.
Cheers!

[vonfriedman]

An interesting idea.
A distinction should be made between those navies, such as Regia Marina (RM) in WW2, who opt for that strategy which is called "Fleet in being", carrying out few missions with the big ships (in the case of RM also due to the lack of fuel), and other navies who opt to carry out more than one mission in each month.
For example, the Mediterranean Fleet sailed from Alexandria in early July 1940 to escort two convoys from Malta, engaged the RM in the battle off Calabria and also flew off a strike force against shipping in Augusta harbour, sailed again a week later from Alexandria to Tobruk in search of the cruiser Bande Nere, and took the sea for a third time later this month in order to escort another convoy.

[srndacful]

Mar 26, 2020 5:30:34 GMT -6 vonfriedman said:

An interesting idea.
A distinction should be made between those navies, such as Regia Marina (RM) in WW2, who opt for that strategy which is called "Fleet in being", carrying out few missions with the big ships (in the case of RM also due to the lack of fuel), and other navies who opt to carry out more than one mission in each month.
For example, the Mediterranean Fleet sailed from Alexandria in early July 1940 to escort two convoys from Malta, engaged the RM in the battle off Calabria and also flew off a strike force against shipping in Augusta harbour, sailed again a week later from Alexandria to Tobruk in search of the cruiser Bande Nere, and took the sea for a third time later this month in order to escort another convoy.

Well, I did envision Navies engaging in up to as many Missions as they are able and/or willing - including none at all (i.e.leaving all their ships in port as a 'fleet in being') - so, players (and AI) should have the option NOT to send ships on Missions (although, in that case, they'd be better off putting them on RF status, IMHO) - although, IMHO, some Defensive ones should at least be considered. 
A player could also, for example, send a single cruiser on each Offensive Mission - just to mess with the enemy. Exactly how effective that might be, though, I leave to you to consider. 

As for the Mediterranean Fleet ... well, I suppose ships could be assigned on up to two (or even three) missions per month - but, again, you'd have to keep track of whether (and when) the ship is available - i.e. make sure that mission is not overlapping with another one (and just how do you do that?) - like, for example, what happens if this is one ship's 2nd Mission, and another ship's 1st? And if it takes damage (or is sunk) in the first and is unavailable in the second? Do you cancel the mission? How? Or is there backup? And just what's stopping you from assigning all the ships to all the missions? 

That's just too many variables for me - sorry.
I suppose a turn could be set to one week (1/4 of a month) during a war - or even two - or 10 days - but that still leaves too many questions - and it's troublesome to implement. 'KISS' principle is the best, IMHO.
Unless Fredrik has enough time on his hands - which I sincerely doubt.

Cheers!

[retsof]

I like the idea. but with the way things tend to go, the entire enemy fleet will have the uncanny ability to know exactly where your weakest force is.

[srndacful]

Mar 26, 2020 15:13:53 GMT -6 retsof said:

I like the idea. but with the way things tend to go, the entire enemy fleet will have the uncanny ability to know exactly where your weakest force is.

Well, if the entire enemy fleet is on the Offensive - then there's nothing left for Defense, now is it? 
Hope you sent some Raids out there - 'cause they're going to be a clean sweep milkrun. 

[Antediluvian Monster]

In this kind of system it would be essential to model how real navies coped with the workload. Meaning that covering forces, off map shadowing, eyes on enemy ports ready to report the moment the enemy battlefleet sails and signals intelligence should all be represented.

For example, if you are a superior power enforcing a blockade, then you´d keep enough heavy units to demolish whatever the enemy has on the "go wherever the enemy battlefleet goes" mission for duration of the war, with other heavy units spread as underway distant covering forces ready to pounce the moment enemy sends significant force to do anything.

[srndacful]

Hello, Antediluvian Monster.

To be honest, I have been thinking about putting in a third kind of Mission: Reserve - where you keep ships available for sortie (as support?) in case your ships on other Missions need backup - but then how do we determine which Missions can get support, and which can't? 

I mean - sure, if the enemy, say, Raids Coastal shipping near, say, Toulon - you could easily make a case that (if you're, say, playing France) your Reserve BC's are stationed nearby, and can (relatively quickly) come to the rescue and/or help trap and sink the enemy (say, Italian) BC's.
But if the Raid is near, say, Cyprus (which you, for example, own as France) - there's very little chance that your BC's are anywhere near, and that they can provide any kind of timely assistance. 

Unless, of course, we completely ignore the issue of where individual ships actually are - and assume they're able to be anywhere at any time - which, tbqh, stretches my suspension of disbelief to breaking point. So ...

Since I've been failing to come up with any kind of solution to that problem (other than for game to keep track in which port which ship is anchored) I didn't want to put it out there, but since you've now mentioned it ... I'm all ears.

I also have no problem with having a 'Blockade' or a 'Observation' Mission (how on earth could I've forgotten it in the first place, I've no idea) - which would be, basically, IMHO, like an Invasion Mission - but without Transports - i.e. keep a number of ships within 100nm of a certain position for certain amount of time - and/or get points for each hour of keeping them there? 
Successful Blockade of all Home Ports, naturally, being required for the actual "Blockaded!" status on the strategic map. 
Spying would integrate well in this as well, IMHO - giving advance notice of both the enemy Mission(s) and ships sailed on them - thus offering a chance to change the composition of ships on our own Mission(s) at risk from those enemy Missions.

Cheers!
srndacful.

[cabalamat]

Mar 26, 2020 5:30:34 GMT -6 vonfriedman said:

An interesting idea.
A distinction should be made between those navies, such as Regia Marina (RM) in WW2, who opt for that strategy which is called "Fleet in being", carrying out few missions with the big ships (in the case of RM also due to the lack of fuel), and other navies who opt to carry out more than one mission in each month.
For example, the Mediterranean Fleet sailed from Alexandria in early July 1940 to escort two convoys from Malta, engaged the RM in the battle off Calabria and also flew off a strike force against shipping in Augusta harbour, sailed again a week later from Alexandria to Tobruk in search of the cruiser Bande Nere, and took the sea for a third time later this month in order to escort another convoy.

If a navy uses a "fleet in being" strategy, then its mission could be "stay in port".

[vonfriedman]

More correctly it would be: "take the sea only in favorable circumstances". Obviously, due to the fog of war, circumstances can also prove unfavorable.

[vonfriedman]

The fleet in being rule can have many exceptions in practice. For example, the Regia Marina chose to engage the two remaining BBs in the battle of Cape Spartivento, just two weeks after the RN attack in the harbor of Taranto, in order to demonstrate that it still existed.

[srndacful]

Apr 1, 2020 8:53:40 GMT -6 vonfriedman said:

The fleet in being rule can have many exceptions in practice. For example, the Regia Marina chose to engage the two remaining BBs in the battle of Cape Spartivento, just two weeks after the RN attack in the harbor of Taranto, in order to demonstrate that it still existed.

Yeah - this is why I didn't suggest it in the first place: too many rules any exceptions would take too much time to code, and I was thinking along the lines of making something simple (but still reasonably effective) that Fredrik might implement quickly.
(IMHO, he already has some ideas to replace the 'RNG hell' that is our current battle generator  - but is currently busy with missiles and stuff ...)

Still - thanks, cabalamat , for pointing out that I forgot that ships also have the option to "Mind the bar", as well - I really should have clarified it better - my bad.

Cheers!
srndacful.