Post by gildeddawn on Apr 25, 2020 16:14:27 GMT -6
This is later on in same save as my earlier post.
I encountered two separate and entirely unrelated issues in the same battle.
At the beginning of the battle (which was a fleet battle), I saved the game. I proceeded to fight the battle normally, and everything went fine (in terms of the programming, anyway). The battle didn't go very well, and it was getting late so I decided to quit and try again the next day.
However, when I reloaded the save the game changed the location of one of my ships. My carrier force was divided into three divisions of two carriers each. The first time, they all spawned together as they should. However, when I reloaded the save the game decided to put the lead ship of the second carrier division literally on top of the lone battleship in the battleship force, which was not close to the carrier force. The other carrier in the second carrier division was still where it should have been, as were the escorts; only the lead carrier had been moved. I tried reloading the save a couple more times, but it always did this. It also always gave me a message soon after unpausing that said one of my ships had more flotation points than it started with, or something to that effect (this also did not happen on the first attempt). The ship it referred to differed with each subsequent reload, but the message was always worded the same. I don't have a screenshot for either of these, but I will include the save. Hopefully you can load a save that starts in battle.
Once I accepted that these bugs were always going to be present (I did try loading the autosave, but it still took me to the battle rather than the end of the previous turn), I played through the battle. It went a lot better this time, but something still seemed off. It wasn't until the battle ended and I saw the post-battle results that I realized why.
One of the main reasons the battle didn't go very well on the first try was that, on the first try, my scouts found the enemy carrier force before they found the enemy surface force. So, I launched most of my strike planes to attack their carrier force. I then sent the remainder after the surface force once that was located, but these ended up attacking the carrier division that was attached to the enemy's surface force. These strikes had a few fighter escorts, but not many as I had found in a battle against Italy the turn before (I am at war with both) that I had been using too many fighters for escorting and not leaving enough for CAP, which allowed Italian strike planes to reach my carrier force, sinking one fleet carrier and heavily damaging a second.
I was determined not to make that mistake again, so this time I sent only a few fighters with the strike planes and left most behind for CAP, which I set to heavy. The result was that my strikes got utterly annihilated by the enemy CAP, which then meant I didn't have many strike planes left to attack that actual enemy surface force once it started engaging my surface force. This resulted in my surface force getting severely battered, as they were badly outnumbered and I couldn't rely on carrier strikes to tip the balance.
On the second attempt, I sent more escorts with my strikes, which produced better results although they still sustained heavy losses. It still seemed weird, especially considering my recent experience against Italy. It wasn't until I saw the post battle results and specifically the air details screen that I realized what was going on.
Britain fielded 7 fleet carriers and 1 escort carrier for the battle. Of those, 3 of the fleet carriers were carrying literally only fighters. 3 more were carrying one singular squadron of strike planes and otherwise only fighters. Their largest carrier, the 106 plane Audacious, was carrying two squadrons of strike planes, although it was still less than half of the air wing. Ironically, the escort carrier had the most balanced air wing, with roughly 50/50 fighters and strike planes.
I understand wanting to carry a lot of fighters, especially in late campaign when CAP has become more effective. Indeed, my biggest takeaway from the battle was that I need to embark more fighters on my carriers. However, with that being said I think the AI took that a little too far. Looking back on it, I realized my ships had not really been subjected to a lot of air attacks in either attempt, and what strikes were sent were largely anemic. The AI even sent multiple attacks using fighters set to Naval Strike. I hadn't thought much of that at the time, as I do that myself sometimes. But, now I realize they were doing that because that was literally all they had. Honestly, I probably should never be able to achieve a clear victory in this battle situation. The British have more BBs, more BCs, more carriers, more escorts, and more planes. Yet, the compositions of their carrier air wings meant that their carriers counted for very little, other than being damage sponges for my air strikes.
I suspect this had been happening with the Italians as well. Although I lost ships to air attack in that battle, most of their actual damage was done by medium bombers from land bases. In that battle, my carrier strikes devastated their surface force but barely scratched their carriers when those were located. Again, I didn't think much of it at the time but looking back on it I suspect the same thing was going on, especially since they also sent strikes of fighters against me.
