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Post by deadmetal on May 26, 2020 17:32:33 GMT -6
I'm playing on admiral mode for increased realism. Yet I find it very unrealistic and frustrating that I can't pick my targets. Would it be unusual for an admiral on a flagship, to choose targets at least for the division of that flagship? I think it wouldn't. I think it wouldn't be unusual for admiral to even pick specific ships as targets, and not just a target division.
With my play style, which often involves going against my enemy with much lower numbers of superior ships, or even with lone maximum battleships for that matter (with their escorts of course), it can often lead to very frustrating moments. Such as when instead of finishing off the damaged and high priority target, my ships either keep switching their targets, or choose something of much lesser importance. Needless to say, it's unrealistic and very ineffective.
I realize that it would give an advantage to the player, over AI that isn't good as it is, but I don't think it would be a very significant advantage.
So here's a side suggestion - make difficulty options, by which, in the boundaries of realism, a player would set up difficulty level to best suit their playthrough needs / adjust the balance to their liking. It would mostly be there as a workaround of the bad AI issue, which becomes more serious the more control a player has in battle (part of the reason why I'm playing on admiral mode).
edit:
It would be nice to at least be able to choose a target for your ship.
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Post by smrfisher on May 31, 2020 10:27:33 GMT -6
Regarding Admirals, directing individual targets, outside or a few small engagements, the selection of target was typically a combination of the individual ships Captain, and training such as matching up battle lines, so no enemy ship is unengaged. This later point being the most important as for most of the game, and indeed gun based naval combat, the most difficult part of accurate gunnery was sighting the fall of shot, and adjusting accordingly. Thus ships were trained to engage separate targets to maximise accuracy and because an unengaged ships tend to have much better accuracy on the basis of not having large calibre shells trying to kill them.
One of the rare exceptions was in the Battle of the Denmark Strait where Admiral Holland instructed both HMS Hood, and HMS Prince of Wales to engage the Bismarck directly, leaving Hipper unengaged.
The point to consider is that in most navies, the Captain is the master of their ship, and in command of what it does, whilst any Admiral aboard is in command of the fleet/squadron/flotilla, directing the broader strategy - a good example is Admiral Jellicoe, and the command structure of the RN Grand Fleet at Jutland, where you have Admirals in command of squadrons, with each ships Captain, including on the flagships commanding the individual vessels.
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Post by deadmetal on Jun 4, 2020 7:29:30 GMT -6
Regarding Admirals, directing individual targets, outside or a few small engagements, the selection of target was typically a combination of the individual ships Captain, and training such as matching up battle lines, so no enemy ship is unengaged. This later point being the most important as for most of the game, and indeed gun based naval combat, the most difficult part of accurate gunnery was sighting the fall of shot, and adjusting accordingly. Thus ships were trained to engage separate targets to maximise accuracy and because an unengaged ships tend to have much better accuracy on the basis of not having large calibre shells trying to kill them. One of the rare exceptions was in the Battle of the Denmark Strait where Admiral Holland instructed both HMS Hood, and HMS Prince of Wales to engage the Bismarck directly, leaving Hipper unengaged. The point to consider is that in most navies, the Captain is the master of their ship, and in command of what it does, whilst any Admiral aboard is in command of the fleet/squadron/flotilla, directing the broader strategy - a good example is Admiral Jellicoe, and the command structure of the RN Grand Fleet at Jutland, where you have Admirals in command of squadrons, with each ships Captain, including on the flagships commanding the individual vessels. This would almost always be true in a large battle, however, I imagine it would be likely enough for an admiral to choose targets when the engagement is relatively small. For example, it should be expected imo, in a scenario where an admirals flagship and another large battleship with few of their CL and / or DD escorts are going for a hunt and perhaps encountering a similar or a larger group of warships. Another things is holding fire. I don't think that it would be very rare for an admiral to give such order. I sometimes have to navigate awkward circles around unimportant targets, just to conserve ammo, so I could hope to sink my intended target. Doing so, or just watching your ships open up at enemy escorts and waste their ammo pointlessly, when you are chasing your targets takes away from both, gameplay and realism. Another example when holding fire would be very useful is when you're low on ammo and only slightly faster than your target that you are chasing. It can lead to your ammo being wasted at long range and the enemy ship not being sunk. As well as it can lead to you not having enough ammo left to engage other targets.
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Post by mobeer on Jun 4, 2020 8:50:27 GMT -6
When my battlecruisers are chasing down a transport I really don't need the (friendly ship) AI to choose to open fire at maximum range. Even if I tell my fagship to hold fire then any second division with "Core" order will open fire, completely ignoring the actions of the flagship.
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Post by dorn on Jun 4, 2020 8:51:29 GMT -6
There were relatively common that ships fired on wrong target, orders from flag officer were not done because misunderstanding, communication issues etc. allowing enemy escape or give another advantages.
This is simulated in RTW. Player has much better awareness than any admiral had and giving player more options would give player advantage against enemy (AI) which no real admiral had.
Neverthless there is still a lot of possibilities under captain difficulty as you can command directly any ship bypassing limitations AI has giving practically bonus to player.
Some of real battle examples of thing mentioned above are Battle of Denmark Strait and Battle of Dogger bank.
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Post by deadmetal on Jun 4, 2020 9:38:41 GMT -6
There were relatively common that ships fired on wrong target, orders from flag officer were not done because misunderstanding, communication issues etc. allowing enemy escape or give another advantages. This is simulated in RTW. Player has much better awareness than any admiral had and giving player more options would give player advantage against enemy (AI) which no real admiral had. Neverthless there is still a lot of possibilities under captain difficulty as you can command directly any ship bypassing limitations AI has giving practically bonus to player. Some of real battle examples of thing mentioned above are Battle of Denmark Strait and Battle of Dogger bank. There are a few perspectives here. You are mainly taking the realism one. So let me tell you this, no captain and no admiral would allow their ship to engage evidently wrong targets and / or waste ammo at long range, or on escorts, if it would be strategically unacceptable - as it often can be in the game. You don't have full awareness of the situation in game as well - so the limitation of awareness of the situation is simulated to a level. However, even if it was completely real life like, and your ships would be wasting ammo as they often do in the game, it would still be completely obvious, and there would be no reason to not give a cease fire order. I'm mainly speaking of the flagship. Regarding balance, yes, allowing a player to do anything that the AI doesn't do shifts it to the players side. That's why I've included difficulty options into this suggestion post. So should this limitation exist on admiral mode just because AI is bad? Then there is gameplay perspective, and of course, it takes away from gameplay. My suggestion is to have two tickboxes that become available when admiral mode is selected - one to allow fire control for flagship, and another one to allow fire control for the whole division, if ships are close enough to read fire control signals. It could slightly impact VP gained in battles, but it shouldn't be anything like admiral vs rear admiral.
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Post by smrfisher on Jun 4, 2020 17:58:16 GMT -6
deadmetal unfortunately, whilst I completely understand the logic you are applying unfortunately in the real world that just isn't how any navy operated for the reasons I outlined re a Ship's Captain/commanding Admiral. Particularly in the case of the Royal Navy a ship's Captain was well within their rights to inform the Admiral exactly where they could go if they tried to dictate how they commanded their vessel. In addition on a technical and command level, given the communications systems used, it would be neigh on impossible for a single person to both be in rapid enough communication to, and be able to process all the information from even a destroyer flotilla let alone anything larger. I regard to 'no captain or admiral would allow their ship to engage evidently wrong targets' I admire you optimism and confidence, but this is completely incorrect the number of times ships engaged the 'wrong' target, doubled up fire, or left ships unengaged is legion. Two very clear instances were in the early stages of the Battle of the Denmark Strait and with the Battle-Cruiser engagement at the Battle of Jutland where Derfflinger was left unengaged. Finally with a cease fire order it depends on whether you were trying to achieve a 'mission' or 'absolute' kill. In reality the former was a perfectly good outcome, whilst in game the latter prove much, much more useful over time. And in the case of the poor Blucher at the Battle of Dogger Bank where being at the tail of the German line, every Royal Navy Battle-Cruiser engaged her as they caught up and continued to pour in fire until the next target came into range.
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