Guerre de Course

[thecarthaginian]

Has anyone tried using a purely 'guerre de course' strategy in the game?
Would this be practical given the consant prestige demands due to lack of battleships?

I was wondering this because the smaller nations almost seem to handicap themselves by trying to participate in the battleship race. Playing as the CSA,I seem to get most of my gains in combat from raiders, submarines and convoy actions.

So, anyone tried it?

[galagagalaxian]

Using large numbers of submarines and dedicated "Raider" CLs (small, fast, cheap, few guns, run away from all fights) can be pretty effective, yes. However even as a small country you're pretty much forced to play the Battleship game or risk blockade. In that situation, ignoring capital ships in favor of more commerce raiders, you're basically gambling that your commerce raiders can bring the enemy's economy to its knees before their blockade does the same to you. Blockade is, in my experience more effective than all but the most overpowering submarine/raider forces. In addition the whole time you're declining large-scale engagements, giving the enemy free VPs (which further worsen unrest) and harming your prestige.

Basically it is possible, I don't think it is wise to ignore the capital ships to focus exclusively on it.

[baggers]

As an alternative to battleships/dreadnougths, you can try to build a swarm of DD and some BC.

It allow you to accept fleet battles, but with a "cat and mouse with torpedos boats" tactics.

In that case, your main objective in fleet battles is not to sink dreadnougth, but stay out of big gun range, try to disperse the ennemy force chasing you, and brutally clobb to death an alone ligth cruiser before ending the battle by retreating full steam before dreadnougths came back in range.

It allow majors victorys and gain prestige even facing superior forces.

I have tried that with russians and find pretty effective. (and no, I have absolutely no shame about it ^^)

[thecarthaginian]

Aug 24, 2015 0:02:56 GMT -6 galagagalaxian said:

However even as a small country you're pretty much forced to play the Battleship game or risk blockade. In that situation, ignoring capital ships in favor of more commerce raiders, you're basically gambling that your commerce raiders can bring the enemy's economy to its knees before their blockade does the same to you...
Basically it is possible, I don't think it is wise to ignore the capital ships to focus exclusively on it.

I've never had a real 'blockade' imposed upon me, save one game where the US caught me with my breeches down before I could replace all my 1899 vintage Protected Cruisers with more modern light cruisers (about 1910). I loaded down with SSCs and lucked out in a major way in a very lop-sided fleet battle (two Bs and 1DD sunk, 1BC damaged) while losing only one very small BB and a DD... got in 4 very lucky torps and had the whole battleline pounding one B. As a result I managed to get a 'status qou' peace, but it was a near thing.

I've also only been playing 'Medium-sized' games ATM... mastering the learning curve and trying not to overload myself.
Also I generally eschew overseas possessions during peace settlements, meaning I can focus my forces.

[thecarthaginian]

Oh... forgot to mention, I an building raiders with real teeth, not small ships. My most often built class generally displaces about 5000t, carries 9x1x6" guns and makes 23ish knots in fair seas. They are essentially scaled-down versions of the USN's 'Colombia'-class cruisers.

[gabeeg]

I used this with CSA in my last game, worked pretty good until the late 20's when I was at war with both Germany and Russia. Germany was apparently pretty advanced in ASW research by the late 20's as some turns I was losing 5 subs to them in a turn! It was hard to keep the southern sub pens stocked. I had given up on the BB race and instead just kept a couple BC's with lots of DD's and a moderate amount of CL's. My strategy for the above surface fleet was to make sure my boats led any potential enemy in speed. If my BC's had the gun advantage or it was fairly even I would take advantage of my speed and stay at long range and slug it out. If I was out gunned in any battle depending on the exact circumstances I would either unleash the destroyer support and take advantage of my speed to hit and run or, try to lure my attackers under the guns of my forts (I upgrade most ports to have at least one very large battery) and this way if it was still not going well I could enter the port and live fight another day. As fighter pilots say, "speed is life". To gain an edge in the above strategy I had high research in fire control and torpedo tech.

Concentrating on raiders and subs with smaller fast surface ships seems pretty sensible with the CSA (and previously fore me with Austria). It seems it would be pretty difficult to out BB America as time goes on...and almost impossible to avoid at least one war with them.