"but randoms" is an excuse for how bad battle generation is

[aeson]

Jun 16, 2020 15:08:46 GMT -6 geroj said:

Nope, the way game works light cruiser is not necessary.

"The way the game works, X is unnecessary" can be said of pretty much any ship type except maybe CVs and DDs.

- Do you need battleships? No; appropriately-designed battlecruisers (or, in the early game, large first class / armored cruisers) can fulfill the same roles.

- Do you need battlecruisers (or, in the early game, large first class / armored cruisers)? No; battleships (especially late-game fast battleships) and heavy cruisers can cover the same roles.

- Do you need heavy cruisers (or, in the early game, large first class cruisers)? No; battlecruisers (and late-game fast battleships) and light cruisers can cover the same roles.

- Do you need light cruisers? No; heavy cruisers and destroyers can cover the same roles.

- Do you need destroyers? Maybe, because they're the most readily mass-produced ASW/minesweeping escort after and are preferable for Active Fleet duty to corvettes, but on the other hand corvettes can be assigned to the Active Fleet and carriers do have an ASW score (and it's possible to build exploitively-small CVLs if ASW score is what you're looking for) while CLs can cover the fleet anti-destroyer/anti-aircraft escort roles and a small torpedo-heavy CL isn't quite strictly worse in the torpedo attack role than a DD is.

- Do you need corvettes? No; DDs can cover the ASW and minesweeping roles for both fleet and trade protection, and can substitute for corvettes as uncontrollable minor patrolling warships in coastal raids.

- Do you need CVs? Maybe; a good CV is enormously better than a CVL or an AV in the strike and fleet air defense roles due to its much larger air group, and while it may not be any better than a CVL or an AV in the fleet air reconnaissance role it also won't sacrifice as much of its strike and fleet air defense capability to fill that role as a CVL or an AV would, but on the other hand a CVL can adequately cover fleet air defense and reconnaissance with a mostly-fighter air group and will have okay-ish strike capability with decent fighter-bombers late-game or an air group consisting of mostly torpedo or dive bombers in the period before CAP and anti-aircraft fire becomes effective, albeit at a significant cost to fleet air defense capability.

- Do you need CVLs? No; CVs can do anything that a CVL can - except being small, slow, and cheap - and do it better.

- Do you need AVs? No; CVs and CVLs can do anything an AV can do better than the AV can unless maybe you've failed to develop or acquire a license for a carrier-launched strike aircraft but do have a decent floatplane bomber.

- Do you need submarines? No; blockades and surface raiders do essentially the same thing at a lower cost and a lower risk.

- Do you need AMCs? Not unless you really want a minelayer before developing mine rails for DDs and CLs; DDs, KEs, and if need be cruisers or heavier warships can cover trade protection; cruisers and heavier warships can also cover surface raiding, if so desired.

Personally, I find CLs to be generally more useful than CAs except possibly in the mid-1910s to mid-1920s period when typical battlecruisers have become much more expensive than typical cruisers and 'modern' heavy cruiser configurations are available while 'modern' light cruiser configurations are not.

[geroj]

CL purpose is to be smallest, cheapest ship that can act independently outside of fleet and because there is nothing like that modeled in game (reconnaissance or troop support, destroyer lead etc.) I said CL is unnecessary, why is it so controversial? Just check maintenance cost of your cruisers and compare it to light cruisers

[rimbecano]

Jun 16, 2020 19:39:40 GMT -6 dia said:

I don't think I've ever had a convoy mission, defending or attacking, where I had numerical superiority in forces even when I did so in theater, on active duty. Even when I was up against France, who was on the verge of collapse, in southeast Asia, I was getting convoy attack missions with only a few destroyers verse a superior light cruiser and destroyer escort that constituted the bulk of France's remaining forces. Is this supposed to be a "feature"?

For attacking, The idea is a hit-and-run strike: your force isn't necessarily supposed to be able to take on the opposing force in protracted combat, just to take out the number of transports stated in the objective and then bug out.

Every once in a while, though, you get a convoy mission with heavy ships. Those I generally find to be an excellent way of whittling down the enemy battle line, as I find that I can almost always outplay the AI in battle line combat, even at a numerical disadvantage.

[rimbecano]

Jun 17, 2020 2:32:46 GMT -6 geroj said:

CL purpose is to be smallest, cheapest ship that can act independently outside of fleet and because there is nothing like that modeled in game (reconnaissance or troop support, destroyer lead etc.) I said CL is unnecessary, why is it so controversial? Just check maintenance cost of your cruisers and compare it to light cruisers

Often for cruisers, though, number of hulls is more important than tonnage, and for a given number of ships, CLs are cheaper in maintenance.

[dorn]

I use light cruisers quite a lot, there are with destroyers workhorse of my fleets.

But I usually build cheaper ones even in 40s they cost usually about 30M as they are expendable in their roles.
It can happen one hit disabling machinery which can doom ship. And it is quite a difference to loose cheap or expensive ship.

They cannot have protection for environment they operate so cost effectivity is usually good approach.

[geroj]

Jun 17, 2020 5:20:06 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

Jun 17, 2020 2:32:46 GMT -6 geroj said:

CL purpose is to be smallest, cheapest ship that can act independently outside of fleet and because there is nothing like that modeled in game (reconnaissance or troop support, destroyer lead etc.) I said CL is unnecessary, why is it so controversial? Just check maintenance cost of your cruisers and compare it to light cruisers

Often for cruisers, though, number of hulls is more important than tonnage, and for a given number of ships, CLs are cheaper in maintenance.

Partially agree. 9000t CL vs 15900t CA have around 50% higher production and maintenance cost, well and +3-4 months. So you get 3CL for a price of 2CA, what a bargain. 12000t+ CA armed with 8" and still more armor than any CL? Difference is 25%

[plattfuss]

More than once I was also extremely aroused, devastated, absolutely enraged and fuming with anger when such things happened in my games.

Those precious, shiny dreadnoughts

those speedy, sleek cruisers

I designed with so much heartblood...

...going down in chanceless encounters, exploding after a unexperienced single lucky hit,

getting massacred by airstrikes - while I never got the chance to retaliate because there was "always" overcast when I detected the enemy fleet....

But since a while

I realized that it often doesn´t take too much of an effort to beat the AI in Rule The Waves 2.

Building oversized cruisers, turning an enemy battlefleet away with destroyer attacks, intelligent timing the bombardment of coastal targets etc.

those things did nearly always work with me -

and the AI mostoften ended up clinging to a life boat - whereas my ships got only damaged but seldom sunk.

Now, in my (current) opinion:

this admittedly highly unfair events (which in real life happened anyway....)

make the game much more thrilling, difficult and filled with much more emotion.

Because of them I never can be sure to outwit the AI with my tricks - there might always lure another ridiculous overpowered enemy squadron somewhere in the mist....

I cannot say that I really relish those events

but (to me) they make the game somehow much more thrilling and challenging.

(And I do now fully understand, how good old Scheer felt, when he suddenly saw the schemes of the british Grand Fleet appear on the horizon....)

[polygon]

Jun 17, 2020 2:32:46 GMT -6 geroj said:

CL purpose is to be smallest, cheapest ship that can act independently outside of fleet and because there is nothing like that modeled in game (reconnaissance or troop support, destroyer lead etc.) I said CL is unnecessary, why is it so controversial? Just check maintenance cost of your cruisers and compare it to light cruisers

CLs pop up in game in a few roles:
1. Cruiser battles
2. Interceptions / raiding
3. Fleet screens / scouts

And have one big role outside of combat
4. Colonial service

Colonial light cruisers are pretty simple affairs that shouldn't be in combat. 3,600 tons, colonial service, a few popguns, maybe a floatplane. Send them off to serve as 4000 tons on foreign station and forget them.

For the other three roles, CLs provide some unique advantages CAs don't. For one, until probably the 1920s/30s, they're probably going to be markedly faster than a CA. Armored cruisers (not heavy cruisers) tend to be closer to 21-24 knots. CLs can go faster earlier, because they're smaller and less armored.

Another thing only CLs can do is pop smoke and lay mines. Laying mines happens outside of combat, but smoke floats is an important tech I take full advantage of. They also carry above deck torpedoes much earlier than CAs can. I absolutely make torpedo runs with my CLs. That's what the smoke is for.

In cruiser battles and interceptions, you're right, a CA will usually come out on top of a CL in a fight (although late game CLs with a dozen or more 6" guns can drown some CAs in fire). But this is only a small percentage of the duties of a CL, and I'd rather use a BC for those tasks anyways.

In terms of fleet screening and scouting, I think there's no contest, the CL wins out. It can't fight a CA and win, but that's not it's job. They're cheaper, and you can have more of them. They target enemy CLs and DDs, lay smoke, throw out torpedoes, and later in the game provide a good platform for floatplanes. A late game CL can also provide ungodly amounts of HAA support.

[magnin]

Jun 16, 2020 19:39:40 GMT -6 dia said:

I don't think I've ever had a convoy mission, defending or attacking, where I had numerical superiority in forces even when I did so in theater, on active duty. Even when I was up against France, who was on the verge of collapse, in southeast Asia, I was getting convoy attack missions with only a few destroyers verse a superior light cruiser and destroyer escort that constituted the bulk of France's remaining forces. Is this supposed to be a "feature"?

This has been happening to me too, and it is annoying. Why should the game always put me in positions of inferiority when I have a vastly superior fleet ?

I don't like the idea of the computer opponent cheating like this.

[losboccacc]

"CRUISER BATTLE, SIZE SMALL" the retarded battle generator said. then:

notice how: I got air power in the area

I'm not blockaded

we got roughly equal fleets, he's got more BB, less BC, but my BC weight as much as their BBs

this was just off some of my coastal ports

I maxed out on intel, as if it might help

this game is bullshit, the battle generator system is lazy, and I thoroughly resent the purchase.

[firefox178]

That Battle is giving me serious en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan vibes.

[polygon]

I've had no problem generating large fleet battles in sea zones where two opposing fleets are present. Sure, sometimes it will spawn a cruiser battle or whatever instead, but that's not unrealistic. Not every battle in WW1 was Jutland. Are you putting large portions of your combat fleet on raiding or something?

[losboccacc]

for an admiralty game there's buttload of commanding a handful destroyers...

but most importantly I want to lose because of my mistakes, not rng bullshit.

note I'm fine not being in control of everything, it's fine if a squadron has to sail not at full strength or if some reinforcements sailing back after repair get intercepted by a stronger force, but goddamit make it be my fault for calling a bad decision or spreading forces too far

[rimbecano]

Jun 18, 2020 12:37:39 GMT -6 losboccacc said:

but most importantly I want to lose because of my mistakes, not rng bullshit.

To be blunt, it turned out that the issue in your OP *was* because of your mistakes: if all your CLs are set to raider, as you said they were, then you've spread your forces out too far and you aren't likely to get more than one per battle.

For this most recent battle result you posted, it still may be a result of your mistakes, for example:

1) Were all of your CAs also set to raiding duty? If so, you might at least have gotten a squadron of CAs by not having them all on raiding duty, which wouldn't have been a completely fair fight, but at least a good bit closer.
2) How fast are your CAs, compared to the enemy's fast BBs? Did you have the option to run in that battle?
2a) How old was the CA you lost? If it was too slow to get away because it was 20 years older than the enemy BBs, you might have been better off scrapping it, converting it to a CVL, or sending it off to some colonial posession outside the Med where it wasn't going to be up against the best and newest ships in the RN.
3) What duties have you set your BBs to? What about your BCs? If they're not on AF, the battle generator may not have found anything when it tried to give you capital ships. Furthermore, if you happen to have capital ships set to raiding duty, you run additional risks (losing a big, expensive ship to scuttling or internment rather than a small, cheap one).

All that said, the ability to organize my own squadrons, and longer, less specific battle types that cover a whole sortie instead of beginning when contact is made with the enemy, are both high on my wishlist and both would make such fiascos less likely to be the fault of the RNG and more likely to be the fault of the player.

[polygon]

Jun 18, 2020 12:37:39 GMT -6 losboccacc said:

for an admiralty game there's buttload of commanding a handful destroyers...

but most importantly I want to lose because of my mistakes, not rng bullshit.

note I'm fine not being in control of everything, it's fine if a squadron has to sail not at full strength or if some reinforcements sailing back after repair get intercepted by a stronger force, but goddamit make it be my fault for calling a bad decision or spreading forces too far

I decline all destroyer battles. It's worth it because larger battles give you more VPs than destroyer battles cost you to decline.