Baltic as a Separate Zone

[cv10]

I think that the Baltic would work better if it was separated from Northern Europe and turned into its own region   

[williammiller]

I believe we have discussed this possibility internally, I will check to see what the status/disposition of it currently is.

[jwsmith26]

Jan 11, 2021 10:20:49 GMT -6 williammiller said:

I believe we have discussed this possibility internally, I will check to see what the status/disposition of it currently is.

Sorry for the earlier post that llnked the wrong thread. I've deleted that link.

[Deleted]

The problem is that traveling from one region to another takes a month in the game. The travel time from Atlantic to Baltic is less than a day with a decently fast ship IRL.

[rvdspoel]

Jan 13, 2021 12:30:59 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

The problem is that traveling from one region to another takes a month in the game. The travel time from Atlantic to Baltic is less than a day with a decently fast ship IRL.

A possible solution to this( although I am unsure of the feasibility) is to add a special rule to such an area, where the controller of either Norway/Denmark, or the Kiel Canal can instantly move ships between the two zones(maybe with a limit of once a turn). A similar system could be applied for the Black sea, with Constantinople being the relevant control point. 
Other nations would still be able to traverse the area, but it would take them longer. 

[oldpop2000]

The distance from the center of the North Sea through the Skagerrak, Kattegat and the narrows to the center of the Baltic Sea is about 882 miles. At 15 knots, which is cruising speed, that means it would take about 58 hours or two days and about another 6-8 hrs. The narrowness and shallowness of the seas prevents any other real speed and in winter, you have better be sailing at less than 10 knots or you might slam your stern into the sea bottom.

I am confused as to what the problem is. The only two states that should have combat in the area are Russia, Germany, maybe Great Britain and France; as to the last two, that makes no sense. USA has no business in there and neither does anyone else. If I want to control that sea, just place submarines and light cruisers with destroyers near Jutland and that ends it or some coastal subs into the Baltic itself.

[seawolf]

Jan 13, 2021 12:30:59 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

The problem is that traveling from one region to another takes a month in the game. The travel time from Atlantic to Baltic is less than a day with a decently fast ship IRL.

I don't really see this as a problem, given you can get from Scapa Flow to Singapore in under a month IRL, but it takes 3 months in game

[oldpop2000]

Jan 22, 2021 16:32:41 GMT -6 seawolf said:

Jan 13, 2021 12:30:59 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

The problem is that traveling from one region to another takes a month in the game. The travel time from Atlantic to Baltic is less than a day with a decently fast ship IRL.

I don't really see this as a problem, given you can get from Scapa Flow to Singapore in under a month IRL, but it takes 3 months in game

You might find this website interesting. Based on its calculation, the distance from Scapa Flow to the Port of Singapore is 9544 miles and at 10 knots it would take 39.8 days. 


www.shiptraffic.net/2001/05/sea-distances-calculator.html

[intolight]

Making the Baltic into a separate zone would help with the 'battle generator gives you an undeclinable battle in the middle of the Baltic when you're France/the UK, or the middle of the Atlantic when you're Russia' problem. It's not that big of a deal in the early game, but the late game Baltic is almost as bad as the Mediterranean, except you have even less space to run and hide from enemy land based air.


Basically, I mean this kind of battle. I'm Italy, and the only Northern European territory I hold is Iceland. I should not be able to send an entire fleet from Iceland and through the Danish Straits to fight the Germans in the Baltic, not without taking at least some attrition damage from traveling through the heart of Germany's LBA. I guess all of the German airbases, shore batteries, submarines, mines, etc, don't exist until the battle starts, at which point they suddenly appear from thin air? 
Similarly, Russia sometimes gets battles off the coast of Ireland. How they managed to pass through the North Sea and the Channel undamaged undetected would be a fascinating story.
Fleet Battles aren't that bad, since you'll at least have some carriers to provide a CAP and attack enemy airbases/carriers. What's worse are the smaller destroyer or cruiser battles with no accompanying carriers, where you basically have to pray that the weather turns bad or night arrives soon, or else you might lose every ship to an unending stream of airstrikes. Or even worse, battles where you have battleships/battlecruisers but no carriers. I've had unexpected battles that gave me single battleship and a few destroyers, within spitting distance of enemy LBA, in the middle of a calm and clear day. I guess airbases only work one day per month? That's a possible explanation for how a very large battleship got within gunnery range of the enemy coastline unharmed.
The moment the battle starts, of course, enemy airbases start making it very obvious why battleships with no CAP are already dead, they just don't know it yet. 
I guess this is also a complaint about the battle generator not taking LBA into account?


tldr I think that splitting the Baltics into their own sea zone would make a lot of sense and would reduce the number of illogical encounters the battle generator creates. You can always decline these poorly located battles, but every war you're going to have a couple of unexpected battles, and it's pretty likely you'll get a couple in locations that just don't make any sense. Better hope the BG doesn't give you anything too valuable, I guess.

[wlbjork]

It's a difficult decision.

I can see an argument for not only leaving it as it is, but also adding the Mediterranean to Northern Europe: The position of the British Isles is dominant in allowing both the Baltic and the Med to be easily closed to merchant traffic.

[w2c]

I'd personally error on the side of more seazones rather than less. If you had more control over fleet activities and could indicate where within a sea zone your ships should operate then I'd be all in favor of large broad strokes seazones but without that operational control the next best option would be more seazones so you'd at least get to narrow down your fleets presence to where you actually want it.

[janxol]

Baltic seems far too small to be considered its own seazone in my mind. Apart from added travel time, which is already higher than IRL, it would create other problems with basing capacity, for example, and also in the current state of the game it would for example become impossible to blockade Russia, as you'll need to do so in the Baltic in which for example as GB you'll have no basing. Changes required to make that work rapidly become increasingly complicated.
I would rather see tweaks to the battle generator so that only powers with business in the Baltic will actually have battles there.

[vonfriedman]

In SAI Baltic campaign that sea is frozen in the winter months and there is no operational activity.
Despite having played a few RTW and RTW2 games as Germany or Russia, it is not clear to me if battles are excluded there in the winter months.
Since, barring an error, there is no record of this in the manuals, it may be appropriate to reconsider this aspect.