Event based battlegenerator

[tankaxe]

The Battlegenerator is a source of many opinions. It can give us memorable battles that gives an enjoyable experience to the player. Other times it's a annoyance refusing to give the player fleet battles for multiple months and throwing two light cruisers against a large AI cruiser force (seriously what the hell is up with that?).

The strict nature of the battlegenerator also forces the player to build all-rounder designs simply because any specialist design will get picked for engagements it was not built for such as anti-aircraft cruisers. Battlecruisers are also a must as besides CLs they are the BGs love child and always the most active part of the navy. Of course this is a annoyance for players who dislike the concept and prefer the low speed high armor high guns approach of the Americans.

So in the hopes of giving the player flexibility and from the limits of the game it self I'm suggesting the option for event based planned operations.

My idea is in the beginning of a war the player gets a pop up event that will determine what missions and operations the player can take.

An example:

The admiralty has gathered to determine the naval campaign and request that you determine the plan of attack

Grand Campaign (an Aggressive stance of all your heavy units. Capital ships will be used aggressively and fleet actions are more likely to be fired with this option)

Raiding Campaign (Battlecruisers and cruisers are used to raid convoys and shore bombard enemy territory. This also has a chance to bring out a portion of the enemy fleet for you to try to defeat with a portion of your fleet. Out right fleet actions have a rare chance to pop up)

Restricted Campaign (All heavy units are held in reserve only cruisers are sent on missions to either raid convoys or shore bombard. Large and fleet battles are very rare)

Every 6 months the player will be asked on how they will fight their campaigns and will in turn determine their choice of engagement.

The player will get a event that is determined by RNG on what operation they plan for. For an example if they roll and got a raiding mission it would like this:

The naval staff have planned to bombard a naval installation in X possession what force shall we send?

Battlecruisers

Cruisers

None at all cancel the operation

Fleet battles comes with more decisions that if the RNG determines if you are the aggressor.

The Admiralty plans a fleet engagement for a decisive battle! You are asked if they are to proceed. (Reworded if the AI is the aggressor)

Proceed

No relieve our fleet from active status (-perstige)

What time shall the fleet set out for battle (not available if the AI is the aggressor)

Early Morning

At Noon

Late afternoon


For the AI I think what we have now as just a random battle would work. But I won't say no for it to be event based allowing the player to choose which force will respond.

I would like to open the board to discussion, what do you think of an event based system? Anything you would like to add or change?

(Please do not come here proclaiming that the BG in it's current state is uber realistic because x battle happened and the player needs to deal with it. This is not the thread for it this just exploring more ways for the player to get involved in the planning section for battles)

[captaintrek]

I like the idea, but I feel like the need to build battlecruisers isn't going to go away so long as the AI insists on spamming them out the way it does. Unless you as the player insisting on cruiser engagements would outright prevent the AI's BCs from spawning, but that would probably start to feel like an exploit. Moreover, I don't see anything in here that would prevent AA CLs from getting thrown into duels with anti-surface CLs outside of going Grand Campaign and relegating CLs exclusively to a support role. But what if I want to use a mixture of AA CLs and anti-surface CLs? Being unable to do so under the current system is, after all, the underlying frustration players have with AA CLs in the first place.

For that matter, dedicated AA DDs are totally viable to build from about the mid-30s onwards, but you kind of have to make sacrifices in speed and/or torpedo armament to do it. And obviously DDs with 6-inch guns are going to be more handy in a straight-up gunfight than those with 5-inch guns. I'd love to be able to build some DDs that are dedicated to protecting my larger ships and others that are better suited to destroyer actions and aggressive torpedo work, but there's presently no way to tell the game to at least try (doesn't always have to succeed, but at least try) to make sure that each division of larger ships comes with a division of defenders and a division of attackers/flankers, 'nor any way to tell it not to mix the defensive and offensive destroyers into the same division.

[navalperson]

People have suggested in the suggestions thread to maybe incorporate the fleet exercise battle generator of creating your own divisions.

[buttons]

I've mentioned a similar general concept here nws-online.proboards.com/thread/5556/fleet-directives

Personally I don't think the ships being put into bad positions is in general a bad thing (the AA cruiser I could consider a specific case where it is bad). After all, sometimes you need a ship and the best ship available is ill suited to the job, sometimes a ship is in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes commanders don't follow doctrine "an AA cruiser should be fine for attacking this convoy" or make bad decisions in general. That being said I would like some greater degree of control to set up general rules that the game will tend to follow.

Beyond that I don't think fleets, which I do support the implementation of, actually fixes the issue. If for example a battle needs 1-3 cruisers and all but one cruiser in the sea area are part of a single massive fleet the result will be either A. One cruiser is fighting most of the battles in the sea zone, which is unrealistic, or B. You get to rope an entire fleet into what should be a small scale convoy raid. IMO a more elegant solution to this issue would be to simply let the players designate roles beyond their class, eg. support or fleet. A support cruiser is more heavily weighted towards being deployed alone or in small formations while a fleet cruiser is more weighted towards large fleet actions.

As an example lets say you are having a small cruiser battle and you have 6 cruisers in the sea area, designated like so
Cruiser A, Fleet A, Fleet Cruiser
Cruiser B, Fleet A, Fleet Cruiser
Cruiser C, Fleet A, Fleet Cruiser
Cruiser D, Fleet A, Support Cruiser
Cruiser E, No Fleet, Support Cruiser
Cruiser F, No Fleet, Support Cruiser

Cruisers D-F have the most weight as they are all designated support cruisers and more likely to be deployed individually, of them Cruisers D is weighted less than the other two as it is part of a fleet that won't be taking part in the battle. Any cruiser could still be chosen, but the last three, and especially the last two are far more likely to be chosen. The reason D is still designated a support cruiser while being part of a fleet is that the player presumably trusts it to act alone but wants it present if the entire fleet is brought into battle, for example a battlecruiser, you don't expect it to die in cruiser battles, but you don't want to split it from the fleet and probably get left out of fleet battles.

[rimbecano]

Frankly, I think a lot could be gained with the current battle generator just by using more general mission types and having the player play the whole sortie, from dockside to dockside, instead of just the combat portion. A lot of my frustrations have to do with my ships being in a situation at the start of the battle that I would never allow to develop if I controlled the whole mission (such as cruisers on a coastal raid being deep inside enemy air cover when the mission begins at noon, without any accompanying carriers to provide fighter cover).

But what I'd really, really like is something like SAI operational campaigns.

[jatzi]

Yeah I posted something similar a bit ago. My idea was every month you set it whether you want to attack or defend, where you want to attack or defend and how. So like you want a full fleet deployment in the North Sea or a limited defensive deployment. This is checked against the AI making the same choice to determine which battles get generated.

I'd honestly like a bit more granularity in the sea zones. That way you could have attacks in the North Sea or the Baltic specifically rather than just have a battle spawn anywhere in Northern Europe, potentially messing you up because of air cover or lack of ports to hide in. There should be player choice in going to places like that. You could also have units move around the granular sea zones which could trigger battles maybe? Like you want to raid in the Atlantic but the British have a heavy presence in the North Sea, so you try to move cruisers through the English Channel into the Atlantic, which could prompt a battle to be generated.

The thing is though for campaigns to be really interesting we need objectives. And naval objectives are generally focused around army movements or trade. During a major war the Navy supports the army but protecting trade routes and supply lines, securing ports for reinforcements and protecting invasion fleets. They also blockade nations if possible. We can blockade countries but its very nebulous. Thats kind of fine but more detail in other areas would make campaigns very interesting, things would develop naturally I think if we had to move to certain areas to raid shipping(part of that more granular sea zone idea) or if we could capture specific ports and support landings. We do those last two already sort of but more detail, more player input on things would be nice. Invading home areas even if they can't be taken permanently would be nice. Idk just spitballing here sorta but the first bit I think is solid