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Post by vonfriedman on Jun 16, 2021 7:20:16 GMT -6
I have observed that invariably, whenever I start a game, the behavior of Italy, Germany and AH will be cautious, unlike that of other nations.
Besides having an unpleasant taste of ethnic prejudice, this fact seems unrealistic to me.
While it is reasonable to expect that e.g. the German Navy behaves cautiously if it has to face the Royal Navy, of superior forces and even surrounded by a past reputation for victories, it is not reasonable that it should still be cautious if it has to face France or Italy.
In general, it seems to me that this attitude must depend above all on the balance of forces and, also for this reason, it must change during the game if such balance of forces is reversed.
A navy that initially had an interest in following the "fleet in being" strategy and therefore in behaving with caution could become aggressive when the balance of forces favors it. And viceversa. Even on a tactical level, this change in attitude should be observed.
Obviously also radical changes in government could affect such attitudes.
Introducing such modifications ultimately would tend to increase the variety of situations and make new games more interesting.
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Post by palpatine on Jun 16, 2021 9:24:11 GMT -6
As the game currently stands, I tend to agree with Friedman.
The cautious trait should depend on tactical situation as the overall strategic situation is more or less outside of the scope of the game.
When in battle, it is quite strange to see an obviously superior ennemy force just running away despite being 2 to 1.
Things may be different with the expension, AI wars & alliances and multi-sided war. Then, it can be understood that Germany, for instance, is reluctant to engage if you are allied to Russia or the UK. Anyway, it should still heavily depend on the tactical context and in a local battle, the superior force shouldn't run away at once, as it is mostly the case in the game as it is.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2021 9:57:46 GMT -6
"unpleasant taste of ethnic prejudice"
> meanwhile in "Eastern" Government type
Its weird.
Japan blackballed Admirals for "not winning hard enough" and they don't get cautious trait.
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Post by charliezulu on Jun 16, 2021 17:03:37 GMT -6
A lot of the "national characteristics" stop making sense when the game runs for 70 years (and, come the DLC, close to a century). Being cautious makes sense when there's a culture of excessive caution within the navy or when following a fleet-in-being strategy, but after decades of being the dominant naval power or after a major revolution (as vonfriedman says), why would that stay the same? There is an argument that the cautious nature of the HSF was something that would take time to change, regardless of the strategic position, but surely not 80-100 years' worth of time.
The same goes for other traits like Underdeveloped Shipbuilding Industry - if I've laid down and commissioned more tonnage out of my dockyards in the past two decades than France and Germany combined (I had a very successful few early wars that I took economic reparations from), how is it that my shipbuilding industry hasn't learned how to do it yet? Same goes for Poor Education, despite the navy constantly suggesting investment in social programs that supposedly never result in a higher literacy rate. Why is Britain considered a Global Naval Power if I've managed to rob them of all of their non-permanent overseas colonies (grr, not letting me take India or Australia) and they've been reduced to having zero capital ships in service twice over?
Personally, I think the system needs a bit more attention. AFAIK, the game wouldn't need major mechanical changes (after all, Japan already loses Underdeveloped Shipbuilding Industry via an event, so they can clearly change as time goes on), but some attention should be paid to them. Here's how I'd change the current set:
* Efficient Shipbuilding Industry: If nation does not already have Underdeveloped, and has recently completed some large amount of tonnage at domestic dockyards, there's a chance of randomly gaining this trait, with the chance increasing with the amount of tonnage completed (e.g., the historical USN adopting a culture of mass production to meet wartime demands). If a nation has significantly reduced their construction programs for an extended period of time, then there's a chance of losing this trait (e.g., British shipbuilding during the treaty era massively downscaling, leading to issues when attempting to build new ships such as the KGVs and Vanguard).
* Underdeveloped Shipbuilding Industry: Similar to Efficient - if a nation does not already have Efficient, and there's been litte tonnage laid down for an extended period of time, they can gain the trait; if there's lots of shipbuilding going on, they can lose theh trait.
* Gobal Naval Power: Triggers if you've spent X decades controlling some quantity of overseas territories. A Japan that has successfully taken over every posession bordering the Pacific, SEA, Indian Ocean, etc. probably has at least similar needs for colonial policing as the Royal Navy did historically after WWII. Likewise, it can be lost if, like the UK historically, overseas possessions are lost and the government decides to no longer prioritize that.
* Cautious: Can be randomly gained or lost in revolutions to represent cultural shifts in the navy, or via random event if certain conditions are met ("An influential group of young officers are advocating an aggressive naval doctrine in response to the developing strategic situation...").
* Poor Education Level: Social programs have a low random chance of triggering a timer lasting a few years, at which point the Poor Education modifier is removed (so you can gamble on taking the prestige hit in exchange for possibly removing the malus, even if unrest is not an issue, instead of just always picking Charities).
* Surprise Attack: Personally I dislike the surprise attack mechanic since attacks on anchored ships in port were fairly common IRL (look at Taranto, Mers el Kebir, Kure, Yokosuka, Hailstone, the half dozen carrier raids on Tirpitz, and arguably Casablanca, Desecrate One, and the Italian port raids), but a discussion of reworking that and the blitzkrieg mechanic are beyond the scope of this thread.
* Inconsistent Naval Policy, Bombastic Head of State, etc.: Random chance of gaining or losing the trait in revolutions.
The other ones seem to be mostly about trying to guide the game along vaguely historical lines, and thus IMO messing with them would require deeper changes.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2021 19:29:30 GMT -6
I particularly like how the country world renowned for being 'detail obsessive' doesn't get the 'attention to detail' bonus.
And how America appears to grow faster economically.
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Post by wlbjork on Jun 17, 2021 5:32:56 GMT -6
* Surprise Attack: Personally I dislike the surprise attack mechanic since attacks on anchored ships in port were fairly common IRL (look at Taranto, Mers el Kebir, Kure, Yokosuka, Hailstone, the half dozen carrier raids on Tirpitz, and arguably Casablanca, Desecrate One, and the Italian port raids), but a discussion of reworking that and the blitzkrieg mechanic are beyond the scope of this thread. Probably should be renamed pre-emptive strike which would better describe the action. |
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Post by charliezulu on Jun 17, 2021 9:53:22 GMT -6
* Surprise Attack: Personally I dislike the surprise attack mechanic since attacks on anchored ships in port were fairly common IRL (look at Taranto, Mers el Kebir, Kure, Yokosuka, Hailstone, the half dozen carrier raids on Tirpitz, and arguably Casablanca, Desecrate One, and the Italian port raids), but a discussion of reworking that and the blitzkrieg mechanic are beyond the scope of this thread. Probably should be renamed pre-emptive strike which would better describe the action. Yeah, but more importantly I'd like for them to trigger more generally. If I know the enemy has no carriers left and only one or two BBs, it'd be nice to pull an attack on Yokosuka and finish them off. |
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Post by vonfriedman on Jun 18, 2021 2:13:31 GMT -6
To return to the initial theme, it seems to me necessary that NWS review the criteria with which the game assigns that national character which is "caution". For example, in two theaters of operations similar in geography, the Baltic and the Adriatic, we have Germany vs Russia in the first and Italy vs AH in the other. Everyone has other potential enemies and a similar need to conserve strength for future conflicts. The two situations seem identical, but in RTW we have "cautious" vs "not cautious" in the Baltic and both "cautious" in the Adriatic. Why?
In any case the "cautious" character should not be permanent, but should instead vary throughout the game, as it depends above all on the balance of power in the broad sense. Adm. Halsey would not have ordered "Attack - repeat - attack" on the eve of the Battle of Santa Cruz (where, moreover, he lost the aircraft carrier Hornet) if there had not been a dozen new aircraft carriers under construction in the US.
The thing is even less simple, as one can be strategically "aggressive", for example by trying to prevent the opponent's retreat towards his base, and tactically "cautious", as was Adm.Jellicoe at Jutland.
Apart from all this, I would like a further preference to be introduced, on the basis of which - if desired - all or almost all national characters are set randomly. This would increase the variety of game situations.
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Post by charliezulu on Jun 18, 2021 18:16:30 GMT -6
To focus specifically on "Cautious", what is it supposed to represent? There's clearly an element of "how much risk should be taken in a battle based on the overall strategic situation" that you point out in your examples, but also possibly an underlying cultural cause which might suggest that the intent of the devs is not to replicate the behaviour that you're identifying. To distill it into clear examples, it's the difference between Halsey ordering an aggressive attack because he knew that he had more ships being built and thus American losses wouldn't have as significant an impact, and Cunningham's famous "three centuries to build a tradition", where despite it arguably not being strategically wise to risk engagement, he did so anyways. The opposite of the latter (a tradition of being more cautious in naval engagements despite aggressiveness being wise) could be what the Cautious trait is meant to represent. If so, then it shouldn't change based on the balance of power; instead, there should be an additional modifier to AI aggressiveness applied on top of that to represent what you're talking about (for all I know this may already exist, I can deduce no logic beind when the AI decides when to run away).
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Post by noshurviverse on Jun 26, 2021 17:35:08 GMT -6
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Post by tornado1555 on Jun 26, 2021 20:27:34 GMT -6
Create a new campaign modifier that expands upon the "Varied Tech" option. When this option is selected, the start dates of many technologies will be altered. Radar in a very simple sense may emerge before even the first airship, while heavier-than-air travel might be delayed a decade or more. This could also make for an interesting use for the "eccentric scientist" event. It may be worth having some theoretical techs added in to account for early adoption, such as radar techs that are highly limited and worse than the "normal" radar. Additionally, there were many ideas that ultimately failed, such as the USSR's attempts to mount a 12" recoiless rifle on a destroyer. Having occasional theoretical techs like this show up could add variety to a game, as designs that would never work in our reality find purpose. To me, this idea in particular would be very useful and a nice upgrade to an existing feature.
The longevity of RTW1 for me was greatly expanded once I started trading tech progression trees with a friend. We've thrown some curveballs at eachother to vary the meta up and I think that it's made the game last a whole lot longer than with the static techs or with 'varied tech' as it stands. One of the things I also disagreed with in RTW2, just from looking at it, is how much tech is set to be invented in the early 1940s in accordance with WWII's arms race -- an arms race that feels quite out of place in the game!
Your ideas of evolution of tech advantages and operational experience are interesting as well, of course provided they're implemented with the ability to be modded.
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Post by noshurviverse on Jun 26, 2021 22:24:18 GMT -6
Amphibious operations is a catergory I think suffers quite a bit from the historical side of things. The research path opens in 1915, has one tech beyond the first in 1916, then sits idle until 1925.  |
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Post by JagdFlanker on Jun 27, 2021 5:42:59 GMT -6
never installed any mods until recently, but tried the ultra-random tech mod for fun the last few games and it is the most fun i'v had with the game in a while nws-online.proboards.com/thread/4913/mod-release-un-random-tech(scroll down for ultra-random) since all techs are unlocked from the start i generally get radar by 1910, and otherwise you get some techs early while getting other pretty late for example my 1st game i was stuck with 600t DDs until 1930, and stuck with coal firing until 1936, but was able to build CVs from 1915 before i can design any aircraft for a change of pace it's really fun - it's pretty extreme 'varied tech' but might be worth a shot if you want to change things up |
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Post by williammiller on Jul 5, 2021 9:19:14 GMT -6
Amphibious operations is a catergory I think suffers quite a bit from the historical side of things. The research path opens in 1915, has one tech beyond the first in 1916, then sits idle until 1925. We recently looked at increasing/expanding amphibious warfare techs/game system....stay tuned for any updates involving that area of operations. |
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