War Prize Rules

[ajwr1993]

So ive been playing as smaller nations lately and in my last japan run i got a war prize from russia from my first war (1907 BB) and was curious as to why you get war prizes sometime and dont get them other times.

[JagdFlanker]

it's just random, seemingly based on how heavily the enemy collapsed when the war ended - personally i just pick the enemy's best ship and retire it immediately so i don't consider it much of a reward, just extra punishment

[ludovic]

Aug 17, 2022 6:49:28 GMT -6 JagdFlanker said:

it's just random, seemingly based on how heavily the enemy collapsed when the war ended - personally i just pick the enemy's best ship and retire it immediately so i don't consider it much of a reward, just extra punishment

I do that too when it has unseen and unfixable sub-optimal configurations, especially Short range which happens a lot more than narrow hull, cramped crew, and low freeboard. It's frustrating when I unexpectedly get a Short range ship, and both frustrating and slightly amusing when I get a Short range capital ship from the Americans, who have no business building short range capital ships.

[director]

I have gotten some usable ships... I keep them if I have the money to refit them according to my preferences. Sometimes its just to have a red flag to wave at the enemy.

But yes, usually I take their best, most modern ship and scrap it. Doesn't hut me any, but it does cost them the time and money needed to build it.

[cormallen]

My favourite prize ships are those I can invent role playing excuses for... "Russian Royals escaping from Red Revolution arrived in Rosyth today in the loyalist battleship Pobieda..." Etc.

[rockmedic109]

They usually do not meet any purpose for which I need and would cost more in maintenance than it is worth. It does take a capital ship from a future potential enemy but this can also reduce the future chance of a large fleet battle. They could also be "scuttled" by it's crew while in my port forcing me to "scrap" them. This seems to happen most of the time.

[euchrejack]

Ah, but if you take the Enemy's largest ship, they no longer need to pay maintenance on it, and they can replace it with a BETTER ship!

...I've never gotten this event, so I have nothing more to add.

[dorn]

Aug 29, 2022 14:34:31 GMT -6 euchrejack said:

Ah, but if you take the Enemy's largest ship, they no longer need to pay maintenance on it, and they can replace it with a BETTER ship!

...I've never gotten this event, so I have nothing more to add.

Even if you keep ship in active fleet it is less than 10 % per year compared to construction costs.
In case of RF it is less than 5 %, in case of MB it is less than 2 %.
So certainly maintenance costs is really not such important in this case to be a problem to finance new ship.

[euchrejack]

Aug 29, 2022 23:46:26 GMT -6 dorn said:

Aug 29, 2022 14:34:31 GMT -6 euchrejack said:

Ah, but if you take the Enemy's largest ship, they no longer need to pay maintenance on it, and they can replace it with a BETTER ship!

...I've never gotten this event, so I have nothing more to add.

Even if you keep ship in active fleet it is less than 10 % per year compared to construction costs.
In case of RF it is less than 5 %, in case of MB it is less than 2 %.
So certainly maintenance costs is really not such important in this case to be a problem to finance new ship.

Seems like an oversimplification without any real numbers. So I'm going to use real numbers.

A "typical" midgame battleship costs 50,000 and takes 24 months to build, or 2083.34 per month.
Maintenance, assuming you are correct is 208 active fleet, 104 reserve fleet, or 52 mothballed.  Which seems accurate from what I've seen.

We don't have just ONE battleship.
A "typical" midgame mid-tier power would have 8 battleships, 2 Heavy Cruisers, 10 Light Cruisers, 20-30 Destroyers, and 3 Aircraft Carriers/Seaplane Carriers.
Funding is also needed for research, intelligence, etc.
So, that obsolete Battleship may very well be the difference between another ship.

[dorn]

Aug 31, 2022 15:35:20 GMT -6 euchrejack said:

Aug 29, 2022 23:46:26 GMT -6 dorn said:

Even if you keep ship in active fleet it is less than 10 % per year compared to construction costs.
In case of RF it is less than 5 %, in case of MB it is less than 2 %.
So certainly maintenance costs is really not such important in this case to be a problem to finance new ship.

Seems like an oversimplification without any real numbers. So I'm going to use real numbers.

A "typical" midgame battleship costs 50,000 and takes 24 months to build, or 2083.34 per month.
Maintenance, assuming you are correct is 208 active fleet, 104 reserve fleet, or 52 mothballed.  Which seems accurate from what I've seen.

We don't have just ONE battleship.
A "typical" midgame mid-tier power would have 8 battleships, 2 Heavy Cruisers, 10 Light Cruisers, 20-30 Destroyers, and 3 Aircraft Carriers/Seaplane Carriers.
Funding is also needed for research, intelligence, etc.
So, that obsolete Battleship may very well be the difference between another ship.

I do not completely understand your reasoning. I will try to take example of dreadnought type battleship around 1905 with displacement 21500. It costs about 78k and has maintenance costs about 362.

Now we take assumption that ship is launched in 1908 just at the end of war when you get this ship as war prize at the beginning of 1909.

So AI now has no need to pay this ship's maintenance, which is 4344 per year in case of AF and 2177 in case of RF. To build a ship you need about 3 years so for this 3 years AI saves 13032 in case of AF or 6531 in case of RF.

In 1909 you are able to build battleship type Orion class for about 91k. So this additional 12k or 6.5k of funds for AI is just 14 % or 7 % of the brand new battleship. In reality it would be probably somewhere between so this extra money would certainly not help AI to build more significant fleet.

In case of small fleet setup taking 1 ship from AI would AI hurts much more than the money available for new construction. In case of super large fleets one ship does not matter however getting just 7-14 % of funds of costs new battleship would be really insignificant for any construction program that are building several battleships and battlecruisers at once.

note: in other time period comparison between maintenance and costs of battleship would be similar the only difference would probably be that after around beginning of 20s the costs of battleships do not rise so quickly so the next generation would have less percentage increase of costs in 30s than in 10s.

[euchrejack]

Sept 1, 2022 3:56:22 GMT -6 dorn said:

Aug 31, 2022 15:35:20 GMT -6 euchrejack said:

Seems like an oversimplification without any real numbers. So I'm going to use real numbers.

A "typical" midgame battleship costs 50,000 and takes 24 months to build, or 2083.34 per month.
Maintenance, assuming you are correct is 208 active fleet, 104 reserve fleet, or 52 mothballed.  Which seems accurate from what I've seen.

We don't have just ONE battleship.
A "typical" midgame mid-tier power would have 8 battleships, 2 Heavy Cruisers, 10 Light Cruisers, 20-30 Destroyers, and 3 Aircraft Carriers/Seaplane Carriers.
Funding is also needed for research, intelligence, etc.
So, that obsolete Battleship may very well be the difference between another ship.

I do not completely understand your reasoning. I will try to take example of dreadnought type battleship around 1905 with displacement 21500. It costs about 78k and has maintenance costs about 362.

Now we take assumption that ship is launched in 1908 just at the end of war when you get this ship as war prize at the beginning of 1909.

So AI now has no need to pay this ship's maintenance, which is 4344 per year in case of AF and 2177 in case of RF. To build a ship you need about 3 years so for this 3 years AI saves 13032 in case of AF or 6531 in case of RF.

In 1909 you are able to build battleship type Orion class for about 91k. So this additional 12k or 6.5k of funds for AI is just 14 % or 7 % of the brand new battleship. In reality it would be probably somewhere between so this extra money would certainly not help AI to build more significant fleet.

In case of small fleet setup taking 1 ship from AI would AI hurts much more than the money available for new construction. In case of super large fleets one ship does not matter however getting just 7-14 % of funds of costs new battleship would be really insignificant for any construction program that are building several battleships and battlecruisers at once.

note: in other time period comparison between maintenance and costs of battleship would be similar the only difference would probably be that after around beginning of 20s the costs of battleships do not rise so quickly so the next generation would have less percentage increase of costs in 30s than in 10s.

I think the most important things to consider are:
1) That 362 maintenance cost that you mentioned
2) The fact that by taking away the enemy's BEST ship, you're requiring them to build a NEW best ship, which will presumably be Even Better.

There is also the fact that Different Nations are Different.

The point I'm trying to make is that the player could consider what the enemy might do either with or without the particular ship they grab.

I mean, it's a rare event, so perhaps just Best Ship is the easy way out of a rare event, but there could be so much more strategic thinking going on.

[dorn]

euchrejack

I agree that enemy will build best ship, I only say that destroying / taking one theri best ship has almost no effect on the building their next best ship. :-)