Naval Treaties

[TheOtherPoster]

Naval treaties like Washington were intended to stop a naval race in its tracks and allow all nations big reductions in their naval budgets.

I wonder if a naval treaty coming into effect in the game should also imply a significant reduction on our naval budget (maybe compensating later with a big jump just after the treaty expires?)

Anyway, the idea is that temporary (until the next war?) the arms limitations treaty may force us into decisions we do not like at all like scrapping not-too-old battleships, or keeping our very expensive BBs, BCs and CVs in mothballs to save money with the resulting lack of training of our crews, or obviously to delay/stop/reduce our building plans…

Some reduction in our budget may be going on now (I hope to the other nations too?) but in any case, if there’s not a big drop in our budget, we really do not have to take those difficult decisions “so we are missing part of the fun” 

I wouldn’t mind even if an arms limitation 1920 start would mean us getting too close to the red (or even in the red) in our first turn. So we would need to start the game disposing of part of our fleet!

[blarglol]

Perhaps there could be a toggled game rule (like the one for aircraft) that would affect the difficulty of the average treaty compliance and conditions?

[perfectpastrami]

One thing that i would really love to see regarding naval treaties is if you were able to influence the terms of the treaty to some extent. Like, perhaps each AI generates a version of the treaty they would like to enforce, with some points being more important than others, and then you, as the player, can set your own version, and have to start compromising with the AI to get the points through you really want enforced. Like, perhaps you don't really care about the caliber of the guns, but you really want to limit the displacement. Another nation might not care about displacement so long as guns are limited, but you need their vote to convince another nation to vote against restrictions on submarines, so you increase the amount of displacement you would be okay with to hopefully convince them to agree to a specific number.

That, or you could just play it belligerently and try derailing the negotiation on purpose by being as disagreeable as you can, though that would make you look like a warmonger, and everyone would disapprove. Might be too complex, but i would like to have some say on the matter before the game randomly generates something that basically stops me from building anything bigger than a light cruiser.

[zederfflinger]

I vaguely remember something about players being able to change some factors of a treaty in RTW 3, but I don't remember the details.

[buttons]

Nov 10, 2022 16:22:41 GMT -6 blarglol said:

Perhaps there could be a toggled game rule (like the one for aircraft) that would affect the difficulty of the average treaty compliance and conditions?

In general I feel like treaties in RTW2 are too restrictive. They pretty much forbid all capital ships when they should just forbid the excess. Nobody wanted a treaty that let Italy catch up to Britain and America, they just wanted to curtail spending by stopping the race to the bottom by building bigger ships. I've already stated my opinion that treaties should have limits by type (eg. 16 inch gun BBs of 40kt, 8 inch gun CAs of 10k), I also think that such treaties should include tonnage limits either by direct force (you must scrap ships if you would exceed limit) or indirectly (can only construct X BBs or BCs at a time) if it's easier to program, along with differing limits for nations.

As for the OP, I like the idea of the game taking naval treaties into account with budgeting since that was the whole point. Just an event "with the recent naval treaty the government has slashed the naval budget).

[perfectpastrami]

Jan 11, 2023 18:58:11 GMT -6 buttons said:

Nov 10, 2022 16:22:41 GMT -6 blarglol said:

Perhaps there could be a toggled game rule (like the one for aircraft) that would affect the difficulty of the average treaty compliance and conditions?

In general I feel like treaties in RTW2 are too restrictive. They pretty much forbid all capital ships when they should just forbid the excess. Nobody wanted a treaty that let Italy catch up to Britain and America, they just wanted to curtail spending by stopping the race to the bottom by building bigger ships. I've already stated my opinion that treaties should have limits by type (eg. 16 inch gun BBs of 40kt, 8 inch gun CAs of 10k), I also think that such treaties should include tonnage limits either by direct force (you must scrap ships if you would exceed limit) or indirectly (can only construct X BBs or BCs at a time) if it's easier to program, along with differing limits for nations.

As for the OP, I like the idea of the game taking naval treaties into account with budgeting since that was the whole point. Just an event "with the recent naval treaty the government has slashed the naval budget).

This. Treaties as it stands are just too vague and usually too restrictive. Plus i'd really like if you as the player can influence them to some degree. Like, maybe you, as Italy, may want to push for lower tonnage limits to even the playing field to your advantage. You're not gonna be able to convince the UK or US to let you just restrict tonnage to the point where noone can build ships that are any bigger than what you can build, but you probably can make sure they don't build any super-dreadnoughts.

[abclark]

It's been shown in some early looks that the treaty system has been overhauled. Please see Garrisonchisholm's "DLC" (now for RTW3) AAR here. The player appears to have more input on the limitations, and in addition to the limitation on new construction ship size and gun caliber, each country has a tonnage limit, and a defined percentage of the total tonnage limit which can be capital ships. 

[williammiller]

Yes, treaty mechanisms have been expanded and (IMHO) greatly improved in RTW3.

[stele]

Have anyone rolled treaty similar to Washington limitations? Pushing on every stage I got 13in 18k ton and previous proposals were even lower. What's even better, Brits laid down 2 BB up to this limit right after signing, while before everybody was satisfied with their fleets, building 1 BC at the time at most. If they have tonage limit for them, shouldn't they retain more old ships?
Got event "London conference increased CL displacement limit to 10k t." Is there such thing? Only max overall displacement is listed in treaty fields.

[wlbjork]

The London Conference message is just to let you know you can build bigger CLs - prior to this, you are capped at 8,000t for a CL.

It's a fixed part of the game.

[t3rm1dor]

Jun 8, 2023 18:05:39 GMT -6 stele said:

Have anyone rolled treaty similar to Washington limitations? Pushing on every stage I got 13in 18k ton and previous proposals were even lower. What's even better, Brits laid down 2 BB up to this limit right after signing, while before everybody was satisfied with their fleets, building 1 BC at the time at most. If they have tonage limit for them, shouldn't they retain more old ships?
Got event "London conference increased CL displacement limit to 10k t." Is there such thing? Only max overall displacement is listed in treaty fields.

I got one with 30 tons and 15 inch limitation, and refused another with 35 tons and 16 inches. I do not know what are the requisites for the initial proposal, I imagine random, but treaties are much imporved compare to the ones in 2.

[sullawasright]

Currently operating on a treaty with restrictions of 40k and 17 inch guns, but major tonnage restrictions for each power. Only half the fleet is allowed as capital ships. Playing as Austria, I used it as an opportunity to ditch my oldest ships, while watching the other powers get dropped much closer to parity or 2-1 advantage in fleet size instead of their previous death blobs.

As someone mentioned, budget events from the treaty restrictions fired shortly after as well.

[stele]

Are BB and CV always under same tonage limit? Washington had it saparated what caused conversion of many BC. In game we can't convert anything under construction anyway but with both in same bracket what's the point of conversion? I'm trading BC I can't build under treaty for suboptimal CV, maybe slightly better than purose built under treaty limitations.

[serenity]

Personally I would utilize treaties a lot more often if a “grandfather clause” was available as one of the terms. By that I mean that all ships say halfway constructed are allowed to be completed.

I hate when I am 6 months from completing a dreadnought that might be a few thousand tons too heavy or have slightly larger guns than the treaty permits and the treaty forces me to scrap it.

[stele]

Allowing to look at almanach at every step of treaty negotiations would also help. We'd be at least be able to look into displacements of own fleet and various nations as well as ships on slipways. Guess it would just require button to redirect to that window in event box like some tensions boxes have.