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Post by blarglol on Jan 4, 2023 17:40:23 GMT -6
I understand that an elimination (aka land-locking for a naval game) would de difficult if not ridiculously implausible as a broad game mechanic for all nations, but Austria-Hungary is in a unique position, particularly if one is playing as Italy. Traditionally (and very much moreso after WWI and the "Mutilated Victory") Italy claimed much if not all of the Balkan-side, upper-Adriatic as it's territory, given that the most notable cities and centers of commerce in the area were full of ethnic Italians (just ask the Austrian naval engineers). As things stand right now, it doesn't matter how badly you thrash A-H. They could have two ships left, and somehow they get to keep their "home province" ports like they could protect them worth a damn.
In reality, Italy would very much want Istria first, as it would be a landbridge to what we can currently take in Dalmazia. Given their historical position and fate, I propose that if beaten badly enough in successive wars, A-H should be landlocked and lose all their ports. It is entirely plausible that Italy could and would take and garrison the entire upper-Adriatic, if for no other reason than not having to worry about an A-H navy anymore. I must admit that it becomes tedious having to fight them over and over and over again no matter their losses, and being utterly unable to claim any territorial reward.
There are different ways you could do it, and I guess it would depend on what your code allows you to do. Perhaps a landlocked A-H isn't actually dead? As a traditional land-power, they could continue to exist on paper, biding their time until they can make an army offensive to capture one of their old ports again. I know this might be annoying for a player, since as the head admiral you will have no way to affect the success or failure of this RNG, but at least they were out of your hair for awhile anyway.
Alternately, you could simply "wipe" them from the map since it is a game about naval-capable entities, and use their newly-opened country slot for China or some other nation. Regardless, I think it would really enhance the player experience to be able to knock-out A-H if certain conditions are met. It would have to be balanced to assure that it is not too easy, but I do believe (especially as Italy) that this is a doable concept. Perhaps this could be usable in the future if minor nations ever get to field naval vessels (Greece, Turkey, etc).
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 4, 2023 22:15:13 GMT -6
UAD has no qualms about including nation elimination as a mechanic, so it isn't undoable. It might not be something RTW series will go down, and that is fine, but it would be nice to see if done well.
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Post by blarglol on Jan 5, 2023 14:29:49 GMT -6
UAD has no qualms about including nation elimination as a mechanic, so it isn't undoable. It might not be something RTW series will go down, and that is fine, but it would be nice to see if done well. True, but UAD is...well, quite broken. I have had my qualms there about that game long before I found this one actually. It was only from being on their forums that I first heard about RTW in the first place ironically.
They do it broadly across the board, which I find ridiculous. Most nations should not be able to even landlock another, let alone completely take them over, aka the occupation of France. We are the chief naval commander after all. A-H is in an interesting position where all it's ports are condensed into a very small area that Italy claimed anyway, filled with ethnic Italians, etc. The only other country I *might* see feasibly being landlocked is China via a historical Japanese seaborne invasion.
But that again goes back to landlocking vs. "elimination" aka capitulation. I wouldn't count a Japanese seizure of coastal China to mean that they successfully occupied and hold all of interior China. Those are much, much different things, the latter being far more difficult than fighting the woeful Chinese Navy.
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 5, 2023 15:41:21 GMT -6
I do agree that UAD is quite broken, but if they somehow manage to get it all working, I think it will be at the very least a viable alternative to RTW 3, depending on what new features are added into both games.
While it is very true that as naval commander, we can't really take over large portions of land, many nations have armies that are very capable of doing that if properly supported by the navy. And eliminating a nation as a naval power is certainly something that you should be able to do to any nation under the right circumstances, perhaps barring the US.
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Post by srndacful on Jan 6, 2023 0:05:26 GMT -6
From a purely gamey point of view: Why would you even want to knock out Austria?
It's got no ships left? That makes it a prime target for bullying as far as I can tell. Put a couple of ships on Active duty to blockade it, all the rest in mothballs, and use the war-inflated budget to build up your fleet even more.
Nothing to take when it capitulates a couple of months later? No worries: Each point of territories you don't take nets you an (even bigger) boost to your basic income (reparations) so you're just as well off there.
The only problem is if it gets allies - they'll be able to back it up and prevent the blockade. Otherwise - it's a regular cash-grab for the wars that come after.
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iwst
New Member
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Post by iwst on Jan 6, 2023 3:31:01 GMT -6
As shown in "a certain contemporary conflict" having part of the coastal population speak one's language and having a superior navy is not sufficent to make a country landlocked. One needs an army to take control of that coastline, and in RTW we do not control the army (+ unless the enemy nation completly colapses, it is quite hard for a weaker army to hold onto a couple of isolated coastal towns).
One thing a navy could do though, is shooting up and raiding coastal infrastructure. So perhaps it could be an idea to implement the ability to raze an enemy nation's dock-size to a minimum (small ships that can be build on rivers) with sufficent naval supremacy, removing them as a reasonable threat for the next decade or so.
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Post by blarglol on Jan 6, 2023 13:46:54 GMT -6
I would like to knock them out because A) The gamey-ness does not outweigh their annoying persistance B) They rebuild eventually as always C) I just want all of the Adriatic and get OCD about this physical incongruity of my map borders
We do not directly control the army, no, but we can influence it as the game lets us do in several places, regarding offensives. If certain criteria are met, we should be able to help steer the army into seizing and holding the remaining ports. This isn't like trying to hold San Francisco from Tokyo. The Adriatic isn't very wide, and regardless, Italy shares a land border with Istria and Dalmazia. No sea invasion is needed.
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Post by srndacful on Jan 6, 2023 23:39:33 GMT -6
OK, yeah, I see your point.
Actually, as far as I recall, A-H was pretty unstable (politically) at this point in time - I figure one more revolution would've been enough to topple it entirely (what actually happened at the end of WW1) - and it's 'successor' (in game, anyway) Yugoslavia wouldn't have had enough money to keep up with the 'big boys' anyways, (their biggest ship was a light cruiser) so would have to be reduced to a minor state - which could then be easily exploited to get the rest of the territory (Free State of Fiume, anyone?)
It would probably be easy to do if every possession had an owner and all of them were in play, but, right now, RtW is at about the same stage as 'older' Total Wars (if anyone's familiar with them) - with just a handful of nations and provinces being in play, and the rest being 'bandits' and up for grabs (more or less). Newer versions (of Total War, that is) are much more Paradox-like, with every territory having it's owner, army and navy, leaving the player free to create a web of alliances so even a minor powers can have a chance - and major powers a more 'realistic' approach. Looks like the RtW3 is moving in that direction, but how far it will go is yet to be seen.
Still, historically and geographically speaking, (it's funny how often those two coincide) Pola was only the main transit port of Istria - but Fiume was the main transit port of both Austria (through Slovenia) and Hungary (through Croatia - sure, Spalato would've been better - but it would have to go through Bosnia - and Ottomans somehow failed to build any railroad infrastructure there) so, an un-collapsed A-H would've fought tooth and nail to keep it.
So, you could reasonably argue that Pola should be a part of Dalmatia - but losing it would still leave A-H as a minor power, so ... yeah, I'll let the developers decide.
Italy using it's army to defeat A-H is also laughable: how many battles of Isonzo were there in WW1, again? 12? And that's with 3/4ths of A-H army on the Russian and Balkan fronts - against the whole army? Yeah, no - my money's on a repeat of the Battle of Custoza. The only way Italy could take Dalmatia would be A-H's collapse OR seaborne invasion.
Also: Italy shares a land border with Dalmatia? Where?
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Post by dia on Jan 7, 2023 1:45:09 GMT -6
I've shared my opinion on the ridiculousness of facing late game AH as Italy in the RtW2 side of the forum. There's only so many times you can completely collapse a nation in a span of 20 years before it becomes a little too much. There was an even more ridiculousness in regards to the the naval aspect of it but the improvements to late game combat that Rtw3 is promising should resolve some of that. Like a WW1 style coastal raid generating in the 1950s in the Adriatic.
My biggest gripe with facing AH was their subs though. When you decimated the AH navy, which usually happened rather quickly in the Adriatic during the era of air power, AH will resort to spamming subs. That's all fine and dandy but where are those subs coming from? The way subs work in RtW2 it didn't matter where the subs were or where they had to go because they just existed and for most nations that is fine. But AH's only ports are in the Adriatic that are practically in artillery range of Italian held territory. It's really hard to buy that dozens of Austrian-Hungarian subs are just traversing in and out of the Adriatic without any trouble and raging an extremely devastating sub campaign for months on end.
Austria-Hungary is a pretty unique situation and I wouldn't mind seeing RtW3 introduce some kind of debuff trait that limits the effectiveness of AH's USW ability. It would be neat if could be tied to province control - like it only activates if they own no other provinces but their home province.
Moving back on topic, maybe nation traits can be used to soft eliminate nations, at least temporarily. Some traits are already dynamic so perhaps it can be used for what OP is asking. For example after a certain amount of times that a power's government collapses, a certain trait becomes active that basically makes the nation unable to compete as a global power (reduced budget, construction limits, unable to participate in diplomacy) for a period of time. This could simulate powers being extremely devastated or occupied.
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Post by blarglol on Jan 8, 2023 11:58:46 GMT -6
If we're using the logic of specific historical circumstances to dictate game logic, why do we even have a choice lol? If Italy's army cannot take territory from A-H because of the Isonzo offensives, doesn't that mean that Russia cannot beat Germany? You see where this logic goes. The game is meant to be plausible and give everyone roughly a chance, hence it being a game...
Regarding borders, Istria isn't very big, and it's where the "Home" ports of A-H are that you currently cannot seize. I said having this would create a land border with Dalmazia, so Italy would naturally want it purely for that alone.
Dia I agree that the sub issue gets ridiculous. Since traits can be malleable as we see, perhaps you are correct and they can be used to cripple or knockout nations.
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Post by srndacful on Jan 13, 2023 0:13:44 GMT -6
If we're using the logic of specific historical circumstances to dictate game logic, why do we even have a choice lol? If Italy's army cannot take territory from A-H because of the Isonzo offensives, doesn't that mean that Russia cannot beat Germany? You see where this logic goes. The game is meant to be plausible and give everyone roughly a chance, hence it being a game... I'm sorry, but using specific historical circumstances to illustrate my point is not 'dictating game logic'. I'm talking basic combat (as well as mathematical) principles - like 'he who has the most battalions in battle wins' ... well, usually, at least. Fully assembled A-H army would have had superior numbers, which, along with the fact it would be defending excellent defensive positions, (and at that time defence heavily outweighed the offence) would make it's victory a certainty. So, yes, taking this, along with some other factors, into account, I am claiming that Russia cannot beat Germany. But, yeah - Army's (and it's Air Force's) representation is woefully inadequate as it stands. I really hope there will be some improvement on that part in RtW3.
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Post by tbr on Jan 14, 2023 9:05:28 GMT -6
Keep in mind though that Italy was not all that united then as well. There were anti-monarchists who were very sore with Cavour for trading Nice to France, Southern Italy was a wholly different kettle than the North, the Pope was still trying to regain temporal power (and was supported by the Roman nobility who chafed under Piedmontese-Savoyard domination). In RTW2/3 terms (and perhaps it was even historically) a collapse of Italy and A-H regaining Venetia-Lombardy, France gobbling up Piedmont-Savoy and Sardinia with Southern Italy and Sicily descending into "minor" status is as likely as Italy gaining the full Adriatic coastline. Or an emergence of "Poland-Lithuania" or Sweden/Scandinavia to equate Spain's RTW2/3 role in the Baltic after disastrous defeats of Germany and/or Russia.
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Post by satilisu on Jan 18, 2023 5:16:10 GMT -6
RTW's timeframe covers the two bloodiest wars in human history. A "game over" where a power is physically knocked out (A-H; Axis victory Russia; dismembered Morgenthau Plan Germany) or forced into long-term subservience (Japan) should be well within the realm of possible outcomes.
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Post by blarglol on Jan 23, 2023 19:35:09 GMT -6
If we're using the logic of specific historical circumstances to dictate game logic, why do we even have a choice lol? If Italy's army cannot take territory from A-H because of the Isonzo offensives, doesn't that mean that Russia cannot beat Germany? You see where this logic goes. The game is meant to be plausible and give everyone roughly a chance, hence it being a game... I'm sorry, but using specific historical circumstances to illustrate my point is not 'dictating game logic'. I'm talking basic combat (as well as mathematical) principles - like 'he who has the most battalions in battle wins' ... well, usually, at least. Fully assembled A-H army would have had superior numbers, which, along with the fact it would be defending excellent defensive positions, (and at that time defence heavily outweighed the offence) would make it's victory a certainty. So, yes, taking this, along with some other factors, into account, I am claiming that Russia cannot beat Germany. But, yeah - Army's (and it's Air Force's) representation is woefully inadequate as it stands. I really hope there will be some improvement on that part in RtW3. Of course it is. You're baking in assumptions that affect your "combat and mathematical principles." Obviously, the game isn't meant to be a historical simulator, given it's options to significantly delay aircraft entering the game. What fun is a game where land attacks are possible if you cannot ever win under any circumstances, and your gains via naval action are at the whim of AI-made decisions over which the player has no agency?
On one hand you are saying numbers usually win, but on the other you are claiming that Russia could not beat Germany. Russia has the superior numbers no? So if the game is just based on math, how can you have it both ways? IF A-H would "certainly" win against Italy, why would Russia certainly lose to Germany?
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Post by srndacful on Jan 23, 2023 22:47:00 GMT -6
I'm sorry, but using specific historical circumstances to illustrate my point is not 'dictating game logic'. I'm talking basic combat (as well as mathematical) principles - like 'he who has the most battalions in battle wins' ... well, usually, at least. Fully assembled A-H army would have had superior numbers, which, along with the fact it would be defending excellent defensive positions, (and at that time defence heavily outweighed the offence) would make it's victory a certainty. So, yes, taking this, along with some other factors, into account, I am claiming that Russia cannot beat Germany. But, yeah - Army's (and it's Air Force's) representation is woefully inadequate as it stands. I really hope there will be some improvement on that part in RtW3. Of course it is. You're baking in assumptions that affect your "combat and mathematical principles." Obviously, the game isn't meant to be a historical simulator, given it's options to significantly delay aircraft entering the game. What fun is a game where land attacks are possible if you cannot ever win under any circumstances, and your gains via naval action are at the whim of AI-made decisions over which the player has no agency?
On one hand you are saying numbers usually win, but on the other you are claiming that Russia could not beat Germany. Russia has the superior numbers no? So if the game is just based on math, how can you have it both ways? IF A-H would "certainly" win against Italy, why would Russia certainly lose to Germany? Come now - no need to be obtuse or snippy. No, RtW isn't an actual historical simulator - but combat principles (and basic mathematics and physics) still apply. Look at the naval combat it's simulating, for example: all else being equal, a CA will beat a CL most of the time (freaky accidents notwithstanding) by the simple virtue of it's size giving it larger armour and armament. Field armies do have more factors to consider (not just training and logistics, but also morale and position) and size is simply the biggest, but the basics are the same: the side that has more factors in it's favour wins. Specifically, A-H army had it's size and terrain in it's favour (historically, better commanders, too - but IMHO, that wouldn't be applicable if the entire army was there) while the Italian had absolutely nothing in it's favour - as everything else was the same. So, yes, I'm betting Italians would fail to break into Dalmatia on land - leaving only sea invasions and reparations as the way to get it. Also, those factors are why I'm saying Russia would lose: it's size (although great) was it's only strength - all other factors were in Germany's favour - and some of them overwhelmingly. Making this a purely naval-based game would work if we were fighting over islands (like, say, in Pacific or Caribbean) where naval presence is vital. But, where a land front exists (like in Europe) it should be simulated and it should have a significant impact on the course of war. Naturally, the Navy should also have a way to create a significant impact on this land front - through blockade or coastal bombardments or such - but that's for another thread to discuss.
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