Balancing Issue: Dock Size

[arminpfano]

In RTW2 I maximized the size of my docks routinely, as this gives you an advantage in building bigger and stronger ships compared to contemporary designs of other nations. Sometimes it felt a little like an exploit, after some decades it gets too easy to outbuild your opponents.

Now in RTW3 this factor ist even more problematic for the 1890 start. All nations start with rather small dock sizes, so it is very easy to get an early advance in ship size. Around 1915 I have 50.000 ts BBs and BCs, chrunching the significantly smaller ships of my enemies like nuts.

I think the AI nations should react to player dockbuilding by enlarging their equipment fast.

[blarglol]

May 27, 2023 10:01:15 GMT -6 arminpfano said:

In RTW2 I maximized the size of my docks routinely, as this gives you an advantage in building bigger and stronger ships compared to contemporary designs of other nations. Sometimes it felt a little like an exploit, after some decades it gets too easy to outbuild your opponents.

Now in RTW3 this factor ist even more problematic for the 1890 start. All nations start with rather small dock sizes, so it is very easy to get an early advance in ship size. Around 1915 I have 50.000 ts BBs and BCs, chrunching the significantly smaller ships of my enemies like nuts.

I think the AI nations should react to player dockbuilding by enlarging their equipment fast.

Agreed, the ability of the AI to fall behind in the 1890s to dock size is primarily the reason I *don't* do it though. I think it's on the player to not try and be "gamey." Alternately, look at it like this - you know the AI won't upgrade their docks much if at all in the 1890s, so you don't have to spend a lot of money to keep pace with them, unlike the 1900 start.

There, I find I constantly need to be upgrading my docks every moment possible (depending on private shipbuilding upgrades). Usually I fail to spend the money as much as I should and find myself behind because in my head I want X-amount more ships instead of worrying about size, and then realize the AI is 5-8,000 tons ahead of me in what they can build so even though I have more, they might be outclassed

Ultimately it is part of the balance of power and the game, trading money for the triangle of speed/firepower/armor

[dorn]

We are thinking about it. In history, the reasons that it does not happen was money (as always. ;-)). If you take example in Germany in the beginning of the 20th century, Diet was limiting navy to get bigger and bigger ships and it was quite similar in other navies.

[elouda]

May 28, 2023 0:29:30 GMT -6 dorn said:

We are thinking about it. In history, the reasons that it does not happen was money (as always. ;-)). If you take example in Germany in the beginning of the 20th century, Diet was limiting navy to get bigger and bigger ships and it was quite similar in other navies.

Making them more expensive to expand beyond 10k, and vastly more expensive beyond 15k, before 1900 would probably help a lot.

[TheOtherPoster]

Maybe an upper limit like allowing 10 or 20% bigger dock size than any other nation at the time? Anything bigger and we would get the message the Diet or parliament has refused the funds for bigger docks as they are already the biggest in the world. Or the air ministry has complained to the fuhrer that our docks are already the biggest in the world. And said that if the navy doesn't have a better use for the money those funds should go to the air force instead (so we will use them somewhere else instead, of course)..
It would make sense too as we are playing the head of the navy so ultimately it's for the government to decide.
I think it would be good for the game too: it would allow us a certain advantage if we can afford it, but not too big. But also if our budgets are tighter, it would stop us spending too much on docks instead of a more balance investment on fleet/ research/training...

[King-Salomon]

question: in my last game as AH I got nearly every 2 turns for the first 2 years a civilian dock-increase

which is very fine but... does the AI also get these events? I would guess this might be one reason why the AI falls behind...

[arminpfano]

May 28, 2023 1:18:09 GMT -6 King-Salomon said:

question: in my last game as AH I got nearly every 2 turns for the first 2 years a civilian dock-increase

which is very fine but... does the AI also get these events? I would guess this might be one reason why the AI falls behind...

In the first years (1890 start) those events should be really rare and restricted to 500ts. In my recent game I had 2 or 3 x 1000 ts by RNG, and this early in the game it causes the unbalance, as you get into the +2000 ts zone much earlier than other nations.

[stevethecat]

Big docks in early start/large fleet games can be a disadvantage. Watching one guy play as the UK, he went full into the heaviest ships possible, each being able to take on a pair of Germany's Bs at a time. But when war broke out none of them were usable as Germany blockaded him due to having a larger number of Bs. Even though each was garbage in comparison.


Quantity is a quality as some say.