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Post by evil4zerggin on Jun 18, 2023 0:43:35 GMT -6
PremiseMy thinking was as follows: - Blockades only require a 10% blockade value margin.
- CLs have 4 blockade value and a minimum tonnage of 2,100 tons, giving them probably the best blockade-per-cost in the game.
- Ships near 2,000 tons are also favored by the horsepower table, which helps compensate for the inherent disadvantage in combat for such light ships.
Thus, spamming 2,100 ton CLs.
Game setup
I picked China to give some challenge, while also having relatively simple geography and sharing a home region with another nation, though it is hardly unique in this respect. In retrospect I should have picked Spain or AH instead. 1900 start allowed manual construction of starting fleet.
I play Admiral mode because I'm super lazy.
What worked
The blockade part worked as planned; I was easily able to blockade Japan despite fewer resources and a continual disadvantage in combat.
What didn't workThis configuration seems to be heavily disfavored in OOB generation. It felt like in the most common battles (convoy attack/defense and coastal attack/defense) I would get only 2-3 CLs out of 70+ in the region, while the enemy would get the same number of cruisers despite having less than half as many -- each of which outweighed my entire force -- as well as getting swarms of DDs. I wonder if for some battle types the OOB generator picks fixed numbers of ships of each type rather than taking a percentage of regional forces? I haven't tried manual divisions, so I can't say whether that would have helped. A modified strategy would be a high-low mix with the aforementioned CLs for blockade, and a few high-powered CAs and/or BCs plus DDs to do the actual fighting. Not sure how much China in particular can afford though.
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Post by cormallen on Jun 18, 2023 1:27:23 GMT -6
Lol, yep. That Battle Generator really doesn't do quantity vs quality very well!
Try setting all your small cruisers on Raid and having a few premium types on active...
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Post by generalvikus on Jun 18, 2023 3:02:40 GMT -6
Not only are light cruisers on AF often outmatched in spite of their numbers, but they also generate a lot of inconsequential battles which, even if successful, achieve very little, so the opportunity cost is very unfavourable. Furthermore, at least in my experience so far (only up to 1913,) there is practically no need for scouting in fleet actions, as the fleets always seem to run headlong into one another before you're even handed control of any of your ships - but at any rate, past that era, scouting is obviously better performed by aircraft than cruisers, if it ever becomes necessary at all. As such, I don't think that light cruisers have a place on AF. Since I don't find one versus one raider intercepts to be very entertaining, I also don't like raiding. As such, I think that TP is the only worthwhile use of CLs, and then only in the case that the enemy is focusing on light raiders, which I have not seen yet in RTW3 and did not see very often in RTW2, though it did occur sometimes, as far as I can recall.
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Post by cormallen on Jun 18, 2023 5:15:13 GMT -6
Not only are light cruisers on AF often outmatched in spite of their numbers, but they also generate a lot of inconsequential battles which, even if successful, achieve very little, so the opportunity cost is very unfavourable. Furthermore, at least in my experience so far (only up to 1913,) there is practically no need for scouting in fleet actions, as the fleets always seem to run headlong into one another before you're even handed control of any of your ships - but at any rate, past that era, scouting is obviously better performed by aircraft than cruisers, if it ever becomes necessary at all. As such, I don't think that light cruisers have a place on AF. Since I don't find one versus one raider intercepts to be very entertaining, I also don't like raiding. As such, I think that TP is the only worthwhile use of CLs, and then only in the case that the enemy is focusing on light raiders, which I have not seen yet in RTW3 and did not see very often in RTW2, though it did occur sometimes, as far as I can recall. I made a point of building "Scout cruisers" in assorted RN campaigns (for historical RP purposes) and they were, in game, definitely pointless! I ended up sticking them on TP in out of the way places. |
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Post by dia on Jun 18, 2023 11:05:04 GMT -6
Not only are light cruisers on AF often outmatched in spite of their numbers, but they also generate a lot of inconsequential battles which, even if successful, achieve very little, so the opportunity cost is very unfavourable. Furthermore, at least in my experience so far (only up to 1913,) there is practically no need for scouting in fleet actions, as the fleets always seem to run headlong into one another before you're even handed control of any of your ships - but at any rate, past that era, scouting is obviously better performed by aircraft than cruisers, if it ever becomes necessary at all. As such, I don't think that light cruisers have a place on AF. Since I don't find one versus one raider intercepts to be very entertaining, I also don't like raiding. As such, I think that TP is the only worthwhile use of CLs, and then only in the case that the enemy is focusing on light raiders, which I have not seen yet in RTW3 and did not see very often in RTW2, though it did occur sometimes, as far as I can recall. I made a point of building "Scout cruisers" in assorted RN campaigns (for historical RP purposes) and they were, in game, definitely pointless! I ended up sticking them on TP in out of the way places. What happened? I'm assuming you had separate scouting force enabled and the scout cruisers in divisions assigned to scout role. Did the battle generator just ignore the division assignments? |
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Post by cormallen on Jun 18, 2023 12:24:16 GMT -6
I made a point of building "Scout cruisers" in assorted RN campaigns (for historical RP purposes) and they were, in game, definitely pointless! I ended up sticking them on TP in out of the way places. What happened? I'm assuming you had separate scouting force enabled and the scout cruisers in divisions assigned to scout role. Did the battle generator just ignore the division assignments? Sorry if I didn't make clear, this was in RTW 2. Hopefully the division control system will allow me to keep them with the main battle fleet more this time. |
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Post by arminpfano on Jun 18, 2023 13:17:26 GMT -6
What happened? I'm assuming you had separate scouting force enabled and the scout cruisers in divisions assigned to scout role. Did the battle generator just ignore the division assignments? Sorry if I didn't make clear, this was in RTW 2. Hopefully the division control system will allow me to keep them with the main battle fleet more this time.
I came to the same conclusion in RTW3 as in RTW2. Due to the very nature of the battle generator you don´t need any scouting at all. In RL you have to search a whole sea to find the enemy. In RTW this is done for you automatically.
Things would be different if the spampoints had more distance, so you would have to search for the enemy with the CLs like in CV battles by planes. I hope for a major overhaul of the SAI battle generator in RTW4.
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Post by ludovic on Jun 18, 2023 17:25:22 GMT -6
I haven't played 3, but in RTW2 in my experience there was an exception for the Baltic Sea for some reason, maybe the Gulf of Riga and the Gulf of Finland force the positions to vary. If I am Germany or control the Baltic States and am fighting Russia, I never know if they will appear west of Hango, east of it, or in the Gulf of Riga.
One time it actually led me to my biggest victory ever - my only 7 figure win (on medium fleet size), and my most lopsided win that wasn't mainly caused by torpedoes or air strikes. Long story short, I was able to defeat Russia in detail because I kept running away from them to protect my carriers but kept running into them instead, and winning via my big gun ships while only losing a few destroyers.
I wish that more areas were amenable to such surprises, once in awhile at least. All the time wouldn't be that fun, either.
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Post by evil4zerggin on Jun 18, 2023 23:46:03 GMT -6
Great discussion!
I didn't find much use for scouting either until CVs come into play (at which point scouting is best done by aircraft as noted by others). The game seemed pretty aggressive about pointing the two fleets at each other at scenario start (other than coastal raid). Through 1950 I think I only had one or two scenarios where the fleets failed to find each other. I seem to remember fleets failing to make contact with each other more often in RtW 2 but there's too many variables to say for sure.
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Post by bthom37 on Jul 13, 2023 20:56:28 GMT -6
I haven't played 3, but in RTW2 in my experience there was an exception for the Baltic Sea for some reason, maybe the Gulf of Riga and the Gulf of Finland force the positions to vary. If I am Germany or control the Baltic States and am fighting Russia, I never know if they will appear west of Hango, east of it, or in the Gulf of Riga. One time it actually led me to my biggest victory ever - my only 7 figure win (on medium fleet size), and my most lopsided win that wasn't mainly caused by torpedoes or air strikes. Long story short, I was able to defeat Russia in detail because I kept running away from them to protect my carriers but kept running into them instead, and winning via my big gun ships while only losing a few destroyers. I wish that more areas were amenable to such surprises, once in awhile at least. All the time wouldn't be that fun, either. Great call on the Baltic generating interesting battles! The geography is fun there too. |
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Post by cabalamat on Jul 23, 2023 8:42:44 GMT -6
What didn't workThis configuration seems to be heavily disfavored in OOB generation. It felt like in the most common battles (convoy attack/defense and coastal attack/defense) I would get only 2-3 CLs out of 70+ in the region, while the enemy would get the same number of cruisers despite having less than half as many -- each of which outweighed my entire force -- as well as getting swarms of DDs. I wonder if for some battle types the OOB generator picks fixed numbers of ships of each type rather than taking a percentage of regional forces? The way the battle generator should work is:
- when you're the attacking force, you get to choose what goes on an operation. - when your the defender, it is randomly chosen as a %age of what ships you have available. This means building larger numbers of small ships no longer puts you at a disadvantage.
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Post by zederfflinger on Aug 9, 2023 21:48:16 GMT -6
Really, something similar to what Steam and Iron has would be great. I doubt we will get there, at least in this game, but here's to hoping for at least some improvements.
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