How to Handle Roles at Admiral-Level Difficulty

[Kriegsspieler]

I have recently decided to give Admiral difficulty a try, after having played for a long time at rear admiral. However, there's something at the new level that I do not get. If I go into a battle with some capital assets and some CLs and DDs, what role should I assign those light ships to get them to perform an adequate screening role for the capital ships? Whether I use "Support" or "Screen," they always seem to hang back from the action until there's a wounded ship that they can pounce on. It's true that when I am withdrawing from action they do lay down smoke and harass pursing ships, so in that respect they do ok. But during the battle they really don't do much of anything.

My normal style when playing at rear admiral difficulty was to use the DDs in particular to rush at enemy capital ships, either to force them to turn away and/or put a few torpedoes in them. Depending on the DDs and on luck, I found that to be reasonably effective. Was that so unrealistic a tactic that it can't be duplicated by the AI at Admiral level? I just don't get this.

And if you're wondering, yes, I do use divisions in my fleet setup.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[stele]

Just set up flotilla attack flag and your DD in support will break to attack near enemy squadron. For cruisers setting them to independent sometimes works for decent flanking action, but they also can turn the other way and withdraw or chase detached DD for whole day.

[cormallen]

Jun 19, 2023 11:15:15 GMT -6 stele said:

Just set up flotilla attack flag and your DD in support will break to attack near enemy squadron. For cruisers setting them to independent sometimes works for decent flanking action, but they also can turn the other way and withdraw or chase detached DD for whole day.

This sort of nonsense is why I rage-switch back to Captain's mode every so often. I generally play in Rear Admiral but sometimes the drunk Vice Admirals doing random foolishness get too annoying and break immersion too much for me to cope.

[Kriegsspieler]

Hmm . . . so far, I'm not hearing a compelling reason not to switch back to rear admiral's mode. We'll see what others say.

[pedroig]

I have run an entire campaign with AI resolved battles only on Admiral's Mode, the following are the division settings I used (which as far as I could tell trickled down to the combat screen, even if full division did not show up).

DD's standard Division is 6 DD's, start on Support of another unit, as soon as Screen becomes available, that is what they stay on forever.
CL's standard Division is 2-4 Cl's (money and tech decide), start on Scout and stay on Scout for a Fleet Flag or Core Division.
CA's standard Division is 2 depending on start year they are either (in preferred order) Core or Independent, Independent for Raiders specifically.
BC's standard Division is 2 they too are (in preferred order) Independent or Core, they tend to be my main Raiders, though I have had them supplement a Battle Line from time to time.
B/BB's standard Division is 2-4 (this is all about money) most advanced one will be Fleet Flag for primary area (Atlantic, Med, Pacific, Indian) the rest will be Core.
CVL's standard Division is 2, they go on Support for Flag and Core, nothing but Fighters for CAP.
CV's are the tricky ones, they become Fleet Flag or Core after Fleet Tactics allow, and go down to 1 when that is allowed. This causes a pretty big shift in the above, but basic formation of 1 CV supported by a pair of CA's with a Division of CL's Scouting and a Division each of DD's for the CV and the CA.

This worked well, with AI isn't best at focusing TR over combat ships in Convoy actions and has some trouble with shore defenses on Invasion missions. Once planes come in, it is much better at defending than attacking, and once missiles hit, RNG seems to really take over, not a lot of rhyme or reason on the actions it takes to my eye.

[expendable]

The problem is they completely broke the AI ages ago, so it's units are more concerned with getting the right rock paper scissors match up than actually doing their jobs.

The AI is functionally incapable of winning.

[arminpfano]

Jun 21, 2023 0:50:09 GMT -6 expendable said:

The AI is functionally incapable of winning.

True.

This may be a good reason to give the AI some cheats, like more budget or cheaper ships etc. As soon as the AI has a numeral advantage of more than 2,5:1 over you a battle gets much more interesting.

[expendable]

This is the AI nearly every single game.



AI then crosses its own T with her 20+ capital ship line and then suicides the flagship.


AI can't reform and just slaughters its own forces.


After just a few runs I've basically memorized the exact way the AI is going to fail horribly.

Yes, the TR's are heading into action ahead of the escorting battleship squadron.

[pedroig]

Jun 21, 2023 0:50:09 GMT -6 expendable said:

The problem is they completely broke the AI ages ago, so it's units are more concerned with getting the right rock paper scissors match up than actually doing their jobs.

The AI is functionally incapable of winning.

And yet, the AI is capable of winning.  It is just much better at winning against itself than it is winning against humans.  Which is why AI resolve at Admiral level is the "equity" way of doing battle.

[Kriegsspieler]

Thanks for the very interesting suggestion of letting the AI resolve combat when playing with Admiral's mode. That's something I will try.
One question, though: When letting the AI resolve battles, does it run away from battles that it has no business engaging in? We all know that sometimes the random generator puts you into a battle that the only thing to do is to run away from. How does the AI handle those?