Thoughts/Advice

[speedy]

Hi All,

As a recent purchaser of SAI I thought I'd summarise my first 13 turns of action as HSF in the standard campaign on normal level.

To date I'm relatively happy with my progress and score (900K VP difference so far) and have been surprised as to how many enemy ships I've managed to take down so far.

I've lost:



CL Munchen

4 x DD

2 x TR

2 x SS



The British have lost:



BC Princess Royal (Magazine explosion)

BC Invincible

7 x CA
(5 of these are the good old Bacchante class)
5 x CL
(4 of these are older models)
13 x DD

9 x TR

3 x MS

Now granted outside of the BC's most of my naval successes have come off Norfolk, the Broad Fourteens and in the Dover Straits against the older models (Randomizer also referred to these in my previous topic although unlike history my surface fleet took care of them rather than a U-Boat)

I did have a close shave on Turn 12 when 3 of my lovely BC's were intercepted by 16 x BB of the Grand Fleet as I was en route to shell Sunderland. I did manage to turn tail, order a flotilla attack and speed away with Seydlitz taking the worst of it (4 heavy hits and in repair for 6 weeks).

A few questions and thoughts if I may?

1.) Are these kind of results normal in the early part of the campaign? If not is the norm to play on hard mode?

2.) I've had little success with my U Boats or minefields so far. I think I've only sunk 1 x TR with a U Boat so far. I've been placing my Minefields off the English coastline but the recent appearance of their new larger minefields negates most of them anyway. Any hints?

3.) I'm assuming there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on and outside of gun and crew ratings are there other ship specific factors that come in to play in combat situations?

Great game I must add.

Regards,

Steven

[randomizer]

Welcome aboard.

You do not say whether you're playing weekly, bi-weekly or monthly turns.

Submarine attacks were toned down in the early days of development since they tended to dominate the campaign, as in the event. Decreasing their offensive impact facilitates the surface warfare aspects of the game.
This is intentional and hard coded. Submarines are best as scouts but attrition from luring an AI formation over a line of submarines is a tactical option although one that never really worked in the War and seldom succeeds in the game.


As the German's, it is relatively easy to overwhelm inferior British forces in the southern North Sea, particularly in the early months of the War. If the AI does not detect your sortie or have objectives of its own then may need to raise steam and proceed to sea, a time consuming process that can allow you to complete your mission with maybe a local massacre thrown in for good measure. Unlike many games, the AI in Steam and Iron gets no advantages in scouting or gunnery. As I recall, increasing the difficulty level increases the probability that the AI will sortie a superior force compared to what you send to sea. However the computer opponent suffers from the same restricted scouting capabilities of the Player and unlike another graphics-intensive WW1 naval game, the AI is not aware of your exact force composition and locations. Its ships suffer the same limitations on visibility and command/control as do yours. So you can actually surprise it and bait traps that it may or may not fall in to. The British have the advantage of Room-40 intelligence but the German Player can also RDF the British (as in reality) but with less frequency.

Beware that the AI can also surprise you...

The AI has to deal with crew quality just like the Player as well as mechanical breakdowns and attrition due to accident, training or mines.

Check the Status window in the Campaign screen to check the service lives of the lost ships and you are likely to see that the capital ships and armoured cruisers have been busy. At some point during the War the latter will begin to sail with reduced frequency and sortie into harm's way less often.

Mines can and probably will take a toll over time; the AI may conduct aggressive offensive minelaying operations and you may lose some high-value assets to them. You cannot enter the permanent minefields and the transient mines laid during a turn my not see any targets for their entire lives as they fade away over time. Most Great War minefields actually produced zero results but some were spectacularly successful. There is a chance that a minefield will be detected the turn that its laid in which case the AI will tend to avoid that area and you may not know if this occurred.

The gunnery aspects of the game are actually quite deep and detailed but almost entirely hidden. We actually have only a very limited real-world data pool to work with but you should see that SAI will seldom produce results that appear historically outrageous (I actually cannot recall seeing this in the years associated with testing and playing the series). During an action you can access the modifiers that are in place at that instant and this allows for some idea of the detail under the hood.

For what it's worth, my campaigns are fought at Rear Admiral realism and Hard difficulty and I find this balance satisfactory.

Hope this helps.

[speedy]

Hi Christopher,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm playing weekly turns.

Ironically in turn 16 one of my subs hit a Warship damaging one of the old King Edward class B's in a picket line SE of Scapa.

I really like the fact the AI doesn't have false advantages on spotting and plays by the same rules. Good to hear and how it should be! I think the AI may have been aware of my fleet movements on turn 16 as I sailed 4 x Kaiser class BB's NW of the Bight and I ran into 12 x BB/B's! I;m happy with how things went (I turned tail at 21 knots and kept parallel to the enemy (between 9-13K) so that only the first 6 or so BB's were in range of my ships. I actually did well and almost sank BB Benbow (she was at maximum structural damage and 3/4 flotation damage after taking 18 x heavy hits. Grrr. Wish I'd sank her but he turned away when heavily damaged and I couldn't risk taking on the rest of the Grand Fleet), moderately damaged 2 other Iron Duke Class for light damage (2-4 shells each) on 3 of my BB's.

Thanks for the info on mines and gunnery. I'm focusing quite a bit on training to make sure as much of my fleet as possible is at crew level 1 or 2 whilst ensuring I have enough operational ships. I'm also finding it hard to keep on top of the number of damaged ships I have! I have 7 x BB/CA in repair and probably about 25 x CL/DD! I may stand my fleet down for a few weeks as I want to gain a large enough force of BB/BC to try and properly challenge the Grand Fleet in a straight fight before it gets too big!

[speedy]

Hi All,

Just thought I'd provide further feedback from my first Grand Campaign. Am absolutely loving this game! It's very very well done. I've just reached the middle of May 1915. One of the parts I think is fantastic in this game is the suspense. Every time I send Major fleet units out into the North Sea I always watch with suspense if they will uncover or crop up on something. It's very well done. Not to mention the combat and watching this a minute at a time.

In short brilliant.

My fortunes have waxed and waned recently as the HSF. After my successful start highlighted above there's been a lot of close shaves but no major battles until early May 1915 when my BC's had a battle against British BC's. All was going ok as I managed to heavily damage Queen Mary but then a flotilla attack by the Brits heavily damaged both Derfflinger and Seydlitz with Torps! I tried to save them but they foundered on the way home 2-0 to the Brits.

I've just managed to exact revenge a week later when I sortied part of my Dreadnought fleet and it was the most amazing battle for me to watch yet. Incredible to watch over 3 hours of game time. It involved several phases of the 2 battle lines dueling with each other, turning away when DD's attacked, returning to the fight and then (on my part) a last lunge towards the enemy to shorten the range which led to very confused fighting at 2000 yards as ships appeared and quickly disappeared out of view.

BB Iron Duke - was subjected to 33 x 11/12" shells and sank due to sheer weight of metal.
BB Monarch - damaged by a few heavy shells and then 2 torpedo hits from my DD's finished her off.
BB Collingwood - amazingly sank during the evening part of the battle when a torp from one of my BB's must have found it's home which sank her!
BB Benbow - Flash Fire caused by BB Kaiser
BB Vanguard - Flash fire caused by Friedrich de Grosse!

Just wow.

[dickturpin]

A great victory indeed.

Please provide further updates as to how you are getting on.

[randomizer]

Indeed. Just finished a most frustrating major operation where the German fleet got away due to bad weather and the onset of darkness. I had them on the ropes with two Battle Squadrons to the north and the BCF to the east. A flotilla attack garnered five(!) hits on various capital ships but in the end all escaped but the pre-dreadnought SMS Hessen. All eight super-dreadnoughts in 2 BS are in dockyard hands and the otherwise undamaged Lion hit a mine returning to base and gets 5-weeks under repair.

Looking forward to more from Speedy, thanks.

[Deleted]

very nice for me to read as well. Although also having RtW i often come back to SAI for it's more focused on ship to ship combat and shipping ops i.e. things go boom (or sink) more frequently.

[julianbarker]

I regularly pop back to SAI as well. With the Jutland Centenary this week, more so than usual.

[vonfriedman]

I am eager to know if something special will be provided for by NWS for this special anniversary.
May I suggest to put an AI directed Grand Fleet against an AI directed Hochseeflotte - if this is feasible - in a simulated Jutland battle?