How do I catch up to other navies when building BBs/BCs?

[raymart999]

So, it's 1924 on my 1890s start game, and I have a problem, a big problem;

I currently have 5 Dreadnought Battleships in my fleet, 2 designed in 1906 and built in 1909/1910,2 from designed in 1912 and completed in 1915 and 1916, and one designed in early 1920s and completed 1922.

For BCs, I've got one from early 1910s, 2 from 1918/1919 and currently building.

Meanwhile other major navies can afford to have 6+ BBs ("minors" like Russia and Spain only have 2-3 right now), despite me being the second largest navy in terms of budget, just below the British in naval spending,

How do I build more at least a little more BBs and BCs? I've noticed that the capital ships have started to become even more expensive than 1910s ships with both my most modern BB and BC needing 4500+ budget every month (for 30 months) jus to build, is this normal? Should I try to make cheaper designs even though they would most likely have less armor or speed as a result?

I plan to replace my old predreadnought era CAs with BCs like all the other navies but with me only being able to build one modern BC for 2 years and not even be able to afford a DD while doing so makes me rethink that plan,
meanwhile USA and UK and even Japan gets to have more BCs and BBs than me and has already replaced their CAs, and has more BBs than I do

Should I stop trying to replace the CAs with modern BCs and use modern CAs instead(even if they are much more smaller and less powerful than BCs)?

Btw I currently have 8 Victorian-predreadnought era CAs, I plan to replace them with atleast 6 modernized BCs that I plan to have built by the early 1930s, however at the same time I also need to replace my older 1910s BBs and BCs since design is much too outdated already for me,not to mention also build CLs and DDs for my overseas bases and to protect the Capital ships from torpedos,

And with my budget only allowing me to build one capital ship per 3 years, with only a possible 200-1000 budget leftover for DDs or fortifications, this is starting to look very much impossible to me

Sorry if my explanation to my situation sucks, it's hard to explain it all without images of my fleet and I don't know how to post images in forums like this and have no screenshots of my game right now

[wlbjork]

Are you putting your fleet into reserve/mothballs between wars?

This frees up a massive amount of money later in the game - but beware of your full Active Fleet costs.

Edit: Also, if you're finding construction to be expensive you may be taking too high a speed or else you've expanded your docks too rapidly. How big are your ships compared to your rivals?

[tendravina]

At the bottom of the screen there should be a budget tracker, tracking your monthly budget and various expenses, namely maintenance, construction, aircraft, research, training, and intelligence

I wonder what that looks like

[kriegsmeister]

What nation are you playing and what Fleet size? You mentioned you're second in budget to Britain so I'm guessing either US or Germany. Either way if you want numbers you probably need to reduce the size of your ships. In the mid 20s the game templates are mostly high 20s to mid 30s ktons and cost around 3000-3500 a month to build. It's easy enough to get 50000Ton dock size in the 20s but you really don't need to be maxing out the size to be competitive.

You may also want to look into laying down smaller classes at a time. I know most people will usually do 3-5 ships and max out their budget while waiting for them to complete. I find it much more economical to do 1 or 2 ships every year with slight improvements to the overall design. You'll still end up with 4+ ships building at the same time but it's easier to manage the budget and still leave spare cash for smaller ships and base improvements.

Reserve and mothballing is also very important. I typically only have ships on active or foreign stations if they are outside my home area. Everything 6-8 years old or younger and no speed drops with be placed in reserve, older ships placed in mothballs until time for refits. It does leave your crews at poor quality, but a fleet exercise before a war will get them good to go. I don't refit guns or engines unless I'm under treaty or anticipating a war within a year and need everything up to date. IMO it's always better to build new for the soft tech upgrades to armor and hull construction that can't be refitted.

[raymart999]

Feb 9, 2024 11:05:34 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

Are you putting your fleet into reserve/mothballs between wars?

This frees up a massive amount of money later in the game - but beware of your full Active Fleet costs.

Edit: Also, if you're finding construction to be expensive you may be taking too high a speed or else you've expanded your docks too rapidly. How big are your ships compared to your rivals?

This might be one of my problem, my newest BB is 41K tons and my currently building BC is 35k, meanwhile all the other navies have got BBs and BCs in the 20-28k, the biggest BB in the world right now apart from mine is a 33k ton BB from the USA, I'll make my next BC class as cheap as I possibly can to finally replace my old victorian CAs,

However, when it comes to BC design I tend to use the WW1 German thinking of making the BCs sacrifice Armament for speed and armor rather than the British BCs designs of Firepower and Speed over armor, should I change this for my BCs?
Is 11-13 inch of armor for a BC with 12 inch guns overkill? Should I change up to 14/15 inch guns with 8-9 inch armor instead?

Feb 9, 2024 11:44:46 GMT -6 kriegsmeister said:

What nation are you playing and what Fleet size? You mentioned you're second in budget to Britain so I'm guessing either US or Germany. Either way if you want numbers you probably need to reduce the size of your ships. In the mid 20s the game templates are mostly high 20s to mid 30s ktons and cost around 3000-3500 a month to build. It's easy enough to get 50000Ton dock size in the 20s but you really don't need to be maxing out the size to be competitive.

You may also want to look into laying down smaller classes at a time. I know most people will usually do 3-5 ships and max out their budget while waiting for them to complete. I find it much more economical to do 1 or 2 ships every year with slight improvements to the overall design. You'll still end up with 4+ ships building at the same time but it's easier to manage the budget and still leave spare cash for smaller ships and base improvements.

Reserve and mothballing is also very important. I typically only have ships on active or foreign stations if they are outside my home area. Everything 6-8 years old or younger and no speed drops with be placed in reserve, older ships placed in mothballs until time for refits. It does leave your crews at poor quality, but a fleet exercise before a war will get them good to go. I don't refit guns or engines unless I'm under treaty or anticipating a war within a year and need everything up to date. IMO it's always better to build new for the soft tech upgrades to armor and hull construction that can't be refitted.

I'm playing as Germany, Medium fleet size, 1890s start(I love the 1890s era ngl),

I won a War against Spain that gave me a good chunk of their overseas territory, all Spanish ports in the Caribbean (Cuba and Guantanomo Bay) and three islands in the Pacific seas in 1896.

As for dock size, I have 43000 ton dock size while all the other nations(even Russia) has 48000-50000 dock size, however they don't build ships larger than 30k tons (except USA with a single 33k ton BB currently building) while I have a 41k ton BB and a 35k ton BC currently building, those two are definitely way too expensive for Germany right now that I think about it.

For budget, I currently have 230,000-250,000 yearly budget, third place with UK at second and USA at first place naval budget.

For fleet tonnage, I'm second place at 503k tons while UK has 513k and USA building up at 490k, however 100k tons of my fleet tonnage is made up of old victorian CAs I've built which I want to replace ASAP, while UK and USA has already dumped their CAs to the ground and built more BCs than I have.

For putting ships to RF and MB, that might be my 2nd problem other than making too big of a ship, all my most modern BBs and BCs are in AF right now, the only ships I have in RF/MB is my two old 1910s BB and my two 1890s CAs(which I don't wanna scrap because they won me two wars and has been my Navy's workhorse of the whole entirety of the 1890s)

So I should put my main fleet to RF to save on peacetime costs right?, what about my CLs and older CAs that I have overseas in Southeast Asia,Afica and The Caribbean?

Should I recall most of them and only keep 1-2 CLs with 4-6 DD escorts for the overseas bases, and put the other ones to RF/MB in Europe and only bring them out when tensions spike up?

[wlbjork]

I like CLs and DDs, but that option is expensive compared to 2,000t and 2,400t KEs with Colonial Service.

On the other hand, CLs and DDs are much more efficient in protecting a region once war breaks out. I think modern ships also increase the chance of you successfully grabbing a territory when they become available.

[raymart999]

Feb 9, 2024 22:29:25 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

I like CLs and DDs, but that option is expensive compared to 2,000t and 2,400t KEs with Colonial Service.

On the other hand, CLs and DDs are much more efficient in protecting a region once war breaks out. I think modern ships also increase the chance of you successfully grabbing a territory when they become available.

I've slept on KEs for too long in this playthrough, I'll go build a few cheap ones and only put in 1 of my CLs and 6 DDs in Southeast Asia and Africa, then put the rest of the CLs in either The Caribbean or Central Pacific for island defense, rest goes to mothball/scrapyard.

[Nicholas]

Feb 9, 2024 20:59:48 GMT -6 raymart999 said:

 I'll make my next BC class as cheap as I possibly can to finally replace my old victorian CAs,

Never build BCs solely to replace CAs, otherwise your BCs will face enemy BCs that are better armed and armored.