US Navy Campaign playtest

[Horst]

Can't you guys release the first scenario at least to see how it plays or runs at all? I also like to play Battleship!

[Horst]

It’s always good to know which date the upcoming scenario takes place during a campaign. That could still be added to the campaign-map text. That gives some documentary flair.
When reading the first scenario text there, it reveals too much what the enemy has in mind and how many carriers it has what gives the false impression you are the Japanese player. This also contradicts to the following briefing text where the Jap fleet composition and location is supposedly not known.

The US carriers should rather start with a standard mix of fighters, dive and torpedo bombers.
Here is an excellent overview of the current location and air group composition of the carriers on Dec 7:
https://bluejacket.com/ww2_12-07-41_carriers.html
Going through the carriers, only the Lexington and the Enterprise was near Pearl Harbor.
Saratoga arrived at Pearl on 15 December, refueled, and departed for Wake Island the following day. This carrier could reinforce the player core later during the first scenario if historical correctness isn't such an issue.

That’s definitely a lot of Jap carrier planes. The first wave of 18 is okay, but how can the carriers host game-wise the 12 extra non-floating carrier planes?
To balance this, the player should have at least twice if not thrice the number of carrier fighters.

Hoho, this will be quite time-consuming to test-play through.

PS: the Pearl scenario falsely starts on Dec 6. That should be changed to 7 if 12 turns per day are set!

[GabeKnight]

"7Solomons"

Started fine with about 2-3min/turn, changed to >10min after a couple of turns. Again, I wasted time with editing the scenario and had to abort after a few turns.

- same as with "6Guadalcanal", the AA has no AI-team
- same as with "6Guadalcanal", some radar station have wrong AI-team 1 setting
- the AI-team 57 setting as it is doesn't work with transport ships

The AI setup looks okay on most of the scenarios, but as a general rule, I'd suggest to a) remove most of the multiplayer triggers (if not used as "scenario end" triggers) and objectives and b) use the "Kill & Casualties" trigger instead, if the player's forces are involved. Also you can remove almost all of the recon planes; they are useless for the AI, as most teams destinations are fixed anyway and there's always enough other planes flying around for recon.

-----------

This is getting frustrating. I know, I've promised to look over the scenarios, Erik, but with the AI as it is, these maps are unplayable. At least on my rig. Maybe Horst has more success.

I'll give "8Hawaii" a try, as there seem to be practically no land masses. If it's not the plain size of the maps alone, my working theory's that planning paths around obstacles, with possibly ships blocking narrow passages, shallow water areas and such seems to disrupt AI path finding. It's like the other instances I'd mention in the GGC naval parts, where ships seemed to be unable to go around obstacles like piers and bays. But I don't know for sure, of course, just speculating on my observations.

If that don't work, I'll take a break playing until the v5.2.8 patch at least - with a neverending, remote hope of betterment...

The "4Coral" scenario was good, and I'm still planning on modifying that one to test my balance therories and trigger settings.

[Horst]

The scenarios are quite huge for my rig. I should better play through the smaller GGC and other scenarios at first before taking on that monster here. Yeah, let's see how the ground-fuel works with the later update. Naval-only scenarios, in particular without paratroopers, are at least not affected by this game-breaking bug.

[Erik2]

This is now a public beta. Link in first post.

All scenarios have been set up for campaign use (core units and depoyment).
Maps have been cropped where possible.
Japanese air aggressiveness increased.
Japanese air patrols consolidated into one AI team in hope of reducing AI thinking time.
Changes in various scenarios suggested by feedback.
(There are no event graphics yet).

There are still issues in the campaign editor.
So specialisations and final outcome will probably not work correctly.
For some reason only a defeat outcome branch is available...

[GabeKnight]

"8Hawaii"
(I've updated the campaign, so I'm using the latest beta scenarios)

Again, it's the same. It works, but the naval AI part's taking forever to think. But the map doesn't appear to be that large to cause this, and there was a naval mission in the Pacific DLC with about the same size. It's the "CoralSeaUSA" scenario, and it plays like clockwork. I'm gonna compare, investigate and test some more. I don't get this and it's driving me crazy. Will continue...

EDIT:
- the amount of AI teams doesn't seem to matter in that respect (reduced it to "default" 16, didn't help)
- repositioning the units in a more "spacious" way to possibly avoid collision mechanics or blocked paths - didn't help
- the aerial AI teams thinking time doesn't seem to be affected by the map size at all
- the naval capture hex or naval defend hex triggers seem to work okay, the distance 999 is okay, regarding aggression: don't know how the setting affects the enemy's behaviour in naval engagements (?)

I've found one working workaround so far, but won't get my hopes up yet - have to test it further. Will report...

[GabeKnight]

Okay, SUCCESS!

But I have good news and bad news, so Erik, which one would you like to hear first?

.. just kidding...

...about the telling part, not the "good/bad" part of the news... as the "bad" part's just concerning you, as the designer, I'm telling:

The good part is, that there's a solution to the AI thinking problem, reducing it to practically null (as it should be): decrease the naval AI-Team size!

And here's where the bad part kicks in, it means REDUCING the amount of units per NAVAL AI-team to SIX or lower in every single scenario. At least the count of 6 units worked for me without any of the previously mentioned AI thinking times. It went down to like none , seriously! Maybe the number of units per team could be slightly higher, don't know and didn't test it. The number of AERIAL units inside an AI-team didn't seem to matter, though.

But please, for the sake of God, get rid of those Jap. recon planes! Seriously, the AI doesn't know how to use them right. Either you'll have to script the planes' individual paths, or they just "group up" like seen in the previous screenshots and fly up then turn around and fly down and repeat.....or just land and take-off to be repaired. Needed in multiplayer, I guess, not singleplayer.

For testing purposes, I'll attach an updated version of the "8Hawaii" scenario. The ONLY thing modified: split up too large (>6) naval AI teams into exactly cloned smaller ones. Nothing else. I'd be glad for feedback, if this sorted out the issue for others as well...

So I'll suspend further playing, pending your update. Maybe it'll be best to start the whole campaign from the beginning then....the waiting for nothing was frustrating and driving me crazy!

[Horst]

Interesting, should I ever stumble upon another lame thinking scenario, I'm going to check out how many units share the same AI team. Does sharing a team mean these units coordinate more closely their attack? Will the chance be higher that a correct behavior like artillery fires first before other units directly attack applies? Whatever, this must be studied further.

[Erik2]

I do remember a devs comment from the very OOB beginnings saying something like max 10 units in a team was best.
I'll revisit the scenarios and split up any teams with lots of naval units.
I'll also get rid of the cruiser/battelship recon units. As you mention they are currently not worth their place in the roster.
Thanks for the successfull experiment.

[Elbrin]

Is the Beta Testing still ongoing?

I tried to grab the zip file from the dropbox link in the original post and I received the error message that the file did not exist.

[Erik2]

Is the Beta Testing still ongoing?

I tried to grab the zip file from the dropbox link in the original post and I received the error message that the file did not exist.

It is.
'm going through all scenarios fixing air patrol and large AI teams. WIll post a new link when this is finished.

[Elbrin]

Thanks Erik.

Looking forward to testing/playing. Coincidentally, about a week ago I did a google search on WWII naval sims that used a mechanic similar to Panzer Corps/ Panzer General. I was not sure if with modding OOB could fit the bill. To my surprise when I scanned the forums I saw your thread and noted that the effort was current (i.e. 2018).

Not sure if I can offer good thorough evals like Gabe, but I can try. Also, my free time gets sporadic. Like right now I have a bunch, but next week, I could have nil.

[GabeKnight]

Erik, with the v5.2.9 released, I think I'll finally start playing the Panzerkrieg DLC for now. I've waited long enough and run out of patience. If there are still bugs inside, I'll just fix them myself this time. And I can update my mod accordingly now, with player's feedback incoming (like ongoing issues with SU122/152) and am definitely not going to wait another 14 weeks for the next update.

I guess, you'll have your hands full with the tournament these days anyways.

I'll continue with the USNavy campaign after that, no worries.

[Erik2]

The campaign is now 'finished'.
Link updated in first post.

[Cataphract88]

Thanks, Erik, this looks very interesting, I'll definitely be giving it a go! Cheers!

[Erik2]

I may also finish a naval/air unit mod I've been working on.
It replaces the rather generic naval movements with (higher) class-specific ones. Makes for a faster game and more ship diversity.
I've also a different air movement/fuel system in place. This generally means longer movement ranges, but fewer turns in the air. I think it is slightly more realistic and also puts more value in airfields and airstrips.
This mod should work well with a naval campaign.

[GabeKnight]

I may also finish a naval/air unit mod I've been working on. [...] This mod should work well with a naval campaign.

Cool . May be a good idea to solve some of the quite idle turns of units just moving closer to each other on large maps. But the problem of broken mods after possibly every game update remains.... You want to publish two different US Navy campaign versions, then? Or should the mod just be considered as a supplemental option?

However your decision, I'm eager to try either solution.

[Erik2]

There will be only one campaign. If you place it in the mod folder it will use the mod's data.

[Erik2]

Added hypotetical scenario Rainbow 5

[GabeKnight]

Started anew with the v1.1 campaign and after the second retry of the first mission, I've given up.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I did not manage to save more than two battleships overall. On the first run I've aborted around turn 5-ish due to a quick destruction of the five battleships (sec. objective) and now, on the second run I've aborted on turn seven. Lost two out of three of my fighters already, the remaining two battleships doesn't look that good either, and I've got NOTHING against the Japanese aerial power. Even a 3-HP Japanese torpedo bomber still causes like 3HP damage to my MOVING battleships. Now I'm beginning to understand how helpless the Americans must've felt then.
I'd probably could've taken on the naval part of the enemy, but wouldn't dare to even take off with my bombers against THAT (and blue team already lost most of its air assets too):

Screenshot 212.jpg (343.48 KiB) Viewed 2777 times

So...I've decided to wait for your mod.