Scrap the German Fleet!!!!

[majpalmer]

In an earlier post I recommended scrapping the Russian navy when playing as the Entente.

I am currently playing as the Central Powers and this time I disbanded the German battleships. Not right away, however.

I moved both the BB and the CA into the Baltic on turn 1. When the AI Russian attacked my first Baltic convoy, I sortied both the BB and the CA and destroyed the Russian battlefleet.

On turn 13 I disbanded the German BB, after realizing that there was nothing it could do. I could bombard coastal cities, but that costs ammo points and would handicapp my ground operations.

Disbanding the BB recovers 7 manpower points and 48 industry points. You also subtract 11 of those other points, whatever they are. You also save 4 PPs per turn. If the game lasts to the end, I will have saved about 450 PPs.

I did keep the CA unit to protect the Baltic convoys from British SSs, or Russian SSs, if the AI built one. My CA did, in fact, destroy a British sub. I have not seen another.

I have had no reason to regret the decision to disband the BB. I have already saved or recovered 250 PPs. I am doing well on the ground, but I can't imagine what my front would look like if I had to subtract 250 PPs worth of German units.

[avoran]

Even in the 'what if' scenario of an Allied landing on the German coast you don't really need the BB to deal with it. Of course the BB would make it easy.

[avoran]

Makes me wonder if there should be a morale penalty for disbanding BB's, say, half the penalty for losing them in battle.

[GPT55]

Keep in mind that an infantry corp also costs 4PP per turn to support, so it would cost about the same as a BB throughout the war. So in reality, scrapping the BB only buys you about one additional corps. Also, with no German BB the Baltic convoy could become easy pickings for the Russian BB. I think better advice would be to scrap infantry and garrisons you don't need for even a few turns. When you scrap a infantry unit you get 10 PPs back and save 4PP per turn, so even if you rebuild it after only 3 more turns you still come out ahead on PPs.

[ncali]

Makes me wonder if there should be a morale penalty for disbanding BB's, say, half the penalty for losing them in battle.

This makes sense to me. I can't imagine Germany deciding to abandon the fleet that it had spent so much on in the pre-war years building in order to compete with England. It would have been a public relations disaster. I'm also not sure that the cost of maintaining an inactive fleet is so much.

[stockwellpete]

Makes me wonder if there should be a morale penalty for disbanding BB's, say, half the penalty for losing them in battle.

This makes sense to me. I can't imagine Germany deciding to abandon the fleet that it had spent so much on in the pre-war years building in order to compete with England. It would have been a public relations disaster. I'm also not sure that the cost of maintaining an inactive fleet is so much.

Yes, I agree with these two points. The navies were symbols of national strength and status (a bit like nuclear weapons today ).

[avoran]

And I think this all still holds despite petertodd's (good point) observation about the cost of maintaining infantry.

[Smirfy]

Same applies for the British and French, better scrapping and building cruisers artillery and subs. The problem developers fall into with these games is they just apply the same mechanics to the Naval aspect as land and it ends up rubbish. Really they should be totally different. Thankfully in this case the game is that strong that it don't annoy me to much.

I would have just abstracted the maritime element with boxes for the Baltic, North Sea and the oceans and whatever resources you applied to a box results got moderated by the enemy, tech, etc. It would have also got rid of the painful convoy system and equally grating shipment of troops.

[avoran]

I kind of enjoy sailing fleets across the blue... and would actually prefer to move convoys manually so I could choose what route I want them to take. But, yes, a zonal approach would have been more realistic given the speeds that ships move, albeit messy to integrate with a hex-based land map.

[Smirfy]

Not a fan myself of shifting that Canadian Corps rather just decide where it arrives and wait for it to appear in whatever condition. I'm surprised zonal was not implemented for this title cause if you took it to its conclusion you have the war in the colonies simulated and the likes of Von Spee and hilfcruisers and the blockade. I'm pleased with the game, can't remember the last title that kept me up to 3am. But the naval aspect is really poor given that it was such a dynamic in the road to war which is disappointing.

[kevini1000]

I actually scrap the canadian corps rather than moving it over the alantic.

[majpalmer]

Yes, an infantry unit has the same maintenance costs as the BB. Think of the cost savings as replacement points instead. 450 PPs repairs a lot of units.

And I agree that you should cull your ground units, as well. If you don't need a unit, or at least won't need it for several turns, consider disbanding it. I have learned to keep an eye on the chart that shows you if you're are running a per-turn PP balance or deficit. If you build right up to the limit, as is the usual case in most games, you have no room for emergency production, replacements, or upgrades.

The historian of the German navy, Holger Herwig, published a history of the Kaiser's efforts years ago entitled Luxury Fleet. He considered the German battle fleet a useless expense that achieved virtually nothing during the war and helped to drive Britain into the Entente camp.

[Smirfy]

Don't forget you can also abandon naval research

[Umeu]

Makes me wonder if there should be a morale penalty for disbanding BB's, say, half the penalty for losing them in battle.

This makes sense to me. I can't imagine Germany deciding to abandon the fleet that it had spent so much on in the pre-war years building in order to compete with England. It would have been a public relations disaster. I'm also not sure that the cost of maintaining an inactive fleet is so much.

i disagree. atleast in multiplayer often you dont have a choice but to disband it, you will be hard pressed for any pp vs a good opponent. instead the naval aspect of the game needs an overhaul.

ww1 was a war fough on land, sea and air, the first of its kind. but most nations cant field a land army + a navy.

as germany the bb is only usefull to kill the russian one, the austrian one is useless. to protect the convoys, you need to ships, preferably 2 cruisers but the cost of this upkeep is about as much as you would gain from the convoys, so you might as well not protect the convoys, because hunting subs is a pain in the ass and theyre much more op for the brits actually than for the germans (mainly because the german convoy is easier to destroy and there is no threat of usa joining in)

i think the submarine related mechanics need a overhaul and perhaps a seperate production pool for the navies thats tied to the amount of working harbours or whatever. because its still a game and if u would try to win the war on seas as the axis u should have that chance but atm you cant really. only germany and austria can produce ships and they are also relied upon to deliver the fatal blow on land (since none of their allies can produce anything else than infantry and usually dont have alot of pp income). they cant go full water and try to win that + also hold the land armies (im saying hold, not actually push them back in any direction) with tying navy production to harbours turkey and bulgaria could perhaps produce a small navy without making them much stronger/weaker on land.

[stormbringer3]

I use the Austrian BB in two ways. First I use it to block Entente reinforcements to Serbia. You can position it to block access and where it can only be attacked from one hex, When the troop transports arrive you can take them out. Second when Italy joins the war I use it to bombard shore units. The AI will often position an artillery unit on the coast. When you attack artillery unit the AI seems never to move it from danger and only keeps on reinforcing it. Sometimes after the artillery unit is destroyed another takes its place. Rinse and repeat.

[stockwellpete]

I use the Austrian BB in two ways. First I use it to block Entente reinforcements to Serbia. You can position it to block access and where it can only be attacked from one hex, When the troop transports arrive you can take them out. Second when Italy joins the war I use it to bombard shore units. The AI will often position an artillery unit on the coast. When you attack artillery unit the AI seems never to move it from danger and only keeps on reinforcing it. Sometimes after the artillery unit is destroyed another takes its place. Rinse and repeat.

Yes, I am finding a quite active role for the Austro-Hungarian fleet in my games. I also wonder whether I should build a research lab to stop it from going obsolete and whether a submarine unit would be useful to interdict Entente convoys to Serbia.

[IainMcNeil]

I think the national morale hit for losing your fleet should be the same if you scrap your fleet. Its a gamey tactic that would not have happened so we should give some penalty for doing it. Reducing the manpower cost and maintenance cost of the fleet might also help.

Overall I think ships should be a lot cheaper to maintain and there should be a lot more of them and naval combat should be less lethal. The naval battles tend to be over too quickly - usually one round of combat decides things.

Maybe there should be an economic penalty for having an enemy ship adjacent to one of your ports, unless you have your own fleet in the port.

[stockwellpete]

I think the national morale hit for losing your fleet should be the same if you scrap your fleet. Its a gamey tactic that would not have happened so we should give some penalty for doing it. Reducing the manpower cost and maintenance cost of the fleet might also help.

Yes, I think both those ideas would add to the historical realism of the game.

Overall I think ships should be a lot cheaper to maintain and there should be a lot more of them and naval combat should be less lethal. The naval battles tend to be over too quickly - usually one round of combat decides things.

Certainly, there could be more ships and that would enhance the overall strategy of the game, but naval warfare was fairly lethal so the actual engagements seem OK to me right now (given that each turn equals a fortnight).

Maybe there should be an economic penalty for having an enemy ship adjacent to one of your ports, unless you have your own fleet in the port.

Yes, that is an idea well worth investigating and would make submarines a much more interesting proposition to purchase.

[Umeu]

I think the national morale hit for losing your fleet should be the same if you scrap your fleet. Its a gamey tactic that would not have happened so we should give some penalty for doing it. Reducing the manpower cost and maintenance cost of the fleet might also help.

Overall I think ships should be a lot cheaper to maintain and there should be a lot more of them and naval combat should be less lethal. The naval battles tend to be over too quickly - usually one round of combat decides things.

Maybe there should be an economic penalty for having an enemy ship adjacent to one of your ports, unless you have your own fleet in the port.

I do not know if you have any influence in the developing process, but if disbanding the fleet should have a similar morale loss, then naval warfare needs to be reworked so that it is actually viable to keep your navy alive.

I cannot stress how important, in multiplayer atleast, naval warfare is for the axis powers to win, and yet how utterly incapable (in the 1914 scenario) they are to fight this war on water without giving up any chance of even holding out on land (not to mention making any progress).

I've already explained that its just not cost effective for germans to protect their convoy, their fleet is only usefull to snatch 10 morale of a unsuspecting player who moves his russian fleet too far out. But any smart player will not do that, and if he keeps his fleet at all, will only keep it as a deterrent to make sure that atleast the germans do not also scrap their fleet. The austrian fleet is even more useless, without even a techlab, their already outdated fleet will have no real perspective of ever catching up and as soon as Italy joins the war it is doomed. So why wait, scrapping it immediately seems the only viable thing to do in multiplayer, because while the AI might not be able to deal with barrages from battleships, players have no problem with that and its a pretty innefficient waste of ammo in most cases.

The disbanding of the Russian and Austrian navy leads to a domino effect, without a Russian navy why do the germans need a navy in the baltic? Even with 3 cruisers you cannot deal with 1 submarine effectively unless he is too stupid to attack in the green zone, and you only make that mistake once. so the german navy gets disbanded as well. The sub also because 1 submarine is just not enough to stop these ton of british convoys, you need atleast 3, which germany simply cant field, if you have to pick between infantry/artillery or subs, the choice is quickly made. Then why would even the brits keep their navy, except for the subs in the baltic? So that also gets scrapped. Austrian navy gone? French and Italian navy usually follows soon after. Techlabs are first to go, even before the navy, and definitely after.

In short, in multiplayer naval warfare in 1914 start is simply not viable for the central powers, and any smart player will immediately disband their useless vessels and hope that it will take a long time for the allied player to realise that and have precious upkeep spent on useless units. The 1915 start is little better, but 2 subs give perspective, and a bigger german convoy means it might be cost-effective to protect it after all. 1916 and onwards the 3 subs and imminent joining of the usa mean that in any case your subs will pay off, the austrian fleet is still doomed tho.

So how can things be improved? You wrote some nice things about the economic aspect of navies, that as well needs reworking. The upkeep for ships isnt that high, and apart from battleships they dont cost that much either I suppose, but yes, because you have to make a choice between land or sea, it is too much in any case. So I would propose to seperate these elements, make navies tied to ports. Free ports can produce and sustain so many ships, blockade ports can only less etc. This will also make it usefull to actually blockade ports because it will hurt the other sides capacity to produce a fleet. I dont know if this would require alot of work, if so, then perhaps making them cheaper would be the easiest way.

But more importantly the martial aspect of the navy needs to be reworked, especially regarding submarines. Right now its simply impossible to deal with 1 sub even if you have 2-3 cruisers guarding a convoy. Sub deals 2-3 damage to the convoy, of the 2-3 cruisers guarding the convoy, only 1 can attack, cruiser deals 1-2 dmg to the sub, perhaps even loses 1 itself, but in no way it will get killed (in later stages a cruiser might deal up to 5, but never enough to kill a sub unless it goes into the green zone). So what will happen is that the sub will just go to a nearby port and repair, and do the same thing again.

I think naval warfare should resemble aerial warfare more, cruisers should have a support function just like fighterplanes, but with less range i think. Within 1-2 hexes if a ship gets attacked cruisers will come to support, subs and battleships will come within 1 hex. This will actually get you naval warfare with multiple ships involved, it will make then make sense to group ships together to attack or defend convoys. It will introduce tactics (such as attacking the flank to make sure other ships cant help.) If ships become cheaper and easier to replace, they can also be made deadlier (axis lost like 200 subs during the war and sunk about 2k allied vessels). I think subs should be a bit deadlier against cruisers early on, and cruisers should get more capable of dealing with subs the longer the game goes and the better tech they get. Upgrades for ships are also outrageously expensive (20 for just 2 defense??? for infantry you pay 2 for 2 defense).

[DukeOfLight]

I tottaly agree