Correcting Transportation gaps

I am fairly confident that the transports have their own HP, because the health of my transport convoys is almost always lower than my units on land, and upgrading the transports in the Research tab increases the labeled HP.

As for your offer of air transport, that is an intriguing idea. However, mechanically, you currently don't have to create ship transports, so it would be a deviation to permit air transfer but require building a separate unit. Realism would also require identifying a WWII-era transport plane from each military doctrine that was actually capable of moving these sorts of units, and then limiting the transport to the kinds of units that this plane could have actually moved.

Paratroopers are special units that can air drop, and they have a dedicated unit to make air drops work.

Why not apply the same mechanic to all units?

Transport can be by regular ship (which requires a port). Players should have to build transports, and send them to the port for loading. No transports, no sea voyage. Free transport is a dumb idea. Free transport that has built-in defenses against subs and planes is a REALLY bad idea.

Some units can be amphibious, meaning they can embark/disembark without a port. This should be limited so that heavy tanks and rail guns don't land on a beach.

Air transport can be even more limited. Certainly no heavy tanks or rail guns. Maybe to armored cars and other light armor. Maybe to regular artillery but no to SP artillery (which is more like a heavy tank).

Lastly, the air drop, which is air transport without an air field to land on. That should continue to be most restrictive: paratroopers only. Although, I would prefer to merge the Commando and the Paratrooper into a single unit. But that's a different story.

King Edmund the Just wrote:

I am fairly confident that the transports have their own HP, because the health of my transport convoys is almost always lower than my units on land, and upgrading the transports in the Research tab increases the labeled HP.

As for your offer of air transport, that is an intriguing idea. However, mechanically, you currently don't have to create ship transports, so it would be a deviation to permit air transfer but require building a separate unit. Realism would also require identifying a WWII-era transport plane from each military doctrine that was actually capable of moving these sorts of units, and then limiting the transport to the kinds of units that this plane could have actually moved.

My example is as follows: Units with 60HP on land embarked on a single Level 1 transport. My sub engaged them. I watched as the HP fell, not from 10HP for a Level 1 transport, but from 60HPs of the stack.

z00mz00m wrote:

Paratroopers are special units that can air drop, and they have a dedicated unit to make air drops work.

Why not apply the same mechanic to all units?

Transport can be by regular ship (which requires a port). Players should have to build transports, and send them to the port for loading. No transports, no sea voyage. Free transport is a dumb idea. Free transport that has built-in defenses against subs and planes is a REALLY bad idea.

Some units can be amphibious, meaning they can embark/disembark without a port. This should be limited so that heavy tanks and rail guns don't land on a beach.

Air transport can be even more limited. Certainly no heavy tanks or rail guns. Maybe to armored cars and other light armor. Maybe to regular artillery but no to SP artillery (which is more like a heavy tank).

Lastly, the air drop, which is air transport without an air field to land on. That should continue to be most restrictive: paratroopers only. Although, I would prefer to merge the Commando and the Paratrooper into a single unit. But that's a different story.

Transports with modest defenses is not out of the realm of reality. Liberty ships were fitted with guns for Atlantic crossings, but the effects should be far less than we currently see. And the HP for units at sea should reflect that of the vessel they are on (ex. Level 1 Transport = 10HP, not the combined HP of the stack).

Your anaylsis of the air transport is spot on. I'm merely asking for a way to move "light" units across the battlefield more rapidly. Airstrips would be required on both ends. Limitations for stack size should be applied. And I concur, we should have to build our own transports (air, land, or sea) - it furthers the strategic thinking involved in this fantastic game.

You've also spurred another thought, what about developing trucks for speedier land transportation...

I differ from on your point about paratroopers and commandos. I do feel commandos should be airborne, though. The main difference is commandos were elite deep penetration and survailance units, while general paratroopers were mass drops of units to overwhelm the enemy to secure key terrain rapidly.

Commandos should be afforded more stealth delivery options, ie if commandos alone are on a transport vehicle, it should have a similar stealth property as the commandos. This would allow for better infiltration of the units. Furthermore, they should be allowed to pass through territory without seizing it, unless commanded to attack.

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

King Edmund the Just:My example is as follows: Units with 60HP on land embarked on a single Level 1 transport. My sub engaged them. I watched as the HP fell, not from 10HP for a Level 1 transport, but from 60HPs of the stack.

Air transports were suggested alot already, they are on the list of suggestions. Adding them would be a bit controversial though as in WW2 there was no widespread troop transport via plane. At least not on the scale CoW operates on.

As for air or sea transports being their own unit: This is also on the suggestion list as it was discussed already many times, but also this addition would be controversial. This would greatly increase the amount of micromanagement required. Imagine sending your transport ship to location X in order to pick up some units. You would now be required to login again Y hours later when your ship arrived at the pickup location to send our troops onboard and order them somewhere. Then the same again at their target destination, to get them off-board. While that would be certainly neat for players that have more time at their hands, it would be quite cumbersome for players with less time. Right now we automate this part for a reason.

Thanks for your responses, Freezy.

I agree most of these changes are non-trivial, and possibly controversial.

Given the choice of what to micro-manage, it makes sense to me that staging (and sustaining) an invasion across the ocean should require some planning. This is the kind of planning that can rightly be called "strategic". Where do the men come from? Where do the transports come from? How to defend the transports before, during, and after loading the men? What sea lane should they travel on? What port do they land in? How to defend the destination port before, during, and after transports arrive? This is interesting. This is worth thinking about.

To compensate for the extra micro-management of invasions, consider dropping the micro-management required for more mundane tasks. Examples:

- Get rid of shoot-and-scoot. An artillery unit should not be able to reload while running away from a charging armored division. When you take away shoot-and-scoot, you get rid of the biggest source of micro-management in the game.

- Unit upgrades. The old system (pay for upgrades as part of research) is simpler and easier. Bring it back.

- Air force patrols. They've always required too much work, and they still require a lot of work, even though they are now less effective. Either simplify the patrol mechanic or get rid of patrols altogether.

- Unit healing. Just get rid of it. Let us merge wounded units or disband wounded units on demand to stop paying maintenance. Right now I'm spending too much time sending units back to heal and keeping track of them. Lowering the number of units per map will decrease micro-management.

z00mz00m wrote:

Air force patrols. They've always required too much work, and they still require a lot of work, even though they are now less effective. Either simplify the patrol mechanic or get rid of patrols altogether.

RBoi200 mentioned a circular patrol function. I would like to see a patrol order for surface units - not like air units but to move back and forth between 2 points until ordered otherwise or encountering an enemy. This would be especially beneficial for naval units to patrol a coastline.

A circular patrol function for aircraft would be good, though not necessarily circular. Just the ability to define way point patrols along with being able to define the duration of each patrol. For example, patrol at location #1 for 1 hour, for location #2 for 30 minutes, location #3 for 2 hours, etc. The timer for each patrol location would begin when the aircraft arrives on station, so any refueling requirements would be on top of the patrol orders.

You could add Landing Craft to the game which allow embark/debark from a beach for INF type unit only.

All other units would have the built in convoy but can only be used for Friendly port to friendly port transport.

Guys, guys... if we go down this road, we end up managing railroad logistics, uniform factories and R&R schedules. It is good that many of these functions are automated, because they are just not fun to manage; and playing a game is about having fun. Sure some players enjoy logistics and there are games that mostly deal with that; but for most of us, it is just a headache, it is not why we want to play a war game. So game mechanics deal with many of that for us, so we can have fun thinking about what to attack, without thinking TOO much about how to attack and all the stuff you need to do that. Just drive the troops there and go!

Sure there are some sacrifices to realism, but that's what designing a great game is about... capture the essence, leave out the bore, and keep complexity down. I think the complexity of CoW is at just about the right level; and when I look around many battefields, it is already too high for many of our players.

Agreed, let's not go overboard. We don't want to manage railroad schedules

We're already doing too much of that. Manual unit upgrades? Infra and local port improvements in rural provinces? Alternately filling and clearing production queues to balance resource flows? Shoot and scoot several times per hour?

A bit more realism in amphibious invasions is worth the cost, because this was such a crucial part of war strategy. The tasks mentioned above, not so much.....

freezy wrote:

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

King Edmund the Just:My example is as follows: Units with 60HP on land embarked on a single Level 1 transport. My sub engaged them. I watched as the HP fell, not from 10HP for a Level 1 transport, but from 60HPs of the stack.

Transport ships have their own HP, they do not have the HP of the land unit. Transport ship HP can be leveled up by researching higher transport ship levels. On level 4 the HP of a transport ship is 25.

Air transports were suggested alot already, they are on the list of suggestions. Adding them would be a bit controversial though as in WW2 there was no widespread troop transport via plane. At least not on the scale CoW operates on.

As for air or sea transports being their own unit: This is also on the suggestion list as it was discussed already many times, but also this addition would be controversial. This would greatly increase the amount of micromanagement required. Imagine sending your transport ship to location X in order to pick up some units. You would now be required to login again Y hours later when your ship arrived at the pickup location to send our troops onboard and order them somewhere. Then the same again at their target destination, to get them off-board. While that would be certainly neat for players that have more time at their hands, it would be quite cumbersome for players with less time. Right now we automate this part for a reason.

I understand Transport ships have their own HPs. However, in practical game play, it becomes the combined HP of the stack afloat. I just lost a Level 1 Cruiser (full strength) to 2 Level 1 Transports, but the HPs were over 50 of the stack afloat. That is what I'm asking be corrected.

A wave of rank 1 Militia on convoys can indeed distract an opponent very effectively

Militia: good example of a unit that should not have amphibious capabilities, of any kind.

This is supposed to be a disorganized band of rebels who rise up to resist an occupying force.

They shouldn't even be allowed out of their home province!

freezy wrote:

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

King Edmund the Just:My example is as follows: Units with 60HP on land embarked on a single Level 1 transport. My sub engaged them. I watched as the HP fell, not from 10HP for a Level 1 transport, but from 60HPs of the stack.

Transport ships have their own HP, they do not have the HP of the land unit. Transport ship HP can be leveled up by researching higher transport ship levels. On level 4 the HP of a transport ship is 25.

Air transports were suggested alot already, they are on the list of suggestions. Adding them would be a bit controversial though as in WW2 there was no widespread troop transport via plane. At least not on the scale CoW operates on.

As for air or sea transports being their own unit: This is also on the suggestion list as it was discussed already many times, but also this addition would be controversial. This would greatly increase the amount of micromanagement required. Imagine sending your transport ship to location X in order to pick up some units. You would now be required to login again Y hours later when your ship arrived at the pickup location to send our troops onboard and order them somewhere. Then the same again at their target destination, to get them off-board. While that would be certainly neat for players that have more time at their hands, it would be quite cumbersome for players with less time. Right now we automate this part for a reason.

Here is an example of a stack afloat having higher HPs than the transport they are in. This is the fix that should be addressed. These units in the hull of a transport ship do NOT make the ship stronger. The Infantry might offer some added defense, but not much.

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

freezy wrote:

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

King Edmund the Just:My example is as follows: Units with 60HP on land embarked on a single Level 1 transport. My sub engaged them. I watched as the HP fell, not from 10HP for a Level 1 transport, but from 60HPs of the stack.

Transport ships have their own HP, they do not have the HP of the land unit. Transport ship HP can be leveled up by researching higher transport ship levels. On level 4 the HP of a transport ship is 25.Air transports were suggested alot already, they are on the list of suggestions. Adding them would be a bit controversial though as in WW2 there was no widespread troop transport via plane. At least not on the scale CoW operates on.

As for air or sea transports being their own unit: This is also on the suggestion list as it was discussed already many times, but also this addition would be controversial. This would greatly increase the amount of micromanagement required. Imagine sending your transport ship to location X in order to pick up some units. You would now be required to login again Y hours later when your ship arrived at the pickup location to send our troops onboard and order them somewhere. Then the same again at their target destination, to get them off-board. While that would be certainly neat for players that have more time at their hands, it would be quite cumbersome for players with less time. Right now we automate this part for a reason.

Here is an example of a stack afloat having higher HPs than the transport they are in. This is the fix that should be addressed. These units in the hull of a transport ship do NOT make the ship stronger. The Infantry might offer some added defense, but not much.

I believe you are suggesting that each transport ship stack should get a fixed number of HPs, no matter how many units pile on. I respectfully disagree.

1) 20,000 men would not fit on a single ship. A regiment/brigade is 1,000 to 5,500 troops, the game addresses one unit as a regiment for infantry and brigade for tanks. Piling 10 regiments/brigades onto a single ship would not work, therefore this would not be accurate.

2) If that was implemented, there would still be a simple workaround to give transport ships more HPs. A player could just split the transport ship stacks to get more HPs. Players who did not know this workaround would be at a large disadvantage.

RBoi200 wrote:

1) 20,000 men would not fit on a single ship. A regiment/brigade is 1,000 to 5,500 troops, the game addresses one unit as a regiment for infantry and brigade for tanks. Piling 10 regiments/brigades onto a single ship would not work, therefore this would not be accurate.

Could a brigade of tanks or a whole wing of strategic bombers fit into the same space as 1 infantry regiment?

RBoi200 wrote:

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

freezy wrote:

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

King Edmund the Just:My example is as follows: Units with 60HP on land embarked on a single Level 1 transport. My sub engaged them. I watched as the HP fell, not from 10HP for a Level 1 transport, but from 60HPs of the stack.

Transport ships have their own HP, they do not have the HP of the land unit. Transport ship HP can be leveled up by researching higher transport ship levels. On level 4 the HP of a transport ship is 25.Air transports were suggested alot already, they are on the list of suggestions. Adding them would be a bit controversial though as in WW2 there was no widespread troop transport via plane. At least not on the scale CoW operates on.

As for air or sea transports being their own unit: This is also on the suggestion list as it was discussed already many times, but also this addition would be controversial. This would greatly increase the amount of micromanagement required. Imagine sending your transport ship to location X in order to pick up some units. You would now be required to login again Y hours later when your ship arrived at the pickup location to send our troops onboard and order them somewhere. Then the same again at their target destination, to get them off-board. While that would be certainly neat for players that have more time at their hands, it would be quite cumbersome for players with less time. Right now we automate this part for a reason.

Here is an example of a stack afloat having higher HPs than the transport they are in. This is the fix that should be addressed. These units in the hull of a transport ship do NOT make the ship stronger. The Infantry might offer some added defense, but not much.

Each unit gets its own transport ship so in your picture 3 ships x 10 HP per ship = 30 HP.

I believe you are suggesting that each transport ship stack should get a fixed number of HPs, no matter how many units pile on. I respectfully disagree.

1) 20,000 men would not fit on a single ship. A regiment/brigade is 1,000 to 5,500 troops, the game addresses one unit as a regiment for infantry and brigade for tanks. Piling 10 regiments/brigades onto a single ship would not work, therefore this would not be accurate.

2) If that was implemented, there would still be a simple workaround to give transport ships more HPs. A player could just split the transport ship stacks to get more HPs. Players who did not know this workaround would be at a large disadvantage.

Thank you. That does clarify something I have likely misunderstood.

If that's the case, I would then shift my arguement to the defensive and armorment capabilities of the transports.

In the case of US/Allied historical units, the transport is represented by the Liberty Ship. While there were several variants, few were so well equiped as to take down surface vessels of the line. They were generally equipped with a 4in stern gun and various AA mounts.

In game, these seem to punch above their weight when attacked by a battleship or cruiser. Currently, a level 3 Transport has the same "Strength Agaist Armor Class" for both attack and defend against ships (2.0) and subs (1.3). At best, these should be a 2:1 ratio. For example: versus ships (attack 1, defend 0.5), vs subs (attack 2, defend 1). These were not unsinkable mystical vessels that plowed the waters. Had they been so good at defending, other classes of ships would have been built the same way.

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

In game, these seem to punch above their weight

whowh wrote:

WashingtonWarMachine wrote:

In game, these seem to punch above their weight

The thing is that they do not have range. But yes, they do deal outrageously high amounts of damage up close.

Exactly, which makes them slightly annoying versus surface ships (which all have range).

But it makes them deadly versus submarines.

The (illogical) outcome: it doesn't make sense to hunt troop convoys with submarines.