Correcting Transportation gaps

Thanks for @Rboy200 for explaining and resolving the initial issue/request.

In regards to the now updated request:

All ships currently have attacking/defending ratios of 1:1, I wouldnt want to deviate from that just for convoys. Since units fighting on sea usually use both stats in most fights anyway it would also not make much of a difference, one could also lower their overall damage stats then. But right now their damage stats are quite balanced. Yes they damage combat ships but still these combat ships are able to sink resources multiple times worth of their own cost when catching lone convoys. Using submarines, destroyers, cruisers or battleships you can sink ~300-600% of your own resource costs (depending on which units are in the convoy) when engaging in fights with convoys of the same level and that is totally reasonable balancing wise.

Remember that this game is abstract. Many things are implied and not shown specifically on the map. We do not show supply lines, we do not show tankers, we do not show all the different supporting units, and in case of convoys we do not show additional armarment and escorts.

Meaning convoys are not regarded as unarmored or unescorted. The game implies that also transport convoys are escorted by light vessels, hence the damage statistics. Upgrading the transports not only upgrades the transport vessels, but also their escorts.

In that case, why not remove destroyers from the game?

Assume capital ships come with a destroyer escort, like transports.

Destroyer combat mechanics don't work, anyway.

z00mz00m wrote:

Assume capital ships come with a destroyer escort, like transports.

whowh wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

Assume capital ships come with a destroyer escort, like transports.

But in the case of transports they have corvette type ships. Destroyers are large enough to have to be showed while corvettes are so small that it would be a nuisance.

Now you're just making things up

Call the ships whatever you want. Call them frigates. Call them corvettes. The terminology is meaningless, it varies by country and by decade. The point is, these are smaller ships that provide ASW protection to capital ships and transports.

Why does it make sense to implement 2 different ASW mechanisms, one for a carrier battle group and another for a troop convoy? It doesn't make sense. They both require a large number of ASW ships to sail around, look for subs, and kill them before they can sink the bigger, more valuable surface ships.

So just make up your mind. Be consistent. Do you want manual control over ASW screens, or do you want ASW ships included "for free" in every convoy? It's not complicated.

z00mz00m wrote:

whowh wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

Assume capital ships come with a destroyer escort, like transports.

But in the case of transports they have corvette type ships. Destroyers are large enough to have to be showed while corvettes are so small that it would be a nuisance.

Now you're just making things up

Call the ships whatever you want. Call them frigates. Call them corvettes. The terminology is meaningless, it varies by country and by decade. The point is, these are smaller ships that provide ASW protection to capital ships and transports.

Why does it make sense to implement 2 different ASW mechanisms, one for a carrier battle group and another for a troop convoy? It doesn't make sense. They both require a large number of ASW ships to sail around, look for subs, and kill them before they can sink the bigger, more valuable surface ships.

So just make up your mind. Be consistent. Do you want manual control over ASW screens, or do you want ASW ships included "for free" in every convoy? It's not complicated.

The issue is that 2.3 against subs (transports) is tiny compared to 30 against subs (destroyers)

***If all units are elite.

whowh wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

whowh wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

Assume capital ships come with a destroyer escort, like transports.

But in the case of transports they have corvette type ships. Destroyers are large enough to have to be showed while corvettes are so small that it would be a nuisance.

Now you're just making things up

Call the ships whatever you want. Call them frigates. Call them corvettes. The terminology is meaningless, it varies by country and by decade. The point is, these are smaller ships that provide ASW protection to capital ships and transports.

Why does it make sense to implement 2 different ASW mechanisms, one for a carrier battle group and another for a troop convoy? It doesn't make sense. They both require a large number of ASW ships to sail around, look for subs, and kill them before they can sink the bigger, more valuable surface ships.

So just make up your mind. Be consistent. Do you want manual control over ASW screens, or do you want ASW ships included "for free" in every convoy? It's not complicated.

Good arguing there.

The issue is that 2.3 against subs (transports) is tiny compared to 30 against subs (destroyers)

***If all units are elite.

RBoi200 wrote:

whowh wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

whowh wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

Assume capital ships come with a destroyer escort, like transports.

But in the case of transports they have corvette type ships. Destroyers are large enough to have to be showed while corvettes are so small that it would be a nuisance.

Now you're just making things up Call the ships whatever you want. Call them frigates. Call them corvettes. The terminology is meaningless, it varies by country and by decade. The point is, these are smaller ships that provide ASW protection to capital ships and transports.

Why does it make sense to implement 2 different ASW mechanisms, one for a carrier battle group and another for a troop convoy? It doesn't make sense. They both require a large number of ASW ships to sail around, look for subs, and kill them before they can sink the bigger, more valuable surface ships.

So just make up your mind. Be consistent. Do you want manual control over ASW screens, or do you want ASW ships included "for free" in every convoy? It's not complicated.

Good arguing there.The issue is that 2.3 against subs (transports) is tiny compared to 30 against subs (destroyers)

***If all units are elite.

Why don't we think about it this way: Transports come with super weak ships that are so cheap and so weak it would be a nuisance to show them and produce them. Destroyers, on the other hand, are stronger and used for EXTRA protection against threats, but also cost more, thus you need to produce them.

Why "imagine" an infinite armada of weak ASW ships that appear (for free) around every transport?

Some convoys were escorted by destroyers and other war ships.

Some convoys were not.

We can replicate these historical situations, by stacking or by leading/following convoys with war ships.

In a hurry? Feeling lucky? Send an unescorted convoy. It might work.

The player has a choice, and the solution is both game-ready historically accurate.

There is no need for a separate, "invisible escort" solution.

Take down transport A/D values to 1.0 numbers and all the problems go away.

Yeah I agree that the unprotected transports are too hard to attack by warships right now, the 1.0 values were better. A single sub should easily deal with 10 transports, imho.

Same problem for trucked aircraft at captured airfields by the way... or should we "imagine" all the ground crews rising to the occasion, grabbing a bazooka and fighting off those tanks?

I disagree on this, the value you could gain by catching lone convoys/transports was bonkers in 1.0, where you could kill/sink 1000-2000% of your invested resource value. That is totally out of bounds. So we will likely keep the current values. You shouldnt be able to protect your whole coastline from an armada of convoys by just using 1 submarine, it's on you to make some investment here as well. Same goes with aircraft convoys, 1 armored car should not be enough to defeat 10 plane convoys alone (and we also regard convoy trucks to have armored personel btw).

In 1.5 it is balanced in a way that you still have a huge advantage and can sink/kill multiple times your own resource investment, but it is much more reasonable now and doesnt completely destroy players who make a mistake.

Just going to flex on the fact that I had hundreds of subs like this. I can't find the highest numbers but they were in the hundreds.

freezy wrote:

Same goes with aircraft convoys, 1 armored car should not be enough to defeat 10 plane convoys alone (and we also regard convoy trucks to have armored personel btw).

That's a regiment of armored cars capable of destroying a regiment of infantry and taking a major city like Berlin. That's hundreds of armored cars, thousands of soldiers, all trained in land warfare. They're taking on pilots armed with pistols, maybe some some military police trained to recover pilots from local bordellos and break up drunken brawls

Yeah, a 10:1 strength ratio seems about right.

freezy wrote:

In 1.5 it is balanced in a way that you still have a huge advantage and can sink/kill multiple times your own resource investment, but it is much more reasonable now and doesnt completely destroy players who make a mistake.

Building, maintaining, and positioning a defensive perimeter is hugely expensive, and should be rewarded. Rushing into battle unprepared is cheap and easy, and it usually works because the opposition is unprepared. But when the defender is ready, and goes to the trouble to train, build, and position a navy, the attacker should be severely punished. That invasion force should be destroyed at minimum cost.

A submarine (which has on the order of 100 sailors) can easily sink several transports, each carrying 1000's of soldiers and 100's of tanks. It can do that and get away, without surfacing and getting shot at by some joke of a deck-mounted gun.

The changes pushed into 1.5 encourage stupidity and punish planning. The game is becoming faster and stupider. There's nothing good about that.

I know that 1 unit in the game actually represents regiments, squadrons etc, we usually don't write that out when discussing units in the forum and assume everyone knows. My post was made with that in mind and I still stand by it.

No, a unit destroying 1000% of its own resource investment is balancing wise not ok, even if it would be explainable with realism. We don't have that kind of super hard counter balance for other units in the game. Take an anti tank for example, it is designed to be the counter to tanks, but it is not able to kill tanks worth of 1000% of its own resource cost, for a good reason.

Before you counter argue now that ranged units can do it: Ranged units still need time since they have lower damage values, and leave the other player with the opportunity to retreat their units to prevent those losses, whereas a submarine or armored car catching transports leaves the other player with no option but to watch all their investment go to waste.

Planning is neither increased nor decreased because of that, it only shifts the onus a bit on who actually has to plan (certainly the player who could previously just build a single submarine now has to plan a bit more as well). Planning is not punished at all, as a player who planned ahead will always have advantages.

We can of course design a highly accurate sim game only targeted to planners and deep strategic thinkers, but then we could also just shut down the game because we would have a much slimmer target audience. The game can only be successful if it also has a certain simplicity and ease of use to it, and that includes that making mistakes in the game is not punished super hard right away.

I wouldn't call loading 10 land units in a ship to try a seaborne invasion an error. If it works, they can destroy a nation in many circumstances, so it is a valid choice. However, it hinges on the presumption "he shouldn't have a fleet". If he DOES, it SHOULD be punished. High risk: high rewards if succesful, but high losses on fail.

Same for air really. There are high rewards for operating an air force close to the front line. However if it fails and their base is taken, there SHOULD be punishment.

Slightly related: it seems as if the murderous consequences of being hit when refuelling in 1.0 have been mitigated in 1.5 as well? I had some refuel hits on enemies a few times and the results were very disappointing indeed... while I agree that the 1.0 results for it may have been a bit TOO harsh, it seems this is over-mitigated now?

freezy wrote:

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.

- Time to "embark / disembark" on a train would be very high. Air defense while on a train : 0

- If you want to be fancy, trains only move where infrastructure = 3 (or at least 2), which would make infrastructure a lot more useful

- If you want to be extra fancy, non-infantry you can only embark // disembark in cities with infrastructure = 3 (or at least 2), because well you need train stations.

With the infrastructure rule, it would be difficult (costly) and risky to strategic move while you are conquering.

TBF, I am starting to build infrastructure level 3 already, my problem is that the price does not scale to the size of the province, when really it should, so my network of infrastructure level 3 is often "dented" and in particular my cities have the least infrastructure

You know there is a solution. Send out your subs in pairs because I do this and when it comes to unprotected convoys they can easily sink a 23 stack while taking minimal damage and can kill about 40-50 convoy units before SBDE starts affecting their efficiency in any major way so by the time the stack gets to around half health I suggest using another one until you heal but you can still use it if you have to.

z00mz00m wrote:

some military police trained to recover pilots from local bordellos and break up drunken brawls

People trained to beat up people who have been trained to kill.

Even more impressively they have to do it without seriously injuring anyone.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I wouldn't call loading 10 land units in a ship to try a seaborne invasion an error. If it works, they can destroy a nation in many circumstances, so it is a valid choice. However, it hinges on the presumption "he shouldn't have a fleet". If he DOES, it SHOULD be punished. High risk: high rewards if succesful, but high losses on fail.

This.

It's easier to attack than to defend, always has been. But now the element of risk is diminished.

To combat this greater offensive potential, we need quicker ways to mobilize defenses. For example, make it possible to build militia with no preconditions (buildings or research).

Better yet, every province spawns militia as soon as it's invaded. No research, no build costs. Cities spawn more. Or tie militia production to manpower. Attackers will spend some time "subduing" the locals. This would slow down blitz attacks and decrease the penalty for being offline.

Also, make it impossible for militia to leave their province. They are not a real army. These are farmers and shop-keepers. They don't board transports to go invading other continents. This would make militia a purely defensive unit.

z00mz00m wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I wouldn't call loading 10 land units in a ship to try a seaborne invasion an error. If it works, they can destroy a nation in many circumstances, so it is a valid choice. However, it hinges on the presumption "he shouldn't have a fleet". If he DOES, it SHOULD be punished. High risk: high rewards if succesful, but high losses on fail.

This.

It's easier to attack than to defend, always has been. But now the element of risk is diminished.

To combat this greater offensive potential, we need quicker ways to mobilize defenses. For example, make it possible to build militia with no preconditions (buildings or research).

Better yet, every province spawns militia as soon as it's invaded. No research, no build costs. Cities spawn more. Or tie militia production to manpower. Attackers will spend some time "subduing" the locals. This would slow down blitz attacks and decrease the penalty for being offline.

Also, make it impossible for militia to leave their province. They are not a real army. These are farmers and shop-keepers. They don't board transports to go invading other continents. This would make militia a purely defensive unit.

I think we should be able to produce militia without preconditions, but building barracks would cut the time in half, and research(which is basically "Strategies for Recruiting Militia") would also cut the time in half, so if both preconditions are valid, then the time is cut in fourths.

I don't think EVERY province should spawn militia. It should be like rebellions, some provinces do it, some do not(the locals just surrender).

I think militia should be able to go around in the surrounding provinces also. They can go in their own little region made up of their provinces and the surrounding provinces.

How about this?

1. Militia spawn automatically. Their number depends on province population (or manpower) together with morale. Taking a core province from its original owner generates more militia because the citizens are loyal and angry and want their country back. Taking an already conquered province generates little or no militia because the citizens are not loyal to their current occupier and don't care any more.

2. Militia cannot leave their country. They can go to neighboring provinces, because the citizens want their country back, and are willing to die for their country. Militia cannot leave their country because they need to go home to their civilian lives. They are not real soldiers. Once their families are safe, they are going home. They won't listen to orders.

3. Militia research can improve the quantity and/or the quality of militia that are produced. This is a "passive" type of research similar to transport ships, because you can't directly produce the unit. If you think you're going to be invaded, research militia, and your citizens will be more willing to die for their country.

4. Militia production is not directly affected by barracks or other improvements. Militia are not produced, or trained. They are generated immediately and automatically from the people who rise up to resist the invader.

5. Militia production is indirectly affected by improvements that boost morale, because that affects the starting morale of the province before it was taken over by the invader. High morale is a higher multiplier to manpower (or population) which produces more militia.

I think this system would be effective to play with and simple to implement.

Militia quality depends on Militia research level

Militia quantity depends on Province manpower * Province morale