Hubert what are the SC2 Naval Forces going to be like?

[Seawolf]

Mr. Hubert would you please enlighten us ever waiting gamers to the nuances of the navel forces in SC2?

I hope that transports will not be able to last for years without unloading, that always bothered me. Italian corps floating around for years without having to unload, never hungry, or out of fuel. What about ASW and Raiders? Will carrier planes be as strong as they are now?

The Strategic Bomber, will they be able to kill troops(hardly ever done, and when tried big failures)? Will there be Medium bombers.... best against troops and Ships!

Anxiously awaiting your reply.

[ September 01, 2004, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Seawolf ]

[pzgndr]

This really should be over on the SC2 forum, but here's a good enough place to summarize naval changes for SC2.

There are three changes for transports. One, new amphibious transports are added for unloading troops onto non-port tiles; regular transports are port-to-port only. Two, these ampib transports will embark troops on one turn, and then move/unload on the next turn(s), thus no more sitting ducks off the enemy coast for a turn. Three, embarked units' supply and readiness will drop while at sea, thus limiting their range for effective amphibious invasions. The new amphibious research tech will do something to enhance capabilities (cost reductions, reduced supply losses, etc.), but this is still being worked out.

Naval actions should play out much as before. A big change is the addition of new carrier and sub target types, in addition to the current naval target type. This will permit better interplay of the strengths and weaknesses between different ship types. There will be some adjustments to the combat values, and hopefully these will help moderate some of the extreme results we see in SC1. Also, with the ability to customize unit builds and tech upgrades, players can shape their navies as desired; eg, cruisers could become pocket battleships with gun laying radar or sub hunters with ASW, or both.

Subs will have a new capability to run silent. Players can choose to perform surface raiding in the convoy lanes and risk detection, or be passive and remain unspotted. Except for surprise encounters of course!

Another change is an optional production delay, which means BBs and carriers will take quite a while (12-18 months) to build. This may affect some game situations, depending on who likes to plan ahead and who doesn't.

Without getting more complicated, these little changes alone all add up to what should be a very different naval war in SC2. Subs should be a bit more effective, carriers less so, and the bigger map will provide for much more interesting battles in the North Atlantic. Should be fun! :cool:

[Seawolf]

Thanks PZGNDR

Sounds like there will be some great changes, and you're doing a good job of listening to the Forum. The bigger map is going to make the game much more realistic.

I wish you would consider the amount of shipping a country could use during a turn. The largest amount of shipping ever used in history allowed only six divisions to be landed in one day (D-Day, the five beaches and the 29th Div on bloody Omaha) that's only two corps. To allow unlimited amounts of transports takes away from the way countries could perform.

Again, great job, can't wait for the new battles!

Please move this question to the SC2 area.

[pzgndr]

I wish you would consider the amount of shipping a country could use during a turn.

Already done! The new force pool limits option should apply to transports and amphibious transports as well. So new transports could not be created until the current ones are unloaded. This assumes instant redeployment, but so be it. At least now there's a way to reflect realistic transport capacity.

If Italy is limited to about 2 amphib transports it might make the typical invasion of Greece less likely in games. Limiting Germany to about 4 could make Sealion very risky. And Axis invasions of North America would become darn near impossible. USA and Britain would have higher limits of course.

[Seawolf]

THAT'S AWESOME

[JerseyJohn]

Agreed.

[hellraiser]

i guess limiting transport capacity, though it may be realistic from the ww2 perspective, it is not so good for a game. In SC we start from several facts existing at a certain moment (say 1939) but we don't play it exactly at it was 'played' in those years. We apply different strategies and tactics.

So, if Germany wants to build 100 transports and attack UK, why not?

A good solution to respect the economic part of the game is applying delays and/or high costs for building assets that a specific country did not build or build very few. Think that building stuff that you normally don't build will first need to shift some industrial capacities towards the new stuff (time and costs) or build new industrial capacities focused on the new stuff u want to build (time and costs).

[pzgndr]

A good solution to respect the economic part of the game is applying delays and/or high costs for building assets that a specific country did not build or build very few.

cosmin, welcome. Yes, this is what the "soft" force pool limits option will allow players to do in SC2 - build more units at an increased cost, say 10-20% more. A "hard" limit option would prevent going beyond the established limits, which may be edited of course. Or play with no limits at all, like we have now. There's a lot of flexibility with this, to accomodate the many different opinions of players.

[hellraiser]

thanks for the reply.

i guess it is a tough job creating such a game with all those demanding fans around