Spotting range to subs...

[Guanoman]

Hubert,

Ever thought about reducing the spotting range TO subs by one? So, for example, bombers could spot a sub at 5 instead of 6, carriers at 2 instead of 3, etc.

[Hubert Cater]

All spoting ranges against subs are decreased by 1 (this is one of the special rules already in place for subs). So it is already implemented as you said for Bombers, Air Fleets and Carriers as well as for other naval vessels

[Guanoman]

Hubert,

I checked it out, and it seems that the spotting ranges for ships is reduced by one, but for air units it is still the same (ie, the air fleets spot subs at five hexes and bombers at six.

Just FYI.

[Hubert Cater]

OK thanks, that could have been an oversight, I'll double check that!

Hubert

[pzgndr]

Hubert, could you consider spotting probabilities rather than ranges? Subs should be VERY difficult to spot until advanced radar is developed, much less have fleets bear down on them and destroy them. If spotted, they should be VERY difficult to engage until advanced sonar is developed. This is becoming VERY irritating. U-boats should be strangling Britain in 1941, but are relatively worthless in SC.

[Hubert Cater]

Spotting rules will stay as they are. As for the subs, I have recieved posts on both ends of the spectrum, some that say they are not potent enought and some that mention very good use of them... so this tells me that the current implementation is probably about right for the current game design and most likely is not going to see any major changes. I would suggest reading some of the posts regarding successful sub strategies and maybe these will help. I don't have the links off hand but a quick search might help.

Good luck!

Hubert

[Purple4Ever]

The key to a successful submarine campaign is to have Fog Of War turned "on".

I had the same complaint re: submarines - they are spotted and destroyed too easily - but I had FOW "off".

I tried it with FOW "on" and voila!

The German subs in the North Atlantic and the Italian subs in the Med survive - just keep moving them around - do not let them sit in one place. . . .

[NightGaunt]

the difference is you are playing the computer.

I have played 10 games against human opponents so far. Subs have been crushed extremely quickly after any attempt to do mmp damage. It is just to easy to find them, and once found, they are toast.

sure the sub is going to do some damage, once i had a sube destroy an entire fleet (which is unbelievably lame, but i can live with that), but getting away and then getting back to do mmp damage is not effective. Hence I don't see anyone building subs in a 2 player game. Not worth the effort.

[ May 28, 2002, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: NightGaunt ]

[Tellu]

The Subs are dog food. Any Allies player with more sense than AI will crush them in no-time! And they cant get to atlantic from German harbours. No way.

[Marc Hameleers]

I'm not so sure...Subs did do some economic damage so dar in our last game..as for preventing them leaving french Harbors? How, stationig your fleet near the coast? right under the nose of my Airfleets..adn whenhunting the subs, you leave the norht sea open?...mmmhh. that invasion force for Sea lion might come in Handy yet

Marc

[Warren Peace]

Personally I don't think the subs are modeled correctly, but I also don't think it breaks the game. My suggestion would be to make subs tougher to spot and/or kill, but I would also drastically reduce thier effectiveness against surface fleets. In reality very few Naval vessels were killed by subs. They were far too fast and it was very difficult to get subs into position. Subs in the Atlantic were primarily used for killing merchant vessels, which in game terms should be MPP loss.

THerefore, Subs should be hard to spot, hard to kill (i.e. fewer losses per combat), but much less effective in attacking capital ships.

That being said, I really like the beta and will be happy to send you the $25 now just to help with the beta testing!

Warren

[ May 28, 2002, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: Warren Peace ]

[grimlord]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

Personally I don't think the subs are modeled correctly, but I also don't think it breaks the game. My suggestion would be to make subs tougher to spot and/or kill, but I would also drastically reduce thier effectiveness against surface fleets. In reality very few Naval vessals were killed by subs. They were far too fast and it was very difficult to get subs into position. Subs in the Atlantic were primarily used for killing merchant vessals, which in game terms should be MPP loss.

THerefore, Subs should be hard to spot, hard to kill (i.e. fewer losses per combat), but much less effective in attacking capital ships.

That being said, I really like the beta and will be happy to send you the $25 now just to help with the beta testing!

Warren

i agree with all that warren said...just let me know where to send the check

as to the subs i think warren is dead on to my knowledge the only major undamaged surface ship that was lost due to subs in the atlantic was the royal oak(?) in scapa flow and the arc royal (aircraft carrier). take the bismark....theKM sortied all of their subs in the atlantic to assist her in both her run out of the north sea and then her run to brest....end result english bagged one battleship, u-boats nothing, battleship one overage battlecrusier.

but subs did almost bring down the english in 1940-41 with their targeting merchant fleets...enough so that roosevelt sent the english 20 dd's to aid them and they prob saved the btits butts...

prob should make the u-boats more strategic and not so tactical

[Hubert Cater]

It's interesting to hear that subs are not effective enough and too easily beaten upon, yet they are also too devastating against capital ships in a single thread

This really is going to be one of those issues that nobody will be happy with, but like WP said, it's perhaps not modelled perfectly but I also don't think it breaks the game. If the map could be bigger it would make things better for sure, and the fact that subs may end up used more as tactical units shows the difficulty in modelling naval warfare at this scale, but it's not to say that they also could not be used this way. Some other games have avoided this entire issue by just using naval boxes and random calculations of who has taken hits and who has sunk etc., but I think that having the ability to move around your own naval units and attack and hide and so on more than outweighs the shortfalls.

The effect on MPP's is based upon the number of subs in the area of convoys and their overall strength, and it cannot exceed the value of the MPP's it is effecting. So if the UK is only getting ~30 MPP from Canada sub raiding cannot exceed that value otherwise it would truly be unfair. Is it tough to stay alive out there as a sub, for sure, but this is not all that far off from reality as German sub crews suffered the highest casualty rates of the war ~70-80% and could very well be the reason why they were forced to abandon the strategy for the most part after 42'. Note: Advanced subs may help in this regard

As for subs being devestating against captial ships, well they were, sometimes 1 torpedo was enough, but you are all right it was tough to get that shot in there so the trick is being in position to do it, so if you decide to use your capital ships in anti-sub duty in the mid atlantic, be prepared to pay the price. Now I know there are no destroyers etc. in the game, and before you all jump on me and say how else am I supposed to hunt subs down with no other naval unit types, there is nothing stopping anyone from grouping their naval units together or using air units from both England and Canada to help spot and attack subs (as was done historically) and make them easier targets to thus limit capital ship losses.

Now if somebody experiments with all of this, and says hey this is still not worth it for me, well I think that is a valid point as well. Subs are/were risky as part of the overall grand strategy and choosing to avoid them all together and focus on other parts of the war machine could very well be the strategy to pursue. After all the Germans went with the partial sub strategy and were almost completely effective with it, but ended up losing the war in the end. More investment towards sub warfare could have ended up winning the war for them, maybe with a severly weakened UK (that they would still most likely have to invade to finish off), but perhaps not, perhaps abandoning it all together and focusing on tanks could have won the war in Russia and then the entire war itself.

Now all of that being said, I have made adjustments to decrease the spotting of subs to properly include Air Units and tweaked the "Surprise Encounter" losses a tiny bit, but this is just on my end (seems to be OK) and hasn't been fully tested yet.

Hubert

[grimlord]

cool...ya the idea of sending a capital fleet out isnt that appealing...but a combined arms "convoy hunting" system sounds good....

the only real disagreement that i have is that trade went both ways and even in 1940-41 the americans supplied the british with most of their oil for the war as well as other industrial components....maybe the loss ceiling should be higher so that the overall loss of trade both in goods and merchant tonnage could be reflected...

this would force england and america to take the sub threat seriously as they did in the war....

as for tactical use..you are on track the subs could have targeted the surface ships (as did the japanese skippers) perhaps with mixed results but the area of conflict was smaller for the european theater than japan....

i guess it is just "what does the player want to do with his units" time...

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

In reality very few Naval vessels were killed by subs. They were far too fast and it was very difficult to get subs into position.

Warren

I beg to differ:

Courageous

Ark Royal

Royal Oak

Wasp

Taiho

Shinano

Were all capital ships that succumbed to subs. Okay, all but one of these were CVs (and the lone

BB was sunk at anchor), but the point is in WWII

subs DID sink quite a number of enemy naval ships.

John DiFool

[pzgndr]

OK, tweaking the spotting and surprise encounter is a start. I have managed to sneak subs through the English channel past three fleets so it's possible, not that it helped much. The real problem here is trying to fit a tactical naval system into a strategic game and it's like squeezing jello.

Moving on, how about the convoy routes? Can these be expanded somewhat to broaden the opportunity for subs and force the British fleet farther from base? Can the convoy hexes be identified somehow so we know where they all are? It would help to know where to patrol, for both subs and fleets.

[Desert Dave]

Also, thanx Hubert for ratcheting down the SURPRISE effect... I would like to continue my campaign to decrease surface-to-surface effects as well, for the following reasons:

1) This would allow more of a cat & mouse game. As it is now (especially with capital ships) there is one or two EXPLOSIVE encounters, then it's nearly all over. If we could repair more of these VERY expensive ships, then the naval game would be stretched out over the entire '40-'43 era. With all else that will be going on in other theaters, I just don't see very many gamers buying a lot of additional navy units (... unless determine for Sea Lion or another invasion elsewhere).

Now, this is likely fairly historical when it comes to surface ship battles, but for subs it would certainly be more FUN if LESS DAMAGE was done (not only in suprise) each encounter.

2) In the Med, it is very hard for the British to maintain the 3-ship fleet that begins at Alexandria (at least, to a detemined Italian foe who will place an air fleet in Libyia to counter the carrier). The AI seems extremely reluctant to reinforce, even when 1 or 2 ships are destroyed. Of course, the human admiral can bring the BB over from Gibralter, and other capital ships from Britain (disregarding the relatively small MPP losses from subs). Perhaps the AI could be tweaked to re-inforce at some certain loss level? I have had 4 games in a row as the Axis where I successfully invaded Iraq. This should be harder to do?

Could be there are a lot of opinions about the naval war because -- potentially -- it offers a lot of excitement. :eek:

[veki]

I understand that Mr. Cater and other creators must be very careful to keep the game balanced and playable and for that reason can not make some big changes. So I suggest for this subs problem just to increase chance of successfully diving from either naval or air attack for original subs (without research). Of course, you can still have advanced sub research which will further increase these chances. :cool:

[grimlord]

Originally posted by John DiFool:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Warren Peace:

In reality very few Naval vessels were killed by subs. They were far too fast and it was very difficult to get subs into position.

Warren

I beg to differ:

Courageous

Ark Royal

Royal Oak

Wasp

Taiho

Shinano

Were all capital ships that succumbed to subs. Okay, all but one of these were CVs (and the lone

BB was sunk at anchor), but the point is in WWII

subs DID sink quite a number of enemy naval ships.

John DiFool</font>

[Lars]

Perhaps if you greatly reduced/eliminated the "Surprise Encounter" damage to subs when they blunder into a battleship/cruiser unit. I don't know how many times I've lost a 3 strength sub when he wanders into something. I mean really. I would have had the lookouts, sonar operator and navigator shot before the destroyer could drop the first can. I know that subs can be surprised , but more often that not the decision to give battle was up to the sub commander. Especially at this scale. They should at least be able to limp home for repairs.

Maybe keep it for Carriers reflect air cover. Or better yet, give the sub a pop-up asking if he wishes to attack or, if he has enough movement points, attempt to move out of spotting range..

[KevGaming]

Spot on Lars.

The crew of a sub would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to get surprised by a cruiser or battleship based war fleet. For a start those ships would be making one heck of a noise even if going slow. Not to mention the fact that capital ships have a much greater silhouette than any sub.

I would like to see improvments to the way surprise encounters are handled for subs versus warships in the full game.

[Mark Dutton]

What bothers me the most about the sub issue is that we are forced to maneuver a single unit representing a wolfpack around the map. German U-boats always deployed singly or in small groups. Wolfpacks were assembled on an ad hoc basis by radio commands. The simple fact is that submarine warfare cannot be adequately modelled in this game if you are going to have individual units moving around the map. We are forcing a square peg (individual submarines) into a round hole (army/fleet scale). It makes more sense to have an off-map subsystem where the Germans devote MPPs to building, deploying and maintaining a U-boat force. The Allies can devote MPPs to building, deploying and maintaining ASW ships. By deploy I don't mean moving actual units, instead each side would designate what percentage of their fleet was deployed and paying an MPP cost based on the percentage. The higher the percentage deployed, the higher the potential casulaty rate (combat and operational losses). The amount of economic damage done to the Allies would be based on the relationship between the Axis/Allied investments and deployments. This gives each side a strategic choice without having to mess with individual unit icons. Since research is handled off-map, I don't see why submarine warfare can't be handled that way.

[erich]

Two words: bo ring

Not that your solution wouldn't be more realistic, but frankly one of the things i really like about this game is the naval warfare (though less damage is a good idea i think.) A third reich approach doesn't appeal to me at all, but I favour game play over realism.

ymmv

Eric

[ May 30, 2002, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: erich ]