Avoiding RTW's greatest failing

[GeneralVikus]

I believe that there is a general consensus in the RTW community that the series' greatest failing is the player's lack of control over the use and roles of his ships. Every turn, the battle generator presents the player with a random type of battle, with a maximum of one battle per sea zone per turn. The player is told how many ships he will be given of each type, but not which ships or ship classes; each battle therefore begins with a game of chance, as the player never knows how capable his forces will be when choosing to accept or decline an engagement. The order of battle is auto - generated for each battle, and there are no permanent units; the only decision the player gets to make about which ships will show up in which battles is where to place these ships on the strategic map. 

The most obvious pitfall of this state of affairs is that, while the game offers infinite potential in the designing of ships and the construction of one's fleet, there is very little strategic depth within the wars themselves; the player's role in war is almost purely tactical, and thus a lot of potential for compelling game play is lost. :

There are numerous other related problems. Perhaps the biggest complaint of the community regarding this issue is its perverse influence on the side of the game that is most fleshed out: ship design. As the player has no control over how his ships will be used other than their type and their position on the map, there is a strong incentive to make very general - purpose designs capable of handling whatever the battle generator is liable to throw at them. More specialised designs such as dedicated torpedo boats, torpedo boat destroyers, and anti - aircraft ships are far less viable than they would otherwise be. Moreover, the implementation is shoddy: the auto - generated order of battle will often mix up ships of different speeds, when it would have been possible to group them together; older 'battlecruisers' will be assigned to the scouting force while newer 'battleships' of equal or greater speed are left behind, and so on. These problems may indeed be difficult to automate satisfactorily, but they would be avoided entirely if control was given to the player. This would certainly not be difficult to do, since RTW has already done it - players can fully customise their order of battle, but only within fleet exercises and not actual war. 

The main argument I have heard in favour of this way of doing things is challenge: it is said that historically warships were often used for purposes other than those for which they were intended. The individuals who designed the ships and built the fleets were not the same people who dictated wartime strategy and doctrine. There is some truth to this, but I think it is a weak argument. First of all, the very same argument could be made to justify removing tactical control from the player. Second, I would argue that the primary reason for the divergence between theory and practice in the real world was not misunderstanding between the designers and the commanders, but the general and pervasive disorder of wartime conditions, which always dictates some level of improvisation and adaptation. The player may find that he does not have enough ships in a given region for each to exclusively perform its intended role; ships may be present but in the yard for maintenance or repairs, or there may be multiple pressing tasks which must be performed simultaneously, forcing the player to either stretch his forces thinly or accept a strategic loss through inaction. In my view, the way to represent these historical realities in game is to represent them, not to rob the player of strategic choices in order to create artificial challenges. To me, the design decision to inform the player of the type - but not the class - of the ships available for any given battle is the most egregious example of a purely artificial barrier, as there is no conceivable situation in which a real commander would have to roll the strategic dice in this manner. 

I believe that the ideal solution would be to give the player full discretion over the organisation of forces both at the tactical and the strategic level, and to give the player greater operational control than the arbitrary random battle generator of RTW, planning and executing operations while the enemy does the same. However, this is the most taxing solution, both for the player and the developers. 

One compromise which has been floated on the RTW forums is a task force 'editor'; the battle generator is retained, but instead of being free to organise and dispose of his forces as he sees fit, the player is presented with a list of ships available for a given battle, and is then free to organise them. This preserves the dubious advantage of arbitrarily and semi - randomly forcing difficult situations on the player. 

Various other alternatives might be considered, and of course all of this depends on decisions which have presumably already been made but not yet disclosed regarding the design of the campaign. I hope the community may use this thread to debate the merits of the potential solutions, and to encourage this game's wonderfully responsive team to avoid the fatal flaw of their competition. 

[RAMJB]

Not gonna lie that I'm in the same group of people who think RTW's worst aspect is just that.

But the argument used I don't agree with. RTW should allow the player to define task forces because it's how ships operated (and still do). You'd not bag them all in a collective group which only common denominator would be which area they were placed at. You'd assign them to permanent squadrons, divisions, flotillas (Depending on the kind of ships) which them would be formed into persistent, even if temporary, task forces. And then those task forces would act as a tactical unit in the strategic map.

This is how it was done and for very good reasons, both logistical and tactical. The same way in a strategy game about land forces you wouldn't have your forces organized in "infantry, cavalry, armor, artillery" in a given geographical zones. You'd have regiments, forming up either brigades or divisions, forming up army groups, forming armies. 


That is enough reason to push that kind of feature in a strategy game. No need to pledge for the usefulness of specialized ships. Because those, simply said, always were less valuable than designs which were balanced for several scenarios, instead of a single, specialized, one.


I get that there's a certain allure to design your ship to a particular scenario, making it deadly for it. There also was, historically. That doesn't mean reality sugar coated things and threw those ships in the ideal scenarios. For instance: Atlanta was sunk in a massive fleet encounter where two battleships were involved. Did the ship designers ever accounted for that?. No. Would've it been better to have a ship less focused for one particular role, and more flexible in it's design's intended roles in that battle?. Yes.

And like that, many others. From the "British BC", intended to hunt cruisers and sweep away enemy light forces, that ended being the focal point of battleline actions which they were woefully protected to fight, to the japanese torpedo hotels (Kitakami and Oi) that even the japanese recognized they were such a bad idea that they ended up converted into fast transports or into, of all thing, suicide midget sub tenders because even with that many torpedoes on board (and, in fact, partly because of that) those ships were aknowledged to be absolute stinkers for actual naval combat. The initial batch of condottieris, laser-beam-focused on top speeds avobe anything, devastating vulnerable and useless for anything but running (And sometimes, at running too). And a long etcetera.

Simply stated: well balanced, flexible, adaptable designs were loved and gave sterling service. Highly specialized ships in general performed poorly. Because at the end of the day a warship can't choose what battle it's going to fight - if battle presents itself, it HAS to take part of it, or it'll be a waste of money and resources.


Thus that the game throws your highly specialized ships into situations they were never intended for I don't see as a flaw. It was the risk you were running by designing and building ship classes that focused on single roles, leaving the rest pretty much as an afterthought. Said that I repeat again that RTW's system of battle generation is indeed the weakest part of that game and it's biggest flaw. But alluding to specialized ships suffering because of it is not a good argument - highly specialized ships will suffer in any game that portrays naval combat of the era for what it was, for the same reason they did in reality :).
 

Edited January 12, 2020 by RAMJB

[GeneralVikus]

I am not arguing that highly specialised ships were as desirable as general purpose ships, or that the game should represent it that way for the sake of gameplay balance or any other reason. I am arguing that the relative problems and advantages of specialised ships should be represented by forcing the player for face the same strategic problems that prevailed in history; that is, by giving the player operational control and forcing him to consider operational problems. If a player has chosen to build a number of CLAAs, for example, then the problem should arise when operational circumstances - in RTW's case, the random battle generator - compel him to fight a surface action, and his fleet is less well suited to that action than it would otherwise be. Instead, RTW creates a completely arbitrary impediment to specialised designs by refusing to inform the player of the ships available for an engagement. 

[akd]

As long as OOBs aren’t tailored by the player on a per engagement basis (especially if these are going to tell you ahead of time exactly what you are facing, but hopefully that will not be the case), heading in this direction would be great.   Give the player control of operational organization and doctrine, and let both influence, but not make overly predictable, tactical engagements.

[DougToss]

RTW 2 with Steam and Iron's campaign layer would be just about perfect. 

[RAMJB]

1 hour ago, GeneralVikus said:

in RTW's case, the random battle generator - compel him to fight a surface action, and his fleet is less well suited to that action than it would otherwise be. Instead, RTW creates a completely arbitrary impediment to specialised designs by refusing to inform the player of the ships available for an engagement. 

And that's exactly the kind of thing that can't be leveraged against RTW's system. Out of the legion of things that can be said about how limited and infuriating it's battle generation system is, that specialized ships are forced to fight engagements they never were intended to in their design process isn't one.

Let's put this in perspective. Atlanta was lost in the night engagement of Guadalcanal. Several of her sisters and half sisters were heavily involved in surface engagements during WW2, something the design wasn't really suited for nor intended for. They **STILL** were fielded on those fights and battles by the relevant commanders, not left at port "because they were AA cruisers". A ship you have is a ship you use, because it's one more hull and some more weapons you're putting on the battlefield, which even if subpar, are better than not having them. And accordingly those ships, even if really never intended for heavy surface action, *were* used in heavy surface actions. Because it was better to have them on a battle than not having them.

Henceforth, that a player is given the choice to NOT use a ship he, rationally, would've used if a real war even if subpar for the purpose, is something I don't want any game to do. I'm all for creating divisions, flotillas and squadrons, and task forces. Whatever the strategic unit is around which battles are generated/called/offered/whateverthecaseis ,should be that, an UNIT. And if that ship is part of that unit, that ship gets dragged into battle with the rest of that unit. Exactly the same way it happened in real fights.

You don't pick a couple ships off that unit and plug them out of battle "because hey, that CLAA? I never intended to fight other ships". If they are present, they get engaged in the battle. As it'd been the case with any such ship in the era the game covers (and there are a good number of instances of just that).


I'll have to insist that the compromise entailed by highly role-specific ships entail seeing them engaged in actions they were never designed for. A game that artificially, and unrealistically, gives you the chance to NOT get those ships engaged in an action they weren't designed for, is a game that's doing something wrong.


As for the information presented to the player before battle, having no idea what you're about to find was perfectly fine. The completely random way ships you were given control of, was not. You'd find yourself in situations where the AI had control of a couple battlegroups while you were sailing around in a CL. What the... if I'm the commander and admiral of the action, I'm not going to be stuck in a small cruiser when there are battlesquadrons involved. I'd be in one of the big boys. Things like that really soured RTW at times, and things like that is what I expect this game to NOT have.

But ships that aren't suited for surface action because they're specialized for something else?... you put them in your one of your active task forces, then you should see them pulled into fights alongside the rest of the ships that form that task force. Simple as that.

Edited January 12, 2020 by RAMJB

[Tousansons]

I don't see RTW way of advising the player to design and build multi-purpose and efficient designs as a failure, at least certainly not it's greatest. I'm much more annoyed by the constant raider battles taking the place of more important stuff. Worst, the arbitrary "One of your X as been torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine" that keeps happening even after going overboard with ASW patrols.

At least in RTW if one of your specialized/subpar/obsolete ship is pitted against something she can't face you have the chance to just make an heroic U turn and leave the combat as fast as you can. Most of the time you doesn't lose war points if the battle ends up as a draw.

I'm with akd on this one. I'm fine with "randomly" scrambling ships from an area to form a fleet before an engagement, I just would also like to have some control over a basic organisation to influence the odds of having the group of ship Y sailing together when this happen.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Tousansons

[Reaper Jack]

Haven't played RTW but I think I understand the point people are making, if this is the case then making ships such as dedicated convoy raiders as Germany would not be viable for example as they would be constantly thrown up against random ships in a random order themselves? 

General purpose ships are great, but specific role ships also have a place, convoy raiders, destroyer leaders, escort ships etc. come to mind.  AA cruisers are a moot point as of right now as are ASW ships of course, as no carriers or subs. (Both of which I would like to see in game as designable units, if for no other reason than so everyone cannot build super destroyers or have ships with no AA because the weight of the additional equipment simply isn't present. Also  dual purpose guns are a thing that have genuine advantages and drawbacks compared to same size guns that are purely anti-ship weapons.) Subs I think would work fine in the battle mode we have now, and carriers would also work fine as aircraft did not truly become powerful until the 40's, which is at the very back end of the timeline. I think implementing both types as they are in Atlantic Fleet would work nicely, just in real time. So both as actual units you control, and for subs, ticking tonnage if enemy convoys are left unescorted. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Reaper Jack

[disc]

I don't think subs would quite work out in custom battles, for the same reasons the "fleet submarine" concept didn't work out in reality. Too slow. If they're underwater, hard to communicate with them, and they're even slower. The US fleet submarines ended up operating as cruisers -- which they were well suited to, but still it wasn't the original plan in the 1920s.

Aircraft carriers are a more interesting proposition. If we ever get aircraft in the game, how could we help but make dedicated aircraft carriers? Maybe a 1930 end date would help.

Otherwise, yeah, specialty ships are a must.

[Hardlec]

I am an ex-RTW player.

My analysis:  The RTW AI will deliberately put human built specialty ships where they are poorly suited.  If you have Modern Battleships and Older Battleships, the Older ships are chosen first.  The same is especially true of Battlecruisers.  There is no way to keep the AI from forcing you to block the enemy's fist with your face.

Ships should be put in human-designated squadrons, and given human designated missions.  True, once in a rare while you will have to make do with what you have, but in RTW the AI Always had all the advantages.  

My biggest problem with RTW was not how it selected ships for combat.  It was how the human player had no way to prevent war with opponents s/he could not defeat, nor choose opponents who had the resource or strategic things worth fighting for.  The other big failing is that there were no wars except those were you were the main/only target.

[Tousansons]

1 hour ago, Hardlec said:

True, once in a rare while you will have to make do with what you have, but in RTW the AI Always had all the advantages.  

That is simply not true.

In Rule the waves the player can easily turn the tide of a war in a single fleet battle, even after loosing several "unfair" small engagement where he decided to fight when the option to flee was easily  available. The combination of often vastly superior player ship design and his better control over his fleet (in battle AND in the world map) are beyond the ability of RTW AI. RTW can be frustrating at times (mostly with its random event, in my opinion), but his way of giving some advantages to the AI is rather elegant and add an interesting challenge for the player.

1 hour ago, Hardlec said:

It was how the human player had no way to prevent war with opponents s/he could not defeat, nor choose opponents who had the resource or strategic things worth fighting for.

While there is no incentive to stay at peace in RTW there is definitely several ways to gently push the odds to go to war against something you can and want to beat. Spying is one option and the game love to throw you events where ou can brag against a chosen nation. Likewise, you can slow down the process and try to avoid a conflict against someone you don't want for quite some time if you don't mind losing some prestige points. 

[Cptbarney]

On 1/12/2020 at 9:58 PM, Tousansons said:

I don't see RTW way of advising the player to design and build multi-purpose and efficient designs as a failure, at least certainly not it's greatest. I'm much more annoyed by the constant raider battles taking the place of more important stuff. Worst, the arbitrary "One of your X as been torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine" that keeps happening even after going overboard with ASW patrols.

At least in RTW if one of your specialized/subpar/obsolete ship is pitted against something she can't face you have the chance to just make an heroic U turn and leave the combat as fast as you can. Most of the time you doesn't lose war points if the battle ends up as a draw.

I'm with akd on this one. I'm fine with "randomly" scrambling ships from an area to form a fleet before an engagement, I just would also like to have some control over a basic organisation to influence the odds of having the group of ship Y sailing together when this happen.

I Think in this game with raider missions they should be done automatically, unless you really want to control them and you can also watch the aftermath which may help provide details of what little buggers are running around spanking smoll transports.

For those other missions where it generates a random battle with random ships, maybe it can provide like a blerb or reason why such a battle has just occcured? For exmaple 'An enemy fleet consisting of 7-9 ships with a possible (insert captial ship type or class or famous ship here) has been spotted along (insert location) and is now making its way on a possible heading of (insert directions and numbers) towards the capital of (insert here lol) and will reach their destination by 1hr and 2 mins, due to heavy weather and lack of early warning spotting systems this flotilia was able to bypass some coastal defenses and remain undetected when they were spotted by (insert ship here) during a routine patrol and has made it back or signalled by radio/telegram/wifi(lol) the relevant info.'

Maybe something like the above but less heavy (or more for those who want greater immersion) also for ships that end up killing alot and doing lots of tasks and winning a lot could have warnings to emphesis said ship is coming or maybe be apart of the group (so misidentifcation).

So, the above relates to when you get caught out by surprise and need to scramble a fleet together asap, while other battles will be controlled by the type of ships and number of ships you put together and the formations you select before engaging (so the ability to create mini-groups and each of those having their own formation).

Sorry for the wall of text.

r.i.p windows 7 2000-2020.

[AML]

Honestly I'm probably only remembering the worst occurrences but as long as I can have my units be relatively homogenous in their capabilities I will be satisfied. Whenever I play RTW I feel like my squadrons are always the greatest possible mishmash of classes despite there being enough ships of all the classes involved to form more cohesive units.

Being able to play around with some more specialized designs like flotilla leaders and not be totally wasting my time would also be nice. Not gonna complain about ships being caught in situations they weren't meant for, that's just reality, but when a light cruiser is never gonna actually lead a destroyer flotilla why bother pretending otherwise.

[GeneralVikus]

On 1/13/2020 at 4:45 AM, RAMJB said:

But ships that aren't suited for surface action because they're specialized for something else?... you put them in your one of your active task forces, then you should see them pulled into fights alongside the rest of the ships that form that task force. Simple as that.

I agree. My argument is that, in the ideal game, a player would be compelled and not arbitrarily forced to use his ships for a variety of purposes, for the same reason as navies were compelled historically to do so: a finite amount of resources and a variety of objectives that need to be simultaneously accomplished. If, for example, I am bound to escort a certain number of convoys - more realistically in game terms, if I am bound to provide a certain level of 'convoy coverage' spread out across multiple strategic areas - and I am given the choice of whether to send out a CLAA in that role, knowing that it may be left alone escorting that convoy against enemy surface vessels, or to leave it in port, then unless I enjoy overwhelming superiority over my enemy, I am likely to decide that the risk is necessary, and potentially suffer the consequences. In turn, this may compel me to build less specialised ships. Such was the case for most of the Second World War.

Conversely, if I do enjoy such overwhelming superiority that I feel I can afford to not assign a ship to a role such as convoy escort, I should not be forced to put it at risk: I should be able to leave it assigned exclusively to the 'fleet escort' role, and have it remain in port unless an circumstances allow it to be used in that designated role. This would of course require a level of strategic depth closer to what I understand existed in SAI than what is available RTW.

Alternatively, I would say that a 'random battle generator' is sufficient: the player can be given a randomly selected group of ships at the start of the scenario to perform a randomly generated mission, as in RTW, so long as he is then given the option to organise the available ships and assign roles to them (such as joining the scouting or the main force, screening, scouting, or core for other divisions, etc.) as he sees fit, just as he can in RTW2 fleet exercises. 

[Hardlec]

On 1/13/2020 at 2:33 PM, Tousansons said:

That is simply not true.

In Rule the waves the player can easily turn the tide of a war in a single fleet battle, even after loosing several "unfair" small engagement where he decided to fight when the option to flee was easily  available. The combination of often vastly superior player ship design and his better control over his fleet (in battle AND in the world map) are beyond the ability of RTW AI. RTW can be frustrating at times (mostly with its random event, in my opinion), but his way of giving some advantages to the AI is rather elegant and add an interesting challenge for the player.

While there is no incentive to stay at peace in RTW there is definitely several ways to gently push the odds to go to war against something you can and want to beat. Spying is one option and the game love to throw you events where ou can brag against a chosen nation. Likewise, you can slow down the process and try to avoid a conflict against someone you don't want for quite some time if you don't mind losing some prestige points. 

Yes, the sycophants on the RTW board got tired when I would show them issues, and they would ignore them.  

I had a contingent of older BCs that I wanted deployed only for commerce raiding.  These ships were always in the vanguard,  where they mysteriously had orders to engage the AI's best BBs (which, oddly enough, were always present) Even if I was able to change the orders right away,  my older BCs seemed destined to be demolished.

I stopped building specialty ships because they were ALWAYS mis-deployed.

I liked to play either Japan or Russia.  Rarely did these natural enemies fight.  Instead I got wars with Germany, The United States, or Great Britain. As a Russian, I set my "spying" on japan to an invasive level only matched by modern paperazzi.   The only diplomatic trick I didn't use was to attack the enemy base.  Of course in RTW you can't attack enemy bases or ground installations.  The enemy could attack yours, however.

In RTW the AI was omniscient, always got the lucky break, never ran out of ammunition, and could sink my ships while they were still on the ways being fitted out.  I will have no interest in a game where the AI gets unbalanced and unjustified advantages to compensate for the player's knowledge of history.

 

SO: 

The player gets several options as to how a ship is used, like:  Rank in order:  AA, ASW, Convoy Protection, Surface Bombardment, Protect units landing in amphibious combat, etc.

Allow the power to choose a level of diplomatic tension for each country, from Suck Up to the Max to "I fart in your general direction."

Basically, allow the player the ability to set the tone and the scale of the game.  After all, the purpose of any game is to be fun for players.

[RAMJB]

20 hours ago, Hardlec said:

The player gets several options as to how a ship is used, like:  Rank in order:  AA, ASW, Convoy Protection, Surface Bombardment, Protect units landing in amphibious combat, etc.

The player should be given those choices.

The game however should be able to pretty much ruin your choices by forcing those ships to fight out of their element. Not all the time and not in the "in your face" way RTW did, but that you build an AAA ship specialist doesn't mean it won't be deployed in your line of cruisers during a surface engagement. That you design a class for commerce raiding doesn't mean it won't end up in the middle of a full fledged surface battle. There's just too large a sample of historical precedents of ships being put in spots they were never supposed to be in, to just ignore it and give the player total immunity against the uncertainties of war in what regards to specialized ships.

other than that I'm largely in agreement with your general feelings.

Edited January 20, 2020 by RAMJB

[Tousansons]

23 hours ago, Hardlec said:

After all, the purpose of any game is to be fun for players.

True. But don't forget that what is fun for you..

I get it, you don't like the way the AI is handled in RTW. You also don't like the way the game tell you that specialized ships will most likely not be deployed where you want and you probably don't like some other things seeing how virulent you are against it. But hey, I'm not bothered by that and I find it quite fun to "master" one or two aspect of the meta-game of RTW. This doesn't mean there is no problems with it, just that you (and probably more like you) did not find that fun while the others (like me) though the opposite.

I will not try to argue against your fun (because I understand you want a fair opposition and while it did not bother me there is not really one in RTW) But I think talking about AI is still really interesting:

Let's be honest, AI in RTS's are hard to develop. You can't emulate an human mind without a lots of time and efforts. If games like Starcraft or Age of Empire can't make an AI who doesn't cheat, can't defend itself in lower difficulty or feel unaturally stronger than it's human opponent in the higher ones, I doubt games with the scope or RTW or now UA:D will fare better. There will be some compromise, and way to make it stronger or last longer. For exemple I quite liked how UG: Civil War handled its campaign. While the AI is clearly advantaged with numbers through it (It never really runs out of manpower even after several crushing blows), it never felt "that" cheap and was engaging until the last phase of Richmond (For some reason there was basically no defenders here)

Finally like I said earlier, I agree with having some kind of control over our fleet deployement or why not diplomacy in UA:D. But now let's see how the campaign work first.