Things the campaign should have

[Cifu]

17 hours ago, Karlchen said:

 

I mean it shouldbe impossible to change aour main guns on an old dreadnought BB.

Why would that impossible?

 

[Arzu]

- Shipyard building. Not ships, the Shipyards themselves. If the campaign aims to run the admiralty and not the country (which I agree with) at least the ability to request the Government to build more of them.

- Real world and chronologically accurate company names to act as build 'queues', and then show in the ship stats. Even different quality depending on the builder. Vickers guns for my Dreadnoughts . I think HOI III did this IIRC.

- License production/buy ships from another country -  as it happened in real life.

- Stockage in shipyards and docks. Ammo, fuel, raw materials, spare parts, sailors...

- Coastal defenses? Think of the Blücher sunk in the Oslofjord. Or the decommissioned Spanish Jaime I guns that were installed as coastal defenses.

- Linked to the two previous ones, the ability to build components for ships detached from the ship. I.E: I design a 20000 ton BB with x6 14inch guns and then order the build of the 20000 ton hull, x8 14inch guns, and then install the x6 guns and leave x2 in stockage or as spares for repairs. That would be amazing, and would make for a deep simulation of a country's naval forces with its logistics.

- As it has been mentioned before, no hard limit on time.

- Some kind of mechanism other than random events to influenciate the country naval policy as head of the admiralty. Yearly meetings between the admiralty (player) and the Defence Minister/Cabinet head for instance?

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Arzu

[Skeksis]

Custom Campaigns.

Where you can lockdown the year e.g. set the year/timeframe at/between 1914/1919, and play the whole campaign entirely as WW1.

Hopefully the tech tree system is compatible with playing the campaign in custom time frames, such as setting starting tech and maximum tech. 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Skeksis

[fsp]

That last idea sounds really cool, not sure if that's possible though.

What I have always wondered, with for instance the reworks the Kongo class got - was that really more cost efficient than building new ships?

[disc]

 

8 hours ago, fsp said:

What I have always wondered, with for instance the reworks the Kongo class got - was that really more cost efficient than building new ships?

It is hard to say for sure. Rebuilding Hiei and the twelve original Japanese heavy cruisers, Furutaka through Takao, cost 184,825,248 yen. For the same price, the IJN could buy five new Tone heavy cruisers (31,265,000 each) and an Agano light cruiser (26,400,000), with a little extra to spare.

By the time funds were appropriated, the London Treaty had been abrogated, so in theory the money could be used for just about anything. I am not sure why reconstruction was so aggressively pursued, rather than construction of new ships. I think there may have been a few reasons.

1. The rebuilds were faster than building new ships: for the heavy cruisers, a year or two versus three or four years to build from scratch.
2. If the old ships were not replaced and discarded, this would mean more crew, more facilities, and increased total maintenance costs.
3. In terms of quality, it was wise to either rebuild or completely replace, but not to supplement without rebuilds. The twelve heavy cruisers originally all had important defects (especially overweight) which it was prudent to fix.
4. It may have been politically advantageous not to make new ships, perhaps to avoid provocation at home or abroad.
5. Hiei's rebuild provided a prototype for Yamato's bridge.

Edited February 11, 2020 by disc

[The Fundamentalist]

The most important aspect of the campaign should be logistics. The purpose of the navy has always been to interdict and disrupt enemy trade while protecting their own and the capability therein has been extremely dependant on logistical facilities to project that power. I've noticed that most games of scale (civilization, Empire total war) completely ignore this aspect, which basically kills immersion. For UA:D, this would be dependant on fueling stations, deep water ports and dry docks. 

Perhaps the best way to implement this would be to assign a fleet to a naval command based at harbors of significance and then order regional deployment from there. The player should have some limited ability to consolidate or divide commands between geographic regions, or unlimited with a minimum logistical requirement for each fleet for balance. Maybe a mix between already improved harbors and unimproved harbors (coaling stations in the Far East) with logistical constraints based on how far the stations are from available coal mines/oil refineries. This way, the E:TW/N:TW practice of building massive facilities across the world without any real penalty is avoided while still allowing for a dynamic long game.  

The deployment could consist of passive/defensive (capital ships in the harbor, local patrols), active/offensive (the fleet sails on an enemy area, from here- amphibious landings and such) and some combination of the two to assign fleets to the security of commercial vessels, raid enemy commercial routes, or put into port for shore leave. The likelihood of an engagement would be left to probability depending on the fleet's stance and that of the enemy with opportunities to engage in battle at different times based on fleet movement or "contact", while also affecting deployment. While at sea, maintenance and upkeep costs would be far more substantial than in port, but readiness and effectiveness would suffer. Inability to restrict enemy interdiction of friendly supply lines should limit naval range and finances/facilities should suffer. While the infrastructure of the nation is clearly not the emphasis on the game, it should be a topic that directly and indirectly influences the shape and focus of the navy. 

I think some form of this would allow for a game that mirrors history much closer than the total war series, for instance, allows while not overburdening the player with ridiculous amounts of complexity like in Victoria II. 

Otherwise, I'd like to see a heavy emphasis on the administration side of the campaign. Training levels, doctrine, fleet construction, ratios between reserves and active duty vessels, ect. Not overly complex, obviously, but it should matter how you run your admiralty more than not. Games where you go through a cycle of getting money, building infrastructure and then building super-fleets tend to be boring and plateau rather quickly into the campaign. 

[fsp]

I'd like that.

At the same time I am also pretty sure that such logistics originally played no part in the designers' vision of the game.

Maybe some of those ideas will now get implemented. Hopefully.

 

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, fsp said:

At the same time I am also pretty sure that such logistics originally played no part in the designers' vision of the game

Amateurs discuss tactics...Professionals discuss logistics.

[SmoCro]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Amateurs discuss tactics...Professionals discuss logistics.

No, dilettants who have no ideas about strategy or tactics focus on logistics... but only if they are American because everybody else simply does not have the ridiculous and obscene amounts of material to drown their enemies with.

[Skeksis]

32 minutes ago, SmoCro said:

dilettants...no ideas about strategy or tactics focus on logistics

Sounds exactly like the job of those "dilettants" Admirals and Generals, 'planning' for war and battle.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Skeksis

[Angus MacDuff]

33 minutes ago, SmoCro said:

No, dilettants who have no ideas about strategy or tactics focus on logistics... but only if they are American because everybody else simply does not have the ridiculous and obscene amounts of material to drown their enemies with.

The line between order and disorder lies in logistics - Sun Tsu

Logistics is the ball and chain of armoured warfare - Heinz Guderian

An army marches on it's stomach - Napoleon

Edited February 11, 2020 by Angus MacDuff

[SmoCro]

Maybe load up your logistic train and march forward... see how far you get.

[Accipiter]

jump into your tank with no fuel and ammo, see how far it gets

[Purgato]

Something I would love to see is being able to sell ships to other nations, major or minor, with the latter having some kind of relationship bonus.
It would be a good way to get rid over older ships without scrapping them outright and maybe build up alliances with smaller nations.

That and maybe having a way to manually place down and build coastal batteries within your nation. Since RtW's flaw with that is you have no clue where it will actually build in a region.
Having some control over the battery's placement could allow you you properly defend straits and other key points.

[Accipiter]

more seriously, i get the feeling too that fleet monetary managment, training managment, logistics, ect... where not really the main things the devs had in mind for this game.

now that i think about it, is it weird that i just realized i REALLY whould love a Tycoon purely economic managment game but where you are trying to build a Navy to be as effective as possible as the admiral, having to take everything into account and deal with the politicans meddling in your projects/budget, ect... even if all the battles where auto-resolve or there wasn't even a war at all, and it was just trying to make your navy strong and scary, i'd be OK with it for such a game 😛

as for UA:D however, i hope at the very least we get someting like HOI Naval works: where you can put any of your ships, in any combination, in a fleet, and then assign this fleet to a particular mission set (transport escort, souting/patrol, coastal bombardment, Search&Destroy for ennemies, hit&run enemy transports, ect ect...) and stances as to when starting an engagement or when to run (balanced, safe, agressive)...
 

that sort of thing whould be a bare minimum but whould do the job. but PLEASE, please, no "Just throw your ships in that zone and the AI will randomly generate engagement and you can't control or command or customize anything about it"...

^+1 on selling/buying/licence building ships with other nations, and sharing/exchanging techs too.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Accipiter

[Skeksis]

Worst campaign style is a campaign full of ‘beat the scenarios’ but in saying that, it does describe the ‘Ultimate’ series to a T!  

OW freedom the best 👍

[fsp]

You used to be able to play the campaign in early Alphas, I have read (by left-clicking and shift or alt I think).

Anybody here who saw what the campaign looked like at this early stage and has some impressions he can share?

[The Fundamentalist]

2 hours ago, SmoCro said:

Maybe load up your logistic train and march forward... see how far you get.

Hilarious, considering the role logistical limitations played on the British and Germans during the world wars. 

1 hour ago, Accipiter said:

more seriously, i get the feeling too that fleet monetary managment, training managment, logistics, ect... where not really the main things the devs had in mind for this game.

^+1 on selling/buying/licence building ships with other nations, and sharing/exchanging techs too.

I guess I have to find humor in the idea that naval administration and management would be outside the scope of the game, but you can build and sell warships on an international market to bolster alliances and exchange naval technologies. 

The reason I would say there needs to be a bit of randomization is based on the sheer scope of the open ocean and the limited line of sight available for reconnaissance. Very, very rarely did any one commander know the exact location and composition of an enemy fleet at any given time and have continually updated information throughout the move on that un-changed position. 

This really isn't something to be scared of. Ships do not behave the same way standing armies do, and the game should reflect that. Obviously there should be room for individual initiative and specific orders, but we must get away from the stationary, army-like focus of games such as the total war series or civilization. 

[Arzu]

What would be the purpose of a campaign if not to add logistic complexity to the already existing combat simulation? I really cannot think of it in any other way.

There were several things that made me chip in the Limited Edition Alpha, and I did read them on the "Playing Modes" page on UA:D website:

 

Quote

 

In the campaign you participate in an ongoing naval arms race and try to overwhelm your opponents by maintaining economic and technological superiority. You fully manage the fleets and naval construction programmes of the following nations that are available with their historical borders

Quote

the control of the seas may cripple your opponent via naval blockades, secure your army’s supply lines and open up opportunities for naval invasions

Quote

you do not have direct control of the national government, but you can influence the course of actions, either by sharing your opinion in random political events or by strengthening the naval power and prestige of your nation

Quote

some countries will begin with much stronger naval facilities and greater economic power than others

Quote

Being the chief admiral of your nation gives you complete power over naval construction programs and policies. It will be your responsibility to manage the naval budget and allocate it wisely between technological research, crew training, shipyard development and ship building

 

What I understand from these quotes, is that I am going to roleplay as the Navy Admiral for a nation, with every possible implication. Even if logistics cannot be quoted from the text, my hope, and I think also the hope of some others for what is written in some of the posts before this one, is that logistics will not be fully abstracted as they are in other games. And I take for granted that they will not be completely ignored just based on the campaign planned features. In my opinion (and it is only my opinion) these features require logistics.

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Arzu

[The Fundamentalist]

My thoughts exactly 

[Hawem]

i hope the campaign have a sandbox feeling