Idea for a Campaign Feature: Intelligence

[SiWi]

Hi,

 

I think i have a pretty cool idea for a potential feature for the campaign of this game.

Right now we have to wait a certain time and then we get ALL the information.

Every gun, every armor thickness and every feature. While great for Testing in custom battles I think it would be kinda odd for the campaign.

Imagine that you encounter a brand new ship, during war time and after 2-3 minutes of intensive starring you have all the information. I think this would feel quite odd. In fact if we look at the Yamato, then we see that the Allies didn't know much about it even after they sunk it. 

 

Instead of that I would propose the following:

Besides all the things you can spend money on, you also get an intelligence budget. 

In this budget you would adjust your spending.

Lets say you have 100K Dollar as USA for Intelligence. How to spend it?

First Decision would be:

Offensive or Defensive?

Defensive would mean that you would it make it harder for other nations to find out your ships specifications and perhaps even the numbers of them.

Offensive would of course mean the opposite.

Now as USA you decide you feel quite secure, even if your enemies know your ships and decide that you spend 20k on the Defensive and 80k on the Offensive.  

Now with the Offensive part you would need to make more decisions. First on which would be: which country to spy the most.

If you have a real worry about the UK and Russia and less so about France and Germany (and the others) then you may spend most of it, on UK and Russia.

Lets say that you spend 20K, also alot of the 80k on spying on the UK.

Now there could be a further decision:

which class you spy on the most?

Do you Focus on the UK BB? Or and the DD's? Do you want to know more about its Technologies? Do you want to know more about they guns or the Torpedos? (In defense you perhaps could deiced to keep some ships really secret)

Is there a participial class you want to know more about?

Depending on what you deiced, you would gather information faster on that class then the others and raise the "familiarity level". Whats that? Glad you asked:

"Familiarity level" would describe the maximum of knowledge you get from spotting and identifying the ship during battle. On low level you could only get the most obvious information (how many guns are there?), while on higher levels you would get the detail information about armor thickness and equipment used.

For raising the familiarity level I would propose 3 basic systems:

Intelligence

Spotted/Identified in combat

"public knowledge".

 

Intelligence is basically what I described, aka you sending spies and gather information about the enemy ships.

Identified in combat basically means that if you keep Meeting a enemy in combat, you would learn more and more about what he can do. While it is quite abstract to learn the exact armor values of a enemy through fighting the same ship type over and over again, I think it is serviceable for a game. 

Last is "public knowledge": the older a ship is, the more it travels, the more it was perhaps on parades(as potential event, exchange secrecy for prestige for example), the more the public and with that, all countries know about that ship class.

This is kinda a equalizer and a fail-switch. If you remember the example of the USA, lets think it further:

lets assume that the expected war with Uk and/or Russia never came. lets instead assume that it is France, which you payed little concern and Japan, which you ignored that actually fight you.

Now you would have some knowledge about the France ships, since you did spend some of your money there. But on the Japanese you spend almost nothing and have little clue what they have. "Public knowledge" now would come to the rescue. While you have only a basic Understanding on the most recent french BB#s and barley heard anything on the new DD class in Japan besides that it exist, you do know the cruisers that the France let patrol through the ocean for the colonial possessions quite well and you know at least the old ships (10+ years) of the Japanese good enough to not to have to fight competently blind.

 

Now I recognize a couple of things:

First of all: before any fancy stuff, the basic campaign needs to work. Given the task and that first half of 2020 seems to be June 2020, I think it is fair to say that it ain't easy to make the basics work.

Hence something like this would take a backseat.

Also I admit that in a game where you can make dozen of different classes per year, a system like this could run into trouble, at least to the extend what spying a specific class concerns.

Yet I do think that something like this could be a interesting feature since it offers decisions and potential rewards and help the game feeling.

 

What do you think?

 

With friendly Greetings, 

SiWi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marshall99]

I like this idea a lot! I can imagine it in the game.

[Aceituna]

1 hour ago, SiWi said:

Hi,

 

I think i have a pretty cool idea for a potential feature for the campaign of this game.

Right now we have to wait a certain time and then we get ALL the information.

Every gun, every armor thickness and every feature. While great for Testing in custom battles I think it would be kinda odd for the campaign.

Imagine that you encounter a brand new ship, during war time and after 2-3 minutes of intensive starring you have all the information. I think this would feel quite odd. In fact if we look at the Yamato, then we see that the Allies didn't know much about it even after they sunk it. 

 

Instead of that I would propose the following:

Besides all the things you can spend money on, you also get an intelligence budget. 

In this budget you would adjust your spending.

Lets say you have 100K Dollar as USA for Intelligence. How to spend it?

First Decision would be:

Offensive or Defensive?

Defensive would mean that you would it make it harder for other nations to find out your ships specifications and perhaps even the numbers of them.

Offensive would of course mean the opposite.

Now as USA you decide you feel quite secure, even if your enemies know your ships and decide that you spend 20k on the Defensive and 80k on the Offensive.  

Now with the Offensive part you would need to make more decisions. First on which would be: which country to spy the most.

If you have a real worry about the UK and Russia and less so about France and Germany (and the others) then you may spend most of it, on UK and Russia.

Lets say that you spend 20K, also alot of the 80k on spying on the UK.

Now there could be a further decision:

which class you spy on the most?

Do you Focus on the UK BB? Or and the DD's? Do you want to know more about its Technologies? Do you want to know more about they guns or the Torpedos? (In defense you perhaps could deiced to keep some ships really secret)

Is there a participial class you want to know more about?

Depending on what you deiced, you would gather information faster on that class then the others and raise the "familiarity level". Whats that? Glad you asked:

"Familiarity level" would describe the maximum of knowledge you get from spotting and identifying the ship during battle. On low level you could only get the most obvious information (how many guns are there?), while on higher levels you would get the detail information about armor thickness and equipment used.

For raising the familiarity level I would propose 3 basic systems:

Intelligence

Spotted/Identified in combat

"public knowledge".

 

Intelligence is basically what I described, aka you sending spies and gather information about the enemy ships.

Identified in combat basically means that if you keep Meeting a enemy in combat, you would learn more and more about what he can do. While it is quite abstract to learn the exact armor values of a enemy through fighting the same ship type over and over again, I think it is serviceable for a game. 

Last is "public knowledge": the older a ship is, the more it travels, the more it was perhaps on parades(as potential event, exchange secrecy for prestige for example), the more the public and with that, all countries know about that ship class.

This is kinda a equalizer and a fail-switch. If you remember the example of the USA, lets think it further:

lets assume that the expected war with Uk and/or Russia never came. lets instead assume that it is France, which you payed little concern and Japan, which you ignored that actually fight you.

Now you would have some knowledge about the France ships, since you did spend some of your money there. But on the Japanese you spend almost nothing and have little clue what they have. "Public knowledge" now would come to the rescue. While you have only a basic Understanding on the most recent french BB#s and barley heard anything on the new DD class in Japan besides that it exist, you do know the cruisers that the France let patrol through the ocean for the colonial possessions quite well and you know at least the old ships (10+ years) of the Japanese good enough to not to have to fight competently blind.

 

Now I recognize a couple of things:

First of all: before any fancy stuff, the basic campaign needs to work. Given the task and that first half of 2020 seems to be June 2020, I think it is fair to say that it ain't easy to make the basics work.

Hence something like this would take a backseat.

Also I admit that in a game where you can make dozen of different classes per year, a system like this could run into trouble, at least to the extend what spying a specific class concerns.

Yet I do think that something like this could be a interesting feature since it offers decisions and potential rewards and help the game feeling.

 

What do you think?

 

With friendly Greetings, 

SiWi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like the idea of naval intelligence in-game. But I would like it made a bit differently than you propose.

I don't really like the idea of being all about gathering information about abroad ships (maybe i would even prefer if we know all as it Is Now)

But there Are other things that Are (at least in my opinion) more important for intelligence to investigate: What ships Are stationed in each abroad ports And sea regions, level of abroad research (this might even cause breaktrough in player's reseach), maybe even sabotage actions but it might be gamebraking, And convoy routes (this might cause bonus to convoy interception or/and it might give player possibility to see trough which sea regions these routes go but this depends on the size of sea regions-it wouldn't really make sense for player to see trade routes to Britain if all atlantic Is just one sea region)

 

[DougToss]

Naval intelligence was and is incredibly important. Naval officers would read Janes and the naval journals religiously, and the armament, guns, number and location of enemy ships was a national priority. To plan effectively the enemy force, position and intention has to be known as accurately as possible, as quickly as possible. This was akin to the interest paid to Soviet subs, their capabilities, basing and location during the cold war. The first act of The Hunt For Red October gives an idea of what this kind of naval intelligence is like.

In addition, fishing boats and merchants that encountered warship of another country, even at peace, were expected to report their number and heading. Monitoring fleet movements was very important for setting readiness postures or establishing an enemy order of battle. While not as sophisticated as later spy ships, it was not uncommon for trawlers to bob around whenever fleets were at sea. It is speculated that this played a part in the Russian fleet enroute from the Baltic to the Far East engaging British fishing boats during the Russo-Japanese war. 

Signals intelligence and telegraph intercepts were also important in discovering enemy forces, location and intentions. I don't know much about SIGINT but location and directing finding was as important for hunting surface raiders as it would be to locate U-Boats a generation later.

In all forms of intelligence, I think the game should account for massive uncertainties and errors. There would be no way of knowing precisely the firepower, protection or mobility of enemy ships, even after combat. The US conducted a very detailed study of the Japanese Navy after WW2, and there were many, many instances where they were surprised, even after fighting the Japanese Navy for 4 years. 

Additionally, even today with sophisticated intelligence gathering sources and methods, and much, much better collation and interpretation, there is a measure of uncertainty about where naval units are and what they intend to do. 

Wikipedia article on the broad outlines of Military Int

This seems to be a good work on the subject, and the review outlines the main missions of naval intelligence. 

Edited May 25, 2020 by DougToss

[SiWi]

@Aceituna

Its true that fleet movements are a important part of strategy in general and should also be covered in a feature like "intelligence". But for me the main problem is that the information gathering about enemy ships features is too detailed. If I recall correctly, it took many years to know the actual size of Yamato, after the war. Here in game we know the thickness of every plate.

That disconnect is something I wanted to "fix".

Now to be fair, given too much information is a common PC game trope. I love the TW's but the fact that I know the exact experince of enemy units is a bit silly.

One big reason for this system would be the following:

"Navy strategy, is building strategy"

Through history you can often see that anew ship class was a direct response to another one. This wouldn't be possible in game, if you have no idea what the enemies are building till you meat them in battle.

@DougToss

Quote

Naval intelligence was and is incredibly important. Naval officers would read Janes and the naval journals religiously, and the armament, guns, number and location of enemy ships was a national priority. To plan effectively the enemy force, position and intention has to be known as accurately as possible, as quickly as possible. This was akin to the interest paid to Soviet subs, their capabilities, basing and location during the cold war. The first act of The Hunt For Red October gives an idea of what this kind of naval intelligence is like.

In addition, fishing boats and merchants that encountered warship of another country, even at peace, were expected to report their number and heading. Monitoring fleet movements was very important for setting readiness postures or establishing an enemy order of battle. While not as sophisticated as later spy ships, it was not uncommon for trawlers to bob around whenever fleets were at sea. It is speculated that this played a part in the Russian fleet enroute from the Baltic to the Far East engaging British fishing boats during the Russo-Japanese war

This is exactly what I mean when I refer to "public knowledge":

the ships travel around and get seen by others, articles get publish about them, naval Attachées see them and so on. All of this would let information "leak down". 

Quote

In all forms of intelligence, I think the game should account for massive uncertainties and errors. There would be no way of knowing precisely the firepower, protection or mobility of enemy ships, even after combat. The US conducted a very detailed study of the Japanese Navy after WW2, and there were many, many instances where they were surprised, even after fighting the Japanese Navy for 4 years. 

Well I mention Yamato itself, which was wrongly describe for many years after, thanks to Japanese secrecy. So I defiantly would be pro "mistakes, margin of errors" (gets smaller the better the familiarity level), but to curb in frustration (we are talking about a game), I would limited it somewhat.

Hence you would get wrong information about the armor of a ship, but not by 5+ inches.

Edited May 26, 2020 by SiWi

[ArtifaX]

Agree with Intelligence proposal. It feels great in academy to know exactly what you are faced against, but its the first thing i noticed while watching the 1st video of the game that got me "Wtf, how can that be possible?"

It can be as detailed as devs want to make it, but even a rudimentary approach would be good to start:

1. Allocate intelligence budget

2. Based on that budget get a certain tier of info on the enemy ships in battle (from armor 0-100 inch at tier 0 to 23 inch sloped krupp-iv at top tier)

 

This than can be extended by division by nation, age of design, number of encounters, different characteristics groups (guns known after 1st battle, armor only through intelligence) and so on.

It also nicely ties to getting technologies stolen too...