Extend the historical period of the ship creation mode!

[FREDTIGER72]

 

For now the game focuses on the period from 1890 to 1940! I please propose to extend it at least until 1945 see 1949! What do you think ! All opinions are welcome, thank you in advance! 😉

[SonicB]

10 minutes ago, FREDTIGER72 said:

 

For now the game focuses on the period from 1890 to 1940! I please propose to extend it at least until 1945 see 1949! What do you think ! All opinions are welcome, thank you in advance! 😉

At a guess, the time period is because they were hoping to sidestep the issue of aircraft carriers... honestly, I'd love to see a little extension for AU purposes, but I don't think it'll happen unless there's an air power expansion or DLC much further down the line.

[FREDTIGER72]

Thank you for your message SonicB ! 😉

[Grandpa Canuck]

Perhaps a part way to this is adding Seaplane tenders and catapult launch planes for current designs or even airships.   The planes could have gunnery & spotting roles, not attack, and this would also add AA to the design decisions.  AA and the planes could be done easily I'm sure.... Just launch/recall/direction choices and AI have them do searches.  AA should be easy enough to include as a option on/off or auto range.  A seaplane tender or airship could even be worked in like the subs are looking to be maybe or make them just AI support ships.  But, I fear adding the game to extend past 1940 really required a much later DLC or added game system. CVs changed naval warfare and design like no other change in history and is beyond the scope of what I see is planned/wanted here, IMO.

[SiWi]

12 hours ago, SonicB said:

At a guess, the time period is because they were hoping to sidestep the issue of aircraft carriers... honestly, I'd love to see a little extension for AU purposes, but I don't think it'll happen unless there's an air power expansion or DLC much further down the line.

I doubt that.

because it would be a bad pick.

Any war Naval War between the major powers between 1920-1940, which are possible in game, would have seen carrier action and probably further development (faster then in our "timeline").

CV's didn't fall from heaven in 1941, from the 6 CV's the Japanese used at pearl harbor, 4 were in service before 1940.

Also has the game a weird habit of having a lot of plane or CV related quotes in the loading screens. In fact it feels as if every update adds new quotes related to planes or CV's.

 

 

As for the OP, more would be great, especially for the campaign (thou the campaign time may be independent from the technology time). Mind you that going any further would then go to the age of rockets (I think technical speaking the hood had AA rocktes but that's not a issue) and jets, which would be harder to balance then WW2 planes.

Edited April 21, 2021 by SiWi

[SonicB]

1 hour ago, SiWi said:

Any war Naval War between the major powers between 1920-1940, which are possible in game, would have seen carrier action and probably further development (faster then in our "timeline").

Bear in mind that the Washington Treaty and its capital ship restrictions really supercharged the development of aircraft carriers. As such, if there's such as a thing as a 'carrier-friendly' timeline, we're in it.

Furthermore, 1940 makes a logical cut-off point because it was in 1940 that aircraft carriers first actually had an effective impact on WWII.

[Tousansons]

14 hours ago, FREDTIGER72 said:

 

For now the game focuses on the period from 1890 to 1940! I please propose to extend it at least until 1945 see 1949! What do you think ! All opinions are welcome, thank you in advance! 😉

No.

It doesn t add much and the time period is already too wide for this game. No need to bloat it even more.

 

[SiWi]

1 hour ago, SonicB said:

Bear in mind that the Washington Treaty and its capital ship restrictions really supercharged the development of aircraft carriers. As such, if there's such as a thing as a 'carrier-friendly' timeline, we're in it.

Furthermore, 1940 makes a logical cut-off point because it was in 1940 that aircraft carriers first actually had an effective impact on WWII.

Depends.

Without the treaty, which already saw the potential of CV's hence why they also got rules, the naval powers maybe would have gone for bigger CV's faster. And any major naval combat would have been a more "carrier friendly" timeline, since you would have saw more experience with them more earlier.

 

That depends, if you for example would include Japans attack of China, then you would have CV involvement more earlier. Also the statement is kinda nonsense since in 1940, even most BB's had yet to seen action, let alone had effective impact on WW2 (since when is this a WW2 game?*).

Besides... if "historical accuracy" would be the criteria (which would mean CV's in the 1920's), then how many 20 inch guns were in service during 1940?

 

 

*the game is marketed as a sandbox game not "play WW2" game.

Edited April 21, 2021 by SiWi

[SonicB]

17 minutes ago, SiWi said:

Depends.

Without the treaty, which already saw the potential of CV's hence why they also got rules, the naval powers maybe would have gone for bigger CV's faster. And any major naval combat would have been a more "carrier friendly" timeline, since you would have saw more experience with them more earlier.

That's a matter of opinion, but if I recall from my own reading, general historical consensus is that it was the 1922 treaty that actually codified the post-WWI tilt away from big-gun warships as the sole measure of naval power.

21 minutes ago, SiWi said:

That depends, if you for example would include Japans attack of China, then you would have CV involvement more earlier. Also the statement is kinda nonsense since in 1940, even most BB's had yet to seen action, let alone had effective impact on WW2 (since when is this a WW2 game?*).

Besides... if "historical accuracy" would be the criteria (which would mean CV's in the 1920's), then how many 20 inch guns were in service during 1940?

 

Be nice. This isn't a WWII game, but it shouldn't be a matter of debate to point out that the concepts and technologies are grounded in real-world history. For example, the distinction between 'heavy' and 'light' cruisers is largely an artifact of the treaty era.

There was also comparatively little innovation post-1940 in battleship design as wartime priorities changed, hence why we saw no significant design work around the 20" calibre beyond German and Japanese napkin designs. This seems to me a good argument for 1940 as a cut-off point, not vice versa.

Let me ask you a question: if you were designing this game and had to pick an 'end' date, balancing the priorities of reflecting the entire dreadnought era and minimising the ahistoricity of the lack of airpower, which would you choose?

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

I think "1940" already features hulls and tech from up to 1945, it's just simplified into a single year.

I think "1940" basically means "1940-1945", just that there would be no practical difference between these so they are all on the same year as a bracket.

[SiWi]

10 minutes ago, SonicB said:

That's a matter of opinion, but if I recall from my own reading, general historical consensus is that it was the 1922 treaty that actually codified the post-WWI tilt away from big-gun warships as the sole measure of naval power.

That may be, but that doesn't mean that we would have see no investigation into CV's without it As said before, without the treaty system you also can build bigger CV's.

Quote

Be nice. This isn't a WWII game, but it shouldn't be a matter of debate to point out that the concepts and technologies are grounded in real-world history. For example, the distinction between 'heavy' and 'light' cruisers is largely an artifact of the treaty era.

Oh I'm very nice, why questioned it?

But I can't help but notice that the argumentation of whenever to apply "reality" is always very picky. Because as mentioned, CV's existed before 1940, 20 inch quadruplet turrets did not.

Quote

There was also comparatively little innovation post-1940 in battleship design as wartime priorities changed, hence why we saw no significant design work around the 20" calibre beyond German and Japanese napkin designs. This seems to me a good argument for 1940 as a cut-off point, not vice versa.

Again, if you don't want CV's, you can't really do WW2 era naval combat justice. And 1940 is WW2 ear without a doubt.

The attack on Pearl Harbor sometimes gets cited as the end (or the beginning of the end) of the "Battleship" era.

4 of 6 CV's included in that attack, existed in this game time frame. 

Quote

Let me ask you a question: if you were designing this game and had to pick an 'end' date, balancing the priorities of reflecting the entire dreadnought era and minimising the ahistoricity of the lack of airpower, which would you choose?

1918.

Not only because I personally wouldn't call ships like Yamato or Bismarck "Dreadnoughts" (yes I know that "Battleships" evolved from them), but in terms of air power, I find it more plausible to ignore planes in a WW1 ear naval game (thou technically CV and I count Float plane Carriers as CV's for sake of simplicity, did already serve in WW1), then a game which clearly include WW2. 

[SiWi]

14 minutes ago, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

I think "1940" already features hulls and tech from up to 1945, it's just simplified into a single year.

I think "1940" basically means "1940-1945", just that there would be no practical difference between these so they are all on the same year as a bracket.

thats quite possible.

I mean I don't think that the campaign would end in 1940 (why would it?) and given that we can build all of the WW2 BB's and more with 1940, it is probably right to say that we already have 1945 in the game (I don't know where it leaves us in terms of radar technologies, when compared in game radar 3 and radar in 1940 or 1945).

[Stormnet]

Thought right now, we are missing quite some content from the current eras, I wouldnt oppose to an Ironclad era once most of the current stuff is done.

[Cpt.Hissy]

This once again sends me dreaming.

Imagine a story, that started with a warship being freed of masts and sails, clad in hard iron, driven by a novelty of time, steam engine. Then years of development, usual continuation of never ending arms race, but now with every step those ships not simply get mode guns or move faster, each step introduces something never seen before. From wheels to screws, from slowly puffing half-wooden Watt's derivative to whine of finely machined turbines, from a broadside of smol cast muzzle loaders to a complex and precise semi automated rifle, from a guy with an eye to sophisticated electromechanical computer. And in the end of this path, the pinnacle of engineering, combining everything you gathered over time, the dreadnought.

THAT is the game i'd like to see.
Would have a decently long progression chain, with every step being clearly distinctive in performance, properties, visuals, and not just "+2% to that and this". Just what you want in a videogame.
Would have well grounded starting and ending point, if you still wanna talk about history. What could be more impactful for naval warfare than appearance of a ship that doesn't care about wind and can shrug off gunfire?
Would also have an epic ending with glorious explosions and steel monsters going beneath the waves, if you lead the campaign into triggering a decisive world wide war at the very end, where all your decisions that created your own vision of dreadnought will show their worth.

[disc]

On 4/21/2021 at 8:33 AM, SonicB said:

There was also comparatively little innovation post-1940 in battleship design as wartime priorities changed, hence why we saw no significant design work around the 20" calibre beyond German and Japanese napkin designs. This seems to me a good argument for 1940 as a cut-off point, not vice versa.

I'd say there was innovation, but it was in certain special areas. For example, the US with the combat information center and nuclear shells, the UK with the Admiralty Fire-Control Table MkX, France with the Jean Bart AA refit, Japan with incendiary-shrapnel shells. Everyone with radar.

Post-war cruisers could carry the most advanced AA and ASW weapons and act as flagships, so the price of missile battleships just wasn't worth it. The proposals for extensive Iowa refits, for example, did not materialize.

The exception being the Soviet Union. Stalin was still convinced new gun-battleships would have great value. The Soviet projects were cancelled only after his death in 1953.

22 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Imagine a story, that started with a warship being freed of masts and sails, clad in hard iron, driven by a novelty of time, steam engine.

For what it is worth, ocean-going ironclad battleships generally had sails from their inception in 1860 until about 1880. Ships like Monitor and Merrimack/Virginia lacked sails and consequently had poor range, limiting them pretty much to coastal areas.

[Cpt.Hissy]

@disc I hope you understand it was mostly for prettiness of words?) Am not some murican, I know that things and places other than USA do exist)
also, hmm, it's a game we're talking about, in a more gamey variant the expansion from coastal areas to the open ocean could be also a thing.

[Fishyfish]

Oh I'd love to see 1945 to 49 expanded into the game. It would be great to spend those years scrapping, mothballing, slashing your budget, having tense minigames where you need to justify your fleets, nuking your fleets, you know that kind of stuff. 

[Stormnet]

1 hour ago, Fishyfish said:

Oh I'd love to see 1945 to 49 expanded into the game. It would be great to spend those years scrapping, mothballing, slashing your budget, having tense minigames where you need to justify your fleets, nuking your fleets, you know that kind of stuff. 

That would sound kinda of a storyline around a person (that also happens to be at least a 100 years old).

 

You start off in the early monitor era. A rather unknown commander. You gradually make the best of what you can on small wars in unknown places.

Them, as european colonialism over Africa and other regions begins to increase, naval might grows and your budget goes up quite a lot. After that it stagnates a little.

During the late XIX century and early XX, with animosity in europe increasing and the empires running of out space to expand and now eyeing eachother and rivalries setting in, innovation kicks in and ships become obsolete quickly.

Once WW1 kicks in, your budget skyrockets and all your experience and resources gained in those small wars are now put to a hard test.

With WWI now over, wheter you being in the winning or losing side, your carrer takes a step backwards. With the budget going down, and treaties limiting what you can do, you find yourself scrapping some of your BBs for the first time not because of obsolescence, but because of lack of resources. The interwar period is rather boring.

With WW2 in the horizon, as Nazi Germany eyes europe and Japan embarks on a quest to build an agressive and hostile empire, your glory days are on the brink of returning. This is the ultimate test to your skill.

However, early on, you'll begin to see your once mighty battleships have their days counted. Subs and planes are everywhere. Carriers are now the hot new thing, cruisers and destroyers are now the common ship.

WW2 ended and so your days are over. Battleships are proven to have become obsolete. With the war over, and british/french colonialism declining, you'll hit a rather sad prologue. You'll say goodbye as you scrap the last BBs you built.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Stormnet