Campaign - does sinking convoys work at all?

[Stealth17]

Hey guys,

In all the campaigns I've completed I've sunk dozens and dozens of convoys. 

It's like the AI just doesn't care. It certainly doesn't seem to criple their economy.

The destroyed merchant ships don't even show up in the end result screen.

Bugged or feature?

Edited May 24, 2022 by Stealth17
Edited post to include more information

[Cryadis]

I did serveral games where it definatly does work, eventually they run out of funds so much that they cannot build ships even.

However i did extend the campains via save editing and from what i have seen in a few months capain the effect might not be noticeable. Currently their transport capacity effects the monthly change to GPD, this is visible in politics view currently (i.e. I.e. sink transports and see how the groth value is reduced or even switches to negative).

Edited May 24, 2022 by Cryadis

[Plazma]

I observed in the "Politic" tab that different AI have different GDP grow and that grow is not static, this can change a little per month, but a little amount.

Like we have GDP and the Growth 7.126% (+0,5753% per month) and after the turn we have 7.126% +/-0.X% depends if we sunk enemy TR. The problem is that, it doesn't matter in short run and every nation on the beginning have plus grow, so we need 5-10 turns to drop the Grow to 0% per month or -0% per month, but even if we have -% on the grow, the shrink of Growth is very slow and probably AI accumulated a big amount of money and the cost of fleet is very often lower than on the beginning because we sunk a lot of the enemy ships. 

 

 

In other words, The AI example GB have big budget 137 mln and Huge GDP with big Growth 7.126% with aggressive expansion (+0,5753% per month). 

First we must wait to moment when GDP start shrinking, example  Growth 7.126% change to any value below 0%.

And next waiting to shrink the GDP.

In this same time the AI must pay more for fleet or this same amount of money to feel that.

This is very long process, usually the AI surrender before the GDP start shrinking or the Growth hit the 0% and even if hit the Growth 0% or even minus we sunk that much ships that the AI don't pay for ships = a lot of money. 

 

Simply 0,5%*GDP = Naval budget 

GDP = GDP*(+0,X% per month)

Growth = numbers of TR, n/a but if you sunk TR this going down. But please remember AI can have Transport Capacity on the full in the tab Finance. 

After 1 turn:

 

 

If you want to experience the crumble of economy try fight vs Austro-Hungary AI and don't sunk the ships, only convoy + edit the save file by remove VP from yourself on Normal difficulty. 

You probably lost a big amount of money to building TR and these TR slowly increasing your GDP and the budget. If you budget and naval funds are around 0 you can have a big problem when someone sunk additional TR of you, but the AI have less and less ships + they have strongest GDP and they love money (see trash ships with torps what cost 1/10 of my Yamato ships!) 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Plazma

[Norbert Sattler]

But is it only the ones you are informed on the pop-up about, or also the ones you sink yourself in missions?

[Plazma]

@Norbert Sattler both, AFAIK.

[Hardlec]

I have noticed that when I as a human player on a mission to sink/divert a convoy, when I sink all the escorts, the battle ends.  The Transports are magically transported to never-never land, and I get no victory points for their destruction. I would not destroy those transports.  I would capture them and divert them to the nearest friendly port.  

While hyper-realism can only go so far, If I am engaging in a war, I am much less interested in destroying convoy escorts than I am in capturing or destroying merchant ships.

 

[Littorio]

On 6/1/2022 at 7:38 AM, Hardlec said:

I have noticed that when I as a human player on a mission to sink/divert a convoy, when I sink all the escorts, the battle ends.  The Transports are magically transported to never-never land, and I get no victory points for their destruction. I would not destroy those transports.  I would capture them and divert them to the nearest friendly port.  

While hyper-realism can only go so far, If I am engaging in a war, I am much less interested in destroying convoy escorts than I am in capturing or destroying merchant ships.

 

This is a long-standing complaint of mine