Review of 1.08.8...the issues

[Admiral Donuts]

1 - First and foremost is fleet maintenance. Costs and maintenance are way too high. I have a 60 some ship fleet as Germany currently, some of which are mothballed and in-being, and even at war there is no way to maintain the costs. I realize this is a quick fix for the 500+ ship navies prowling around the map. But it's so bad I can't even maintain my own navy which is small.

2- Secondly, I am experiencing a bug in which my ships are leaving port fully repaired and crewed, and showing up in battle heavily damaged. I've already had to scrap 3 ships because they won't repair. The task force window shows them at full health and so does the in-port window. But in fleet tab they are damaged even to 0% health and show up into battle that way. It started off with a couple ships in my small navy, now it's dozens reporting fully healthy, yet damaged in battle even before it begins.

3 - State of war - I don't mind being at war perpetually. But it's gotten out of hand. Having just gone to peace with Italy, they immediately started being offended by my presence in the Mediterranean because of the necessity of fighting France there. Within a few months we're at war again. You'd think they would have learned their lesson the last time. I have been promoting from the beginning an enforced condition in which there is a reprieve from negative effects of fleet presence in sea areas with countries with which you have recently gone to peace. I say 6 months seems reasonable. Then they can be offended all they like. If an event occurs in which negative political effects will happen, you can decide what to do about that. Then, having just gone to peace with the French who took a savage beating, they allied with Britain and immediately went to war with me again. In one month. *shrug*

4 - Some of my guns will penetrate 70+ inches of armor. Yet, smaller ships are reporting to me 0% chance of pen on the battle map. That's impossible. I should be able to shoot through that ship and kill the one behind it, at any angle. Results during the battle will disagree with those battle reports, as a penetration hit WILL occur almost every time.

5 - Add-crew check box isn't always working. I constantly get reports of ships with low crew. I have nearly 100k crew available so it's not an issue with that. Furthermore, when it does work I often end up with 1 more crew than the ship needs.

6 - There is a condition in which, in the fleet tab - a ship is reported 'in battle' when in fact it was sunk in that battle. When crew is 0, and I click add crew, I realize that ship had been sunk. So, I just left it at 0, and the ship reverted to mothballed state. When I added crew, it was back in port ready to be sent out. I confirmed today this is still happening. I recommend not even showing the ship in the fleet tab if it had been sunk in battle. This would require a live update following each engagement.

I recently made a request for an addition I'd love to see - a mothball all ON/OFF button which will set all ships in the fleet tab to zero crew or full crew. Going through every ship is tedious. If feasible, I'd also like to add that, if a player mothballs their entire fleet then reinstates all the crews in the same month, that those crews don't revert to 'trained' status.

I noticed that both Spain and Russia have ports. I assume the intention is to add them at some point as playable nations. I have often thought that a 165 ship Russian navy in the Baltic is going to be outrageously bad for Germany lol. Furthermore, the addition of yet another country that's going to be offended when I'm at war with Britain or France such as Spain, well, both are going to have to be balanced with other nations as well or Germany will cease to exist as a potential threat early in every campaign. I mean, if you're going to add Russia as playable, then you must add Japan to mitigate. And possibly the Ottomans. And, if you're going to add Japan as playable, then you must add China and the United States, at least the US will help with Spain. Then, if you're going to add Spain, then why not Sweden? And so forth... it can get pretty bad (or really good) eventually

If I missed anything important it's due to my senility. Thanks.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Admiral Donuts
cleanup

[Admiral Donuts]

Ah yes. Game is still hanging up at Building Ships. I twice had to task manager it today after extended wait. Including making this post.

[Charon]

Confirmed @1.08.8

I had the hang-up at building ships for a period in the 1890s but it dropped out after that. I didn't have to reboot, I just backed out of the campaign adn renetered and it was ready to go without any losses.

1 - First and foremost is fleet maintenance. Costs and maintenance are way too high. I have a 60 some ship fleet as Germany currently, some of which are mothballed and in-being, and even at war there is no way to maintain the costs. I realize this is a quick fix for the 500+ ship navies prowling around the map. But it's so bad I can't even maintain my own navy which is small.

It's not impacting foreign fleets for me, just mine. As Britain, Germany is north of 300 ships in my current campaign with Italy about 200 or so and I quit the last campaign when Germany had 500 ships with one fleet alone having 100-150 or so ships. 

I just had a battle in 1916 in my new campaign where my 2 of my 13" dreadnaughts were trapped by a German task group of about 60 ships or so. Mainly just fought the lighter (CA, CL, TB, DD) ships that ran me down as I tried to flee . I lost one and managed to save the other (heavily damaged) as time ran out but sank 25. The Germans had a few dreadnaughts show up (fired a few shots then retreated) and some contemporary destroyers in the fight but most were leftover, never scrapped pre dreadnaughts levels ships.

I have another task group on task group battle ready to go now with 60-80 or so German ships. looking at the tonnage most of them are well outdated against my task group of 20 or so fully modernized ships. As you noted I about went bankrupt just to build and keep my 80 ship or so fleet and I was saved by the war I was hoping would happen for the extra funds. However, I did just find out about maintenance penalties in over capacity ports.

3 - State of war - I don't mind being at war perpetually...

I had just the opposite experience in the earlier campaign I quit, where I couldn't go to war if I wanted to. Everybody else was fighting, I would choose the piss them off choices when offered, but all was forgiven quickly and I was everyone's buddy, event he French.

 

I would still like them to eventually sort out manual control where when I set it to manual it actually is manual only about than half the time. It gets tiresome watching the squiggly spaghetti course line of death force my ships into torpedoes and collisions that are easily avoidable. You can actually turn and cross a stern IRL.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Charon

[Panzergraf]

14 hours ago, Admiral Donuts said:

Ah yes. Game is still hanging up at Building Ships. I twice had to task manager it today after extended wait. Including making this post.

Happened to me too a few times, exiting to main menu and then going back to campaign fixes it, until it happens again next turn. Then exiting to manu, closing the game, and reopening has it fixed again for several turns. I suspect this only occurs if you're clicking through many months in the course of one gaming session, like you often do when there's no war going on?

Also, in addition to many of the issues already stated in this thread, after the recent patch my ships go straight to the nearest port for repairs after a battle, rather than their "home port". While it is in many ways more realistic if the fight was in the med to have my ships go to Corsica (now mine) rather than teleport all the way back to Scapa Flow, Corsica can't support more than a few small ships, let alone squadrons of battleships! Yet there they sit, waiting for repairs, in a port that can't support a 10th of their displacement. And I can't move them either because they're damaged...

I still think sending ships to port for repairs needs to be a manual decision after a battle. I don't mind having ships with slightly scratched paint in my task forces.

[Admiral Donuts]

In fact I started another new campaign and have played 20 years without the game hanging up at Building Ships, so maybe it's resolved.

[JohnDarnMadden]

The AI goes crazy building ships, and not even good ones at that. You simply can't keep up with them after the starting few years of a campaign. Perhaps have events that give big -% naval funding for having large fleets during peacetime? 

Edited August 19, 2022 by JohnDarnMadden

[Admiral Donuts]

I've seen large 350 ship navies recently, but only if their tech is very behind. My last campaign was French, my GDP at end-game was over $3 trillion. The rest of the world combined was just a small percentage of that. That might be the next issue.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Admiral Donuts
wording

[GodWentAFK]

I've had plenty of hang ups on building ships, in all sorts of different years. Some are a few turns into a new campaign, some are 20 years in. 

I think the biggest issue with regards to maintenance costs with this patch is that it takes 10 months to recrew your ship after you set them to low crew to lower the upkeep. It's absolutely insane that it takes 10 months to recrew a cruiser that took 17 months to build.