One month is too long for a campaign turn.

[kjg000]

The more I think about it the more I am coming to the opinion that one month is a poor choice for the length of a campaign turn. 

Too much can happen in a month. It is part of the reason why ships seem to teleport between oceans and it greatly limits the options for a strategic game. It also prevents 'Hunt the Bismark' situations, breakout situations or any game involving a hunt for an enemy ship/squadron such as the leadup to the Battle of Coronel.

Thoughts anyone?

[Kebla]

yes i totally agree, the game loses a lot of tactical aspect in this way

[Zuikaku]

I can agree with this. But... Even with one month turn you have a bunch of players crying (a river) that the campaign is too slow 

[ZorinW]

2 hours ago, Zuikaku said:

I can agree with this. But... Even with one month turn you have a bunch of players crying (a river) that the campaign is too slow 

But that is due to the fact that the game is so poorly coded that a single turn takes ages to compute...

Edited October 16, 2022 by ZorinW

[kjg000]

On 10/16/2022 at 10:00 PM, Zuikaku said:

I can agree with this. But... Even with one month turn you have a bunch of players crying (a river) that the campaign is too slow 

Yes, but there options here, aside from optimizing the code.

Some examples :-

Allow players to set a start and end date for their campaign. I.e. 1939 to 1945.

Split the month into 4 phases each about a week long. Politics and research only take place during the first phase.

 

[godofwar889]

I disagree. A month is perfectly fine and is standard for many other turn based naval games, most turned based games in general actually. When at war the game calculates and generates missions that happen during that month turn and gives you situations based on fleet stance, taskforces out and location of the enemy. These including missions like “hunt the Bismarck”, it does happen, you just have to pay attention to the missions. You’re also not going to flat out get that exact scenario. Missions that you get are purely tactical in nature. I do believe missions should be expand. Adding shore bombardment, support for a land invasion, different objectives instead of “destroy enemy ship” but id like to ask how would you like to see it handled? As a RTS? yeah, no thanks for me.

Edited October 20, 2022 by godofwar889

[kjg000]

15 hours ago, godofwar889 said:

I disagree. A month is perfectly fine and is standard for many other turn based naval games, most turned based games in general actually. When at war the game calculates and generates missions that happen during that month turn and gives you situations based on fleet stance, taskforces out and location of the enemy. These including missions like “hunt the Bismarck”, it does happen, you just have to pay attention to the missions. You’re also not going to flat out get that exact scenario. Missions that you get are purely tactical in nature. I do believe missions should be expand. Adding shore bombardment, support for a land invasion, different objectives instead of “destroy enemy ship” but id like to ask how would you like to see it handled? As a RTS? yeah, no thanks for me.

I think the problem here is that it is difficult to compare games in this way. Design choices greatly affect how something such as the time scale will interact with the rest of the game mechanic. I have never played a naval game with such a focus on smaller ships other than those focusing on Submarines or Sub hunters. Also, most (if not all) other naval games I have played only had a vague, nominal, time scale. Accuracy was not considered and a "month" was just a synonym for turn. In this game the Dev's are  attempting to simulate the actual range a ship (or task force) could cover in an actual month. As such a month is too long a time period, allowing for too many possibilities to be missed, ships seeming to teleport (although teleporting ships is a real problem in the game) and other seemingly incongruous events.  

[godofwar889]

9 hours ago, kjg000 said:

I think the problem here is that it is difficult to compare games in this way. Design choices greatly affect how something such as the time scale will interact with the rest of the game mechanic. I have never played a naval game with such a focus on smaller ships other than those focusing on Submarines or Sub hunters. Also, most (if not all) other naval games I have played only had a vague, nominal, time scale. Accuracy was not considered and a "month" was just a synonym for turn. In this game the Dev's are  attempting to simulate the actual range a ship (or task force) could cover in an actual month. As such a month is too long a time period, allowing for too many possibilities to be missed, ships seeming to teleport (although teleporting ships is a real problem in the game) and other seemingly incongruous events.  

What opportunities are being missed? I don't get the reasoning, the game automatcially generates missions a list of possible mission based on the ships in harbor depending on their fleet stance, distance from the enemy, tasks forces in moving to intercept of other task forces, and convoy defense. I think part of the problem is you're not taking into account all the things that happen in the game in the background. Such as research, building/refit/repair of ships, the phyiscal game period of 1890-1940. What time scale would suggest to not make the "turn" as long for ship travel but still not make it drag on for the player to build, research and access ships? The teleporting vast movement of ships is most likely a bug, It usually takes 1 turn for me to move a task force from Wilhelmshaven to Gibraltar with a 16kn cruise speed which is not only realistic because it takes around 4-5 days irl but still easily allows for intercept of task forces, each task force has a zone of control that as long as the enemy task force isn't moving in the complete opposite is going to force a confrontation. Another great Naval simulator Rule the waves also uses months as a turn time scale, other naval games focus on a way more limited window of timeframe. So i'll ask again what time scale would you use as to make for accurate for you, but still not make drag on doing other tasks for other players.  

[kjg000]

21 hours ago, godofwar889 said:

What opportunities are being missed? I don't get the reasoning, the game automatcially generates missions a list of possible mission based on the ships in harbor depending on their fleet stance, distance from the enemy, tasks forces in moving to intercept of other task forces, and convoy defense. I think part of the problem is you're not taking into account all the things that happen in the game in the background. Such as research, building/refit/repair of ships, the phyiscal game period of 1890-1940. What time scale would suggest to not make the "turn" as long for ship travel but still not make it drag on for the player to build, research and access ships? The teleporting vast movement of ships is most likely a bug, It usually takes 1 turn for me to move a task force from Wilhelmshaven to Gibraltar with a 16kn cruise speed which is not only realistic because it takes around 4-5 days irl but still easily allows for intercept of task forces, each task force has a zone of control that as long as the enemy task force isn't moving in the complete opposite is going to force a confrontation. Another great Naval simulator Rule the waves also uses months as a turn time scale, other naval games focus on a way more limited window of timeframe. So i'll ask again what time scale would you use as to make for accurate for you, but still not make drag on doing other tasks for other players.  

Ok, much of this was addressed in my other posts in this thread. Shown in blue.

What are we missing by having month long turns?

• Missions based on our actions and positioning of our fleet rather than a near random event generator with ships being included in engagements from thousands of km (or one months sailing) away. I’m not including ships teleporting through landmasses or past blockades in this, as that is a separate issue.

• Interception ranges would be shorter and thus positioning would be more meaningful.

• The ability to make command level decisions, for example

  • Do I try to chase enemy stranglers from an engagement or reinforce my own stragglers?

  • Can I move my forces in time to intercept enemy movements?

I’m not saying week long alone turns would resolve this but I believe it would be a better fit than month long turns and would require fewer compromises. I’d like to see the above even if (as is likely) month long turns are kept, it would just be a greater loss of realism.

You mentioned that other games use a month long turn but still allow missions like ‘Hunt the Bismarck’ but as I mentioned this game claims to be aiming for a greater level of realism. The Bismarck breakout attempt, including initial positioning, the battle of the Denmark Straight, pursuit and final sinking took about 3 weeks (e.g. 3 1 week turns, < 1 month long turn). Hard to replicate with month long turns when, as you say, it only takes 4-5 days to sail from Wilhelmshaven to Gibraltar.

Game would be too slow!

There are things Games-Labs could do to speed up the game as it matures. I’d like to see some of these regardless of turn nominal time.

There are options here, aside from optimizing the code. Some examples:-

• Allow players to set a start and end date for their campaign. I.e. 1939 to 1945.

• Stop showing a splash screen for every single event! I find this is slow and annoying, although it is a mechanic used by many games. Better to show the beginning of turn information as a summary with roll-over tool-tips for more detail with only events requiring player input in a separate window. Combining this with ‘Split the month into 4 phases each about a week long. Politics and research (and AI ship design) only take place during the first phase.’ and the game should have better flow.

Before the save files were encoded there was an apparently unused variable called something like ‘Espionage’ which suggests to me that it will be included in game play at some point. I really hope it is as at the moment we have far too much perfect information. This could make positioning of ships more important but it would make far less of a difference if the game can draw forces from thousands of km away.

I doubt that Games-Labs will change the turn time span, so I think you have little to worry about but I do think it will be a lost opportunity.

 

BTW I haven’t seen anyone mentioning RTS and I agree that would not be the way to go. So again I think you have little to worry about on that score.

 

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

On 10/22/2022 at 9:49 AM, kjg000 said:

Politics and research (and AI ship design) only take place during the first phase.’ and the game should have better flow.

Ok...but politics and research only happening during the the first phase (i.e. first week of the month) seems a little ridiculous doesn't it...especially if you are aiming for a more "realistic" approach?

I mean, if we are talking "realism" and "realistic" here...I don't think it's very "realistic" that the folks at the Naval R&D department, in the midst of a war, would just show up for a single week of work and then go home and do nothing for 3 weeks and then go "Oh hey! It's June 1st...time to work till June 7th and then go home and do nothing until the first day of July!" If you are saying that research progress should go on a week-by-week basis, I would say it would probably be a welcome change since you never know when you'll have a technological breakthrough.

And when it comes to Politics only happening during the first week...that doesn't seem too "realistic" either. I've got a hard time picturing the Navy Brass and the Government noticing half the enemy's navy is blockading their coastline one morning and just casually saying "Meh...it's the 19th of this month...we'll deal with it during the first week of next month..." and then go back to reading the newspaper or drinking coffee. The more logical response would be "Holy crap! Why are they blockading us? How did we not notice this? We need to do something about this ASAP!"

Now, I might be missing something...but unless you are saying that politics and research are set up/responded to/taken care of during the "first phase" and what you choose to focus on and how you respond to diplomatic events will effect how the next three "phases" of the month play out...I really don't think that a week-by-week basis for the game would work. Would we be locked to whatever research choices we made in phase 1, or would I be allowed to switch the research priorities in week 3 if I wanted? How would transports, GDP and Naval Budget be effected on a weekly basis...or would it stay with monthly income, but weekly spending/budgeting?

Yes, a lot can happen in a month, you're right on that one. A lot can happen in a week. But with no historical factors influencing gameplay (outside of specific hull models and port locations), encounters like "Hunt the Bismarck" suddenly become less strategically important/impactful. If Germany's navy in the campaign was in more or less the same situation it faced historically...yeah, a 3 week hunt for one of their very few battleships would be a very important event and would likely benefit from a week by week basis. But when you are up against a Germany that isn't limited to a small surface fleet and has 5 or 6 (or sometimes 8 or more) BBs at their disposal and will eventually start numbering their ships because they ran out of names they've built so many...does a week by week hunt for a single ship really hold any large value of importance?

This game wasn't built to be a "historic realism simulator." If it was, my 1930s/1940s Germany wouldn't have 8 BBs and 4 BCs at their disposal...let alone a BB armed with 18 inch guns or a surface fleet numbering almost 175. So, until UAD does become a "historic realism simulator," I personally feel that a month per turn is fine...even though it doesn't take a month to sail from Wilhelmshaven to Gibraltar.