where am I going wrong?

[justMike247]

European campaign, 1940's, and curiously, the UK has not so much as a row-boat for a navy unless I design and build it. Insert dry swallow here.

So... multiple re-runs of this exact same start point later, I've established a "reasonably" balanced fleet just about big enough to split to fight the two theatres I'm expected to be in; North Sea and Med. I think in the 20+ re-starts of this campaign, I've seen the completion of just 2 battleships subsequent to those built right at the beginning; campaign always gets terminated either a month before they're completed, or the month after.

 

That initial fleet usually comprises 2x BB's, 4xBC's built on the biggest CA hull (36k ton) and about a half dozen DD's on the Flotilla Leader hull.

 

I've learned the hard way that to have a hope in hell of being competitive, I need to keep crew training max'd, keep transports budget max'd, invariably research is a waste of money; campaign always terminates long before anything comes to maturity.

 

So... those first couple of campaign years, I scrape, I struggle, I pick my fights carefully while the budget's wasted on the next batch of capitol ships I never get the chance to use, and building as many DD's as I can to try providing convoy escorts. Can't think why I bother with that; I don't recall ever defending a convoy with one of my own DD's riding shotgun, invariably it's either French or Italian boats the AI has created to be nothing better than VP pinata's for the opposition.

 

Anyway... Try as I might, I can't figure where exactly I'm going wrong.

I've zero control over Transport losses, so I do what little I can there

With capitol ship engagements, I back out of the suicide missions unless there's a convoy to defend. I keep training budget max'd to have any kind of hope of hitting anything at ranges above point blank.

My latest campaign failure results as follows

 

Naval Prestige 16.6

Duration 2 years 2 months

End Reason;- low victory points

V's German Empire;- Stalemate

V's Austro Hungarian Empire;- minor victory

 

Ships Built;-

2x BB, 4x BC, 26x DD (all but 20 of the DD's built at start)

Under Construction;-

2xBB, 6x BC, 6x DD

Ships Lost;-

Me- 1xDD

Enemy- 2xBB, 1xBC, 8xCA, 6xCL, 5xDD

Crew Lost;-

Me- 1539

Enemy- 25297

Transports Lost;-

Me- 48

Enemy- 35

 

I couldn't read the final VP count, but the month prior I'd something like 15k v's 7.5k, which baffles me, given the end reason being low VP's

 

So... guys... I'm popping red flares here; where exactly am I going wrong? What am I doing with my tiny fleets that's so bad that warrants a forced restart just when I'm on the cusp of turning the corner and going from defensive to offensive? I nurse my budget like any typical Scot... aye, we're a canny bunch; can't remember when last I got spanked for going over-budget.

 

On the plus side, I'm getting pretty damned good at creating designs that can take a whopping and keep on tickin' while delivering some serious ass-whoppage

 

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

Just from what you've described above, I am going to guess you are using far too much budget. If all you can build at the start of your campaign is 2 BBs, 4 BCs and 6 DDs...then you are either building incredibly expensive ships that chew through your available starting budget, or you are using so much money to train your crews and keep your transports full that you don't have enough money to put towards ship building. I am guilty of this as well: usually I can only build about 20 ships because my designs wind up being pretty expensive.

It doesn't sound like you are ignoring convoy missions, but if you are...those can tank your budget, economy and unrest (learned that the hard way playing as Germany trying to defend ships in the Pacific most of my ships were in the Atlantic). I don't know how you design your ships, but operational range plays a big part here. If you aren't building ships that have a high operational range, that works against you when it comes to convoy defense missions--you can also set task forces to "protect" mode and that will help you out some too. And if all you are doing is maxing out transport capacity, and then ignoring them or losing them faster than you can blink...that's wasted money you could have used on things like new/more ships, research, or something else. Only other thing I can think of is try building some cruisers with long operational ranges, if you haven't tried that already.

As far as the VP's go, I'm not for sure. But if you aren't fighting battles or are being very selective with the ones you fight, you aren't gaining very many VPs.

 

Is there anything else that you could add/tell about these campaigns? Is there a certain strategy you adopt or specific way you play that might factor in? Because, again, going strictly off of what you have above: it sounds like you are spending so much money on crew training and transport capacity that you are actively bleeding yourself dry and therefore leaving yourself no money left over to build more ships or upgrade the ones you do have.

[justMike247]

different day, different campaign... thought I'd give the French a try because up till now, I'd only suffered the AI's diabolical attempts at their ship design, n figured, they can't be that bad, surely? Turns out, granted, they're a bit... different... but certainly capable.

HistoricalAccuracyMan, 

Thanks for the feedback... given me plenty food for thought there.

You're right re what I build initially, though I try not to go toooo far overboard. The thing is, I experimented with the extremes of build cost a couple of campaigns back with Brit destroyers and found there wasn't a whole lot of difference in cost. Sure, my fleet numbers looked better, on paper at least, but when the rubber met the road, those cheap tin cans got chewed up and spat out by the opposition, where my original design has at least a fighting chance to deliver a couple of reloads of torps when called upon to do so.

 

To date, my builds have been with minimal fuel; the theatre just isn't big enough to warrant the weight penalty, and I'm never more than 1 turn away from a friendly port for refuelling. I've kept the training budget maxed until I see Vets onboard.

 

Re engagements, granted, initially I try to avoid them till training can start making a difference, but thereafter, I'm selective; I avoid the obvious suicide missions, try to avoid the pointless. This "mode" is my default at least until I can get the first new builds onstream. Up until today, it'd drive me nutz, the way the AI cherry picks my fleet for frankly insane engagements, and when over, the units involved would always show up in farthest flung ports. Education happens however; current campaign's turning out to be very different... I donno, maybe it's the garlic..