Naval Battles Warscore

I hope this is something they change, but maybe its because naval battles didnt affect wars very much in this period, except for the Russo-Japanese War.

Some countries are quite dependant on their navy, losing sea battles badly should have more impact than it does.

flame7926 said:

I hope this is something they change, but maybe its because naval battles didnt affect wars very much in this period, except for the Russo-Japanese War.

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That is a MASSIVE exception though. That war changed the face of the entire pacific, and the world to come for the next... well up until modern day, to be frank.

You hit the nail on the head. there is a SERIOUSLY large amount in this game that is justified by 'it never happened' like there isn't a decisive score for naval battles because it never happened outside of the Ruso-Japanese war, or the combat engine is weaker then hoi III and europa because this is an era that was not plauged by constant wars.

Thing is this is a 'what if' game, you change the world and history as you go and so do the computers so constant wars do happen, some decisive sea battles happen. I had my whole army sunk one game because I was fighting against a nation that researched dreadnaughts first and popped them out ASAP and nailed my transport fleet.

IMO V2 has a very good system of warscore.
The victory on land is useless unless you occupy the land, especially the land you want.
The victory on sea is usless unless you can go blockading the enemy and so forth.
Apart from morale hit/loss battles themselves didn`t matter that much in Victorian era.

As for Ruso-Japanese war, Japanese actually won land campain, a naval victory in itself was merely a supplement, and without any means to retaliate Russians desided to peace-out.

Sea power was vital for the biggest empire in this era so yes it should matter.

1alexey said:

IMO V2 has a very good system of warscore.
The victory on land is useless unless you occupy the land, especially the land you want.
The victory on sea is usless unless you can go blockading the enemy and so forth.
Apart from morale hit/loss battles themselves didn`t matter that much in Victorian era.

As for Ruso-Japanese war, Japanese actually won land campain, a naval victory in itself was merely a supplement, and without any means to retaliate Russians desided to peace-out.

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Your information is false

1alexey said:

IMO V2 has a very good system of warscore.
The victory on land is useless unless you occupy the land, especially the land you want.
The victory on sea is usless unless you can go blockading the enemy and so forth.
Apart from morale hit/loss battles themselves didn`t matter that much in Victorian era.

As for Ruso-Japanese war, Japanese actually won land campain, a naval victory in itself was merely a supplement, and without any means to retaliate Russians desided to peace-out.

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Except for the fact that the occupation system is Medieval! It's a friggin' castle siege. The Franco-Prussian war did not take 3-5 years and yet Prussia occupied all of North France.

Reading this thread, I find that there are two things that could be done better with the game ... and perhaps a mod can do it.

Anyway, Dyranum has a very valid point. The game is siege warfare ... and medieval at that. So Forts are overly compensated for. The combat is abstract, so we need something that reflects abstract combat better. I would suggest that if the only thing that could be changed, is that Forts don't slow down control. Let them have the combat bonus effects for defense and attack, but a fort (or fort system that it may represent) should not take 3 months to take control. The other aspect is Forts are too cheap. Defensive networks in every province of every country just didn't exist. So raise the cost of Forts and the maintenance requirements dramatically, and we'll see less of these. Forts will also need to be positioned strategically, as they will be fewer and more costly.

Second, from above, was Dreadnaughts. Again, how many times have each of us spawned hundreds of Dreadnaughts? We've heard AHD will address this, but it holds true for Cruisers, Ironclads, and the like. We've made massive navies, which have not had any effect on manpower at all? Who is maning all these ships? That needs to change too. We build Dreadnaughts in every port along the African Coast. That's also fantasy. Maybe limit big ships to the biggest of a nations ports (or home ports) .... that would slow it down. And raise the cost of Ports and their maintenance as well (similar to ports). Nations could only put out big ships in the number of 3 per year. Heck, look at the major powers in the late 19th and early 20th century. A nation can't put out that many..

Just some food for thought.

Dyranum said:

Except for the fact that the occupation system is Medieval! It's a friggin' castle siege. The Franco-Prussian war did not take 3-5 years and yet Prussia occupied all of North France.

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Against the AI, it will not take multiple years to occupy all of northern France, as long as you make sure to start occupying the interior immediately rather than waiting until the border is fully secured, as the AI does not carpet the world with forts.

ashbery76 said:

Sea power was vital for the biggest empire in this era so yes it should matter.

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If you interrupt enemy shiping, yes, otherwise who cares.

smeagolthevile said:

Your information is false

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elaboration?

Dyranum said:

Except for the fact that the occupation system is Medieval! It's a friggin' castle siege. The Franco-Prussian war did not take 3-5 years and yet Prussia occupied all of North France.

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Use stacks of cavalry?
never had any wars going longer than 3 years.

Than again, you may want to look at how much time did it take to siege some fortresses in WW1, even WW2, like Sevastopol.

I agree with Breyer's point: naval warscore is under-represented in vanilla V2 at present.

Jellicoe, at the battle of Jutland, was considered by many historians to be the only commander who "...could lose the war in an afternoon." (A paraphrase of First Sea Lord John "Jackie" Fisher's words, writing of an expected upcoming naval battle of Armageddon in the early 1900's.) A cursory examination of the debates in Parliament about the size of the British Navy easily reveals the importance England attached to naval warfare, and the need to always match the next two largest world navies in size and firepower.

IMHO, it's not so much a matter of score via other means (although 1alexey's points are very well taken, and made), as that naval battles were considered extremely important in the mindset of many leading Victorian powers during this era. (England, France, Germany, Japan, etc.). The game should reflect this, I feel.

Maybe the upcoming change permitting battles to exceed 25% in overall warscore will help this somewhat. Hopefully, losses of ships will equal losses taken by brigades in generating warscore; historically, the loss of a Dreadnought was a crucial matter to almost every navy of this period.

Well, Naval battles are pretty important, they give the successful Navy the ability to Blockade the enemy nation from some if not most of its income.

Def Zep said:

Maybe the upcoming change permitting battles to exceed 25% in overall warscore will help this somewhat. Hopefully, losses of ships will equal losses taken by brigades in generating warscore; historically, the loss of a Dreadnought was a crucial matter to almost every navy of this period.

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Out of interest, how many dreadnought battleships were destroyed in combat between 1906 and 1919?

grommile said:

Out of interest, how many dreadnought battleships were destroyed in combat between 1906 and 1919?

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By my count:

England: 47 built (35 BB+12 BC)/5 lost

Germany: 19 built (11 BB+8 BC)/2 lost


Source: Le Fleming, H.E., "Warships of World War I", Ian Allan Press, London, 1961.

To my knowledge, all other nations during these years placed their Dreadnoughts on order from England, except the following:

USA: 19* built (all BB)/0 lost
*excluding the Colorado class, which was laid down 1919, but not launched until the 20's

Japan: 10* built (6 BB+4 BC)/1 lost
*excluding the "Semi-Dreadnoughts" of the Satsuma, Settsu, Tsukuba & Ibuki classes, which were improved pre-dreadnoughts

Italy: 6 built/0 lost

France: 11* built/0 lost
*a 12th, Bearn, was in-process and completed 1920

Russia: 8 built/3 lost

Austria-Hungary: 4 built/2 lost

Source: http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/

Hope that helps.

the_Hussar said:

The other aspect is Forts are too cheap. Defensive networks in every province of every country just didn't exist. So raise the cost of Forts and the maintenance requirements dramatically, and we'll see less of these. Forts will also need to be positioned strategically, as they will be fewer and more costly.

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Like there isn't enough money in Vic2. Even increasing the cost of forts won't help. By 1900 countries like GB, France, Germany (if formed) and yours will get max-level forts in every province, because there's a lot of money for these countries, but other countries won't get any (or just 1, in the capital).

1alexey said:

Than again, you may want to look at how much time did it take to siege some fortresses in WW1, even WW2, like Sevastopol.

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Sevastopol is a huge exception and also there were so many factors - geographical position, terrain, not to mention army. I never saw AI so desperately defending its possessions.
During the whole WW2 in Soviet Union there were so few massive sieges, while at the beginning of war germans just marched through Ukraine.

Also, your're comparing WW2 to Victorian era.

ajax.hsp said:

Sevastopol is a huge exception and also there were so many factors - geographical position, terrain, not to mention army. I never saw AI so desperately defending its possessions.
During the whole WW2 in Soviet Union there were so few massive sieges, while at the beginning of war germans just marched through Ukraine.

Also, your're comparing WW2 to Victorian era.

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A properly build and garisoned fort can hold for month, if not years. that was from ~8k BC, and that was true for WW2.

Breyer said:

Yes, forts took a long time to siege, but not provinces without forts. I think some people would agree that if a province hs no forts in it why exactly does it take a month for infantry to conquer it.

I have also never had a war going on for 3-5 years. And even then it was for "total wars" where I absolutely wanted to humiliate the enemy and take ridiculous amounts of land.

Finally, someone mentioned raising costs of forts and maintenance for them--I would say the same is true for ports. The AI now builds them in every province so its almost like there isnt really any ports.

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How do you know nobody is there still. Provinces are large, there is still population, local militia, police and blah, blah, blah, plus what is occupation in the first place? when your troops enter province you get increase in the attrition minimum, so you could call that "occupation" while the rest is cleaning up local resistance, assaulting fortified key points, brining in at least some sort of temporary administration, so forth.

So I for example see the "occupation" as a full establishment of local government which at least handles military meters and supplies,
and controls all key-points, and doesn`t have enemy troops acting from fortified strongholds.

In this case it indeed take a long time.