Naval Rework and Pearl Harbor

[Kanitatlan]

I'd go one further, I can pretty much station my navy in California, just leave the garrisons and then send my navy down after war is declared and Japan will still fail to seize anything 9 times out of 10. AI Japan fails even to do what historical Japan could even when I give them more room than what historical US did.

I basically have to ignore them for months and just let them take over the south pacific, even a few years ago AI Japan attacked far more targets than now.

The problem here is that the Japanese advance requires some complicated actions by the AI and the AI can't manage that. It is revealing the basic issue with the AI which is that it works by dissipating force across a theatre rather than concentrating force at successive key points. The basics of strategy are concentration of force and defeat in detail and the AI really doesn't do that other than going to war with one nation at a time until it isn't allowed to behave that way. I don't know what should be done about it since it falls into the rather intractable "better AI" problem.

 

[Terracos]

How much invasion capacity does AI-Japan have in 1941? This could be an issue, they might not be able to launch enough invasions at the same time to invade many places at the onset when they still have enough naval superiority. Also the USA can more or less deny almost any invasion by creating enough naval superiority in the western pacific even when they lose the phillipines just on how naval superiority works with dockingrights from the UK and DEI. So the moment Japan does not have enough superiority they stall with invasions even if the US-Fleet is stationed deep in the pacific.

 

[bigredsnake]

The problem here is that the Japanese advance requires some complicated actions by the AI and the AI can't manage that

To be fair a few years ago it could. Basically whenever they do a big DLC my default is the US playthrough just to see how the new changes "feel", mainly because I know them better than anyone else. Anyways there definitely was a more coordinated Japan invasion in the past. There was always multiple islands attacked and the Philippines was hit from multiple ports at once a few years ago. Now you get a few weak tries on the Philippines and if they have some success they may try an island. It's far too weak and you can hold it off with subs alone.

It's not beyond their ability to script in a Pearl Harbor strike even if it's just have a carrier fleet in tokyo and press a button with whatever nonsense I need to do on the US side to explain why I need to push my navy into Hawaii. The real life explanation being to deter Japan but not to the point of appearing belligerent or whatever the constraints were for post the Navy in the south pacific and the tin hat explanation being to bait Japan into an attack while embargoing them. It could literally be tied to the embargo much like the Venezuela one is now.

Obviously the US embargo of Japan in regards of oil/steel is their claim to attack the US anyways. Move the US to Hawaii and port them then click a decision to embargo Japan that is made available in Summer of 1941.

The point was to add in a more historical run and bring Pearl Harbor itself as huge of an event as it was to the US at the time.

It could even be something like the Trotsky assassination

As far as countering it...IDK the point remains that a lot of the argument is that you needed something on the scale of Pearl Harbor to anger the average American enough for war. So if you do say counter it then it should be like the Trotsky event when it fails, you either refire or the US stays out. In real life the embargo starts July 26 1941 and obviously the real Pearl Harbor was Dec 7 1941. The game pretty much fires off the declaration of war around July 1941 and before that it was May 1941. My other point was to push it back closer to the actual start time.

Like I said I would also like some event that allows for convoy defense missions in 1940, maybe tied to passing the Lend Lease Act, for the US that keeps them out of the war but allows them to run their missions. Possibly even setting up a casus belli against the US for the Germans or Italians, if for some reason a player chose to do so.

 

[GrandVezir]

Obviously the US embargo of Japan in regards of oil/steel is their claim to attack the US anyways. Move the US to Hawaii and port them then click a decision to embargo Japan that is made available in Summer of 1941.

Gate the appearance of the embargo decision to JAP's caused world tension (to prevent oddities like democratic USA embargoing democratic JAP in alt-hist scenarios) and require 8 heavy capital ships ported in sea zones roughly between Hawaii and the Philippines.

Even better would be an escalating series of decisions (based on WT caused) to isolate JAP first from arms trade, then steel, then oil -- enforcement of which would require an increasing USA naval presence until it reaches Fall 1941 levels.

 

[bigredsnake]

Gate the appearance of the embargo decision to JAP's caused world tension (to prevent oddities like democratic USA embargoing democratic JAP in alt-hist scenarios) and require 8 heavy capital ships ported in sea zones roughly between Hawaii and the Philippines.

Even better would be an escalating series of decisions (based on WT caused) to isolate JAP first from arms trade, then steel, then oil -- enforcement of which would require an increasing USA naval presence until it reaches Fall 1941 levels.

I like and for AI Japan definitely have them invade Hong Kong, Malaya, the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island. I mean it's a damn impressive part of their history especially considering the distances involved and the hell of coordinating all that for one day.

 

[FLUX2226]

Gate the appearance of the embargo decision to JAP's caused world tension (to prevent oddities like democratic USA embargoing democratic JAP in alt-hist scenarios) and require 8 heavy capital ships ported in sea zones roughly between Hawaii and the Philippines.

Even better would be an escalating series of decisions (based on WT caused) to isolate JAP first from arms trade, then steel, then oil -- enforcement of which would require an increasing USA naval presence until it reaches Fall 1941 levels.

For the required naval presence, I'd argue to handle the ship placement via decisions that pick the historical ships and historical locations instead of "place a capital ship in this region". Otherwise it'll be common practice to choose the cheapest and most obsolete group of ships that still matches the requirements instead of a proper task force.

It'll also be less micro-intensive for the player to set up, and easier for the Japanese AI to get consistent results with if the locations and naval presence are pre-determined in advance.
I'd love for pearl harbor to be a reliable event in historical games, not a roll of the dice whether or not the Japanese AI finds your ships during the opening day.

About isolating Japan from trade, it's a cool idea but might sadly be impossible in HoI4. Japan can buy all the oil they need from the Soviets, Venezuela and the Dutch East Indies because trade can go anywhere, any time. The entire world would have to embargo Japan.

 

[bigredsnake]

About isolating Japan from trade, it's a cool idea but might sadly be impossible in HoI4. Japan can buy all the oil they need from the Soviets, Venezuela and the Dutch East Indies because trade can go anywhere, any time. The entire world would have to embargo Japan.

The embargo part is just to do the US historical embargo part I'm less worried about actually cutting the Japanese off.

 

[Umbosch]

The embargo part is just to do the US historical embargo part I'm less worried about actually cutting the Japanese off.

I understand the historical backround but I aks me how should this work at Manchukuo when they choose the USA path in the asia shared focus tree. How works the gamemechanic in this case? Will the embargo count for Japan only or his puppets or the alliance to? For example, when i choose as obedience Manchu this path i must finish the naval path before Japan attack the Philipines. After this point every running US focus of this path will cancel. Self when i have as "independent" Manchu and Sidekick of Japan no war with the USA or his Allies.

Other point which ressources sell or buy Japan from the USA? Which stuff buy it from the US market? When i look in my actually game what my master sell or buy, i can say in the moment they steal my steel. Every day sometimes more or some times less. The trade ai is stupid.

 

[bigredsnake]

I understand the historical backround but I aks me how should this work at Manchukuo when they choose the USA path in the asia shared focus tree. How works the gamemechanic in this case? Will the embargo count for Japan only or his puppets or the alliance to? For example, when i choose as obedience Manchu this path i must finish the naval path before Japan attack the Philipines. After this point every running US focus of this path will cancel. Self when i have as "independent" Manchu and Sidekick of Japan no war with the USA or his Allies.

Other point which ressources sell or buy Japan from the USA? Which stuff buy it from the US market? When i look in my actually game what my master sell or buy, i can say in the moment they steal my steel. Every day sometimes more or some times less. The trade ai is stupid.

I'll be honest I stick to the majors I'm open to suggestions for alt history runs, my main thing was adding in Pearl Harbor and the simultaneous invasions all triggering. I'd think the issue with trade, even if you were full independent is Japan is sitting on all your trade routes anyways so what can you really do about it?

 

[general_de_golle]

As I remember, I wrote something about Pearl Harbour content long time ago, proposing the solution to give US a mechanik of slowly gaining war support for holding significant fleet in Pearl Harbour. And after maintaining fleet there for lets say a year or two - to unlock national focus for US to join the world war. And also to make coordinated strike work (and teach Japanese AI to use it) so we can really have this event implementation. I understand that it could be difficult to programm Japanese AI to do this, however I think that these event is too significant to just ignore it.

So I really like to see that other players share same opinion about this. Unfortunately if I remember eberything correct, someone of devs replied in previous threads on this topic, it is unlikely to be implemented...

 

[pheonicia]

June 1st 1941 start date. Drop the 39 start, keep this one up to date and boom, you can ensure that Barbarossa and pearl harbor happen every game.

 

[MrMcQue]

I think there should also be individual Captains of Ships or Rear Admirals of Task Forces you can promote to Full Admirals later, just as with the Divisional Generals recently added.

 

[Cornutus]

Well in regards to the navy that's because they never really explained the game and it just became easier to deathstack or play gimmicky.

Can't argue with regards to explaining.

As for playing Navy...that's US, UK, Italy, and Japan...to a lesser extent Germany and France. The game would be better overall since the naval battles are a major factor in the war even with powers we view as land only like Germany.

Agreed.

I'm just going with what PDX already clarifies is the Maritime patrols IRL, the game for example has the PBY Catalina and Mariner as the smallest frame, those were the actual maritime patrol aircraft. I'm just trying to meet them in the middle because I think game wise they made them heavies expecting MP exploits.

Actually I am wrong and you are right.

The Catalina was cheaper than even a B-25 Mitchell or similar tactical bomber. It should be either at most a medium airframe.

Referring to the speed they are laid vs other areas

Probably a solution to that would be establishing coastal naval regions.

Again in unrealistic MP games they should have whatever settings you want. The thing is this: if you're the US, UK, France, Japan, Italy you really aren't going to be retrofitting these massive navies you have so what's the point in having all these items to research anyways if they all exist for the late game or MP? It's more a matter of getting them of use in SP and if the MP games need different settings i'm fine with that. As for historical time to install radar, who says these ships didn't have radar, especially the UK ships?

I believe the vast majority of British ships in 1941 did not have radar. At least in the Bismarck hunt, you had very few ships with it

Again you'd need to check historic data to make the case. You can't just say "It's unreasonable" without providing sufficient backup.

 

[PanzerScouty]

I would like to set forth that this is bar none the most important thing PDX needs to be working on (outside bugs) for HOI4.

The Naval game needs a total rework, and I don't say this as one of those "ewww I hate the navy" types I say that as a "I prefer playing the majors with navies" type.

1. Admiral system and how they earn XP needs to be reworked. We can keep the 10 "fleets" per Admiral thing as default but the amount of ships they can command tied to their rank. It's silly you wipe out an entire Japanese navy, or most of it, and never gain a single trait? How? Why? Admirals XP needs to be directly tied to destroying ships, length of combat etc doesnt work or make sense. So example Sea Wolf is gained sinking 100 convoys. Air Controller is gained by 5 capital ships sank by carriers. Ironside is gain by sinking 5 capital ships or 50 screens with BBs or CAs. "Terrain" is earned by patrolling those areas for say a year. I patrol open waters a year they earn open waters. Yes I know that means they could in theory earn two at once then split the experience based on the percentage of the waters they are in: 4 zones - 2 open water, one coastal, one green: in 1 year of performing missions in those zones my admiral is 50% to Open water and 25% closer to Inshore and green. That's far more logical than the current system and we'd actually have progression.

Also the way to kill the death stack will come through limiting the ships they can command numerically. Sure and admiral can have 10 fleets but say those fleets can't be more than 100 ships total altogether with a rank 5 Admiral.

2. The current meta: deathstack everything that isn't a sub and set it to strike force and subs set to convoy raid at higher aggression needs to go. I think the part of that needs to be patrol needs to exist in order to even have the strike force with radars and planes being a way to find each other faster. No patrol no SF

3. The Sub detection and Sub game needs to change: subs by default should fire upon warships rather than needing to set them to aggressive or never retreat. Also destroyers and CLs need to have sub detection by default to some reasonable level for early level subs. The sub game in general should reflect the danger in coming up against any anti sub units and reflect the 80% death rate they had. Sure lone convoys should be easy prey but any DDs should be dangerous with then the wolf pack size vs the anti sub fleet size should determine if they win or lose. This would also force more player interaction optionally fleeing battles sooners in obvious scenarios where you'd lose.

4. Convoy protection should be required of all navies and the malus to having shipping caught should be reflected better. Shouldn't 100% coverage mean that in theory NOTHING is getting through? So my subs catch any troop transport coming through but not all the convoys? I'd rather we play the cat and mouse game of trying to sail around them OR force the player to send in Convoy protection.

5. Recon planes should be able to be set to sea tiles and play the role of naval recon OR move Maritime Patrol is moved to medium bomber frame. It's a massive waste of time and resources to build the large airframe for anything but strat bombers anyways. Playing one of the majors who built them it just makes more sense that this should be moved to medium frame with the sea plane addition adding the range, spotting, sub detection bonuses with the trade-off in defense or speed. Even the AI barely builds them and models for the PBY and so forth should be moved accordingly so.

6. Japan's "Secure the Philippines" needs to become "Attack on Pearl Harbor". Pearl Harbor is far too important of an event to bypass in this game. As for how it is implemented maybe we do something along the lines of the sinking of the Panay moves the US fleet back to around Hawaii and they can't deploy west of that ahead until they are attacked. Then either we have an unblockable attack on the US fleet that destroys 4 BBs, damages 3 CLs, and damages 3 DDs. Maybe even some port and infrastructure damage. I assume we just make the Japan player move their fleet into the waters adjacent to Hawaii and click a political decision to launch the attack and declare war on the US. This would also finally give AI Japan a real shot at taking the South Pacific rather than just letting them as the human player just to have a more historical run.

As for MP work arounds...I think IF they player removes fleets from the Pacific as a work around to avoid actually getting Pearl Harbor'ed then if Japan doesn't get the 4 BB sinks due to lack of player fleet then Japan gets a bonus naval attack increase for 3 months of say 10% or something along those lines to make it more risky to try the whole "I just won't have my fleet there then".

7. Mines need to be able to deployed easily along coastal provinces, which can slow invasions, and without sweeping will destroy ships. Same for minesweeping it should be easy to do in coastal areas.

8. As far as fleet compositions go I know the ingame tool tip says 4 carriers to 4 capitals with 18-24 screens. That pretty much seems to be how the order of battle works in game as well, for your deathstack 4 CVs, as many capitals as you want, then the (Capitals + Carriers)*4 = minimum amount of screens needed for that fleet. That's fine for a minimum but there needs to be a maximum amount of units in a battle as well, basically the naval version of combat width. I know big battles like Leyte Gulf have fleets upon fleets going at it but it's not like some Return of the Jedi Battle of Endor, where all the Imperials and all the Rebel captial ships show up and everyone just has it out then and there. Leyte Gulf is multiple days across 4 different major engagements. Even if say an Admiral having multiple fleets all on Strike force and they all show up in a fight then it should rotate them in and out or split off and having multiple conflicts in the same zone as it already allows with subs vs convoys and fleet vs fleet. Either way without some sort of "maximum amount of units in a battle" system there is no reason not to do the deathstack and all other missions are mostly useless.

9. In regards to an Admiral having a fleet I would suggest a fleet is made based on what mission it will do: for example I create a fleet and I am offered Patrol, SF, Convoy Raiding, Convoy Protection, Minesweeper, Mineclearing, or Naval Invasion support. From that point say I select Patrol I am given a few basic templates and then fill it with ships from that like say a 2 CL and 10 DD Patrol or a 4 BB and 20 DDs. If I pick SF then it's a carrier/BB based one or a BB one up to 4 ships and 20 DD/CVs. Basically an bare minimum unit and then the deluxe American we got time to make the CVs and BBs fleet. Same for Wolfpacks, I select a Admiral to command a wolfpack I think pick 10/20 subs per fleet.

10. Allow me to train units waiting in reserves...I should be able to tell them to train to maximum without having to create another fleet then throw them back in.

11. Retrofitting for Sonar, Radar, Mines, Depth charge upgrades, Minesweeping, Fire control upgrades should be 15 days MAX with only 1 naval dockyard (even if I selected literally sonar, radar, mines, depth charge, and fire control altogether). With the full 10 it should drop to 2 days and the retrofit/repair spirit of the navy can drop it to 1. Retrofitting takes far too long and too much resources better spent on building ships than trying to turn all the majors outdated fleets into something better. Plus some of these ships had these features the game doesn't show them with. I can understand adding more armor, a new deck, or bigger guns taking months but how hard is it really to stick a radar on a ship even back then? A few days? They're just installing it afterall. As it stands now the naval builder is mostly useless other than gimmicks for MP to be exploited. Say I am the UK, France, US, or Japan...the time it takes to stick a radar and firecontrol on my entire fleet isn't worth it not to mention you have to do it en masse as a fleet goes off the average of these factors not one ship having radar allowing the entire fleet to find others faster. So big damage changes like torpedo tubes, bigger guns, AA or the counter of more armor, fine keep the old retrofit time, but adding a fire control system should be painless.

12. Ships need to find open docks rather than stacking up on the same one OR at least give us a button to tell them to stay close to the main fleet or spread out and just find a friendly report to repair in rather than stack up 30 ships deep.

13. If I have a ship in the building queue and I decide to upgrade the design, why not just extend the time a little rather than reset the whole time? This is why many of the many features are pointless to research if I spend the whole game not being able to build them.



Anyways that's my thoughts what do you guys think?

The OG Japanese tree actually had an tree reffering to Pearl habour. Sadly its not in the game anymore but I agree

 

[bigredsnake]

I think there should also be individual Captains of Ships or Rear Admirals of Task Forces you can promote to Full Admirals later, just as with the Divisional Generals recently added.

Damn that is so sexy...yes if every division can have their commander obviously every ship should as well

At least in the Bismarck hunt, you had very few ships with it

Yeah but the Hood did have it, this concept of a floating average for all fleets when it comes to radar or sonar should be revisited. While I can understand their point, if a Naval Battle is occurring say with a fleet and subs, you're kinda screwed because of the concept of the average sub fleet detection, whereas presumably the battle is occurring because they saw the attack on the convoys to begin with. In other words the hydrophones or sonar are more effective at that point and not beholden to the size of the fleet.

Same for radar these ships could communicate with each other, so the radar range of a ship is not really an average reduced by fleet size. It's still 40000m or whatever (IRL just using an example here) the detection ranges are but the point being that one or two ships can tell the rest of the fleet. That 40000m doesn't drop down because I got 40 DDs around the Hood. If PDX wants to keep an arbitrary average concept, fine, then reduce retrofit time.

This is one of my points: retrofits should be quicker and frankly these events overlapped. Rather than adding more costs onto the time as though evidently when I retrofit the ship we have to wait around until someone makes the radar or fire control and THEN install it. So my ship needs to come sit in harbor for months while every part is made and THEN installed, essentially as the math goes. Mind you they did a lot of these while the ships where in repairs in real life. Why can we not just do that anyways? They come to harbor upgrades are given out as a matter of course as they would have in real life?

Even in PDX own stats of what a "good" surface detection, sub detection, or depth charges are for a fleet I ask most of you to look at your own fleets and tell me how you can make that easily?

Source: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Defines#NMilitary

Look at what makes a good sub hunter depth charge wise: a stat of 15. It's not until Depth Charge 1940 that it goes to 16 meaning you should double up until then. Meaning UK, US, and JAP should all need to retrofit all their DDs with 2 sets of depth charges.

Factor that in with how the game already works mathematically: Ideally I have convoy escort fleets made up of CLs and DDs with Sonar and depth charges up to 15 in stats...with no other ships with them.

But also I have for the US starting I get 3 CVs 15 BBs and 15 CAs which comes out to needing 132 screens MINIMUM. Sure I got a lot of DDs to start, all with basic crap features and it takes about a month with 10 naval factories to make a new DD give or take. I'm not talking about just making crappy MP level DDs but "play the game as intended" or moreso "let's pretend this is actually WW2 and I'm the PM or President" it's going to be a little controversial when people find out I sent their sons out on a shit destroyer with 1 gun, no sonar, and scant depth charges.

"Sorry Ma'am you should have made him study more in school and maybe he wouldn't be feeding the fishes now because look upgrading ships around here takes weeks sometimes years to do and well we ain't got time for that. BTW have you heard about our unstoppable all CL fleet? Too bad your son wasn't on that. Oh well" - Admiral King

 

[bigredsnake]

How much invasion capacity does AI-Japan have in 1941? This could be an issue, they might not be able to launch enough invasions at the same time to invade many places at the onset when they still have enough naval superiority. Also the USA can more or less deny almost any invasion by creating enough naval superiority in the western pacific even when they lose the phillipines just on how naval superiority works with dockingrights from the UK and DEI. So the moment Japan does not have enough superiority they stall with invasions even if the US-Fleet is stationed deep in the pacific.

I just saw this

That I don't know, the Japanese game is weird right now. In the past it seemed like China would almost always collapse, now we're in this weird territory where it seems China's able to handle Japan fairly easily. At least from my own games it seems to be somewhere around a 30/70 split where 30% of the time Japan has China pushed back and 70% of the time it looks like Japan bit off more than it can chew and the attack on the US or Allies becomes laughable. Guess Joe Stilwell and the Flying Tigers punch well above their weight class.

Kinda like how depending at what point you've played HOI in the past 4 years the Soviets were getting blown out constantly or single handedly take out Germany without much interference from the Western Allies. It used to feel like you had to at least Lend Lease them some guns now magically I can liberate Paris while the Soviets are pushed deep past Stalingrad and by the time I'm hitting Berlin they've pushed into Romania.

I kinda wish there was the ability to play a game, save it, then replay it and watch it just to see what the AI is doing. It'd make it easier to help PDX fix these things.

 

[Colonel_Kraken]

I just had an interesting game against Japan. At the beginning of the game I bumped Germany, Japan, Italy, and USSR one notch (1 notch of bonuses - the ones you choose before game start). I played as U.S.

Japan came at me HARD! They basically did all of the historical invasions and quickly took over Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, Java, Sumatra, Singapore, etc. I tried to push against them in the Central Pacific but couldn't get Naval Superiority, so I decided to push from the South launching off Australia and New Zealand.

By the time I could gain enough naval superiority, Japan had already taken all of the Gilberts, the Marshals, New Caledonia, Fiji, and more! I'm not sure what happened because they're normally a cake walk for me. So, to me, this was a good game!


And, just so you know, I don't play cheese. I don't boost Philippines. I don't stack on Guam, Midway, etc. I defend Hawaii. I do build up a big fleet and at least 6 - 8 Marine divisions and lots of Army divisions and have good air. Japan was still a tough nut to crack. Interesting.

 

[General Tao]

Japan came at me HARD

Interesting, do you think it was a single aspect of their bonuses (and which one?) that allowed them to perform more aggressively, or a cumulative effect? AFAIK the AI itself remains unchanged, no?

 

[DukofDeth]

Perhaps this has been mentioned but why not have the position of the fleet a prerequisite for being able to do certain focuses or political decisions especially if they were historical. Perhaps cutting off their oil should require the fleet to be located in Hawaii [if this is not already the case] and to stay there to keep the embargo in force. Give the Japanese player a window of opportunity to receive significant bonuses for attacking as done historically but then the Japan player [or even the AI] could stall and build up more military force - maybe to combine amphibious assaults with the attack on Hawaii. Or if there is no US fleet in Hawaii [no capital ships larger than heavy cruisers at least] then the Japan player [or AI] could get a bonus to invading [for a period of time] that area as a penalty to the US player for trying to avoid the historical attack.

Of course if the game is not on the "Historical Focuses" setting none of this should really apply as the AI is much freer to do what it needs to do.