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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #24 - Navies and Admirals


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Happy Thursday and welcome back to our series of development diaries on warfare in Victoria 3! Today we talk about navies, and how we intend to make them as strategically important to winning wars as they were in history. This diary builds on the warfare vision presented in The Concept of War and many of the core mechanics presented in Fronts and Generals, so ensure those are fresh in your mind before reading on!

Your ability to sustain an empire depends, to a large extent, on how well you can compete on the high seas. This is the era of truly global trade, which also meant countries were highly susceptible to disruption of that trade - and the higher they climb, the harder they may fall. In Victoria 3, maintaining a powerful blue-water navy is a large but necessary expense if you wish to ensure the integrity of your markets, overseas colonies, and trade routes during war. And even while at peace, a magnificent fleet can provide your nation with substantial Prestige!

Our design intent for naval gameplay in Victoria 3 is that it should serve as a strategic precision instrument in conflicts between seafaring nations. The sea is not another “front” in a war. The province-based moving Front system works well to represent conflicts over territory but would be nonsensical at sea, where no nation can be said to meaningfully “control” an enormous stretch of ocean. Instead, Admirals and their Flotillas are deployed to meet specific strategic objectives to disrupt the enemy’s military operations or economy, or defend against such attempts by the enemy. A powerful navy can never win you the war on its own, but if deployed correctly under the right circumstances it can be the “ace in the hole” that lets you outsmart even a foe that’s superior on paper.

A clipper departing Luanda in the Portuguese colonial state of North Angola, representing the colony’s connection to the Market Capital in Lisbon.
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As with land warfare and Generals, you control your navy through your Admirals. Generals and Admirals share many similarities. Both are provided with military resources originating from buildings in the Strategic Region they call home. The amount of resources they get depend on their Rank, which you can grant via promotions to reward your favorite commanders. Their Rank also lends Political Strength / Clout to the character’s favored Interest Group. Furthermore, both Generals and Admirals get Traits that affect both themselves and those Officers and Servicemen serving underneath them.

Most importantly, just like Generals are your interface to command your armies, Admirals are the interface to your navies. Admirals are given Orders, which they attempt to carry out to the best of their ability using the Flotillas they have been assigned. These Orders consist of:

Intercept any hostile navies around a certain Strategic Region’s friendly coastlines while keeping your fleets stationed close to shore
Patrol any shipping lanes between the Admiral’s home region and a remote region, intercepting any hostile navies encountered
Convoy Raid at a particular point at sea to damage enemy shipping lanes
Naval Invasion to establish a beachhead and a frontline on enemy soil, by escorting and protecting a General’s land forces in a joint operation

While it has not yet made its way into the game, we also want to add a fifth Order - Blockade - to disable enemy ports and prevent hostile forces from crossing straits.

An artistic mockup of an Admiral in the Navy panel. Admiral Ruiz and his 10 Flotillas are currently on Interception duty in the Iberia HQ, ensuring no Naval Invasions or Blockades endanger the Spanish home front.
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Convoy Raid and Naval Invasion are aggressive orders intended to hurt the enemy in different ways, while Intercept and Patrol are defensive orders that counter the other two. But to really understand how these work we have to start by talking about Shipping Lanes and the Supply Network.

Shipping Lanes are facilitated by vessels called Convoys, which are an output of Port buildings. These are created automatically whenever it’s necessary to move goods and/or people overseas. The three main reasons this happens are due to naval Trade Routes between non-adjacent markets, remote States connecting to their Market through a Port, and Battalions sent to frontlines that can only be supplied by ship. When a player is about to take an action that establishes such a shipping lane they are warned of how many new Convoys would be required for this action, which is based on the size of the route or the army supplied.

Shipping Lanes are always established via the shortest possible path, as defined by the number of nodes in the naval network it passes through.

A zoomed-out view of the North Angolan shoreline above, showing the main route ships travel off the coast of southwest Africa. The yellow pin indicates this path is part of Portugal’s Supply Network.
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The sum total of a country’s Shipping Lanes determine the extent of its Supply Network, and the total cost in Convoys of that network compared to the Convoy output by Ports determine the overall strength of that network. That is to say, if the total Shipping Lane cost is 500 Convoys but Ports provide only 400, the Supply Network as a whole will operate at only 80% efficiency. This impacts all Shipping Lanes, causing less trade to flow between the markets than would be optimal and impacting the supply and morale of overseas troops.

Admirals assigned to Convoy Raid a given sea node will surreptitiously try to sink any enemy transports that pass through. In effect this will do damage over time to the affected Shipping Lanes, causing both an overall drop in efficiency of the affected countries’ Supply Networks but also a larger, local drop in efficiency of the damaged Shipping Lanes. As a result, by parking your fleet in a highly trafficked part of the ocean you could do a lot of damage to your enemy’s trade or even directly impact the amount of military supplies they’re able to send to their frontlines.

A very visually un-polished view of part of Portugal’s supply network, stretching from the Azores around the African continent all the way to Portuguese Bombay. In the lower-right corner we see an additional tendril going east, which is a trade route importing Porcelain from China.
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Admirals assigned to Patrol a certain stretch of their Supply Network will eventually be able to detect and engage the raiding navy, causing a naval battle to ensue which will not only sink ships but also send the losing side back to base for repairs for some time. Admirals assigned to Intercept all nodes along a coastline are able to do the same to any raiders along the coast. Convoy Raiding right outside a major entry/exit port, such as in the English Channel, therefore has the chance to seriously disrupt a large number of shipping lanes but also put you at greater risk of detection and interception than if you’re raiding transatlantic shipping lanes on the deep seas. The composition of your navy can also greatly impact how this plays out: a fleet with an accompaniment of Submarines can deal more damage before being intercepted, while a fleet of Monitors has an easier time intercepting raiders but may be more easily sunk if faced down by a more powerful navy.

Because the distance Admirals must patrol plays a difference, there is an inherent asymmetry to Convoy Raiding and Patrol orders. Since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link the damage done to a shipping lane by raiders is the same whether it stretches across 1 node or 10, whereas 10x as many Flotillas are needed to protect the longer route as effectively as the shorter.

Extremely unfinished breakdown of what is currently happening in the Macaronesian Sea. Look at all those juicy raiding targets!
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Naval Invasion is an Order you give to provide naval support for a General’s landing on an enemy coastline. The size of the fleet determines two things: one, how great is the chance that you’ll be able to defeat an opponent’s intercepting fleet, and two, how many Battalions will you be able to successfully land. Even if the enemy has no defensive fleet at all, a naval invasion with a very small fleet might land too weak of an initial force to withstand the enemy’s counter-offense before the rest of the army can arrive. Since Naval Invasion is a one-time Order, once it has been completed it automatically turns into a Patrol Order to protect the shipping lane supplying the new Front.

Concept art of early Ship-of-the-Line and late-game Dreadnought class vessels
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Navies are made up of Flotillas, which are constructed and maintained by Naval Bases. Naturally these can only be built on coastlines, where they consume military vessels such as Man-o-Wars or Ironclads constructed in Shipyards. Like Barracks they also employ Servicemen and Officers Pop, and depending on your navy configuration may need to consume other military goods as well (such as Ammunition and Radios) in order to keep in fighting condition. Flotillas differ from Battalions in how long it takes to create and upgrade them; constructing a competitive navy is not something you can begin considering when your rival has already started saber-rattling.

Another difference between Battalions and Flotillas is that your country’s navy is always considered to be in fully active service. In peacetime Generals can keep their troops on low alert, limiting their consumption and expenses. Once war breaks out, Generals can be selectively mobilized to only deploy the troops necessary. Admirals on the other hand have exorbitant needs and expenses even while at peace, so sizing and tech’ing your navy appropriately is an important consideration for imperialists on a tight budget.

On the other hand, navies provide you with considerable Power Projection which confers substantial Prestige onto your country. Having a world-class navy is not strictly a requirement to be a Great Power, particularly if you’re a large self-sustaining terrestrial empire, but it definitely helps you both gain and hold onto the title.

Artistic mockup of the Navy panel with Flotillas expanded. Admiral Alvarez de Toledo commands 20 Flotillas of Man-o-Wars on a Patrol mission to secure an important Spanish shipping lane.
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Before we wrap up for this week, I want to say a few words about the lack of an order to just “seek out and destroy enemy forces”. In Victoria 3, your commanders - Generals as well as Admirals - are given strategic objectives which they use their manpower and resources to carry out as best they can. If in the process they get into conflict with the enemy’s forces (as they almost certainly will at some point) a battle will ensue. The outcome of that battle determines which direction the war proceeds in. The intent of this is to remove the need to babysit your commanders.

To illustrate this, assume we did have an order to seek and destroy. The optimal choice would then be to assign this order only to the strongest commander, fight the eventual battle, then revoke this order and give it to another commander while the first one recuperates, and so on.

With an order like “advance front” instead, the General’s intention is simply to capture territory as efficiently as possible, ideally while avoiding enemy interference. If it’s impossible to avoid the enemy, the imperative is to try to be intercepted by as weak of an enemy force as possible. Meanwhile the intent behind “defend front” is the opposite: prevent enemy incursions by defending it in the places where the enemy might advance, bringing to bear as powerful a force as possible. Similarly at sea, “convoy raiding” is about maximizing shipping lane damage while avoiding detection, while “patrol” is about minimizing damage to convoys by seeking out and destroying those enemy ships attacking them - not to sink ships for its own sake.

Depending on how the war is developing your priorities or overall strategy might certainly shift, causing you to change the orders you’ve assigned or make changes in your ranks to distribute resources differently. But our design intent is that this should only be necessary because your strategy is evolving, not to counter enemy movements or try to minmax your way to victory.

This is an especially important consideration for the naval part of the warfare mechanics. Naval (and aerial) warfare in strategy games commonly face the design challenge of extreme mobility options due to the lack of obstacles to movement. Usually some form of Fog of War and interception-radius mechanics is employed to counteract turtling behavior. The AI also often has to be forced to make mistakes to not become too good at dodging or intercepting the player in this environment. Even with Victoria 3’s more strategic-level decision making, the freedom of “movement” the sea provides would make a system where being in/avoiding being in the same location as the enemy so as to start/not start a battle extremely micro-heavy, annoying, and highly unfair to either human or AI players depending on implementation.

So instead, in Victoria 3, you tell your Admirals what their overall priorities should be for the war and then they try to do that, using the resources they’ve been allocated, only coming into conflict when they become aware of an enemy Admiral with an order that clashes with their own.

I hope that gives you a good idea of what to expect from the naval mechanics in Victoria 3. Next week we will wrap up this first batch of diaries on the military system by going through the many economic impacts of warfare in Victoria 3. Until then!
 
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Call me old-fashioned, but removing the actual player control of warfare takes out the strategy in a strategy game.
I won't call you old-fashioned, because most of the old-fashioned Paradox players who have been around here for a while are actually supportive of the change in the warfare system, and you certainly aren't that. However, your statement here is, while not old-fashioned, quite wrong. What the changes to the warfare system does is remove the tactics from a strategy game, and lets the game actually focus on the strategic management such as logistics, goods production and supply, political and home front management, and diplomatic maneuvering instead of getting bogged down in the tactical management.
 
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Disconcerting. While the absolute disaster that is the removal of all units and fine player control from the automated warfare system continues to kick my hype in the balls, this part seems more interesting but no less automated. It's good to see navies become more relevant and I still like the officer system, but this idea that players cannot be allowed to actually issue battle orders or do anything to micro-manage or actually control the warfare mechanics is a toxic one.

Micro-management is part of a Paradox game for a reason. I don't want a machine manning my wars for me. This system removes strategy and, at worst, could just be a numbers game without strategy. I want the ability to do it myself if I so choose. Which I do.

Call me old-fashioned, but removing the actual player control of warfare takes out the strategy in a strategy game.

Fortunately, my hype for the economics, diplomacy, and political systems keep me electric enough to eagerly anticipate this game.

I pray that I will be proven wrong.
I think I get what they're trying to do, but they've (imo) swung wayyyy too far into automation. There's a huge middle ground between microing every little unit and full computer automation, and they're leaning very very heavily towards the latter. There's a middle ground where there is still a significant amount of player control but without high levels of tedious micro.
 
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I think I get what they're trying to do, but they've (imo) swung wayyyy too far into automation. There's a huge middle ground between microing every little unit and full computer automation, and they're leaning very very heavily towards the latter. There's a middle ground where there is still a significant amount of player control but without high levels of tedious micro.
I mean, we still determine how many troops we have, who commands them, and where. I'm not sure how much more control there is you can give the player that doesn't get into simply giving the player micro. I've seen the suggestion of having strategic targets that are separated from wargoals (to allow for generals to know what is valuable to attack into even if it's not the nominal goal of the war) and arguably having some definition over the size of a front, though those could probably be automatically generated.

Other than those very narrowly-scoped changes, I'm not sure what else you think we can do that doesn't fall under the purview of "micro".
 
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I think I get what they're trying to do, but they've (imo) swung wayyyy too far into automation. There's a huge middle ground between microing every little unit and full computer automation, and they're leaning very very heavily towards the latter. There's a middle ground where there is still a significant amount of player control but without high levels of tedious micro.

I'd be telling fibs if I wasn't aware of and didn't share some of the concerns (less on the naval side, but there are still downside risks both in what's been shown and what we don't know) - but I think it's also important to keep in mind that while there's not a beta, I'm quite sure there will be alpha testers, as well as in-house QA, that are testing the game as it develops. Given things are at the stage where they (probably - blockade) haven't finished putting in all the naval orders, or a bunch of other things (there are so many things we don't know about the land and naval warfare systems at this point), I would expect that testing, combined with the obvious player concerns raised (ie, they'll presumably test with 'is this still fun?' in mind) should mean that at launch things will be interesting enough to be enjoyable (at least most of the time).

It's interesting - I think that while the systems aren't as "player hands-on" as previous Vicky titles, there may be value in terms of more warfare-based DDs to answer the huge range of questions and provide more info to players - but it may well be that things aren't refined enough yet for it to be DD-ready.

I mean, we still determine how many troops we have, who commands them, and where. I'm not sure how much more control there is you can give the player that doesn't get into simply giving the player micro. I've seen the suggestion of having strategic targets that are separated from wargoals (to allow for generals to know what is valuable to attack into even if it's not the nominal goal of the war) and arguably having some definition over the size of a front, though those could probably be automatically generated.

Other than those very narrowly-scoped changes, I'm not sure what else you think we can do that doesn't fall under the purview of "micro".

Oi, this is a naval-themed DD, take your dirty, landy talk somewhere else :p Just being silly - I'm not a mod - you shouldn't listen to a word I say - but the land mechanics may be a bit off-topic for the thread.
 
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Oi, this is a naval-themed DD, take your dirty, landy talk somewhere else :p Just being silly - I'm not a mod - you shouldn't listen to a word I say - but the land mechanics may be a bit off-topic for the thread.
Ah I think I got a bit mixed up trying to follow threads and conversations (I think the originating post I saw mentioned land as well even in this thread so I got mixed up) but I still do think it's basically true. Just apply the same logic to boats. We build the ships, we hire the sailors, we assign admirals, we decide what strategic regions and trade lanes are being focused on. And the analogous thing to "front size" isn't even an issue because strategic regions and trade lanes are presumably pre-defined.

It's a mirror of my prior comment because it's the same logic. We have a great deal of control over the system.
 
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Ah I think I got a bit mixed up trying to follow threads and conversations (I think the originating post I saw mentioned land as well even in this thread so I got mixed up) but I still do think it's basically true. Just apply the same logic to boats. We build the ships, we hire the sailors, we assign admirals, we decide what strategic regions and trade lanes are being focused on. And the analogous thing to "front size" isn't even an issue because strategic regions and trade lanes are presumably pre-defined.

It's a mirror of my prior comment because it's the same logic. We have a great deal of control over the system.

All good, I was more being silly than anything about the topic side of things :) And there are definitely strong parallels with the land warfare thread. On naval warfare, I think we've got a bit more control over naval - both location control, and what the fleets do (raid, intercept, invade and hopefully blockade). And in being able to decide the trade lanes that are being focussed on, that also gives us more control than a broad front in a land war, say (where there are two "operational" orders). I think this is necessary for naval (naval warfare is more complex strategically than land warfare) - but I can see why someone could be disappointed with the land war approach, but comfortable with the naval approach.

I mean, on land, for a war on a relative small front, we don't have that much less control, but say a German/Russian war, the degree of granularity of control and action for the naval elements would be much larger than for the land elements, which would like boil down to one big front on "attack" or "defend" - players would raise armies, assign to generals, and assign generals to the front, and then switch between attack and defend for however long it took, with the occasional reinforcement or rebalancing of armies, and maybe firing the odd general. The naval side, on the other hand, even if it was just in the Baltic, could involve German and Russian cruisers raiding commerce, and fleets patrolling to stop the raiders. If Russia is able to deploy raiders to Germany's trade routes through the Atlantic, though, then there's also that to keep in mind as well - plus the need to keep a fleet on "intercept" in the Baltic to counter a possible invasion. As a player, I'm giving more specific commands, and more of them, to get the job done.

At least, as best I can see it - I could be wrong, and strongly encourage you setting me straight if so :)
 
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Alternative to the concept presented in the DD:

  • New Concept: Command of the Sea
This percentile variable represents the relative psychological mastery of given patch of the world's oceans, though you are unlikely to achieve such mastery without material superiority. When Command of the Sea is high your trade runs unhindered (save for the occasional raider) and your fleets will try to confidently engage any enemy forces. If it is low your international trade will stop, your fleets will be skittish in engaging and keep to your coastlines and at worst your ports and bases may become completely blockaded or even attacked. Command of the Sea builds up over time, but is capped, so you won't instantly gain it if you decide to set your fleet on aggressive stance for a few days, but it will max out at realistic level compared to capacity of your fleet.

  • New Concept: Coastal Trade
This represents use of shipping to contribute to internal infrastructure of your market. Ports contribute to infrastructure and market access in coastal states, up to a certain percentage of the desired infrastructure depending on the geography of the state (rivers and lots of coastline relative to inland areas plus). If your Command of the Sea is very low the ports will start contributing at reduced capacity and may even stop doing so completely at very low levels.

Orders given to admirals are replaced with Stances, missions would become abstracted and battles would be generated in the sea zone depending on the fleets operating there and their Stances:​

  • Stance: Raid
Characterized by dispersion of forces and conservative attitude to using them. Flotillas under raiding admiral operate independently and do everything to avoid damage to themselves while attacking easy targets such as merchantmen or isolated ports. Contributes absolutely nothing to Command of the Sea.

  • Stance: Patrol
Characterized by dispersion of forces and proactive attitude to using them. Flotillas under patrolling admiral operate independently hoping to cover as much sea as possible, seeking to find and engage enemies they can sink and shadow such enemies they cannot. This stance also attacks commerce. Contributes moderately to Command of the Sea.

  • Stance: Defensive
Characterized by concentration of forces and conservative attitude to using them. Flotillas under defensive admiral operate together (and depending on how command limits work, this may also mean several admirals), generally content to remain a potential threat as fleet in being, only carefully picking easy battles or necessary ones such as defense against invasion or direct attack on their bases. However a fleet that just keeps hanging in their ports tends to forfeit everything outside of them to the enemy, at worst case causing all shipping to cease and if they appear very weak they may end up finding their bases under direct attack. Naval invasions also become more dangerous the greater the disparity in Command of the Sea. Still contributes moderately to Command of the Sea, so just couple of patrol boats won't take it from you.

Some units, notably minelayers and torpedo boats would specialize to contributing to Command of the Sea defensively, indeed that could be the only thing they do. Alternatively they (if they become too useful offensive tool) could reduce enemy's Command of the Sea and hence allow smaller fleet in being to keep your ports safe and (coastal) trade running.

  • Stance: Aggressive
Characterized by concentration of forces and proactive attitude to using them. Flotillas under aggressive admiral operate together (and depending on how command limits work, this may also mean several admirals), engaging enemy at every opportunity. They encroach on the enemy's defenses incrementally, at first driving the enemy away from their own littoral waters, then the high seas, then the enemy coast and if the enemy is or appears very weak may even directly attack the enemy's naval bases. Suffice to say, contributes greatly to Command of the Sea. Fleets operating in this manner would also draw a great deal of attention to themselves, so a crafty defensive commander could put his fleets on aggressive stance for a short time to allow some blockade runners in or to send the newest batch of surface raiders out, but his fleet would not instantly become extremely aggressive since Command of the Sea takes time to build up fully.

Huascar was more a masted turret ship than a monitor - monitors don't have forecastles or poops, and generally a lot less freeboard.

Fair. Actually, the sails alone put her into "definitely not a monitor" category. With the rest it might still be an edge case.
 
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New Concept: Command of the Sea

You've got some very interesting ideas here :) In terms of ordering admirals about, is there any geographic specificity? So Admirals are ordered to one or more strategic zones or nodes (or however it works) and then given a stance as appropriate). I think it would need it, or it could lead to some odd dispersion of forces - but I could be wrong, and you may have ideas that mean it wouldn't :)

Flotillas under patrolling admiral operate independently

This might need tweaking to ensure, once submarines and torpedoes are a thing, for destroyer flotillas to accompany capital ships (the dev diary is a little ambiguous about whether capital ships come "embedded with their own escorts" or not - and given trade protection is currently assigned to monitors, I'm not sure how familiar the devs are with when this would and wouldn't be appropriate). It will depend a lot on how they're intending to resolve naval clashes, but submarines could make merry havoc if there's not some kind of automatic logic that allows for screening once those weapons are in place.

Still contributes moderately to Command of the Sea, so just couple of patrol boats won't take it from you.

If this is the case, I thin the command of the sea should only be in the areas adjacent to the coast - so command of the sea might be a bit like a heatmap, rather than a set figure for the entire world's oceans (which is what you may have been thinking - or I may have misunderstood entirely). Otherwise a large German fleet could sit in port and potentially disrupt British trade without ever leaving harbour.

If your Command of the Sea is very low the ports will start contributing at reduced capacity and may even stop doing so completely at very low levels.

I very much like your idea of addressing coastal trade, which I'm sure will come as no surprise :)

With the rest it might still be an edge case.

I'd put Huascar in the same category as ships like Scorpion - a better seaboat and far more capable of operations on the open sea than the likes of Cerberus (a breastwork monitor - whose first crew on her delivery voyage to Australia from the UK were so concerned about her form in heavy weather that after her first leg of the trip down the Channel they all left, and a new crew needed to be hired). My main point, though, is that coastal raiding and protection of trade was primarily carried out by "cruisers" rather than ships (monitors) whose main purpose and capability was coastal defence/offence in nature. Even if Huascar was classified as a monitor by Chile, and was the world's greatest raider/trade protection vessel, I'd still argue strongly for renaming what are currently called "monitors" into something else. I know monitors were labelled this way in Vicky 2 (I think?) and, from memory, at least one of the old Imperialism games, but that doesn't make it right.
 
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I'd argue the most aggressive options available are blockade (if included) and intercept. I make the case in my posts for a "raid" option as well, given it was an important element of the North Sea battles in WW1, and other actions during the period. The counter to raid would also be "intercept".

What I'm curious about is what would happen in the North Sea if there was a blockading force, with the Grand Fleet (British) on an intercept order - would the Grand Fleet sortie if the High Seas Fleet (German) set an "intercept" order against the blockading force? I'd argue it should, but we don't know enough about how it'll work to know that at this case.
I agree that - at the moment - blockade & intercept are the most aggressive options available.

But I would say that for realism sake the most aggressive option should be "intercept and defend against strategic naval invasion" - I can imagine no more "do or die" situation for RN or IJN or USN than defence from the major naval invasion.

Equally for the commander of invading force - all-out-win-or-lose-war strategic naval invasion this would probably be the day not to spare ships or men.

Also - both you and mikhail321 seem to be overlooking coastal support operations by WW1-era navies.
In real history we should first of all remember the German-Russian naval actions in support of Baltic flanks of their armies. Then there is the example of Trebizond campaign. A bit earlier - Italo-Turkish war. Earlier in XIX century the best examples would probably be the battles in the Black sea during all the Russo-Ottoman wars.
For plausible imaginary situation - let's suppose that Italy enters WW1 on German side. Their main front would be against France. I suppose that both Italian and French navies would be called upon to support the ground operations on this front.
 
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I personally don’t see coastal raid order as essential. In themselves the coastal raids didn’t have any strategic goal other than a ruse to get the British out and a demonstration of some offensive activity by German capital units. So they could be easily replaced by convoy raid or patrol order (and as you say in the case of Jutland Germans did replace a coastal raid by convoy raid). As for tactical situation of the battle, I doubt the game will get to the details of modeling interplay of different squadrons with different speeds. I am far from sure we even get battlecruiser as a distinct ship type (and the pre-dreadnought picture used as a concept art for dreadnoughts in the DD kind of prove the point). However, given the evolution of naval warfare in HoI4, I’m sure the devs will avoid making individual engagements being too decisive in terms of ships lost, to avoid “RNG said you loose” situations. So we are likely to get more Jutlands than Tsushimas.
I have to respectfully disagree. You are looking at coastal raids only in the framework of German-English naval war in WW1 on the North sea.
However, if you look a bit more to the East - into Baltic operations during WW1 you will see that coastal raids and coastal bombardments could be very important.
 
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Also - both you and mikhail321 seem to be overlooking coastal support operations by WW1-era navies.
In real history we should first of all remember the German-Russian naval actions in support of Baltic flanks of their armies. Then there is the example of Trebizond campaign. A bit earlier - Italo-Turkish war. Earlier in XIX century the best examples would probably be the battles in the Black sea during all the Russo-Ottoman wars.
For plausible imaginary situation - let's suppose that Italy enters WW1 on German side. Their main front would be against France. I suppose that both Italian and French navies would be called upon to support the ground operations on this front.

Aye, sorry - not overlooking, as much as not wanting to overload things - there are a lot of things that I'd want done, and while I very much agree coastal support operations are important, particularly once naval artillery starts ranging further, they're not as important as blockade, say (which don't forget in this DD is a maybe). Coastal bombardment during WW1 was so important the UK built ships for this task alone, and Italy put fairly large calibre guns on barges (some self-propelled, some not, from memory, but it's a bit hazy, and I might be mixing my timing up there).

It's also a bit hard to say how it should work, with so much ambiguity over the land warfare model. At this point, my angle is I'd be happy for it not to be in the game at release, and the game focus more on getting the fundamentals right, and then coastal bombardment can be added later. That being said, if it's in scope and the devs agree, I'd strongly support it going in for launch as well - I just suspect it's not something that's on their radar (bearing in mind that monitors, the name of the dedicated coastal bombardment ships the British built, seem to have a rather different role in the design at this stage).

But don't let me stop you lobbying for it - you'll get a big +1 from me, and if you want me to elaborate on things, I'm happy to do that to (for an anecdote, early on in WW1, the British used some pre-dreadnoughts for coastal bombardment, and to increase the range deliberately gave the ship a bit of a list - it may have been Revenge or Resolution*?) :)

* Although knowing my memory, it was something entirely different!
 
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Aye, sorry - not overlooking, as much as not wanting to overload things - there are a lot of things that I'd want done, and while I very much agree coastal support operations are important, particularly once naval artillery starts ranging further, they're not as important as blockade, say (which don't forget in this DD is a maybe). Coastal bombardment during WW1 was so important the UK built ships for this task alone, and Italy put fairly large calibre guns on barges (some self-propelled, some not, from memory, but it's a bit hazy, and I might be mixing my timing up there).

It's also a bit hard to say how it should work, with so much ambiguity over the land warfare model. At this point, my angle is I'd be happy for it not to be in the game at release, and the game focus more on getting the fundamentals right, and then coastal bombardment can be added later. That being said, if it's in scope and the devs agree, I'd strongly support it going in for launch as well - I just suspect it's not something that's on their radar (bearing in mind that monitors, the name of the dedicated coastal bombardment ships the British built, seem to have a rather different role in the design at this stage).

But don't let me stop you lobbying for it - you'll get a big +1 from me, and if you want me to elaborate on things, I'm happy to do that to (for an anecdote, early on in WW1, the British used some pre-dreadnoughts for coastal bombardment, and to increase the range deliberately gave the ship a bit of a list - it may have been Revenge or Resolution*?) :)

* Although knowing my memory, it was something entirely different!

Thank you.
Indeed "ambiguous" seems to be the best available description of what we know about the combat system in VIC3 for now.
Still, I believe that it is better to say something in the hope that the developers will notice and correct something than to stay silent.

Regarding the listing of ships to change range/angle of fire - I think I have read such stories in WW2 context: about "Marat" in Leningrad and about some US BB used for coastal bombardment during Normandy Landings in 1944.
 
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You've got some very interesting ideas here :) In terms of ordering admirals about, is there any geographic specificity? So Admirals are ordered to one or more strategic zones or nodes (or however it works) and then given a stance as appropriate). I think it would need it, or it could lead to some odd dispersion of forces - but I could be wrong, and you may have ideas that mean it wouldn't :)

That's actually a good question. I was thinking large sea zones, more akin to the ones in Rule the Waves than Paradox games, e.g. European and African waters could be divided into Baltic, Western Europe, Mediterranean, Black Sea, West Africa, East Africa and South Africa. In that case there might not be need for ability to deploy fleets by multiple sea zones. However rigid sea zones could get strange in some situations. For example lets say Germany annexes Denmark and bases the High Sea Fleet in northern Jutland. It's now equally capable of making a sortie on both Baltic and North Sea sides of the German coast, why would it provide less Command of the Sea to either?

But since the proposed system is centred around control of coasts perhaps deployment too should be coast centric. You assign admirals/fleets by continuous coastlines, with nearby islands being subsumed to nearby coast-zones. For example the entire British coast would be a single coast-zone and would also subsume Faroes and probably Ireland too in it. The Command of the Sea would then emanate from these coast-zones along the Shipping Lanes, non-diminished, for a certain distance. For example as UK you could just assign the Grand Fleet (or whatever admirals/fleets make up the Grand Fleet) on Aggressive Stance in the British coast, since German North Sea coast is nearby there is no need to deploy separate fleet on Aggressive Stance on the German coast, they form a natural continuum via their proximity. If Russia and Spain are in war Russian Command of the Sea does not advance sufficiently from Baltic to reach the Spanish norther coast, so Russia would need to deploy a separate fleet on Aggressive Stance on the Spanish northern coast. Lastly there could be a few set large High Seas Zones, e.g. North Atlantic, Indian Ocean, West Pacific that would cover vast stretches of open ocean.

It also occurs to me there should be deployment restrictions of some sort. For example it should only be possible to order a fleet on Defensive Stance along a stretch of coast you actually have bases on. The rest of the Stances (with possible exception of Raid Stance, which could be assumed to use colliers and steal supplies) should have some kind of deployment range traced from your bases.

Another thing that should be addressed is how the fleets are connected to their bases. For example let's say you as Germany deploy a fleet on the French southern (Mediterranean) coast on Aggressive Stance. The first issue is that your fleet should be interceptable by a French fleet stationed on French northern coast, so your fleet should probably trace a lifeline along Shipping Lanes back to their bases in Germany and be treated as if they had an aggressive stance along that line, for purpose of generating battles. Another question would be if your fleet should exert Command of the Sea back along this line since they would be occasionally transiting the area, if they do it should be greatly diminished at least.

This might need tweaking to ensure, once submarines and torpedoes are a thing, for destroyer flotillas to accompany capital ships (the dev diary is a little ambiguous about whether capital ships come "embedded with their own escorts" or not - and given trade protection is currently assigned to monitors, I'm not sure how familiar the devs are with when this would and wouldn't be appropriate). It will depend a lot on how they're intending to resolve naval clashes, but submarines could make merry havoc if there's not some kind of automatic logic that allows for screening once those weapons are in place.

In this case the flotillas having a complement of escorts would be ideal simplification, I think.

If this is the case, I thin the command of the sea should only be in the areas adjacent to the coast - so command of the sea might be a bit like a heatmap, rather than a set figure for the entire world's oceans (which is what you may have been thinking - or I may have misunderstood entirely). Otherwise a large German fleet could sit in port and potentially disrupt British trade without ever leaving harbour.

The Defensive Stance still assumes your fleet is willing to leave a port if opportunity arises, and would become increasingly so if they achieve greater Command of the Sea. If Britain emptied the Home Islands of all assets contributing to their Command of the Sea in the area, then a German fleet on Defensive Stance would eventually secure complete supremacy on the British coast, and stop all or almost all British trade both Coastal and along the Shipping Lanes. If a large British fleet on Aggressive Stance were to move back in, the Germans would gradually slink back to their ports.

I very much like your idea of addressing coastal trade, which I'm sure will come as no surprise :)

Also with specialized Defensive Stance units coming in the latter half of the game the game would naturally transition from close to distant blockade as maintaining control of your coastal waters becomes more easy. The system would also allow Jeune Ecole. And since the possibility of attacking ports/bases is there, it not only allows for those kinds of battles (somewhat frequent in this period) but it also integrates gunboat diplomacy into the naval system as that is ultimately just a port/base attack or a threat of one, for which even a small defensive navy would increase the opportunity cost.
 
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Much more content with the naval system than the land system, I think it fits better and as it stands actually appears to be offering a little more nuance to the player. I basically just used to avoid doing anything naval in Vic2 if I could, just to cut out an extra pause-"you go there"-unpause routine, and I'm glad with every change that removes that. It's the land system that needs more refining in my eyes.

I do hope some notice is taken of some suggestions down here on some areas, though (eg the actual routing of trade routes and maybe some extra and slightly altered orders). But better informed people have already made the cases better than I could.
 
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Will blockades affect prices since it would hurt the global/regional supply? (i.e. if I block a sugar producer, there would be less sugar and if the demand stays the same, the prices will rise up)
 
Will blockades affect prices since it would hurt the global/regional supply? (i.e. if I block a sugar producer, there would be less sugar and if the demand stays the same, the prices will rise up)
Prices are per market, not global. So for markets that used to be trading with the sugar producer you are blockading, prices would indeed go up (unless they made a deal with another sugar producer to replace the lost imports). But for those not engaged with trade with the blockaded power, nothing would happen.
 
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most of the old-fashioned Paradox players who have been around here for a while are actually supportive of the change in the warfare system
I guess that's people like me, my most played game in the series is EU2, followed by V2, CK2, V1, CK1. So I have done my time in the world of pixel hunting, and it really is the same each time. The option space looks large when you have a map to move around, but war is really a matter of exploiting the AI's movement behaviour. Ironically, this looks "harder" than an abstract system, but it enables unrealistic levels of power projection, making warfare easy and unstrategic, to the point of World Conquests being a meme (in the Dawkins sense, not the millennial sense). This change moves Paradox away from the "Ulm WC" territory which I accept was optional and beloved of many.

Now, there is room for clarification and improvement in the details, like numbers of fronts on land or the naval mission typology, and some of this will happen before release, and hopefully some will happen afterward, but I'm not super keen on buying another pixel-clicker, so kudos.
 
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Because the distance Admirals must patrol plays a difference, there is an inherent asymmetry to Convoy Raiding and Patrol orders. Since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link the damage done to a shipping lane by raiders is the same whether it stretches across 1 node or 10, whereas 10x as many Flotillas are needed to protect the longer route as effectively as the shorter.​

One should be able to decide if they want their fleet *in one block* doing the action, or spread out in multiple blocks of smaller size. Doing the former should decrease the chance of a battle, but bring more of your ships to bear when a battle occurs, while the latter increase the probability of a battle while decreasing the amount of ships you can bring to bear in that battle (a spread factor of two means your admiral's boats are split in two groups whose only half would enter battle, but doing so would increase the likelihood of a battle by a factor 2).

In the ideal world, this spread factor should be automatically determined by the admiral such that it would still be likely to have the upper hand in case of battle (with the human being allowed to choose between "cautious", "normal", "aggressive" which intervene in the formula of how an admiral would decide its spread factor).

I guess you might have lots of admirals to achieve this and micro-managing them, but then what happens that one time where you need a combined fleet for a naval invasion, for instance?
 
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Danish gold coast colony! I'm already drooling...:p