A battleship can be built in 240 days with very basic technology.

[Jazumir]

IMHO, if they want to make a game, that is totally focused on gameplay and fun, disregarding realism at every corner that is cut due to neccessary abstraction, they better focus on stellaris, entirely. You can do that to all your heart´s content for a sci-fi-game. For a game based on historical occurances? Not so much. Not only does it tend to substract from the fun for those who know a bit about history, but also does it teach those who dont wrong things. It´s like moving the US´s east coast 500km/miles off france, just because it is more fun, if the axis can actually invade the US: Huge turn-off for those who have actually seen a map of the world and giving the wrong idea to those who havent.

It is also my opinion, that a game like HoI should be able to convey some knowledge about how and why things went during the period, as well as making such knowledge applicable where appropriate. Now, dont get me wrong: I am not talking about the historical events per se - the battle of midway, for example, should not always occur and if it does, quite unlikely it will on the same date as the historical one. But if it does happen just like in history, with the same outcome, its consequences should be the same as close as can be modeled in both the game and history. In other words: The basic elements of decision making should resemble the real ones as close as can be managed - going for the battle of midway should be a major risk to both sides, and losing your surface fleet (without replacement already being in the pipeline for some time) shouldnt be something you can remedy in a couple of months, just because its ´more fun´ this way. It´s not. At least not for me. If i want that, i play some sci-fi-game.

As Axe has pointed out: Altering the balance of reality for one aspect will either throw off the entire balance of the game (in regards to history) or needs to be counterbalanced by other unrealistic design-choices (which in turn will have to counter-balanced again elsewhere, in some sort of vicious circle), either further removing the game from anything resembling plausibility and any ´what-if´-fun (cause usually, i daresay, the ´what-if´ people want to try is not ´what if ships needed no fuel to move and could be built in 1/3 of the time it really took´). Instead the player will be asking him/herself while playing: ´What if the game was actually realistic in its abstractions - could this strategy i just won the game with, have worked then as well? Too bad, that i will never know...´

EDIT: Not that i wouldnt like a WW2-ish game set on some alien world, with the toys and such going by different rules than earth´s world war 2. Some sort of ´Battle Isle´-GS (Aldinium -Maternus?- for the win!) if you will. That´s certainly an option for a game to be made and played, too... But AFAIK, HoI4 was never announced as such.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Why not limit naval builds to a single row of shipyards? Now instead of being able to devote 15 shipyards to a single battleship, you can only devote 5, and the standard time for battleship construction goes from 240 days to 720 days, but your overall capacity to build battleships has not diminished: you just have 3x as many lines of capital ships on the go.

 

[Denkt]

abstraction is necessary to make a game, and it is a game, it isnt a simulation we are trying to make.

Why can't you make a game out of a WW2 setting?

 

[Jazumir]

It´s not about corners having to be cut, but which and how.

 

[Denkt]

Why not limit naval builds to a single row of shipyards? Now instead of being able to devote 15 shipyards to a single battleship, you can only devote 5, and the standard time for battleship construction goes from 240 days to 720 days, but your overall capacity to build battleships has not diminished: you just have 3x as many lines of capital ships on the go.

A significant disadvantage with this suggestion is that you will not be able to build capital ships in the late game.

 

[Amur_Tiger]

A significant disadvantage with this suggestion is that you will not be able to build capital ships in the late game.

I'm not sure that's such a bad thing, the theme that you fight the war with the army you have and not the one you want to have is all the more true for the navy.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

A significant disadvantage with this suggestion is that you will not be able to build capital ships in the late game.

Assuming there are some techs for increasing production efficiency, you should still be able to get some service out of 1944 techs, especially if you research ahead. But yeah, the approaching end of the world has some distorting effects.

 

[Amur_Tiger]

Assuming there are some techs for increasing production efficiency, you should still be able to get some service out of 1944 techs, especially if you research ahead. But yeah, the approaching end of the world has some distorting effects.

I think that 1944 tech for naval affairs was a bit of a reflexive thing so that all categories had their 1944 tech, in truth I don't think there were any radical shifts in tech towards the end of the war for the Navy, the Essex class was from a design standpoint worked out in 1940-1941 and the Midway class in 1943 and among capital ships carriers were by far the most changed by their wartime experience. By comparison a '1944' Lion class was basically a larger KGV configured with 9x16" guns, the Montana a beefed up South Dakota. Cruisers started to get auto-loading guns towards the end of the war but this pales in comparison to previous shifts where cruisers picked up a very considerable AA role.

I think the best approach would be to shift the whole mess of techs back a bit so that earlier years can be more fleshed out and insure that all the later techs will actually have representative examples built during the war.

 

[jaredstanko]

You guys are somehow not really taking into your thinking that naval dockyards are somehow limited too. They are the limiting factor for naval produktion. If you like to assign 15 yards to a single production line, how many lines can you setup that way?
For example lets take Germany from start not even one full line with only 10 yards available.
UK only one full line and 4 yards are left for a second line.
Yes you can bild yards but those take alot of time to build up also which for you need the civilian industrie which you even dont have in unlimited numbers.
So maybe you are able to build a single battleship in a couple of month, but in the mean time you will hardly build anything else.
You need convois, dd, cl, cv and subs to. If you like to build all these on full speed you need up to 90 dockyards.
So as USA for example you have to build nearly 68 yards to have 6 lines running on full speed as you only start with 22 iirc.
As Yards only can be build on coastlines the number which can be build is also limited because the number of factorys in a state is even limited to a maximum of 20 and this only when its full developed and enough people are living there and the already existing civilian and army factorys already take some space too ;-)
not even to mention you need all resources in high quantity to keep those running on full speed.
As i see it the naval thing is already really good balanced.

hit the nail on the head. you guys are making mountains out of molehills and its kinda embarrassing. at the very most, i could see changing the number of dockyards that can be used on capital ships(anything whose output is being measure in units per year, as opposed to month or week) as ten per serial line.

everyone complaining about how this makes american and british navies overpowered does not understand that there is a limit to naval production based on dockyards and resources, and in 1936 britain has 21 facilities.. putting 75% of your naval production on one class of ship is extremely foolish.

and producing a capital ship every 241 days is not necessarily unrealistic... as long as you have to use parallel production to do so! from where im standing, it does not look like like britain or germany or any other country ive seen has an unrealistic amount of natural resources and capital to build navies signifigantly larger than they did in real life.


so im all for changing the number of dockyards taht can be used on a class of ship in one serial line, but the way yall are going on about asking for it is sounding like life and death and its really really really silly.......

 

[Amur_Tiger]

and producing a capital ship every 241 days is not necessarily unrealistic... as long as you have to use parallel production to do so! from where im standing, it does not look like like britain or germany or any other country ive seen has an unrealistic amount of natural resources and capital to build navies signifigantly larger than they did in real life.

Actually evidence suggests that the total naval production capacity is quite a bit less then it should be for the UK at least, and probably for all parties. Certainly for the UK the biggest challenge for production wasn't their drydock throughput but getting enough resources to actually feed those drydocks without starving out other sectors of the war economy.

Here's an idea of the sort of production that the UK was putting out compared to the various Axis nations, starting in 1912 when the Kongo class was built for Japan.

Spoiler

UK
WWI ( 1912-Queen E Class )
BB/BC 14

WW2 ( Queen E class - WW2 )
BB 17
BC 5

Total BC/BB all from 1912-WW2 36

CV 20

Japan
BB/BC 12
CV 13
This includes the mostly finished Shinano and the Kongo class which was entirely built in the UK
CV 20

Italy
BB 5
CV 1
This includes the mostly completely Aquila

Germany
1912-Bayern
WWI 13
Bayern-WW2
BB/BC 8
CV 1
This includes the mostly completed last 2 Bayern class and Graf Zeppelin

Total Axis
BB/BC 38
CV 22

*Divided this up just to make clear that these early ones were WWI battlewagons that didn't make it to WWII

You can also take a look at the 1937 build plan which included 5 KGVs and 4 Illustrious class carriers and from what I can tell this can't be replicated in game.

 

[Lightning Jack]

I haven't seen screeenshots but I thought Johan said that threat will prevent the Democracies from rearming too early. If it is tied to ship construction, that can prevent US from having the Iowa's before Pearl Harbor. Historically, Japan behaved aggressively in Asia, that allowed the US to rearm a bit before the war. I hope if the Japan player treads lightly, it will delay US's rearmament.

 

[Axe99]

everyone complaining about how this makes american and british navies overpowered does not understand that there is a limit to naval production based on dockyards and resources, and in 1936 britain has 21 facilities.. putting 75% of your naval production on one class of ship is extremely foolish.

The US built 21 Essex class CVs between 1941 and 1945 - an average of over 5 CVs a year. To achieve this in-game, if the current figures are roughly what they'll be like at launch (which is very much an open question) the US will need over 30 dockyards on that class alone, operating at full speed. However, because of the enhanced build times, by the time Midway rolls around, the US isn't facing the Japanese navy with 3 CVs, it's got 9! Even if you cut the US' production capacity to half of what it was in the actual time period (which, for a game that's purportedly a sandbox, would be a curious design decision), you're giving the US a substantial advantage at Midway in terms of CVs (6, instead of 3). There's no way to butcher the US' production capacity in a way that isn't going to have half of the audience who plays the game wondering what's going on, that means those build times won't leave Japan with a far, far smaller window for its Pacific conquests than it had historically.

Edit: As per my follow-up post below, I mis-counted the end times of 2-3 of the Essexes (2 that were cancelled and one that finished in early '46), and have adjusted numbers accordingly - it doesn't change the story, but apologies for my fast'n'loose posting .

I haven't seen screeenshots but I thought Johan said that threat will prevent the Democracies from rearming too early. If it is tied to ship construction, that can prevent US from having the Iowa's before Pearl Harbor. Historically, Japan behaved aggressively in Asia, that allowed the US to rearm a bit before the war. I hope if the Japan player treads lightly, it will delay US's rearmament.

The US rearmament program was also due, in part, to events in Europe. Even if Japan doesn't do a thing, I'd expect that if WT is rising, the US will be able to increase production.

 

[BunnyPoopCereal]

How many 1944 tech ships were used in the actual war? Most like the Midway and Saipan carriers and Worcester and Des Moines cruisers (I am making a guess as to the names of the 1944 ship techs) didn't see combat before the war was over. The Allen M Sumner class destroyer did but that makes sense because smaller ships can be built more quickly.

The end time frame of the game is 1948. With typical real life build times you would still have 2-3 years or maybe more to fight to 1948 with the 1944 designs. There is no need for stupid-fast build times. This isn't Starcraft or Sins or some other rock-paper-scissors real time strategy game. Major warships were a huge investment in time, money and resources and should be treated as such. Not be sailed out of the shipyard straight into combat like they were tanks rolling out of the factory without their paint job yet because you will have the next one completed in a few months.

Exactly. Fortunately the modders (Black ICE) will probably add all of this realistic stuff that we like. Paradox aims to make a good foundation for a game to appeal to many. We are a bit more hardcore and like the attention to detail, like things you describe in your post.

 

[jaredstanko]

The US built 24 Essex class CVs between 1941 and 1945 - an average of 6 CVs a year. To achieve this in-game, if the current figures are roughly what they'll be like at launch (which is very much an open question) the US will need around 45 dockyards on that class alone, operating at full speed. However, because of the enhanced build times, by the time Midway rolls around, the US isn't facing the Japanese navy with 3 CVs, it's got 12! Even if you cut the US' production capacity to a third of what it was in the actual time period (which, for a game that's purportedly a sandbox, would be a curious design decision), you're giving the US a substantial advantage at Midway in terms of CVs (6, instead of 3). There's no way to butcher the US' production capacity in a way that isn't going to have half of the audience who plays the game wondering what's going on, that means those build times won't leave Japan with a far, far smaller window for its Pacific conquests than it had historically.

The US rearmament program was also due, in part, to events in Europe. Even if Japan doesn't do a thing, I'd expect that if WT is rising, the US will be able to increase production.

im very confused. where are you getting any of your information? we know that serial lines of ships can have 15 dockyards put on them, resulting in unrealistically fast build times. i dont like this, but i dont see how this affects anything related to american build times or production capabilities. especially when we havent played the game yet.

why would the US have more cv's if it had the same production capabilities it had in real life but unrealistic build times of ships, if the starting date was 1936? because the production lines are cranking faster in game and 3 CV's were completed between 1941 and 1943, but 21 between 1943 and 1945 IRL?

i can understand what youre saying. i think reducing the number of dockyards that can be used on ships could be reduced, but i think you are taking things at face value too hard. just because a ship is laid down in 1941 and completed in 1945 does not mean full production speed was being spent on it the whole time. also again, mountains and molehills

 

[Axe99]

im very confused. where are you getting any of your information? we know that serial lines of ships can have 15 dockyards put on them, resulting in unrealistically fast build times. i dont like this, but i dont see how this affects anything related to american build times or production capabilities. especially when we havent played the game yet.

why would the US have more cv's if it had the same production capabilities it had in real life but unrealistic build times of ships, if the starting date was 1936? because the production lines are cranking faster in game and 3 CV's were completed between 1941 and 1943, but 21 between 1943 and 1945 IRL?

i can understand what youre saying. i think reducing the number of dockyards that can be used on ships could be reduced, but i think you are taking things at face value too hard. just because a ship is laid down in 1941 and completed in 1945 does not mean full production speed was being spent on it the whole time. also again, mountains and molehills

The information on the build times in-game is from RehorX's tables in the thread:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/analysis-of-ships-production.895303/

The information on the Essex class CVs is from Conways' All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946.

Now, the info on in-game build times may change, but what happened with the Essex class was that nine were laid down between April 1941 and the end of 1942. The first was commissioned on the 31st of December 1942 (ie, around 20 months from laying down to finished), because they were all being built in parallel. Now, they were absolutely being built as fast as the US could build them (the US even started building CVLs because it was concerned it couldn't finished the Essex class fast enough, they were hardly biding their time). Using the HoI4 build times we've seen though, we know that:

- to get the total number of Essex CVs in the time it took the US, they'll need over 30 dockyards to build that number, or two lines going at full speed (5 months a carrier if there are 15 dockyards dedicated, 48 months or so to build them, 21 ships to build (sorry about the 24, I missed a couple that were cancelled late when I was going throught the list) - so a ship ever 2.3 months).

- This means you've got two Essex class in the water by November '41, and another two by April '42, or four Essex-class CVs ready to go for Midway, compared with the historical result of Japan having a far freer hand until well into 1943 (while, historically, the US actually borrowed a UK carrier in early 1943 because of the shortage of CVs they were experiencing).

What this means, in-game, is that instead of the relatively long window between when the US starts gearing up its production, and when it's going to have overwhelming naval superiority over Japan, Japan is on the back foot from very early in the Pacific war, if not from the start (faster ship production could even go as far as to make it make make no sense for Japan to attack the US in the first place). I've got no concern if you think unbalancing the Pacific Theatre of Operations is a molehill, but can you see why players interested in an interesting Pacific campaign might have a concern with these ship build times?

 

[Amur_Tiger]

why would the US have more cv's if it had the same production capabilities it had in real life but unrealistic build times of ships, if the starting date was 1936? because the production lines are cranking faster in game and 3 CV's were completed between 1941 and 1943, but 21 between 1943 and 1945 IRL?

Because of lag time, the build time of a ship is the lag time between committing to a decision and getting a result.

We're all sorta going on the assumption that Allied powers will have a harder time committing to war production earlier in the game, this has been true for previous HoI games and will likely be true here as well and because military equipment especially capital ships. The Bismarck alone cost in DM as many as 1500 Panthers would and here's part of why that matters.

The Bismarck class started construction in 1936, which is our game start, and already had the Scharnhorsts under construction since the year before. The UK didn't start their builds until 1937 and then just barely had some the KGV class ( if you consider them ready ) for the Bismarck's first and last foray. This capability gap is important ( between Axis members committing to capital ships and Allies being able to build a response ) as this is where they have an opportunity to strike a decisive blow. Had all 5 KGVs been ready and had all their bugs worked out then likely as not the Bismarck would have simply been stopped short on it's first contact and sunk right then and there. This also plays into the importance of intelligence as the UK's reaction in 1937 depends on intelligence on the enemy's intentions, without knowing about this it would have been hard to make the case that the Navy needs another battleship more then the Army needs another 1500 or so tanks.

 

[Jazumir]

I think that 1944 tech for naval affairs was a bit of a reflexive thing so that all categories had their 1944 tech, in truth I don't think there were any radical shifts in tech towards the end of the war for the Navy, the Essex class was from a design standpoint worked out in 1940-1941 and the Midway class in 1943 and among capital ships carriers were by far the most changed by their wartime experience. By comparison a '1944' Lion class was basically a larger KGV configured with 9x16" guns, the Montana a beefed up South Dakota. Cruisers started to get auto-loading guns towards the end of the war but this pales in comparison to previous shifts where cruisers picked up a very considerable AA role.

I think the best approach would be to shift the whole mess of techs back a bit so that earlier years can be more fleshed out and insure that all the later techs will actually have representative examples built during the war.

And that is an abstraction, that does not defy logic. Way to go, imho. If the enddate is fixed, the latest tech should become avaiable (by reasonable effort) soon enough to make it matter, not buildtimes of everything in this class of arms be subdued to this need. If ships take 3 years to build (say), then it makes little sense to have a 46 model (say) when then game ends in 48 (say). To remedy this, move the 46-class to 44 (cause it can be historically argued, that the design was there or at least possible in 44), rather than dividing all build times by 3 (cause that can be hardly argued from a historical pov - it´s just bare non-sense ; plus it impacts the entire game-balance, potentially causing issues left and right).

[NB: numbers above detached from ingame-numbers, for argument´s sake!]

I am not saying that HoI4 will take either course - i am sort of argueing in a pre-emptive way, of what i WOULD find right or wrong. I am aware that the numbers are all subject to change, still.

 

[bigb4486]

Well looks like the allies will not lack for oil. In the latest stream you can see (http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/v/29053519 at the 5:30 mark) the United States is pumping out 1063 oil. Will be interesting to see how the pacific plays out.

 

[pommiebastard]

I'm kind of astonished that people are extrapolating (and panicking) so much from a back-of-the-envelope calculation by Denkt (which is what the OP was)

If the system as it currently stands (with up to 15 factories of whatever type being able to contribute to a production line) turns out to produce ships (especially capital ships) too fast, then I'm confident the number of dockyards that can be put on a line will be reduced. As has been pointed out multiple times, if what we're worried about is just that there's too much "parallelisation", then reduce how many factories can work in parallel and you're done.

Then you'd potentially still end up with the US sticking 30 dockyards to making Essex carriers in 1941, but they'd be doing it in 6 production lines, not 2, so they'd get the same number of vessels in the end, but with a longer time before the first batch arrive.

The other thing that could have helped (again, one of the reasons I loved Arsenal of Democracy) is the concept of "tooling up" at the start of a production line - effectively, you have to run the line for a certain lead time without production before things get going. This, along with the "gearing" mechanic that gradually reduced build time with the number of items, really made you think about the benefits of blitzing things in parallel versus steady building in extended lines.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

The other thing that could have helped (again, one of the reasons I loved Arsenal of Democracy) is the concept of "tooling up" at the start of a production line - effectively, you have to run the line for a certain lead time without production before things get going. This, along with the "gearing" mechanic that gradually reduced build time with the number of items, really made you think about the benefits of blitzing things in parallel versus steady building in extended lines.

Though historically, no one built battleships serially, as the long time between laying down the keel to commission means that the second ship in the series would be an obsolete design by then.