Originally posted by Isebrand
I see. Obviously this player didn't understand the Hoi game mechanics. Traveling around with single subs is pointless.
Try this: Build some subs and put them all in one stack. Now attack a fleet of the same size with these subs.
After the fleet got blasted away, check build cost for subs and ships.
Why should he have to build stacks? Firstly, I want to be able to tell my units to engage convoys and NOT allied military ships (like history). Are my commanders that dense that they engage (cos let's not forget that subs always attack when they enter a province too. This is a naval issue, not just a sub one) huge blocks of enemy ships?
I also want to be able to run into the Atlantic without being seen. I find it absurd that right now everytime I leave port my sub gets taken out.
Finally I don't want units to be able to see whats in a neighbouring sea province. Hell i don't want them to automatically see what's in their own province. There needs to be percentages for them and they should be very low with the early tech.
Originally posted by Dinsdale
This is a province based divisional/flotilla game. The likelihood of an entire flotilla of submarines being invisible in the North Atlantic is pretty slim. The area where those subs are would be known, then it's just a matter of hunting and either destroying them, or not.
No, not at all. At the start of the war it was very hard to track a sub, virtually impossible. You had to wait until they made the move and then go after them. As it is now that doesn't happen. 100% interception is completely unrealistic, especially if I wanted my subs to just lurk and pick off convoys. But I'm also complaining about them getting intercepted when they try to sneak out of port, even in the dead of night.
Even if you become aware of a group of subs operating in an area there is no way you could just waltz in and find them. This is thousands of miles of water we're talking about. Its like a needle in a haystack until you get better tech and aircraft support.
What should happen is that an allied player suspects subs or surface ships, either one, working in a region - due to the info on convoys being lost (you wouldn't see the fleet icons unless you spotted them) - and so sends a fleet into the region. Now both sides wait. The German player doesn't see them coming immediately, but chances are he'll be the first to spot (all this depends on tech, of course). So what does he do? Well he can either order his sub to stop attacking and see if he gets spotted. The allied player may find nothing and so move on, or the German quietly moves his subs out. If the Allied player does find him, then, and only then, can he engage, and if the sub is on the defensive side, because it has elected to hide, rather than attack, then it should stand virtually no chance of sinking a ship, and hope only that it can sneak away from the bombardment. Obviosuly if its a surface vessel (e.g. the Bismarck) we're talking about, it would have a greater chance of inflicting damage.
Now that would be interesting. It'd be a cat and mouse game as the allied player tries to find the bastard sinking his ships while the German sees how far he can push his luck.
This would require new order types, but that's no surprise. To use the ground structure for naval combat is... well let's face it, retarded. I would, off the top of my head, have:
All naval units
- Evade. Avoid all combat and hide from the enemy.
- Attack convoys. Searches only for convoys and tries to engage them
- Attack all. Searches for all enemy ships and tries to engage them.
These can be given as orders moving along a line, or orders for operating in a region. Ideally you'd even be able to add enemy fleet size restrictions to these (i.e. engage a stack of only x strength), but that, I know, will never happen.
As a final thought, imagine Germany with nuclear subs and the Brits with pre-war dreadnaughts still managing to detect them. Its laughable.
