Courbet class in 1936

[Linx MP]

In the WWW today we saw starting build que for France which included a courbet class battleship. The courbet class was build between in the second decade of the twentieth century and would see its final refit in the early thirties. France was building battleships during this period of both Dunkerque and Richelieu classes.

Is the reason for this discrepancy a mistake or is it due to how the ship class system works?

 

[Sparrow]

Probably how they decided to show France's IC being consumed?

 

[Sleight of Hand]

It's a by-product of the fairly simplified naval tech system, which is that there is only one naval tech to represent all pre-1936 battleships, and so presumably the variant system has to somehow handle the rest.

Given that the majority of battleships used in World War II were built before and during World War I, this is a curious choice. However, it is too late to change it now.

 

[Denkt]

It is a bit strange to have Richelleu Class as a 1936 tech then Bismarck is a 1940 tech.

 

[Marfach]

Mods to the rescue (again).

 

[LordOfWar16]

Well, in the end it is atleast just a cosmetic error that can probably be fixed rather easiely, by renaming the ships in the files. In the end ship names are only cosmetic afterall.

 

[Axe99]

Surprised to see Courbet showing up in a build queue! Even on the tech tree, I'd rate Bretagne as a better choice, but should be easy to sort out with a little tinkering.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Surprised to see Courbet showing up in a build queue! Even on the tech tree, I'd rate Bretagne as a better choice, but should be easy to sort out with a little tinkering.

Indeed, but perhaps Bretagne is an improved variant of Courbet. If it is, then one wonders why the variant name wouldn't be shown on the build queue -- or is he really just churning out Courbets in 1936?

Also, I'm hoping that the 1944 battleship tech (which we can't see) is Alsace.

 

[dukenukem115]

It's a by-product of the fairly simplified naval tech system, which is that there is only one naval tech to represent all pre-1936 battleships, and so presumably the variant system has to somehow handle the rest.

Given that the majority of battleships used in World War II were built before and during World War I, this is a curious choice. However, it is too late to change it now.

I was afraid that would be the case, hopefully it's something that can be modded easily so that pre WW2 classes can be properly represented. As a massive navy buff, having say the USS Colorado, listed as say a Pennsylvania class with annoy me a bit.

 

[Marfach]

I was afraid that would be the case, hopefully it's something that can be modded easily so that pre WW2 classes can be properly represented. As a massive navy buff, having say the USS Colorado, listed as say a Pennsylvania class with annoy me a bit.

Depending on how simplistic the tech system is, the USS Colorado might actually BE a Pennsylvania class ship. But this is the kind of thing some modders will be tearing into on day 1 so I doubt you'll have to wait long for a properly fleshed out tech system.

 

[3ishop]

Maybe they start with it in the build que? Or it has better stats thanks to varriants over the newer class.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Yeah, I mean in Johan's first WWW video you can clearly see that if Britain wants to build a battleship in 1936 (before any naval techs are researched) then it will be a Queen Elizabeth-class. Unfortunately, this means that not only are the five Revenge-class battleships lumped in with the QEs - as they were in previous games, and that was fine because they were very similar - but now the Nelson-class are as well. This is totally unacceptable; they were built in different eras to radically different designs. The US naval techs will certainly suffer the same fate.

We know that from (IIRC) yesterday's 2-hour stream that France will be building Bretagne-class battleships in 1936, as there is no model to represent anything designed between those and the Richelieu-class... which, bizarrely, are an entire tech behind the contemporary Bismarck-class (1940 BB tech).

Unfortunately, whilst other complained-about elements of the game have since been addressed (i.e. they completely re-did the industry/supply system AFAIK) the naval setup has not, and so even though adding an inter-war naval tech to represent most of the 'treaty battleships' would have been fairly straightforward (and please don't accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about... in the grand scheme of HoI IV's mechanics, this really would not have been a major change) addition, it hasn't been done. This means that 90% of the battleships that exist in 1936 (which are the vast majority of those used during WW2) cannot be represented accurately, as everything from 1905 pre-dreadnoughts to advanced 1920s battleships like the Nelson and Rodney are going to be lumped into the same tech group.

Given what an amazing job Paradox have done overhauling and improving so many aspects of the game, sadly it looks like the navy has been overlooked yet again.

 

[Denkt]

The developers do use the variant system to create difference between starting ship classes.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

The developers do use the variant system to create difference between starting ship classes.

Absolutely, but even the variant system is not sufficient to model the 30 year gap between pre-dreadnought battleships and the early treaty battleships. We're not talking variants or improvements here, but totally different classes of ships from different eras.

It is simply the case that, sadly, there is a huge gap between the first two ship techs.

 

[Denkt]

I don't think ships that will be close to useless in a large part of the game will get to much detail.

 

[Axe99]

I don't think ships that will be close to useless in a large part of the game will get to much detail.

Thing is, they shouldn't be close to useless if the set-up is historically plausible. I'm not fussed, as I'm planning to mod the naval set-up to add more detail and plausibility, so will just do it then, but the issues Sleight raises are valid points to raise, even if Paradox's approach is also valid from a gameplay perspective.

 

[Kai Lae]

Any modders around to fix this? This is really annoying me. It's even more unexplainable when it isn't the way it was done for previous HOIs.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Any modders around to fix this? This is really annoying me. It's even more unexplainable when it isn't the way it was done for previous HOIs.

I shall attempt to, I think it is something we could do as a community project. We need at least one more ship tech/date.

 

[dukenukem115]

I shall attempt to, I think it is something we could do as a community project. We need at least one more ship tech/date.

I wonder if it will be possible to add multiple classes per tech date, I think the Japanese start with two tier 1 battleship types. As for a new tech dates or dates I definitely see 1912 as the starting date. For the Americans, the Wyoming, New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania classes would fall into that category. With the New Mexico (barely), Tennessee and Colorado being the 1922 tech date.

 

[Axe99]

I wonder if it will be possible to add multiple classes per tech date, I think the Japanese start with two tier 1 battleship types. As for a new tech dates or dates I definitely see 1912 as the starting date. For the Americans, the Wyoming, New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania classes would fall into that category. With the New Mexico (barely), Tennessee and Colorado being the 1922 tech date.

We know that it's possible to have multiple variants per tech date . We just don't know whether the variant system can represent the range of functionality between all the ships lumped into th 1922 slot.