Fleet in Being

[ingwe]

I've never been super happy with naval combat in any of the HOI games. I think part of this has to do with the lack of importance that capital ships have. When BBs and CVs moved during WWII, it was really important. The UK constantly kept tabs on where all of Germany's capital ships were and kept naval and air assets available to engage them. Hence, Germany was arguably ascribing to the Fleet in Being doctrine of thought by building a significant surface fleet that was incapable of challenging for control of the seas. Do you think HOI3 did a good job of modeling the strategic effects of the Fleet in Being doctrine? What could HOI4 do to improve upon this?

In real life, is the Fleet in Being a reasonable doctrine choice? Should Germany have simply built submarines instead of increasing their surface fleet at all?

 

[YellowMoonshine]

Honestly I always thought the AI was just terrible with naval combat. They always seemed to slit their fleet in groups of 2 or 3 and have them patrol, regardless of whether or not I was wandering around the area with my 5 BB fleet.

In real life, is the Fleet in Being a reasonable doctrine choice?

The actual effects of fleet in being that you described are probably still true today, but WW2 stopped it being a viable doctrine. Read up on the Battle of Taranto where the Italian fleet was practicing Fleet in Being by staying in their port and was smashed by British carrier aircraft. Which was closely studied by the Japanese for pearl harbour.

But even if it was a flawed doctrine it was still viable, especially in the early years where carriers weren't as effective. I suppose a good way of showing the effects of fleet in being would be for the AI to be able to react to enemy forces in the area and react accordingly, whether by striking at the ports, keeping a fleet nearby to intercept them and stuff like that.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The actual effects of fleet in being that you described are probably still true today, but WW2 stopped it being a viable doctrine. Read up on the Battle of Taranto where the Italian fleet was practicing Fleet in Being by staying in their port and was smashed by British carrier aircraft. Which was closely studied by the Japanese for pearl harbour.

It depends on the situation though, If the German fleet is sitting in ports in the Baltic or North- sea I would say that it's pretty safe from Carrier strikes. Any such strike would have been pretty suicidal.

Just try to envision a "Taranto" style raid on say Hamburg using a few old bi-planes in late 1940...

Not to mention that simply to move into range the carriers would have to put them self in a very vulnerable situation within range of German Torpedo boat raids, air raids and in the middle of the main submarine routes going to and from the Atlantic.

Due to the risks involved pretty much all UK raids on German ships in ports were conducted by land based strategic bombers instead, and many of these were more focused against submarine pens and shipyards then the Capital ships.

 

[YellowMoonshine]

It depends on the situation though, If the German fleet is sitting in ports in the Baltic or North- sea I would say that it's pretty safe from Carrier strikes. Any such strike would have been pretty suicidal.

True. I suppose what I should have said was that air power meant that in WW2 fleets in port would have to be actively defended (air defences, fighter able to intercept) while in the past they would mostly be able to sit and wait while being fairly confident their fleet was untouchable. Therefore making a Fleet in Being harder to sustain than before.

 

[dsteve3]

I had a game many, many years ago called "Harpoon." It was a semi-modern-day naval warfare game. I always constructed my fleets in concentric rings around my main carrier, with the most effective AA in the outer ring.

It was always about keeping the bombers safely inside of fighter cover and gingerly flying in toward the radar. Since land-based radar showed up farther away than their own range, the main tactic was to move my ARM air-to-surface bombers just within range and blowing-up their radar stations. Lots of fun.

The point I wish to make is this:

1) It was fairly simplistic. I still arranged my fleets myself, but once their position was set, they moved in that formation. I moved the aircraft, but it was mostly point-and-shoot.

2) The tactics were simple. The differentiation between the various roles was there, but it wasn't rocket-science to decide which ship/plane goes where.

3) The fact that the different units were divided up (fighters vs. bombers, CLs vs. CAs, etc.) made the game involving.


The most important part of this aspect of the game will be to create the *important* components of the navies while defining their roles in a clear and general way. The actual result of the mechanics should allow the player an immersive feel for the environment.

I would add that there should be a certain decisiveness to a successful encounter. And there should be a separate time-scale that reflects the fact that air and naval battles are more explosive and do not drag on for days and days.

It would be really nice if a mini-game were to pop-up in which the player could focus solely upon these specific engagements, employ the different assets dynamically, roll the dice and get the result.


For example:

The player is given some basic options for the fleets. I'm not familiar with a lot of the tactics from the time period, but I'm sure there are some simple arrangements. Once laid out, the player commits and starts the attack or defense. There should only be enough rounds to provide a sense of timing for deployment of assets. Once everything has been committed, engaged and decided, the survivors fall back and the mini-game is over.

Just some thoughts on what I'd like to see happen.

 

[Tormodius]

Do you think HOI3 did a good job of modeling the strategic effects of the Fleet in Being doctrine? What could HOI4 do to improve upon this?

1. No.

2. Making fleets in Patrol Area more blocking towards any incoming ships, covering the whole area they patrol, using screeners to spot incoming in the whole patrol area and engaging in naval combat with whole fleet in one zone where enemy is. The spotted target should also be able to move back at that point it is spotted before the capital ships close in if possible.

Needs different engage and spotting rules, thus making spotting of the obvious more likely and creating a blockade there, and new rules should also apply to supply ships. i.e. it would hinder the sudden invasion across the english canal of only transports shuttling whole armies onto british shores and supplying them, without being spotted. AI needs improvement to when to engage and when to not engage (due to the local blockade), instead of just a bunch of destroyers or transports suiciding in and being annihilated when they are finally spotted, such as it is in HOI3. It certainly needs to be better in HOI4.

 

[Klausewitz]

I had a game many, many years ago called "Harpoon." It was a semi-modern-day naval warfare game. I always constructed my fleets in concentric rings around my main carrier, with the most effective AA in the outer ring.

It was always about keeping the bombers safely inside of fighter cover and gingerly flying in toward the radar. Since land-based radar showed up farther away than their own range, the main tactic was to move my ARM air-to-surface bombers just within range and blowing-up their radar stations. Lots of fun.

The point I wish to make is this:

1) It was fairly simplistic. I still arranged my fleets myself, but once their position was set, they moved in that formation. I moved the aircraft, but it was mostly point-and-shoot.

2) The tactics were simple. The differentiation between the various roles was there, but it wasn't rocket-science to decide which ship/plane goes where.

3) The fact that the different units were divided up (fighters vs. bombers, CLs vs. CAs, etc.) made the game involving.


The most important part of this aspect of the game will be to create the *important* components of the navies while defining their roles in a clear and general way. The actual result of the mechanics should allow the player an immersive feel for the environment.

I would add that there should be a certain decisiveness to a successful encounter. And there should be a separate time-scale that reflects the fact that air and naval battles are more explosive and do not drag on for days and days.

It would be really nice if a mini-game were to pop-up in which the player could focus solely upon these specific engagements, employ the different assets dynamically, roll the dice and get the result.


For example:

The player is given some basic options for the fleets. I'm not familiar with a lot of the tactics from the time period, but I'm sure there are some simple arrangements. Once laid out, the player commits and starts the attack or defense. There should only be enough rounds to provide a sense of timing for deployment of assets. Once everything has been committed, engaged and decided, the survivors fall back and the mini-game is over.

Just some thoughts on what I'd like to see happen.

I like this idea.
I am conflicted though on how to make it involved enoug without making it tedious (the X-Com games come to mind where at times you simply did not want to play another mission just now, but wanted your lasrifles to finish before you had to go to bed) and too time-consuming.

 

[scroggin]

I've never been super happy with naval combat in any of the HOI games. I think part of this has to do with the lack of importance that capital ships have. When BBs and CVs moved during WWII, it was really important. The UK constantly kept tabs on where all of Germany's capital ships were and kept naval and air assets available to engage them. Hence, Germany was arguably ascribing to the Fleet in Being doctrine of thought by building a significant surface fleet that was incapable of challenging for control of the seas. Do you think HOI3 did a good job of modeling the strategic effects of the Fleet in Being doctrine? What could HOI4 do to improve upon this?

In real life, is the Fleet in Being a reasonable doctrine choice? Should Germany have simply built submarines instead of increasing their surface fleet at all?

In order to implement this it would need a massive increase in the A.I.'s abilities. It would need to be monitoring where Enemy Capital ships were last seen assessing where they might be now and weighing up the risk they pose. There would probably need to be an increase in the visibility of capital ships in port to help the A.I.
I would love to see improvements here but I don't know how easy it would be to program or how well my computer would handle running it.

Increasing battleships convoy attack abilities would make the fleet in being doctrine more powerful. it would make a british player terrified of having the bismark roaming the open seas, or allowing the Itallian battleships freedom of operation in the Mediterranean

 

[FOARP]

I had a game many, many years ago called "Harpoon." It was a semi-modern-day naval warfare game. I always constructed my fleets in concentric rings around my main carrier, with the most effective AA in the outer ring.
. . . .

1) It was fairly simplistic. I still arranged my fleets myself, but once their position was set, they moved in that formation. I moved the aircraft, but it was mostly point-and-shoot.

2) The tactics were simple. The differentiation between the various roles was there, but it wasn't rocket-science to decide which ship/plane goes where.

3) The fact that the different units were divided up (fighters vs. bombers, CLs vs. CAs, etc.) made the game involving.


The most important part of this aspect of the game will be to create the *important* components of the navies while defining their roles in a clear and general way. The actual result of the mechanics should allow the player an immersive feel for the environment.

I would add that there should be a certain decisiveness to a successful encounter. And there should be a separate time-scale that reflects the fact that air and naval battles are more explosive and do not drag on for days and days.

It would be really nice if a mini-game were to pop-up in which the player could focus solely upon these specific engagements, employ the different assets dynamically, roll the dice and get the result.

I loved Harpoon, particularly the original one, but that's just way too much micromanagement for a global war lasting up to a decade. Harpoon made sense because you could slow it down all the way to real-time. Harpoon actually had little in the way of AI - the computer-controlled warships were essentially running on rails. By contrast HOI4 will have 1 second = 1 hour as its slowest speed, and involves every fleet in the world being under AI control.

 

[Pier]

Increasing battleships convoy attack abilities would make the fleet in being doctrine more powerful. it would make a british player terrified of having the bismark roaming the open seas, or allowing the Itallian battleships freedom of operation in the Mediterranean

This is the core of the issue.

The reason why Fleet in Being doesn't work in HOI3 and predecessors is because they are not scary enough.
A battleship roaming in the Atlantic is a minor inconvenience. Sure, I'd loose some convoys here and there, and I have to make sure I don't send 8 transports loaded with armor unescorted from the US to the UK, but all in all it's not a big deal. BB, a couple of CA, or a small CL/DD fleet: for me it's all the same.

However, if those battleships would absolutely wreak havoc with the US-UK trade, would have the option to shore bombard with massive massive damage, and have a big influence in other areas (newspaper leak: "Bismarck free in the Atlantic, Home Fleet doesn't care" followed by massive unrest), I would start to take a better look at them.

But that better look also requires better intel tools. Adding more code breaking stuff would be very interesting to simulate this in more detail.

 

[Alex_brunius]

By contrast HOI4 will have 1 second = 1 hour as its slowest speed, and involves every fleet in the world being under AI control.

How do you know this? Where have you gotten this information from?

Myself I am assuming that the slowest speed will be paused (decided by player how long time you want each hour to take) since it was available in both HoI2 and HoI3!!!

 

[FOARP]

How do you know this? Where have you gotten this information from?

It's simply the way things are in HOI games.

Myself I am assuming that the slowest speed will be paused (decided by player how long time you want each hour to take) since it was available in both HoI2 and HoI3!!!

"Paused" is not a speed.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The scientific definition of speed is distance covered over time. Or adapted to HoI how much ingame time is covered over a certain amount of real time.

"Paused" is not a speed.

Yes it is, I can run at real time speed if I pause the game for one hour and unpause to advance it 1h every real hour.

Is this not slower then 1second per hour you claim you know the devs will implement?





What you probably mean is that the minimum resolution of time will be one hour, but I have not seen any information confirming that it actually will work this way either.

 

[Klausewitz]

Arguing semantics?
Really?

 

[Alex_brunius]

Arguing semantics?

No. Trying to understand where FOARP got the information that HoI4 will have a minimum time resolution of 1 hour.

Currently it seems he got it out of his ass and is assuming no core mechanics in HoI4 can and will change compared to previous games.

 

[FOARP]

Arguing semantics?
Really?

Apparently so. And yes, it was bloody obvious that I just meant the minimum speed at which time could run (Harpoon could also be paused).

No. Trying to understand where he got the information that HoI4 will have a minimum time resolution of 1 hour.

The screenshots we've seen so far do not show fractions of an hour on the clock, the standard HOI system of 1 second (or whatever) = 1 hour seems to be in place. I would be amazed if it wasn't, wouldn't you?

 

[Alex_brunius]

The screenshots we've seen so far do not show fractions of an hour on the clock,

Both the screen-shots show in game time with both hours and minutes so nothing saying it must be either way or the other.

We can't derive anything from the screenshots except that Paradox aims to have some sort of time control, and that you likley will be able to pause the time to play at your own "minimum" pace.

I would be amazed if it wasn't, wouldn't you?

I would not claim my personal guesswork and expectations as if they were fact.

In fact I would not be surprised at all if they decided to add or unlock through moding additional options to further divide the time-control into segments of 10min, 6min or 1min somewhere in the future of the HoI series ( not nessecary HoI IV ). This would for example allow for much improved detail in Naval battles that suffer and struggle to model reality from the minimum 1 hour time increment.

It doesn't have be be very complex since all other parts of the game can still run at even hours or even days just like in previous games.

One very important aspect for example was how long distance = reaction time airpower had from the naval forces involved in battle. If time is further divided so the aircraft don't fly 500km in a single tick you could suffer a defeat because hostile bombers arrived over the naval battle 10min before your own fighter support could.

Another aspect is say a Destroyer going 40knots = 75km in a single hour. While their guns and torpedoes have a max effective range of perhaps 5 - 10km.

The fact that the game is already divided this way ( some things only update every day, others every hour ) makes further division more likely imho.

 

[varsovie]

In fact I would not be surprised at all if they decided to add or unlock through moding additional options to further divide the time-control into segments of 10min, 6min or 1min somewhere in the future of the HoI series ( not nessecary HoI IV ). This would for example allow for much improved detail in Naval battles that suffer and struggle to model reality from the minimum 1 hour time increment.

I'm not specialist in HOI naval combat, but I know that in land combat there's MULTIPLE actions happening during an 1h time period. I also doubt that paradox will reduce the granularity of the time, considering the time period to cover.

 

[fillap]

I think that the visibility of naval vessels in port is something that needs to be addressed. It should be related to espionage somehow too. Simply put the British had a pretty good Idea of where every major unit of the Italian and German navies were throughout the war (when they were in port). The Japanese had very good intelligence on what units were at Pearl at before their attack. Once at sea it is obviously a different kettle of fish. Battleships and carriers are too big to hide, where they were repaired was often in large ports with cities attached and keeping their presence secret was never possible. With the more remote bases it would be harder however, places like Scapa Flow or Palau were so remote it was not as easy for spies to form the necessary networks. So this should be factored in too. However I think the default position would normally be that a ship in port in know to most countries with an influence in the region. Ie Britain and US get world wide knowledge where as someone like Brazil would know where other South American Nations have their major assets.

 

[ingwe]

Definitely agree with you fillap. I think it would be cool if the user was notified when capital ships left port (or at least choose to be notified since hearing about the RN moving for Germany probably doesn't make you worry).
"KMS Scharnhorst has left port and we believe she is headed for convoy raiding at X!"

I especially think it would be a good idea to find out what naval assets enemies are building. If you miss that Germany laid down 4 carriers, that is a big deal.

Just more emphasis in general on cap ships would be good imho. Or at least intel briefings each month stating what has changed and pointing out alarming things.