Naval Bombers are a exploit...

[X_MasterDave_X]

I played now a lot of HoI. Most times germany.

Now in 1.06 its fun to play the naval war. Germany is much harder to play now. And sealion much harder to achieve. But if someone builds naval-bombers, all navies are dead in a couple of weeks/months.

So its the best way for germany to build only naval bombers, and a small amount of transports and destroyers. I have crushed the royal navy, and all other navys in a small amount of time.

Sure the second World War showed, that aircraft (or Aircraft Carriers) are much better than the old Battleships. But the Naval Bombers in HoI are so easy to build, so no enemy ship could be a thread for germany. Second, the naval Bombers have huge ranges. And the last, the AI do nothing against a player who uses naval bombers. So the AI loose every game against me...

How bad....HoI could be so good without the Naval Bombers. What could i do. Dont build these bombers, because they are a exploit ? Or could i decrease the "attack points" of this planes. Where is the file to do this ??? Second it would be good to make all "anti-aircraft-attack" rates better of all ships. So i would loose very fast all naval bombers, if i attack a great stack of Naval Units.

Has anybody the same problem ???

Another question: Is this now the final 1.06 patch. I thought that paradox had given us only a beta-patch, and the final patch would be out after "easter". Thats now much time later...... Where is the final 1.06 ????

 

[unmerged(6766)]

You wanna talk about range... the Kamikaze divisions that Japan can build have a range of 1500 km and a naval attack of 21.

I think regular naval bombers are pretty powerful, but the AI needs to know how to defend against it. If it has aircraft carriers and uses its fighters or CAGs then they can take them down, just the same as land based fighters can take down tac bombers. I think the problem is that they don't do that.

I have had battles where my naval bombers were attacking a fleet in the Pacific and before it could bomb the ships, they were intercepted by planes from the aircraft carrier. They lost. In fact, they disappeared... twice. I lost a total of 12 divisions that way.

Since the player will be the only one to use it (I've never been naval bombed by the AI except from carrier based planes), I think this goes in the category of the AI needing improvement.

 

[killerdude11]

you can build kamikases?

 

[Ghost_dk]

you can build kamikases?

Yes playing C.O.R.E. you can

Ghost_dk

 

[rado907]

I agree.
I was Germany.
And moving a fleet of 5-6 ships (including a battleship).
And from Britain came 6-7 naval bombers and simply annihilated my battleship and co. Even had I had some fighters around, I could hardly have reacted fast enough to prevent the sinking from occuring.
Seriously.

 

[Braedonnal]

Naval bombers/torpedo planes are a bit too effective I agree. No reason to build navies at all and that's sad and is made even worse with naval stacking penalties.

I suppose you can build a ton of aircraft carriers with fighters to protect the battleline but to spend years building them is ineffective when you can just rely on naval bombers.

I'm stubborn though and build a navy anyways if playing a naval nation yet I find that I am always using naval bombers to clear the seas as most naval engagements turn out to be mostly inconclusive and air power is so completely decisive (an airstrike vanishes enemy fleets as though a magic wand was waved over them).

 

[Mr.G 24]

Naval Bombers are too good, agreed. When playing as US against all scenario and 9 Naval Bombers destroyed the whole worlds navy, yea, kinda ridiculous.

 

[elbasto]

They are not an exploit, the problem is that the AI doesn't seem to know how to use fighters... Why do you think that the Battle of Britain was the turning point of the war? Once the Luftwaffe was defeated (or at least, once the RAF survived) Germany didn't have a chance to break throgh the Royal Navy.

It's excellent, as Germany to send your fighters squadrons to naval bomb empty sea areas in order to attract and destroy the RAF, just to clear the skies for your naval bombers to wipe out the RN and carry out Sea Lion very... fullfilling

 

[X_MasterDave_X]

where could i change the "attack points" or the range of the plane types ?

Where is the final 1.06 ???

 

[unmerged(17928)]

You can find all statistics in %installpath%\db\units.
Just look for naval_bomber.txt. All statistics are pretty self-explanatory.

About the 1.06b?
I don't know. Maybe we should start a WE WANT 1.06b thread.
Worked all the other times!!!

Regards

 

[unmerged(16488)]

IMHO, they are fine. Ships AA is simply unadequate... It took minutes to sink ships, but also minutes to put airplanes into ashes... being able to destroy a battle fleet in some hours with naval bombers should be possible, but not much should come back

 

[Heretic]

raise the air attack & defence values of all ships perhaps?

I quite like the sound of reducing the naval bomber attack value though.
perhaps to 1/10th of the present level?
needs a little playtest methinks

Heretic

 

[gzav]

About the 1.06b?
I don't know. Maybe we should start a WE WANT 1.06b thread.
Worked all the other times!!!

I'm pretty positive it would get closed by me right after it was started...
1.06b will be out when it's out, can't you give the devs a break? Still working on CK, working on HoI2, etc... Be patient.

 

[Chaplain]

WARNING - RANT TO FOLLOW:

I completely reject the notion that naval bombers are "broken" or an "exploit" or anything else in this regard. The AI doesn't know how to use them or defend against them, but that's a different matter entirely. The fact is that in MP they work exactly as they should.

Germany NEVER wipes out the RN in MP unless there's an incompetent UK player. What are your priorities as UK? Fighter planes! You cannot surrender air superiority over the Channel or the Home Islands or you are toast. You must dominate (or at least severely contest) the Channel from the skies, and you mustn't park your navy within range of the Luftwaffe. This is elementary. This is historical. The AI should be forced to acknowledge this fact (somehow), but the AI is the problem, not the model for naval bombers.

As Italy, I typically park 4-6 squadrons of naval bombers in Sicily and thereby keep my supply lines to Tripoli intact. Anything less is a disaster. Even with my 4-6, the RN sometimes shuts me down with carrier-based fighters. This is exactly how it should be.

As Japan, naval bombers flown from my various island bases can really make a huge difference. In MP as Japan, you're going to get hammered by a competent USA player, but once again that's the way it should be. UK naval bombers and fighters (if you can spare them) flying from Singapore can make a big difference in the Jap push for the SEA-CPS.

Play the game SLOWLY in MP and it is truly beautiful. If you haven't got the patience for it, at least don't complain that the game is broken.

END RANT

Okay, now that I got that off my chest, let me apologize if I gave anyone a wedgie. I didn't mean to. I just feel strongly about this issue.

 

[unmerged(13158)]

Besides the Vichy France bug, I think naval bombers effectivety is the biggest problem left in the game. Overall, the naval ai has been improved, but it is still woefully inadequate. The ai doesn't seem to have a coherent naval strategy. It just sends its ships flitting about, oblivious to danger. It often uses its TPs as spearheads to clear known enemy fleets.

Not only this, but the ai has no replacement strategy for losses either. Frequently, yes, I wipe out the British fleet completely as they build zip for replacements, and the US builds a huge fleet of outdated destroyers, and... submarines?!?

Throw on top of this the huge exploit of naval bombers and you have a not so fun, easy victory over just about any ai nation at sea.

How do we solve this problem?

#1. I think detection rates for finding convoys and enemy fleets needs to be toned way down, to maybe 1/4 or 1/5th what it is now. The sea is a vast place, and historically it was very easy to lose the other fleet.. see the Bismarck chase.

#2. Build rates should be slowed down somewhat to account for less engagements.

#3. There is an essential component missing from the naval ai where it does not consider whether or not its opponent is suffucuently beaten before it starts sending out lightly escorted invasion convoys. Since the ai likes to invade a few choice beaches, if you have naval superiority, or the dreaded naval bombers, it will send transport after transport to their death, until a battle fleet finally stumbles across the province.

#4. Yes, naval bombers are far too powerful. Since there is no reasonable hope for ai to start paying attention to its air cap, they have to be way toned down. Ideally they would be toned down slightly, and the ai would start paying attention to its air cap.

#5. Build strategies need to be refined. Most glaring is the ai needs to start building replacement capital ships right way.

 

[elbasto]

If you are so upset about naval bomber, just don't abuse of them, use hose rules...

 

[X_MasterDave_X]

1.06b will be out when it's out, can't you give the devs a break? Still working on CK, working on HoI2, etc... Be patient.

Hi gzav,

i dont talk about 1.06b. I talk about "1.06 final".

We decided to not postpone it further, but to have everyone able to test and play.
If anything serious is discovered, we'll fix it after the Easter Holidays in a revised 1.06 patch.

And "Maximilian I" said about the same theme at 08. April:
"..this is next. the sprite problems needs to be fixed. from a gamebalance point of view the pre-war balkan spheres are to rigid...."

the broken Vichy-Event, with the game lockups after France retakes Vichy is also something "serious" as Johan said. We dont want 1.06b....a final 1.06 is also fine..... Easter was a long time ago.....

 

[X_MasterDave_X]

to chaplain:

you are right. I believe that in multiplayer everything is alright. Bad only that this could not be said to singleplayer. The AI has much things to learn.....and this after a year after HoI went to the stores.....

But i shouldn´t whine here...because there is no other company who dont stop to make his old games better with patches.... yeah !!

On the other hand, i want a soloution for my Single pl. games. And I think, I am not alone with this problem. So a good workaround is not the badest idea.

Who also thinks, there should be changed something (ranges, building costs, attack points of Naval Planes / or better defense rates of ships against planes) ?

Dont forget: The Airborne Divisons were also ok in Multiplayer in the last versions, but Paradox changed it for singleplayer now in 105c and in 1.06.

With the haevy costs of transports now, and with the org hit, the airborne option is now absolutely ok in singleplayer. Bad only, that the AI dont uses paradrops.

I believe, that a small workaround could solve this problem.

 

[Chaplain]

to chaplain:
On the other hand, i want a soloution for my Single pl. games. And I think, I am not alone with this problem. So a good workaround is not the badest idea.

Dont forget: The Airborne Divisons were also ok in Multiplayer in the last versions, but Paradox changed it for singleplayer now in 105c and in 1.06.

With the haevy costs of transports now, and with the org hit, the airborne option is now absolutely ok in singleplayer. Bad only, that the AI dont uses paradrops.

I believe, that a small workaround could solve this problem.

Agreed. I have no problem with making changes for SP so long as it doesn;t totally break MP.

BTW, have you tried CORE 0.82? Extremely improved for SP. As a matter of fact, I never play HOI without CORE anymore (except the odd MP game) because the experience is so much improved.

Anyway ... here's hoping for 1.06b!

 

[unmerged(15561)]

IMHO, they are fine. Ships AA is simply unadequate... It took minutes to sink ships, but also minutes to put airplanes into ashes... being able to destroy a battle fleet in some hours with naval bombers should be possible, but not much should come back

Everything in the game is a potential exploit! Build stacks of 12 TACTs or 12 FGTs OR 12 ARM or.....

if only the game AI could appreciate the need for retreat when faced with hugely superior and effective enemy! I know I would..... and thats the bottom line.