Navies need fixing.

[BootOnFace]

Mutapa (ZIM) Anyone explain that tag?

Zimbabwe. It's in the general area.

I would like to say that the naval battle phase limit is probably the most elegant solution to the battle length problem. The AI would have to be modified a little to deal with it, though.

I would also like a complete overhaul of the naval unit types. Make galleys useful, even dominant, for the first two centuries. Make big ships only available ~1460-1470 and later, and have them start off really weak, but useful on the open sea and really hard to capture.

I would like there to be a correlation between shock and capture. For example, give galleys huge shock attack, but pitiful shock defense; causing them to be captured. And give big ships huge shock defense, but low shock attack; they can't be captured and won't capture. Small ships can be in between, making captures uncommon, but not unheard of.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

The problems encountered by the Spanish Armada could probably be modeled by massively increasing attrition after any naval battle, in addition to the previously mentioned battle phase limit. It wouldn't have much of an effect on battles taking place close to home, but it would cause heavy losses if you overextend yourself like the Spanish did, especially if your ships took a lot of damage in the preceding battle. As for the AI, they can afford to have naval attrition activated for retreats they don't even have control over.

On another topic related to naval range, something needs to be done to stop the Ottomans or Spain from taking random provinces in the Baltic. A previous poster mentioned reducing army morale the longer troops sit in transports, but I doubt that would be enough when you have some of the world's largest superpowers going up against helpless OPMs like Gotland and Riga. It would have to be more extreme, something like massive increases in attrition gain and morale loss the farther you're operating away from your naval range, in addition to a significant drop in reinforcement rate if your troops are in provinces outside the distant overseas range and without a connection of controlled land to provinces that are within range.

 

[George LeS]

I was thinking about this, and came up with what I think would be the minimum change to make fleet battles work OK:

1. If there must be a minimum duration, make it as small as possible, 3 days (one fire round).

2. A MAXIMUM duration is extremely desireable. I'd suggest 12 days, or 15 at the absolute max. After that, everyone retreats home, unless someone has clearly won (Like the Chesapeake).

3. Obviously, the tables would need more punch to make decisions possible. Easy to do. Easily testable.

4. Ships are never sunk by morale; they are removed from the battle the moment they reach 0. Depending on which is easier to code, they could:
a. Immediately retreat to base (if captured, to their new owner's base), or
b. Be witheld in a pool where, at the end of the battle, they will retreat with the loser. Again, captures will go to the winner.

5. There must be a clear factor to decide who wins. The easiest would be the amount of damage inflicted. Victory might go to whichever side inflicted twice what it took. Or a set % of the enemy's hull strength. Or who has better morale could be factored in. This shouldn't be too hard to do; indeed, it might need no additional coding, as only the company knows what the current criteria are.

6. There should be a mechanism that ships, damaged beyond a certain point, automatically retreat to port, unless they are engaged in combat. As soon as the combat ends, they go. This applies to attrition damage, too. If you send them out again, they'll just retreat back. (Better to disallow such sorties). Obviously, if their port is taken, they'd "retreat" to whatever port is available. This includes the AI, even if it remains immune to attrition. This damage factor should be set in defines.txt. My guess would be that about 75% would be right, but that's just a guess.

7. Why not at least TRY the idea of AI-attrition, limited by the factors in #6, and giving it a much slower rate that players' ships? This would be very popular, and combined with #6, it might actually work. The current system is not good. It's just bearable on the grounds that the AI can't handle sea war otherwise. But why not find out? It would seem that the worst which would happen would be retreats to base -- hardly game-breaking.

I think this is a summary of what most here seem to agree with. Obviously, there's more involved than just this.

But, please, Paradox, consider these ideas.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

about fleets being destroyed on 0 morale - they could be taken by enemies, and sinked by them...

 

[Kull1]

about fleets being destroyed on 0 morale - they could be taken by enemies, and sinked by them...

Except that's not what happened in this era. A ship whose crew had "zero morale" didn't sink, it surrendered. And captured ships weren't sunk by the new owner unless the damage was so heavy the ship wasn't worth saving. Yet in EU3 you'll see entire fleets destroyed because of a "zero morale", fleets with ship quantities even in the 20's, and even where many of the individual ships have damage levels higher than 50 (meaning they are still in good condition). It's just not realistic, and your explanation doesn't match any historical example of this period.

 

[TomZGen]

It would have to be more extreme, something like massive increases in attrition gain and morale loss the farther you're operating away from your naval range, in addition to a significant drop in reinforcement rate if your troops are in provinces outside the distant overseas range and without a connection of controlled land to provinces that are within range.

That would make colonial warfare quite... well... unfeasable as that is always outside the distant overseas range. This system could work if it would be limited to European areas though, but that might be harder to code.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

That would make colonial warfare quite... well... unfeasable as that is always outside the distant overseas range. This system could work if it would be limited to European areas though, but that might be harder to code.

The added difficulty of colonial warfare would be an extra benefit in my opinion. The AI might need some tweaking to deal with the change, but as it is, any European power can conquer all of India by 1650, which is complete crap.

I do see how this could be a bit too much, however, especially with the faulty way the game calculates the distance, what with North Africa being distant overseas even for Iberians. It might be better to apply a moderate penalty to reinforcement for distant overseas armies, up to 50%, and only incur the severe penalties if you get outside of your naval range, allowing reinforcement in the colonies by the time you have all the major players well-established, or an easy conquest of India if you wait until the late 18th century.

 

[Blastaz]

Except that's not what happened in this era. A ship whose crew had "zero morale" didn't sink, it surrendered. And captured ships weren't sunk by the new owner unless the damage was so heavy the ship wasn't worth saving. Yet in EU3 you'll see entire fleets destroyed because of a "zero morale", fleets with ship quantities even in the 20's, and even where many of the individual ships have damage levels higher than 50 (meaning they are still in good condition). It's just not realistic, and your explanation doesn't match any historical example of this period.

But many captured ships were sold as salvage, with the profits going to the men and officers rather than the state. As far as you as the grey eminence are concerened that situation is functionally the same as them being destroyed. Those ships that are retained by the state in an active role say the Ardent, count as captured. Those that are sold for profit or used as supply hulks or prision ships, or something else that you do not directly control, or those ships that simply sink while retreating/being towed back from the battle, count as destroyed. At Trafalgar there was 1 ship sunk and 21 captured in the initial action. The Spanish subsequently recaptured two at the cost of three. So the total casualties are 4 sunk 19 captured. However the British only made it home with 4 prizes, scuppering/fireing some others sinking, that means 19 sunk 4 captured. And of those captured at least 1 was taken on as a supply hulk. So if that was an EU3 battle it would be of the order of at least 20 sunk and 3 captured. If you look at it like that the EU3 modelling doesn't look too far out.

Thus if we take cannon strength to really mean attack power, all we need to do is take sunk to mean doesn't see active service again.

 

[George LeS]

But many captured ships were sold as salvage, with the profits going to the men and officers rather than the state. As far as you as the grey eminence are concerened that situation is functionally the same as them being destroyed. Those ships that are retained by the state in an active role say the Ardent, count as captured. Those that are sold for profit or used as supply hulks or prision ships, or something else that you do not directly control, or those ships that simply sink while retreating/being towed back from the battle, count as destroyed. At Trafalgar there was 1 ship sunk and 21 captured in the initial action. The Spanish subsequently recaptured two at the cost of three. So the total casualties are 4 sunk 19 captured. However the British only made it home with 4 prizes, scuppering/fireing some others sinking, that means 19 sunk 4 captured. And of those captured at least 1 was taken on as a supply hulk. So if that was an EU3 battle it would be of the order of at least 20 sunk and 3 captured. If you look at it like that the EU3 modelling doesn't look too far out.

Thus if we take cannon strength to really mean attack power, all we need to do is take sunk to mean doesn't see active service again.

The problem with that is that it still leaves us with annihilations. I agree that "captured" should apply only to the % which were taken back into service, either in fleets or as guard ships. Sure. But remember, even at Trafalgar, 15 ships immediately escaped. Not sunk, not captured, escaped. (Yes, Strachen got some later, but as you point out, so did the Spanish recapture some.) And remember to that this is Trafalgar--not a typical action. Shortly before, the allies had met with Calder and lost just 2, the remainder surviving to fight at Trafalgar.

But the problem is not the occasional wipeout, it is that they are the norm. DeGrasse and Suffren have high reputations; in 6 of their 7 battles they neither captured nor destroyed, nor had captured, nor had destroyed, any ships. The exception was the Saintes, where again the vast majority of the French fleet retreated. This was not uncommon. John Byng lost Minorca in a battle with exactly such results.

What is needed is some captures, a somewhat higher # of ships sunk (including those which survived but were not worth recommissioning, whether captured or retreated), and the majority -- sometimes all -- retreated. I would have no problem with a battle such as the Chesapeake leading to both fleets retreating.

The issue is that the game makes no sense in showing the use of seapower. That's what I want to fix.

@mudcrabmerchant: I have to agree with TomZGen; that is too extreme. However, a more moderate version, or one with some exceptions, might work. Really what is needed is a more realistic supply system, but that would be a matter for a land war thread. To me, for this topic, making opposed landings more difficult would help. I've offered a morale fix; I'm more than open to alternatives.

And that brings up strategy, and thus another of my ideas, which is the status of full-sea (non-coastal) seazones. I believe that fleet actions out of sight of land were so rare that they should be abolished in the game. Units in all-sea zones should be unable to contact one another at all; not just no fighting, but they should be invisible. You'd have to guess where they are headed. (It would help if, as in EU2, you could see which ports were blockaded, even in full zoom.) I believe that this would greatly improve the game. I do know that when I figured out how to turn off vision into adjacent seazones in EUII, it made naval campaigns much better.

 

[Blastaz]

Well not to flog the dead horse anymore than is needed but, you have there a previous battle. Casualties in first battles are already fairly small. Napoleon was just a noob and tried to fight again before his fleet's morale had recovered leading to an anihalation naval battle, all modeled by the game!

It's not like the French fleet ever saw action again, for them at least, it spent the rest of the war in port till the Spanish switched sides and captured it, so you could view the entire fleet as having been knocked out....

As far as naval strategy goes I think there are two general improvements that are needed. Active defensive fleets should be able to stop troop transport more easily, and blockading should be more dangerous and perhaps more automated.

Troop transports should be slower giving you more time to intercept, and disembarkation times could be increased substantially as well and disembarkation really needs to be stopped by the transport fleet being attacked.

For Blockading I would be happy to see ships have a blockading range greater than the sea they are in, the same way ships patrol for pirates. You shouldn't have to seperate out your fleet quite so much, leaving it vulnerable to counter attack and increasing micromanagment. Bigger fleets would cancel out the blockade range of smaller fleets, ballancing that would be the tricky thing. 3 smallish fleets, med, atlantic, english channel say should be enough to blockade France. Obviously with major fleets in reserve to defend them. I would almost be happy with having the RN in port in Plymouth and a Malta Fleet able to automatically blockade all of Europe, once there were no opposing fleets left. After all the nitty gritty of sending different captains out to relive those on station is something that is a bit bellow the scope of a grand strategy game. Blockade percentage should also be a flat penalty on your total trade income and on tarrifs, at the moment it is more useful for driving up WE than hitting them in their pocketbook.

This would lead to a situation where you would need naval superiority to guarantee an amphibious landing, and having obtained it you can blockade more easily and more dangerously.

If they are going to make ships cost more they should make them more powerful strategically as well. Even in a GBR game you can afford to ignore your navy almost entirely, ie you only need to make sure it's bigger than Spain's, as it just doesn't really reward you for investing in it any further.

 

[George LeS]

Well not to flog the dead horse anymore than is needed but, you have there a previous battle. Casualties in first battles are already fairly small. Napoleon was just a noob and tried to fight again before his fleet's morale had recovered leading to an anihalation naval battle, all modeled by the game!

It's not like the French fleet ever saw action again, for them at least, it spent the rest of the war in port till the Spanish switched sides and captured it, so you could view the entire fleet as having been knocked out....

As far as naval strategy goes I think there are two general improvements that are needed. Active defensive fleets should be able to stop troop transport more easily, and blockading should be more dangerous and perhaps more automated.

Troop transports should be slower giving you more time to intercept, and disembarkation times could be increased substantially as well and disembarkation really needs to be stopped by the transport fleet being attacked.

For Blockading I would be happy to see ships have a blockading range greater than the sea they are in, the same way ships patrol for pirates. You shouldn't have to seperate out your fleet quite so much, leaving it vulnerable to counter attack and increasing micromanagment. Bigger fleets would cancel out the blockade range of smaller fleets, ballancing that would be the tricky thing. 3 smallish fleets, med, atlantic, english channel say should be enough to blockade France. Obviously with major fleets in reserve to defend them. I would almost be happy with having the RN in port in Plymouth and a Malta Fleet able to automatically blockade all of Europe, once there were no opposing fleets left. After all the nitty gritty of sending different captains out to relive those on station is something that is a bit bellow the scope of a grand strategy game. Blockade percentage should also be a flat penalty on your total trade income and on tarrifs, at the moment it is more useful for driving up WE than hitting them in their pocketbook.

This would lead to a situation where you would need naval superiority to guarantee an amphibious landing, and having obtained it you can blockade more easily and more dangerously.

If they are going to make ships cost more they should make them more powerful strategically as well. Even in a GBR game you can afford to ignore your navy almost entirely, ie you only need to make sure it's bigger than Spain's, as it just doesn't really reward you for investing in it any further.

1. I do not understand what you mean by "you have there a previous battle. Casualties in first battles are already fairly small. Napoleon was just a noob and tried to fight again before his fleet's morale had recovered leading to an anihalation naval battle". Do you simply mean that there wasn't time to recover? Calder's action was 3 months before Trafalgar, and simply was not a decisive defeat. That should have been time to refit for action. (Villeneuve left the worst damaged ships behind.)

Further, the notion that 1st battle losses are normally small simply doesn't fit my experience, especially in the late game. I will grant that early on, when tech table values are too low to achieve much, that happens. But in the Nap Wars? No. Or even in the 17th C.

2. The trouble with your idea of strategic blockades is that it removes the one hope for weaker powers, that of being able to defeat detachments of the enemy's navy. Rather than that, I'd prefer having squadrons, not single ships, involved in the blockades (spreading out forces), with another twist: weather. Storms and fogs could make it interesting. Both would have the effect I want for full sea zones: no sighting, no combat, no contact at all. This would allow occasional sorties by weaker fleets, which is what happened a lot. As it is, there's no point, you can never break out vs a portion of a more powerful navy, and even if you did, the action would take so long his main fleet would arrive and destroy you. That's the kind of thing which needs changing.

3. There is, of course, the alternative of abstracting seapower to simply money and policies, thus giving you a bonus and certain abilities in certain areas. You wouldn't have ships, but fleets. Some would like that, but include me out.

4. I do think you have a point about blockade efficiency, although not vs the whole nation, automatically. There should be a distinction between home & overseas effects. Further, I'd like to see a feature making certain inland provinces tied to certain ports, though I'm a bit vague so far on how that should work.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Except that's not what happened in this era. A ship whose crew had "zero morale" didn't sink, it surrendered. And captured ships weren't sunk by the new owner unless the damage was so heavy the ship wasn't worth saving. Yet in EU3 you'll see entire fleets destroyed because of a "zero morale", fleets with ship quantities even in the 20's, and even where many of the individual ships have damage levels higher than 50 (meaning they are still in good condition). It's just not realistic, and your explanation doesn't match any historical example of this period.

So i meant- they surrendered, and then was sinked. And i think that you not always have crew for such ships, so sometimes you need to sink them, so enemy will not run...

 

[Blastaz]

1) 3 months may not be long enough to fully recover morale, maybe Nappie had cut his naval maintenance as well....

2 - 3) That hope to defeat small detatchments didn't really happen historically. In the area in which I am interested, single player, it just creates a headache for the player when he is winning and allows gamey tactics when he is losing, I don't like either. There were occasional sorties by weaker fleets all the time of course, but normally they were a significant portion of the weaker fleet and often they were caught. There wasn't much point in people trying it historically as they were gambling with low odds. The sort of extra villigence to catch an ai fleet, when it knows where all your ships are anyway, requires a lot of extra concentration for minimal gain. Squandrons for blockading would be better, I do still like the idea of big fleets in port being able to do it automatically. I wouldn't like navies abstracted entirely, that would be a step back and remove a lot of flavour, but I still think that the immense logistical effort that was put in by the Admiralty to running the continental blockade is something that should be below the notice of the player in a grand strategy game. Likewise I think that a game that spans six centuries shouldn't really be too concerned about the weather on any given day, despite it's historical importance. This isn't a naval war game or even a wargame, and I would rather try and make navies more important and more fun than try to turn it into one.

4) I chose trade and tarrifs because they do represent 'overseas' income to a large degree. Tarrifs are obviously entirely overseas income by definition. Trade is largely going to be ship based in most scenarios. Obviously a cot in your land locked capital is going to have a large degree of land, or river, based trade, but the merchants are probably going to have to take the goods out to sea at some point. It might be better to mitigate against CoTs you own with a land connection to your capital to some degree. But applying the blockade % directly to your trade income is something that could be done to the game as it stands now without too much work.

 

[George LeS]

1) 3 months may not be long enough to fully recover morale, maybe Nappie had cut his naval maintenance as well....

2 - 3) That hope to defeat small detatchments didn't really happen historically. In the area in which I am interested, single player, it just creates a headache for the player when he is winning and allows gamey tactics when he is losing, I don't like either. There were occasional sorties by weaker fleets all the time of course, but normally they were a significant portion of the weaker fleet and often they were caught. There wasn't much point in people trying it historically as they were gambling with low odds. The sort of extra villigence to catch an ai fleet, when it knows where all your ships are anyway, requires a lot of extra concentration for minimal gain. Squandrons for blockading would be better, I do still like the idea of big fleets in port being able to do it automatically. I wouldn't like navies abstracted entirely, that would be a step back and remove a lot of flavour, but I still think that the immense logistical effort that was put in by the Admiralty to running the continental blockade is something that should be below the notice of the player in a grand strategy game. Likewise I think that a game that spans six centuries shouldn't really be too concerned about the weather on any given day, despite it's historical importance. This isn't a naval war game or even a wargame, and I would rather try and make navies more important and more fun than try to turn it into one.

4) I chose trade and tarrifs because they do represent 'overseas' income to a large degree. Tarrifs are obviously entirely overseas income by definition. Trade is largely going to be ship based in most scenarios. Obviously a cot in your land locked capital is going to have a large degree of land, or river, based trade, but the merchants are probably going to have to take the goods out to sea at some point. It might be better to mitigate against CoTs you own with a land connection to your capital to some degree. But applying the blockade % directly to your trade income is something that could be done to the game as it stands now without too much work.

1. IRL, Villeneuve had plenty of time. Damage from Calder's Finisterre action had 0 to do with the outcome of Trafalgar.

2. In fact, France sent out plenty of squadrons during their 2nd 100-year war, and they were not all beaten. They did win the battle of Algeciras, after all (although losing the "second battle" in the Gut of Gibraltar. They did, after all, win a defensive victory off Yorktown. They did manage to smash some convoys, going back through the century. The did gain local superiority in the W Indies, in 1805, although they did nothing with it. Similarly, they actually did get an invasion fleet to Ireland, again without success in the long run, but they got there. They landed the Young Pretender in Scotland in '45. And others in earlier years. And, whatever happend to their fleet afterward, they did conquer Egypt. And a half-century early, Minorca. Sailing naval wars were not just a matter of the RN tacking back & forth before enemy ports.

The way the game works now you just have to gain superiority, and then that's it. You've won the war at sea. That is just not the way it really happened. My suggestion does allow for some action by the weaker power. Sometimes.

What I have in mind for weather is not a day-to-day thing, but an occasional thing, like an event. All of a sudden you get something like "X is fogbound", which means that ships in that sea zone cannot interact with others. Storms would be similar, but ideally would sometimes literally blow a force into another sea zone, with damage, or even force them to retreat home.

It's about unpredictability. You have far more options on land, where there are often many ways to handle a superior force. I just today managed, finally, to beat 2 French invasions, as Portugal, after they'd beaten the British fleet, then came for me, beating my fleet too. After a while, I recovered, scorching and waiting for the moment to hit, and won the land war. At sea, the only answer is build your ass off. Napoleon actually did that after Trafalgar. It's not that simple.

3. Re: 4. There are some events out there written by antracer which I keep meaning to go over to restore to my games. They all increase blockade effects. The trouble again is that they just screw the guy who lost a naval battle. But something might be done about it.

4. I am not at all clear on what you would want to do to the system?
Do you think its pretty much right, as it is?
What changes would you make, if any, other than allowing blockades to work like anti-pirate patrols?
Is your point that the ideas Kull1 & I have been tossing around are BS?
Do you really think that the system replicates seapower very well?
Sometimes I get the impression you are arguing one way, sometimes another.

 

[BootOnFace]

Devs! Far from me to demand anything of you, but if you're reading this, please give us a heads-up. Even if you're not considering our suggestions, it'd be nice to know that you're paying attention.

 

[Octavio]

replace devs with Jesus, bootface

 

[Kull1]

But many captured ships were sold as salvage, with the profits going to the men and officers rather than the state. As far as you as the grey eminence are concerened that situation is functionally the same as them being destroyed. Those ships that are retained by the state in an active role say the Ardent, count as captured. Those that are sold for profit or used as supply hulks or prision ships, or something else that you do not directly control, or those ships that simply sink while retreating/being towed back from the battle, count as destroyed. At Trafalgar there was 1 ship sunk and 21 captured in the initial action. The Spanish subsequently recaptured two at the cost of three. So the total casualties are 4 sunk 19 captured. However the British only made it home with 4 prizes, scuppering/fireing some others sinking, that means 19 sunk 4 captured. And of those captured at least 1 was taken on as a supply hulk. So if that was an EU3 battle it would be of the order of at least 20 sunk and 3 captured. If you look at it like that the EU3 modelling doesn't look too far out.

Thus if we take cannon strength to really mean attack power, all we need to do is take sunk to mean doesn't see active service again.

You keep making this argument, and it continues to be a poor argument because you ignore the basis under which entire fleets are destroyed in EU3. Reason? They fight with "zero morale". Why do they fight with "zero morale"? Because they lost a month's long battle and then were pursued and destroyed. Why were they destroyed? Because they have "zero morale" when they start the last battle. It's all circular and it's all ludicrous because fleet pursuits and annihilation battles resulting from same, never happened in this period.

And yes, I get the abstraction argument. But what are you abstracting here? That entire national fleets were routinely destroyed across the entire period of time from 1399 to the 1800's? Of course they weren't, and continually pointing to Nelson's remarkable achievements as the "model" is wrong because that's not how things worked during the first 350 years of the EU3 period.

I have to echo George's question. What is your point? On one hand you agree that battles "taking too long" is the biggest problem in the tactical model, but the primary reason it's an issue is because of all the side effects which result. But you have argued that every single one of those (pursuit actions, fleet annhilations, etc) is perfectly "OK" because they are just "abstractions" of something else. So why is it a problem then? I'd really like to see your suggestions for what needs to be changed and why.

 

[Kull1]

I would also like a complete overhaul of the naval unit types. Make galleys useful, even dominant, for the first two centuries. Make big ships only available ~1460-1470 and later, and have them start off really weak, but useful on the open sea and really hard to capture.

The recent tactical discussions have focused pretty heavily on the evils of "long battles", but this point needs to be reiterated. Galleys dominated naval warfare (and not just in the Mediterranean) for the first 100+ years of the EU3 period, and remained powerful and effective into the 1600's. Yet as modeled in EU3, they are little more than "carrack road kill" from Day 1 in 1399.

Likewise, sailing ships were undergunned (both in quantity and effectiveness) and simply not very good naval warfare platforms during that first century. By the late 1400's the game was changing, but it wasn't a dramatic, overnight shift.

This is absolutely a problem in game terms because it directly correlates with Castile's ability to dominate the North African coast in the 1400's. Their Spanish Carrack fleet sweeps away the Muslim galleys it faces (thereby enabling the ahistorical invasions seen in almost every game), and that simply couldn't and didn't happen historically. Likewise, the idea that England could sail into the Med and destory the Venetian Fleet during the same period is just laughable, yet that's the ONLY possible outcome in 1400's EU3.

The Naval Model needs to factor this in.

 

[Blastaz]

To be honest I am more interested in the strategic rather than tactical use of navies. I think that if you want to make navies more important you should make them more useful strategically. Now navies cost a lot more money so if you want to be able to field a big fleet you really have to invest in them, both in terms of cost and in terms of NIs. To this end I am happy with battles of anihalation as they confirm the larger power, that has invested in its navy, naval superiority. I don't fret about the ahistoricity of this but see it purely as a game mechanism. There were relatively few total wars in the period where you went and occupied the entire enemy country before enforcing the peace you wanted (read none), but no one complains that you need to do this most of the time in the game, its just another game mechanism. I then want that naval power to be able to use its naval superiority to give it a real advantage in the war. That's why I want blockades to be more painful. GB was able to use it's fleet to absolutly dominate in the 18th C, and almost be its only major contribution (aside from war subsidies) to some wars, while fielding a relatively tiny army. That is not really a path open to any country at the moment because the strategic benefits of naval superiority aren't there.

Historically there were few times were the weaker naval power was able to do anything more useful than a bit of piracy. I am thus not too bothered about trying to give more tactical choices for the weaker fleet to try and win the naval war. I am happy with money, time and NIs, effort and investment if you will, with a bit of blind luck and a smattering of tactics deciding the issue.

This system would mean that as a country you had a real choice. Do you want to invest heavily in your fleet, be able to challenge for naval superiority and then get a real advantage, or do you want to largely ignore your fleet, and suffer the consequences of your oponent having that advantage. The answer will obviously depend on your situation, but to me that is an interesting strategic question.

Edit: OTOH I do agree that galleys were nerfed into the ground, and do need to be viable for longer. IN where they were more cost effective than big ships is a potential model. Re Spain and the moors, I think the problem there is not about galleys/carracks though, IIRC Morroco and Algeria have big ship fleets. The problem is that whoever loses the first naval war doesn't rebuild their fleets. thus if Iberia wins the first round it is able to invade with impunity and will eventually roll the whole continent up with Holy War CBs. However in England (or Itallian) games were I have smashed the Castillian fleet really early on, they are rarely able to even establish a foothold in North Africa, as the starting Moorish fleet is more than capable of fending off their respawns.

 

[George LeS]

@Blastaz:

1. The question is not simply one of degree of abstraction. It is a matter of what the mechanisms, however abstract, represent, and how they work in the game. So far as I can see, your ideas would simply mean that Britain wins all the time, barring a single freak battle where their navy is wiped out. I do not see the good of this. What I'd like to see is some options for weaker naval powers, something like what they really might have done. After all, William of Orange DID invade, and win. There were several Jacobite landings. Both Louis XIV and XVI actually did have opportunities. I cannot even try offhand to cite how many sorties the French and their allies made after 1793, not all of them ending badly. (They even won Algesiras). What you propose seems simply a single decision, after which there really is no naval campaign.

2. It is not correct that "no one complains" about the total occupation needed to win a war. Lots of people do; I don't like it myself. But there is one difference, which is that, even having done so, you do end up, by the peace limits, often leaving him with a fairly playable position. For ENG, under the current system, it seems to be all-or-nothing; usually all.

3. Again, it just isn't true that the weaker naval power was that strapped. Several of us have cited examples. Spain, though they failed in 1588, did continue to have a viable seaborne empire. The Anglo-Dutch wars did not, ever, lead to this kind of superiorty to either side. Not even after the Medway raid.

I do not see the benefit of just having a system which amounts to giving an automatic win (at sea) to whichever side has invested more. I do see that, such a view will lead to the idea of extremely abstracted blockades; once you've got superiority, the rest is automatic. But what if it weren't?

The trouble is that what we have is betwixt and between. It looks enough like a naval campaign to make someone like me try continually to make it work right, but it really doesn't do that very well. If a few changes, such as mentioned here, would improve at least its moddability, then I'd be happy.