New naval combat mechanics...

[Jorgen_CAB]

They are strike fleets so they sit in port till your patrols find each other. Or one may be a naval invasion fleet that your strike fleet intercepts. The point is not to patrol with main fleets as that wasn't done historically.



In RL the BB's used their 5 inch guns against escorts and didn't use their main BB guns. Numerous reasons for this as you also pointed out.

One of the problem is that actions in real life did not work like what is commonly thought. Destroyers would not stand in between two battleship lines... they would just obscure and be in the way and risk being sunk. Once capital ships got into firing range with each other escorts would not be used that way. They might help a battleship escape by running interference, flanking etc.. Destroyers rarely fought each other either, not decisively anyway.

No sane captain would take a Destroyer into firing range of a battleship unless there was some really good reason to or they could do it from a position of strength so they can get close enough to launch torpedoes and disrupt disrupt the ships movement and with some luck hit it.

Real naval battles was not fought the way they are depicted in the game. The role of the destroyer was not screen capital ship against other screens, they were there to screen against submarines, scout and run interference. They are used to gain positional advantages on a slightly bigger scale. Torpedoes on destroyers are more as a self defense weapon against large ships, not a weapon meant to attack as means of doctrine in that sense. There obviously were slightly differences between nations and Japan had a bit more aggressive stance on usage of torpedoes, at least before the war. This changed rather quickly when they found out how important the airplane was. The Japanese were as convinced on Battleship doctrine as anyone else before the war.

There was a reason why the US reduced the number of torpedoes carried on their Destroyers as the war went on.

 

[jju_57]

First off this notion that each fleet is the same cost is great for theory but it's not how the game plays out. Now how many heavy mounts did you put on that CA? I think it was three which I said should be 1 or 2 at most. You swap a light mount for the third heavy which BTW means that CA just got faster and therefore harder to hit.

A CA that costs 3 times a DD can still sink all 3 DD's as none of the LG's penetrate the CA armor. It only loses if a torpedo hits it.

I never said to build heavy guns. I don't know where you get this from. But a 1940 CA with advanced HG's have just as much firepower as a starting BB.

A LC or CA is defined on how you build it. They each have IDENTICAL hulls and each have IDENTICAL options to put in the various slots.

Torpedoes are used to sink big ships fast once the enemy screens are down. They do next to nothing against smaller faster ships. IIRC speed is also in play here.

 

[jju_57]

No sane captain would take a Destroyer into firing range of a battleship unless there was some really good reason to or they could do it from a position of strength so they can get close enough to launch torpedoes and disrupt disrupt the ships movement and with some luck hit it.

So I guess those captains on PT boats or the captains on the CL's and DD's hunting the Bismark or the Japanese captains on their CL's or the US captains rushing to launch torpedoes against the Japanese BB's in 1944 are not sane.

 

[Lord of Beer]

The problem is that Paradox game developers read a few books on naval warfare, and the weapon types used, then bring it literally into the game and think its job done.

There is no central design genius, since the content development team is so spread out, and the DLC policy would drive any good designer mad anyway. The underlying componentry behind the engine is ancient, and the core combat systems are from HOI2/HOI3. The dev team refuses to play in hardcore multiplayer matches were core imbalances and problems are revealed under 'battle conditions'. If you look at the dev Streams, its just full Da9l memes - which is working fine, as since HOI4 went alt-history memey, their sales and player numbers have skyrocketed.

Did anyone really expect naval warfare would be a fun, well balanced and realistic aspect of the game? No, its just shoot features at the Steam Store page and hope people just play the game on 'Easy' to mask any problems. This has been the development approach for the last two years.

The answer from the Dev team is going to be 'if you don't like it or thinks it imbalanced, go through all the effort of making, testing and popularising a mod patch yourself, we will be nice enough to spend a month patching the mod capabilities for you, then we will be on our 3 month Summer break, then when we come back its full steam ahead on the next $19.99 DLC to keep us employed'.

My advice is to muck around with the game for 20 hours, get your moneys worth, then move on with your life. The game is designed for exactly this level of play.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

First off this notion that each fleet is the same cost is great for theory but it's not how the game plays out. Now how many heavy mounts did you put on that CA? I think it was three which I said should be 1 or 2 at most. You swap a light mount for the third heavy which BTW means that CA just got faster and therefore harder to hit.

A CA that costs 3 times a DD can still sink all 3 DD's as none of the LG's penetrate the CA armor. It only loses if a torpedo hits it.

I never said to build heavy guns. I don't know where you get this from. But a 1940 CA with advanced HG's have just as much firepower as a starting BB.

A LC or CA is defined on how you build it. They each have IDENTICAL hulls and each have IDENTICAL options to put in the various slots.

Torpedoes are used to sink big ships fast once the enemy screens are down. They do next to nothing against smaller faster ships. IIRC speed is also in play here.

There was only two mount on this one... I modeled if for a relatively classic one.

I would suggest only using one heavy turret, I already said that... it also lowers the visibility of the ship and thus harder to hit. But removing the heavy gun for another dual purpose gun will result in roughly the same damage on a Destroyer so one or two is OK I think.

Many other factors such as Speed and positioning advantages is also in favour of the Destroyers and Light Cruisers.

I don't say you should not use them... just that most countries start with enough CA, BC, BB to last the war. They main job is to screen the carriers which they do almost as good in 1936 as in 1944... at least CA do. You are better of building more modern destroyers and specialized CL... that is what I say.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I would also add that it depends on what doctrine you choose, which I don't like either. For example the Base Strike tree give no Organization for CA but allot to CL. So at max the CA is at 40 Org and CL at 100. This can obviously influence if you go for one or the other type of cruisers.

 

[jju_57]

Doctrines are very important for a number of reasons.

You say the navies start out with enough CA's but that is not true because the CA's they have have limited slots and are mostly HG types. You ahve to look at all ships and see what they actually hold. Then you have to decide if you want to build specialty ships or one size fits all types. I don't like that design changes use naval XP but it is what it is and that means you might be limited to one size fits all stuff.

Finally in my tests and games I see way more CL's being sunk than CA's and that is due to the CL's being in the screen sction while CA's are in the capital section. So it actually makes more sense to build a CA and DD's than it does to build a CL and DD's. The CA and CL will be only a couple hundred NIC difference in cost.

One last thing you see that LG on the bottom row next to the armor? That gun is much better than the dual purpose guns you picked for sinking smaller ships. DP's add anti-air and cost way more NIC.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Doctrines are very important for a number of reasons.

You say the navies start out with enough CA's but that is not true because the CA's they have have limited slots and are mostly HG types. You ahve to look at all ships and see what they actually hold. Then you have to decide if you want to build specialty ships or one size fits all types. I don't like that design changes use naval XP but it is what it is and that means you might be limited to one size fits all stuff.

Finally in my tests and games I see way more CL's being sunk than CA's and that is due to the CL's being in the screen sction while CA's are in the capital section. So it actually makes more sense to build a CA and DD's than it does to build a CL and DD's. The CA and CL will be only a couple hundred NIC difference in cost.

One last thing you see that LG on the bottom row next to the armor? That gun is much better than the dual purpose guns you picked for sinking smaller ships. DP's add anti-air and cost way more NIC.

You can't pick that better gun and the DP is really good since it also protect you from the air at the same time and give very good light attack, it has the best light attack value and slightly less piercing. Defending against the Air effectively is worth a couple of decimals in piercing for light guns for slightly higher light attack value as well. The cost is only 500 extra MIC and I also compared it with a fleet destroyers who used DP guns.
You want DP guns for fleet protection later in the war when aircraft is more lethal and carriers are more plenty. These Destroyers and Cruisers are there to protect your Carriers.
You can add more light cruiser turrets but that also have some effect on the ships speed which you might not want etc... so you can increase the fire power some but you get a slower ship with much less anti-air capabilities.
I sort of assume that main combat fleet will be carrier based at later stage of the game unless they are invasion escort, convoy escorts... but ships for that purpose are completely different.

I think the reason you see CL die is because they usually have very little armour, player designed CL will (should have) have some armour which will make the light attacks from Destroyers much less effective against them.

I have tested this and so far what I say is confirmed through at least some testing.

 

[jju_57]

I'm not sure you need anti-air because CV's are not that good. The mechanics are not historical where fleets neever saw each other. A 4xCV fleet with only a few CA's as capital screen will get mauled by a BB heavy fleet. So for me the jusry is out on how good ship AA is or if you need it. I've seen it more than once where I had a naval invasion mission that was BB heavy with no CV's win and sink Japanese CV strike fleets. Probably not historical but it fits with how the current mechanics work.

There is some kinf of penalty for large fleets but not sure how large it is. Plus remember that once your capitals sink enough enemy capitals they can attack the CV'ss with their surface guns which fire every hour of combat.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm not sure you need anti-air because CV's are not that good. The mechanics are not historical where fleets neever saw each other. A 4xCV fleet with only a few CA's as capital screen will get mauled by a BB heavy fleet. So for me the jusry is out on how good ship AA is or if you need it. I've seen it more than once where I had a naval invasion mission that was BB heavy with no CV's win and sink Japanese CV strike fleets. Probably not historical but it fits with how the current mechanics work.

There is some kinf of penalty for large fleets but not sure how large it is. Plus remember that once your capitals sink enough enemy capitals they can attack the CV'ss with their surface guns which fire every hour of combat.

But in testing I have found out that a large fast screen ships can overwhelm the enemy screen relatively fast... I have done some more clinical test with this trying different variations and I don't see BB being that useful and carriers are pretty strong... especially against enemy carriers and battleships. Planes don't care about armour so they are really effective against battleships.

It is all about speed in some sence and how you make up your task-forces... you can easily have a medium sized scree fleet engage the enemy rather fast with good positioning before any battleship have time to enter your carriers enters and send their planes in and the BB fleets screen is torn apart. BB are pretty slow in comparison with fleet carriers and cruisers so the BB will start to eat torpedoes long before they can fire on any carriers or even the screening cruisers.

 

[jju_57]

You are correct that planes ignore armor. Therefore BC's might be better than BB's in that regard. But the CV's will get hit and sunk very fast if you get past the capital to CV requirement allowing your capitals to shoot at the CV's. Guns fire every hor and I think planes are every 4 hours like torpedoes are.

Again I can only report what I actually saw and my fleets with zero CV's totally mauled Japanese CV fleets. My BB's were damaged but still afloat while the CV's were sunk. You can test this by making a large naval invasion fleet and then sending these with marines to invade a Japanese held island and watch how they fair against CV fleets.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

You are correct that planes ignore armor. Therefore BC's might be better than BB's in that regard. But the CV's will get hit and sunk very fast if you get past the capital to CV requirement allowing your capitals to shoot at the CV's. Guns fire every hor and I think planes are every 4 hours like torpedoes are.

Again I can only report what I actually saw and my fleets with zero CV's totally mauled Japanese CV fleets. My BB's were damaged but still afloat while the CV's were sunk. You can test this by making a large naval invasion fleet and then sending these with marines to invade a Japanese held island and watch how they fair against CV fleets.

Yes... against AI fleets pretty much anything work... I have tested fleets all made by me in many different configurations just to test how things turn out.

3 DD against one CA is a no brainer... the DD win every time. This is one of the first test I ever run... in many tests I did not even loose a single DD because of how effective the torpedoes are. The pea shooters of the DD have no real use... it is all about the torpedoes and game balance is such that they are a bit too effective. At earlier tech levels the difference is even larger in power between them.

I think that the balance is not quite right in how ships interact with each other.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

So I guess those captains on PT boats or the captains on the CL's and DD's hunting the Bismark or the Japanese captains on their CL's or the US captains rushing to launch torpedoes against the Japanese BB's in 1944 are not sane.

There is a reason... most of these are exceptions to the rule not a common occurrence, this is not how these ships normally behaved outside PT boats which were suppose to dart in and out against other ships. But they attacked all kind of ships this way not just capital ships.

We can't model things after exceptions, they should be exceptions in the simulation. Things that can happen but don't very often.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

The problem is that Paradox game developers read a few books on naval warfare, and the weapon types used, then bring it literally into the game and think its job done.

There is no central design genius, since the content development team is so spread out, and the DLC policy would drive any good designer mad anyway. The underlying componentry behind the engine is ancient, and the core combat systems are from HOI2/HOI3. The dev team refuses to play in hardcore multiplayer matches were core imbalances and problems are revealed under 'battle conditions'. If you look at the dev Streams, its just full Da9l memes - which is working fine, as since HOI4 went alt-history memey, their sales and player numbers have skyrocketed.

Did anyone really expect naval warfare would be a fun, well balanced and realistic aspect of the game? No, its just shoot features at the Steam Store page and hope people just play the game on 'Easy' to mask any problems. This has been the development approach for the last two years.

The answer from the Dev team is going to be 'if you don't like it or thinks it imbalanced, go through all the effort of making, testing and popularising a mod patch yourself, we will be nice enough to spend a month patching the mod capabilities for you, then we will be on our 3 month Summer break, then when we come back its full steam ahead on the next $19.99 DLC to keep us employed'.

My advice is to muck around with the game for 20 hours, get your moneys worth, then move on with your life. The game is designed for exactly this level of play.

There is a balance issue, at least as far as I can detect which can be looked into... but the historicity of the system is something we have to live with.

I think the current system is a pretty fun and close enough system that at least give a feel of realism in its general execution even of the details are all wrong.

I always mod my game so I have no problem with changing the official numbers to what I feel they should be.

 

[jju_57]

3 DD against one CA is a no brainer... the DD win every time. This is one of the first test I ever run... in many tests I did not even loose a single DD because of how effective the torpedoes are. The pea shooters of the DD have no real use... it is all about the torpedoes and game balance is such that they are a bit too effective.

There are two things that skewer that test. First off is how the CA's are built. The second is a better test is 1 CA plus 4-5 DD's vs. 7-8 DD's. This screens the CA from all torpedo attacks. Now the CA is able to shoot at DD's without any return fire. And since torpedoes only fire every 4 hours this means the first torpedo attack does nothing while the CA has 4 attacks against DD's using it's guns. At hour 5 another check is made to see if there are enough screens left to protect the CA and that torpedo run might be wasted.

Without screening heck a few DD's might be able to defeat a BB due to how torpedoes are OP. But if that BB is screened then nothing can hurt it and the DD's fight each other.

It comes down to how many shots the CA has in LG's vs how many shots the DD's have and how much damage.

Finally, a DD will have depth charges, torpedoes and LG's so how they are built is important in that encounter. This is why I hardly EVER do testing by going acouple of ships against each other. It's not how you will encounter them in the actual game. And yes all of what I write is for SP games and not MP. The game needs to be balanced for SP as the majority of players are SP and even if you have two players in a MP game most countries are still AI controlled.

 

[sterrius]

@Jorgen_CAB

You can improve even more that CA to take down DD´s. And add DD´s and you have a combo where you melt the enemy screen and quickly go for the capital ships.

The cruiser above is of 1940 TECH and can ONE SHOT 1940 DESTROYERS. (1936 will be one shoted even on deep waters as the -25% is not enough to save them).

And still can torpedo every single BB on sight.

It is a little slower (25 knots), so he can´t really make a pursuit but this is not his job and you can change armor for - 1.8 knots. But this beast here will eat DD´s on breakfast so fast that soon the DD´s will be clear to have a Torpedo aiming contest at the BB´s and carriers.

Those Plus DD´s with a focus on Torpedos and Rapid Fire guns and i see no reason to use BB`s at all. Mostly because most nations already starts with BB´s so no reason to go above the ones you start with. Specially UK, US and Japan.

5100 IC is the price of 3 good 1940 DD´s. (Around 1400-1700 each)

I can make 2 of those for 1 good carrier or 3 of those for 1 good BB mounting guns to fight other BB´s.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

There are two things that skewer that test. First off is how the CA's are built. The second is a better test is 1 CA plus 4-5 DD's vs. 7-8 DD's. This screens the CA from all torpedo attacks. Now the CA is able to shoot at DD's without any return fire. And since torpedoes only fire every 4 hours this means the first torpedo attack does nothing while the CA has 4 attacks against DD's using it's guns. At hour 5 another check is made to see if there are enough screens left to protect the CA and that torpedo run might be wasted.

Without screening heck a few DD's might be able to defeat a BB due to how torpedoes are OP. But if that BB is screened then nothing can hurt it and the DD's fight each other.

It comes down to how many shots the CA has in LG's vs how many shots the DD's have and how much damage.

Finally, a DD will have depth charges, torpedoes and LG's so how they are built is important in that encounter. This is why I hardly EVER do testing by going acouple of ships against each other. It's not how you will encounter them in the actual game. And yes all of what I write is for SP games and not MP. The game needs to be balanced for SP as the majority of players are SP and even if you have two players in a MP game most countries are still AI controlled.

I have done all the above tests as well and it does not really change. The CA generally don't have enough firepower versus the extra Destroyers or CL you add.

I have done tests with mostly around 42 technologies... the ship shown above I have not done much testing with. I wanted the test to be with stuff you actually are going to have. The DD I usually use are fleet destroyers so they have Radar, Fire-controls and at least one Depth Charge.

I have to add though that Destroyers in Deep Oceans are quite weak... you really want more CL in your screen there and now the CA clearly have an edge.

I'm not arguing against not using CA at all... just to keep the ones you have to save on research and IC, not to mention resource and concentrate on building good CL and DD intead and build them. You can do some upgrades on the CA that is fine. But Japan, US and UK have enough capital ships to last them the war and do much better to just build carriers, CL and DD for the most part.

 

[sterrius]

In my opinion until the devs acknowledge that we need a limit to how much ships a admiral can actually lead this is going to become impossible to balance. As always one ship will be too strong compared to others.

But if you place a cap. Lets say. A Admiral with 40 ships at most. For more you need 2 admirals in 2 different fleets.

Even if you try to stack them, you still have some advantages like.

1-> Now you need more admirals. Those with less skill are going to be used.

2-> You can actually make the "too many ships" penalty works for real.

SO in a 3x1 battle the smaller fleet will lose 95% of the time. But will buff the smaller size to allow them to inflict higher losses. (To represent the fact they don´t even have to aim while your bigger fleeti s too busy trying to find a good spot to open fire).

3-> With a Hard cap you can finally balance your ships around that cap. And Work with formations and how many BB´s is recommended.

Right now more = Always better. And thats is not a sustainable way to keep things balanced as eventually you will "break" the game due to stacking.



And don´t even needed to add all those new UI combat to do the above. It is a simple solution and while its not 100% historical it will bring the game much closer to reality.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

@Jorgen_CAB

You can improve even more that CA to take down DD´s. And add DD´s and you have a combo where you melt the enemy screen and quickly go for the capital ships.

The cruiser above is of 1940 TECH and can ONE SHOT 1940 DESTROYERS. (1936 will be one shoted even on deep waters as the -25% is not enough to save them).

And still can torpedo every single BB on sight.

It is a little slower (25 knots), so he can´t really make a pursuit but this is not his job and you can change armor for - 1.8 knots. But this beast here will eat DD´s on breakfast so fast that soon the DD´s will be clear to have a Torpedo aiming contest at the BB´s and carriers.

Those Plus DD´s with a focus on Torpedos and Rapid Fire guns and i see no reason to use BB`s at all. Mostly because most nations already starts with BB´s so no reason to go above the ones you start with. Specially UK, US and Japan.

5100 IC is the price of 3 good 1940 DD´s. (Around 1400-1700 each)

I can make 2 of those for 1 good carrier or 3 of those for 1 good BB mounting guns to fight other BB´s.

Hence I said you should also use "Light Cruisers"... that is a CL... not a CA. We also discussed the use of CA with one single heavy turret and then a few light cruiser turrets to engage the screen to use torpedoes.

The speed is abysmal though and speed is important for operational purposes as well as for combat. You do want you ships to be able to escape a bad fight for example. So I don't consider such designs very useful from a strategic point of view... it also can get a decent amount of anti-air but sacrifice just some light attack. Anti-Air is important in carrier warfare or against land based attacks as well.

I have tried these types of ships as well and they are very effective against destroyers.

 

[sterrius]

Hence I said you should also use "Light Cruisers"... that is a CL... not a CA. We also discussed the use of CA with one single heavy turret and then a few light cruiser turrets to engage the screen to use torpedoes.

The speed is abysmal though and speed is important for operational purposes as well as for combat. You do want you ships to be able to escape a bad fight for example. So I don't consider such designs very useful from a strategic point of view... it also can get a decent amount of anti-air but sacrifice just some light attack. Anti-Air is important in carrier warfare or against land based attacks as well.

I have tried these types of ships as well and they are very effective against destroyers.

1- speed -> Not that slow, 25 is still a good "heavy ship" speed and this is not a ship you want to use for scout or something. They are to be close to the action so speed to get there is not a issue. Radar is there for the buff not for the detection ^^.

For detection you make a more nimble ship with scouts ^^.

2-> Escape in bad fight with a swarm strategy (The case for ship above) is just not a option. When you realize you are actually losing its already over and you will not recover. (I used quite a bit swarms of DD III´s + coastal on patch 1.0-1.3 as japan to even the odds vs the US air superiority and it was quite effective, but also a One Bullet strategy. Thankfully it was very rare for a US player to recover in time ^^).

So any swarm strategy now in 1.6 is going to follow more or less the same logic.

3-> AA you don´t need anything outside of a DD giving it. They share AA now so you can overstack AA guns on DD`s that are way cheaper and easier to replace. There the AA/Anti-ship gun is also more effective.

Remember a AA increase the overall price of the ship by 2%. (Don´t know why they gave such a penalty to AA but oh well....). So a AA can give more than a 500IC increase in a carrier for example.....

4-> you don´t need a heavy turret if you're going to rely on a swarm of DD´s and Torpedos. Its also the difference beetween killing a DD with one shot vs two shots.