I've been running a blockade of England for around three months, running an average of 3-4+ transports sunk per day without any noticable effect on British forces. I was a bit curious, so I loaded a save as England and found to my suprise the British merchant marine was a little larger than expected. Neglecting any ships currently making trips, they had around 600 transports to spare. Poor Admiral Donitz is going to need a LOT of reinforcement.
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Saturnalia said:
3-4 a day, means, what 150-200 days before that number is depleted? The whole time you're also crimping his supplies down.
It might take upwards of a year, but eventually you'll starve him out. He can't produce them as fast as you can sink them, even at full production.
Although he had a lot of transport, he also needs a lot of transports.
Did you check his production ?
Last time I blocked UK, he produced little else but transports, so if you aren't crippling his economy, you are definately devastating his production.
Did you check his production ?
Last time I blocked UK, he produced little else but transports, so if you aren't crippling his economy, you are definately devastating his production.
The way the game works, I don't think it's possible to really hurt England's own economy much - they tend to have built up huge stockpiles of every resource by the time the war starts. But you can really mess up *outgoing* supply convoy operations, and definitely force them into diverting a lot of production to replacing lost convoys and escorts.
dconner said:
What he said. I played a game where I decided to let the UK survive and give some competition from the americans. I had so many uboots and naval bombers wrecking their convoys, i loaded a game as them and noticed they only had like 19 left and were producing massive amounts of convoy ships sucking up all their IC nearly along with many destroyers. However, at the same time it was to my dismay when i saw after a year and a half of blockading had no noticeable effect on their massive stockpiles. Im not sure how fast they were losing resources or if they were losing any at all, but to me it seemed like they could have held on to the end of the scenario quite easily.
Cu Chulainn said:
What you don't see is all the background that goes there. Certainly, he has big stockpiles. But is this from what he'd built up, or is the US feeding him resources through big one time trades. It's entirely possible that, while the individual British effort isn't hindered, the overall Allied situation is hurting.
What it boils down to:
"Hindering" allied shipping, or more Tigers killing commies.
I go with the latter everytime.
Airborne!
"Hindering" allied shipping, or more Tigers killing commies.
I go with the latter everytime.
Airborne!
if you cannot invade Britain, then you have a siege on a big scale.
eventually he will run out of resources, maybe oil first, depending on his air force and naval activity in breaking the bloackade. you cannot strave a country in a few weeks, it will take time
as others people said, hitting his supply convoys will hurt
1) his home production will consume resouces trying to replace convoys and escorts i.e defensive production
2) thats means less production for building offensive forces
3) his ability to supply his troops overseas is reduced, eventually they will run out of supplies and be easier to defeat (unless they can get them from somewhere else) the overseas troops do not have the big home stockpile so they will run out of supplies sooner than Britain itself
4) you have the strategic inititive, use it. the u-boot is not a war winner on its own.
eventually he will run out of resources, maybe oil first, depending on his air force and naval activity in breaking the bloackade. you cannot strave a country in a few weeks, it will take time
as others people said, hitting his supply convoys will hurt
1) his home production will consume resouces trying to replace convoys and escorts i.e defensive production
2) thats means less production for building offensive forces
3) his ability to supply his troops overseas is reduced, eventually they will run out of supplies and be easier to defeat (unless they can get them from somewhere else) the overseas troops do not have the big home stockpile so they will run out of supplies sooner than Britain itself
4) you have the strategic inititive, use it. the u-boot is not a war winner on its own.
Nov. 1941: Naval bombers >> Uboats
Currently the UK has under 120 transports with ALL available IC devoted to producing more. Level 2 naval bombers helped me up the rate from 3-4 transports/day to upwards of 10 (one day I netted 20
). So now I am preparing for an invasion, with 4 airbourne divisions and a similar number of marines. My only problem is the RN, but after a mass bombing of ports I doubt they will be much of a problem.
Currently the UK has under 120 transports with ALL available IC devoted to producing more. Level 2 naval bombers helped me up the rate from 3-4 transports/day to upwards of 10 (one day I netted 20
). So now I am preparing for an invasion, with 4 airbourne divisions and a similar number of marines. My only problem is the RN, but after a mass bombing of ports I doubt they will be much of a problem.
dconner said:
I find this very unrealiitic. It costs money to extract resources and it woud be very unprofitable to build large stockpiles. In a market economy durring peace time, large stockpiles wouldn't happen. The resource producers would cutback production to equal demand.
Countries that were authoritarian with central planning and a strong hawk lobby would build up stockpiles in anticipation of war. Also, a country at war with a war time economy would build stock piles.
Depending on whether people find this to be much of a problem, Paradox could enhance the game to limit stackpile sizes durring peacetime. Maximum stockpiles could be set based on it's IC size and Domestic Policy Sliders settings.
I agree with aglozier that stockpiles should be limited. As it is enormous stockpiles can be generated with ease in the '36 scenario such that shortages are never a problem (this is one of the advantages of the '39 and '41 scenarios IMO). One of the biggest reasons for conquest IRL was to gain access to vital resources (Dutch East Indies oil for Japan, Rumanian oil for Germany, Norway to secure iron ore trade from Sweden, etc.). The ability to amass large quantities negates this strategic imperative. Down with stockpiles! I believe the maximum stockpile should be ~50k, though it's a good idea to change this based on Domestic Policy and IC.
Easily achivable huge stockpile of resources does unbalance the game but are you people sure AI does it? Have you switched country and checked whether UK or other country got tons of resources when you play Germany?
Toivo said:
I've never bothered to actually check other countries stockpiles by loading up as them, but judging by the >100 per day surpluses visible when offering a trade agreement I think it is fair to say that the AI accumulates vast stockpiles. Certainly the U.S. and Brits, at any rate.
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Yes, I also believe that stocks should be limited. A good cap could be based on the current industry level and your interventionism/hawk level/free market - depending on your social engineering choices, your industries could be allowed to have between one and six months worth of supplies.
Yes i've loaded up as the allies as germany to check stockpiles. They are huge.
I agree totally that they need to be limited and sliders should be involved as they reflect the countries war attitude/readiness. The balance of resources placed on the map may have to be altered as well to help make the game more realistic.
I think that warlike AI countries should do all they can to build stockpiles as well for themselves.
I agree totally that they need to be limited and sliders should be involved as they reflect the countries war attitude/readiness. The balance of resources placed on the map may have to be altered as well to help make the game more realistic.
I think that warlike AI countries should do all they can to build stockpiles as well for themselves.
Saturnalia said:Currently the UK has under 120 transports with ALL available IC devoted to producing more. Level 2 naval bombers helped me up the rate from 3-4 transports/day to upwards of 10 (one day I netted 20
Just out of curiosity, have your attacks on convoys caused the UK to lose ground on overseas fronts (e.g., N. Africa and India)?
So far everyone wants to limit stock piles. Is there any arguments against a limit?
As for what the limit should be, I think it should be based on number of days of production. For example, a very democratic, capitalistic and peaceful country could be limited to enough resources for 100 days of production. If such a country had 100 ICs it's maxium stock pile would be 20,000 energy, 10,000 metal and 5,000 rare material. Oil stock piles could be calculated differently since it is not consumed by production. It could be based on the total potential oil consumption of a country's military. If that is too difficult to program, then it could be simply based on ICs.
George
As for what the limit should be, I think it should be based on number of days of production. For example, a very democratic, capitalistic and peaceful country could be limited to enough resources for 100 days of production. If such a country had 100 ICs it's maxium stock pile would be 20,000 energy, 10,000 metal and 5,000 rare material. Oil stock piles could be calculated differently since it is not consumed by production. It could be based on the total potential oil consumption of a country's military. If that is too difficult to program, then it could be simply based on ICs.
George
I checked too and UK had most resources 150K+. Hard to strangle them this way. However subs out on certain sea-routes ain't totally useless. British transporters bring troops from Africa away. With no navy cover often although navy does come for subs once they sink some escort (damn this but during 20 days my subs sunk only about 5 escorts and no transports).
So you can easily sink some divisions. Not worth building big fleet of subs though ofcourse.
Now historically UK needed to import most of metal needed except for iron and whole oil to keep warindustry going. And what' more important - half of supplies (food!). Without supplies from N-America British island would have been out of food in a few months. Didn't Churchill himself say "only thing that seriously scared me during the War was danger of submarines...".
So we'd need serious improvement concerning AI UK and naturally stockpiles of generally (Italy exported most of energy for example and Japan most of needed resources before the War).
So you can easily sink some divisions. Not worth building big fleet of subs though ofcourse.
Now historically UK needed to import most of metal needed except for iron and whole oil to keep warindustry going. And what' more important - half of supplies (food!). Without supplies from N-America British island would have been out of food in a few months. Didn't Churchill himself say "only thing that seriously scared me during the War was danger of submarines...".
So we'd need serious improvement concerning AI UK and naturally stockpiles of generally (Italy exported most of energy for example and Japan most of needed resources before the War).
aglozier said:
I doubt you'll get anyone in here arguing against limits but the moment limits are placed on stockpiles, I'll wager you'd have a host of people hopping mad about. You are proposing limits to fix the UK problem....what you may not be considering is the other problems it might create. For example, the axis nations must create a large stockpile for wartime or they are unable to even run their base economy. That is just one example.
While a nice idea on the surface, it seems you may be using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. I could be wrong of course.