UK = Paper tiger in HoD?
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Similar tin happened to me after I beat their navy. They never raised another for the last 50 years of the game.
This. France will almost always have more troops to send into the Isles than the Brits can send into France, so unless France is being beaten around by another power, in a 1v1 war the British isles will come under full French occupation without a single doubt.
This is what's the real problem here.
As long as UK has the worlds or at least Europe's most powerful Navy and know how to use it a strait crossing in the channel shouldn't bother them much.
Not sure if it would also be possible that forts to both sides of it would deter actual combat but allow friendly crossings of UK army to take part in other European conflicts.
Yeah, I´ll say again that´s the biggest problem and will only be solved with some kind of non-agression diplomacy option, so that the AI won´t need to station troops there. As long as we see 200k or more troops on the US border and several more on India, UK will do s**t most of the time. The navy issues are way easier to fix.
I didn't even know that there was a strait between UK and continent, but I have noticed the same pattern that when RN is destroyed, UK will never build powerful navy again. Maybe they need more home ports or something, but that could break their colonial point limits, so it's hard to tell what's correct way to solve UK problem. Maybe removing that strait at least prevents them getting conquered so easily.
UK ai don't seem to replace or expand navy. In the late 1920s UK basically has the smallest navy of all the GPs - that is unacceptable but should be easy enough to fix. If the new naval supply limit hinders the UK due to scarcity of main ports why don't add a bonus to the UK naval supply pool as part of their national order?
I think, the AI could work around that problem, if the naval bases in the dominions would count toward the masters supply limit.
They are much better than they used to be, in any case. Today I fought a war against Prussia and UK as Austria. The British kept sending stacks of 30-40k. Certainly no paper-tiger in that game. Had to surrender.
I'm pretty sure the port capacity is not the problem, the islands have 9 states, so 9 naval bases. I think France has 8 coastal states.
Then you have all the colonial naval bases, India, South Africa, Malaya etc. So, maybe it's not enough to build a mega-fleet of 200 battleships.
But usually, after their first fleet is destroyed, UK stays at a very low number of ships, way lower than their supply limit.
Cruiser and Battleships can be built in 150 days, so 9 naval bases could rebuild a fleet in a few years, from scratch. Yet the UK doesn't. Lack of money ? Lack of priority ? Ship-building only related to colonial points so that when the colonial race is over the AI is not interested anymore ?
Oh, and very low transport capacity, meaning even if the UK AI was willing to redeploy in a war, they could not do it efficiently.
Then you have all the colonial naval bases, India, South Africa, Malaya etc. So, maybe it's not enough to build a mega-fleet of 200 battleships.
But usually, after their first fleet is destroyed, UK stays at a very low number of ships, way lower than their supply limit.
Cruiser and Battleships can be built in 150 days, so 9 naval bases could rebuild a fleet in a few years, from scratch. Yet the UK doesn't. Lack of money ? Lack of priority ? Ship-building only related to colonial points so that when the colonial race is over the AI is not interested anymore ?
Oh, and very low transport capacity, meaning even if the UK AI was willing to redeploy in a war, they could not do it efficiently.
Between Great Britain and Ireland the UK has 12 potential construction slots.
And yes, the UK AI seem to fail miserably at building big ships most of the time for some reason. I have a 1919 save where they've built 34 dreadnoughts and some battlships and cruisers, which isn't bad. But normally they don't have much, or aren't able to use it effectively.
It's not just Britain, apparently. I was playing as released Australia in the 3.02 beta and decided to take the Mollucas from the Netherlands around 1905. GB and France decided to declare war - this basically meant they would send a doomstack of 1-2 steam transports every other month or so. Real threatening, guys. France sent a battleship and two cruisers at one point, but it wasn't enough to pose a serious threat.
It turns out that the United States has become the world's greatest superpower in this game by a decent shot, and the fact that they have a navy of some sort helps. While GB definitely lost some colonial/naval potential because of my day 1 release, you'd think they'd be able to build at least a few battleships.
It turns out that the United States has become the world's greatest superpower in this game by a decent shot, and the fact that they have a navy of some sort helps. While GB definitely lost some colonial/naval potential because of my day 1 release, you'd think they'd be able to build at least a few battleships.
I've seen Britain land armies into Europe and North America from sea before though it's usually only 1 large army at a time.
As Prussia and later as Germany they landed a large army in my North which, once I had crushed it resulted in them sending only 1 army to replace it.
As the USA Britain landed 2 armies in Florida which took me by surprise.
Overall Britain holds back far too much and since the AI seems reluctant or unable to contemplate moving colonial recruits into their mainland or into European wars it just leaves fighting Britain as a naval war with a small ground war entirely against troops recruited inside the British mainland.
Just as an aside has anyone else had games where Britain almost loses or decommissions its entire navy? In my USA save they had like 12 ships and had been around that level for many years, I don't think they'd lost a great war capitulation either.
As Prussia and later as Germany they landed a large army in my North which, once I had crushed it resulted in them sending only 1 army to replace it.
As the USA Britain landed 2 armies in Florida which took me by surprise.
Overall Britain holds back far too much and since the AI seems reluctant or unable to contemplate moving colonial recruits into their mainland or into European wars it just leaves fighting Britain as a naval war with a small ground war entirely against troops recruited inside the British mainland.
Just as an aside has anyone else had games where Britain almost loses or decommissions its entire navy? In my USA save they had like 12 ships and had been around that level for many years, I don't think they'd lost a great war capitulation either.
Yup. In '67 I sank their whole navy (I had ironclads, they had about 60 man'o-wars) and they proceeded to have about a dozen ships total in Britain proper until the late 90's, when they started building decent numbers of battleships.
I currently have a Germany game. Iam running 3.02b and I think there are some things going on, Ive not seen before. Especially regarding the UK:
So I start out by sphering off Saxony, build an army and declare war on Austria for aquiration of Bohemia. I allied up with the UK to prevent France to go with Austria, wich they seem to like only if you dont allie with the UK. So they did and allied with Russia. Uk joining my war against Austria add humiliation wargoal on them and cut down to size against bavaria. They land troops on the continent and actively fight bavarian, baden and wuerttenberg troops in western prussia. War is over, I build up wait for truce running off, sphere all of the southern german states and finally austria who are still #9 cause of their defeat. Now I declare war on France for AL, UK again landing troops in dunkirk and even take two provinces, binding up alot of french troops in the north, wich made it very easy for me to take AL and fight the russians at the same time.
Decades pass and another big war starts, the UK want some colony from France. They ask me to join. I honored them, because of their great efforts in terms of german unification. Russians join France and Ottoman Empire backs UK. I defend the french border and Russia starts stomping OE. I start to invade the Ukraine and add a free nation WG. After the succesful battle for ukraine, I decided to help out the OE against Russia and what do I see? Brits landing in Riga and advance through St. Petersburg and fightíng around Istanbul to fend off the russian offense.
Thats not what a paper Tiger does.
So I start out by sphering off Saxony, build an army and declare war on Austria for aquiration of Bohemia. I allied up with the UK to prevent France to go with Austria, wich they seem to like only if you dont allie with the UK. So they did and allied with Russia. Uk joining my war against Austria add humiliation wargoal on them and cut down to size against bavaria. They land troops on the continent and actively fight bavarian, baden and wuerttenberg troops in western prussia. War is over, I build up wait for truce running off, sphere all of the southern german states and finally austria who are still #9 cause of their defeat. Now I declare war on France for AL, UK again landing troops in dunkirk and even take two provinces, binding up alot of french troops in the north, wich made it very easy for me to take AL and fight the russians at the same time.
Decades pass and another big war starts, the UK want some colony from France. They ask me to join. I honored them, because of their great efforts in terms of german unification. Russians join France and Ottoman Empire backs UK. I defend the french border and Russia starts stomping OE. I start to invade the Ukraine and add a free nation WG. After the succesful battle for ukraine, I decided to help out the OE against Russia and what do I see? Brits landing in Riga and advance through St. Petersburg and fightíng around Istanbul to fend off the russian offense.
Thats not what a paper Tiger does.
You've not read the thread properly. With some human help the UK can actually do well. On a purely AI vs AI basis, however, France will nearly always dominate the UK, unless some freak accident involving a Gutter Crown Germany.
Nearly everyone is reporting the same problems. The UK will land only a few stacks in France at a time, it'll keep the rest in Ireland, the Royal Navy will get destroyed and fail to rebuild and French will invade the mainland with ease. Nearly every war I've seen with the UK starts off with the UK doing well, with several red stripes often appearing within France not too long after the start of the war. Two years later and France will have cleaned up with its behemoth of a mobilised army, the UK's navy will have collapsed and 60,000 troops will be stuck in Ireland twiddling their thumbs.
Yes sometimes the UK does pull off some nice invasions of countries like Russia but it's just too inconsistent, it seems like the stronger the enemy the smaller the invasion force Britain sends will be, I've seen them dump multiple stacks into weak Russias then only 1 stack into France or Germany when their power is incredible, it's almost as though Britain wants its men to commit suicide in such invasions.
Currently I'm in the middle of a great war as the USA with Britain, Prussia, the German sub-states against France, Russia and Scandinavia and I've checked just now and found that the UK had 646,000 men in Ireland and only 81,000 others in London, England and after several decades of having under 10 ships they now have only 3.
Britain's AI really needs to understand how to rebuild its navy and a better strategy for land invasions of powerful countries so they can achieve more than the token gesture of having a few men on enemy soil for a month or less.
Exactly! In my current game Britain actually owns half of the Ukraine... each crisis war they land troops and demand a state from Russia.