Naval Combat Idea

[Gary Childress]

I have an idea for setting up naval warfare in my mod and I'm wondering if this sounds practical or if anyone can think of any major problems with it.

1. Give all surface ships an attack value of only 1.

2. Give all surface ships bombardment values.

3. Give all surface ships lethal sea bombardment.

4. Give submarines no bombardment, however, give them a higher attack value than surface ships and a higher defense value than surface ship attack values.

5. Give all surface ships moderate defense values below the attack values of submarines.

Result: Any surface ship stumbling accidentally upon a submarine will no doubt lose the confrontation. However, in company with a destroyer with "detect invisible", surface ships would be able to sink submarines using bombardment. Also all surface combat would consist only of bombardment. Submarines would have a good chance of sinking surface ships having a high attack value while surface ships have slightly lower defense value. No more battleships sinking submarines unless they are in company with a "detect invisible" escort. This of course makes destroyers utterly essential for naval combat. Early, Pre-Sonar destroyers could have attack values just above submarine defense values, however they would not have detect invisible and their attack values would still be below battleship and cruiser defense values.

Of course an additional concern would be whether the AI would utilize bombardment against other surface ship targets.

 

[Ares de Borg]

I have made experiments with BBs havíng similar attack and bombardment values. They sometimes bombard, but mostly attack on close quarters. They do use bombardment, though.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I think the biggest problem with the AI wouldn't be bombardment, it would be them continuously "stumbling" into Submarines, and loosing.

 

[Ozymandias]

I think the biggest problem with the AI wouldn't be bombardment, it would be them continuously "stumbling" into Submarines, and loosing.

This might be mitigated by having all capital ships flagged "requires escort" ...

-Oz

 

[Gary Childress]

This might be mitigated by having all capital ships flagged "requires escort" ...

-Oz

Exactly, I marked all ships other than DDs as requiring escort. I haven't tested it in game yet but I'll have to see how the AI works it.

 

[El Justo]

my cfc friend Klyden has always dreamed of that exact setup you posted Gary now, we were considering it when devising unit stats for our Age of Imperialism mod some time ago but did not and kept the standard A/D values along w/ the bombardment no's.

anyhow - i'd wonder how it would unfold if tested fully. it's certainly interesting.

vingrjoe discovered some time ago that flagging certain ships as invisible induces the AI vessels w/ this setting to act more as 'bombardment platforms' rather than A/D units. specifically, we tried flagging capital ships w/ this and i've witnessed, for example, the iowa BBs acting more independently from the other ships wrt escort duties and the like. by that i mean that we often found the big boys simply acting in a 'convoy' capacity rather than in a naval gunfire support role. this was reversed w/ the invisible tag. now, i've also witnessed the iowas being 'escorted' by ships w/ similar movement points (in this case, Fletcher class DDs which is spot-on imo).

is it perfect? nah but not much is w/ the civ3 game engine. so to have made these advances, i'll admit that i was slightly pleased. not sure if any of that helps but it's as close to what you're referring to as i've come across. and we spent a great amount of energies trying to enhance the naval aspects of the game. so, after all, maybe it could help

 

[BadKharma]

I would like to know how testing goes on this sounds like an interesting idea if the AI uses it properly.

 

[Ozymandias]

El Justo! - Just a quick threadjack to say that it's good to "see" you around.

-Oz

 

[jatibi]

Of course an additional concern would be whether the AI would utilize bombardment against other surface ship targets.

i tried the setting that gary childess proposed a while ago.

in theory it would be very nice, because if it would work, there would be two distinct ways of naval combat, surface and sub-surface.

But unfortunately, great surprise, it doesn't work.


The AI only sporadically uses bombard against ships. AFAIK, this is not related to bombardment ranges/values. He just attacks, and that's it. What EL Justo said about the invisible-flag is correct.

This might be mitigated by having all capital ships flagged "requires escort" ...

unfortunately, great surprise, it doesn't work.


why? because any ship flagged "naval power" functions as a possible escort.
Now if you have a ship flagged "requires escort" and it functions as an escort, it escorts itself. i think this is the logical reason they did delete that feature in the regular editor.

This was all discovered long time ago... search the forum for "naval combat".

 

[Gary Childress]

i tried the setting that gary childess proposed a while ago.

in theory it would be very nice, because if it would work, there would be two distinct ways of naval combat, surface and sub-surface.

But unfortunately, great surprise, it doesn't work.


The AI only sporadically uses bombard against ships. AFAIK, this is not related to bombardment ranges/values. He just attacks, and that's it. What EL Justo said about the invisible-flag is correct.



unfortunately, great surprise, it doesn't work.


why? because any ship flagged "naval power" functions as a possible escort.
Now if you have a ship flagged "requires escort" and it functions as an escort, it escorts itself. i think this is the logical reason they did delete that feature in the regular editor.

This was all discovered long time ago... search the forum for "naval combat".

OK, we must be playing two entirely different games then. I just ran two quick tests of my theory and it seemed to work like a charm.

I set up two fleets of 10 BBs, 3 DDs and 4 SSs each and put them in a little ocean ring on a small map. I played one fleet and the AI played the other. BBs and DDs had attack of 1 and regular defense values plus "lethal sea bombardment". Submarines had regular attack and defense values.

The game was a bombardment fest. In the little arena I created the AI sank all 10 of my battleships using almost nothing but bombardment in about 15 turns. Granted there were a few times when the AI would foolishly try to attack my ships (after they had been bombarded down to a single hit point) face to face and most of the time AI lost. But the majority of the combat was with nothing but bombardment. When the AI got through with my little staged navy, it went after my city, basically camping out there and bombarding it successively for several turns until I got tired and ended the game.

Also on a couple of occasions during naval combat I managed to pin the AI in with subs and forced him to run his battleships blindly into my subs. In all cases the subs won.

 

[Adler17]

My system for my AoI II project:

All (surface) ships get the HP after their displacement. So 1 HP for every 2.500 ts displacement. Attack and defense are determined by mostly the guns, caliber and number. Defense has 5 or 10 less than attack. So there is a difference not only between the types, so BB and CA, but also between the classes. A WW1 Dreadnought might have 70 in attack while a ww2 BB might have 100. A British town class CL has better values than a WW1 CL. And so on.
Bombardment is equal to the Attack value, until the value of the torpedoes is reached. A 45 cm TT has 20, 50 or 53,3 cm 25, 60 cm 30 and Japanese Long Lance torpedoes 35 as value. RoF is determined by the TT firing on one side. Submarines and fast attack craft get twice the number of their TT. Some US ships having bad torpedoes a malus of 50%.
So a destroyer might have 4 10,2 cm guns and 4 53,3 cm TT, so that it gets 20 A, 15 D and 25 bombardment by 4 RoF.
It works very well in tests.

Adler

 

[Gary Childress]

My system for my AoI II project:

All (surface) ships get the HP after their displacement. So 1 HP for every 2.500 ts displacement. Attack and defense are determined by mostly the guns, caliber and number. Defense has 5 or 10 less than attack. So there is a difference not only between the types, so BB and CA, but also between the classes. A WW1 Dreadnought might have 70 in attack while a ww2 BB might have 100. A British town class CL has better values than a WW1 CL. And so on.
Bombardment is equal to the Attack value, until the value of the torpedoes is reached. A 45 cm TT has 20, 50 or 53,3 cm 25, 60 cm 30 and Japanese Long Lance torpedoes 35 as value. RoF is determined by the TT firing on one side. Submarines and fast attack craft get twice the number of their TT. Some US ships having bad torpedoes a malus of 50%.
So a destroyer might have 4 10,2 cm guns and 4 53,3 cm TT, so that it gets 20 A, 15 D and 25 bombardment by 4 RoF.
It works very well in tests.

Adler

That sounds very impressive! Right now I don't have anything as scientifically calculated in place for my mod. Once I get a working prototype set up I'll probably have to play around with the numbers a little to get the results I want. Basically as it stands now, an early war German destroyer has, on average, the same combat values as any other early war destroyer and so on. I've given slight little advantages or disadvantages to different weapon designs but for the most part the only difference between one unit of the same period and another is the graphic.

 

[BadKharma]

OK, we must be playing two entirely different games then. I just ran two quick tests of my theory and it seemed to work like a charm.

I set up two fleets of 10 BBs, 3 DDs and 4 SSs each and put them in a little ocean ring on a small map. I played one fleet and the AI played the other. BBs and DDs had attack of 1 and regular defense values plus "lethal sea bombardment". Submarines had regular attack and defense values.

The game was a bombardment fest. In the little arena I created the AI sank all 10 of my battleships using almost nothing but bombardment in about 15 turns. Granted there were a few times when the AI would foolishly try to attack my ships (after they had been bombarded down to a single hit point) face to face and most of the time AI lost. But the majority of the combat was with nothing but bombardment. When the AI got through with my little staged navy, it went after my city, basically camping out there and bombarding it successively for several turns until I got tired and ended the game.

Also on a couple of occasions during naval combat I managed to pin the AI in with subs and forced him to run his battleships blindly into my subs. In all cases the subs won.

That sounds very interesting I think more testing needs to be done though to see if any problems develop with AI usage. I think maybe you should raise the A/D of the BB's though because A sub shouldn't always be able to sink a battleship everytime. When you look at each turn lasting a minimum of one week it's reasonable to conclude that the BB occasionally would sink a sub forced to the surface for recharging it's batteries. Now for modern nuclear boats it is a whole different case they can sink any capital ship as long as they remain undetected. The advantage I see to using a system like this is a more realistic subsurface combat. Currently some sytems give submarines a high bombardment to sink surface vessels however then the AI uses subs to bombard cities.

 

[Gary Childress]

Hi BadKarma,

I suppose, instead of raising attack values of BBs I could lower the defense values of subs a little. If BBs have attack = 1 and subs have defense only = 3-4 or something along those lines, then I would think there should be a slight chance of the BB winning. Also in the scenario I do give BBs and CAs additional hit points and give none to subs.

OTOH, I think there is only one case in recorded history (If I'm not mistaken) in which a BB has actually sunk a sub in combat. Therefore, if it's such a rare occurance in real life, I don't see much need to mimic the opportunity in game. Most subs are capable of spotting a BB on the horizon well before a BB can spot a little sub and so most subs can submerge before a BB can attack them I should think.

The whole point of my conversion is to prevent subs from being sunk by large surface ships which in real life should not be able to detect nor attack submarines.

Of course it would be even better if there were a chance of the BB surviving such an attack but unfortunately the game engine is all or nothing in combat and so at least one of the attackers must be destroyed. I'd rather loose the ability for BBs to sink subs than raise the chance of BBs surviving an encounter with subs. To me it makes the game more interesting if the player can set up ambushes and such.

 

[BadKharma]

Yes I see your point, it is unfortunate that there isnt more depth to the combat system it would have made the game so much better. I guess everything is pretty much a trade off.
Kongo was the only battleship sunk by an allied submarine during the war. Not sure how many allied BB's were sunk but I only found a reference to one being sunk by a submarine. But like I said it is pretty much a trade off of course it depends if the AI is smart enough to use the stealth attack to not target BB's with the submarines unfortunately thats pretty much wishfull thinking.
A BB has the possibility of detecting a submarine by using radar if it is at periscope depth or snorkeling and most Allied BB's had radar on board. Of course battleships had a different function than hunting submarines which is why encounters between BB's and SS's was pretty rare. Especially when you also add in that BB's were part of a fleet including DD's that would be hunting the subs.

 

[El Justo]

El Justo! - Just a quick threadjack to say that it's good to "see" you around.

-Oz

hi Oz good to hear from you as usual - i've been lurking lately...and prepping my latest works so time spent here isn't as great lately. but i'm still around

i guess the main theme we've all tried to tie down is to prevent that 'first strike' advantage from skewing the battle outcomes of the sea units. by that i mean that a good deal of the time, the sea unit which attacks first is usually the winner in basic civ3 terms. however, we've tried to emphasize defensive values in alot of cases so that the unit which is the target of the 'first strike' has at least a 'puncher's chance' as they say...

 

[Gary Childress]

Yes I see your point, it is unfortunate that there isnt more depth to the combat system it would have made the game so much better. I guess everything is pretty much a trade off.
Kongo was the only battleship sunk by an allied submarine during the war. Not sure how many allied BB's were sunk but I only found a reference to one being sunk by a submarine. But like I said it is pretty much a trade off of course it depends if the AI is smart enough to use the stealth attack to not target BB's with the submarines unfortunately thats pretty much wishfull thinking.
A BB has the possibility of detecting a submarine by using radar if it is at periscope depth or snorkeling and most Allied BB's had radar on board. Of course battleships had a different function than hunting submarines which is why encounters between BB's and SS's was pretty rare. Especially when you also add in that BB's were part of a fleet including DD's that would be hunting the subs.

Submarines proved to be a significant threat to battleships during World War I. Submarines torpedoed and sank at least seven British and French pre-dreadnought battleships, while an eighth (the Russian Peresviet) was sunk in a minefield layed by a submarine. The faster and more heavily protected dreadnoughts fared considerably better. The only dreadnought sunk by a submarine was the British Audacious, which foundered after striking a mine that had been laid by a submarine. None were sunk by torpedoes, though several were hit.
While battleships were never intended for anti-submarine warfare, curiously enough, one submarine was actually sunk by a battleship! HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank the German U-29 on 18 March 1915 off Morray Firth.

Submarines had less success against battleships than they did in World War I. While submarines and torpedes improved between the wars, anti-submarine sensors, weapons, and tactics improved even more rapidly. As a result, HMS Royal Oak and HMS Barham were the only battleships sunk by submarines during World War II. The Japanese battlecruiser Kongo was also sunk by a submarine near the end of the war.
Perhaps as notable as these submarine successes were the failures. For example, the Japanese submarine I-19 torpedoed the American battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55) in September 1942, yet she not only remained afloat, but was able to continue operations. The same attack sank the carrier USS Wasp (CV-7). There were numerous other instances where submarines fired torpedoes against battleships, and missed completely. History books seldom record such unremarkable failures, but we've found numerous instances.

http://home.att.net/~wellsbrothers/Battleships/obsolete.html

It looks like it's more or less almost a toss up. However, only one sub was sunk by a battleship whereas subs have sunk several battleships in history. Probably the fact that BBs seldom roamed the seas in WW2 without anti-sub escorts played a big role in minimizing losses. In the game it would be nice if the AI would utilize ships with the "detect invisible" flag more often to escort ships without the flag. Then things would be more realistic, however, the AI seems to prefer just sending ships straying off alone in all directions.

However, I still think it makes an interesting game for the player to watch out for enemy subs as well. I played eric A's Hinge of Fate a few times and many times my ships would accidently stumble into the AI's subs. With the rules above, almost no ship should venture out unescorted by DDs. It makes it more of a cat and mouse game, I think.

PS. it's also interesting to note that a number of carriers were sunk by subs in WW2. Carriers were generally faster and better escorted than BBs, and many carriers, being based on battlecruiser hulls had significant anti-torpedo protection. For instance, the carrier Shinano which was based on the Yamato hull was sunk by a US sub near Formosa. Overall, I would say that subs were very effective weapons against large vessels.

 

[BadKharma]

PS. it's also interesting to note that a number of carriers were sunk by subs in WW2. Carriers were generally faster and better escorted than BBs, and many carriers, being based on battlecruiser hulls had significant anti-torpedo protection. For instance, the carrier Shinano which was based on the Yamato hull was sunk by a US sub near Formosa. Overall, I would say that subs were very effective weapons against large vessels.

Yes however most of the CV losses were due to the ships allready being severely damaged also not that many carriers were converted from BC hulls.
However the cat and mouse game is definately a very interesting scenario making the submarines a much more usefull unit as well as making the DD's also more valuable to produce. Considering the vast majority of all surface ships used during WWII were not capital ships I hope the costs you have associated with the units will make the AI produce alot of escorts and subs to really make it worthwhile. Didn't Eric A also remove the CV's from the submarine stealth attack list?

 

[Gary Childress]

I haven't downloaded eric A's latest version of HOF. The version I have on my computer still has subs capable of stealth attacking carriers. But I downloaded it a few months ago so that may have changed.

 

[BadKharma]

Oh wait it could be my mistake I have both Eric A's scenario and the wonderfull WWII global in my scenario folder and I have a tendency to mix them up at times. Anyway you might want to leave the CV off the list to entice the AI to use them more.