Several game bugs:

[Vermillion]

Greetings. Love the game, but have noticed several bugs over the course of the last week's play, I thought I would list them here:

-Automatic Submarine sitting in Port: The game is set so the computer ets up sub missions on its own, and it keeps creating 1 sub TFs and giving them no orders, so Brisbane and a few others have 20 TFs of 1 sub each sitting there, fully supplied, not doing anything.

-Inability to maintain Bombardment orders: No matter what I do, I cannot get a TF to keep bombarding. After each shore bombardment, the switch to 'surface attack' and need to be retasked to bombard every day. This is on 'no withdrawl/patrol' and with near-full fuel.

-Not enough fuel: Late in the games, once you have your whole fleet mobilised, It seems there is simly not enough fuel on the planet. Keeping all my tankers and supply ships going full pace, I still cannot build up reserves. Expenditure is too high and transport movement is too low. I add that I have lost no tankers to the ebemy. I don;t know maybe this is historical, but in a naval game its annoying when even operating at one's peak resupplying, you have to sit for turns and turns waiting for tankers to arrive.

-Combat realism: This is one of my big ones. A MASSIVE fleet of 25 ships, over half battleshps runs into a large (+15 plus) transport convoy with 2 destroyers escorting. The destroyers will die, and maybe a couple transports, which will be beaten to death (20-50 shells each) while the rest of the convoy goes unmolested, or with 1 or 2 hits. This is an experienced allied convoy at full supplies. That doesn't seem right to me. If a jutland size navy runs into 20 transports, I have difficulty imaging more than a couple escaping...

-Massive overkill. A Jutland size convoy running into say, a 4-5 ship transport convoy will expend MASSIVE amounts of ammunition and torpedoes, overkilling ships when they are obviously already sinking. Thats just anoying.

-Japanese refusal to engage. This only happens sometimes, but is endlessly frustrating. The Japanese simply will not sortie their big ships. I have wiped out theor transport navy, I know where the BBs are, I shell them endlessly and can do no real damage, and the Japanese BBs simply will not come out, ever.

-Bombardment: If I fire 13 BBs and 12 escorts of varying sizes at an island on bombardment, with only a few levels of fortification, why am I killing 30 or 40 people out of the 40,000 there? Those numbers are so small as to be entirely worthless.


Thank you for your time. Dispite my griping, I love the game as a whole... Oh, and is it just me or does the computer take a LONG time to 'train ships' every turn?


Vermillion

[Tankerace]

ORIGINAL: Vermillion

Greetings. Love the game, but have noticed several bugs over the course of the last week's play, I thought I would list them here:

-Automatic Submarine sitting in Port: The game is set so the computer ets up sub missions on its own, and it keeps creating 1 sub TFs and giving them no orders, so Brisbane and a few others have 20 TFs of 1 sub each sitting there, fully supplied, not doing anything.

Are you sure you have auto sub ops on? Also, it doesn't always send out boats, it tries to send them in waves. Besides, if you still hold the PI, the Japanese have not made it anywhere near Australia, so the subs would have nothing to do.

-Inability to maintain Bombardment orders: No matter what I do, I cannot get a TF to keep bombarding. After each shore bombardment, the switch to 'surface attack' and need to be retasked to bombard every day. This is on 'no withdrawl/patrol' and with near-full fuel.

Not a bug. This is designed, so that if you were to get plastered in the last bombardment but forgot to order the TF to not bombard, you don't get plastered again. It also allows you to ahve the fleet switch to surface attack, so if the enemy moves in after your initial bombardment, your fleet doesn't get clobbered. Its one of those things, if it were always set to keep bombarding, and somebody got clobbered, they'd gripe. Or people gripe about having to put their ships back on bombard. Its a no win situation, but keeping it as it is now prevents any friendlies from getting clobbered when you forget to do something.

-Not enough fuel: Late in the games, once you have your whole fleet mobilised, It seems there is simly not enough fuel on the planet. Keeping all my tankers and supply ships going full pace, I still cannot build up reserves. Expenditure is too high and transport movement is too low. I add that I have lost no tankers to the ebemy. I don;t know maybe this is historical, but in a naval game its annoying when even operating at one's peak resupplying, you have to sit for turns and turns waiting for tankers to arrive.

Again, not a bug. Its designed this way. As the US, you will always have enough fuel, but as Japan you will have to copnserve and manage. Later in the war, as your resources start to deplete, you will have to more adequately plan when and where to engage. In the 1920s, Japan had to import most of its fuel. This is what historically led to war in 1941, when the US clapped an oil embargo on Japan. Japan receives about 8-10,000 tons of fuel a day, but you will have to conserve at times. Japan (especially after years of fighting) simply doesn't have the resources to effectively mobilize everything everywhere. This is why it is key to destroy the US fleet early on (in the first two years), so that you can stockpile fuel for when the Brits arrive.

-Combat realism: This is one of my big ones. A MASSIVE fleet of 25 ships, over half battleshps runs into a large (+15 plus) transport convoy with 2 destroyers escorting. The destroyers will die, and maybe a couple transports, which will be beaten to death (20-50 shells each) while the rest of the convoy goes unmolested, or with 1 or 2 hits. This is an experienced allied convoy at full supplies. That doesn't seem right to me. If a jutland size navy runs into 20 transports, I have difficulty imaging more than a couple escaping...

Not a bug, read the Tutorial on TF composition on the main forum. A massive TF cannot engage as effectively as smaller TFs. This reporesents deploying into a battle line, signaling difficulties (wireless radios were often notorious for failing), and the fact that the larger the TF, the more spread out it is. A large TF of 25 ships may occupy a space of 3 or 4 miles, and as such may not engage fully. A smaller 8 ship TF will be more close in, and all ships will engage. So, while your TF may have 25 ships, maybe 10-15 are actually engaging, and again, of those, they still have to deploy into a battle line, form up, etc, while at the same time the transports (which too are not all in the same area, they are spread out aswell) are retrating at full speed.

-Massive overkill. A Jutland size convoy running into say, a 4-5 ship transport convoy will expend MASSIVE amounts of ammunition and torpedoes, overkilling ships when they are obviously already sinking. Thats just anoying.

Annoying yes, but also not a bug. Standard naval tactics are usually to fire upon the target until the target is sunk. Just because the ship has taken massive amounts of damage doesn't mean it will sink. Think back to Jutland, when Beatty claimed several battleships sunk, only to see them steam up at Scapa Flow in 1919. Like the bombardment, its a no win issue. If we have it where ships stop firing when a ship "appears" to be sinking, people would complain that their TFs are letting the enemy get away. This way, you expend more ammo, but you get confirmed sinkings.

-Japanese refusal to engage. This only happens sometimes, but is endlessly frustrating. The Japanese simply will not sortie their big ships. I have wiped out theor transport navy, I know where the BBs are, I shell them endlessly and can do no real damage, and the Japanese BBs simply will not come out, ever.

What patch? Also what is the relative force strength? If you have many more ships then they do, they obviously will not come out.

-Bombardment: If I fire 13 BBs and 12 escorts of varying sizes at an island on bombardment, with only a few levels of fortification, why am I killing 30 or 40 people out of the 40,000 there? Those numbers are so small as to be entirely worthless.

This is fog of war. Take it with a grain of salt. While you are softening up the island, damaging equipment, and killing troops, you aren't going to have wholesale slaughter. Looking at WW2, the bombardments (both aerial and naval) were generally ineffective. So while it is a necessity, you aren't going to wipe out the islands garrison. (That said, it is FOW, so you are probably inflicting heavier losses than 30 or 40, but can't confirm it).

Thank you for your time. Dispite my griping, I love the game as a whole... Oh, and is it just me or does the computer take a LONG time to 'train ships' every turn?

Glad to hear it. I appreciate the feedback, every game needs a few adjustments here and there. Yes, train ships does take a long time, but then it has to go through each individual ship to check ratings. If you think its long in WPO, you should play WitP. Always good when a game gives you a built in coffee break [:D]

[Rysyonok]

> Automatic Submarine sitting in Port: The game is set so the computer ets up sub missions on its own, and it keeps creating 1 sub TFs and giving them no orders, so Brisbane and a few others have 20 TFs of 1 sub each sitting there, fully supplied, not doing anything.

Change their homebases to frontline ones and watch the magic.

P.S. Subs are amazing - why would you relegate control over them to AI?

> Inability to maintain Bombardment orders: No matter what I do, I cannot get a TF to keep bombarding. After each shore bombardment, the switch to 'surface attack' and need to be retasked to bombard every day. This is on 'no withdrawl/patrol' and with near-full fuel.

Because ship captains don't want to get caught away from home bases with empty magazines There is nothing more pleasing than unleasing a stack of destroyers on a group of wounded battleships who just expended all their main caliber ammo.

> Not enough fuel: Late in the games, once you have your whole fleet mobilised, It seems there is simly not enough fuel on the planet. Keeping all my tankers and supply ships going full pace, I still cannot build up reserves. Expenditure is too high and transport movement is too low. I add that I have lost no tankers to the ebemy. I don;t know maybe this is historical, but in a naval game its annoying when even operating at one's peak resupplying, you have to sit for turns and turns waiting for tankers to arrive.

If you're Japan, well, that's life for you Defeat USN sooner.
If you're USA, use your AK/APs as sources of replenishment at sea. They're going to be healed back on West Coast anyway.

> Combat realism: This is one of my big ones. A MASSIVE fleet of 25 ships, over half battleshps runs into a large (+15 plus) transport convoy with 2 destroyers escorting. The destroyers will die, and maybe a couple transports, which will be beaten to death (20-50 shells each) while the rest of the convoy goes unmolested, or with 1 or 2 hits. This is an experienced allied convoy at full supplies. That doesn't seem right to me. If a jutland size navy runs into 20 transports, I have difficulty imaging more than a couple escaping...

Bingo! And experienced commanders run when they realize they got np chance. In the meantime destroyers provide screening. Look at statistics of ship commanders: an average AK leader has aggressiveness of 30 and an average DD one that of 55.

> Massive overkill. A Jutland size convoy running into say, a 4-5 ship transport convoy will expend MASSIVE amounts of ammunition and torpedoes, overkilling ships when they are obviously already sinking. Thats just anoying.

Totally understandable. I've had quite a few ships escape right under my nose with 80-, 90- sys damage... I want overkills

> Japanese refusal to engage. This only happens sometimes, but is endlessly frustrating. The Japanese simply will not sortie their big ships. I have wiped out theor transport navy, I know where the BBs are, I shell them endlessly and can do no real damage, and the Japanese BBs simply will not come out, ever.

Bring out your own BBs and watch the magic. IJN doctrine was that capital ships are for a major battle only. Look at their operational histories in WW2 - there are only 2 battles where their BB/BCs were present - Surigao and Leyte.

> Bombardment: If I fire 13 BBs and 12 escorts of varying sizes at an island on bombardment, with only a few levels of fortification, why am I killing 30 or 40 people out of the 40,000 there? Those numbers are so small as to be entirely worthless.

Actually, you're not killing any. You're scaring 30-40 for 3 days =) And then you're adding an experience point to the whole unit. Once again, very understandable. Since when has seashore bombardment done any good, anywhere?

But what you're doing very well, is burning up their suppy - 3000 per bombardment. Cut off, those guys eventually start to starve. Bombard it for 2 weeks and watch the fun =)

> Thank you for your time. Dispite my griping, I love the game as a whole... Oh, and is it just me or does the computer take a LONG time to 'train ships' every turn?

Yup. After all, there are 6000+ ships. And for each it has to make 2 assessments (day / night). As you sink them, the game speeds up =)