Next Patch

[Hellfirejet]

Another thing that I have not seen or read about in the game,Artillery has a gun fire range of 2,and yet the Battleships have only a range of 1, how come the naval gun out ranges land Artillery by a long way as far I'm aware.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: kirk23

Another thing that I have not seen or read about in the game,Artillery has a gun fire range of 2,and yet the Battleships have only a range of 1, how come the naval gun out ranges land Artillery by a long way as far I'm aware.

warspite1

My guess is this is necessary because there is no stacking. You cannot have Artillery in the front line so the only way they can fire on the enemy front line is to give them a 2-hex range. No problem with that - in fact it works very well.

[Hellfirejet]

Agreed the Artillery should have at least a range of 2, in my mind the Battleship should also have the same benefit over the cruiser in game.

[Hellfirejet]

Back to ships getting to close to enemy ports etc,I would have thought that any dice roll would cause strenght point loss from 1 - 6 as a big deterant for any ship attempting this fool hardy mission,its a diferrent matter if the port in question has been captured,then the ships would then be able to supply the land forces by sea if needed.[;)]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: kirk23

Back to ships getting to close to enemy ports etc,I would have thought that any dice roll would cause strenght point loss from 1 - 6 as a big deterant.

warspite1

The strength point loss would depend on:

- How big the counters are e.g. at the moment you probably wouldn't want more than 1-strength point per turn or its too costly and fleets become almost redundant.

- Which coastal area are we talking about. They won't all be the same.

[Hellfirejet]

To the British Heligoland etc should be considered a no go area,and losses should reflect this if attempted.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: kirk23

To the British Heligoland etc should be considered a no go area,and losses should reflect this if attempted.

To be fair, the Germans didn't mine it off until about 3 months into the war, prior to that, the British ran a couple of sweeps through the bight, and managed to provoke at least one sortie that they spanked (Battle of Heigoland ... think the germans lost 3 or 4 cruisers and some torpedo boats).

Declaring it no-go strikes me as a bit extreme, but modelling minefields as static attrition would make mroe sense e.g.

Starting on Turn 6, declare all hexes within the heigoland bight to be minefields.
Any cruiser counter entering a minefield takes 1D2 strength point losses.
Any BB counter entering a minefield takes 1D4 strength point losses (heavy units are actually move vulnerable to mines in most cases)

if you want to really get fancy with it you could allow cruisers to 'sweep' mines and eventually reduce their strength. There *were* historical attempts to force hostile minefields with mine sweeping under fire (the british tried, and ultimately failed, the sweep and clear a minefield in teh dardanelles during the gallipolli campaign, but they did make progress before they abandoned the effort).

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

ORIGINAL: kirk23

To the British Heligoland etc should be considered a no go area,and losses should reflect this if attempted.

To be fair, the Germans didn't mine it off until about 3 months into the war, prior to that, the British ran a couple of sweeps through the bight, and managed to provoke at least one sortie that they spanked (Battle of Heigoland ... think the germans lost 3 or 4 cruisers and some torpedo boats).

Declaring it no-go strikes me as a bit extreme, but modelling minefields as static attrition would make mroe sense e.g.

Starting on Turn 6, declare all hexes within the heigoland bight to be minefields.
Any cruiser counter entering a minefield takes 1D2 strength point losses.
Any BB counter entering a minefield takes 1D4 strength point losses (heavy units are actually move vulnerable to mines in most cases)

if you want to really get fancy with it you could allow cruisers to 'sweep' mines and eventually reduce their strength. There *were* historical attempts to force hostile minefields with mine sweeping under fire (the british tried, and ultimately failed, the sweep and clear a minefield in teh dardanelles during the gallipolli campaign, but they did make progress before they abandoned the effort).

warspite1

I do not think anywhere should be a no-go - so long as there is an appropriate chance of loss if a player chooses to risk entering certain areas.

[scout1]

2 player hot seat would be nice ....

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: scout1

2 player hot seat would be nice ....

warspite1

See the thread you started recently

tm.asp?m=3219658&mpage=1&#3246185

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: wodin

ORIGINAL: fodder

GET RID OF THE AMMO CAP!!!!! Sorry for shouting.

Artillery ruled the WWI battlefields, but with the ammo cap you can't field more than two artillery units and have any chance of supplying them for more than a turn or two. This is very unrealistic. This is WWI, I should be able to field four or five artillery units and have stock piled enough ammo to be able to fire them for a month or two at a time.

The armoured train also needs to be looked at, if not removed. Armoured trains are not and never were front line armoured fighting vehicles. At best they were mobile or self propeled artillery or anti aircraft weapons. In game maybe they could be made so they could move and fire or fire and move the same turn as artillery or anti aircraft weapons.

First two years well until 1916 it should be difficult to stock pile arty due to shortages on both sides that hindered 14 and 15..

Ya know though playing the game in 14 and 15 regardless of the ammo cap I am short because I am using ammo to try and blast holes, and my production is low. I think removing the ammo cap would be okay, and would allow folks that really like to open up ammo production to do so as a what if. I am not WWI production expert so maybe nobody had the ability to stockpile ammo.. but if they did the game should allow one to stockpile. If folks keep up with fighting and do not go nuts with ammo production then the 14 and 15 shortages will still be there!

[wodin]

No side had the war machine in process enough to stockpile ammo in 15 they did in 15 abit more but only for offensives and even then they ran out before the end and had to limit it. Arty shortages was a massive issue for both the Germans and the Allies the first year and a half or so. Also remember at the start of the war they didn't know the Arty was going to have a big a part as it did do, so they weren't prepared or even have the training for mass bombardments (Arty employment and techniques really grew throughout WW1)...it took a couple of years remember for them to perfect the rolling barrage it wasn't really until 1918 they really got it down and working properly.

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: wodin

No side had the war machine in process enough to stockpile ammo in 15 they did in 15 abit more but only for offensives and even then they ran out before the end and had to limit it. Arty shortages was a massive issue for both the Germans and the Allies the first year and a half or so. Also remember at the start of the war they didn't know the Arty was going to have a big a part as it did do, so they weren't prepared or even have the training for mass bombardments (Arty employment and techniques really grew throughout WW1)...it took a couple of years remember for them to perfect the rolling barrage it wasn't really until 1918 they really got it down and working properly.

Agreed in the war there were ammo supply shortages... however was this because they could NOT stockpile it or because their production combined with usage did not allow them any stockpiles?

What I am trying to say is that my typical usage in 14 & 15 combined with moderate increases in production mean I am still short of ammo quite often and the ammo cap being 50 or 500 would make no difference to me. So relatively historic patterns would evidence times when the players say "Blast I am short of ammo" So if that is the case then the question becomes Did they have the ability to stockpile shells if they had wanted to do so? If the answer is "Yes they could have warehoused shells they just didn't" then the ammo cap should be removed or increased to allow folks to go with what if scenarios of both husbanding shells as well as investing PP early in a quick expansion of ammo factories.

I am not disagreeing about what historically happened, and I am honestly saying I do not really know if it was possible in the era of WWI to have large stockpiles of ammunition. I mean perhaps the limit of 50 stored ammo is because the game designers know that it was not possible to store much more than that in the WWI era!

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Mike Parker

I am not disagreeing about what historically happened, and I am honestly saying I do not really know if it was possible in the era of WWI to have large stockpiles of ammunition. I mean perhaps the limit of 50 stored ammo is because the game designers know that it was not possible to store much more than that in the WWI era!

Its quite possible to store high explosive virtually forever ... TNT is pretty stable, and even some of the more primitive/cheaper stuff they used earlier in the war is good for at least 4 years if you take somewhat reasonable precautions. Its not like dynamite or something where the nitroglycerin works its way out of the charge during storage, making old explosives dangerous.

In the context of the game, I think this was a design decision all about preventing players from massing gun tubes and shells and vaporizing their way to victory. The limits on ammo stockpiles prevent a player, say, hoarding 200 shells and then building 4 gun tubes and blasting apart an entire front over a month.

[colberki]

what is the ETA on the next patch?

[Lord Zimoa]

We will start the first open Beta around end of next week or after that weekend anyway, we will have around a 2 weeks open Beta test phase, so the official second patch should release around end of January.

But in around 10-12 days the first open Beta test of patch2 should start, please don`t pin us down on an exact day, but the above is the basic plan.

[warspite1]

Lord Zimoa - is there anything you can tell us at this stage re the direction that the naval war is heading and your thoughts on what is achievable here - either in this next patch or thereafter?

Many thanks.

[Hellfirejet]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Lord Zimoa - is there anything you can tell us at this stage re the direction that the naval war is heading and your thoughts on what is achievable here - either in this next patch or thereafter?

Many thanks.

I second this motion,some indication on future developments would be very welcome ![:)]

[Hakmeister]

One other thing, WHERE THE HELL IS METZ? Sorry, but it's a rather glaring omission in the game. Just one fort north-west of Strassburg, please.

[Amaranthus]

Strat bombing seems to me to be the biggest game breaker to fix in this patch. If you get a deadlock by 1916 or so, it's the only thing that ends up counting - a crazy back and forth of fleets of bombers until one side or the other withers away first. The land war ceases to have a meaning. I love the 1914-15 game, but after that, it's broken - and I really want it fixed, because I do love the game. I've just had another game end on an agreed stalemate because of this.

Two possible fixes are to 1) dramatically decrease effectiveness (e.g. only 1 in 5 strikes of a Zepp does -1, and maybe 1 in 3 for a bomber), or 2) impacts NM only, with no effect on PP (and NM impact would have to be low and probably on a diminishing curve).