Naval Mod should be renamed, with warning label

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: ElvisJJonesRambo


https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4868517

@DeLand --- Hey brother, thanks for stepping up! That's cool of you to host a tournament and/or ongoing Ladder. My regular sparring partner and I have begun a game. The LizardMan (in this thread) has taken Axis, we are going ELO.
[/quote]

Great! Please can you post the details in the tournament thread - that way everything's in the same place for reference

[LordOfPants]

I agree about the naval mod; while carriers should be dominant, they shouldn't be capable of destroying surface fleets with no escorts and no risk to themselves, even though the author of the mod seems to love immortal carriers. Yes, carriers didn't often get sunk by surface ships historically, but it's because they were screened, avoided battle when the weather didn't support them, and generally behaved cautiously. They didn't just brazenly sail out, unconcerned about whether they even have escorts, and engage surface ships with complete impunity. In my last game with the mod, I sealed off Gibraltar and Suez as the Axis, and trapped one UK carrier in the med. I had killed its air complement and got tired of it hanging around in the last allied port, so I airdropped to grab Crete and figured my surface ships could deal with a single carrier with no planes, no friendly ports, and no supply. After several turns of teleporting the carrier around and getting bunches of NM, I had to bring in bombers to actually kill it, and even that took multiple turns!

[ThunderLizard11]

ORIGINAL: LordOfPants

I agree about the naval mod; while carriers should be dominant, they shouldn't be capable of destroying surface fleets with no escorts and no risk to themselves, even though the author of the mod seems to love immortal carriers. Yes, carriers didn't often get sunk by surface ships historically, but it's because they were screened, avoided battle when the weather didn't support them, and generally behaved cautiously. They didn't just brazenly sail out, unconcerned about whether they even have escorts, and engage surface ships with complete impunity. In my last game with the mod, I sealed off Gibraltar and Suez as the Axis, and trapped one UK carrier in the med. I had killed its air complement and got tired of it hanging around in the last allied port, so I airdropped to grab Crete and figured my surface ships could deal with a single carrier with no planes, no friendly ports, and no supply. After several turns of teleporting the carrier around and getting bunches of NM, I had to bring in bombers to actually kill it, and even that took multiple turns!

Had same experience. I think mod creator Hairog is no longer actively developing.

[lwarmonger]

I'd be game, but I've switched to playing Fall Weiss mod pretty much exclusively. Playing allies just got to demoralizing in vanilla (even if you do everything right, just a very narrow path to "victory"... and against an evenly matched player you still feel like you are losing because you aren't matching history insofar as progress).

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

ORIGINAL: lwarmonger

I'd be game, but I've switched to playing Fall Weiss mod pretty much exclusively. Playing allies just got to demoralizing in vanilla (even if you do everything right, just a very narrow path to "victory"... and against an evenly matched player you still feel like you are losing because you aren't matching history insofar as progress).

Hello lwarmonger,

Haven't even opened that flavor, Fall Weiss that is. Let me take a look.

Regards,
-Legend

[Simulacra53]

ORIGINAL: LordOfPants

I agree about the naval mod; while carriers should be dominant, they shouldn't be capable of destroying surface fleets with no escorts and no risk to themselves, even though the author of the mod seems to love immortal carriers. Yes, carriers didn't often get sunk by surface ships historically, but it's because they were screened, avoided battle when the weather didn't support them, and generally behaved cautiously. They didn't just brazenly sail out, unconcerned about whether they even have escorts, and engage surface ships with complete impunity. In my last game with the mod, I sealed off Gibraltar and Suez as the Axis, and trapped one UK carrier in the med. I had killed its air complement and got tired of it hanging around in the last allied port, so I airdropped to grab Crete and figured my surface ships could deal with a single carrier with no planes, no friendly ports, and no supply. After several turns of teleporting the carrier around and getting bunches of NM, I had to bring in bombers to actually kill it, and even that took multiple turns!

Hairog has a concept for his mod and sticks to it, maybe to the detriment of playability.
I have not played his mod, I like the fleet idea and more attention to naval warfare, I didn’t try it - partially because of the balance.
Mods are a labor of love and Hairog should be praised for his effort.
Some mods simply work better than others, regardless of effort or concept.

Maybe you can convince Hairog to rebalance his mod.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

There's no doubt a "Labor of Love". The dude put alot of work into. It's impossible to spend endless hours testing balance, especially with all the whacky stuff players will try. Love it or leave it, give Hariog some praise! Hariog, nice work. Appreciate a your work. Good job.

Mods are like Music, just depends what you like. Additionally, the two games I played, I went in blind. I like to go in blind in most things in life (games, movies, musics, etc.) so I can come to my own opinion, then hear public opinion.

-Elvis

Others may pass your way
And let you think their love is true
But you know that they'll never replace
The one that waits for you

[crispy131313]

ORIGINAL: lwarmonger

I'd be game, but I've switched to playing Fall Weiss mod pretty much exclusively. Playing allies just got to demoralizing in vanilla (even if you do everything right, just a very narrow path to "victory"... and against an evenly matched player you still feel like you are losing because you aren't matching history insofar as progress).

Interested to see this comment. Are you playing PBEM? Just curious on how the balance is as I mostly play the WIE version.

[ThunderLizard11]

ORIGINAL: Simulacra53

ORIGINAL: LordOfPants

I agree about the naval mod; while carriers should be dominant, they shouldn't be capable of destroying surface fleets with no escorts and no risk to themselves, even though the author of the mod seems to love immortal carriers. Yes, carriers didn't often get sunk by surface ships historically, but it's because they were screened, avoided battle when the weather didn't support them, and generally behaved cautiously. They didn't just brazenly sail out, unconcerned about whether they even have escorts, and engage surface ships with complete impunity. In my last game with the mod, I sealed off Gibraltar and Suez as the Axis, and trapped one UK carrier in the med. I had killed its air complement and got tired of it hanging around in the last allied port, so I airdropped to grab Crete and figured my surface ships could deal with a single carrier with no planes, no friendly ports, and no supply. After several turns of teleporting the carrier around and getting bunches of NM, I had to bring in bombers to actually kill it, and even that took multiple turns!

Hairog has a concept for his mod and sticks to it, maybe to the detriment of playability.
I have not played his mod, I like the fleet idea and more attention to naval warfare, I didn’t try it - partially because of the balance.
Mods are a labor of love and Hairog should be praised for his effort.
Some mods simply work better than others, regardless of effort or concept.

Maybe you can convince Hairog to rebalance his mod.

There's some decent ideas that can be pulled into base game. Looks like support for the mod is on hiatus.

[Hairog]

How in the world did I not see this thread until tonight? I put these mods out there a long time ago and begged for feedback. All was quiet so I thought it was all cool. I now see that possible changes are needed.

There is a function in these forums that allows you to send a PM

OK lets get to work. What are the top 5 problems with the naval mod? Lets give them a go and see if we can fix them. Everything is up for improvement.
One big thing first. It appears that some of you have missed one of the key concepts here.

* BB attacks lone Jap CV - odds 5-0 against BB?

destroying surface fleets with no escorts

but it's because they were screened, avoided battle when the weather didn't support them, and generally behaved cautiously. They didn't just brazenly sail out, unconcerned about whether they even have escorts, and engage surface ships with complete impunity.

Statements like this make it readily apparent that the task force unit and concept is misunderstood.

The Fast Carrier Task Force is not a single carrier, it’s a task force. You may have two or even 4 CVs, 1-4 BBs, 1-4 CAs, and 30 DDs. The unit represented is not just the Enterprise but a grouping of ships for a particular purpose commonly called a task force. During WW2 most capital ships were sunk by Fast Carrier Task Forces. Few were sunk by naval gunfire and many of those after being crippled by air attack.

Japanese torpedoes took a heavy toll as well.

Statements like the following puzzle me.

Favors the Japanese, thus Axis, big-time.

Which rule change or changes does this? The rules are the same for both sides so how does it favor the Axis over the Allies? The Axis have zones of control and the Allies have the exact same Zones of Control etc. I have done nothing to alter the balance. What could possibly be causing this?

* Too many "damage evaded" for Axis.

Once again both, sides were changed exactly the same. There is nothing that could change it from the Vanilla game.

Enough of this, let’s fix what’s wrong.

Give me the 5 things you would like to have changed and I’ll see what I can do

[Hairog]

Oh, and thanks for the kind words Simulacra53, ElvisJJonesRambo, and ThunderLizard2. Much appreciated.

[ThunderLizard11]

ORIGINAL: Hairog

How in the world did I not see this thread until tonight? I put these mods out there a long time ago and begged for feedback. All was quiet so I thought it was all cool. I now see that possible changes are needed.

There is a function in these forums that allows you to send a PM

OK lets get to work. What are the top 5 problems with the naval mod? Lets give them a go and see if we can fix them. Everything is up for improvement.
One big thing first. It appears that some of you have missed one of the key concepts here.

* BB attacks lone Jap CV - odds 5-0 against BB?

destroying surface fleets with no escorts

but it's because they were screened, avoided battle when the weather didn't support them, and generally behaved cautiously. They didn't just brazenly sail out, unconcerned about whether they even have escorts, and engage surface ships with complete impunity.

Statements like this make it readily apparent that the task force unit and concept is misunderstood.

The Fast Carrier Task Force is not a single carrier, it’s a task force. You may have two or even 4 CVs, 1-4 BBs, 1-4 CAs, and 30 DDs. The unit represented is not just the Enterprise but a grouping of ships for a particular purpose commonly called a task force. During WW2 most capital ships were sunk by Fast Carrier Task Forces. Few were sunk by naval gunfire and many of those after being crippled by air attack.

Japanese torpedoes took a heavy toll as well.

Statements like the following puzzle me.

Favors the Japanese, thus Axis, big-time.

Which rule change or changes does this? The rules are the same for both sides so how does it favor the Axis over the Allies? The Axis have zones of control and the Allies have the exact same Zones of Control etc. I have done nothing to alter the balance. What could possibly be causing this?

* Too many "damage evaded" for Axis.

Once again both, sides were changed exactly the same. There is nothing that could change it from the Vanilla game.

Enough of this, let’s fix what’s wrong.

Give me the 5 things you would like to have changed and I’ll see what I can do

Hi Hairog,

Here's a few things I'd suggest to change:
* The "damage evaded" happens way too much. And it seems to favor Axis for some reason.
* Tone down damage from Japanese maritime bombers
* I get your point about BB versus CV - let's see what others suggest.

Glad you're still up for enhancing your mod.

[Hairog]

Should be easy to do. Is there any particular matchup or kind of unit that evades damage? I know the Fast Carrier task force has a very high surface evasion rating and to keep the historical accuracy of the mod I suggest we have to keep it that way, but any other that comes to mind we want to try or just in general? Keep in mind that it may not be as much fun as the vanilla game where you sink capital ships left and right but that rarely happened. Now the Wolf Packs, Screen TF, Recon TF and Off Shore TF were sunk in droves but not the big guys.

I'll get on it and see how it goes.

I'll try lowering the non-capital ship TFs evasion ratings and see how that plays out.

Oh any particular scenario to try first?

[Hairog]

Just went in and started to change a few things and discovered some interesting stuff.

The SS/Wolf Packs are hardwired. You can't lower their evasive rating only increase it so Hubert or someone else will have to nerf the subs evasivness.

The Maritime Bombers of all countries can only have a maximum of two attacks so I don't know how the Axis got three according to someone.

I gave the Bombardment, Strike, Cover and Raider Task Forces a 20% evasive rating when they attacked so that should help with the Fast Carrier TF inflicting so much damage and not receiving any and hopefully stop the AI from being so aggressive.

[LordOfPants]

ORIGINAL: Hairog
One big thing first. It appears that some of you have missed one of the key concepts here.

Statements like this make it readily apparent that the task force unit and concept is misunderstood.

When people point out some of the absurd things that the mod does and you respond by claiming that they just don't get the concept, it's clear that you're not going to actually fix the problems. It's not 'missing a key concept' to say that a carrier task force isolated in the Med with no friendly ports, no way to exit, no way to resupply, and no functional planes left should die when multiple battleship and cruiser task forces decide to hunt it down instead of infinitely teleporting around the sea.

[Hairog]

Sorry LordofPants, I didn't mean to imply that the mod is perfect by any means. And I have to take responsibility for not explaining the concepts well enough. For that I apologize. Sometimes when you work upon a project for a year you forget that others are not on the same wavelength that you are.

Let's move on. Your situation with the trapped Fast Carrier Task Force is almost impossible IMHO to rectify under the current game system. At the same time the situation is highly ahistorical. The only way to have the Fast Carrier Task Force easily join Davey Jones is to turn off two of the most important modifications that makes the mod close to simulating reality.

In the vanilla game, regularly, a BB unit will evade all other screening forces, slide up to a CV in the open ocean and blow it out of the water, then blithely slip away totally unharmed. IMHO this is even more unrealistic than what is happening to you. It never happened, so why make it even a possibility?

If we wanted to rectify your situation, I would have to turn off the 70% defensive evasion rating and the automatic retreat choice as well. These two tools are either on or off and can't be turned off/on for a special situation. You would have to turn them off and play the entire scenario, which is the unmodded game. Having units come out of nowhere, destroy your units and then disappear is, I believe, the number one complaint with the system.

In the Naval Mods the unit markers represent the possibility, that the actual TF is there. In the case of Fast Carrier Task Force, there is a 30% chance that the TF will be in the marked location. In the case of a Screening TF it is a 50% chance, etc. That is the only way, besides hard coding, that you can prevent the kind of behavior that drives players wild about the vanilla game.

If we turned off the “teleporting” then we would have the situation of six enemy units surrounding a single TF and preventing it from moving during it’s turn. Have you ever heard of task forces surrounding another TF so that they can’t move? Once again the retreat function represents the uncertainty of the location of the TF and prevents unrealistic tactics and their outcome. I suggest that a Fast Carrier Task Force staying alive for months in the Mediterranean, is far more realistic than a task force being surrounded in the open ocean and unfortunately that is our choice. Your ridiculously hard to kill Fast Carrier Task Force, helpless and trapped in the Mediterranean is one of the more unusual situations that are bound to happen. A Task Force being surrounded so they can't move happens quite often.

The major challenge of a turn-based game is how do you mitigate the fact that when the other player is moving you have no way to attack or impede his progress in a traditional game like SC3WW. Naval units have a huge movement radius that allows them to attack after moving 24(?) hexes. This creates a real challenge to work through and in my case, try and find some way to change such behavior.

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: Hairog

In the Naval Mods the unit markers represent the possibility, that the actual TF is there. In the case of Fast Carrier Task Force, there is a 30% chance that the TF will be in the marked location. In the case of a Screening TF it is a 50% chance, etc. That is the only way, besides hard coding, that you can prevent the kind of behavior that drives players wild about the vanilla game.

I appreciate the intention, but the problem with this is that the damage evasion applies regardless of how well located the unit is. In the open sea with a couple of surface ships scouting for it - fair enough for a 70% chance to be missed. With another CTF looking - unlikely. In the English Channel - not a chance.

The other problem is that such high evasion breaks the link between cause and effect in the game, as every attack is basically hoping for a 30% change to cause any damage at all.

[Hairog]

the damage evasion applies regardless of how well located the unit is.

I have no way of controlling this. This is up to the programmers to fix. The damage evasion is either on or off. Hubert's addition of this option is a boon to any modder. but it only can go so far.

Besides, any Fast Carrier Task Force commander who would place his units in confined waters during combat operations is incompetent and should be relieved on the spot. Any commander of a FCTF that puts his command in a position that he can be engaged by surface units should be relieved as well. Only one did it on purpose and he was killed along with his crew and the other was placed in the wrong spot at the wrong time by his commander and that's it for the whole war, just the two. The idiot was a former submariner who somehow was given command of a carrier. He went into harms way without, CAP, search planes or even look outs. When he did encounter 2 German big gun surface ships he just kept closing on them. I guess he figured the 16 4.7 inch guns would protect the HMS Glorious. Well they didn't.

The other problem is that such high evasion breaks the link between cause and effect in the game, as every attack is basically hoping for a 30% change to cause any damage at all.

Does knowing the probable outcome of attacking at 1 to 6 odds break the link between cause and effect in the game? Is every such attacking unit just hoping to survive? Do you go ahead and attack anyway? Why is it any different than the Naval Mod? Don't bother to pin your hopes on that 30%.

In the beginning of the war there were Task Forces made up of surface only units sent out to intercept Carriers. After multiple failures it became apparent that this tactic was ineffectual and they stopped. I submit that knowing what you know about the Naval Mod that players stop trying to use a tactic that did not work in real combat. The point of the Naval Mods is to simulate reality, not fantasy.

You should know that even if you get past the zones of control of a properly setup fleet and get within range of what you believe is the location of a Fast Carrier Task Force you will have a 30% chance of finding and damaging that TF. That 30% is much, much higher than was experienced in WW2 Combat. With there being only 2 encounters between surface ships and carriers and both of those were aberrations, you should expect just about the same results as attacking at 1-6 odds. That you'll get your ass handed to you.

I would guess off the top of my head that the odds of a surface force tracking down and damaging an undamaged carrier task force is hovering around 1% or less considering how many times it happened in reality.

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: Hairog

the damage evasion applies regardless of how well located the unit is.

I have no way of controlling this. This is up to the programmers to fix. The damage evasion is either on or off. Hubert's addition of this option is a boon to any modder. but it only can go so far.

Besides, any Fast Carrier Task Force commander who would place his units in confined waters during combat operations is incompetent and should be relieved on the spot. Any commander of a FCTF that puts his command in a position that he can be engaged by surface units should be relieved as well.

Yes, but the way you've set up your mod encourages people to be highly aggressive with how they use these units, as they are just as unlikely to take damage if they are parked outside the Kiel Canal as if they are in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

The other problem is that such high evasion breaks the link between cause and effect in the game, as every attack is basically hoping for a 30% change to cause any damage at all.

Does knowing the probable outcome of attacking at 1 to 6 odds break the link between cause and effect in the game? Is every such attacking unit just hoping to survive? Do you go ahead and attack anyway? Why is it any different than the Naval Mod? Don't bother to pin your hopes on that 30%.
[/quote]

So basically: You should give up any hope of attacking a carrier task force, under any conditions, anywhere on the map.

I mean, that's fine, but in my view the fix is worse than the original problem you're trying to address.

[Hairog]

Yes, but the way you've set up your mod encourages people to be highly aggressive with how they use these units, as they are just as unlikely to take damage if they are parked outside the Kiel Canal as if they are in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

There is nothing I can do about this. Is the AI more aggressive or just your human opponents? I would be very surprised that the AI learned to alter it's behavior based on my changes. If so, that’s some pretty smart AI that Hubert has created. If it's not the AI and just your human player then I suggest you make some house rules before you play. Rules like you cannot put your Fast Carrier Task Forces in harms way.
Another way to make the AI play fair is to have some maritime bomber units within range (which I increased). They are devastating in attacking Fast Carrier TFs.

Unfortunately that is our choice. We can have it so that any surface unit can come from dozens of hexes away, weave it's way through enemy units at no cost in movement points or being attacked or interdicted in anyway, attack its target and escape without so much as a scratched paint job and do it again and again and again, turn after turn after turn. This is highly unrealistic and is what most were complaining about. This is your stated preference, which is fine with me.

Or we can have it so that surface units can still meet at choke points, shoot at each other, give and receive damage and limp home. What the naval mods do is to simulate the real world role of surface units in WW2 which was to provide AA support, bombard land targets, protect other surface units from SS and surface attacks. They did not waste their time hunting aircraft carriers after the first few months of the war once they discovered how futile that was. In practice the Fast Carrier Task Force was pretty close to impossible to find and attack by surface warfare.

Submarines on the other hand did manage to cripple and sink quit a few CVs. Which is modeled in the Naval Mod. Screening forces are used as they were in reality, to screen capital ships etc. Hunter Killer Task Forces do a good job of killing Wolf Packs who are almost impossible to damage by other less specialized units, just like reality.

And this is the way I want to play, until Hubert comes up with some changes, like I know he will. To each his own I guess you choose vanilla and I choose vanilla with hot fudge sauce. Yours is probably more fun but to a lover of history it makes me want to kick my computer screen in when a BB wastes a CV.