Why are subs so much worse in this game vs WIE and WAW?

[Chernobyl]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
impressed if you have conquered Greece

Really? Do you play against opponents who reinforce Greece immediately? In my experience Greece has always been left to crumble immediately.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
impressed if you have conquered Greece

Really? Do you play against opponents who reinforce Greece immediately? In my experience Greece has always been left to crumble immediately.

I've only played Old Crow twice and have never gotten down to Greece haha...

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

As I recall, the only tactical difference is that subs in the WW2 game have a slightly longer range (21 APs versus 18), which makes sense given technology improvements. Since sonar was a WW2 era invention, I wonder if ASW tech should be as strong as it is in the WW1 game? A slight shift in the balance between Advanced Subs and ASW tech would increase the survival rate of German subs.

Most of the differences are the strategic ones you have already listed. But you overlook a major strategic difference with the WW2 game - which are the NM hexes off the British coast and the possibility of shutting down British ports. That strategy does not exist in the WW2 game and it makes the attractions of investing in sub capability much greater for the German player in WW1, even if you have to keep building new ones to replace losses.

So I went and compared the subs in the editors.

WIE: 20 AP NA:5 ND:5
WW1: 18 AP NA:3 ND:3
WAW: 16 AP NA:5 ND:5

I'm assuming AP is adjusted to map size.

Conclusion: Since WW1 subs were the most deadly of all eras NA and ND should be raised to 4 or 5.

Agree? Disagree?

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

So I went and compared the subs in the editors.

WIE: 20 AP NA:5 ND:5
WW1: 18 AP NA:3 ND:3
WAW: 16 AP NA:5 ND:5

I'm assuming AP is adjusted to map size.

Conclusion: Since WW1 subs were the most deadly of all eras NA and ND should be raised to 4 or 5.

Agree? Disagree?

Yes, it makes sense to me. Plus reduce the ability of Maritime Bombers and Seaplanes to sink Submarines then we will be in a much better place.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

As I recall, the only tactical difference is that subs in the WW2 game have a slightly longer range (21 APs versus 18), which makes sense given technology improvements. Since sonar was a WW2 era invention, I wonder if ASW tech should be as strong as it is in the WW1 game? A slight shift in the balance between Advanced Subs and ASW tech would increase the survival rate of German subs.

Most of the differences are the strategic ones you have already listed. But you overlook a major strategic difference with the WW2 game - which are the NM hexes off the British coast and the possibility of shutting down British ports. That strategy does not exist in the WW2 game and it makes the attractions of investing in sub capability much greater for the German player in WW1, even if you have to keep building new ones to replace losses.

So I went and compared the subs in the editors.

WIE: 20 AP NA:5 ND:5
WW1: 18 AP NA:3 ND:3
WAW: 16 AP NA:5 ND:5

I'm assuming AP is adjusted to map size.

Conclusion: Since WW1 subs were the most deadly of all eras NA and ND should be raised to 4 or 5.

Agree? Disagree?

I've been pondering the same issue (threads like this are always very useful [:)]) and in the WWI game the subs have a naval defense value of 0, whereas in both WW2 games it is 1.

Increasing this to 1 would therefore help them survive attacks better.

With Maritime Bombers, they can currently upgrade to level 2 in Naval Weapons and 3 in ASW, which with hindsight seems rather generous. The next question to consider is therefore a more appropriate level of upgrades.

[Chernobyl]

I was testing giving subs a sea defense value of 0.5-2.0 instead of 0

It doesn't absolutely prevent mass attacks but it does create a cost to using battleships etc to lower the sub's supply value and realistically I think a human probably wouldn't usually elect to take this damage. Probably need to increase destroyer attack to go along with it. That way it would realistically only be destroyers attacking the subs which would be an improvement.
I was actually giving this defense to upgraded subs only and giving Germany upgrade level 1 to start (lowered the sea attack subs gain per tech level) That way the Russian Black Sea sub won't be impossible to destroy.

This isn't an ideal change because subs are already too powerful in general for combat. They are just way too weak when trying to convoy raid away from port and need some sort of defense. In the absence of any other option, increasing their defense may be the best one (in addition to eliminating the sub attack for cruisers, battlecruisers and aircraft). Destroyers should still be able to trade favorably with subs, especially once they get upgraded.

There are a ton of issues to fix including the fact that it's too easy for the Entente to gain free experience for their warships (especially their subs) if they choose to permanently convoy raid Norway. But yeah I think giving subs some defense in combination with other changes might help keep them alive.

[Bavre]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Subs in the Med? How do you even get them out of the Adriatic or Dardanelles and keep them alive? Impossible! ASW seems much more powerful in the WW1 game. You can say subs were in their infancy but so was ASW...

Build Airships and Naval Bombers. Use Airships to scout the blockade and once you found it, do hit and runs with your fleet. Your DD hitting their Subs, your DN and CC hitting their DD etc...
Just make sure you can get back to port! This will force the Entente to move their blockade at least some hexes back. Once you have Montenegro and Albania you should be able to slip through if your airforce scouts for the subs. Staying alive while raiding however ...
Alternatively don't raid and use your subs for hit and runs too, if there are capital ships around. And as already mentioned in this thread, getting 1 sub to Constantinople is highly beneficial for the turkish fleet.
Btw: Naval Bombers can raid too. Took me a while to get it but you just have to set them to raider and they will each turn attack the nearest convoy route that is within strike range. Their raiding efficiency however seems to just be about half that of subs.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

As I recall, the only tactical difference is that subs in the WW2 game have a slightly longer range (21 APs versus 18), which makes sense given technology improvements. Since sonar was a WW2 era invention, I wonder if ASW tech should be as strong as it is in the WW1 game? A slight shift in the balance between Advanced Subs and ASW tech would increase the survival rate of German subs.

Most of the differences are the strategic ones you have already listed. But you overlook a major strategic difference with the WW2 game - which are the NM hexes off the British coast and the possibility of shutting down British ports. That strategy does not exist in the WW2 game and it makes the attractions of investing in sub capability much greater for the German player in WW1, even if you have to keep building new ones to replace losses.

So I went and compared the subs in the editors.

WIE: 20 AP NA:5 ND:5
WW1: 18 AP NA:3 ND:3
WAW: 16 AP NA:5 ND:5

I'm assuming AP is adjusted to map size.

Conclusion: Since WW1 subs were the most deadly of all eras NA and ND should be raised to 4 or 5.

Agree? Disagree?

I've been pondering the same issue (threads like this are always very useful [:)]) and in the WWI game the subs have a naval defense value of 0, whereas in both WW2 games it is 1.

Increasing this to 1 would therefore help them survive attacks better.

With Maritime Bombers, they can currently upgrade to level 2 in Naval Weapons and 3 in ASW, which with hindsight seems rather generous. The next question to consider is therefore a more appropriate level of upgrades.

Ah yes did not notice this one! Thanks for considering Bill! My only other recommendation would be for all of the games. Any ships with an ASW of 0 should not be able to attack subs and reduce supply. For example preventing players from using Pre-Dreadnoughts, Dreadnoughts, Battleships, etc., from attacking subs. It makes complete sense anyway. This would get rid of the ability to use the entire navy to reduce the supply of a sub to 0 and destroy them all so quickly...

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Bavre

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Subs in the Med? How do you even get them out of the Adriatic or Dardanelles and keep them alive? Impossible! ASW seems much more powerful in the WW1 game. You can say subs were in their infancy but so was ASW...

Build Airships and Naval Bombers. Use Airships to scout the blockade and once you found it, do hit and runs with your fleet. Your DD hitting their Subs, your DN and CC hitting their DD etc...
Just make sure you can get back to port! This will force the Entente to move their blockade at least some hexes back. Once you have Montenegro and Albania you should be able to slip through if your airforce scouts for the subs. Staying alive while raiding however ...
Alternatively don't raid and use your subs for hit and runs too, if there are capital ships around. And as already mentioned in this thread, getting 1 sub to Constantinople is highly beneficial for the turkish fleet.
Btw: Naval Bombers can raid too. Took me a while to get it but you just have to set them to raider and they will each turn attack the nearest convoy route that is within strike range. Their raiding efficiency however seems to just be about half that of subs.

Ah thanks I always forget about raiding with naval bombers!

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

As I recall, the only tactical difference is that subs in the WW2 game have a slightly longer range (21 APs versus 18), which makes sense given technology improvements. Since sonar was a WW2 era invention, I wonder if ASW tech should be as strong as it is in the WW1 game? A slight shift in the balance between Advanced Subs and ASW tech would increase the survival rate of German subs.

Most of the differences are the strategic ones you have already listed. But you overlook a major strategic difference with the WW2 game - which are the NM hexes off the British coast and the possibility of shutting down British ports. That strategy does not exist in the WW2 game and it makes the attractions of investing in sub capability much greater for the German player in WW1, even if you have to keep building new ones to replace losses.

So I went and compared the subs in the editors.

WIE: 20 AP NA:5 ND:5
WW1: 18 AP NA:3 ND:3
WAW: 16 AP NA:5 ND:5

I'm assuming AP is adjusted to map size.

Conclusion: Since WW1 subs were the most deadly of all eras NA and ND should be raised to 4 or 5.

Agree? Disagree?

I've been pondering the same issue (threads like this are always very useful [:)]) and in the WWI game the subs have a naval defense value of 0, whereas in both WW2 games it is 1.

Increasing this to 1 would therefore help them survive attacks better.

With Maritime Bombers, they can currently upgrade to level 2 in Naval Weapons and 3 in ASW, which with hindsight seems rather generous. The next question to consider is therefore a more appropriate level of upgrades.

Hi Bill,

Great patches much appreciated!! Going back to this discussion after looking at the new patch notes I realized somehow I had these stats wrong. Correction:

WW1: AP: 18 NA:3 ND:0 DP: 35
WIE: AP: 20 NA:5 ND:1 DP: 40
WAW: AP: 16 NA:5 ND:1 DP: 40

I see you decided to keep WW1 subs ND at 0 but increased the dive percentage from 25 to 35. Curious why no naval defense? Thanks!

[hottegetthoff]

In the last game against the AI i found that somehow DDs with no upgrades whatsoever were doing 2 damage each attack to my level 2 subs usually with acceptable supply (of course it went down), in silent mode. Is this how it always was? I remember rushing adv subs as germany to great effect a few months ago.

[Chernobyl]

Supply level makes such a huge impact on naval fights.

As it stands I rarely move my subs in non-silent mode. The main reason isn't even avoiding detection, but because it doesn't use supply. A low supply sub is a soon to be dead sub.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Hi Bill,

Great patches much appreciated!! Going back to this discussion after looking at the new patch notes I realized somehow I had these stats wrong. Correction:

WW1: AP: 18 NA:3 ND:0 DP: 35
WIE: AP: 20 NA:5 ND:1 DP: 40
WAW: AP: 16 NA:5 ND:1 DP: 40

I see you decided to keep WW1 subs ND at 0 but increased the dive percentage from 25 to 35. Curious why no naval defense? Thanks!

I noticed that some of the other values, e.g. for Destroyers (IIRC) weren't the same either in the WW2 games, but the biggest difference seemed to be the dive percentage which had been drastically lower in WWI.

I'm hoping that this will make the passage into the Atlantic that much easier, and also increase their resilience to attack, which seemed to be the major issues?

[Chernobyl]

Naval defense 0 lets all types of warships gang up on an isolated sub for free. Typically in this game you want to hit the sub with your non-damaging warships first (battleships, cruisers) and then finish with destroyers once the sub has been attacked down to a low supply value. This ensures that the destroyer attacks do high strength damage.

If the sub had defense of 1 or greater, battleships and armored cruisers would take damage for participating. But as of now there's no downside to using dreadnoughts to attack subs.

When a sub dives it teleports to a nearby hex and possibly takes damage (and I think it still loses a supply point). This can save the sub sometimes in edge cases, but it's less effective when the enemy has half their fleet focusing on one sub, because there are plenty of search vessels around. Even if a sub does survive due to diving one or more times during a single turn, it's often going to be destroyed during the next turn because it has low supply/movement points left and enemy warships stand between the sub and escape.

I haven't played the WWII games so I'm not sure how subs are successful in those games.

We can test out to see if higher dive percentage does anything, but in my opinion it probably won't change much.

I was trying to come up with a way to improve the situation and one thing I did was give subs 1 defense and destroyers +1 sub attack. (Could possibly give only upgraded subs this defense bonus). This isn't a perfect fix at all, but it at least makes it costly for dreadnoughts to participate in the feeding frenzy.

[Bavre]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

Naval defense 0 lets all types of warships gang up on an isolated sub for free. Typically in this game you want to hit the sub with your non-damaging warships first (battleships, cruisers) and then finish with destroyers once the sub has been attacked down to a low supply value. This ensures that the destroyer attacks do high strength damage.

If the sub had defense of 1 or greater, battleships and armored cruisers would take damage for participating. But as of now there's no downside to using dreadnoughts to attack subs.

When a sub dives it teleports to a nearby hex and possibly takes damage (and I think it still loses a supply point). This can save the sub sometimes in edge cases, but it's less effective when the enemy has half their fleet focusing on one sub, because there are plenty of search vessels around. Even if a sub does survive due to diving one or more times during a single turn, it's often going to be destroyed during the next turn because it has low supply/movement points left and enemy warships stand between the sub and escape.

I haven't played the WWII games so I'm not sure how subs are successful in those games.

We can test out to see if higher dive percentage does anything, but in my opinion it probably won't change much.

I was trying to come up with a way to improve the situation and one thing I did was give subs 1 defense and destroyers +1 sub attack. (Could possibly give only upgraded subs this defense bonus). This isn't a perfect fix at all, but it at least makes it costly for dreadnoughts to participate in the feeding frenzy.

Yes, pretty much that. Ideally I think it should be balanced in a way that say 3-4 DDs are a serious threat to a lone sub, but a battlefleet with 2 DDs is not.
Btw, contrary to the threads title, I think subs are really strong in this game, just not in their intended role [:D].
Have a skilled Naval player in charge of CP and thanks to the subs super stealth scouting ability the Royal Navy has to run and hide from the Hochseeflotte the first few turns.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Hi Bill,

Great patches much appreciated!! Going back to this discussion after looking at the new patch notes I realized somehow I had these stats wrong. Correction:

WW1: AP: 18 NA:3 ND:0 DP: 35
WIE: AP: 20 NA:5 ND:1 DP: 40
WAW: AP: 16 NA:5 ND:1 DP: 40

I see you decided to keep WW1 subs ND at 0 but increased the dive percentage from 25 to 35. Curious why no naval defense? Thanks!

I noticed that some of the other values, e.g. for Destroyers (IIRC) weren't the same either in the WW2 games, but the biggest difference seemed to be the dive percentage which had been drastically lower in WWI.

I'm hoping that this will make the passage into the Atlantic that much easier, and also increase their resilience to attack, which seemed to be the major issues?

Interesting did not think about differences in destroyers will have to check that out. And yes resilience to attack is the major issue so hopefully this helps. I certainly understand incremental changes one step at a time! Thanks for responding!

[shri]

I know exactly the player you meant to tag. [:D]

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

Naval defense 0 lets all types of warships gang up on an isolated sub for free. Typically in this game you want to hit the sub with your non-damaging warships first (battleships, cruisers) and then finish with destroyers once the sub has been attacked down to a low supply value. This ensures that the destroyer attacks do high strength damage.

If the sub had defense of 1 or greater, battleships and armored cruisers would take damage for participating. But as of now there's no downside to using dreadnoughts to attack subs.

When a sub dives it teleports to a nearby hex and possibly takes damage (and I think it still loses a supply point). This can save the sub sometimes in edge cases, but it's less effective when the enemy has half their fleet focusing on one sub, because there are plenty of search vessels around. Even if a sub does survive due to diving one or more times during a single turn, it's often going to be destroyed during the next turn because it has low supply/movement points left and enemy warships stand between the sub and escape.

I haven't played the WWII games so I'm not sure how subs are successful in those games.

We can test out to see if higher dive percentage does anything, but in my opinion it probably won't change much.

I was trying to come up with a way to improve the situation and one thing I did was give subs 1 defense and destroyers +1 sub attack. (Could possibly give only upgraded subs this defense bonus). This isn't a perfect fix at all, but it at least makes it costly for dreadnoughts to participate in the feeding frenzy.

Oh I completely agree. This is the biggest issue in this game with subs vs WIE/WAW. Especially when you are confined to a much smaller roaming distance being attacked by the giant allied fleet swarm of death.

I don't think capital ships should even be able to attack subs at all but a sub naval defense of 1 in this game like the others would really help if this is never changed.