Convoy battle made more difficult by absence of convoy

[thedoctorking]

I just had a convoy attack scenario against Britain in my current war against the British-German alliance. I couldn't find the convoy and the battle ended in a major victory for the British. This is because, with their very advanced technology, they were able to make all their ships invisible! The only ships on the post-scenario map were a squadron of Germans, presumably a support for their invisible British allies.

What convoy.JPG (1.8 MiB) Viewed 701 times

I've added the save fire, but I don't know if it will help you since the scenario ended and I had to exit and save from the main window.

[WLRoo]

Not sure about that file, but if something similar happens to me I try and remember to zip the file without hitting the save button in order to preserve the last auto-save from the scenario.

[thedoctorking]

D'oh! I should have thought of that. Sorry. Next time it happens, I'll try to get a save.

There was an error message when the battle was setting up, something about "couldn't find British flag".

[imp44791]

I think I have a correlation for this infuriating bug that gifts VP to the enemy. It happens after you've wiped out a good portion of their fleet in a recent battle. The matchmaker routine desperately tries to arrange the typical RTW situation where the human must be heavily outnumbered at all times, but if your wonderful fleet is full of CVs, BBs and BCs while the AI has only a bunch of measly light cruisers and destroyers left, hey presto you are presented with the surest way that you will be outnumbered: you are given no ships, and you cannot do anything other than decline the battle and gift a few hundred points to the AI.

In general, the matchmaking routines are so nakedly set up so that the human is outnumbered that it is completely counterproductive to go for a quality approach to ship building. All your wonderful modern ships will be left at port while the oldest, crappiest cruisers and destroyers will be called up. So, being human with actual brains we quickly figure the attractors in the system: we are incentivised to game it, and game it we do. E.g. put all the crap ships on TP somewhere in Antarctica so that the pointless requirement is met, and keep only the good ones on AF status near the front. Don't bother keeping DDs, much less build any flotilla leaders. Send all your destroyers on some cruise to the antipodes too, so that they are not called upon either. It's not as if they are good for anything anyway - either you have to micromanage every flotilla on Captain's mode to avoid having them them follow the capital ships like little ducklings the mother duck, and even when they get in a position to fire their torpedoes (manually of course, because micromanaging is fun), the AI knows exactly the speed and bearing of any torp the minute it hits the water and takes perfect evasive action. Even from 100 yards, it doesn't matter to the psychic on the enemy bridge. So again, the human is incentivised to game the system. The only times I use torpedoes are in 1890 for 100 yards away and hope. Later have some low quality DDs spreading meaningless torp shots at first contact from 10000 yards, to make the enemy turn away. You will never hit anything at more than 1000 yards ever, even at HIGH and even at a good spread, unless you save scum. I guess it's slightly historical in that surface torps rarely hit anything IRL unless we're talking total surprise like in Savo, or an insanely lucky shot like Acasta's. Fair enough, but tell that to the AI who fires off perfect spreads - that are of course entirely invisible to you.

This game has so much potential. I don't care about 1990s graphics, the meat and potatoes are absolutely fantastic. But the devs seem to try to even the playing field in ahistorical ways: budget reductions with no option to try something different (e.g. trade prestige), ridiculous matchmaking that penalises quality, magical torpedo spotting, brain dead light forces who never screen. Oh, and of course, warp your carriers next to the enemy surface ships.

OK, time to uninstall AGAIN. This is such a pity.

[WLRoo]

Ah, such a shame you haven't learned how to play the game.

If you did, you would know that when you outnumber the AI in a sea zone, you will benefit from having the numbers in your favour and the AI being unable to match your forces.

You haven't even learned how torpedoes work, which is shocking when there's a whole article from the devs about this. I rarely get hit by torpedoes because I watch where enemy ships are and watch for them launching a run to fire their torpedoes and manoeuvre accordingly.

The devs aren't at fault for your inability to learn how to play.

[thedoctorking]

The issue here is the other way around. The battle generator creates a scenario entitled "convoy attack" but there is no enemy convoy.

As far as torpedo attacks are concerned, you should totally manage your DD squadrons directly on Captain's mode. The AI tends to have them hide behind the capital ships unless you "raise the black flag" and ask for a light ship attack, and even then they fire from long range making it very difficult to get hits. The AI controlled heavy ships are continually maneuvering, btw, so missing them even at short range shouldn't be surprising. The best way to get them is to have a whole bunch of (manual) shots going out in their vicinity.

[MaximKI]

Thanks, we'll investigate.