Ridiculous Surface Combat Result

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

And I've played AE longer than YH has and I've seen many "average" results as well as many outliers. In any case, the pieces of the outliers that have been identified as actual issues are being addressed for the first patch. Let's see how that goes.

Regards,

- Erik

[8|]

Well, like I said - Allied Edition - I mainly play Japanese and several of the things I have been saying for months is only now being acknowledged and addressed. Go figure.

[Scott_USN]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

And I've played AE longer than YH has and I've seen many "average" results as well as many outliers. In any case, the pieces of the outliers that have been identified as actual issues are being addressed for the first patch. Let's see how that goes.

Regards,

- Erik

[8|]

Well, like I said - Allied Edition - I mainly play Japanese and several of the things I have been saying for months is only now being acknowledged and addressed. Go figure.

Incorrect. I understand you may or may not have a problem with the devs but I think you are sadly mistaken and if you played the game for a year you obviously didn't play very much.

I am in June 1942 and besides crazy surface battles that are known to the devs I have had nothing but true to form combat. In AE you need to really think about what you are going to push into combat.

Yes I can kill 40 ships unescorted with 2 CA and 3 CLs and a handful of DD"s.

Destroyers are the backbone of any Navy be it 1914 or 2009.

I sent 4 specialized destroyers against the big guns and sent them to their death. Why? Because I sent specialized destroyers who knew their job, I didn't care if I lost them. It is not hard to look at the ships information and figure out what you should send to battle and what you should not. Sure there are some issues with Surface Combat and it has been acknowledged by the Devs and they play to! They want the perfect game also and work hard to get there but if was not Surface Combat it would be something else, can't please everyone. I am pleased though. What I don't understand is your biased and anger regardless of the issue at hand.

As for me this is the greatest wargame ever produced. Not only AE but WITP and UV and PACWAR they only get better as I age, so I have played for damn near 20 years and in every one of them there were bugs, everyone of them. Yes there are bugs there are problems but if you cheat to take advantage of those exploits than well who are you cheating?

I have more than average Surface Combat engagements and I could show them as you could show your year's worth? I have several combat reports. I can show mine and I didn't win everyone and I didn't have a "red button" of IWIN.

[jomni]

It's January 1942 in my game as the Japanese.  Though I have not seen any surface action with large ships.  I have had several minor runs against transports and light escorts.  # of ships sunk is 3:1 in favor of Japan (POW and Repulse has been sunk on 12 Dec 1941 by air power).  Though I lost cruisers to air power as well when I strayed too close to Singapore (lesson learned)

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

Incorrect. I understand you may or may not have a problem with the devs but I think you are sadly mistaken and if you played the game for a year you obviously didn't play very much.

Glad to hear you are quite the expert.

My first computer wargame was Guadalcanal Campaign for the Apple. War in the South Pacific, Bomb Ally, Pac War, (didnt waste my time with UV), WitP, and beta on AE (thats just my experience with GGs naval games). Now, within the past couple of months prior to release the following has occurred (you can check mine and Treespiders AARs if you dont believe):

I have seen 25 ship Jap TFs - escorted - get completely blown away by 2 CLs. As the norm. Time and time again. No DDs, just 2 Brit CLs.

I have had 2 Kongo BBs 4 CAs and escorts engage the Houston, Boise, and a handful of DDs and not touched them while they left 2 of my DDs sunk (daylight in the south China Sea - no air attacks either).

The PT thing I wont even go into.

I have had him run a CL group that passed east of the PI and shoot up everything in the area and even after they ran out of ammo, they continued to react to and engage my TFs, with my ships never once shooting back. Let me say that again, never once a shot back at them. Not a single airstrike either even though they were well within normal range and shooting in partly cloudy skies in the daytime.

So please spare me your great wisdom, I have seen too much to even begin to believe your spiel.

Edit: If there isnt anything wrong with it, why are they making changes? My frustration comes from the fact that I pointed out these problems months ago and they are just now being taken seriously. Now from what I have heard from Joe on the Devs forum the changes are going to be pretty good - the biggest issue on this for me was the BS "retreat" logic when ships withdraw from combat which is finally being addressed.

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: jazman

If they tweak it down, we'll never see a Battle of Samar.

But it doesn't matter that Battle of Savo Island is impossible in this game?

[Sheytan]

I played boardgames before there were even computer games...the german imperial staff invented wargaming as a convention to planning, and plotting a future war. I think your IJ BOI fanatisim has clouded your judgement, and prevented you from seeing what is truely before you.

Want to talk "who was here first"? I can have all sorts of fun with that, want to talk, "lets get real"? Im game, fact is, AE addresses alot of the abuse WITP allowed a AHISTORICAL IJ player to accomplish, and frankly...I love it. Find another venue to complain is that is the crux of your mental anguish. IF not detail the issues, I see nothing extraordinary about the combat results, having played for some time.

You want to recreate the nonsensical stupidity that existed with WITP in relation to IJ? Dont think thats going to happen.

Heres to tipping a cold one at you...come again.

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

Incorrect. I understand you may or may not have a problem with the devs but I think you are sadly mistaken and if you played the game for a year you obviously didn't play very much.

Glad to hear you are quite the expert.

My first computer wargame was Guadalcanal Campaign for the Apple. War in the South Pacific, Bomb Ally, Pac War, (didnt waste my time with UV), WitP, and beta on AE (thats just my experience with GGs naval games). Now, within the past couple of months prior to release the following has occurred (you can check mine and Treespiders AARs if you dont believe):

I have seen 25 ship Jap TFs - escorted - get completely blown away by 2 CLs. As the norm. Time and time again. No DDs, just 2 Brit CLs.

I have had 2 Kongo BBs 4 CAs and escorts engage the Houston, Boise, and a handful of DDs and not touched them while they left 2 of my DDs sunk (daylight in the south China Sea - no air attacks either).

The PT thing I wont even go into.

I have had him run a CL group that passed east of the PI and shoot up everything in the area and even after they ran out of ammo, they continued to react to and engage my TFs, with my ships never once shooting back. Let me say that again, never once a shot back at them. Not a single airstrike either even though they were well within normal range and shooting in partly cloudy skies in the daytime.

So please spare me your great wisdom, I have seen too much to even begin to believe your spiel.

[CV Zuikaku]

Well, something is very wrong with surface combat indeed. I had -Fuso, Yamashiro, Mogami, Kumano, Takao, Nachi and 6 DDs engaged on daylight by ABDA TF of 2Cl and 4DDs. Jan '42. They sunk Fuso, and riddled Takao, mogami and Yamashiro to burning wrecks taking only 2 6" hits on Cl Java. In the daylight. And what is that thing with US Cls? Every time in surface combat they act like they have 6" gatling guns with 2009 fire control computers and radars. in night and daylight they just shot everything to peaces! while japanese score 1 hit on them, they score 20-30. ant that things happens evry time and in every single combat. Not against transports but CAs, Cls, DDs, and BBs. Can it happen? Yes! But not just every time in every condition against every TF - like it happens... [:-]

[Barb]

I could have some propositions for Naval Combat routine, but I am sure henderson fields has something similar already at hand.
1. Limit reactions to 1-2 per turn based on leader agresivity
2. Weather checks - Who is gonna to fight in severe thunderstorms when the ships are barely standing their own and tin cans spend more time bottom upwards then otherway? Even if encounter happens, both sides will try to disengage as soon as possible.
3. Experience check to use Radar for Task Force. If succesfull TF could use radar device for detecting enemy ships in hex - without it, interceptions could be lower, especially in bad weather.
4.Experience check to use Radar in battle for each ship - Now it seems Allied forces can use highly effective radar in almost every encounter from the begining of the campaign  - worked in WITP to raise DL of enemy ships in battle. Dont know how it works in AE
5. Weather in battle - worse weather could lower the accuracy and rate of fire of both sides considerably.
6. Enemy supperiority check - when enemy TF is twice your size (with similar ship class), or have supperior ships (like BB vs CA/CL) the commander should be wise enough to disengage after few shots - exceptions: Leader aggresivity could overrun this or if TF is protecting another TF (Follow TF other than SCTF)
7. Battle range - if visibility is low than ships without radars should try to close the range to see the enemy as soon as possible and not to stay at range where they are supperior in clear daylight (I think this visibility-and-no-radar thing is messing up with "optimal encounter range for TF" leaders are trying to achieve - every TF commander wants to be at such range that bears maximum firepower against enemy while minimizing enemy firepower - so when I have 4 CAs+escort ws 1 CA + escort optimal range would be where only CAs could fire.)

[Yamato hugger]

Well heres the deal with radar: Its virtually impossible to surprise the other side if your guys have radar. They know where YOU are (because of their radar detectors) long before your radar picks them up. So they close in to the shoreline (like they did so many times off Guadalcanal). Really, radar isnt an advantage (until you get to fire control radar).

Or at least thats the way it was in the real war. How it works in the game is likely different - Allied Edition and all [:D]

Edit: Now air combat, entirely different. Radar is huge. But night naval combat in restricted waters? Youre better off turning it off.

[aztez]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Well heres the deal with radar: Its virtually impossible to surprise the other side if your guys have radar. They know where YOU are (because of their radar detectors) long before your radar picks them up. So they close in to the shoreline (like they did so many times off Guadalcanal). Really, radar isnt an advantage (until you get to fire control radar).

Or at least thats the way it was in the real war. How it works in the game is likely different - Allied Edition and all [:D]

Edit: Now air combat, entirely different. Radar is huge. But night naval combat in restricted waters? Youre better off turning it off.

AE = Allied edition. You must be joking correct? I mean to be quite honest that is the most ridicilious statement I have read here.

The naval combat is not biassed towards either side. It might require a bit of fine tuning but the little is very little. Actually not much wrong with at all.

There have been a lot work done in this area of the game. It shows and it is working nicely.

As for AE = Allied edition. That is an absurd statement. Have even bothered to actually look the allied side? It is much harder and complex... not saying it isn't for other side too.

There seems to trend that shows some people complaining that Zero is useless = It is not, KB is not strong enough = It ain't and helps Japanese too later on, China has too much supplies = It doesn't amount to much, US submarines are too good = Well they fire but don't hit that much, this topic that the surface combat is broken = it isn't and it ain't biassed.

Sorry to be so blunt but just too much of this complaining going on for my taste.

How about Airfield2 + HQ = Betty carnage around 40hex, IJN subs are way more effective than ever etc, etc, etc. I can guarantee that with PDU ON and new replacement rates pilots etc things are so easy with the allied that you don't even have think operations.. well maybe something else.

Maybe there really should AE (allied edition) , JE (Japanese edition scenario) which either side could just cruise around at will with indefinate fuel and ammo. In RPG they call it "god" mode when using cheat codes.

..oh, don't worry I will stay out of these JFB threads. Lets hope they give you A-bombs, Jet fighters etc... and allied troops bottled up in SF with no transports available! That would be something and we all could get along with the game..[:D]

Nothing personal just pointing out the other sides view [:)]

[CV Zuikaku]

Aztez, what is your explanation of US Cl performance in AE?

[Local Yokel]

On the subject of radar, the Japanese probably didn't deploy their E-27 detector equipment aboard ship as a 'standard fitting' until 1944, although trial models of the equipment were successfully employed to detect the approach of American TF's during certain battles in the middle Solomons in 1943. The E-27 operated against P-band radars so the target would need to be emitting on one of these to be detected, rather than an S-band radar such as the SG. So it would be easy to ascribe to the Japanese too great an ability to detect the presence of a radiating Allied TF.

OTOH the mere possession of superior radar equipment (or being the only possessor!) does not confer an automatic advantage on the user. The problem with S-band radars was that their PPI display was, if anything, too good, and it took time for operators to understand what they were seeing. I've attached a shot of USS Denver's PPI display taken during the Kula Gulf engagement in March 1943. Sure you can pick out which 'blips' are the Japanese destroyers?

In displays such as this, not only is it easy to confuse an enemy warship (or is it one of your own?) with a nearby shore feature, but when fire is opened your radar will pick up the returns from multiple falls of shot and is liable to display them as a composite blip looking remarkably like a solid target in its own right. Thus there is a danger of your fire 'chasing' the shell splashes, and when you check fire the 'target' disappears (surprise, surprise!) and you wrongly congratulate yourself that you have sunk it. Being able to understand what was actually being shown on the PPI display took time and training - before this, it had the potential to be as much of a liability as an aid.

Another thought: You are operating your non-stabilised surface search set in what the game refers to as a 'thunderstorm'. How calm are the seas around you? Are you pitching about in a sea state that causes your antennae to be pointing at the water half the time? What is that doing for the quality of your returns? Chances are that all surface targets are being obscured by sea return, in which case your opponent has got just as much chance of surprising you as you have of surprising him.

[Cap Mandrake]

Seems like there is more than a modicum of emotionality in this discussion.

As someone already said, there is a strong bias toward reporting apparent outliers. I imagine nobody ever calls the Maytag complaint line and says; "Hey guys, my washing machine worked just fine today."

I wonder how many of the reports are vs the AI with the AI on "hard"?? It is my strong feeling that the hard setting does bias combat results (on purpose).

I have encontered only two good sized night surface battles so far vs. the AI with the Japs on "hard". In both cases a well-led numerically and qualtiatively superior Allied force achieved either a draw or marginal Jap victory.

[Sardaukar]

I play quite exclusively Allied vs IJ AI. I have not seen that much bias yet and AI is sinking my TFs as well as I am sinking IJN. Some things I think are bit overpowered, PT boats and Allied early war radar. Other than that I am quite happy.

My personal view of things is that lot of problem lays with Allied radar, which causes as Yamato hugger said, problems to IJ. Problem is 2-fold, it causes maybe too many surprise attacks for Allies and same time reduces the chances of Allies being surprised. Lets face it, Allied early war radar was not that good..and even when it was, very few commanders had skills or vision to take advantage of it.

[Local Yokel]

Good points, but if outliers are being reported then I would expect to see as many reports of Allied TF's appearing to suffer excessively as Japanese. So far, the only case I've seen where I was surprised by the extent of the Allied losses was CLEVELAND's post #87 reporting S.Dakota's loss to an IJN TF with a Kongo as its core.

The fact that the majority of these outliers (if such they be) show 'unexpected' Japanese losses suggests to me that similar Allied naval disasters are either not being reported or are not taking place. If it's the second of these, such results are not so readily explicable as outliers, since one would expect the Allies to suffer from these just as much as the Japanese, other things being equal.

[Caltone]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Miller
Except that I have played AE for over a year, and have never (or rarely) seen an "average" result. Whoever called AE "allied edition" wasnt far off the mark. Esp in surface combat.

Straight from the horses mouth.

And I've played AE longer than YH has and I've seen many "average" results as well as many outliers. In any case, the pieces of the outliers that have been identified as actual issues are being addressed for the first patch. Let's see how that goes.

Regards,

- Erik

Thanks Eric, that's all we wanted to know. We appreciate the effort by the team.

[Thales99]

Many examples of unusual results reported here involve large surface fleets getting clobbered by numerically inferior forces. While playing the game I got the impression that each ship that is fired upon gets the opportunity to return fire. Could it be that this "rule" is the reason for some skewed results?

In my recent game against the Allied AI I had a night engagement between my 25 ship strong surface fleet (BB's, CA's, CL's, DD's) and a small invasion fleet (2 DD's, 2 AP's). The battle was very lopsided until I finally began hitting the 2 DD's. Even though I ultimately "won", many of my ships took heavy damage. The early rounds of the engagement often looked like this:

- BB misses DD, DD fires back and hits (little damage due to armor)
- CA misses SAME DD, DD fires back and hits (little damage due to armor)
- DD misses SAME DD, DD fires back and hits (moderate damage)
- another DD misses SAME DD, DD fires back and hits (heavy damage)
- and so on

So could it be that a smaller surface force has no firepower disadvantage in comparison to a larger one (apart from differences in ship class) because the current ruleset allows to return every salvo that is received?

[Miller]

It amazes me the number of people who are shouting down anyone who dares to say the surface combat results are screwed. They are, simple as, the devs know there is a problem and they are looking into it. Even when the Allies are heavily outnumbered they are coming out on top, time and time again. The examples are there for all to see in this thread.


OK, I know it is a game and you will get non-historic results sometimes....however I think I am correct in saying in real life that the IJN did not lose a single cruiser or destroyer in surface combat until the start of the Guadalcanal campaign. Going off this model, the IJN will be way short of combat ships by the time we hit Aug 42 in the game.

It has to be addressed otherwise the only IJN opponent the Allied "Fanboys" will be able to get a game against will be the AI.

[oldman45]

ORIGINAL: CV Zuikaku

Well, something is very wrong with surface combat indeed. I had -Fuso, Yamashiro, Mogami, Kumano, Takao, Nachi and 6 DDs engaged on daylight by ABDA TF of 2Cl and 4DDs. Jan '42. They sunk Fuso, and riddled Takao, mogami and Yamashiro to burning wrecks taking only 2 6" hits on Cl Java. In the daylight. And what is that thing with US Cls? Every time in surface combat they act like they have 6" gatling guns with 2009 fire control computers and radars. in night and daylight they just shot everything to peaces! while japanese score 1 hit on them, they score 20-30. ant that things happens evry time and in every single combat. Not against transports but CAs, Cls, DDs, and BBs. Can it happen? Yes! But not just every time in every condition against every TF - like it happens... [:-]

Interesting becuase my problem is the exact opposite, I had the POW engage the Kaga and 6 escorts. It took 3 rounds of combat over 2 days to sink the Kaga.

Recently I had the AI park 2 carriers and escorts at Merek (sp) on Java (I own this port but they seem to be confused about that) The POW visited with 2 CA's and escorts, twice they engaged, once at night once during the day. minor damage to both TF's. Sound a little strange?

Since the POW was out of Ammo I sent the 2 CA's back, they sunk a DD but for some reason couldn't sink a carrier. I am now going to try with the 3 revenge class BB's and see if they can hit it.

Just my biased observations, the combat between amphib TF's and SAG's I feel comfortable with. The AI has caught mine and I have caught theirs and the results were what I would expect. The problem appears to be when the two combat TF's run into each other. The results appear one sided too often.

[witpqs]

I've played one game to mid-August '42, and a couple of other starts for a few turns. So far I've seen:

- PT boats perform too well.

- Convoys probably get too shot up when intercepted by surface forces. Certainly situational - ships caught at anchor unloading (like those at Guadalcanal could have been on the morning of the battle of Savo Island) are likely ripe for slaughter. Those underway at sea probably should be able to scatter more and lessen the carnage.

- Might be too high a percentage where inferior surface forces beat up on superior forces. I say might because I have not seen any statistical breakdown of such engagements during the war. Despite everybody 'knowing' how they should turn out, how they did turn out is more of an indicator of how they should turn out.

The obvious conclusion about how battles should occur is often totally wrong. For example, Midway, Samar, Savo Island, and a number of other lopsided outcomes actually happened. The real question is - based on the historical events of WWII between the navies involved in the game - statistically, how much were they really outliers?

All of these so-called 'outliers' have actual explanations. USN commanders would not be 'happy' with the explanations for Savo Island, nor the IJN commanders for Samar, and so on. But they still happened, and they happened a lot more than the old conventional wisdom that, for example, "Midway was one in a million!"

The explanations for the actual events provide the factors that the programmers code in to assign advantages/disadvantages. Some of those things require adjusting, as Erik has said.

But as far as what some of you guys are reporting - this skewed result always happens, that normal thing never happens - you must be running a different game engine. No air attacks on Allied cruiser forces? IJN surface forces never land punches? Yeah, right.

One comment about radar warning gear: In one of the climactic battles in the Solomons where USN had early and accurate radar warning and used it to make a devastating torpedo attack, the IJN commander had (IIRC) greater than 30 minutes warning of the USN radar emitting yet did not interpret the data accurately. Got smoked as a result.