Matrix Games Forums

And if you did, was it worth the cost? For those who don't remember the cost it's 330 PP: 10 more than the cost of 40 escorts [X(].

For that matter has anyone bought other warships (excluding sub and escorts) and thought it money well spent?

Full disclosure: I've never even given even serious thought to buying any ships other than subs + escorts, because they seem to be a complete waste of money......unlike the game itself which is well worth it!

I have never bought a warship. The allies should never have to. The Axis can't really afford to.

I do buy patrol groups to absorb losses from naval battles. I want to be 100% sure I dominate the oceans when invading. I want off shore support. I want the ability to supply troops with extra supply.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I have never bought a warship. The allies should never have to. The Axis can't really afford to.

Same here

I also buy DD. I agree with Alvaro. One needs to have a fleet if one plans to invade and DD are the screening ships. Bigger ships are too expensive and most important it takes a lot of time to build them.
Furthermore I am under the impression that Germany in 1939 scenarios should be given another patrol group. Historicaly they had more than just one group when the war started. That is until the invasion of Norway where Germans suffered great losses.

ORIGINAL: agathop

I also buy DD. I agree with Alvaro. One needs to have a fleet if one plans to invade and DD are the screening ships. Bigger ships are too expensive and most important it takes a lot of time to build them.
Furthermore I am under the impression that Germany in 1939 scenarios should be given another patrol group. Historicaly they had more than just one group when the war started. That is until the invasion of Norway where Germans suffered great losses.

But since nobody invades Norway, Germany is safe. [;)]

ORIGINAL: agathop

I also buy DD. I agree with Alvaro. One needs to have a fleet if one plans to invade and DD are the screening ships. Bigger ships are too expensive and most important it takes a lot of time to build them.
Furthermore I am under the impression that Germany in 1939 scenarios should be given another patrol group. Historicaly they had more than just one group when the war started. That is until the invasion of Norway where Germans suffered great losses.

Spending the money on more ships means you have weaker and/or later invasions. Give me a tank xxx over a spare ship any day

But at least if you want to invade Norway, it won't cost you a man let alone any ships.

Anyway, tx for the various comments

I've been wanting to build the Graf Spee. But sadly it's impractical since the Bismarck has to complete first.

Perhaps overall logistics should be lowered, but each major power should have all the ships planned at the outbreak of war in their build queue?

ORIGINAL: AndrewKurtz

Perhaps overall logistics should be lowered,

I believe logistic limits for major powers were raised in the new patch/hotfix

I have seen other threads complaining that surface raiders are too strong. I believe therein lies your answer.

Unless they are planning Sea Lion and delaying Barbarossa, the Germans would be foolish to invest heavily in a larger surface fleet. That means that what ships they do have are best spent on Neutralizing the Soviets in the Baltic and on raiding in the Arctic Sea. This, IMO, is the primary reason to invade Norway. It is a shame that realistically the game only allows landings near Oslo. Trying to sail all the way to Narvik is suicide. Historically, this was done in a very unconventional manner that is not easily represented by the game mechanics. This is why games like Strategic Command handle the initial invasion of Norway as an event, rather than manually fighting it out.

Once the Brits dig in a corps or two at Narvik, you are not likely to push them out, ever.

The Brits need enough fleet to stop German surface raiders and to dominate the Med. They don't need to invest heavily, but, they might need more than zero.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Spending the money on more ships means you have weaker and/or later invasions. Give me a tank xxx over a spare ship any day

Comments like this concern me when players think historical building programs are not cost-effective. So perhaps the naval unit cost or build time is too high? Ditto for all units, something to think about. It would be interesting to see a deeper dive into the historical national costs and build times for various unit types, for these grand strategy games. Some care should be taken for initial builds versus rebuilds, but most games cannot differentiate this. Maybe Al can think about this for the future.

I suspect that far more historic building programmes were not as cost-effective in real life than they can in games. For example the UK strategic bombing force in WWII took up one third of the war economy. Was that really money best spent?

There are many cases of greater waste. Gamers are in a perfect position to analyse cost:benefit ratios because everything is quantified and optimal builds can be tested and retested. In a real war, the decision makers really have only a very tiny fraction of that info, lots of erroneous info, and are subject to many other overwhelming and competing pressures when making decisions about how to prioritise resources.

Hindsight is 20/20. And it's not just the strategic bombing campaign that is controversial in cost effectiveness terms. Was the German investment in rockets cost effective? Or their insistence on pumping out hundreds of subs well after the battle of the Atlantic was lost? The French spent loads of money on a nice new modern fleet in the interwar years. Did *that* pay off? (People go on about the Maginot line, but imo it was this naval spending by the French that is far more dubious.) The USA dithered on landing craft and made a very sketchy gamble on a 90 division army.

I don't know how you build in this kind of uncertainty into a grand strategic game. It may not be possible. We gamers are in a position to optimize and have far more certainty than anybody in Real Life ever did.

You would have to randomise unit values and cost but then players would just adjust their builds.You could also make research more random in terms of worth and cost.

I imagine that it would then be a nightmare to ensure that every game remained balanced.

On second thoughts, you might not have to because you probably would not have any players.............

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I don't know how you build in this kind of uncertainty into a grand strategic game.

I'm not suggesting uncertainty, just more historically accurate and realistic costs and build times. And each nation would probably have different values; e.g., a new German battleship versus a new US battleship. I mean we can go back to AH Third Reich where fleets were 27 BRPs and a 4-6 armor corps was 8 BRPs, but those were generic relative costs and OK for a 1970s game but we can probably do better now. So again historical national costs and build times could be scrutinized. Something WiF does is use a gearing ratio to reduce the costs for incrementally more production, which is realistic even today where initial unit costs are high but nth unit costs are reduced over time. Something like that can be considered. For research, that's a lot more speculative regarding how much a particular upgrade costs and how much unit performance is really improved. As a game mechanic it works ok, but if we want to get more serious about historical accuracy and realism and such then that requires more effort.

At the end of the day, players should feel they are making reasonable trade-offs based on similar optimization choices that historical leaders made at the time. And of course hindsight is 20/20 and there's not much we can do about that!

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Hindsight is 20/20. And it's not just the strategic bombing campaign that is controversial in cost effectiveness terms. Was the German investment in rockets cost effective? Or their insistence on pumping out hundreds of subs well after the battle of the Atlantic was lost? The French spent loads of money on a nice new modern fleet in the interwar years. Did *that* pay off? (People go on about the Maginot line, but imo it was this naval spending by the French that is far more dubious.) The USA dithered on landing craft and made a very sketchy gamble on a 90 division army.

I don't know how you build in this kind of uncertainty into a grand strategic game. It may not be possible. We gamers are in a position to optimize and have far more certainty than anybody in Real Life ever did.

Yepp, I really agrees that it is hard to make a game that simulate that. One possibilty would be to add a political depth with a political point system where you have to "persuade" the leader of the nation to shift procuction focus. Little bit like DC Barbarossa where you have to spend points to persuade the leaders to do as you would like. But I do not think that would be a thing for this kind of game. That would be for a game with a more complex approach, games that I likes to, but I also like more straight forward and simplified games like Warplan to with lower complexity less events to achieve historical accuray and so forth.

As a more general reflection I think Warplan do not have to change anything in regards of how the production is layed out in the game or cost for naval production. It is fine as it is. Hind sight or not, it is a dynamic game and even though something is not cost effiecent that can be decesive depending on players strategy. Like when u want to push a hole in the enemy lines you have to be prepared to take some losses to achieve the goal that you have set up for the operation - which in the end will be more costly for the opponent. Same here, sometimes it can be worth the more cost ineffiecent approach if that in a later stage makes it possible to give your opponent a decesive and even more costly blow depending on alot of variables.

ORIGINAL: pzgndr



I'm not suggesting uncertainty, just more historically accurate and realistic costs and build times. And each nation would probably have different values; e.g., a new German battleship versus a new US battleship.

OK in theory perhaps, but where would you be able to find much of this info? Also it changed over time. For example, Liberty ships ended up be built in incredibly short times. 150 days in '41 but only 42 days by the end of '42, with the record taking less than 5 days. 2,751 were built in the war (275 counters in game) though I assume most went to the Pacific. Allied production just swamped the axis so you would end up with allied stuff quicker and easier to make and use . Germans production was highest towards the end of the war but it simply wasn't able to be used in any useful way for a variety of reasons.

Trying to work from all the data and to translate that into production points so that players can have choice over builds is a task beyond anyone frankly, let alone someone needing to make a living.