Matrix Games Forums

As the title says, although more specifically in the 1920s era.

I find it silly that while I'm building 40k to 50k ton 16" superdreadnoughts and sometime 18" armed ones, the AI responds by building 12" armed 25k ton BBs and BCs. Even when the AI does build an occasional 14" and 15" armed capital, they go right back to building fast but undergunned and underarmored dreadnoughts.

This makes the naval arms race reaching the 1920s quite a bore. Because while the player is building 16" armed battleships and battlecruisers, they know nothing the AI is constructing can threaten them. This makes battles uninteresting, because the already skittish AI will turn every battle into a stern chase because of the firepower disparity. No clever tactics are needed, just chase the enemy until your superior firepower blows them up.

Yes, there are template mods that gives the AI more options. Even still, the AI will still sort through all the options available to it and picks the 12 12" armed 28k ton battlecruiser is a good counter to your heavily armored 16" armed BC.

This nonsense also flys in the face of realism. Once the 1920s begins, everyone was making and building designs over 40k tons. No one was seriously dabbling in 12" armed designs, as even the Germans realized sticking with that caliber was a mistake. So once you enter the 1920s, you aren't facing off against N3s, South Dakotas and Amagi's to test the mettle of your designs. Nah, you get to fight under armored Konigs and Wyomings except this time they have triple turrets.

To fix this, I recommend the AI be forbidden from picking the 12" gun after 1914. Then a displacement minimum of 35k tons once the year 1920 hits.

Yeah it's an issue. I'm not sure what logic the AI uses to pick the templates it builds from but I think it might just be random?

One way to fix the under built post 1920s capital ships could be to have the AI look at the largest player built ship and try to pick their battleship templates to be no smaller than 80% of that size? Up to a limit of maybe 60,000 tons or something?
Idk maybe that's too gamey and exploitable.

You are correct that the set of templates used by the game in the 1920s is probably quite a bit weaker, as a group, than what the player would likely create in this same period. The 12"-armed battleships are particularly weak, but if you are willing to get your hands dirty you can correct the situation. We do have plans to address this issue, though that will have to wait until the DLC is completed.

There are 28 templates that can be selected by the AI for building in the early 1920s. Of those, only 2 regular templates and 3 "special" templates are equipped with 12" guns. Special templates are rarely used and should not be modified. The majority of the BB template designs for that period utilize 14" guns, while a fewer number use 13" or 15" guns. However, the AI is not bound by what is in the template file and will frequently use a different caliber of gun than is in the template.

For your own game, you could simply remove those templates that are originally equipped with 12" guns (but don't remove the templates that have ID numbers 35 or higher - you will break the game). The two templates that are equipped with 12" mains are B3X6 and B3X4. You can also simply give the two 12" templates larger main guns.

You can load a template for modification by going to the "Ship designer/Graphics" tab and using the "Load design template" button to find those templates and either delete them or modify them to your taste. You create a template in the same way you create a ship deign. To make it available for the AI, or you, use the "Save design template" and be sure to maintain the same name. Don't expect a duplicate of your template to appear in the game - the AI will probably change your template in some way when it is used to create a ship design. Templates are located here: RTW3/Data/IDes.

To ensure a constant challenge I never built docks above 36600 often much less for most of the game. I also check AI ships in service to ensure that my guns are the same and often less. Although I do often go with more armour. Thereby I always have a tough battle where I must plan carefully. Please try this.

Yeah, self restriction house rules are a good way to increase challenge in single player games like this. I had a blast doing that with Highfleet back in 2020 and 2021.