Naval Engagements in this version?

[GungaDin16]

I hope that they made some sort of change to the naval engagements. As it is there is very little in the way of naval tactics. The Pacific theater just can't be represented if that part of the war is too abstracted. Does anyone know yet?

[GungHoGIJoe]

Looks like it will still be the same. [&:]

[Raptor341]

I wouldn't be so quick to judge it just yet. Keep in mind SC operates at a high level of command abstraction. The naval area is the most difficult to do correctly in a turn-based model I agree with you there but at the same time, the series does it quite well overall compared to other turn-based wargames of the past. Keeping TFs together and in operational condition is the key to winning. I look forward to this.

[PvtBenjamin]

In my opinion the naval component needs to be improved considerably for this to be a buy.

Hopefully

1) Zero Supply Subs are addressed. Currently zero supply subs dive, block supply, defend & more. Completely unrealistic & in PBEM leads to very a-historic outcomes.

2)The imbalance between surface ships & subs needs to be greatly improved.

3) Long Range amphibious has to go or at least be greatly reduced.

4) These are just a few, there are many more.



Many in the SC3 forum have been complaining about these issues for quite a while hopefully they are addressed and SC3 World will be great fun.

[Hubert Cater]

While not a complete overhaul, there have been quite a few changes, listed below, which have been reported as nice improvements to the overall game during testing.

- supply rule changes:
- subs can no longer dive at 0 supply.
- all raiders can no longer raid at 0 supply.
- defending units at 0 supply will receive 50% more damage from a successful attack against them.
- fighters and carriers cannot intercept/escort when at 0 supply.
- maximum reinforcement points is now 5 strength points per turn for all naval units except Motor Torpedo Boats.
- naval units positioned top of a small island sea enemy hex will no longer be fully revealed under FoW.
- neutral majors can no longer load units onto Amphibious Transports.
- defending subs at zero supply, or defending land units defending from ground attack at zero supply, will now have their morale fully recalculated after any defending strength losses are applied.
- subs will now have a 25% chance of receiving at least a single strength point loss when diving from attack.

We've also added a change to Special Forces, i.e. US Marines and Japanese SNLF which especially help with island hopping in the Pacific. A few other island hopping related changes are listed below here as well:

- Special Forces units, after amphibiously unloading, now maintain supply for up to 5 turns with a drop of 2 supply points per turn.
- minor nation Capitals, Fortresses with 3 or more adjacent enemy units will now have their supply reduced by one strength point per turn.
- Ports no longer provide supply to land units if there is an enemy land unit adjacent to the port.
- abandoned Ports adjacent an enemy City/Town will now switch to enemy control.

[Raptor341]

All good changes that will help a lot on the realism front. Thanks for the update! Will they be patched into SC3 Europe as well?

[Hubert Cater]

The plan is yes and if all goes well hopefully soon enough too [:)]

[PvtBenjamin]

Excellent improvements Hubert. Look forward to the game.

[Kriegsspieler]

I just bought the game and am looking forward to playing. I am a great admirer of Hubert's work -- I almost signed in to help with the beta, but then decided I lacked time to do it justice.

The changes to the naval engine described above sound encouraging, but I would also urge that Hubert give some thought to a more comprehensive rethinking of the naval system. In particular, for a game played at this scale I wonder whether it might make sense to group ships into task forces of various kinds and then let those fight it out. Whether that's a good idea or not, I could foresee developing a new naval module as a separate dlc.

[Elessar2]

Still wish we could have admirals...

[Cheesehead]

I think the WWII grand strategy game that does the best job simulating naval combat, capturing the chance for surprise as well the hit and miss nature of trying to find an enemy fleet in a large ocean is the board game 'World in Flames.' This is a hex-based game but the oceans are divided up into sea zones. When opposing fleets are in the same sea zone, there is a chance for combat. The chances to find an enemy fleet depend on several factors including the presence of air, the speed of the ships, how far the ships traveled before entering the zone and random luck. This random luck element is what can sometimes lead to great surprise advantages such as were found at the Battle of Midway. I would imagine this shouldn't be too difficult to capture in a computer game.

[Hairog]

World in Flames already is a computer game. It's very much a work in progress and there is no AI or net play but it is playable and does a good job of recreating the board game. It's by Matrix

It's the last forum in current games here
Product link here

And it's discounted big time right now!

[Hairog]

I'm working on a Naval mod that tries to address some of the concerns mentioned. So far it's looking good in SCE.
1. Gave some naval units 6+ Zones of Control to cut down on ships zooming in attacking and then disappearing. It seems to be working and gives a purpose and a reason to put out pickets and screening forces. See picture...
2. Increased attack and defensive avoidance dramatically to simulate the hit or miss of meeting in the open ocean.
3. Gave capital ships 2 attacks per turn. Combined with high avoidance this seems to simulate actual damage reports and negates frustration.
4. Planes are deadly against ships as they were historically
5. Gave CV 2 intercepts and 2 escorts to simulate the frantic pace of air ops. They all use supply as well. If you have well supplied carriers you may survive an air attack.
6. Increased spotting zones of CV, CVL, CA and Maritime Bombers to simulate searches and float planes
7. Instituted strength limits...CV-10, BB-10, CC/BC-9, DN-8, CA-7, CL-6, DD-5, MT-5 to simulate how fragile the smaller ships were. Literally hundreds of DDs and CLs were lost in WWII while only dozens of Capital ships were.

I'll post a naval only mod soon for beta testing in SCE and later for SCWW

[Hairog]

Oh, and CVLs are Hunter Killer TF and deadly against Subs.

[Kriegsspieler]

Those are very encouraging reports & I look forward to trying the mod.
To me, the most significant weakness of the current game (and this is no mystery) is one connected with scale and stacking. On land, it makes sense to park a single corps or army in a hex. At sea, to do the same with a single ship leads to some very odd effects. For example, how can we realistically duplicate the crucial screening role of DD's and CL's on such a large-scale map?

EDIT: I should add, by the way, that of course the screenie posted by Hairog is one possible answer to how one could realistically use DD's and CL's as screens in the current game. That's an ok solution, given current constraints.

[Tanaka]

Thanks for the tips going to try something similar.

Quick question other than combat data where else do you find some of these unit stats in the editor?

[Dgold]

Glad to see that you are working on a naval mod, Hairog

I had some similar ideas - which I had posted recently in the beta forum. Here are the extracts:


There have been some concerns posted by new SC3 players in the regular SC3 WAW forum about the naval aspects of the game.

How about reducing the number of naval units by grouping the existing units into new naval groups?
• Initial Scenario forces would be based on historical ship numbers, ship combat capability and quality
• Scrap individual naval units and MTB units
• The maximum strength of each unit would vary as per historical values (eg Japanese or British Carrier Groups might have 8 maximum air strength as they had a smaller air complement)
• Less problems with stacking at existing ports
• Less problems with naval units accidentally bumping into each other in large sea hexes
• The new unit cost, movement allowance and combat ratings would need to be tweaked
• The AI would have an easier time playing its side, as it would have half or less the number of units to move
• Give certain Cruiser Groups (eg Japanese) a larger spotting range due to seaplanes
• You could give certain surface group units two strikes, so as to provide more decisive battle results (more sinkings)

Battle Group (BB/BC with some DD) – 2 BB/BC per unit
Cruiser Group (CA, CL mix with some DD) – 4 CA/CL per unit
ASW Group (DD/DE mix) – 8 DD/DE per unit
Carrier Group (CV with CL and DD mix) – 2 CV per unit
Escort Group (CVL/CVE with some DD) – 4 CVL/CVE per unit
Sub Group – 4 SS per group

This would not require a game code change - only some serious work with the editor.


Most surface naval combats in WWII happened near land or ports, not on the high seas.

I have been experimenting with the Editor to attempt to remove ZOCs from all naval units, As these hexes are so large, I am suggesting that there should not be an automatic sighting of friendly naval units by adjacent enemy naval units.

Is there any way, in the Editor, to remove the auto-surprise attack against a friendly naval unit when it moves adjacent to a previously hidden enemy naval unit?

What I would like to see is that an enemy naval unit is only revealed via friendly air recon of that hex, if it moves adjacent to a friendly port, or a friendly land unit (coast watchers), or if it attempts to enter a hex containing a friendly naval unit.

In all other cases, passage of friendly naval units would not reveal enemy units in adjacent hexes.
Or, how about the passage of an adjacent friendly naval unit having a percentage chance of discovering an enemy naval unit in a hex?

Bill had a concern that reducing the number of naval units would be result in less being available to protect unit transports.
A suggestion is that Long Range Amphib units, as they are very expensive, be given an increase in defence value, to simulate an intrinsic escort (CL, DD, DE).

[seydlitz22513]

ORIGINAL: Dgold

Glad to see that you are working on a naval mod, Hairog

I had some similar ideas - which I had posted recently in the beta forum. Here are the extracts:


There have been some concerns posted by new SC3 players in the regular SC3 WAW forum about the naval aspects of the game.

How about reducing the number of naval units by grouping the existing units into new naval groups?
• Initial Scenario forces would be based on historical ship numbers, ship combat capability and quality
• Scrap individual naval units and MTB units
• The maximum strength of each unit would vary as per historical values (eg Japanese or British Carrier Groups might have 8 maximum air strength as they had a smaller air complement)
• Less problems with stacking at existing ports
• Less problems with naval units accidentally bumping into each other in large sea hexes
• The new unit cost, movement allowance and combat ratings would need to be tweaked
• The AI would have an easier time playing its side, as it would have half or less the number of units to move
• Give certain Cruiser Groups (eg Japanese) a larger spotting range due to seaplanes
• You could give certain surface group units two strikes, so as to provide more decisive battle results (more sinkings)

Battle Group (BB/BC with some DD) – 2 BB/BC per unit
Cruiser Group (CA, CL mix with some DD) – 4 CA/CL per unit
ASW Group (DD/DE mix) – 8 DD/DE per unit
Carrier Group (CV with CL and DD mix) – 2 CV per unit
Escort Group (CVL/CVE with some DD) – 4 CVL/CVE per unit
Sub Group – 4 SS per group

This would not require a game code change - only some serious work with the editor.


Most surface naval combats in WWII happened near land or ports, not on the high seas.

I have been experimenting with the Editor to attempt to remove ZOCs from all naval units, As these hexes are so large, I am suggesting that there should not be an automatic sighting of friendly naval units by adjacent enemy naval units.

Is there any way, in the Editor, to remove the auto-surprise attack against a friendly naval unit when it moves adjacent to a previously hidden enemy naval unit?

What I would like to see is that an enemy naval unit is only revealed via friendly air recon of that hex, if it moves adjacent to a friendly port, or a friendly land unit (coast watchers), or if it attempts to enter a hex containing a friendly naval unit.

In all other cases, passage of friendly naval units would not reveal enemy units in adjacent hexes.
Or, how about the passage of an adjacent friendly naval unit having a percentage chance of discovering an enemy naval unit in a hex?

Bill had a concern that reducing the number of naval units would be result in less being available to protect unit transports.
A suggestion is that Long Range Amphib units, as they are very expensive, be given an increase in defence value, to simulate an intrinsic escort (CL, DD, DE).

I agree with most of the above, as much as I like to see named historical battleships etc, for this game scale it just does not work. Naval units need to be in Battle Groups/ Task Forces only end off!

The biggest problem with the naval game is, individual ship attacks cause far to much damage per attack!

On land, the largest unit is an Army. It attacks another Army at a combat value of 2 since they are target type HARD! Added to this the combat effects are further modified by all kinds of terrain, entrenchment etc. At sea, you only have one terrain water. So when it comes to combat Battleship v Battleship they attack each other at a strength of 6! Which means in game battleships are pointless, they are virtually the most expensive unit type in the game and the take virtually the longest time to build, and yet the can leave port and be completely destroyed in one game turn, by an ever ending swarm of units coming from 20 or more hexes away, its nuts! Naval units need to have better spotting as most Capital ships and cruisers used aircraft for reconnaissance, naval units also need to have more value applied to ZOC in order to restrict the swarm attacks seen in the game which is ridiculous, and needs to be abolished from the game completely.

[seydlitz22513]

As an added idea regarding terrain bonuses that Land forces & Air forces benefit from, and that Naval forces are stuck with just water as terrain that as far as I'm aware does not bestow a defense bonus.

My idea is this: Maybe Naval units could have a new defense bonus similar to ENTRENCHMENT? For example an ARMOUR defense bonus?

Armour Defense:

Dreadnought = 7
Battleship = 8
Battlecruiser = 6
Heavy Cruiser = 4
Light Cruiser = 3
Destroyer = 1
Escort Carrier= 2
Fleet Carrier = 3
Submarine = 1
MTB = 0

NB: I have intentionally listed Dreadnoughts as a weaker value than Battleships because in my eyes Dreadnoughts are WW1 whereas Battleships are WW2.

[xwormwood]

ORIGINAL: Kriegsspieler
At sea, to do the same with a single ship leads to some very odd effects.

The naval units of Strategic Command don't represent single ships. Maybe the unit names are a bit misguiding.