User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

The Czar's Navy

Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:55 am

Ran through a test of the 1.08J patch and so far it's all good. Thanks. However, decided to try a 4-Person game as Russia and made some notes regarding the state of the Russian Navy in the game. Suffice to say there are a number of errors and omissions that might go onto a wish list should there be another final patch.

Please find below some suggestions:

Potemkine Battleship unit based at Revel in the Baltic Sea and consisting of: Potemkine, Rostislav, Slava, Tri Siviatitelia, Imp. Alexandr II

Problem is that only Slava and Imp. Alexandr II were Baltic ships and only Slava served as a battleship. Imp. Alexandr II was a gunnery training ship and saw no action.

Potemkine was renamed Pantelejmon after the mutiny in 1905 and was a Black Sea Fleet battleship. Rostislav and Tri Siviatitelia were also units of the Black Sea Fleet.

Suggest the Potemkine naval unit be relocated to Sevastapol and contain the following Old Battleships: Pantelejmon, Evstafi, Zlatoust, Rostislav and Tri Siviatitelia

Imp Pawel Battleship unit based at Sevastapol and containing Imperator Pawel, Pervozvanni, Evstafi, Zlatoust, Georgi

Imp. Pawel and Pervozvanni were sisters and the last two Russian pre-dreadnaughts and were roughly equivelent to HMS Lord Nelson. Both served exclusively in the Baltic. Evstafi and Zlatoust were sisters of Pantelejmon and so belong in the Black Sea. Georgi was coast defence/training ship soon to be refitted as a minesweeper and never saw action with the Black Sea Fleet battleship brigade.

Suggest the Imp Pawel unit be moved to Revel and contain the following old battleships: Imperator Pawel, Pervozvanni, Slava and Cesarevitch. Usually the large new armoured cruiser Rurik operated with the battleship brigade.

The Black Sea Fleet had only two cruisers, Kagoul and Merkuriya, both protected crusers of the Bogatyr type. The game places both in the Baltic.

Suggest the Cesaerevitch unit be renamed Kagoul and contain only Kagoul and Merkuriya.

The Baltic Fleet had two distinct cruiser squadrons (designated Cruiser Brigades), one of 8" gunned armoured cruisers Bayan, Pallada, Admiral Makarov, Rossyia and Gromoboi and the other of protected cruisers Aurora, Bogatyr, Oleg, Diana and Svetlana

The old ironclad General Admiral had been renamed Novara in 1909 when it was converted to a minelayer and has no place in the scope of the game.

Suggest the Baltic Fleet get two cruiser units as detailed above, one of which can be a modified Aurora unit.

The Russian Navy had some 80 destroyers in the Baltic and almost 30 in the Black Sea so only one destroyer unit in each fleet seems a bit sparse. Indeed, the newest class of Russian destroyers, Novik, had 4 10.5 cm guns, and three triple torpedo tubes (first in the world). Her and her new construction sisters provided a nasty shock to the Kaiser's destroyer men on several occasions.

Also both fleets had and used submarine forces, starting the war with 13 in the Baltic and 11 in the Black Sea. Although some were certainly obsolete, there was new construction of both classes that joined the fleet before the Revolution and many had busy wars. To include no Russian subs at all just seems wrong.

For something a bit exotic why not add cruiser Zhemtchuk at Singapore (SMS Emden would sink her in Panang) and cruiser Askold in China to round out the Russian naval OOB. As a bare minimum, putting the historical Black Sea ships in the Black Sea and the historical Baltic ships in the Baltic would go a long way to righting a naval deployment wrong.

Apologies for the long post but in a game where so very much has been done right, the errors and omissions present in the treatment of the Russian Navy came as something of a surprise. If I could figure a way to add whole new units I would try to mod these changes and offer them to the community but I have been unable to get newly created units to appear in the game.

References for the above are from Rene Greger, The Russian Fleet 1914-17 and contemporary Janes Fighting Ships.

User avatar
calvinus
Posts: 4681
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 4:52 pm
Location: Italy
Contact: Website

Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:07 am

Forwarded to Philippe for mod proposal... :cool:

User avatar
PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:15 am

You are mostly right. I believe you could try making a modded version of the XLS file for the campaign so we could integrate them :cool:

You need to know that most navies have suffered a similar treatment in the original boardgame...the reason was the physical 'lack' of available carboard counters in an already huge 2000+ content...

The PC game was adapted rather tightly from the boardgame...hence such a situation.

If we start doing stuff like this for the Russian navy, then we need to rework all other navies too. In pure number of ships, the RN has not been well treated too...

May be it could be interesting someone starts an 'Improve the Navies' feature here, and once we get all we make it an official mod :cool:
Image

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:26 am

PhilThib wrote:You are mostly right. I believe you could try making a modded version of the XLS file for the campaign so we could integrate them :cool:

You need to know that most navies have suffered a similar treatment in the original boardgame...the reason was the physical 'lack' of available carboard counters in an already huge 2000+ content...

The PC game was adapted rather tightly from the boardgame...hence such a situation.

If we start doing stuff like this for the Russian navy, then we need to rework all other navies too. In pure number of ships, the RN has not been well treated too...

May be it could be interesting someone starts an 'Improve the Navies' feature here, and once we get all we make it an official mod :cool:

Thanks for the quick reply!

If it's a matter of editing the .XLS units file in the Modding folder and submitting the modded file, I will certainly try to work on that as I have some pretty good reference material on Great War navies. I could see no way to add any new units in the units.csv file though and provided the computer game is not counter-limited and new naval units can be added this can be addressed.

User avatar
PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:42 am

Yes, that would really be great. I have also a good knowledge of the naval warfare in WW1 so we could team up on that (although I'll be away on vacation from next week till end July) :cool:

1 - Your first task will be to take the Units.xls file in the DB, and add, for each fleet, the squadrons that you need (or modify them, like name changes - I usually used flagship or main type ship name for that part). Once this is done, send it to me or post it here for double-check and that we can prepare the csv version

2 - Once the above is done, you now have the proper units ID/Tag that you can enter in the scenarios (in the Detachments.xls file), making sure to create unique detachment ID numbers if you add new ones. Don't create new 'fleets' there. Check the location alias/name from the Map DB if you enter new ships in new locations (for instance to be sure they are in a region with a port)

Once we have these, we can try the improvement in one scenario, and extend it to others later on.

Ships under construction is a bit more tricky: they are built individually, and in several steps. Take a look at the Shipyard.xls file

Have fun
:cool:
Image

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:55 am

Have a Great Holiday and get home safe. I will tinker with this now that I have some ideas about what needs done.

C-

User avatar
calvinus
Posts: 4681
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 4:52 pm
Location: Italy
Contact: Website

Fri Jul 09, 2010 9:06 am

My worry is:
a) you can commit no more than 20 squadrons during naval battles (2 rows, 20 cells each)
b) if we increase the number of squadrons in the game, the impact on naval warfare can be somehow annoying, mainly on naval duels, see point a. :evilgrin:

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Fri Jul 09, 2010 2:21 pm

I had thought of this but for the Russian Navy to better reflect history the number of squadrons that need to be added does not make it an issue. The Czar's navy is divided by geography with no practical or realistic way to unite and even adding all proposed Russian squadrons together totals no more than 15 squadrons counting any added submarines and detached cruisers.

Have not yet looked at any changes for other navies but submit that few other additional squadrons need be added and maybe none at all. The organizations in place is sound in game terms and grouping solely by class, which would require new squadrons to implement, particularly for the RN and the USN is both non-historical and unnecessary.

In some cases, for example grouping the Italian dreadnaught Dante Alighieri (12 x 30.5 cm) guns within the Cavour or Doria (13 x 30.5 cm) units makes more sense than creating a stand-alone squadron for a single unique ship. As it stands now she is part of the Margherita unit (including two ships with 4 x 30.5 cm and one with 4 x 25.4 cm) grouped invisibly with pre-dreadnaughts that she outclasses in every repect. Setting her free to operate with her own kind does no violence to the existing naval game in my view.

I do not think that any significant inflation in the number of naval squadrons will be required for this mod to work.

C-

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Units.xls with proposed naval amendments

Fri Jul 09, 2010 10:21 pm

PhilThib wrote:1 - Your first task will be to take the Units.xls file in the DB, and add, for each fleet, the squadrons that you need (or modify them, like name changes - I usually used flagship or main type ship name for that part). Once this is done, send it to me or post it here for double-check and that we can prepare the csv version

Have fun
:cool:

Have attached draft of amended unit.xls file for checking, correction or comments.

Changes and rationale follow:

Germany - no changes

Austria Hungary:
CA Unit Budapest renamed CA unit Sankt Georg containing Sankt Georg, Kaiser Karl VI, Maria Theresa and Kaiser Franz Josef
Reason - By 1914 the Wien class battleships were obsolete and saw only limited service before being consigned to harbour duties. This unit better reflects the small Austro-Hungarian armoured cruiser force.

CL Unit Zenta now contains the three ships of this older class of cruisers, Zenta, Szigelvar, Aspern

New CL unit Saida consists of fast light cruisers Saida, Helgoland, Novara and Admiral Spaun
Reason - These four modern, fast light cruisers had a fairly busy war screening the battle fleet and other duties. Tying them to the much slower Zenta's is unreasonable. Also Jane's shows Salamander as a tiny ancient minelayer with 3-pounder guns and well outside the scope of the WW1G naval game.

Turkey - No changes

Italy
BB Unit Conti-di-Cavour now includes BB Dante Alighieri
B Unit Margherita Emanual Filiberto replaces D. Alighieri
New CL unit Marsala with fast light cruisers Marsala, Nino Bixo and Quarto
Reason - In firepower and speed D. Alighieri better fits with the other Italian dreadnaughts and E. Filiberto completes the St. Bon class of light battleships.

Russia - see discussion above for description of amendments and reasons.
New CA unit Bayan for the Baltic Fleet consisting of Bayan, Adm. Makarov, Pallada, Rossiya and Gromoboi
New CL unit Askold for the Far East OMB detachement
New CL unit Zhemtchuk for Singapore OMB detachment
New SS unit Akula for Black Sea detachment
New SS unit Narval for Baltic detachment
New DD unit Novik for Baltic Fleet

England
Corrected spelling of the following ship names, BB Queen Elizabeth, B Duncan, B Britannia, BB Bellerpheron, BB Erin
Increased protection of BB Iron Duke to 8 from 7 to match her sister BB Marlborough
CL Unit Patrol renamed to CL unit Juno with CL Niobe replacing the fictional ship Patrol
Reasons - Correcting the spelling of ship names is self evident, using Jane's as reference. Cruiser Niobe was a Juno type CL based in Halifax throughout the war and the first significant warship in the Royal Canadian Navy.

France - No changes

USA
Grouped all BB's together, formally South Carolina and Michigan were part of the B unit South Carolina now renamed B unit Maine
CL unit Salem formally CL unit Nashville and consisting of CL Salem, CL Chester and CL Birmingham
CA unit Rockhampton renamed CA unit North Carolina and containing CA North Carolina, CA Seattle, CA Memphis, CA Huntington. CA Montana
Firepower for Pennsylvania Class increased to 11 vice 10 to equal Tennessee Class also mounting 12 x 14" guns.
Reasons - The USN was undergoing considerable expansion before US entry into the war, the practice of naming all battleships after States resulted in the renaming of a number of large armoured cruisers and the new fast CL's of the Chester Class were grouped together to act as scouts for Battle Force Atlantic and later for the 6th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet.

That's about it, some of these amendments are merely for flavour and should have zero impact on the execution of the naval war. The big changes are rationalizing the Russian fleet and are offered up after research and without attitude.

C-
Attachments

[The extension xls has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]


User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:50 pm

Bumped for PhilThib as per his reply #5.

User avatar
PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:54 pm

Yes, seen it but I am just rinning out of time right now as I have been away most of the previous days on the GameCon show in Cologne and have a lot of late catch-up work to do... will try to find some time asap, promised :cool: :D
Image

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:40 pm

Thank you Phillippe. No sweat, am looking forward to Vainglory of Nations and hope the Cologne GameCon went well for you and AGEOD.

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:38 pm

Bumping this because have successfully modded a Grand Campaign to address the naval orbat issues described above. This includes adding submarines to the Russian fleets and correcting many of the ORBAT anomalies in the stock game. For example, nowhere (that I could find at any rate) in the US Register of Shipping was there ever an armoured cruiser USS Rockhampton although there is one in the game.

If there is any interest in this I may post the modded files once troubleshooting and testing is finished.

User avatar
PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:40 pm

Yes, I'll be pleased to get the naval OOB you made :cool: :coeurs:
Image

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Modded Files Attached

Wed Jan 05, 2011 7:45 am

Well Philippe, I guess you're it for interest.

These files will not harm your computer or make your cat cough up hairballs on the carpet but no warranty is offered or implied. [color="red"]Changing the Units.csv file WILL break your current saves[/color] and attempting to run or load a saved game using the modified file may cause a CTD or have other odd effects rendering your save unplayable. Also attempting to start any scenarios other than the two or four person campaign with the modified Units.csv file will not work. You have been warned…

Detachment files are provided only for the Grand Campaign Two-Player and Grand Campaign-Four Player scenarios. I may be modding the 1915, 1916 and 1918 scenarios at some point in time.

Recommended Installation

Backup the following files:
[color="DarkGreen"]World War One Gold\Data\DB\Units.csv[/color]
[color="darkgreen"]World War One Gold\Data\Scenarios\GrandCampaignFour\Detachments.csv[/color]
[color="darkgreen"]World War One Gold\Data\Scenarios\GrandCampaignTwo\Detachments.csv[/color]

The file WW1G_Naval_Mod_V10.zip contains the following files:

GC2_Detachments.csv, GC4_Detachments.csv, Naval_Mod_Units.csv.

Unzip these files somewhere handy.

Rename [color="Red"]Naval_Mod_Units.csv[/color] to [color="red"]Units.csv[/color] and move it to the …\Data\DB folder overwriting the stock Unit.csv file.

Rename [color="red"]GC2_Detachments.csv[/color] to [color="red"]Detachments.csv[/color] and move it to the …\Data\Scenarios\GrandCampaignTwo folder overwriting the stock Detachments.csv file.

Rename [color="red"]GC4_Detachments.csv[/color] to [color="red"]Detachments.csv [/color]and move it to the …\Data\Scenarios\GrandCampaignFour folder overwriting the stock Detachments.csv file.

You are now ready to start either a GC2 or GC4 campaign.

These files make the following changes to the naval orders of battle. They have not been tested for balance because I consider such concepts irrelevant in a game of this nature. They should be historically more correct than stock WW1G but are more for flavour than trying to rewrite the naval game from scratch.

Germany - no changes

Austria Hungary:
CA Unit Budapest renamed Sankt Georg containing Sankt Georg, Kaiser Karl VI, Maria Theresa and Kaiser Franz Josef

CL Unit Zenta now contains the three ships of this older class of cruisers, Zenta,
Szigelvar, Aspern

New CL unit Saida consists of fast light cruisers Saida, Helgoland, Novara and Admiral Spaun

Turkey - No changes

Italy
BB Unit Conti-di-Cavour now includes BB Dante Alighieri

B Unit Margherita Emanual Filiberto replaces D. Alighieri

New CL unit Marsala with fast light cruisers Marsala, Nino Bixo and Quarto

Russia

B Unit Imp Pawel unit now in Baltic Fleet and containing the ships of the historical Battleship Brigade Imp Pawel, Pervozvanni, Slava, Cesarevitch, Rurik

New CA unit Bayan reflecting the 1914 composition of the Baltic Fleet Cruiser Brigade Bayan, Adm. Makarov, Pallada, Rossiya and Gromoboi

CL Unit Aurora now contains Baltic Fleet Scouts Aurora, Diana, Bogatyr, Oleg Sveitlana

New SS unit Narval for Baltic detachment

New DD unit Novik for Baltic Fleet

B Unit Evstafi contains the ships of the Black Sea Fleet Battleship Brigade Pantelejamon, Rostislav, Tri Sviatitlana, Evstafi, Zlatoust

CL Unit Kagoul contains Black Sea Fleet scout cruisers Merkuryia, Kagoul

New SS unit Akula for Black Sea Fleet

I was unable to create the detached cruisers Askold and Zhemtchuk for the Pacific and East Indies in 1914.

Britain

Corrected spelling of BB Queen Elizabeth, B Duncan, B Britannia, BB Bellerophon, BB Erin and others.

Increased protection of BB Iron Duke to 8 from 7 to match her sister BB Marlborough

CL Unit Patrol renamed to CL unit Juno with cruiser Niobe, Isis, Juno, Vindictive, Pelorous

British dreadnaughts now generally have bulkhead protection since they really were not as fragile as they appear in the game. If this offends, just open the Units.csv file with a text editor and change the last numeral in the relevant units from 1 (One) to 0 (Zero). Save the changed file and carry on…

France - No changes

USA

BB Unit Delaware holds dreadnaughts Delaware, North Dakota, Florida, Utah

BB Unit Wyoming holds dreadnaughts Wyoming, Arkansas, South Carolina, Michigan

BB Unit New York holds New York, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma

BB Unit Pennsylvania holds super-dreadnaughts Pennsylvania, Arizona

All B units now contain only pre-dreadnaught battleships.

B Unit Kearsarge holds Kearsarge, Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama, Wisconsin

B Unit Indiana holds Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts

B Unit Connecticut holds Connecticut, Louisiana, Vermont, Minnesota, Kansas

B Unit Maine holds Maine, Missouri, Ohio

CA unit North Carolina holds armoured cruisers North Carolina, Seattle, Memphis, Huntington. Montana

CL Unit Olympia holds Olympia, Reno, Tulsa, Kansas City, Toledo

CL unit Salem formally CL unit Nashville and consisting of Salem, Chester, Birmingham

Enjoy...
Attachments
WW1G_Naval_Mod_V10.zip
(45 KiB) Downloaded 366 times

User avatar
PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:01 am

Thanks a lot :coeurs:
Image

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Tue Mar 15, 2011 7:40 pm

[color="DarkGreen"]GC2_Detachments.csv[/color] fix, Battleship Squadron Britannia was absent from the Atlantic Fleet.

Install as above, sorry for the inconveniance.
Attachments

[The extension csv has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]


RGA
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 9:22 am
Location: Britains oldest recorded town.

Wed Mar 16, 2011 9:54 am

Great stuff Random :thumbsup:

Always interested in reading your comments and mod suggestions. Do you still play much ? I bought the game about 9 months ago but could not find the time to devote to learning and playing it. Now giving it another go and finding it easier the second time through.

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Thu Mar 17, 2011 5:20 am

Thanks, didn't think anybody noticed...

Still bashing away at WW1G, existing issues and all even though I walked away for a bit in frustration. Also looking forward to Calvinus' PBEM patch, the game cries out for multi-player but the exisiting system certainly seems broken by most accounts. Although I do not own any of the other WW1 strategy games out there (Guns of August jumps to mind immediately), think that this has the most to offer.

Cheers.

pk205
Conscript
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2009 12:12 am

Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:48 pm

Random wrote:Thanks, didn't think anybody noticed...

Although I do not own any of the other WW1 strategy games out there (Guns of August jumps to mind immediately), think that this has the most to offer.

Cheers.


There are not that many, sadly. GOA is a decent strategic level, almost beer-and-pretzels approach that has one really clever idea: operational points are needed for an attack; these you buy with the same industrial currency you use to buy troops or shells, which leads to a typical WWI-pattern of quiet periods where you amass men and material followed by a local big offensive (because you can never have enough points to buy everything you need). The blockade mechanism is also good. But it's a basic game in comparison to WWIG, particularly in the diplomacy area, and has no tactical aspect in it.

WW1G *is* the best around and has wonderful potential - which makes it hugely frustrating to see its imperfections.

User avatar
Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:06 pm

If anybody is interested, find attached modified Detachments.csv file for the two-player Grand Campaign (GC2) scenario.

This must be used with the modified Units.csv available above.

Fixes:
Adds reduced Portugues Army corps to the Angola and Portugal boxes;
Adds missing "B_Ruyter" and "AC_Java" units to the Dutch Meer naval unit; and
Adds missing "B_Kilkis" and "AC_Averoff" units to the Greek Hellas naval unit.

Usual caveats apply, install as above and use at own risk.

Good Luck.
Attachments
GC2_Detachments.zip
(14.07 KiB) Downloaded 303 times

Return to “Help improve WW1!”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 25 guests