Fleet Size Penalty

[pgr]

So having Grant land directly in Richmond with 5 divisions from a huge fleet in one turn, with my costal batteries in Norfolk only doing minimal damage on the host, has got me convinced that something should be done with fleets.

I think two things should be considered:

1: CP penalties similar to land stacks for huge fleets. IRL fleets beyond a certain size become impossible to manage....no one tried to run 50 vessels all at once up a river.

2: River and Sea Transports should be easy to detect (which seems to be the case), and should be made the target priority of land batteries. As it stands, if the fleet is big enough and has ironclads and such, the warships tend to take a beating while the troop laden transports often survive quite well.

Other options could be considered, like upping the power of land guns against ships, but if over-sized fleets are made very combat inefficient and shore fire is directed to concentrate on transports, that should make the old Richmond landing maneuver ( and Nashville grab for that matter) a much more dicey prospect.

It would make my day to see something like that in a 1.5 patch.

(and barring these changes, then slow fleets down..say 2 days per water region like when units are being transported by the river transport pool.)

Edit:
It would be nice if land batteries set to bombard ships would bombard ships in regions with friendly ships, in the same way a fleet can bombard the land in support of an army...

[ohms_law]

There really should be some sort of absolute cap on river regions. Right now, you could pack enough gunships into one of the Mississippi regions so that someone could walk across the river without getting their feet wet.

Coastal regions aren't that much of a problem. But still, I agree with the gist of what you're saying. There should be larger stack penalties in general, based on command points. Above a certain level, the command penalty ought to just be 100%.

Anyway, I agree. Transports ought to be prioritized by land batteries. That's what happens in real life, regardless. And then the warships provide counter-battery fire.

[pgr]

Now that I think about it more, why not have fleets operate like land forces?

1: Fleet commanders form squadrons of ships to cut down on CP size (say 12 ships to a division)
2: 3 anchor commanders can form fleets, with 2 anchor leaders creating corps (the equivalent of corps)
3: All rivers and coastal waters have frontage, and Military Control.
4: Military control functions as it does on land. You need at least 25% to move supplies and to access the river transport pool. (Which would cut down on some weird CSA river transport possibilities on the Ohio river)
5: cohesion recovers at sea, in relation to stance, as it does on land.

It might be weird to think of MC on water but why? MC on land is representing local paroling and policing. The same thing was happening on water. If fleets entering "hostile waters" had to attack to increase the % of MC, it would make the job of a defending fleet simpler. A narrow ship frontage in rivers would allow small CSA fleets a chance to actually block Union naval advances (esp if Land Guns could support naval ships in the same way naval guns can support land forces).

Warning! Crazy idea!


The last big problem is that there is nothing really for those union naval forces to do, other than sit in Blockade boxes and create super invasion fleets.

This is probably in the realm of an expansion pack or a future game design...but why not revamp the game so there is actual blockade running.
Imagine if moving through water zones was like moving through land zones. If you have no MC, your evasion value would have to be bigger than the patrol value to pass. (Think a cavalry raider passing through enemy lines).

Don't have the CSA do blockade running at all. Have the British and French AI do it. British and French AI build "blockade runners" that transport X war supply, and trade it for Y general supply (or why not create cotton as a 3rd supply, which the UK and France use to convert into money and WS) from the depot of the CSA harbor it arrives at. These runners have a nice evasion value but no combat value. (If they are caught they die...) There should be enough of them that if ports remained open, the trade would give the CSA almost initial union like levels of WS. To blockade, the Union would have to send fleets to block the entrance regions to these harbors, and make them big enough to detect the runners. Add a bit of path finding logic to help the runners find the paths with the least amount of hostile MC and ships, and the Union would have to actually run a proper blockade.

It would sure make the naval side of the game more interesting, and there wouldn't be all these spare ships lying around for mega-invasions.

call me a dreamer

[Merlin]

I think the biggest problem here is the ability to land on the coast with full cohesion. Perhaps making the amphibious penalty separate from the river crossing penalty, making amphibious landings lose 3/4 of their current cohesion, and getting only partial reduction for having Marines in the unit. That would probably put a stop to the kind of silliness pgr experienced, though invading Richmond with Norfolk and the lower James unconquered is the height of folly for supply reasons.

As it is, dropping large forces on defended coastal regions can be dangerous, especially when there are full defending divisions, but the CSA rarely has that at all critical locations. I know I tend to avoid occupied coastal regions, but then I'm somewhat conservative and like my invasions to succeed in spite of acts of god. Not everyone does this, and they often get away with invasions no one would ever have dared attempt in the real war.

As for changing the entire naval system, I'm not certain that would benefit either player. It's a massive alteration, and the unintended consequences may well be worse than the benefits. As it is, there are a number of things which aren't working terribly well, such as the requirement to blockade the actual harbor exit of a port and not the coastal region of the river mouth.

[pgr]

I think the biggest problem here is the ability to land on the coast with full cohesion.

To be fair, being on sea transports seems to give a big cohesion hit. So forces tend to land with less than full cohesion. Another thing is the bonus Marines give to landings, although I think Ace as come up with a little mod for that...

[Merlin]

I can usually get away with no major cohesion loss if I do things right. Normally I don't bother because I like barely defended targets, but there are those somewhat artificial situations, like fort-hopping in Charleston harbor, where gaming the system a bit isn't ahistorical. Now building a depot on the tip of MD, moving a big force and fleet there, and launching an invasion all the way up the James in a single turn is a bit much, and that won't come with a significant cohesion hit either.

I think the amphibious penalty is a bit weak, and even the gamier invasions tend to be launched at targets where the defender is inside the structure. If the attacker had to wait a couple turns to ensure success, I think most of the silly invasions would quit.