Naval Battles

[RGA]

Hi Calvinus,

I still have concerns over naval battles (so I looked in the boardgame rules to see what happens there as this game is a conversion of the boardgame). Below are the relevant paragraphs for recording damage and conducting survival checks.

The key points for me are that on a sucessfull survival check the hits in excess of three are removed (does not appear to happen in Naval battles in the game) and that for hits in excess of 4 there is a +1 modifier to the die roll for each hit on survival checks.

What do you think ? What would help is if survival checks were included in the battle log. Were you going to include these in the logs for a future patch ?


95-J. Results and Hits - Damaged
• Each result may inflict several hits on the enemy ship counter, and
sometimes a direct critical hit.
- no loss
# digit, number of "hits" (½ to 6)
star * (in addition to the result) : Critical hit
• The hits are put together beside the enemy ship counter.
• A ship counter may sustain up to 3 hits.
• Upon receiving a 4th hit, the ship counter is "Damaged" and flipped to the
reverse side. The 4 hit markers are removed.
• If there are hits in excess (that is, 5 or more), the excess hits are kept while
the counter is flipped.
→ →→ → Damaged ship counter
• A Damaged ship counter may sustain up to 3 hits.
• Upon receiving a 4th hit (or more), the Damaged ship counter must do a
Survival check, after all fire salvoes are done (See ↓ below).
→ →→ → Single-ship counter
• A single-ship counter (1 unit) has only one side.
• Upon receiving a 4th hit (or more), it must do a Survival check.


95-L. Survival Test
• The Survival Test happens after all 1st
and 2nd firing salvoes are done
(but before torpedo attacks, if any).
• Any Damaged ship counter or singleship counter must roll a Survival test
if it gets 4 hits (or more).
→ →→ → Test ?
• Roll 1D6 : the ship counter explodes on "4 to 6".
• A BB (any nationality) or German BC sinks on "6" (only).
Modifier :
+1 per hit in excess : 5th hit and over
• A natural 1 is always a “miracle”, and the ship survives.
→ →→ → Survival
• If the ship counter does not explode, no unit sinks.
• The ship counter is still Damaged with 3 hits.
• Remove all the other hits.
• If during the next round, the ship counter gets hits again, it will check for
new survival… (and again)…
→ →→ → Explosion
• One unit of the ship counter sinks.
• Select this unit at random, and strike its name from the list of ships (See
Naval Game Aide).
• The ship counter remains afloat, but is still Damaged (reverse side), and
up to 6 hits are removed.
• Excess hits over 6 remain. If there are still 4 hits left, another Survival test
must be done.
• If a ship counter has no more units, the counter is removed.


Rob

[calvinus]

Naval Battle logs are already (too?) huge. I'm worried if we add a set of new logs also for survival checks (one per squadron, each one composed by several rows of texts containing die rolls, modifiers and results!), so we make logs almost unreadable...

[RGA]

ok, maybe the logs would become too big. Are you able to look at the game again and how it processes Naval battles compared to the rules in the boardgame. Many times I see ships with damage level of 6 and nothing happen. If they pass a survival check then the damage level should be set back to 3 and survival checks should suffer from a +1 modifier for each hit in excess of 4.

I hope you can look at this because the Naval side is very odd at the moment and produces unusual results. I saw the German scouting fleet take on the British Grand fleet and win.

[Random]

ok, maybe the logs would become too big. Are you able to look at the game again and how it processes Naval battles compared to the rules in the boardgame. Many times I see ships with damage level of 6 and nothing happen. If they pass a survival check then the damage level should be set back to 3 and survival checks should suffer from a +1 modifier for each hit in excess of 4.

I hope you can look at this because the Naval side is very odd at the moment and produces unusual results. I saw the German scouting fleet take on the British Grand fleet and win.

Last year about this time I wrote this sort of thing in the Victory at Sea? thread.

THE ROYAL NAVY'S POISONED PILL IN WW1G

Examination of some of the tables and rules used by Le Grande Guerre disclose how the RN has been handed a situation unlike that faced by the Admirals of the day.

The following are from the TurnRules.csv file, in the remainder of these examples, they are extracted from the GrandCampaignTwo folder.

195;TR_NavalCombatModifier;1;100;TP_Military;GER;1

This appears to provide the German Navy with a +1 advantage although nothing relating to the modifier is indicated in the detailed Battle Log. Whether it modifies the die roll or CRT column or something else entirely is not clear but since (+) is good and (-) is bad, this rule gives the HSF an advantage over every other Navy in the game.

Further into the file we find:

239;TR_NavalCombatModifier;1;100;TP_Military;ENG;-1,4

Here is the RN's poison pill, automatically it is placed at a disadvantage compared to the HSF and every other navy! In effect the British Fleet is inferior to all others. The .xls file in the Modding Folder the value is shown as -1.4 but I could not determine whether the value represents a decimal (, as the decimal sign in Europe) or some other parameter.

Having established rules that place the RN at a disadvantage in all naval combat we move onto rule:

240;TR_NavalDefeatNationalWillEffects;1;100;-;ENG;-4,1

In addition to the (entirely reasonable) NW costs for losing ships, Britain suffers four-times the NW effects of any other country in the event of a naval battle lost. Having set the RN up for probable defeat with the previous two rules, this rules also guarentees that the effects of that defeat will be exaggerated beyond the historical. Once more though, I am unsure whether the second digit is a decimal or has some other significance.

All the above is in addition to the Defective Shells technology which automatically handicaps the RN even more until it can be researched and adapted. No wonder the vastly superior Royal Navy suffers defeat after defeat at great cost to the war effort, events that have no real-life counterparts in the actual event.

I never got a satisfactory response so I modified the RN penalty out of the Turn Rule and the naval situation in the North Sea is much less of a walkover for the HSF. In fact, the numerical superiority of the Grand Fleet shows up quite nicely as combat attrition is much more equal which plays into the RN's strengths.

I now know that the modifiers do appear in the log but they are easy to miss as the entries quickly pile up to the unmanageable magic number of 200 maximum. Another thing that I did was amend the Units.csv file to give all Dreadnoughts and Battlecruisers bulkheads. This seems to balance the exaggerated effects of battleship torpedoes in short range engagements.

The entire thread is here:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=18642

[RGA]

Hi Chris,

I remember that thread

When playing the entente I keep the Royal Navy in port. Somehow it doesn't seem right.

The values you tweaked are imported from the boardgame so I wonder how that played out. I do feel the game does not process battles correctly and would like to see that addressed in the next patch.

Rob

[Random]

Hi Rob,

I found the tweaking has helped a lot. Am currently playing the 1916 Scenario as the Entente and the June turn saw the Grand Fleet get slaughtered by the HSF and out killed better than two to one in capital ships (9:4).

Turns out that I had not edited the TurnRules.csv from the 1916 scenario.

Removed the 'poison pill' as above and replayed the turn; when the AI obligingly sortied the HSF she still won but the losses were six British to five German and two of the RN ships were lost before the Grand Fleet reinforced. Am quite happy with that result and consider it entirely reasonable. Once the HSF started taking losses it broke off the fight but got the battle victory on losses.

Meanwhile in the Adriatic, the Regina Marina fought the KuK Marine (on a Control mission) to a messy little draw and lost a pre-dreadnought to mines on the way home.

In my opinion, game designers are much too quick to treat British warships as being made of glass and and ripe for destruction by 'superior' German warships. In spite of the one-time experiment at Jutland, there are some uncomfortable inconsistencies in the narrative that point to a somewhat different conclusion but are generally ignored.

Am unfamiliar with the boardgame but adjusting the naval combat modifiers in the TurnRules.csv seems to offer some improvement in the resolution of naval battles.

Chris

[RGA]

Chris,

What do you do about damaged squadrons/ships ? There is no incentive to repair ships at the moment. A damaged ship is no more likely to sink than an undamaged one. My Russian fleet suffered damage while engaing the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea, at the end of the battle do I send my fleet back to port for repairs or do I keep them at sea. The answer is it makes no difference. The narrative should be that I send them back to port for repairs rather than risk losing them altogether. In the boardgame if damage accumulates then the risk of a ship sinking increases but this does not happen in the PC game.

Rob

[Random]

Hi Rob,

I repair them but I suppose more for decorum than any other reason. Step losses for the ship counters seems to me to be more of a gamey result of adapting a land warfare system using a simple two-step loss system to naval combat with results measured in hits. I just hate seeing that white strip across the counter spoil the symmetry of my formations!

So I agree with you and admit that I cannot determine from the naval CRT where damaged counters have any real effect on naval units since in most cases the gunnery and defensive values remain constant.

At the risk of running off like a soup sandwich, naval forces are difficult to use in the game but they were difficult to use in the event as well, except for the light forces that were worked to death while the battle squadrons swung around their anchors.

Lowered the required number of ships for control missions from 6 to 3 and it seems to have the effect of increasing the AI level of naval activity. Particularly in places like the Black Sea. (NavalMissions.csv file).

Also edited the ProductionCosts.csv to allow the Turks to build minefields, potentially making Entente operations in the Aegean Sea and off Palestine a bit more difficult.

Chris

[calvinus]

I've run some naval battles in debug mode very very carefully and I can say the survival checks work as designed.
I think the major issue is the rule ST2 of GameRules DB, that gives a major advantage to German CLs... so I guess Random is right, a mod helps.

Edit: if you see always a # of hits on naval squadron not exceeding 6, it's for graphical issues (the sprite has 6 numbered tiles, no more). The game engine handles instead number of hits.

[Random]

Thanks Calvinus!

I have no real issues with ST2, it seems a reasonable compromise to account for the ability of larger and newer dreadnoughts (and the German battlecruisers, armoured to battleship standards) to absorb damage, plus the values are adjustable. My major naval combat problem was with the Turn Rules that punish the RN compared to all other navies and these too can be modded to taste.

[RGA]

Thanks Calvinus. I'll play around with the turn rule mods as suggested by Chris.

[ZardozLord]

Hi Calvinus, is there any chance of Randoms mod being in the next patch?

[Random]

Hey ZardozLord

It's not a mod as such, just some editing of a couple of the .csv files depending on what you want it to do. There are a lot of people out there that like the uber-powerful High Seas Fleet found in the stock game when they play the Central Powers. Modding out some of the built-in weakness of the RN means that if you are playing Germany, sortieing the HSF is usually a bad idea, much like it was for much of the war.

Drop me a PM with what you would like to change and I can send you specific instructions if you like. This will save you hunting around for the various posts where the files and values as scattered around from the past year or so.

The game seems to have been designed with modding in mind, all you need is a text editor like M$ Wordpad and the process is pretty painless. Just beware that sometimes the law of unintended consequences kicks in and you may get results you had not anticipated.

[RGA]

ZardozLord should be more concerned with the Russian troops massing on his East Prussian border in our pbem game

[Random]

Ahhhh. So the legions of the Czar are off to a soiree in Berlin are they? Make sure they're home before the leaves fall or they might turn into Bolsheviks.

Good Luck!

[calvinus]

Thanks Calvinus. I'll play around with the turn rule mods as suggested by Chris.

If you change turn rules (in a savegame?) for a PBEM game, all other PBEM players must do the same, of course!

[calvinus]

Hi Calvinus, is there any chance of Randoms mod being in the next patch?

Hello, as Random wrote, it's not worth an official mod. I should leave the game DBs as designed, sorry.

[calvinus]

Ahhhh. So the legions of the Czar are off to a soiree in Berlin are they? Make sure they're home before the leaves fall or they might turn into Bolsheviks.

Good Luck!

Capture Berlin when Germany is human player controlled?? Impossible!

[RGA]

Hi Calvinus,

Sorry to keep on about this but I have another question with regard to the damage level shown on ship counters. I have seen this level increase as a ship takes hits. I have even seen it fall as a ship does emergency repairs during battle. However I have not seen it reset to 3 after a sucessfull survival test. When I look in the save game the hitpoint counter for the squadron just keeps on accumulating.

So I have two questions;

1) After a sucessful survival test should the damage level be reset to 3. It is in the boardgame rules. It doesn't appear to happen in the PC game.

2) For suvival tests, does damage above level 4 apply a +1 modifier for each level (i.e. for damage level of 6 there would be a +2 modifier to the survival test.

The effect of this would be that the Royal Navy could make their numbers tell. Two British Battlecruiser squadrons (both firing multiple shots) could easily take on a German Battlecruiser squadron as the excess hits, above 4, would apply a modifier to the survival check.

Rob

[calvinus]

1) After a sucessful survival test should the damage level be reset to 3. It is in the boardgame rules. It doesn't appear to happen in the PC game.

Tested and ok. Remember the hit points are resetted to 3 if no ship is sunk (during the survival test).

2) For suvival tests, does damage above level 4 apply a +1 modifier for each level (i.e. for damage level of 6 there would be a +2 modifier to the survival test.

Tested and ok. Also, as I wrote, you see max 6 hit points for graphical reasons (because the sprite has 6 tiles), but indeed we can have more than 6 hits (so +3, +4, +5 and so on...).

[calvinus]

For the naval hits sprite, it could be nice to have a further tile (see attached TGA file, zipped), labelled 7+...

I could insert the actual # of hits in the tooltip.

Some volunteer?

[Nikel]

Something like this?

Note that the "7+" is a bit smaller, two characters

[calvinus]

Great Nikel! I'm going to add the new tile for sure!

[RGA]

[quote="calvinus"]Tested and ok. Remember the hit points are resetted to 3 if no ship is sunk (during the survival test).

I don't see the hit points reset to 3 in the naval battle window after a sucessful survival. Should I ? Once it reaches 6 it stays at 6 on the ship counter.

Rob

[Franciscus]

Something like this?

Note that the "7+" is a bit smaller, two characters

Why not keep what we got, and simply change "6" for "6+" ?. The tooltip would then tell the exact number...

[calvinus]

Why not keep what we got, and simply change "6" for "6+" ?. The tooltip would then tell the exact number...

No difference, I have anyway to change the sprite.

[calvinus]

I don't see the hit points reset to 3 in the naval battle window after a sucessful survival. Should I ? Once it reaches 6 it stays at 6 on the ship counter.

Rob

Checked again the code: set to 3 when a natural 1 is rolled (miracle). Is it right?

[RGA]

Not completley.

If the ship survives the survival roll then the damage should be set back to 3. So, it looks like the damage is being reset only on a 'natural' 1 when it should be reset to 3 if the ship survives the roll as well.

There is also something in the rules that if a ship from a multiple ship squadron sinks then upto 6 hits are removed. I can't remember if this happens, I will have to check again.

Here is the relevant passage from the rules.

95-L. Survival Test
• The Survival Test happens after all 1st
and 2nd firing salvoes are done
(but before torpedo attacks, if any).
• Any Damaged ship counter or singleship counter must roll a Survival test
if it gets 4 hits (or more).
→ →→ → Test ?
• Roll 1D6 : the ship counter explodes on "4 to 6".
• A BB (any nationality) or German BC sinks on "6" (only).
Modifier :
+1 per hit in excess : 5th hit and over
• A natural 1 is always a “miracle”, and the ship survives.
→ →→ → Survival
• If the ship counter does not explode, no unit sinks.
• The ship counter is still Damaged with 3 hits.
• Remove all the other hits.
• If during the next round, the ship counter gets hits again, it will check for
new survival… (and again)…
→ →→ → Explosion
• One unit of the ship counter sinks.
• Select this unit at random, and strike its name from the list of ships (See
Naval Game Aide).
• The ship counter remains afloat, but is still Damaged (reverse side), and
up to 6 hits are removed.
• Excess hits over 6 remain. If there are still 4 hits left, another Survival test
must be done.
• If a ship counter has no more units, the counter is removed.

[calvinus]

Ok, here the algorythm...

if( iDieRoll >= iRequiredDieRoll && iDieRoll != 1 )
{
// ship sink...

// -6 hits

if( hits >= 4 )
{
// do again a survival test
}
}
else
SetHitPoints( 3 );

So on a natural 1 or no ship sink: set 3 hits.

Otherwise one ship sunk, up to 6 hits removed, if 4+ hits remaining again the survival.

Everything is ok.

[RGA]

Is that the 'live' code or what your change will be ?

A simple test is the Jutland scenario. If you run it for 1.08m you will see the ship damage reach 6 and NOT be reset to 3 in the battle window on a survival test.