Calling All Ship Graphic Designers!

[GePap]

The big question_how do ships replenish their shells?

[fairline]

Originally posted by GePap
The big question_how do ships replenish their shells?

Exactly what I was thinking I'd toyed with this idea for a Gallipoli scenario, and we had intended to have the ships replenish their buildable ammo in a port. Obviously this isn't applicable here.

Also, Phenix, you'll need quite a few unit slots for the various calibres of shell - 11, 12, 13.5, 15 in for the big guns, 6in, 5.9 in, 4in etc for the lesser vessels, plus torpedos. It may be possible to rationalise these - the German 11in gun was as effective as the British 12in, for example.

[fairline]

Re: Re: Ok, now for the ship classes discussion

Originally posted by Case
The QEs get my vote as the best battleships Britain ever built.
The upgraded QEs were, IMO, the best British ships had in WW2 as well (at least until they began to literally fall apart in the second half of the war )

They certainly had impressive service records Case, particularly HMS Warspite I think. Where would you place the WW2 KGV's and Nelson/Rodney in this reckoning? I know Nelson and Rodney were duff designs in terms of their gun layout and slow speed, but their 16in guns packed a punch. Sorry for the OT Phenix, but this stuff sadly interests me

BTW, Case, aren't you a member of a naval history site? Have there been any discussions about Jutland?

[fairline]

Random thought: I know you hate batch files but it would be neat to have the transition from day to night, given the impact of this on the battle.

EDIT: Mercatore has just released civswap, which is a much slicker way to use bat files:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112313

[Exile]

Some brief answers . . . .

Gepap; There will be no replenishing shells. Each ship will start the scen with its complement of armaments, etc. HOUSE RULES 1 & 2; no moving shells, etc. from one ship to another. Only 1 shell/torpedo can be "fired" per turn. Obviously I can't place the entire 1-for-1 load of ammunition on big ships, so the shell units will represent amalgamation of firing power. Think of them as broadsides, if from ships, and a spray of torpedos if torpedos. The issue of sub & carrier simultaneously is one that I'll look into.

This is a simulation of a SINGLE BATTLE. It WILL end. This is NOT history. There will be no hasty retreat of the High Seas Fleet. Both sides will fight it out to the last. The supreme frustration of both professionals & amateurs alike, has been this battle's air of being incomplete. I'm going to fix that.

Case; great idea on the sub flag, but I'm going to have to use it for the torpedos. I may still consider it though, if I can't get the map to work the way I want.

Gareth, we've got quite a few units slots still, and yes, I'll group the shells into categories rather than giving each individual calibre its own slot. I am going to take a look at civswap later today.

[GePap]

The thing about this coming to an end or not is this:

once each side runs out of shells, which realitically is about 9-10 turns into the scenerio,, the battle could still be rather undecided-what if each side looses only a few battlewagons? then what?

Also, this gives the Germans a huge disadvantage since they are inherently completely outnumbered-after all, the point of the German attack was to trap Beatty's (sp) BC's but Jellicoe (sp) main BB squadron was there as well, having figured out the plan-in theory, if the German player was able to take out Beatty's BC's before Jellicoe's main fleet arrives, they could pull back and declare victory.

Maybe do the scenerio in stages like Red Front?

[POTUS]

What if you had the mission be different for the Germans and Brits?

Say, the Brits want to simply keep the Germans out of the sea, but the Germans only want to stay in the sea, you don't need to completely win, just be able to stay powerful.

[GePap]

Imagine the scenerio this way:

First round, Beatty vs Hipper-the two BC squadrons meet:

The brits are trying to wipe Hipper out, the Germans trying to lure Beatty towards the High Sea's Fleet-so the Brist are looking to sink as many ships, the Germans to move the Brits to a certain area

Second round-arrives the High seas fleet-the main German body arrives-tries to kill Beatty quickly, Beatty trying to hold of while Jellicoe arrives

Third round-Jellicoe arrives-High Seas Fleet now is fighting for it's life-has to find a way out of there ASAP.


I know you want a battle to be decisive, BUT the thing is, while the British were looking for a decisive win, the Germans were NOT. So if you make it so a decisive end is the only possible end, invariably, you will get a UK victory.

[Exile]

In the final analysis . . . . .

I'll make victory conditions dependent on a deadline. The scen will only last so many turns. The battle was ended by the lack of daylight, more than anything else, based on what I've read. I can always come up with some silly tonnage/ship casualties schedule to determine victory, but I'd like to come up with something a little more novel.

As for balancing . . . .

The German ships, in general, will be tougher than the British. This is historically accurate. The British will be a bit faster. This is also historically accurate. The German capital ships will all have the AEGIS capability and the British BCs will not. In the end, the inescapable fact is that the Grand Fleet was larger than the High Seas Fleet. This will be part of the challenge, I should think. Can you take a numerically inferior, yet materially superior battle fleet of dreadnoughts against a very fast and numerous foe and win? Survive?

What bothers me is that there will be no real reason for anyone to try to "cross the T." I suspect that turret placement and fleet juxtaposition are things beyond the Civ engine's capability to simulate.

[Boco]

Gotta love this topic!

Since you seem to be asking, here's some more opinions.[list=1][*]Use ship af's to represent 15cm and smaller batteries.[*]Give torps the ability to sink BB's with a single salvo, but keep their range low. Torps were the dreadnaught's bane, and both Admirals were keenly aware of their achilles heel. Maybe a very high fp to reflect the hit or miss nature of torps.[*]Have a limited U-Boat / Sub threat. You may even want to use other civs for them to represent the lack of communication and false sightings.[*]DD's and CL's can lay smoke (air,mf=1,rng=2?). Anyone know what governs the visible unit 'at the top' of a stack? May even want smoke to absorb the first salvo, but this may not be possible with all the subtle differences between capital ships that you are portraying. Just hiding a ship's identity under smoke could be cool in itself. Btw, what is your scale and how are you handling stacking?[*]Have limited zeppelin recce ability. They were out there, but had no bearing on the battle.[*]Part of the vulnerability of the Br BC's was due to cordite flashes destroying the ship. The Germans learned this bitter lesson at Dogger Banks. Perhaps German shells should have higher fp's to simulate the unpredictable nature of this. [*]Maybe Br shells can have higher hp to reflect their higher caliber calibre. Af's can reflect the relative ability of shells to hit the target.[*]Df/hp values of ships should reflect the superior damage control and quality of German steel in this battle. Check out the Derrflinger's damage on your web site.[*]The 'see 2 squares' flag should vary throughout the game to reflect visibility. Both night and local squalls reduced it.[/list=1]

[Exile]

Cool

Ok, responses . . . .

1.) Excellent Idea, I'll use it. The AF will also be the ramming ability of the ship. Even so, some capital ships will carry secondary armament.

2.) This is precisely what I'm doing with the addtional factor that the torpedo spreads have the submarine ability. Low movement, 4 or 5 range, and high attack & FP.

3.) Intrigueing, but I'm using the subarine ability only for the torpedos (so far . . .)

4.) I've no idea about how to get a specific unit to sit at the top of a stack. If anyone knows this, clue me in. Until then smoke is a unit carried by the DDs and TBs. It will have 0 defense, 0 HP, & 1 MV. It's a 2-dimensional tactic that simulates the effect of the smoke screen. Several DD or TB units can effectively erect a wall protecting a portion of their own fleet. Light units of the enemy will, of course, advance to recon the smoke, and it will thereby "disperse."

5.) Colorful. I'll see if there are any unit slots left.

6.) Good idea and I'll keep it in mind. This stuff will all be part of my testing process.

7.) See answer above.

8.) Son of See answer above.

9.) This is a much more complex question; What options exist in terms of map functionality? I know that during the vanilla game, enemy ships that move beyond my ability to "see" them disappear after a turn. How do I replicate this in a scenario?

[Case]

Both on topic and off topic

Originally posted by Exile
I can always come up with some silly tonnage/ship casualties schedule to determine victory, but I'd like to come up with something a little more novel.

Why would this be silly? As I understand it, the Germans objective when they set out to provoke a showdown with the British fleet was to begin the process of wearing down the British by sinking more ships then they lost. The most common view of historians is that they were sucessful in doing so, but miscalculated the effect that this strategy would have on the Kaiser.

As such, a ratio strikes me as being to most appropriate means of measuring sucess. Given the Kaiser's reaction to German losses, IMO a simple unadjusted 1:1 ratio would be realistic.

----------

Originally posted by fairline
Where would you place the WW2 KGV's and Nelson/Rodney in this reckoning?

I consider both classes to have been qualified failures: the KGVs were slow and woefully undergunned and the Nelson and Rodney were great as monitors but much too slow and cumbersome to be effective battleships.

IMO, the RN would have been better off building more upgraded QEs then bothering with either of those classes. The QEs mix of speed, armour and armament was the best Britain ever achieved. The extraordinary career of the Warspite is testimony to the ships effectiveness and ability to take a beating (the Warspite holds the dubious distinction of being the most damaged ship in the history of the RN - most other designs would have been sunk had they recieved the beating she took at Jutland in 1916 and off Salerno in 1943).

BTW, Case, aren't you a member of a naval history site? Have there been any discussions about Jutland?

Yeah, a few. However, all the true battleship geeks hang out at www.warships1.com

Sorry for the OT Phenix, but this stuff sadly interests me

Don't knock it - I was offered a high paying job at the Australian Treasury partially on the basis of my ability to credibly talk battleship-speak and my recomendation of Patrick O'Brian's books to the very senior person who interviewed me

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Boco
Anyone know what governs the visible unit 'at the top' of a stack? May even want smoke to absorb the first salvo, but this may not be possible with all the subtle differences between capital ships that you are portraying. Just hiding a ship's identity under smoke could be cool in itself.

In the savegame, each unit (in a stack) has two values to determine the (graphic) stack order. One is the index of the unit directly below it, the other the index of the unit directly above it.

AFAIK, that stack order is simply determined by the order in which units enter a square. So, the last unit to enter will be on top. I don't think there's any way to force units to always stay on top.

That all has nothing to do with the order of battle though. The unit with the highest defense value goes first...

Originally posted by Exile
It will have 0 defense, 0 HP, & 1 MV

Don't use 0 HP, Civ2 will crash. 1 HP is the minimum...

On the other hand, 0 FP is possible. A unit with 0 firepower doesn't do any damage...

You could give smoke a giant defense strength and no FP. That way, smoke will always absorb the first attack, but it won't actually do any damage. I don't know if you think one lost movement point is enough of a disadvantage to the attacker though.

(edit: I guess that kinda depends on what movement rate your ships will have. If they have movement rates in the dozens, one less is hardly gonna make a difference.)

If you do want smoke do do (slight) damage, giving it a high defense will obviously be more tricky, because with a high defense it might even take out units (and I don't think that's what you want either).
You'll reduce that risk if you just make sure that you give all ships high HP and FP values (say, multiply all by 2... though 12 is the max HP) and keep the smoke HP/FP at 1.

[fairline]

Originally posted by Boco
Gotta love this topic! [*]Give torps the ability to sink BB's with a single salvo, but keep their range low. Torps were the dreadnaught's bane, and both Admirals were keenly aware of their achilles heel. Maybe a very high fp to reflect the hit or miss nature of torps.

Good idea - the perceived/actual torpedo threat severely restricted Jellicoe's maneuvring of the Grand Fleet and contributed to the eventual getaway of the High Seas Fleet.

[*]Have limited zeppelin recce ability. They were out there, but had no bearing on the battle.

By the same token the British used a single recce seaplane early on which did sight the HSF before it was forced to land; the info wasn't passed on to Jellicoe, though. Remarkably, nobody bothered to tell the captain of the single seaplane carrier supporting the Grand Fleet that they had sailed to engage the Germans, so he remained in port! The general impression I get is that both sides had little or no knowledge of their enemies' overall dispositions for most of the battle, so I would suggest giving neither side any recce ability, beyond that afforded by DDs and light cruisers.

[*]Part of the vulnerability of the Br BC's was due to cordite flashes destroying the ship. The Germans learned this bitter lesson at Dogger Banks. Perhaps German shells should have higher fp's to simulate the unpredictable nature of this.

I'd go so far as to make the German 11in shells equivalent to British 12", and German 12" equivalent to Brit 13.5". Calibre (/er ) was offset by superior sighting, gunnery and explosives.

[*]Maybe Br shells can have higher hp to reflect their higher caliber calibre.

[/QUOTE]

I'll get you spelling Limey-style yet, Dave (or is that French-style? )

@Exile: What about stackable terrain? It would be pretty silly having a single salvo take out a stack of 5 ships.

[Exile]

I considered stackable terrain, but then dismissed the idea. If the terrain were stackable, ships that sink would leave their entire complement of shells on sentry in the middle of the ocean. While it certainly would be unrealistic to loose more than 1 ship in an attack, this will have to stand. Astute players will conclude that stacking is undesirable.