Rollcall and Other Misc. Statistics

[Walter]

The numbers were based on the historical fleet sizes of the various navies in 1900.

From what I understand the period between 1875 and 1900 is different from real history so I am not sure you can apply historical figures here.

I'm not sure about the whole same tonnage thing, given we have declared armies (which in effect cost nothing).

Thinking about the armies, one minor flaw of previous navalism versions is that you pay for the whole army which kind of says to me that no army existed for the nation before the specific period where you have the BPs to spend on stuff (usually 10 years). A sizeable part of your army would already be in existence prior to our 1890-1899 'buildup' period so it makes sense not to pay for it, although I would think that it should only be valid for 1880 units. Any army BP useage in the 1890-1899 period would be for barand new units and upgrades of old units to the 1895 level.

In the 1890-1899, China would produce 120 BP. What kind of army would China have when it spends only 12 BP of those 120 BPs on naval stuff and the rest on army? Considering that the 1895 infantry/cavaly/specialists tech can only be used in 1898 and 1899, it would probably end up being a maximum of 84 1895 corps with a leftover of 32 1880 corps that can't be upgraded for a total 116 corps. If we ignore the 25,000/50,000 men talk from the other thread and assume that one corps is 50,000 men stong, you're talking about an army of 5,800,000 being raised in 10 years time. And that is assuming that the 1898 and 1899 BPs are only used for upgrading. If the 1898 and 1899 are used for new 1895 units, that would mean an army of 6,850,000 men. Do I really need an army that big?

[Logi]

The history is indeed different but I used historical numbers it is a more realistic estimate than the next best thing. Due to the flaws in our economic model due to how simplified we have chosen it to be, using it to produce the start-up fleet will result in hugely unrealistic navies.

Since you mentioned China, I'll use it in my example. In 1890-1899 China certainly had steel production but it had almost no modern naval yard to build any ship (only Foochow and Kiangan which both could only build up to 500 ton ironclads) in addition, the steel it produced was exported to foreign countries to help pay bills at home. This additional income was necessary because of the low tax rate within China as well as the corruption rooted in policies formulated hundreds of years prior. The money needed to help the government pay for various normal expenditures. The yards themselves were also extremely inefficient and it was cheaper to buy ships from foreign yards than to build in them.

At the same time neither did I simulate that China's manufacturing base deteriorated tremendously, it had declined to 1/3 of it's 1860 size by 1880 and 1/10 by 1900. These were not the result of foreign intervention, etc. but rather that other countries simply produced cheaper steel than China and China's manufacturers could not compete.

Instead here we have China with already an a-historically large BP base (double that of it's historical size AND no decline) with an a-historically efficient (non-corrupt) tax base. Realistically China would have far less tonnage to spend on it's navy even without foreign intervention and wars. Add to it that the general sentiment in China and it's government has been from hundreds of years very anti-naval. These added with the low capacity of these yards and lack of experience results in a scenario with China having a large navy within ten years starting in 1890 practically impossible.

As an allowance I have already permitted China to be fiercely unhistorical and advantaged, different tonnage limits for start-up fleets is my way of attempting to limit the butterfly effects caused by this shift. Since I have a very strong opinion on the matter, I'm going to leave the call on the nature of these tonnage limits to Snip.

[snip]

As an allowance I have already permitted China to be fiercely unhistorical and advantaged, different tonnage limits for start-up fleets is my way of attempting to limit the butterfly effects caused by this shift. Since I have a very strong opinion on the matter, I'm going to leave the call on the nature of these tonnage limits to Snip.

Historical modified for altered power shifts, as have been set out previously. OTL is the only metric we have, so it will be used.

[Walter]

The thing with that is that I have just been wasting my time with springsharp.

The history is indeed different but I used historical numbers it is a more realistic estimate than the next best thing. Due to the flaws in our economic model due to how simplified we have chosen it to be, using it to produce the start-up fleet will result in hugely unrealistic navies.

Well, according to wiki: "The Qing Chinese navy at its peak consisted of 78 ships, with a total tonnage of 83,900 tons"(*). Not sure what you originally had in mind with those figures but if the 12 BP were to be used as China's limit, 8BP would be required for ports alone (based on the sizes of the 4 Chinese fleets, Type 1 ports are necessary at Weihaiwei, Foochow, Canton and Kiangnan). That would mean there would only be 4 BP left for the startup fleet. Limiting China to a 4000 ton navy at the start of 1900 while about 15 years earlier it was 84,000 tons. In 10 years they build it up to 84,000 tons and in the next 10 years they let it drop to 4,000 tons. To me, that is unrealistic.

4,000 tons. That is probably enough for 1 DD design and 1 TB design then. No point to waste any time simming other stuff...

These added with the low capacity of these yards and lack of experience results in a scenario with China having a large navy within ten years starting in 1890 practically impossible.

Define 'large navy'. How big does a navy have to be before you label it 'large navy'?

Going historical, looking at wiki at the 1880s, in 10 years you're looking at about 32,000 tons for the Beiyang fleet, 4,100 tons for the Guangdong Fleet and 7,753 tons for the Nanyang Fleet being aquired by China.(*) I don't see how a-historically something like this can happen in the 1880s, can't happen in the 1890s and will happen in the 1900s. That is just plain weird and inconsistent.

(*) It is true that they're mostly foreign built ships, but for simplicity I would use BPs for them as well with a startup navy (sell those BPs for $ and the use all that $ to buy ships instead of using the BPs to build ships).

[snip]

I am wondering where you are getting this figure from. Here is the post where the fleet limits are defined (AFAIK, these are the most recent figures)

USA:   300,000t
BRI: 1,080,000t
GER:   360,000t
FRA:   540,000t
RUS:   360,000t
TUR:   300,000t
CHI:   120,000t
JAP:   180,000t

120,000t not enough?

[Logi]

Going historical, looking at wiki at the 1880s, in 10 years you're looking at about 32,000 tons for the Beiyang fleet, 4,100 tons for the Guangdong Fleet and 7,753 tons for the Nanyang Fleet being aquired by China.(*) I don't see how a-historically something like this can happen in the 1880s, can't happen in the 1890s and will happen in the 1900s. That is just plain weird and inconsistent.

Practically all of those ships were bought from foreign yards and was not built in either domestic yards.


That said --- I made a mistake in the numbers in the OP. I was using the number that Snip quoted but apparently divided everything by 10 in the OP. This has been fixed.

[Walter]

Practically all of those ships were bought from foreign yards and was not built in either domestic yards.

That is what I said at the bottom of the post.

That said --- I made a mistake in the numbers in the OP. I was using the number that Snip quoted but apparently divided everything by 10 in the OP. This has been fixed.

Okay. Got it.

[Kaiser Kirk]

While I appreciate the thought,  my time and internet access is likely to be limited until late June. I really wouldn't want a country "held" on my behalf.  In N3, I took Bavaria with severe nautical limitations and had fun with it. So presuming I find myself with continued interest then, I'll evaluate the nations left and see which ones are of interest. 

Thanks :)

I do have some interest

Despite your commitments, can we pencil you in somewhere? I cannot for sure say that any of the big nations will remain open, but if you have your eye on something making note cant hurt.

[The Rock Doctor]

Hello,

Thought I'd pop in and share some random thoughts while you guys contemplate a reboot.

Combat

When I simmed out the Rift War thing in N3, I adapted some rules from a boardgame series called "The Third World War".  It basically had a generic odds table that also accounted for terrain and relatively average skill/quality of the units involved.  So long as players gave me coherent orders, I could sim ground combat pretty quickly.  Big challenge was movement, which I think you guys have licked with this new map of yours.

That same system also had a generic air combat thing I could adapt to our era of air combat - initially just as a recce bonus/penalty to ground combat, but later with limited ground attack and strategic bombing missions.

Naval combat was the time-killer.  Given the emphasis on specific designs, it's difficult to justify going to an abstract system of combat resolution - but that might be what has to be done for anything but the most important battles.  Tally up cruiser/capital ship tonnage on each side, apply penalties or bonuses based on who's got better guns/armor/fire control/speed/more destroyers, roll for a result and modify that based on how intense an action each side wanted to fight (ranging from harassment to decisive battles).   

There was also the issue of simming routine naval stuff - the trade warfare and stuff like that.  It could be abstracted:  How many raiders/subs the attacker commits to a region versus how many escorts the defender commits, roll a table for results that shows raider/escort/merchant losses.
When I did game out the big battles, I still abstracted things a lot, using an ancient Avalon Hill rules set for "Jutland" that (once the leg work was done) let me game out fleet actions in a night.  Despite its generalities, the system worked adequately, given that it was to represent a battle with the hardware and tactics of the N3 period.

Technology

My sense from N3 was that some of the tech tree divisions were unnecessary and amounted to "busy work", such as research on gun mounts, engine year, and such.  I'd suggest limiting research to stuff that is actually new - your first triple turret of any kind, your first turbines, etc.  After that - leaving the incremental upgrade stuff as optional background "fluff".

The other point is to codify how those techs impact the combat resolution system and how they must be accounted for by spending.  If it doesn't affect the actual gaming, there's little point in having it, because players won't bother spending on it.  As an example, "Fire Control" could be treated as specific refits of hardware to specific ships - which will require a lot of bookkeeping, and be difficult to track in a battle sim (especially if not fully introduced to a fleet).  Alternately, it could be considered a "doctrine" of sorts - you pay some generic per-ton cost for your fleet to improve long-range gunner, and when that cost is paid in full, the fleet gains the benefit.  In an absracted battle, it might increase damage to the enemy by some percentage.  Easier for a mod to track.

Army Units

To my thinking, there is very little point in having specific headquarters units unless they provide some sort of add-on to the line combat units:  Increased "stacking limits" or corps-level artillery or whatever.   The old Tactics II board game assigned the player's nuclear component to the headquarters units, and that could apply to gas attacks or seige artillery here. 

Without that bonus effect, you might as well just have 15,000 man divisions that sub-divide into three brigades.

[The Rock Doctor]

Oh, and:

A big time-waster in the wars was getting coherent and timely orders from players.  Without that, at best, Mods have to wait or engage in conversations with players about what they meant by "Third Corps Firenze".  That can waste a day or two right there.  At worst, the Mod still has to make a call and it ends up pissing off the player and there's a fight.

Three things would help, of which I think I've seen one touched upon already:

-Generic templates for units orders, to reduce the amount of interpretation required.  "Diplomacy" has it right by assigning a name to each "province" so there's no guessing about what "Silesia" means.  While one doesn't need to assign province names right from the start of a sim, a war mod could do so for relevent provinces at the start of a war.

-Adopt the principle that incomplete/incoherent/missing instructions after a set period = "hold and defend self".  Allows avoidance of excessive wait periods for everybody.

-Stuff doesn't exist if it isn't in the national encyclopedia.  War mods should not have to go looking or asking anywhere else about confirming hardware or capabilities.

[snip]

Welcome back Rocky, you know you are always welcome. Couple followup questions and comments.

Hello,

Thought I'd pop in and share some random thoughts while you guys contemplate a reboot.

Combat

When I simmed out the Rift War thing in N3, I adapted some rules from a boardgame series called "The Third World War".  It basically had a generic odds table that also accounted for terrain and relatively average skill/quality of the units involved.  So long as players gave me coherent orders, I could sim ground combat pretty quickly.  Big challenge was movement, which I think you guys have licked with this new map of yours.

Would you be able to share those rules and tables?

Naval combat was the time-killer.  Given the emphasis on specific designs, it's difficult to justify going to an abstract system of combat resolution - but that might be what has to be done for anything but the most important battles.  Tally up cruiser/capital ship tonnage on each side, apply penalties or bonuses based on who's got better guns/armor/fire control/speed/more destroyers, roll for a result and modify that based on how intense an action each side wanted to fight (ranging from harassment to decisive battles).   

There was also the issue of simming routine naval stuff - the trade warfare and stuff like that.  It could be abstracted:  How many raiders/subs the attacker commits to a region versus how many escorts the defender commits, roll a table for results that shows raider/escort/merchant losses.
When I did game out the big battles, I still abstracted things a lot, using an ancient Avalon Hill rules set for "Jutland" that (once the leg work was done) let me game out fleet actions in a night.  Despite its generalities, the system worked adequately, given that it was to represent a battle with the hardware and tactics of the N3 period.

I agree that abstracting all but the most important action is the ideal choice.

Oh, and:

A big time-waster in the wars was getting coherent and timely orders from players.  Without that, at best, Mods have to wait or engage in conversations with players about what they meant by "Third Corps Firenze".  That can waste a day or two right there.  At worst, the Mod still has to make a call and it ends up pissing off the player and there's a fight.

Three things would help, of which I think I've seen one touched upon already:

-Generic templates for units orders, to reduce the amount of interpretation required.  "Diplomacy" has it right by assigning a name to each "province" so there's no guessing about what "Silesia" means.  While one doesn't need to assign province names right from the start of a sim, a war mod could do so for relevent provinces at the start of a war.

-Adopt the principle that incomplete/incoherent/missing instructions after a set period = "hold and defend self".  Allows avoidance of excessive wait periods for everybody.

-Stuff doesn't exist if it isn't in the national encyclopedia.  War mods should not have to go looking or asking anywhere else about confirming hardware or capabilities.

This, all of this.

Technology

My sense from N3 was that some of the tech tree divisions were unnecessary and amounted to "busy work", such as research on gun mounts, engine year, and such.  I'd suggest limiting research to stuff that is actually new - your first triple turret of any kind, your first turbines, etc.  After that - leaving the incremental upgrade stuff as optional background "fluff".

The other point is to codify how those techs impact the combat resolution system and how they must be accounted for by spending.  If it doesn't affect the actual gaming, there's little point in having it, because players won't bother spending on it.  As an example, "Fire Control" could be treated as specific refits of hardware to specific ships - which will require a lot of bookkeeping, and be difficult to track in a battle sim (especially if not fully introduced to a fleet).  Alternately, it could be considered a "doctrine" of sorts - you pay some generic per-ton cost for your fleet to improve long-range gunner, and when that cost is paid in full, the fleet gains the benefit.  In an absracted battle, it might increase damage to the enemy by some percentage.  Easier for a mod to track.

I disagree with a few things here and agree with others. First, there should be no thing as a free lunch when it comes to improvement. Second, when it comes to naval I think we need to have a bit more structure and individual tracking. Now, I do agree that it can get overly complex under some of the rules that we have, but those rules are "battle-tested". The issue with tearing chunks out is how do we replace the pieces that are needed around because players abuse there absence. What are the techs that you would consider having little effect on combat or are so complex as implemented they have little practical effect? I think that Armor, Naval Artillery Shells and Mine Warfare could fall under this category.

[The Rock Doctor]

I'll see what I can do about the tables.  The games are still around the house somewhere.

As noted, I wasn't keen on the "engine year" machinery tech but that's just me.  Keeping geared/turboelectric/diesel techs only makes sense if the SS reports are altered to reflect their actual outcomes, which I see you've been discussing.

[snip]

I'll see what I can do about the tables.  The games are still around the house somewhere.

Thanks.

As noted, I wasn't keen on the "engine year" machinery tech but that's just me.

I think given the historical disparities in engine efficiency between nations the modeling some sort of gap is accurate, tho I would be more then happy to go over the specific concerns. Is there a particular reason you are not keen on the tech that I can further address (I might be missing were you posted said reason)?

Keeping geared/turboelectric/diesel techs only makes sense if the SS reports are altered to reflect their actual outcomes, which I see you've been discussing.

If you have specific comments/ideas on ether my proposal or another way to go about making those matter, please comment in the tech thread.

[The Rock Doctor]

At such time as you guys launch, I might be interested in picking up a vacant Ottoman Empire. 

[Jefgte]

Cool, Rocky play

:)  :) :)

Jef