Suggestion: National Death when all loseable provinces are lost.

[SentosKarum]

Any nation that loses all their loseable provinces and can't get them or loseable provinces instead* back inside 5 years is shattered and removed from the game for the campaign.

I do acknowledge that that makes certain nations (England) way more resilient than others (Germany, Austria atm.) but it would serve as both an difficulty indicator and give the player some agency in how a campaign plays out.

*Example: Germany loses Helgoland (only loseable province for Germany so far, I'd expect this to change ith the september patch and the full world map) toEngland but manages to get Tunis from France before the 5 years are up -> Survives.

[Sinjen Blackstar]

Getting provinces in the med as Germany is a PITA as you have to defend those areas or lose tons of transports.

[SentosKarum]

Thing is once the full world map is live the only nation that doesn't have that problem from the start is maybe Austria (I think they some polar claims? If those count as ports). Actually no, China is playable yes? China ought to have all their ports closeby, with farthest being Taiwan. Of course China also has probably several trade ports generating tension with half the world.

Everyone else has some far flung ports. But at least some those ports will not be, like the med ones, right on the doorstep of real navies. Might see some real cruiser on cruiser action

[SentosKarum]

But this this more removing them from "nation capable and willing to have grand fleet battles" status, aka active player in the campaign, than literal death.
The "No loseable province rule" is a proxy to assess the health of nation: If it loses them and can't get them back it won't make for interesting gameplay, to have it still particpate in the camapign, it'll just be nuisnance that keeps dragging other nations down, damaging the GPD. Which can be fatal for the player as the player doesn't get the benefit of ignoring that economic drag even minor wars induce.

I'd also argue that a nation losing all their loseable provinces, which necessiates losing most if not all of their fleet in the process, would probably so riven with unrest und dissent their wouldn't be the political will to continue to throw away the GDP and manpower the navy already lost.

[SentosKarum]

No but Germany as great power would probably cease to matter for at least a few decades if the Hochseeflotte was lost to almost the last ship prior to losing Helgoland, rebuilding and then lose the fleet again.

The losses would shatter Germany's political landscape and it would be decades before it would start contemplating being a naval power again.

Besides in the full game germany would have about 2 african, 1 pacific and 1 chinese ports

[SentosKarum]

Losing the the ports is a proxy. Because the only reason a port could be lost is a massive loss of ships and a lost war. If that happens often enough, aka no ports left to lose, the naval losses would be so overwhelming in their extent that the political entity could not sustain itself.
The sailors would rather revolt than sail and the port cities would raise in revolt in sympathy.

Yes, the nation would recover, some faster than others. Yes, some nations would die easier than others (China and Austria I think) but those are also less resilient.

[Zuul]

I’d personally like to see the shipyard capacity feature slightly changed.

Instead of just a maximum buildable size, there should also be a maximum concurrent capacity. A nation shouldn’t be able to lose their entire fleet in 1 month and immediately start rebuilding everything. Where the hell did all that shipyard space come from? Then the yard space can be linked to the ports themselves and organically restrict a nations ability to rebuild as it gets thumped.

[godspeedthunder]

Originally posted by Zuul:

I’d personally like to see the shipyard capacity feature slightly changed.

Instead of just a maximum buildable size, there should also be a maximum concurrent capacity. A nation shouldn’t be able to lose their entire fleet in 1 month and immediately start rebuilding everything. Where the hell did all that shipyard space come from? Then the yard space can be linked to the ports themselves and organically restrict a nations ability to rebuild as it gets thumped.

Yeah this is the logical approach. I think we may need to reduce the turns to weekly instead of monthly though or the AI will never catch up.

Maybe we are better off sticking as it is though despite it being illogical, just for the sake of gameplay.

[godspeedthunder]

My concern is by making it too realistic will make it incredibly boring.

In the naval Arms race between Germany and Britain, Germany built 15 BB in 9 years.

Seeing as players regularly kill 15BB in a matter of months that would mean that you have to wait another 10 years or so until you they can rebuild their navy.

This would be fine if the enemy weren't fighting each other too because you could just fight different nations consecutively while the other are rebuilding. But obviously they are fighting each other and so I think we would end up in a situation where after the first few years of a game none of the AI nations have any ships left.

Which is why I think we should probably keep things as they are.

[Zuul]

Originally posted by godspeedthunder:

Maybe we are better off sticking as it is though despite it being illogical, just for the sake of gameplay.

Originally posted by Akhorahil:

Agree, that the game doesn't track slipways and drydocks is one of the major weaknesses of the campaign. Similarly, you can somehow repair your entire fleet all at once... somewhere?

That's why I suggested a maximum concurrent tonnage instead of slipways and docks. Ease of use. If it were actually the way I wanted it I'd say track it by individual slip/dock and tonnage for each. That would turn into a micro nightmare for 95% of the player base though.

Originally posted by godspeedthunder:

My concern is by making it too realistic will make it incredibly boring.

In the naval Arms race between Germany and Britain, Germany built 15 BB in 9 years.

Seeing as players regularly kill 15BB in a matter of months that would mean that you have to wait another 10 years or so until you they can rebuild their navy.

Do note the game already VASTLY accelerates the build time of Battleships. While a couple battleships were built quite quickly (the Dreadnought of the games namesake as an example) in as little as 14 months, this was only accomplished by cannibalizing the turrets from other delayed construction. Real life they took 4+ years each. So multiple that 15 in 9 years by a factor of 3-4 to put it in game terms.

[SentosKarum]

My suggestion is less about adding realism but more about the player not getting stuck in endless wars with an AI nation that has nothing left to give.

Remember that nations with a small fleet built up tension faster and thus are prone to declaring wars faster. My suggested mechanic is aimed at making sure that sure nations that have been taken for all that they're worth, thuse are reduced to a small fleet, are removed rom the game in a timely manner.

[vanDyck]

They are giving you something to fight, without nations to fight its boring.
Most people want a map with nations to go to war with, not an empty map. Nations dont dissolve, maybe they change gouvernement type, get occupied for a time, but even after WWII Germany recoverd in 10 years... If a country had no harbours or coastline anymore like austria and hungary after WWII, they are out of the game, but otherwise they will recover, proparbly with help of others so the balance of power is kept, like GB did for centuries so no other can challenge them.

[SentosKarum]

But I want something from that war and if I already took all the game lets me take and I don't want have constantly park fleets on the French coast, sink their their inadequate fleets in one sided slaughters, for a few turn only for France to surrender, hand me pittance of monetary rewards only to start the cycle again in a few turns.
All the while my GDP craters over a war that is absolutely useless to me.

I don't want wars with nations that have nothing left to give, not even an interesting fight.

If all natiosn are defeated the game is won. Maybe offer a timeskip option "Peace breaks out for 20 years" where nations built new fleet.

[godspeedthunder]

Originally posted by SentosKarum:

But I want something from that war and if I already took all the game lets me take and I don't want have constantly park fleets on the French coast, sink their their inadequate fleets in one sided slaughters, for a few turn only for France to surrender, hand me pittance of monetary rewards only to start the cycle again in a few turns.
All the while my GDP craters over a war that is absolutely useless to me.

I don't want wars with nations that have nothing left to give, not even an interesting fight.

If all natiosn are defeated the game is won. Maybe offer a timeskip option "Peace breaks out for 20 years" where nations built new fleet.

The campaign is in alpha/beta stage, it might look completely different by the time it's fully released.

For now it's just a sandbox to test the game mechanics and your ship designs.

You will have to wait for full release to get a finished product.