How does AI afford so many ships?

[German Orca]

Trying to understand the ship count in this game. I'm more of a land lover and far more experienced historically in that regard. Just bought the game. I'm playing Japan. Haven't reached 1900 yet and already the ship count for some of these nations is astonishing. US has 286 ships (40+ are TBs), GB about the same, and the second tier nations are all in the high 100s for ship count. China even, at this period in history is over a hundred ships. By comparison, RtW3, this point in history, far, far fewer ships. As someone who is not well-read in the history of naval warfare, I don't understand how China can afford 40 CAs, 20 BBs and a host of CLs. I was plugging along after defeating China pretty handily in the first year or so, clicking next turn, I look up and noticed the ship counts compared to mine and was speechless. I started to build up and my funds dipped precariously low and I still didn't come close to even the minor nations in ship count. Granted, my ships are pretty jacked and at max allowed tonnage, so maybe why?

[BanzaiCharge]

In my Japanese campaign I struggle to have 10% GDP growth during peace, while the US has the same while fighting multiple wars. To add insult to injury, I have 254 billion GDP while they have over 7 trillion. They can afford much more ships than I do, and they're churning out battleships. They have 1000 ships, 100 of them are BB's.

The AI also seems to produce more lower tier ships until the hull becomes unavaible to them, and these obsolete ships cost way less than the more modern ones with better engines. For some reason the French in my campaign is mass producing cruisers with 22kn top speed in 1935 which is ridiculous tbh.

I also expect that the AI gets more money on hard setting.

Also, playing as Japan, the struggle is real, at least economically.

[vanDyck]

Yes at hard and legendary the Ai gets more money (and thats it).

[German Orca]

Thank you everyone for replying so quickly. The ship count is in the realm of fantastical, I take it. 1000 ships!? 100 of them BBs? lol. I do much enjoy the tinkering in the ship building and the battles are far more immersive than RtW3. Too bad there's not the both of best games in one package. I don't think I want to continue if countries field thousands of warships. A quick google search on how many warships the U.S. had during WWII.

""After Pearl Harbor the US Navy had 16 battleships, 7 aircraft carriers, 18 heavy cruisers, 19 light cruisers, 6 anti-aircraft cruisers, 171 destroyers and 114 submarines. As well as the war in the Pacific the US naval forces helped the Royal Navy to maintain ocean supply lines to Britain in the Atlantic.""

[ToreDL87]

Yeah naval battles are supposed to be a "decisive" kind of thing, in the case of the U.S thats like 3 fleets so 3 big battles vs them plus any residual reserve/mothball fleets, and so forth.

I've got China completely on the ropes after 6-7 big battles, all they have is Port Arthur and Hong Kong, blockaded as well, not with even nearly the same GDP/Budget they once had, yet they churned out 6 BB's before I could blink, even the crap ones take at least a year to complete, so ... What gives? :S

[Sword_of_Light]

I am a little puzzled how Japan, which has no territories outside its traditional holdings, can afford not only a fleet of 200+ but is currently building over 700 ships. Things must be going well for the Japanese in 1948.

[4of25]

I guess there is something broken with the economy for the ai. Perhaps some issue with the costs for building or maintainance much too low for ai.

[asasiwu]

Hmmm...I also have a similar question when I play Spain and defeated Italian twice. They start to build more and more DD and only DD untill their active fleet 124 ship have 113 DD....is a bug or something else...?

[Lucky]

Economy was broken since introduction of the long campaign. All the growth was balanced for short, 10 year, timeframe and clearly doesn't really work given more time.

However, player can pull the ships out of hat. You set something to build, wait till it only 1 month to ready, suspend it. Here you go, now you have a ship that can be put into commision under 1 month time. And it costs nothing to keep it that way indefinitely. Also, yes, you can have 100 BBs in suspend. No, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[FizzyElf]

I remember playing campaign for the first time as Germany, had a strike force of 23 ships, 3 BB's 10 BC's and then 10 of this light heavy cruiser design I made which was basically a miniature Hipper. By the time my force was fully built the Brits had nearly 600 ships, 65 BB's, 100 BC's (which obviously earned a surprised Pikachu face from me) and a host of other lighter designs. I was feeling pretty good about my little fleet but as soon as I thought about leaving port the sea's suddenly turned sweet and amber and somebody somewhere started chanting "I am a Pole" while dashing towards my battleships.

All and all I culled their number to 400 before my fleet was at a point where it simply couldn't fight anymore, thankfully France and Italy showed up and saved me.

The AI, while a bit of a pain in the numbers department, doesn't always make sensible designs and if you can get the Zerg swarms to fight each other while you adapt to abuse their naval shortcomings then you will be pretty well off. For me the AI tends to make really slow ships with lots of mid range fire power so I make fast snipers to deal with them, generally by using long range HE to kill them via crew loss and structural damage rather than trying to pen ships that generally have ~30 inches of effective main belt armor. If I was playing Japan I would never attack USA unless they were fighting britain and germany or britain and france, trying to take them on otherwise is just a bad idea.

[Coheed]

Yeah, I'm suddenly seeing this early on in my new Japan campaign. UK, US, China and France have ~250 ships each already by 1900, each having around 30 battleships.

At best I can field half of that, and would struggle financially. It does seem the AI is pumping out lots of old crappy ships though...

[FizzyElf]

Originally posted by Coheed:

Yeah, I'm suddenly seeing this early on in my new Japan campaign. UK, US, China and France have ~250 ships each already by 1900, each having around 30 battleships.

At best I can field half of that, and would struggle financially. It does seem the AI is pumping out lots of old crappy ships though...

Yep, odds are only 1 or 2 of the ships they design are dangerous and another is simply difficult to catch/destroy so while they may have a LOT of ships, your fleet will still preform better overall.