Cargo Ships Sunk Open Sea Lanes?

[MizuYuuki]

I sank 109 enemy ships, and sea lanes opened increasing my weekly troops, supplies, engineers and oil by a factor of 3x. However, 88 of those ships I sank were cargo ships, and 21 were warships. Why would sinking cargo ships open sea lanes?

[cswiger]

Cargo ships sailing into contested waters are generally carrying important war materiel. That includes fuel and ammo resupply for the warships and smaller patrol craft like PT boats, as well as supplies used for aviation support.

That's why folks were fighting over Guadalcanal and the Solomons, after all.

[JG1 Wilhelm]

Ya know, my thoughts keep returning to this feature of the game ever since I got surprised by the sudden increase in resources last week because I had never gotten far enough into a campaign for it to happen (kept starting over after major updates to see what effect they would have; you can't tell if you're already winning by a big margin).

Similar in nature to the escalating cost of port and airfield upgrades, it is a game thing and has nothing to do with history or RL. It's the sort of thing gamers are used to, and it's fine for those who see WotS as just a fun game. AFAIK, In RL, for both sides, success in the the Guadalcanal conflict was perceived as vital to achieving their ultimate goals, so both were willing to commit all available resources (i.e., those not vital for other operations), regardless of whether or not "sea lanes are open". IRL, in a multi-theater war, success in a particular region does not suddenly provide X3 resources for that region.

I changed the variable to 1.5, and I only did that (instead of setting it to 1.0) because, with the escalating port and airfield upgrade requirements, it would otherwise take a very long time to upgrade Guadalcanal to level 5 airfield. It would become obvious that you were going to win, but you'd have to keep grinding along for a few weeks to get the resources needed for the upgrade.

To enhance historical realism, the default escalation of upgrade requirements should be reduced to relatively logical levels, the enemy AI strategy and tactics should be adjusted accordingly, and this "open sea lanes" bonus default should be set to 1.0.

Admiral Fancypance: "Congratulations, Admiral Player. You have destroyed 100 more of the enemy's ships than they have of yours. Here's your medal. Oh, you want more resources instead of a medal? I'll get back to you on that..."

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Cargo ships sailing into contested waters are generally carrying important war materiel. That includes fuel and ammo resupply for the warships and smaller patrol craft like PT boats, as well as supplies used for aviation support.

That's why folks were fighting over Guadalcanal and the Solomons, after all.

My suppiies are coming into Rabaul. Those waters are not and have never been contested by the USN. The USN hasn't even contested Shortland Islands. All the USN tries to do is send invasion task forces to Guadalcanal and an occasional bombardment force which I intentionally triggered by building a level 1 airfield on Guadalcanal, and all of the missions have all failed. The USN has no presence on Guadalcanal, Florida Island, Malaita or any of the other initially unoccupied islands. I own them all. And, this is on elite campaign difficulty in which I also gave the AI 800 command points to start, and limit myself to 2 submarines for the entire campaign. Since this game doesn't have a learning AI, it uses the same failed strategy over and over ad infinitum.

I agree with JG1 Wilhelm that sea lanes open is just an artificial game thing to shorten the campaign. I didn't realize that I could change the bonus. I'll just set it to 1.0, and continue my present campaign.

[Markus1987]

If you bomb the AI of course everything together, it is clear that it can not build anything.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by Markus1987:

If you bomb the AI of course everything together, it is clear that it can not build anything.

I'm playing the Guadalcanal campaign. I'm the one who has to build the level 5 airfield. The AI doesn't have to build anything to win.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

My suppiies are coming into Rabaul. Those waters are not and have never been contested by the USN. The USN hasn't even contested Shortland Islands.

If USN forces-- including submarines-- have the fuel range to sail into those areas, they are contested. The sailors on your ships would maintain a combat watch and smoking at night would be forbidden.

Merchant ships sailing into uncontested waters were free to sail by themselves; otherwise, they usually preferred to gather into convoys with escorts to reduce the risk of being engaged without support.

I agree with JG1 Wilhelm that sea lanes open is just an artificial game thing to shorten the campaign. I didn't realize that I could change the bonus. I'll just set it to 1.0, and continue my present campaign.

Japan was trying to take over the Solomons to set up a forward base to disrupt the sea lanes between Australia and the US to make a land invasion of Australia less costly.

If the real history and strategy behind WW2 campaigns is of no interest to you, so be it.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

My suppiies are coming into Rabaul. Those waters are not and have never been contested by the USN. The USN hasn't even contested Shortland Islands.

If USN forces-- including submarines-- have the fuel range to sail into those areas, they are contested. The sailors on your ships would maintain a combat watch and smoking at night would be forbidden.

Merchant ships sailing into uncontested waters were free to sail by themselves; otherwise, they usually preferred to gather into convoys with escorts to reduce the risk of being engaged without support.

I agree with JG1 Wilhelm that sea lanes open is just an artificial game thing to shorten the campaign. I didn't realize that I could change the bonus. I'll just set it to 1.0, and continue my present campaign.

Japan was trying to take over the Solomons to set up a forward base to disrupt the sea lanes between Australia and the US to make a land invasion of Australia less costly.

If the real history and strategy behind WW2 campaigns is of no interest to you, so be it.

All of my posts have been in the context of how the game works. Every merchant that I have sunk was going from New Herbrides to Guadalcanal. They were not supplying abstracted USN warships and submarines around Rabaul. That aspect of the historical situation is not covered by this game. The 100 ship differential and weekly 3x troops and supplies for open sea lanes is not based on history. It was introduced because players complained that the campaign dragged on too long. In fact, if you set the sea lanes open bonus to 1.0 then the campaign simply ends when the sunken ship differential exceeds 100. Ironically, that is probably more realistic because if the USN lost that many troops (assuming half of the merchants I sank were carrying troops: 1250 x 44 = 55,000 men) they probably would have given up trying to capture Guadalcanal.

[cswiger]

Yes, WOTS has a gameplay mechanic for opening sea lanes based upon an arbitrary ship kill advantage which serves to speed up the endgame. Since this mechanic is easily tweakable via configs, folks can change it as they please.

Whether the US would have conceded Guadalcanal if they had taken severe losses is obviously a moot point if one is only discussing things "in the context of how the game works".

WOTS is hardly the first game where the strategic layer serves mostly as a framework for creating interesting tactical battles. My preference would be to understand the historical logistics driving the war in the Pacific and tweak the game in a fashion which replicates those logistics-- within the limits of the game engine and enjoyable gameplay.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

I sank 109 enemy ships, and sea lanes opened increasing my weekly troops, supplies, engineers and oil by a factor of 3x. However, 88 of those ships I sank were cargo ships, and 21 were warships. Why would sinking cargo ships open sea lanes?

Why wouldn't they? You do realize that ONE sunken cargo ship would effectively halt one major offensive? 88 cargo ships sunk in just one theater would effectively bankrupt a whole nation.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

I sank 109 enemy ships, and sea lanes opened increasing my weekly troops, supplies, engineers and oil by a factor of 3x. However, 88 of those ships I sank were cargo ships, and 21 were warships. Why would sinking cargo ships open sea lanes?

Why wouldn't they? You do realize that ONE sunken cargo ship would effectively halt one major offensive? 88 cargo ships sunk in just one theater would effectively bankrupt a whole nation.

I've now sunk 140 C3 cargo ships (day 70 of the campaign). If half of them were troop ships, that's 87.500 troops lost. That's about right because the AI gets 10,000 troops each week which would be 90,000 total by day 70 not counting the present week. The USN offensive has not been halted, and it's not going to be halted because troops, supplies, engineers, oil and merchant ships are unlimited resources. The idea of unlimited resources is not historical. The campaign should end when losses become excessive.

[byepopejoy]

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

I sank 109 enemy ships, and sea lanes opened increasing my weekly troops, supplies, engineers and oil by a factor of 3x. However, 88 of those ships I sank were cargo ships, and 21 were warships. Why would sinking cargo ships open sea lanes?

Because both sides only have so many merchant ships.

Historically, sinking enemy merchants ships in the Solomons would have meant they weren't available to deliver troops, supplies, weapons, etc. from the enemy's home front to its front-line supply depots, which in turn would have meant fewer and less effective attacks on your supply lines.

In the game, IIRC they added the bonus to help speed the end of the game because by the time you'd sunk that many enemy merchant ships there weren't many enemy warships left, either, and it was just a lot of waiting around until you had enough supplies to build the airbases to meet your victory conditions.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

Why wouldn't they? You do realize that ONE sunken cargo ship would effectively halt one major offensive? 88 cargo ships sunk in just one theater would effectively bankrupt a whole nation.

I've now sunk 140 C3 cargo ships (day 70 of the campaign). If half of them were troop ships, that's 87.500 troops lost. That's about right because the AI gets 10,000 troops each week which would be 90,000 total by day 70 not counting the present week. The USN offensive has not been halted, and it's not going to be halted because troops, supplies, engineers, oil and merchant ships are unlimited resources. The idea of unlimited resources is not historical. The campaign should end when losses become excessive.

I was talking about real world mate.
IRL losing one merchant is very serious matter, that's why cargo ships count towards sea lane count in this game, to simulate the gravity of such matter.

making logistics more forgiving is a common game thing, but that doesn't mean it should apply to everything. In this case it applied to sea lane but not total troop count.

[MizuYuuki]

Well I set the sea lanes open parameter to 1x, and I won the IJN elite campaign in mid November 1942 without the extra supply bonus. I did not sink most of the enemy warships. Neither sinking most of the enemy warships or the extra supply bonus is needed to win the campaign.

[JG1 Wilhelm]

Originally posted by MizuYuuki:

...Neither sinking most of the enemy warships or the extra supply bonus is needed to win the campaign.

Right, and here's an idea that wasn't talked about much in this discussion: just because one gets replenishment every week doesn't mean one should use it all right away to build and upgrade less-important bases at will. The requirement to be patient, to forgo doing a lot of nice-to-have upgrades in order to accumulate enough resources to make the most advantageous upgrades, should be a realistic part of one's strategy.

For my current campaign, I, too, eliminated the bonus (i.e., set it to 1.0), but also reduced the upgrade requirements in setup.txt to what I think are more realistic numbers:

"suppliesPerUpgrade0":[500,1000,1500,2000,4000],"suppliesPerUpgrade1":[500,1000,1500,2000,4000],"fuelPerUpgrade0":[50,100,150,200,400],"fuelPerUpgrade1":[50,100,150,200,400],"engineeringPerUpgrade0":[50,100,150,200,400],"engineeringPerUpgrade1":[50,100,150,200,400]

Considering what's needed to build a fighter base as the base line, the requirements to upgrade beyond that are still high, but I padded the amounts to compensate a little for the fact that routine re-supply and maintenance of bases is not required in the game. Notice there's a big jump to upgrade to level 5, but that's realistic.

[MizuYuuki]

Originally posted by JG1 Wilhelm:

"suppliesPerUpgrade0":[500,1000,1500,2000,4000],"suppliesPerUpgrade1":[500,1000,1500,2000,4000],"fuelPerUpgrade0":[50,100,150,200,400],"fuelPerUpgrade1":[50,100,150,200,400],"engineeringPerUpgrade0":[50,100,150,200,400],"engineeringPerUpgrade1":[50,100,150,200,400]

Considering what's needed to build a fighter base as the base line, the requirements to upgrade beyond that are still high, but I padded the amounts to compensate a little for the fact that routine re-supply and maintenance of bases is not required in the game. Notice there's a big jump to upgrade to level 5, but that's realistic.

It took 9 weeks to finish the Vanilla v1.08g5h7 IJN campaign on elite campaign difficulty without the 3x bonus. I played with no duds (bombs or torpedoes), limit of 2 subs for the entire campaign and no Yamato BBs. I played at least 4 hours a day which is over 100 hours to finish the campaign, and is probably more than what most people would want to commit to playing the campaign. I sank 375 enemy ships: 190 merchants and 185 warships out of their total of 520 warships. I lost 8 warships. I shot down 166 enemy aircraft and lost 404.

I captured all of the unoccupied bases, and put level 1 airfields on 5 of them giving me 20 additional Zero fighters to use as scouts. It wasn't economical to upgrade them further. A total of 15750 supplies, 1575 engineers and 1575 oil is need to make a level 5 airfield on Guadalcanal. Supplies are not a problem since you get 2400/week on elite, but engineers and oil are only 120/week. That's about 16 weeks including the 575 used for the 7 level 1 airfields that I finally built including the 200 you start with the first week. With the campaign starting at the beginning of the second week in August, the earliest I could finish the campaign was about 20 November 1942. I finished on 18 Nov.

Your idea of changing the upgrade costs is interesting, and would work to shorten the campaign. What I didn't like about the 3x supplies was that it changes your strategy midway into the campaign. I wanted to follow my original strategy to the end to see if it would work. Once I upgraded Guadalcanal to a level 4 airfield the AI became more aggressive, but it was too late since it had already lost all 6 of its BBs and 3 of its 4 CAs. If the AI had been more aggressive earlier and located my CAs, I would probably have lost. I only had a light CA and some DDs to start, and for a long time after that only 2 CAs, some DDs, 1 MS and 1 AO. Only in the last few weeks did I need surface task forces to block the aggressive AI task forces which were weak due to the lack of BBs and shortage of CAs.