I am doing it wrong

[freezerman71]

So far I have played 200 hours but it is starting to feel like I am not making any progress which is making me wonder why I bought this game lol. The community here has been fantastic and has provided me with many helpful suggestions on how to go about playing. But unfortunately playing as the United States Navy even on balanced difficulty I cannot seem to get any momentum going in a campaign and I am not about to start blaming the game. Have any of you guys ever experienced this and did you ever play on an easier difficulty setting? Obviously I am definitely missing something because KFG has created a really good game and its sucks that I am not really enjoying it as much I as I should.

[SEAWOLF]

I am not a "hard core" gamer. In fact, I only have a few games including WotS. Anyway, this is what I do when I get a new game; (1) read the manual (2) play the tutorials (3) check out the Steam forums like this one (4) check out YouTube to see any play throughs. With this game, there so many people that have put out game content. In fact, that is how I discovered WotS. (5) always play the first scenario/battle/campaign on the easiest setting that the game allows. Once I am comfortable with what I am doing, then I look to increase the difficulty level. I hope this helps.

[Amogus]

What difficulties exactly are you facing? Asw, ship to ship battle? Because the easiest and least challenging way of playing the game is sub spam, I can give u a very simple trick about submarine that will help u win without losing a single ship. , but this work the best with playing as Japanese. I made a thread actually talking about how very easy the game become with submarine spam. What u do is playing as Japanese, get their submarines launch recon plane, find the ameicna fleet engage tactical battle, wait until your target solution for torpedo go up to 50% and above, set degree to 0 or 1, fire 3 torpedoes if the target is a cruiser, fire 5 to 6 torpedoes if they are a battleship or carrier, soon there won't be enough captial ship around for the ai to use since you sink all of them.

[doubleskulls]

One of the key things is making sure you've got enough CAP to get your logistics to where you need it to go. Your air (you've got great stuff in New Hebrides, which can reach a long way) can sink a lot of Japanese ships and recovers quickly. This ought to generate the CPs you need to recruit new ships fairly quickly.

The campaign is a lot about logistics. Protect your convoys (Bogues are good for providing CAP for convoys in dangerous areas) and use DDs/CLs to do a nighttime rush of additional troops & supplies (you need both) to Guadalcanal. Slowly adding ships and building appropriately mixed task forces. The game works pretty well if you follow historic patterns. e.g. Have fast task forces with 1~2 CVs, some DDs/CLs for ASW and AA, and separate surface TFs with BBs or CAs. I don't really use them much in vanilla, but it can be good to use shore bombardment to reduce enemy airfields so you don't have to deal with so much air.

Make sure you are putting lots of scout planes out (or picket subs) to spot enemy ships and then send air groups to sink them. Heavily armoured ships are generally best taken out with torpedoes (as are slow merchants), and when dive or level bombing make sure you've got the right bombs - HE for no/light armour, SAP/AP for more heavily armoured targets.

[JAKeller]

In addition to suggestions by the others in this thread, I would strongly suggest playing on an easier difficulty level. WoTS is deceptively easy to play but a pain in the neck to do well at. Once you've got your strategy down as the USN, up the difficulty a bit (you can change the difficulty under Options before you load a game, so it's not like you're stuck with whatever setting you started a campaign with.

As a tactic, focus on getting level 2 airbases in range of Guadalcanal, that will allow you to control the waters around the island quite easily, then you can focus on getting troops on Guadalcanal. A mistake early players usually make is they believe they need to get onto Guadalcanal as early as possible. Doing so means you're setting yourself up for more difficulty as the AI isn't under the same constraints as you are, and you'll face a very serious uphill battle until mid-October 1942 at a minimum. Controlling the surrounding airspace means nothing gets in. (except submarine borne reinforcements, which never amount to much) This approach allows you to focus on building a good logistics system which can support building a serious surface/carrier fleet. Personally, I like getting Russell Islands as a first base (followed by Malaita then Rennell), and isolate the Floridas and Guadalcanal. Avenger bombers are extremely good at anti-ship operations, especially when used low level as skip bombers. A mere 3 Level 2 bases has the same firepower as a CV and have automatic replenishment to boot.

[stoked_toker]

I've just started campaigning again after a long hiatus due to issues with the gameplay. Seems like a lot of the problems I used to face have been corrected and the game plays much better now. I've tried the submarine spam on the American side and it works pretty well as far as sinking many enemy capital ships, including Yamato and Musashi within months of each other. When you attack an enemy convoy, remember that your main goal is to sink their transports, not the enemy warships. I think some folks go after the glory of sinking a cruiser, battleship or carrier and allow the transports to pass. This of course allows the enemy to resupply their island fortresses and can cause you to lose the game. Good luck! It's plenty of fun to play.

[JAKeller]

Originally posted by stoked_toker:

I've just started campaigning again after a long hiatus due to issues with the gameplay. Seems like a lot of the problems I used to face have been corrected and the game plays much better now. I've tried the submarine spam on the American side and it works pretty well as far as sinking many enemy capital ships, including Yamato and Musashi within months of each other. When you attack an enemy convoy, remember that your main goal is to sink their transports, not the enemy warships. I think some folks go after the glory of sinking a cruiser, battleship or carrier and allow the transports to pass. This of course allows the enemy to resupply their island fortresses and can cause you to lose the game. Good luck! It's plenty of fun to play.

Based on observations...

It works a little of both ways. AI convoys will withdraw if 1 of 3 conditions applies: 1) They lose half their combat strength. 2) They lose half their transport ability. 3) They lose half the command points of the entire convoy.

My observation has been that the Ai considers combat strength based on the number of command points for the convoy.

E.g. if a convoy consisted of 2 CAs, 2 DDs, and 6 MS. Cmd pts = 14 pts. If you destroy 7 pts of ships, they'll retreat. The escort cmd pts = 8 pts, so if you destroy at least 4 pts of warships, they'll retreat. The transports cmd pts = 6 pts, so if you destroy at least 3 MS (3 pts), the convoy will retreat.

In the newest version, the AI is somewhat risk averse, so it dices to withdraw on the strategic map even if you heavily damage 1 CA from the example above.

[stoked_toker]

Thanks for the heads up on how these matters are calculated. Do you know whether or not the retreat goes back to Rabaul or does it proceed to it's destination as originally planned via a different route? I just thought that since the victory conditions are based on control of various land formations, if the supplies, et al, get through, that will bolster the enemies hold on that location. I think you will agree a land based air strategy can be very useful in determining the victor. You also have the option of improving your harbors to at least resupply/rearm your task forces. Once again, thanks for your succinct explanation of combat loses and convoys.

[JAKeller]

Several questions there.

1) I always try to bump multiple bases up to level 2 airfields. That allows for good airspace control. Not to mention that multiple dive/light bombers from just 3 fields is the equivalent of a carrier.
2) Always try to set up a level 3 port as close as possible once you have a good grasp on airspace. This provides a much closer replenishment location than having to all the way back to your home port
3) As to whether the AI does a full strategic withdrawal or not is somewhat speculative. As I stated, the AI is very risk averse now (I suppose the devs did that because we were abusing the AI's task forces so much). I've found that putting a minimum of 2 scout AC near the AI task force is useful. I mark TFs on the strategic map (use the p key) to determine the strategic speed of your target (a good rule of thumb though is to take the undamaged highest speed of the slowest ship in the TF and the TF's strategic speed is 75% of that. E.g. if there are any MS in the group, speed 18 * 0.75 = 13.5 -> 14 kns on the strategic map) This approach will allow you to space your scouts out from the battle site 30 minutes in likely directions (1 towards where the likely destination is and 1 towards that side's home port - do take into account islands; the AI does try to sail around them, despite what they seem to do in the tactical map) As stated previously, doing heavy damage to the biggest combatant in the AI's task force is usually good enough to get them to withdraw completely. If you sink a ship, the AI does not seem to take that into account as a loss to the TF, and it starts calculating all over again. This can lead to some weird situations when you've killed most/all of a transport convoy, and it will blindly continue towards its goal, even though the TF consists entirely of MS. If you use the 1/2 rule, I've found that provides better benefits in the long run. Of course, once you get serious air superiority, just beat the snot out of everything that comes near your bases. In the early game, sometimes you need to focus more on just getting AI TFs to withdraw instead of trying to destroy them.

Hope this helps.

[stoked_toker]

Xlnt analysis. Thanks for posting!

[JAKeller]

Just wanted to add when I said 30 minutes, I meant 30 minutes (0.5 hrs) of sail time for the TF. E.g. if the TF's strategic speed is 14kns, you'd post scout planes 7 nm out from the battle site.

Another trick you can use (especially in the rain when it's harder to 'spot' the AI TF on the map) is to jump to the tactical map every 15-30 minutes with scout planes when near where you expect an AI TF to be. The game tries to to make combat easier by spawning your AC near the AI TF. Note where the TF is on the tactical map, use the distance tool (\ key and mouse drag - but note you can't be paused for it to work). Note the distance in yards or meters and the angle from the center of the tactical map (not your AC), then exit. The AI TF on the strategic map is located the same distance and angle from the location of your AC on the strategic map (remember that 1 nm is 2025 yards or 1850m). Mark the TF's location on the strategic map using the marker tool (p key). I find using TF markers VERY useful.

Finally, once you've figured out where the TF is and its speed, you can use the marker tool to determine where that TF will be in the future assuming its course doesn't change. (it sometimes does, but once you determine likely objectives, you can steer for it by the AI TF) This method will allow you to concentrate forces (particularly airstrikes from all those Level 2 airfields you've likely set up by now) for a mass strike.

As I've said in other areas "Math - for the win!!"