Prestige points - part of what is great about this game while also part of what sucks about it

[kgsheltie]

I really like how it give or takes away prestige points based on your actions. However, some of these decisions make no sense.

For example, if I have 50k in reserve with most of my capital ships in RF status and someone declares war on me. When I activate my ships now I have a negative monthly balance( later in the game this can be a large negative balance). If I don't receive funding increases I can burn through my reserve pretty quickly and then I start taking prestige hits. In a war time situation that doesn't make sense especially when we have no control over getting more increases.

Lowering research will usually not cover the difference and scrapping ships just means you will lose because you can't defend your territory.

[Andrew Cree]

Yes, costs during RF are quite deceptive.

If memory serves:

Mothballed 25%

Reserve 50%

Active (Peace) 100%

Active (War) 150%

So having too many ships in reserve and mothball status during peacetime can result in you going massively over budget - especially if you have put carriers and airbases into reserve -not including the premium for vessels operating abroad.

Try not to leave it until the last minute to mobilise the fleet to reduce this issue.

Note that the projected costs for the entire fleet being on active service is for the standard peacetime service in home territory, allow a 60% increase for safety.

[khorne8]

Originally posted by kgsheltie:

If I don't receive funding increases I can burn through my reserve pretty quickly and then I start taking prestige hits. In a war time situation that doesn't make sense especially when we have no control over getting more increases.

I disagree that this doesn't make sense. Consider that the player is not the leader of the nation, just the leader of the navy; and consider what running your budget into the red represents. You're probably not paying contractors for work they did for the navy, and you may even be paying your sailors and officers late. That's going to make people mad, even if there is a war on.

I've certainly had this problem myself, which is why I like how RTW3 added a useful tool to help avoid it. The budgetary part of the UI now includes an estimate of what your maintenance budget will probably go up to if you fully mobilize all your ships. (I think it's in parenthesis.) During peacetime, it's a good idea to keep an eye on this to ensure that you can actually afford to mobilize everything you build. If the maintenance-after-mobilization figure balloons too high, it may be advisable to scrap some of your least useful ships.

[ulzgoroth]

Sounds like it makes perfect sense.

If you can't afford to activate all those ships, don't activate all those ships. And maybe scrap the ones you won't be activating in wartime, too.

[Munster]

I keep a few of the old ones in mothballs, even when at war, they are emergency replacements if I loose too many BB, CA or CL as a quick refit of an old ship is cheaper and faster than building a new ship

[Klikkit]

It does seem odd that you have more budget to build warships in peacetime than you do in wartime. There should probably be a bigger boost to the budget in wartime. It was more common for a winning nation to have to downsize after the war as opposed to now where going to war often means I have to halt new construction to pay for the ships at sea.

I can see a downside to this if players deliberately prolong wars to keep their budget high.

[Lucky]

The only "it doesn't make sense" thing with the budget is the short war problem. I mean war has started, new funds/loans are not authorized yet, war ends in 2-3 month and boom, you have massive cuts for no reason whatsoever.

This makes Italy the actual superpower you absolutely do not want to mess with. Because it can make you go bankrupt in couple of years simply by surrendering.