Anyone think that naval battles are too decisive?

[Akboris]

What I mean is that there are often far too many casualties in naval battles, especially on one side? I think some of the largest naval battles in history often had less than a dozen or so sunk ships, whereas in this game every large naval battle results in 72 SUNK DESTROYERS 13 SUNK BATTLESHIPS 27 SUNK CRUISERS, even the most devastating naval battle in history had numbers far below that.

[AdmiralPiett]

It depends on how you're deploying your fleets.

Very few navies deployed an entire fleet of hundreds of ships in anything except a naval invasion. HOI4 gamers do it all the time and lump half their navy under one admiral in the field

Real life admirals disengage when the battle isn't going their way. HOI4 gamers turn on "always engage" and force their fleets to fight to the death

[Akboris]

Originally posted by AdmiralPiett:

It depends on how you're deploying your fleets.

Very few navies deployed an entire fleet of hundreds of ships in anything except a naval invasion. HOI4 gamers do it all the time and lump half their navy under one admiral in the field

Real life admirals disengage when the battle isn't going their way. HOI4 gamers turn on "always engage" and force their fleets to fight to the death

Why do players do this? Because the game promotes it. Massive doomstacks are effective. Some naval battles in history were massive though, but even then the casualties were not as high as what we see here.

[drewbstar]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantai_Kessen

[AdmiralPiett]

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Originally posted by AdmiralPiett:

It depends on how you're deploying your fleets.

Very few navies deployed an entire fleet of hundreds of ships in anything except a naval invasion. HOI4 gamers do it all the time and lump half their navy under one admiral in the field

Real life admirals disengage when the battle isn't going their way. HOI4 gamers turn on "always engage" and force their fleets to fight to the death

Why do players do this? Because the game promotes it. Massive doomstacks are effective. Some naval battles in history were massive though, but even then the casualties were not as high as what we see here.

So you're mad at the game for the way you're choosing to play it?

[CaptainSpacetime]

It does seem that even on regular engagement levels you fight 1 or 2 battles vs the main AI fleet and then they're done for. Maybe reduce the chance to target fleeing ships? Since presumably they're no longer the "closest" target.

Just another thing that a naval rework could help fix. Hopefully in the eventual Japan DLC.

[Akboris]

Originally posted by AdmiralPiett:

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Why do players do this? Because the game promotes it. Massive doomstacks are effective. Some naval battles in history were massive though, but even then the casualties were not as high as what we see here.

So you're mad at the game for the way you're choosing to play it?

You mean playing naval combat as it is presented to the player, lmao

Several layers of copium at play

[Akboris]

Your average hoi 4 naval battle is 3x more destructive than your average real life ww2 naval battle

[AdmiralPiett]

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Originally posted by AdmiralPiett:

So you're mad at the game for the way you're choosing to play it?

You mean playing naval combat as it is presented to the player, lmao

Several layers of copium at play

So don't doomstack if you don't want massively destructive naval battles.....it's not that hard

[Lieutenant Gregory Stevens]

I thought I'd read that fleets on retreat suffer a lot of maluses or otherwise tend to get killed off easier (lowered positioning?); if this really is the case, then it's another way the game discourages less than decisive battles, since what would be a smart tactical retreat could have disastrous results

[Dire Wombat]

FWIW historically full fleet on fleet battles *were* pretty devastating though.

In Midway Japan lost 4 (!) carriers. Leyte Gulf they lost 4 carriers, 3 battleships, 10 cruisers, 10+ destroyers. Even in the famously indecisive Battle of Jutland the limeys lost 3 battle cruisers, 3 armored cruisers, a bunch of other ships, and over 6,000 sailors. Plenty of other examples.

The main difference in HOI4 is the size of the fleets that the player throws into battle, because for them it's just a game instead of risking the pride of the nation that took a generation to build. I think probably there should be much bigger coordination penalties for huge doomstack fleets - after a core vanguard force the rest should just slowly dribble into battle, with a large chance of not making it there at all. Huge fleets should also eat up way more fuel, it takes a lot of maneuvering to keep an armada together over long distances.

[maremia]

Go only for naval battle if you are in big superiority , Otherwise, reduce the enemy fleet with aviation, until it is weak enough to attack it with your own fleet, ALWAYS SUPPORTED BY SUPERIOR NAVAL AND FIGHTER.

[erik_von_reitz]

Originally posted by AdmiralPiett:

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

You mean playing naval combat as it is presented to the player, lmao

Several layers of copium at play

So don't doomstack if you don't want massively destructive naval battles.....it's not that hard

The AI creates doomstacks, so if you don't create your own doomstack then you will lose every naval battle.

To fix this, Paradox has to look to why nations didn't (couldn't) create doomstack naval fleets and implement it in the game. This is would "force" both the player and AI from creating doomstacks and maybe distribute their fleets more realistically.

[Akboris]

Originally posted by erik_von_reitz:

Originally posted by AdmiralPiett:

So don't doomstack if you don't want massively destructive naval battles.....it's not that hard

The AI creates doomstacks, so if you don't create your own doomstack then you will lose every naval battle.

To fix this, Paradox has to look to why nations didn't (couldn't) create doomstack naval fleets and implement it in the game. This is would "force" both the player and AI from creating doomstacks and maybe distribute their fleets more realistically.

I dont even think doomstacks are the issue, battle of Jutland saw 250 total ships, only a dozen or so actually lost, I think the issue is that navies should be disengaging more often, more effectively

[johnknott]

Got to be honest, not sure I've ever set a task force above "engage at medium risk".

Jutland is a case in point. Like Jellicoe, I don't want to be the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.

[velvetcrabman]

It may be relevant, then again it might not, but I've never seen the AI create a doomstack unless I do it first.

Neither have I seen huge losses in single engagements when operating with properly structured and deployed forces, rather than that it's a case of the AI fleets and squadrons being whittled down, even if that's happening very quickly because of multiple engagements and already damaged ships being finished off. (Just for context, as USA I normally manage to reduce the IJN to the point of being ineffective and kill several hundred convoys in 2-3 weeks.)

Doomstacks do work, but they're inefficient, and really it's unsurprising that if in game you concentrate huge numbers of ships then you'll suffer huge numbers of casualties before an Admiral orders the withdrawal.