Fleet Ratio Rule?

[TheCollector]

Victoria 3 features a game rule that a fleet with too many specialised ships (like a heavy warship / Ship of the Line) suffers heavy organization penalty (up to -75%).

This may be a good rule for WW1/WW2 sea combat where the diversity of naval units (submarines, torpedo boats, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, aircraft carrier, ...) could lead to complex naval battles.

In 18th/19th century naval battles the ratios were different, e.g in 1805 at Trafalgar the ratio was :
France + Spain : 33 SoL, 5 frigates, 2 brigs
UK : 27 SoL, 4 frigates, 1 schooner, 1 cutter
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar

In V3 both fleets would have fought at 25% organization. To improve organization, both sides would have had to add lots of frigates ...

[CoachMac]

I assume that is why i see too many Man O war in my fleet despite being under the limit of commander.

What can we do ? last thing i want is decommission valid war ships.

[Alex]

Worse yet, the starting units of many countries feature such penalizing combinations and the AI is too stupid to correct it. Also, it's the same on land as well.

I think they should've simply ditched this game rule altogether.

[Mekknight_Astram]

Originally posted by CoachMac:

I assume that is why i see too many Man O war in my fleet despite being under the limit of commander.

What can we do ? last thing i want is decommission valid war ships.

might be like, half a year late, but MoW are like Artillery or Cav, you need more infantry than supports, MoW are your big artillery boats, and your Sub/CV is your swift cav, your light ships are like your default infantry, that might be why

[ZeroOne]

Originally posted by Mekknight_Astram:

Originally posted by CoachMac:

I assume that is why i see too many Man O war in my fleet despite being under the limit of commander.

What can we do ? last thing i want is decommission valid war ships.

might be like, half a year late, but MoW are like Artillery or Cav, you need more infantry than supports, MoW are your big artillery boats, and your Sub/CV is your swift cav, your light ships are like your default infantry, that might be why

That's how they do it in the game. Light ships are not like infantry in naval battles of the era. They barely participate, as you can tell from the number above.
The British Navy classified warships into categories based on the compliment of sailors and later the number of guns. Larger ships not only had more guns and men but larger guns and thicker hulls.
The largest and most capable ships were called First Rate Ships of the Line. The next largest were Second Rate SotL and so forth. Ships which were too small to be part of the battle line--because they would be absolutely obliterated by a larger ships--were not called Ships of the Line but instead Frigates, Sloops, Brigantines, Corvettes, etc..
In some cases, a smaller ship would have say 12-lb cannons that couldn't penetrate the hulls of large ships while the larger ship had 18-lb or 24-lb or 36-lb guns...usually a mixture of different calibers.
While their were designations down to fifth and sixth rate, these ships were not considered Ships of the Line because they were too small to be of use in a battle line. I don't want to spend much time explaining battle lines but simply put its a line of ships in single file heading the same direction following the ships in front which forms the starting battle formation typically during the era of sail--and beyond. If you've ever heard the term "line astern", that's what that means. This formation allows all the ships in the line to present their guns...their broadsides--literally broad sides--to the enemy.

So, you see, the ships of the line are more like the infantry, arranged in ranks with their guns pointed at the enemy. Smaller ships in the battle could be used for things like signaling, rescuing sailors from sinking ships, fighting enemy smaller ships, and a few other things that are all not participating in the main battle formations. Small ships are like support units.

Now, away from a battle of SotL, frigates and other small ships had important duties, like fighting pirates, escorting convoys, policing, and maintaining military presence in areas where a battle group of SotL weren't really necessary. I do think they outnumbered SotL in the British Navy throughout the 19th century like a couple thousand to 300 or something, which is probably why Paradox has done it like this...so it matches their ground battle style and also the overall composition of 19th century fleets. But the similarity ends when you actually have a naval battle. A naval battle is a large number of SotL and a small number of small ships.