They remain as pirates. Much like the French "Freedom Fighters" when France was captured in WWII

This has been kicked around a bit in the past, just wait till you see a stack of 20 naval units floating about as was discussed in this thread.


forum.callofwar.com/index.php?…ghting-after-war-is-lost/

No one likes this. My suggestion would be to reveal "left over" naval units when the country is fully conquered. The rationale would be that if the country is fully conquered, it would be a simple matter to force/trick the naval forces or the crew at the base to discover their naval forces. Ie: "Hello Hans? This is U 121." "Go ahead U 121. Whats your 20?"

Or just read whatever intelligence gathered.

Or just make them return to base after 24 hours, out of gas and food, with a morale penalty.

Imho.

Well what do you expect them to do, commit suicide?

Well here's a better idea, build some ships and kill them.

Well, to the extent I must, I do try to clean up the orphan naval units that remain after I conquer a country. Usually, in the early part of the game, that requires a diligent search of the littoral waters of the conquered country with your own naval and air units. When you are dealing with small numbers of orphan naval units, that's easy enough and the cost of the mopping-up is small enough.

But what do you do when you an encounter an AI stack of 70 orphan "elite" level naval units -- say, 2 BBs, 46 CCs and 22 DDs? (And, yes, that is a real example based on my own current experience.) The only realistic way to deal with that is dropping 100+ rockets or 4 to 5 nuclear missiles on the stack of surface ships. Even more bothersome is encountering large orphan stacks of high-level submarines units, which cannot be attacked from the air, upon which rockets and missiles have no effect, and any physical contact with your own units brings instant destruction . . . .

As I have said in the previous discussions on this topic, this is one of the most unrealistic elements of COW as it presently exists. No modern naval unit can exist at sea indefinitely without regular replenishment of food, fuel, munitions and other stores, and all ships -- warships included -- require refitting and major maintenance in a shipyard facility at periodic intervals. Without food, the ship's crew dies in a week to 10 days; without fuel, the ship cannot move; without munitions, the ship cannot fight; without refit and maintenance, the ship's systems begin to break down.

Moreover, there is simply no 20th Century historical precedent for orphan naval units continuing to fight for weeks and months after the surrender of their parent country. At the end of World War II, all of the surviving German and Japanese surface ships and submarines surrendered on the high seas, sailed for their home port or an enemy port to be interned, or scuttled to avoid being interned. None continued to fight, if for no other reason than they could not fight or even move when their fuel ran out.

To put it bluntly, the COW concept of orphan naval units that continue to move and fight -- and exist primarily as a trap for unknowing rookie players -- is about the goofiest d@mn thing our ardent young programmers in Hamburg have incorporated into the game thus far.

The proper way to handle orphan naval units would be to include some defined period after the conquest of the parent country during which the combat effectiveness of the orphan units is amortized or incrementally depleted. Personally, I think a reasonable period would be a week to 10 days, after which the orphan units would either disappear (scuttle) or be incapable of movement (no fuel). Whatever the specifics, however, this is a change that has been repeatedly requested by experienced COW players, and it is time for Bytro to reform this game facet.

TL:DR
Late game finishing off of a country, to me, includes military spies in their provinces to get full sight of their unit placements. Whether AI or player, I never trust late game kills.

There is a well-reasoned argument above for significantly modifying one element of the COW game.

Dismissing it with a "TL:DR," in your role as moderator, is not becoming. The point for experienced players is not finding the ridiculously large stack of orphan naval units; I will find it every time, and I don't need spies to do so. The point is how, for example, an AI orphan stack of 70 "elite" level naval units should be disposed of.

The only way I respond to that is you should have never let your enemy get so big as to build that many ships AI or not!

Exactly right.

Let's stop defending what is probably the single most unrealistic, most ridiculous element of the COW game as it presently exists. Someone mentioned "pirates" above as a possible justification for this outrageously goofy aspect of the game, as if "pirates" were well known for sailing modern warships in vast fleets and attacking the warships of major navies during World War II. Riiiiiiiight.

The only reason this aspect of the game exists in the first place is because some 20-something programmer didn't know what to do with orphan naval units and decided it would be "cool" if they just sailed about causing random mayhem. It's complete nonsense, and there is no valid reason for the status quo -- no reasonable justification based on a "balance" rationale, competitiveness or historical realism.

Get rid of it. Its humor factor has long since expired.

Naval units work just like any other unit. They must be killed. Nationals of any country do not simply give up when their homeland has been captured. Not in 1446 BC, not in June of 1940, and from 1947 to.. Today (Ask any Pakistani about loyalty to a country that on paper doesn't exist).

Point being, it is a feature of the game that units remain until destroyed. It is a feature that makes players think further in advance about their tactics. You shouldn't try to simply be a step or two ahead of your enemy, but a day or two ahead of him.

Uh, no.

When Germany and Japan surrendered in May and September 1945, all of their naval units surrendered within a matter of days, or scuttled their ships or submarines in lieu of surrendering their vessels to the Allies. That IS the actual history of both World War I and World War II, and I am happy to provide a long list of authoritative sources. The only naval units of conquered countries -- of which I am aware -- that continued to fight under their own flag in World War II were a handful of Polish destroyers that escaped to Britain in late 1939 and submitted to Royal Navy command and control for the duration of the war. The Polish ships effectively became part of the allied Royal Navy, and ceased to operate independently under Polish command for the simple reason that Poland ceased to exist from 1939 to 1945, and there was no Polish naval infrastructure to provide fuel, food, munitions and maintenance for the next six years.

As I described above, naval units have replenishment, maintenance and repair problems that land-based "freedom fighters" do not have. Modern naval units cease to function without an infrastructure to provide fuel, food, munitions and maintenance.

The word, there, speaks volumes. Think of the difference between a nation AGREEING to surrender, and a nation that has simply had all of it's land taken, by force. The difference is the same between agreeing to peace, and warring the enemy down to zero provinces.

While I see the argument for freedom fighters keeping at it. The norm for any kind of military hardware is that they stop using them for many reasons. This includes ships. The entire French navy was going to be used by the Germans so the British destroyed them.

Now for game purposes, I can see a random stack of infantry and lights tanks running around continuing the good fight as fine, for both historical and game play purposes, but I will never accept a large fleet of warships cruising the open waters looking to pick a fight. It is unrealistic, historically inaccurate and game play just doesn't fit.

I ran into a stack of 23 Destroyers of a defeated AI nation that only had 5 provinces to start the game, yet somehow this tiny nation was able to churn out a huge stack of destroyers and then rage on against the oppressors.
Possible? sure why not.
Realistic or historical? nope not even close.

having diminishing returns on naval units as Montana suggested is both reasonable and good game mechanics and in MHO would be an improvement to game play. If you so choose to keep them that is fine and I will destroy them but the former is the better option.

WO, do you know how the war in Germany ended in 1945? It ended because the Leader committed suicide and the Wehrmacht had virtually no capacity left to resist, and all of Germany's provinces/states/lander were in the process of being occupied, including those coastal areas which had naval support facilities. If the German successor leadership "agreed" to surrender, it was only because their country had already effectively been conquered.

With their country occupied, the ships and submarines of the Kriegsmarine had no access to naval support facilities that provided their food, fuel, munitions, maintenance and repairs. Game over. Any zealous submarine captain that actually still wanted to fight knew that it was only a matter of days or weeks at most until his boat ran out of fuel, and his crew ate the last of their food and drank the last of their potable water. It's difficult to be a "pirate" captain when you can't feed your crew or refuel your U-boat.

Please explain why you believe a modern warship could continue to fight without any naval support infrastructure to provide replenishment of fuel, munitions and food, as well as the periodic maintenance, repairs and refits, without which no ship can function indefinitely.

Bottom line: whether a country agreed to surrender, or it was completely conquered after the last of its territory was fully occupied by the enemy, is irrelevant to the ability of an orphan warship to operate. Without regular access to naval support facilities, a navy dies in a matter of days or weeks.

That's reality.

If your enemy wants to keep fighting he can do that even if he lost all his territory. We won't force that decision onto him. If he wants to surrender and make peace, it will also be his decision. The aspects of this game are not only about historical context, there will always be game design compromises.