Coastal Defences

nemuritor98_ wrote:

CM's have been informed about this thread as we talked about it in the last meeting we had. They are going to think about it. At least they now know of this desire.

Hopefully they pay close attention to any modifications and potential unintended consequences. Here is what comes to mind while I consider the merits of home brewing.

First, I have avoided putting numerical values on any of this. It all needs to be play tested both for 'realism' and for play-ability. The goal is to make it possible, in game, to present the same kind of decisions faced by Rommel and Eisenhower or Lucas and Kesselring.

TL;DR
It should be possible to fortify significant portions of coast line but expense should preclude all landing options from being fortified. Convoy shipping should be less readily available. Amphibious landings should be "more costly" than simple convoy operations. Naval forces should have a more significant role in amphibious landings.


Here are some thoughts on how to bring a little more realism to the current game mechanic.

- Coastal Defense Fortifications. I remain a strong proponent of using the current Fortification building as the building for Coastal Defense. I don't see value in adding another building with resulting research tree, building queue and the rest of it. What I would propose is that any Fortification in a coastal province includes Coastal Defense. However, it is not unlimited. The level of the Fortification determines how many sea access points are defended with fortifications. That is, a level 1 Fortress in Lille, France would only add the fortification defense bonus to one of the two possible amphibious landing points. Which one? The first one attacked, of course. An invader would likely send at least a feinting force against a known defensive installation in order to pin down the troops before landing at another, less defended position nearby. To defend both possible amphibious landing points, the defender would need to build a level 2 Fortress. This also points to the difficulty in fortifying every province. Alkmaar, Netherlands for example has 4 possible landing points. It might be easier to let them land and die in the marsh instead.

- Convoys / Landing forces. Currently, the game allows convoys to magically appear in unlimited numbers and all convoys work just fine for amphibious landing. While this makes the game mechanic easy, it causes realism to suffer.

- Convoys. The number of convoys at sea should have some upper bound. This might reasonably be tied to the sum of the Naval Base levels controlled by the player. Perhaps one unit of convoy for each level of Naval Base. The total number of units at sea at any given time should not exceed the total level of Naval Bases at the same time.
- Landing Forces. Convoys used for amphibious landings are not immediately available for use again. This is a little harder to do as a game mechanic. One possibility is to track total number of convoys available separately from the suggested Naval Base level summation above, with the return of convoys to the availability pool being tracked by some timer / repair function. This seems overly complex to me. I propose instead that convoys that deliver troops to a destination that is not a Naval Base stay on the map until they return to the nearest friendly Naval Base. During this time, they are not available for use. This would model the very real concern that if an amphibious landing fails, it will take some time to acquire the craft needed for another one. It also encourages the use of Naval Bases as transportation hubs for convoys with resulting impacts on other issues like The Battle of the Atlantic. It now makes sense to focus submarines around the approaches of Naval Bases to ensure convoys are sunk.

- Amphibious landings. We have all watched defending troops politely allow the amphibious forces land, assemble on the beach, parade before their commanding officers, exchange post cards with their corresponding societies and have a hot cup of tea before engaging them in combat. This seems a little unrealistic. I suggest that landing troops are not initially stacked and are individually subject to the entire defense value of all defending units / fortifications at the moment of landing. That is, they attack as individual units for the first round of combat before they are stacked with any other (surviving) landing troops for future rounds of combat. This reflects the lack of ability for units to support each other as they cross a beach / disembark in a harbor. They do, however, gain the benefit of Naval Gun Fire Support from any assigned units.

- Naval Gun Fire Support (NGFS) is available from Destroyers and Cruisers as well as from Battleships. This is historically correct. A reasoned argument can be made that the 5" guns of destroyers in the surf line rescued Omaha beach from disaster. ( articles.latimes.com/1994-05-3…64225_1_d-day-invasion/12 ). DESRON 18 put their bows on sand bars in order to see their targets. Not all of them came home. Providing Destroyers and Cruisers with an attack value versus Coastal Defense Fortifications during Amphibious Landings allows them to be included in their historical roles for amphibious landings. Putting them at risk of damage during that same operation would also, of course, be appropriate. Assigning a Destroyer/Cruiser/Battleship unit to each landing unit would increase their landing firepower and share the damage received with the naval unit. Again, this allows a player to put Naval Forces right up on the sand bars with corresponding risk and reward. It also makes an opposed landing that is not supported by NGFS suicidal.


Hopefully, all of this hangs together into a coherent plan. I have intentionally stayed away from new units. I have tried to stay away from any additional metrics that need to be tracked. I hope I have managed to tie the proposed mechanics to historical fact. Ideally this can be put together and play tested in the beta group before subjecting us mere mortals to the added complexity of doing a proper amphibious landing.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

This is the best that ever came out of a Call of War Forum Thread...

Ikr

I think the anti ship idea is great, but a coastal defence building? This game is great for how simple it is, adding something that is confusing. landing forces? Convoys? That would ruin this game! Coastal defenses are realistic, but this kind of realism should not be a driving force.

What is needed is a railway gun and artillery buff. All Arty right now has a .3 ship attack and 5 health, and the weakest ship(convoy) has 5 health (17 hits to kill?), so the only way to really beat a ship is with a ship. If the unit in the convoy is an infantry(15 hp on land) one .3 hit will do almost 1 hp damage to that infantry once it lands, in other words, nothing.

Battleships should have power over arty, but not this much. The problem with increasing the anti ship damage of arty is that it will become unfair to convoys as the damage becomes reasonable. To navigate this problem and keep the game simple, I think boosting arty to above .5 but less than 1.5 damage is fair, and gives arty a good anti-convoy position. . This way arty can play a role in fighting naval landings, and can give some counter battery fire.

Rail guns are naval guns on a rail car, and so would do more damage. their expensiveness, slow speed and long build and research times will allow for this to be a fair weapon. Still no match for ships, this gun should do something like 4 or 5 damage, to completely decimate naval landings and force ships to engage the batteries.

I can see railway guns being used in places like Gibraltar with submarines or something

You may already use the existing fortifications for such purposes.


Existing ground units may already be used for amphibious assaults.


Already exist: ground units traveling by sea may already be combined with all existing naval units in a single stack for protection.

Are you disabled? that post makes no sense what so ever? I cannot tell whether you think I want those thing are are you justifying them?

I say the things as they are what F. Marion said, and I disagree with them, as well as this idea for a separate unit/building solely for coastal defence?

Generally, making a statement that you believe another poster is disabled is considered inappropriate behavior.

MontanaBB has provided many a thoughtful and concise comment to these forums. I would give the benefit of the doubt if you are unsure of what he has said.

In regards to your reply to my proposal above, I do agree that these proposals will complicate a simple game.

I can assure you that I am sensitive to games getting complex. MontanaBB, myself and a few others spent our early gaming years playing games that make this one simple. A game is not complex until it starts looking like this one:

War in the Pacific, First Edition SPI

Having the computer keep track of whether or not your amphibious landing craft have made it back to a safe harbor is not complex. Having the computer keep track of whether or not your fortifications effect a beach landing is not complex. Having the computer calculate and track the supply status of your units is not complex. Doing all of that by hand is complex.

If you are looking for simple play-ability these proposals might seem scary. Then again, if your goal is to play simple games, I recommend checkers or tic-tac-toe.

Pardon me, but I like Streamlined games that dont smell like Total war. Instead of "realisming" up Call of War, why don't you play some other game? With this new update, a coastal defence is going to be a fort with a arty in it, how it should be, not some confusing new building or unit (i dont even know which) which fills only a niche roll.

Actually, if you had read the proposal, it added no new buildings or units.

It allowed fortifications in a coastal province to be effective at the sea / land boundary.

That effectiveness was dependent on level of fortification.

This created the opportunity for a player to defend against an amphibious invasion, at the beach, instead of the current format of allowing the invading forces to land, arrange in parade formation, have tea, write letters home and then march off to the province center where the defenders were chilling in the fortification.

If this level of realism disturbs you, I suggest war gaming might be too much of a "trigger" for you. Perhaps "Chutes and Ladders" or "Candyland" would be less disturbing?

Which was my point above; that existing buildings, units and tactics could already be used to accomplish what was being requested. But you can't teach reading comprehension.

"He said I was ugly and I couldn't read good!" - Dave Chappelle

If this is added into the game, I would ask if it could be a game creation choice, because I think it may be too in depth for some. And I assume it would be best for smaller games with 10 players or less.