Elessar2
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Joined: 11/30/2016
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I have been running tests with my Naval Test scenario, and have discovered something truly bizarre.
As indicated in my scenario thread, I built this test scenario to try out fleet engagements, suspicious of some strange things that I noticed in my most recent game vs. Old Crow Balthazor running my War in the Pacific version .815.
My concerns were threefold. I wanted to test the effects of National Morale, experience, and ship supply on naval battles but most critically carrier engagements.
NM turned out to have an effect, but it was relatively small tho still significant. It often would mean -1/+1 penalties to damage inflicted/received, which is consistent with the results from our game (where it took 8 strikes to sink one fleet carrier). Experience likewise proved helpful, again often adding +1 to damage inflicted or -1 to that received. [The overall average in my tests was around +/-.75, tho I would need a larger sample to nail that down.]
It was supply tho which was the real difference maker, and the effects could not be more stark. Starkly weird. Damage to bombing wings was itself pretty excessive, except when it wasn't. [read on...]
Here's what you can do to test it yourself. Run the game in hotseat, set 5 of the Japanese carriers to non-intercept mode (make sure you choose the 4 w/ +1 experience), hit end turn. Run a full battery of escorted strikes (use Naval/Tactical not mix) against the Japanese task force, BUT leave the +1 Experience ones alone, bomb the others. You should be able to do 11 bombing runs.
My results typically would sink 2 IJN flattops, but at a huge cost to the US fleet. Typically the air wings which did the bombing runs would be at zero strength after two strikes, the first one often inflicting up to -8 points (a mixture of minor damage from the interceptors, usually 1-2 points, followed by massive damage during the actual bombing run of -4 to -6 points). The escorts fared better losing 2-3 points per each of their 2 escort missions.
The Combat Predictor would typically show this:
6 3
Which pretty closely matched the actual results (note they sometimes took an extra point of damage from the interceptors). So the large amounts of damage taken by the bombing wings was weird enough. Note the Carrier Attack ratings were 6, CD 3 (since I used +3 Naval Weapon tech for both sides), so you'd think all other things being equal that they'd inflict more damage than they would receive...
It's what happened when the Japanese got in their licks that things took a massive turn into the surreal. Recall the experienced CV's played no part in the previous turn's events, but they definitely ran the bombing runs during the counterstrikes...
They selected the US carriers which had done the bombing runs as their targets, mainly because their supply was 7 & 5 for the ship and air wing respectively. [The US escorts were typically at supply 9, but it didn't list 2 separate numbers like it did for the bombing units-oddly it showed "9 5" after one escort run, then just "9" after two escort missions: was the air wing at zero then?)
To my utter shock, the Combat Predictor showed the following typically:
0 6
Yes, you read that right; they were predicted to suffer NO losses whatsoever! [For the actual bombing runs, tho again the interceptors often did 1-2, and they still occ. took another 1-2 on the actual run]
The bombing units had a supply of 10, the targets 7 (that was for the ship itself; they didn't intercept anything of course because they were all still in N/T mode).
Long story short the US would typically sink 2 IJN carriers, but the Japanese, already down those 2 sunk units, managed to usually sink FOUR on their counterstrike!! Note I ran it again without the experience bonus, and the results were similar (with a bit more damage taken by the bombers). In the end the US survivors all had zeroes for the air wings of the bombing ships, between 4 & 8 for the escorts, while the IJN bombing units still had 8-11 for their air wings (4-8 for the ones which didn't bomb).
Now. I had, coming in, assumed that the navy which got the first set of strikes in would have a big advantage. Turns out I was wrong. I can grasp if this is working as designed, at least as far as giving the side which defends first a chance to still win the battle. But for a mere +3 advantage in supply to equate to NO losses on the actual bombing runs is completely off, and can't possibly be WAD.
It means my scenario must sit moribund (as I nonetheless tweak some other things) and cannot be played as long as this state of affairs holds. Note I am using vanilla's settings here, with 2 minor exceptions: I gave the IJN a -0.5 to their Air/Carrier defense ratings (to reflect poor IJN damage control), and Radar gives carriers a +0.5 Air/Carrier Defense bonus per tech level.
The only guess I can hazard is that the naval routines are using the land combat ones, where a 10-7 supply advantage could add up to an analogous huge edge (tho I guess I'd need to test that next).
I hope the devs will take a long hard look at the code here and come up with a viable solution. I can't believe prior playtesting has not apparently uncovered this, and/or in regular games between players.
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Printable Version
Carrier combat is SERIOUSLY compromised - 
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