Cold War Comments Thread

[Kurt (OP)]

That's fair, but I was getting the sense from the narrative that the USSR constantly has a larger and more capable space fleet in terms of both hulls in use and hull sizes, and the coalition is scrambling to catch up.

When I total their OoB, the only major difference is the Coalition has twice the number of PDCs - I'm guessing they have outsized maintenance costs compared to ships?

It's 15% for ships, 5% for orbital bases & PDCs. . . oh, and PDCs get "free" armour 'cause it's basically rocks.

The difference might actually be accounted for in ground forces, since I didn't see any listed but they also cost maintenance.

I hadn't noticed this difference.  I am a bit ahead of where this all was happening, but after some checking it appears the difference in upkeep is all down to the Coalition PDC's.  Both sides have the same number of launchers, by treaty, but the Coalition ended up with twice the number of point defense installations as the Russians.  I'm not sure I intended this to happen, it just kind of crept into the designs. 

As for the relative sizes of the space fleets, they are fairly close in terms of hull sizes, but over time the USSR has consistently had the lead, leaving the Coalition feeling as if it is constantly playing catch-up.  This lead has not been large, but even a small lead can be decisive if used right.  And being behind, even by a little bit, can be very difficult to deal with, especially in a situation where the two powers are staring at each other at point blank range. 

Kurt

[Jovus]

That strikes me as very thematic. The Coalition spends more on PD and has twice as much PD because they're terrified of missile strikes, considering their history.

I like it.

[Paul M]

Yay!  Welcome back Kurt!  Starslayer and I turned growth way down, and halved construction rates and this produced a much more "The Stars at War" feel to the game.   Ours is still ongoing but it sorta stuck due to Stellaris coming out with a new DLC.  There is another battle ongoing in Helium between the Phyco-Seals and the Bugs...not sure if they are the black or red variety anymore.  The write up from the Shanirian's I should also finish...that was a battle where only the fact I had a crap load of pods saved my assault fleet...HT9 fleet attacking a HT11 fleet....yeah the bugs being higher tech than most races is a real issue.  LT armed pods do a number on gunboats...thankfully.

No one has found a warp point yet it seems.  Do you have Attack Vector Tactical by the way because the Ruskies sound like their version of them.   Gaaah the Reformation Coalition...gaaaaaah....I like the system just not the setting...we played as part of the pocket of the imperium that survived...

I have to admit that HoI's latest DLC has me sucked in too...so my Aurora time is getting a bit clobbered.

Oh the plot thickens!  At least they only got hit by CMs and not gunboats...ah yeah another of our house rules is that capital weapons/systems can only be mounted in BCs and up.

[Exsellsior]

Hi,
So this is After the Fall Mark 2 then? Looks familiar.
I occasionally re-read your old stuff. I like how all the actors actions are motivated by their in game knowledge that the game systems give them.
I await further developments with great interest.

[Paul M]

Yeah the reduction of the shipyard build speed by a factor of 2 in our game really changed the pace and made fleets smaller and a lot more of a playable scale.  Also it made battles more meaningful since you could not just pump out ships willy nilly.

Some other changes:  mine fields take 1 HS to build, each DSB is 0.1 HS, we don't use the missile fund but build the missiles at 0.01 HS per MSP...as we are now at AM and AAM this has resulted in magazine costs that stagger you...the RM had to sit for 3-4 turns as they dug themselves out of the hole their new missiles set them in....carriers construction costs are dwarfed by their magazine costs, we set growth to the per turn growth but only every 10 turns(or something like that), no colonization of asteroids, fL has 3 shots against a ship but is unlimited in dogfighting, we also use Steve's logistic rules which dramatically alter the ability to send fleets places, also to deploy minefields/armed DSB you need a tender ship in system

As much as it added to the micro management stuff I always thought the problem with starfire empires is that too much necessary infrastructure had 0 maintenance cost.  I understand Marvin's reasoning but making such things cost money (CFN terminals etc) meant that you put a cost on expansion so that you didn't get the snowball effect you otherwise experienced in standard 3rdR/IS economics.  I mean basically every economic investment in Starfire is good, some are better than others but that is the only consideration.

[Kurt (OP)]

Yeah the reduction of the shipyard build speed by a factor of 2 in our game really changed the pace and made fleets smaller and a lot more of a playable scale.  Also it made battles more meaningful since you could not just pump out ships willy nilly.

Some other changes:  mine fields take 1 HS to build, each DSB is 0.1 HS, we don't use the missile fund but build the missiles at 0.01 HS per MSP...as we are now at AM and AAM this has resulted in magazine costs that stagger you...the RM had to sit for 3-4 turns as they dug themselves out of the hole their new missiles set them in....carriers construction costs are dwarfed by their magazine costs, we set growth to the per turn growth but only every 10 turns(or something like that), no colonization of asteroids, fL has 3 shots against a ship but is unlimited in dogfighting, we also use Steve's logistic rules which dramatically alter the ability to send fleets places, also to deploy minefields/armed DSB you need a tender ship in system

As much as it added to the micro management stuff I always thought the problem with starfire empires is that too much necessary infrastructure had 0 maintenance cost.  I understand Marvin's reasoning but making such things cost money (CFN terminals etc) meant that you put a cost on expansion so that you didn't get the snowball effect you otherwise experienced in standard 3rdR/IS economics.  I mean basically every economic investment in Starfire is good, some are better than others but that is the only consideration.

Build rates have been reduced by around 50% in this campaign, which is causing some interesting effects.  Capital ships will take a loooonnggg time to build now.  With the combination of growth being slowed, I hope that it will stave off what Steve and I saw in our campaigns where it eventually devolved to taking a week or more to play out each turn, just because of how big the empires had become.  I tried to restart my Phoenix Campaign a few years ago, but didn't get far just because of how big the damned thing is. 

Kurt

[Paul M]

Well to illustrate the effect of our changes:
Turn 288
Shanirian Income:  125, 337 MCr ~750 inhabited worlds (in 81 systems)
Build Speed:  15 HS/Turn
Fleet: 48 BB, 62 BC, 81 CA, 161 CL, 202 DD plus 118 MWP,  156 LWP, 552 DefS with 95 ships in mothballs

I admit the Shanirian's don't invest heavily in IU on benign worlds (due to being "green") but they have loads of moon colonies.

Capital ships take, even now, 7+ turns to build, but for the DD, CL, and CA this is about as fast as it gets at 2, 3 and 4 turns each.
The München crew really did an analysis of what we needed to change to keep the empire sizes manageable. Starslayer and I are both happy with the outcome.  A lot of battles are not pushed as hard as they could be just because loosing capital ships hurts so it is better to break off and preserve them.   That the phyco-seals have survived this long is in part due to that.  I'm not sure how much longer they can keep it together though. 

And yeah both yours and Steves games were a reason we looked at how to keep the economy and fleet under control.

[Kurt (OP)]

Well to illustrate the effect of our changes:
Turn 228
Shanirian Income:  125, 337 MCr ~750 inhabited worlds (in 81 systems)
Build Speed:  15 HS/Turn
Fleet: 48 BB, 62 BC, 81 CA, 161 CL, 202 DD plus 118 MWP,  156 LWP, 552 DefS with 95 ships in mothballs

I admit the Shanirian's don't invest heavily in IU on benign worlds (due to being "green") but they have loads of moon colonies.

Capital ships take, even now, 7+ turns to build, but for the DD, CL, and CA this is about as fast as it gets at 2, 3 and 4 turns each.
The München crew really did an analysis of what we needed to change to keep the empire sizes manageable. Starslayer and I are both happy with the outcome.  A lot of battles are not pushed as hard as they could be just because loosing capital ships hurts so it is better to break off and preserve them.   That the phyco-seals have survived this long is in part due to that.  I'm not sure how much longer they can keep it together though. 

And yeah both yours and Steves games were a reason we looked at how to keep the economy and fleet under control.

Based on reading your notes, and on how things have been going in my game, I've decided to increase the cost of DSB-L and mines by 4x.  Things seemed to be getting a bit unbalanced.  Because the construction rates have been halved, it is taking a long time to build up fleet strength.  This is working as intended, but three of my races were able to build up enough DSB-L's in a relatively short amount of time that it became clear that no one was going to be able to make an meaningful advances if they attacked.  This should help. 

Kurt

[Paul M]

We didn't increase the cost...we basically reduced incomes as growth is a lot slower.  Basically after 288 turns our first settled worlds are only medium and without asteroid colonies things have not exploded.  We also have an agreement to not go overboard on the AW.  But we can't move them with the CFN and so we have used Steve's minelaying tech, the trouble is that it wasn't actually implemented in SFA so the ships are just built with holds.  Also we increased mines to 125 msp.   At 1 HS per pattern to build them though it is hard to build up huge numbers real fast.   They eat into your yard capacity.  The requirement to have a tender for the AW also adds to the difficulty of deployment, and imposes a maintenance cost to them.  But certainly don't allow shipment through the CFN.  Also a tender limits how fast they can be deployed as it has to make trips back and forth and such.  Even DSB-L at 0.1 HS each mean 10 are 1 HS yard capacity...though I'm assume you run out of money first.

Also the UTM changes have had some seriously un-intended consequences.  fighters are nerfed hard by Ai, S0, Dz and Zi.   Zi should be a lot larger than it is...3 HS maybe.  The new ECM also I think hits pods very hard...it is possible for a high tech ship to get a -6 (CT or smaller) or -5 (SD and smaller) to hit modifier on the pod launched missiles and this modifier increases every 2 tech levels based on the expansion of available MPs for ECM you get.   Bases also are really hurt by change and ECCM basically negates any ECM a base has.  I'm also not that fond of the proto-type gunboat, it should have 2 regular racks (in line) not the way they are set up.  That way it could carry full sized missiles and also ripple fire 6 fighter munitions.

[Starslayer_D]

Small correction, its turn 288.

Even the Thebans, who almalgenated three races, have not that much of a huge economy: 287278 MCs from 137 habited systems. !179 settled worlds (moons excluded). Homeworlds excluded, the biggest colony is now 647 pop. The Theban map dwarves the rigellian map when Steve ended his campaign, but the income is far smaller and ships/fleets are far more scattered. What the thebans though have is a heavy investment in bases as fixed defenses and several nodal fleets wich get deployed to points of interrest. Unfortunately I am running out of significant fleets compared to the brushfires. Especially as the bugs overran one of my defensive fleets.. hello gunboats wich I never saw before vs. my close in laser armed fleet... nom nom nom.
Overall this had kept battle sizes down to a manegable level (but for 800 GB vs 400 fighter battles...) but it beats the concentional munich campaign where at turn 80 we saw 120 SD being tossed through a WP. Unmanegable.

[Kurt (OP)]

Small correction, its turn 288.

Even the Thebans, who almalgenated three races, have not that much of a huge economy: 287278 MCs from 137 habited systems. !179 settled worlds (moons excluded). Homeworlds excluded, the biggest colony is now 647 pop. The Theban map dwarves the rigellian map when Steve ended his campaign, but the income is far smaller and ships/fleets are far more scattered. What the thebans though have is a heavy investment in bases as fixed defenses and several nodal fleets wich get deployed to points of interrest. Unfortunately I am running out of significant fleets compared to the brushfires. Especially as the bugs overran one of my defensive fleets.. hello gunboats wich I never saw before vs. my close in laser armed fleet... nom nom nom.
Overall this had kept battle sizes down to a manegable level (but for 800 GB vs 400 fighter battles...) but it beats the concentional munich campaign where at turn 80 we saw 120 SD being tossed through a WP. Unmanegable.

I just read your most recent post giving some stats for the Thebans on turn 288 of your campaign.  For comparison with the Bugs in the Phoenix Campaign:

Your Thebans: Turn 288, Income 287278 MC, 137 inhabited systems, total fleet 193 Capital Ships, 1611 cruisers, 133 smaller ships, 84 carriers
My Bugs: Turn 140, Income 2,270,000 MC, 219 inhabited systems, total fleet 609 capital ships, 770 cruisers, 707 smaller ships
My ASR: Turn 140, Income 1,128,000 MC, 302 inhabited systems, total fleet 268 capital ships, 534 cruisers, 451 smaller ships, 351 carriers

The Bugs and the ASR (Allied Sentient Races) were the two largest and most powerful races in the game.  After them came the Terran Empire, which was a bit smaller than the ASR, and then after that everyone else was 10-20% the size of the majors. 

As you can see, you guys have made it twice as far as I did, or, if I remember correctly, Steve did in the Rigellian campaign.  I tried to revive the Phoenix Campaign at some point, because I missed it so much, but it too way too long to process each turn and I was forced to give up.  And, I was either avoiding battles, or fudging them, due to the sheer size of the fleets involved. 

You guys are obviously on the right track.  So far I think the Cold War campaign is on the right track as well.  I'm up to turn 84 and all of the races are very manageable, and look to continue to be so for some time.  We'll see.

Kurt

[Starslayer_D]

Just for interrest, our current settings:

Research is halved. Build rates: 5 + TL HS/turn. Growth: High 7.5%, Medium 3.5%,  Low 2.3% everys 10 turns. No asteroid colonisation (a rather big factor in keeping economy small).

We initially started with normal research rates, but found that prototypes and refits weren't even finishedby the time the next TL rolled around, so we slowed it down correxpondingly. Wich allows a TL to persist for some time and be used.
Also, I fudged the WP generation, making the apearance of high number of WP nexi rather rare.

[Kurt (OP)]

Just for interrest, our current settings:

Research is halved. Build rates: 5 + TL HS/turn. Growth: High 7.5%, Medium 3.5%,  Low 2.3% everys 10 turns. No asteroid colonisation (a rather big factor in keeping economy small).

We initially started with normal research rates, but found that prototypes and refits weren't even finishedby the time the next TL rolled around, so we slowed it down correxpondingly. Wich allows a TL to persist for some time and be used.
Also, I fudged the WP generation, making the apearance of high number of WP nexi rather rare.

I've done more or less the same, including research rates.  Even with the reduced research rates it may be that the races can't field the latest hull before the tech goes up again.  We'll see. 

Kurt 

[Father Tim]

Last time I played, I cut research to 'one project at a time' to vastly slow down the TL-to-TL interval.  Eventually we allowed a second, crash-research-only project during war.

[Kurt (OP)]

Last time I played, I cut research to 'one project at a time' to vastly slow down the TL-to-TL interval.  Eventually we allowed a second, crash-research-only project during war.

I've slowed down the time it takes to research each tech system, meaning it takes much longer to develop the tech items at each level, also making it take longer before you can begin research on the new HT level.  It seems to be working, although there are some odd imbalances going on.  Nothing that threatens the game overall, just some strangeness I'm sure is related to the changes I made to slow growth down. 

Kurt