Naval War

[Kensai]

What's not realistic is having engagements where the British lose absolutely 0 combat elements, and then lose 10NM for it. That happens when you throw the full British fleet in defensive against the full German fleet.

They get damaged, nonetheless. Losing an element means the ship is lost. But if you go to port with a heavily damaged fleet in passive, you should expect it goes for repairs which means off the seas for almost 2 years for the dreadnoughts. That's how the 10NM is explained.

Fleets cannot be in defensive and expect to win combat against even a foe 30% weaker. For whatever reason, the full fleet won't engage, and they'll lose 10NM for their efforts. So a single fleet in defensive in the blockade box is going to get your NM eviscerated. Any fleet in offensive is painfully vulnerable to just being singled out for staying in the box too long. Even 2 months is pushing it. The secondary fleet also cannot stand against the Germans. It's mathematically impossible.

Ace said there was a bug. In the meantime you can do sorties as I suggested. Use the Shift button to plot sorties and make sure you are by the end of the fortnight in a port. Obviously a sortie should be made in Offensive/Intercept mode if you want it to be effective.

Regarding the full fleet not engaging, have you read the logs? Do you understand how land and sea battles happen in AGE games? Are you familiar with the notion of "distance" and how it decreases over time as elements get nearer? Some shorter range sea elements, for example submarines, may not ever have the chance to fire their torpedoes unless in harsh weather conditions because the battle is over before they are in torpedo range.

As for stopping the Austrians and the Germans from reuniting, I'd be interested if someone could show me that it was possible. I really don't think it is. There's not much more you can do than put your fleet in O/O/Intercept, and that's never caught a B/G/Evade fleet for me. It's definitely impossible to keep Miklos (who I believe is the best admiral in the game, or at least tied for it) out of the German fleet, which is the only really important part of the Austrian fleet, and the rest is just gravy.

Of course a player can unite the two fleets. But that will leave the Mediterranean without cover. In that case the WE human player can do the same, bring the Mediterranean French and British Fleets in the North Sea as well. If one player does gamey things the other can respond. In a good competitive PBEM game there should be house rules against extremely gamey tactics anyway. What would have worried me is if the AI united fleets, but at the moment it seems it does not.

[ringhloth]

They get damaged, nonetheless. Losing an element means the ship is lost. But if you go to port with a heavily damaged fleet in passive, you should expect it goes for repairs which means off the seas for almost 2 years for the dreadnoughts. That's how the 10NM is explained.

Except they aren't off the seas for two years. They're back within a couple of months at the longest. Years if you really care that much about that one or two elements. Again, just try a large fleet battle with one fleet in defensive. The only real damage that's done is the cohesion and the NM. It's ridiculous, and it makes land battles pointless. Why lose thousands of men to grab a few inches of pointless ground and NM when you can just sortie out, inflict almost no damage, but get 10NM out of it? I wouldn't be surprised if it was entirely possible to win TEAW by only making naval sorties that destroy an average of 2 elements.

Regarding the full fleet not engaging, have you read the logs? Do you understand how land and sea battles happen in AGE games? Are you familiar with the notion of "distance" and how it decreases over time as elements get nearer? Some shorter range sea elements, for example submarines, may not ever have the chance to fire their torpedoes unless in harsh weather conditions because the battle is over before they are in torpedo range.

Have you read the logs of my battles? I understand the concept of distance, and I've watched multiple rounds go by with few of the defending ships engaging, regardless of type. In fact, there's an example on the very front page of this thread.

Of course a player can unite the two fleets. But that will leave the Mediterranean without cover. In that case the WE human player can do the same, bring the Mediterranean French and British Fleets in the North Sea as well. If one player does gamey things the other can respond. In a good competitive PBEM game there should be house rules against extremely gamey tactics anyway. What would have worried me is if the AI united fleets, but at the moment it seems it does not.

If you left the battleships behind to actually enforce the blockade, maybe. Except for the fact that by the time that the Brits can react to the German fleet moving towards the Mediterranean blockade box, they're already near Algeria. Plus, France's navy isn't anywhere near competitive with Germany's. I don't think they have much else besides screens. Besides, you still don't need the Austrian fleet. It just helps to have Miklos around.

[Kensai]

I did try that and had my fleet in port for year+ reparations. I guess the exact time depends on the hits taken by the ships. A completely lost element will mean recreating that ship from scratch, ie the longest possible waiting time.

It is not ridiculous, I gave a possible explanation to you why it might not have been ridiculous for morale reasons (imports arriving or not). Naval battles can change the NM a lot, but they cannot win the game alone anyway. No it is not possible to win EAW by naval sorties as this will never change NM enough to score a major victory (done only by the big objective regions). Moreover, NM normalizes over time. Morale can fluctuate a lot.

No, I have not read the logs of your naval battles, but the explanations you gave yourself. It is not necessary for every element to engage before the battle is over. Moreover, the battle screens are showing the entire potentially implicated units, even if they did not take part to the battle. This happens for both land and sea battles and can be confusing.

One good Admiral (Miklos) and good General (Hindenburg) can really help, but cannot win the game alone. I understand you complain about the possibility of sending Miklos to command the German fleet for a competitive unhistorical advantage. If you think this is enough to keep your entire fleet afloat against an experienced player, you need to practice more. Other than that, I cannot comment, the OOBs were made according to historical numbers and qualities. We cannot change the balance of power just to make the two sides more equal for whatever reason. This is a historical abstraction.

[ringhloth]

I did try that and had my fleet in port for year+ reparations. I guess the exact time depends on the hits taken by the ships. A completely lost element will mean recreating that ship from scratch, ie the longest possible waiting time.

It is not ridiculous, I gave a possible explanation to you why it might not have been ridiculous for morale reasons (imports arriving or not). Naval battles can change the NM a lot, but they cannot win the game alone anyway. No it is not possible to win EAW by naval sorties as this will never change NM enough to score a major victory (done only by the big objective regions). Moreover, NM normalizes over time. Morale can fluctuate a lot.

I'm certain you could do so. Even if time also factored in a good deal, 5 naval battles lost at 10NM each would undoubtedly mean the defeat of a country, unless their opponent literally swung the gates open for them and gave them an unobstructed shot at their capital. I don't see how any other result would be possible. Besides, how many NM is usually gained from land battles? If an entire line collapsed, maybe 5NM. That's if each and every battle went absolutely terribly for the defenders, which is unlikely. I've had battles with upwards of 400,000 casualties and absolutely no morale change. That's absurd when compared to navies taking barely any damage and losing 10NM from it. If the actual Verdun happened in this game, there wouldn't be any significant shift in NM or alignment . I trust you know that this wasn't the case in real life.

No, I have not read the logs of your naval battles, but the explanations you gave yourself. It is not necessary for every element to engage before the battle is over. Moreover, the battle screens are showing the entire potentially implicated units, even if they did not take part to the battle. This happens for both land and sea battles and can be confusing.

Then trust me when I saw that almost all of the ships in the defending fleet won't engage on their own. When you do almost the same battle with them both in offensive, all of the ships engage, and it's clearly not just the admiral skill levels being counted.

One good Admiral (Miklos) and good General (Hindenburg) can really help, but cannot win the game alone. I understand you complain about the possibility of sending Miklos to command the German fleet for a competitive unhistorical advantage. If you think this is enough to keep your entire fleet afloat against an experienced player, you need to practice more. Other than that, I cannot comment, the OOBs were made according to historical numbers and qualities. We cannot change the balance of power just to make the two sides more equal for whatever reason. This is a historical abstraction.

I could do it with Miklos, I could do it without. It's still quite absurd that the Austrians can travel to Bremen unmolested, and while you certainly can just make house rules preventing it, it speaks to a greater flaw in the engine that echoes throughout the game.

[Kensai]

Three different things we are speaking here and this is my last post to your complains which I think have already been answered.

1) 400000 casualties mean nothing if you are not the losing side. The NM loss should be attributed when there are elements lost, at least for the land battles. This was the mechanism in all previous AGE games. If both sides lose thousands of men in an ecatomb of a battle, then probably the rectified NM gain/loss for each side will be minimal. In sea battles the algorithm is different.
2) Ace talked about a bug. If this is not satisfying to you consider that a fleet in defensive is NOT actively wishing for battle. The ships are abstracted out of combat readiness. For example, if we wanted to abstract the Battle of Jutland it would have been a sortie in this game. For both sides. Moving towards Skagerrak in Offensive/Intercept mode. A defensive posture in the sea in this game simply is a patrol that tries to survive. Otherwise each battle would have been extremely deadly.
3) The AI did not catch you. So what. A player might not catch you either. Hell, even in the Second World War with radar and the likes there was a successful dash across the Channel. That Austrian-Hungarian fleet would have gone down if the WE player was making sorties both in the Mediterranean and the Channel. I suspect that most WE players so far do the blockade wrong, by investing too many good ships for it. This should not be the case. Most of the fleet should be in port ready to fight the CP if they lurk out of their bases or by doing limited sorties that don't consume too much cohesion. Scapa Flow is ONE DARN REGION away from the Atlantic Blockade Box.

For the rest of your complains I can set up a testing game to check SPECIFIC conditions you want me to check. Or perhaps sometime we can have a naval-only PBEM just the two of us to check on naval tactics.

[Highlandcharge]

Maybe getting the RC out that fixes the defensive fleet bug would clear up some of the misunderstandings...

Thanks

[ringhloth]

Three different things we are speaking here and this is my last post to your complains which I think have already been answered.

1) 400000 casualties mean nothing if you are not the losing side. The NM loss should be attributed when there are elements lost, at least for the land battles. This was the mechanism in all previous AGE games. If both sides lose thousands of men in an ecatomb of a battle, then probably the rectified NM gain/loss for each side will be minimal. In sea battles the algorithm is different.

But it shouldn't mean nothing. Unless you're suggesting that the French army was feeling pretty good about itself after Verdun.

2) Ace talked about a bug. If this is not satisfying to you consider that a fleet in defensive is NOT actively wishing for battle. The ships are abstracted out of combat readiness. For example, if we wanted to abstract the Battle of Jutland it would have been a sortie in this game. For both sides. Moving towards Skagerrak in Offensive/Intercept mode. A defensive posture in the sea in this game simply is a patrol that tries to survive. Otherwise each battle would have been extremely deadly.

Surely that wouldn't be modeled by each ship in the fleet effectively sitting still until the numerically inferior fleet engaged it. Because as far as I can tell, that's what's being modeled.

3) The AI did not catch you. So what. A player might not catch you either. Hell, even in the Second World War with radar and the likes there was a successful dash across the Channel. That fleet would have gone down if the WE player was making sorties both in the Mediterranean and the Channel.

For the rest of your complains I can set up a testing game to check SPECIFIC conditions you want me to check. Or perhaps sometime we can have a naval-only PBEM just the two of us to check on naval tactics.

So you think that the Austrians should be able to pass through Gibraltar unmolested? Because that's how it works right now.

[Kensai]

Let's see how the game responds after the bug fix, shall we?

[ringhloth]

Let's see how the game responds after the bug fix, shall we?

The biggest problem is NM right now. The concept that a country can sustain as many casualties in battles as it wants as long as it wins is almost as absurd as losing 10NM over a few damaged cruisers and destroyers.

[Highlandcharge]

Sounds good to me Kensai do you have any idea when we can expect it?

AFAIK the navies of the great powers where a source of great pride, especially GB and Germany, if there had been more and heavier battles than jutland the NM losses would have been massive...whereas in land battles generals on both sides didn't think twice about sending men in there tens of thousands and more into the proverbial meat grinder... I'm not arguing, just pointing it out :-)

[ringhloth]

Sounds good to me Kensai do you have any idea when we can expect it?

AFAIK the navies of the great powers where a source of great pride, especially GB and Germany, if there had been more and heavier battles than jutland the NM losses would have been massive...whereas in land battles generals on both sides didn't think twice about sending men in there tens of thousands and more into the proverbial meat grinder... I'm not arguing, just pointing it out :-)

That doesn't mean the home front was actually okay with the meat grinder. To even suggest that a population would be completely accepting of massive, 6 digit casualties just because the front advanced a few miles is nothing short of absurd.

[Highlandcharge]

I am not saying they would be happy with losses like that, l was pointing out why there is a higher NM loss for naval battles than for land battles, I'm sure like me you're looking forward to the defensive naval bug fix being released :-)

[Kensai]

Highlandcharge, I don't know. Actually, I would be highly disappointed if that was changed. The complete loss of the High Fleet would be disastrous for Germany. If we consider it the other way around, imagine if 6 out of 8 German Field Armies became surrounded and annihilated. What would the NM loss be? It's almost the darn whole branch of the armed forces engaging! Having even some ships damaged and to port for repairs is bad enough to justify a high NM loss. Imagine if the entire fleet went down if the battles were more aggressive. Would a 15-20NM loss be enough? To me totally, if not more.

Historically accurate? Think about it. Without the Grand Fleet the Germans can be supplied from overseas and take the naval blockade to the British. Meaning continue the war possibly indefinitely without the major home front issues they had. Without the High Fleet the Germans have no way to challenge the British blockade and can really lose the war by hunger. It is a major part of the what if possibilities.

The land meat grinder does not always matter because it is balanced by the losses of the enemy. If that 6 digit was French or Germans only, of course you would have seen it in the NM. In the first few turns that the WE AI is banging its head on the fortified position of Metz, you can notice almost 2-3 NM losses per turn.

[Highlandcharge]

I don't understand KensaI, you don't want them fix the bug?

[bob.]

I was, and still am, disappointed to find out that TEAW is using the same National Morale as any other AGEOD game. I know there is the added "rebels aligment" thing, but it is not really what I was hoping for.

Simply put, why would the Austrians fight worse in Galicia because the Germans lost some Dreadnoughts?
And please don't start with some long-winded explanations about home front or supply or whatever. I am asking why, if the Germans lose a naval battle in the baltic, two weeks later the Austrians will fight slightly worse for Przemysl.

So, since the NM system is so utterly basic and not even nation-specific, I think naval losses should have a far smaller impact. Not because they would not have changed morale at the home front significantly - I can believe that to some extent - but because NM is currently so wide-reaching and has such a significant effect on the fighting performance of troops that IMHO some ship losses should not cause.

[Kensai]

I want to have the bug fixed, but if the new battle results make any naval encounter a huge battle with half the fleets destroyed it would be an overkill. Also, I am not entirely sure I want to see the NM decreased a lot after a naval battle. What I really want to see is battles become more common but less violent, kind of some skirmishes in the sea. Perhaps it is time to update the "Assault" button in naval battles to do something different: be an extra all-out aggressive mode.

bob., this is a valid concern, but on the other hand: is it valid to say that the destiny of both German and Austria-Hungary was not tied to their common performance? How much more would Germany fight if Austria-Hungary had surrendered to Italy and Russia in 1915? NM was a real problem in PON, especially when alliances were fighting and a nation among the allies got the capital of a minor nation and went to almost 200 NM. But in this game NM fluctuates much less. If a CP player plays historically he should not send his fleet for serious sorties before 1916. Thus, before 1916 all the NM will be decided on land battles and initial war plan decisions.

[bob.]

bob., this is a valid concern, but on the other hand: is it valid to say that the destiny of both German and Austria-Hungary was not tied to their common performance? How much more would Germany fight if Austria-Hungary had surrendered to Italy and Russia in 1915? NM was a real problem in PON, especially when alliances were fighting and a nation among the allies got the capital of a minor nation and went to almost 200 NM. But in this game NM fluctuates much less. If a CP player plays historically he should not send his fleet for serious sorties before 1916. Thus, before 1916 all the NM will be decided on land battles and initial war plan decisions.

It fluctuates much less yes, but not in naval battles. That is why I think it should be changed.

I am not saying that the performance of Germany should not influence the performance of Austria-Hungary, certainly it should. I am just saying, these sudden morale swings - and thereby troop performance swings - due to a far-off naval battle somewhere should not be so big.

[Nico165]

If a CP player plays historically he should not send his fleet for serious sorties before 1916. Thus, before 1916 all the NM will be decided on land battles and initial war plan decisions.

I remember a rule in WW1G where you could not engage the hochseeflotte at will to simulate that an autorisation from the Kaiser was needed before a sortie.

Perhaps something similar might help here ? Keeping the hochseeflotte locked and you can liberate it with some EP. Does not need to be to drastic, the entente has to keep a fear of the german fleet.

[vaalen]

I want to have the bug fixed, but if the new battle results make any naval encounter a huge battle with half the fleets destroyed it would be an overkill. Also, I am not entirely sure I want to see the NM decreased a lot after a naval battle. What I really want to see is battles become more common but less violent, kind of some skirmishes in the sea. Perhaps it is time to update the "Assault" button in naval battles to do something different: be an extra all-out aggressive mode.

bob., this is a valid concern, but on the other hand: is it valid to say that the destiny of both German and Austria-Hungary was not tied to their common performance? How much more would Germany fight if Austria-Hungary had surrendered to Italy and Russia in 1915? NM was a real problem in PON, especially when alliances were fighting and a nation among the allies got the capital of a minor nation and went to almost 200 NM. But in this game NM fluctuates much less. If a CP player plays historically he should not send his fleet for serious sorties before 1916. Thus, before 1916 all the NM will be decided on land battles and initial war plan decisions.

kensai, i see your point, but I do think the national morale of Germany, for example, would be much more adversely affected by a disaster to the High Seas fleet, than would the morale of Austria. And it seemed clear that Austrian morale was quite a bit worse than German morale at the time of the Brusilov offensive, and that most of their trooops did not fight well. In fact, if not for German intervention on the Austrian part of the front, Austria Hungary might have been knocked out of the war. There were also times when British morale was far higher than French morale, such as after the debacle of the Nivelle offensive, when the French army actually mutinied and refused to take offensive action for quite a while. That morale drop was caused by the failure of the offensive, and heavy losses, when Nivelle had convinced the French that they would prevail. The Nivelle failure did not, however, seem to have much of an effect on the British army. Conversely, the submarine war was much more harmful to British morale than French or Italian, or Russian morale.

For these reasons, I would like to see individual morale levels for each nation. This morale could be affected by a disaster to an ally, or a success of an ally, but things that happened to the nation and its own troops would be more important.

[Kensai]

I remember a rule in WW1G where you could not engage the hochseeflotte at will to simulate that an autorisation from the Kaiser was needed before a sortie.

Perhaps something similar might help here ? Keeping the hochseeflotte locked and you can liberate it with some EP. Does not need to be to drastic, the entente has to keep a fear of the german fleet.

This is a brilliant idea, actually, and a good use of the Engagement Points mechanism. I agree it should be there and possibly costly (to CP) to free the entire High Fleet before 1916 or so. Or perhaps a less costlier (in EP) recurring decision to authorize the fleet for each sortie.

For these reasons, I would like to see individual morale levels for each nation. This morale could be affected by a disaster to an ally, or a success of an ally, but things that happened to the nation and its own troops would be more important.

It is too late for that, probably. The game is very past its initial design phase. But please think of the following: the blockade affected both Germany and Austria-Hungary. A resounding defeat of the High Fleet or the K.u.K. Fleet would have adversely influenced both nations which had their fortunes tied to the ability of the other to break the blockade for food imports.

[Kensai]

For these reasons, I would like to see individual morale levels for each nation. This morale could be affected by a disaster to an ally, or a success of an ally, but things that happened to the nation and its own troops would be more important.

It is too late for that, probably. The game is very past its initial design phase. But please think of the following: the blockade affected both Germany and Austria-Hungary. A resounding defeat of the High Fleet or the K.u.K. Fleet would have adversely influenced both nations which had their fortunes tied to the ability of the other to break the blockade for food imports.

[caranorn]

I think you are missing an important point. The loss of large portions of the fleet was not just an issue for the ongoing war, it was also very important for post war colonial policy. Had the German Hochseeflotte been wrecked even a sucessful land war would have led to a likely loss of German overseas territories, certainly no expansion. For Britain losing any dreadnaughts while not dealing similar damages to Germany would have been a serious economic issue (as it was they were unable to recover even without disastrous losses and winning the war on shore)...

It would make sense if naval NM losses (of course better if it could be done by country and not by faction, but expect that would involve a major overhaul of the engine) were attributed almost solely on the loss (not damage) of dreadnaughts and battlecruisers. Losing lighter or obsolete ships should only cost VP (the loss of pre-dreadnaughts in the Dardanelles was not a big issue for British and French morale (yes it cost Churchill a lot, but that'd be covered by VP loss)...

Blockade in and of itself could also lead to NM loss (be that British blockade of Germany or a German blockade of Britain)...

Note someone mentionned the WWII cross channel dash. That voyage from the Bay of Biscay under air cover, with a friendly controlled french coast is not comparable to the an attempt by WWI Austrian ships to pass 1) through the Istrian Sea undetected, 2) through the Straits of Gibraltar unharmed and 3) through the Channel patrolled by both French and British ships. Not to mention that I doubt the Austrian ships would have had large enough coal bunkers to try such a voyage (possibly the Austrian and Turk fleets should be limited to the Medditeranean and Black Seas as long as Gibraltar is in Entente hands). I will really have to look up the range of the dominant ship classes one of these days, I have serious doubts that rapid long distance movements without friendly or neutral (only neutral bases between Trieste/Pola and Wilhelmshaven would be Spain and the Netherlands) refueling bases would be possible before the age of oil burning ships...

[Kensai]

For the moment morale in this game is divided between "field morale" (NM) and "societal will to fight" (alignment-vs-rebels). Some don't like this, but it was a design decision we have to live with. It's not that bad, if you lose enough alignment the war is lost as if you had lost enough NM.

Regarding the WW2 dash, I said that, why not? Actually, it would have been easier for the A-H if they wanted. No radar and considerably less recon possibilities due to much more limited aerial reconnaissance. The question is not if the Austrians could pull it through, but if it is "a cheat" considering the game has 15-days turns and the moment the WE player realizes his opponent is doing something so drastic it may be too late to intercept it. But is it? It needs at least 2 turns to go from Pola to Wilhelmshaven. By the end of the first turn an astout WE player could intercept that fleet somewhere in the Atlantic.

And then there is the question, is it worth it? If the CP player does something like that then it means the Mediterranean Blockade will be piece of cake. On the other hand, even with the addition of the Austrian-Hungarian fleet will, the combined Atlantic British-French ships are still more.

[Johnny Canuck]

Regarding the WW2 dash, I said that, why not?

One good reason is that A-H destroyers did not even remotely have the range to sail from Pola to Wilhelmshaven without coaling several times, plus if the dreadnoughts & pre-dreadnoughts had to burn coal manoeuvring & accelerating during battle they would have run out of coal as well.

The question is not if the Austrians could pull it through, but if it is "a cheat" considering the game has 15-days turns and the moment the WE player realizes his opponent is doing something so drastic it may be too late to intercept it.

It would be helpful for situations such as this as well as German raids against the North Sea blockade box if the interception setting would work not only for adjacent coastal sea zones but beyond (% chance decreasing further from port, such that the Grand Fleet intercepting a German raid into the North Sea blockade box is possible but not definite).

[caranorn]

Note: I rapidly looked up some range data for WWI and found what I thought confirmed. Coal burning dreadnaughts had significantly less range than oil burning (only two classes of those in WWI, the Queens and the R-class ships). Another factor I had prevous not considered is that coal burning ships create a lot of smoke which is rather visible. That would be another factor making a dash through the unfriendly channel quite unlikely. It'd also be an argument for making detection of most WWI era ships easier, particularly fleets...

http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/15/media-15392/large.jpg

[Kensai]

Guys, coal could have been replenished en route by escorting coal barges/cranes or whatever if they were desperate enough not to stop. They could have taken off guns and unnecessary combat equipment to fill the smallest ships with coal if the goal was to travel. The abstraction's most serious issue is the 15-day turn which disallows for rapid reactions in such cases. The game cannot simulate everything. Not even HOI3 does that for WW2 (for example submarines moving into the Mediterranean through Gibraltar were forever locked in there due to undersea currents and it was almost impossible to go back to the Atlantic in front of the Rock in the surface).

In 1905 a much older fleet went from the Baltic all the way to Port Arthur, only to be defeated by the Japanese in Tsushima. Watch the first leg of this journey. It's a decade before WW1, in an era we had huge improvements in naval tech, and in just a fortnight it's almost the distance the Austrian-Hungarian fleet has to do to reach Wilhelmshaven. The next leg in Western Africa (2 turns in game) is even bigger. You can argue all you want it was "only battleships", but I think it can be done.

[Jim-NC]

Part of the problem is the sometimes lack of visibility for what the other side is doing. For example, in PBEM, unless the host sends out replays, you can't "see" the enemy moving during the turn. This limits your intelligence to what you can see at the end of the previous turn. So if the AH fleet was able to start and end it's turn in the WE fog of war, and not be engaged by a random WE fleet, then they could go anywhere in the world, and the WE player couldn't react.

This is not a problem in single player (where you get to see a lot of the AI moves).

[Kensai]

Indeed. But I think any PBEM game worth its name should have as a rule to send out the replays, if the option exists. Otherwise the host plays with a potential advantage.

[DrPostman]

(for example submarines moving into the Mediterranean through Gibraltar were forever locked in there due to undersea currents and it was almost impossible to go back to the Atlantic in front of the Rock in the surface).

Reminded me of that scene in Das Boot when they try to transit the straights on the
surface. Gawd how I love that movie.

[video=youtube;Jfc_FgIpyLw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfc_FgIpyLw[/video]

[Merlin]

I think one element which might restrict consolidation of the entire German fleet and give a German player pause in committing the whole thing to the Atlantic blockade box would be allowing WE submarines through the Skagerrak. Currently no WE naval forces can enter unless some unspecified combination of nations joins the WE, and the British in particular sent subs into the Baltic during the real war. I haven't formulated any specifics, but such a change would keep a number of the lighter German naval forces otherwise occupied in the Baltic and out of the Atlantic.