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Dev Corner | Hydrodynamics

Briefing: Hydrodynamics
Written by: @Zwirbaum


Hello everyone!

Another week is upon us which means it is the time for another dev corner. Last week Thomas talked about what we are cooking with the Factions, while I will be talking about naval and naval-related changes. Even the most beautiful placeholder art will be gone eventually like tears in the rain. So strap in, and prepare for the deluge of the information that will be coming your way. Also, keep in mind that everything discussed here is in a relatively early stage, and as such is subject to change.

It is no secret that one of the most common sentiments across the Hearts of Iron IV player base is that the Navy seems to be rather hard to understand. Some elements are almost instantaneous in the effect (Supremacy), others take a long time (building the Navy) and some elements remain relatively hidden until the actual shooting starts (Supremacy Value of the Ships, Screening in Taskforces etc.). On top of that we are also having a fairly complex system of Naval Missions - where they work best when using them together, synergistically. However missions could be explained a bit better, and sometimes what is best to achieve your goal could be somewhat counterintuitive. (Giant Strike Force of Doom, sitting idle in the port somewhat projecting supremacy across the entire oceans without ever sailing out as one example). So how are we planning to address it?

Core Concept
Similarly to how last week we talked about high-level concepts for the Factions, I will try to do the same for the Naval Systems, but before that I will also list some of our goals that were the basis for what we are working on:

  • Updating and Reshaping Naval Gameplay, making it more strategic, giving you the opportunity for the counter-play if needed; a bit more predictable, and less ‘flip-floppy’
  • Updating Naval Missions so that they become more intuitive, with a much clearer purpose and use case
  • Encourage a more active use of fleets
  • Update and Communicate better to the Player some of the intricacies of the Naval Systems
  • Increasing the Importance of the Islands Control (in the Pacific) and Naval Logistics
  • Updating Carriers and address the interactions between land-based aircraft and naval taskforces

Update to the Naval Gameplay

Naval Dominance
First of all, and the most important of the changes is that we are introducing the concept of Naval Dominance. Naval Dominance is a sort of umbrella term for a couple of things. Similar to how ships had Supremacy Value, now they have Naval Dominance Value, which will be displayed on the Ship Card.

dc_hydrodynamics_001_marked.png

Mutsu has 509 Naval Dominance Value. We are also changing the old calculation, that was based mostly on Production Cost and Manpower, to have more things affecting the calculation, like Speed and Range, so for those who want to build Fast Battleships, increased dominance value may be the reward…

Next, we will want to talk about Naval Dominance - which is our way of indicating naval control of sea zones. Each Sea Zone, depending on the terrain type, has a certain threshold of dominance points you need to have before you can claim you ‘control’ it. And if you are at war, then similarly to the older system, you are also taking into account enemies' Dominance Value and the ratios between you and them. Also the ratio needed for ‘control’ now has been adjusted to require 66% instead of 50%+1.

Having control, or as we call it now, establishing Naval Dominance in a Sea Zone, provides you with certain advantages and bonuses. For instance, as you can see in the screenshot below - potentially reducing the amount of convoys needed for Trade and Supplies by up to 25% if you have secured the entire shipping route.
There are other benefits that I will not fully reveal yet, but amongst other things, there will be something to help you secure islands and potential naval invasion targets.

dc_hydrodynamics_002.png

In this example we can see that in order to claim ‘control’ over the Deep Oceans sea zone, you would need to accumulate at least 1000 points worth of Dominance, assuming nobody would contest you.

Dominance Gain
dc_hydrodynamics_003.png

This tooltip shows the information about the current amount of dominance accumulated in this sea zone, how long it will take to establish its full value, things that impact it, like airbases located on the islands in the seazone etc.

Dominance as opposed to the previous supremacy system now takes some time to establish, but it also doesn’t simply instantly disappear when ships engage in combat, or go to repair after a battle.

Naval Mission Updates
We will also be making the following changes to Naval Missions. We will divide current missions into 2 groups; Core Missions and Auxiliary Missions.

Core Missions - (PATROL, CONVOY RAIDING, CONVOY ESCORT, STRIKE FORCE)

Those missions are your primary way to interact with naval dominance. Each mission type will interact a bit differently. As it is right now, Patrol will be serving for Building Up Dominance, Convoy Raiding reducing Enemy Dominance, Convoy Escorts will provide a ‘protected’ value, which means enemy raiding won’t be able to reduce your dominance below that value, and Strike Force serving as a ‘Synergy Tool’ - and amplifying other missions. Hopefully this will provide a clear and relatively intuitive system on how to use the Naval Missions.

Auxiliary Missions - (NAVAL EXERCISE, MINELAYING, MINESWEEPING, NAVAL INVASION SUPPORT)

Those missions do not interact directly with naval dominance, however, they do benefit from it, like for example, being able to minelay or minesweep faster and more efficiently when operating within a region where you have established control and have naval dominance.

Naval Home Bases, Range & Supply
dc_hydrodynamics_004.png

This Dutch Fleet has set the port in Batavia to be their Home Base.

We are reintroducing the Home Base system for the Fleets. Each Fleet needs to have a Home Base. Any Naval Base that you have access to (Your own, Subject or Faction Members, or if you have secured Docking Rights) can be selected as a Home Base. So the question is; what does the Home Base do?

Naval Range
One of the changes that we are doing is that the ship's range is now projected from the Home Base instead of all Naval Bases.

dc_hydrodynamics_005.png

dc_hydrodynamics_006.png

As you can see depending on where Home Base is located, the range, and access to do the Naval Missions is quite different. A fleet with Königsberg set as Home Base does not have the range to do the missions in Norwegian Sea or Western Approaches Sea Zone.

Naval Supply
Previously, naval units would always draw the supplies from the Naval Bases closest to where the taskforces were operating, now - they will be drawing the supply from their selected Home Base.

dc_hydrodynamics_007.png

This fleet has a Home Base set in Honolulu - and is operating in the Micronesian Gap. Despite the port in Johnston Atoll being closer it draws the supply from Hawaii Naval Base Supply.

State Building Limit - Islands
In Götterdämmerung we introduced terrain-based limits for province-based buildings like Forts and Coastal Forts, so that you couldn’t build the Maginot Line everywhere. In a similar spirit, we will be introducing state-based building limits for the buildings. In this case we are now focusing on putting limits on the various Island categories, so that not every single tiniest of islands can have an airbase capable of storing and launching for missions 2000 planes every day. Right now those caps are based on the Island state categories (Tiny Island, Small Island, Large Island), and upon one concept we will talk about in the future.

dc_hydrodynamics_008.png

Marcus Island can now have at most a level two airbase and level three naval base. Those limits as all the numbers, stats and values are of course subject to change. Also there is totally nothing hidden under that Hearts of Iron IV logo.

Short Comment
Initially when I started writing this section, I was going to write how I envision things mentioned so far will change the naval gameplay, and how X will impact Y, however I think I am more interested in hearing what you, my dear readers, are thinking and your opinion on what you have read today.

Naval Invasions
We are doing some touch-ups to the naval invasions as well. In the current live version of the game, there is a global naval invasion capacity set by your technologies, doctrines and other modifiers, and then depending on how many divisions you assigned to the invasion, it would take a certain amount of time to plan that naval invasion. This system unfortunately had one issue, that in order to be ‘optimal’, it encouraged to spam 1-division naval invasions, as that technically allowed you to have a massive naval invasion planned just within a few days, at the small cost of carpal tunnel syndrome.

In the new system, there will be, depending on your technologies, doctrines etc. a certain amount of naval invasions you can plan at the same time, each being able to have a certain amount of divisions, and no matter what, always taking a specific amount of time to plan.

Also, for a country that hasn’t researched even the basic Transport technology, there will still be a possibility to launch a very limited naval invasion under the new system.

Appeal to my Lizard Brain
And last but not least, I’m going to tell you about one more thing - and that is that we are adding visual representation of control over the seas, visible on default map mode, which during a conflict should represent a gradual shift of control over the zones, giving the feeling of ‘naval frontlines’. Also this can serve as a kind of warning, that when your coastline sea zones start displaying your potential enemy colours.

dc_hydrodynamics_009.png

This is the current prototype of showing on the default map mode who has naval dominance. In this case Japan has the most dominance, and nobody is effectively contesting it, thus Japanese colours are displayed on the map.


Wrapping Up
So, to wrap things up, this is just a number of things we are doing for the Naval. I have not touched upon anything Carrier related, new equipment or new tools yet, or any UX/UI updates. I will return in due time to provide you with more information on all the things that are not-dry, in the meantime - here is a teaser of a thing that we may talk about in the future, with this beautiful placeholder art done by myself.

dc_hydrodynamics_010.png

Who will guess what this is?

This is my first dev corner, so I can only hope my writing is not too stiff. In time I hope it will get better.

Anyways, thanks for reading and until next time, farewell!

/Zwirbaum





Also, we have a survey for you to fill out when/if you have time regarding Naval Gameplay. Just keep in mind that this forum thread is for your feedback about the Developer Corner. If you have feedback about this specific survey we welcome your thoughts in a separate forum post, or in the HOI Discord!

EDIT 25/06/25 - Thank you to all participants for the Player Survey, this survey is now closed!
 
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Will Pearl Harbour be possible to be replicated by the change?
I think yes if USA puts its home base in Hawaii.
Also hopefully we can select different homebases for different theaters.
Why would US calculate Supply from Hawaii if they are fighting Germany in Atlalantic? Shouldnt it be New York?

You select Home Base per 'Fleet' (which is the collection of taskforces lead by Admiral). So if you have your Pacific Fleet, then set that fleet Home Base in the Pearl Harbor, while for the Atlantic Fleet set their Home Base in New York. :)
 
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Hey I really enjoyed the dev corner. Definitely think the missions need work. Esp having strike force automatically attack navally invading forces (my navy helps defend my land). Air has the ability to do multiple missions at reduced effectiveness - why not navy?

One bug that really screws things up for navy is the task force bug. I have a video repro in this thread. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tiple-times-per-second.1593503/#post-29060031

In a recent patch you introduced a way to save plane, tank, and ship designs in an ironman compatible way. This was one of the most impactful changes you have made to HoI in years!

What I would really like is if you used that tech to allow a player to save their starting navy composition. One click and every ship organizes into the desired task force and fleet composition and every fleet is set to the desired home port. As with the saved designs, this would be per country.

I can recall a few times setting up every fleet in great detail and it can take an hour or two to get everything exactly as we want it. For the sorts of folks who play HoI this can be really fun! Once.

I believe a big part of why deathstacking (and roaching) is such a problem and feels unfun is not because it’s the most effective way to do navy (though it is generally very effective) but that it’s generally pretty good without having to think much. So it feels dumb even if you win. Allowing my good fleet comp to win or lose actually feels satisfying. And if I lose, I can adjust my fleet comps next game to see if they’re better with just a few clicks rather than following a detailed checklist.

In short, something like this gives the players more ownership.
 
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Will the navy tech tree be compressed a bit? if you're playing as a nation which doesn;t have 5 tech slots, it can take until the 40s for you to research the Hull you want AND the modules for the hull all while also researching other techs too
 
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Good day,

These proposed changes to the Naval systems in HOI4 are indeed far overdue, certainly more important for a WW2 game than adding DLC's for South America or the Middle East (though each of those have their merits).

I have played HOI4 and all the previous versions since each came out, with over 13K hours played in HOI4. As both someone who has read WW2 histories since I was a pre-teen and then served in the world's largest Navy for 20 years, I think I can speak intelligently about why the naval aspects of the war during this period are just as important as the land or air. Despite the neglection of the navies (and distorted strategies based on flawed game mechanics, CL's?!) I've naturally played nations with strong navies, enjoyed building them up and made good use of them. So here are a few of my wishes/comments after reading 7+ pages of others.

I look forward to the changes in naval missions, esp. dominance and invasions. It is frankly ridiculous that even a 10 division base limit exists currently, that is bigger than D-Day or Okinawa after 4 or 5 years of building up amphibious techniques and gathering of the required shipping to undertake such a huge endeavor by the world's largest navies. I understand to make the 'game' more realistic is a kill-joy for the conquer the world by 1941 fans so I don't expect anything close to historical limits but any improvements are necessary.

During the Central Pacific campaign the USN was able to assemble massive fleets in atolls where previously a huge port would have been required - this was because of the Navy's logistical train, the Service Fleet consisting of tenders, oilers, supply and repair ships and so forth that were built up over time. I would enjoy seeing that element added as I actually served on two WW2 era vessels that were part of that fleet and would add an element of realism to why the USN was able to have such 'long legs'.

I would hope continued improvements to the order of battle (OOB) for all combatants and more realism as to build times, etc. are added, with game balance still a consideration. Submarine sank MANY large combatants, carriers were the new queens of the seas and those changes should be reflected in any changes to naval combat. And dive bombers were deadly esp. in 1942 so they need to be effective weapon systems and the fighters also to protect ships from land-based air or carrier strikes.

I look forward to the new DLC and will post a separate 'wish list' later on what I hope to see for Imperial Japan and that theater of war.
 
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I'm actually very concerned. Navy does not need to be more tiresome, it needs to be more lean, akin to what you did by introducing frontlines to the franchise.

It's perfectly fine to forget about navies the way you forget about frontlines and embarked airgroups assigned to armies.

I do not want to micromanage naval supremacy score and main bases, hopping from island to island in the pacific and such. That always was the boring part in HOI.

The current system is okay (if it ain't broke don't fix it), what we need is just a way to make it more transparent for new players, and have more freedom while preparing for the war (Capital ships research is almost useless at the moment). I think that's the core of the problem.
 
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I did learn to play and love navy play after watching Mordred Wiking videos!
Many thanks! ;)

Home Base System seems to be the culmination point of this update! You have to divide your fleet to smaller flotillas that operate from different Home Bases if you want to cover large sea areas! Good! Natural way of redusing death stacks! I like a lot! It is very important to see where you have sea presense and what range your fleet has from its Home Base. Aka visual info is essential in this change. Maybe a range circle when you select a flotilla and ofcourse that sea dominance map to see the big picture
This makes the game more realistic! It is also important that you cover the supply route to your Home Bases, or your fleet does not get supply and operate.
This makes it very important to get those islands to make it possible to move your fleet closer to area where it is needed.

We need a change where a plane can cut the supply line! I want to mention again an idea that we did discuss in a another threath. We need small wild area air fields that are cheap to produce, but has very limited amounth planes… maybe 10 to 50 planes depending on the field level. Also in those fields there were more damage to airoplane landing gear, so we need some kind of damage system. So a combination between ship damage and air carrier airoplane system. Could make good in Ocean and maybe in Finland and Soviet front where there were less real airfields and more temporary fast made wild area fields to operate airoplanes. This way Japan can make 10 to 20 plane wild area airfields to islands and put there few figters and few bombers to sink supply ships! And USA have to clear those islands to advance to Japan home islands like it was in real ww2.

Very promising!
 
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Pls add port strike mission to CAS. We have Armor Piercing Bombs, but cant use it in port strike. Ju87, Aichi D3A1 bombing warships in harbours. Now we only using torpedoes in port strike. Pls fix this
 
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Is there a direct limit to the number of ships in a fleet based on the level of its assigned home base port? For example, does a large fleet require a minimum port level to operate from that location, or are restrictions primarily tied to other factors like supply lines, repair capacity, or ship type caps? If such a mechanic exists, could you clarify how port upgrades interact with fleet size limitations?
 
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I did learn to play and love navy play after watching Mordred Wiking videos!
Many thanks! ;)

Home Base System seems to be the culmination point of this update! You have to divide your fleet to smaller flotillas that operate from different Home Bases if you want to cover large sea areas! Good! Natural way of redusing death stacks! I like a lot! It is very important to see where you have sea presense and what range your fleet has from its Home Base. Aka visual info is essential in this change.
This makes the game more realistic! It is also important that you cover the supply route to your Home Bases, or your fleet does not get supply and operate.
This makes it very important to get those islands to make it possible to movenyour fleet closer to area where it is needed.

We need a change where a plane can cut the supply line! I want to,say in this again an idea that we did discuss in a another threath. We need small wild area aif fields that are cheap to produce, but has very limited amounth planes… maybe 10 to 50 planes depending on the field level. Also in those fields there were more damage to airoplane landing gear, so we need some kind of damage system. So a combination between ship namage and air carrier airoplane system. Could make good in Ocean and maybe in Finland and Soviet front where there were less real airfields and more temporary fast made wild area fields to operate airoplanes. This way Japan can make 10 to 20 plane wild area airfields to islands and put there few figters and few bombers to sink supply ships! And USA have to clear those islands to advance to Japan home islands like it was in real ww2.

Very promising!
I can already tell you how I will interact with this. I will not be forwards deploying destroyers from random sandbars unless basing is so punitive there's no alternative. Not because those sandbars are useless, but because destroyers are already annoying to manage in the current version due to their large numbers and poor range. I'll almost certainly just double down on cruisers that already have the range to operate where I need to operate.
 
The survey's 'what do you usually play' section doesn't have a 'I play historically' option?

As the 'how do you play navy' question doesn't have a 'I like smashing big fleets against each other' option?
 
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As the developments brush up ranges and make them actually meaningful, can we expect a change in how an effective range of a task force is calculated? Namely, rather than bluntly averaging the ranges across all the ships both large and small alike, weighted average should be used instead where capital ships have more say in determining the final range of the task force.

DDs were of course notoriously bad at fuel consumption efficiency compared to battleships, but nowhere as bad as to average the range down on 1:1 basis.
 
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I like where things are going in this Dev corner!

I might be going on a bit of a rant here, so be warned;

I must say, I am hoping for perhaps a rework of Experience, especially for Ships and Carrier Air Wings (although divisions also have this problem), so it matters more. The problem is that- in my experience in playing various navies- you can too easily get away with deploying ships right off the dockyard, or can just simply slap on a new carrier wing to a Carrier and can just send it into combat and can relatively perform comparatively to a ship or an Air wing that has been trained.

And I don't think that should be entirely viable unless you are really desperate to get something out there pronto. Ideally, I think you, as the player, should be punished for deciding to send out a barely trained ship right out of the yard - and you should be rewarded for being patient and deciding to hold back that ship, taskforce, or airwing to train for the next few months to make sure they are going to make the best they can be at their jobs, even if it's only being trained enough. Equally, having a safe space to train should definitely be a factor in whether or not you feel like you should train them.

You should feel the pressure to deploy them, to weigh the risks, and you should feel the heat for those consequences of deciding whether or not to deploy them. Sea dominance is going to matter - after a decisive defeat, you have to choose to leave yourself open to naval invasion from a lack of sea dominance or send in untrained men to continue losing ships.

Like with Japan, the whole focus of having a trained air group for their carriers- and of how much that slowly detererorated and withered away, and of how much it bit them in the ass when deploying essentially untrained men to carriers, causing them to get shredded in the Marianas Turkey Shoot and the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

I do have other hopes; A rework of screening to perhaps help with anti-aircraft defences- I feel like the player should be rewarded for putting Anti Aircraft on Destroyers and making dual purpose guns or Anti-Air cruisers- like maybe something like an attrition that the planes have to cross to strike the valuable targets it wants to cross? Doctrines in screening would ideally help out in a hypothetical modifier.

And I feel like you should be able to 'refit' an air wing- especially carrier air wings - with a different purpose. There have been plenty of Squadrons who've changed planes in squadrons that haven't shared necessarily shared the same specifics. I feel like it would work something like the existing 'Ship' refit, where it would take the squadron out of action for a specified time as they learn to adjust to their new planes.

Obviously, the amount of time it would take to get worked up to a different plane should be taken into account, but practically, however, this should perhaps just be limited to the same range of Small Airframe to Small Airframe, Medium Airframe to Medium Airframe, Heavy Airframe to Heavy Airframe in terms of what you can move it to.

Though the main point is that if you want a better plane for your Carrier Squadrons, or have got this one squadron that you are attached to, or simply want to ease production, then you shouldn't need to disband the whole squadron. Something like a button to swap it over to a different type of plane, or evolve to another outfit of the same airframe....

I mainly say this due to the absolute irritation I have at the state of the Carrier Air Wings in the 1936 Japan Start, where you have biplane torpedo bombers on your Carriers who only have torpedoes. They have (if I remember right) excellent training, yet somehow have to be disbanded to use the historical B5N upgrade to those same biplanes. To keep it simple, perhaps deriving something similar to the army division swap? Same sort of deal of displaying what you would change and whether or not you have enough planes to accomplish it.
 
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I like where things are going in this Dev corner!

I might be going on a bit of a rant here, so be warned;

I must say, I am hoping for perhaps a rework of Experience, especially for Ships and Carrier Air Wings (although divisions also have this problem), so it matters more. The problem is that- in my experience in playing various navies- you can too easily get away with deploying ships right off the dockyard, or can just simply slap on a new carrier wing to a Carrier and can just send it into combat and can relatively perform comparatively to a ship or an Air wing that has been trained.

And I don't think that should be entirely viable unless you are really desperate to get something out there pronto. Ideally, I think you, as the player, should be punished for deciding to send out a barely trained ship right out of the yard - and you should be rewarded for being patient and deciding to hold back that ship, taskforce, or airwing to train for the next few months to make sure they are going to make the best they can be at their jobs, even if it's only being trained enough. Equally, having a safe space to train should definitely be a factor in whether or not you feel like you should train them.

You should feel the pressure to deploy them, to weigh the risks, and you should feel the heat for those consequences of deciding whether or not to deploy them. Sea dominance is going to matter - after a decisive defeat, you have to choose to leave yourself open to naval invasion from a lack of sea dominance or send in untrained men to continue losing ships.

Like with Japan, the whole focus of having a trained air group for their carriers- and of how much that slowly detererorated and withered away, and of how much it bit them in the ass when deploying essentially untrained men to carriers, causing them to get shredded in the Marianas Turkey Shoot and the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

I do have other hopes; A rework of screening to perhaps help with anti-aircraft defences- I feel like the player should be rewarded for putting Anti Aircraft on Destroyers and making dual purpose guns or Anti-Air cruisers- like maybe something like an attrition that the planes have to cross to strike the valuable targets it wants to cross? Doctrines in screening would ideally help out in a hypothetical modifier.

And I feel like you should be able to 'refit' an air wing- especially carrier air wings - with a different purpose. There have been plenty of Squadrons who've changed planes in squadrons that haven't shared necessarily shared the same specifics. I feel like it would work something like the existing 'Ship' refit, where it would take the squadron out of action for a specified time as they learn to adjust to their new planes.

Obviously, the amount of time it would take to get worked up to a different plane should be taken into account, but practically, however, this should perhaps just be limited to the same range of Small Airframe to Small Airframe, Medium Airframe to Medium Airframe, Heavy Airframe to Heavy Airframe in terms of what you can move it to.

Though the main point is that if you want a better plane for your Carrier Squadrons, or have got this one squadron that you are attached to, or simply want to ease production, then you shouldn't need to disband the whole squadron. Something like a button to swap it over to a different type of plane, or evolve to another outfit of the same airframe....

I mainly say this due to the absolute irritation I have at the state of the Carrier Air Wings in the 1936 Japan Start, where you have biplane torpedo bombers on your Carriers who only have torpedoes. They have (if I remember right) excellent training, yet somehow have to be disbanded to use the historical B5N upgrade to those same biplanes. To keep it simple, perhaps deriving something similar to the army division swap? Same sort of deal of displaying what you would change and whether or not you have enough planes to accomplish it.
One thing that's interesting about this is, so far as I know, ships never lose experience so long as they remain afloat. If you get into a war in 1936 and get a ship up to maximum experience, that experience will never ever decay, even though it's very likely that if the same ship is still fighting in 1945, very little of its crew will be the same people, as they will have been transferred to other posts, been killed or wounded in action, or have been demobilized during the years of peace between 1936 and 1940 or whenever you happen to actually join WWII.

Now, other unit types don't passively bleed experience even if your max veterancy division spends the next six years sitting around Tashkent doing nothing, but they have some way to lose veterancy in action and ditto air wings. Ships only have ways to gain veterancy and none to lose it.
 
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Ships only have ways to gain veterancy and none to lose it.
This is false. Ships lose XP same way as other units with each person of the service manpower being killed. Ships also lose XP on being transfered to other nations after a peace deal.
 
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One thing that's interesting about this is, so far as I know, ships never lose experience so long as they remain afloat. If you get into a war in 1936 and get a ship up to maximum experience, that experience will never ever decay, even though it's very likely that if the same ship is still fighting in 1945, very little of its crew will be the same people, as they will have been transferred to other posts, been killed or wounded in action, or have been demobilized during the years of peace between 1936 and 1940 or whenever you happen to actually join WWII.

Now, other unit types don't passively bleed experience even if your max veterancy division spends the next six years sitting around Tashkent doing nothing, but they have some way to lose veterancy in action and ditto air wings. Ships only have ways to gain veterancy and none to lose it.

The game calculate ship Man power losses and that way reduce the ship experience because half the sailors are new?

Edit: dimmie was faster!
;)
 
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This is false. Ships lose XP same way as other units with each person of the service manpower being killed. Ships also lose XP on being transfered to other nations after a peace deal.
In that case, I've just never noticed it, perhaps because it's so easy to produce completely lopsided losses at sea and I think there's something about the way experience is allocated that may make it easier to accumulate experience via fast and decisive routs at sea, while those same fast and decisive victories on land generate very little experience
 
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Are these sailors on an oiler?

Are they cheering because you added “airwings on carriers automatically do exercises when their task force is exercised and the carrier air wing’s experience is considered when evaluating if exercise until trained is satisfied”? If so, amazing job.
 
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Please make naval game more impactful. Now it is deliberately lowered by following mechanisms:
1. Cutting the railway connection to a supply hub has fast impact on the divisions, while even the heaviest convoy raiding with a large surface fleet takes a long time to have an impact and even worse with the 'allied supply exploit/bug' you just block your oversea ports and suffer no out of supply penalty.
2. With 'fuel lend lease at once' you can transfer fuel without needing convoys at all, so no possibility to disrupt.
3. Land based trade is possible over huge distances, which was not possible in reality. There is even already a define to set a maximum distance for land based trade, so easy to change.
4. Air groups can be relocated all over the world rapidly. That was not possible IRL. At least the ground crews and often even the planes had to be relocated by sea or land transport. You should need strategic redeployment to relocate air groups. This problem means you can use land based naval bombers easily to replace navies for a good part.
 
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One of the reasons why I prefer keeping CTRL-RIGHT-CLICK as switching Home Base over RIGHT-CLICK, is that player can always select just a single taskforce out of the fleet, and now by right clicking would switch the home base for the entire Fleet, instead of just sending it to repairs or move to avoid a specific thing. Things that can have a potentially more annoying effect by 'accidental' clicking IMO should require a bit more than just 'right click'. For the people that would not know about the ability CTRL-RIGHT-CLICK, there will be a selectable list of the naval bases that you can open by clicking on the Home Base button on the Fleet/Taskforce view.
Perhaps I'm just biased, because I always use automatic split-off.