MM Escorting

[SGTscuba]

Since there no suggestions part of the forums for SRU, i'll put my suggestion here.

Could we get an order that will make escorting MM's easy and without much micromanagement. I think you guys might have hinted to this being part of the Battle of the Atlantic changes, but I'd like to put forward the following suggestion:

Could we create a custom sized battlezone, and then assign ships/aircraft/battlegroups (please add battlegroups to make life easier) to it. These ships would then divide up potentially to escort any MM's that entered the zone, provided that there were enough ships to provide an escort. Any supply vessels would be used to run supplies to any of these ships so that they could stay in the combat zone, otherwise ships would return to port as normal, and then return to the battlezone once supplied. They'd have to know when they have bingo fuel so that they don't end up getting stuck.

It might be good to have any battlegroups assigned stick together and only escort any large concentrations if it is possible to detect them within the engine. This would allow mixed battlegroups (cruisers and BB's to stick with their DD's) to keep effective against a number of different threats.

I think an easier way to detect large concentrations would be to be able to mass select ground units, then click on area you want them to go to, and select an order called 'Convoy', which would create a temp battlegroup (which would be the thing that would get escorted by the escorts) that would be detectable to the escorts. I think this would be the easiest way of doing it.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

[Aragos]

Honestly, ditch automatic MM entirely. Go to only the use of cargo ships for the movement of supply, and troopships/amphibs for troop movement.

Improved Naval AI should be the primary focus for the Goats right now. Once that is fixed, it will be a really great game.

[Balthagor]

Honestly, ditch automatic MM entirely...

Then we're full circle to the old complaint that it's too hard to move units overseas and it would greatly reduce the AI's ability to redeploy forces.

[GreenGoblin]

it would greatly reduce the AI's ability to redeploy forces.

Hence massively improving the game.

[Clavs]

The Ai also keeps passing around with them all the time, specially allies. I see my coast has a transit more dangerous than the traffic I get when I go to work...

The Ai abuses the use of MM... docking up on a port for an invasion with civilian transports... that's ridiculous. If they owned the hex with the port then it would be OK... but they don't... they only conquered the small patch of water on the coast next to the port, then land using Merchant Marine... not to mention they make a huge "Ship centipede"... all i need to do is put a ship on the route and it sinks every MM that attempts to pass, destroying the majority of their army by sitting that 1 ship in the same place.

Ai can use landing ships... if a nation doesn't have such things then they won't be doing sea invasions... which in reality that would be the case as well... they wouldn't climb on to a cargo ship or a holiday cruiser, dock on some port and start shooting as they walk out of the boat.

Hence massively improving the game.

That might have been a joke out of you, but it is true... the enemy would have everything ready for our invasion, instead of getting their soldiers swimming across the ocean just to be shot down by a random 5 dollar Patrol raft.

[Rosalis]

Excellent listening to user feedback! All predicted till the end off SRU development. Removing diplomatic merchant marine option seems a no brainer, might also stop more reports.
How much time was spend on merchant marine in SRU, while SR2020 got better naval pathing (i can send a ship to the weirdest places without problems). The only problem was that only a handfull of nations could actually build a ship with big enough capacity. I can hand over save game where France AI send troops to Djibouti in SR2020.