Playable escorts/victory conditions

[Fidd]

One of the more interesting wrinkles that becomes possible with playable escorts is the development of more nuanced victory conditions.

Broadly speaking, the greater the ratio of manned escorts to manned u-boats, the easier it will be for the U-boats to win. You'd still have to attain the 15, 30 or 60,000 tons, as a precursor to winning, but the speed of the wolfpack being able to attain that tonnage would also become a factor. In other words, if the escorts manage to keep half the U-boats from surfacing or coming to periscope depth, it'll take the remaining U-boats longer to attain the required tonnage, and indeed whilst they may attain that tonnage, they can still lose if it takes too long to achieve it. Player population of U-boats and escorts would be tracked minute by minute, and those numbers would form part of the algorithm to determine which side won.

Now, your immediate reaction to this, might be negative, but if you stop to think, this helps promote several useful things in terms of gameplay:

It'll encourage multi-U-boat play, and likewise multiple manned escorts.

The U-boats will need to coordinate so as not ruin each other's solutions.

Such communication will give clues to the destroyers as to the position of transmitting U-boats.

The escorts will similarly need to coordinate, so that the screen remains effective even whilst some escorts are detached to prosecute searches and attacks, and such attacks and searches will likely persist for much longer than is currently the case.

DC lethality can be reviewed, which, I surmises, will see less accurate depth-setting for DC's, and a smaller lethal radius.

Each game would be tend to be a different experience, for both escort and U-boat players, and no-one would be able to state with certainty, who was winning at any given point, which would help to keep players in game rather than conceding early on.

I see the precise algorithm has being something that develops over time, with new variables, or the numbers bolted into them varying over time, to provide the best possible chances for the best gameplay, and the most evenly matched whilst also allowing it to change over time to react to changes in player tactics