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Fleet Combat Coordination

This page explores whether multiple fleets attacking the same target should gain a bonus for coordinating, and how that interacts with fleet size limits and military player strategy.

It does not describe final game behavior. It captures the current direction and unresolved design choices.

Goal

The goal is a combat model that:

  • makes military strategy more than "build the largest possible fleet and point it at a target"
  • creates meaningful decisions about when to concentrate vs. when to split forces
  • rewards players who manage multiple fleets well without punishing those who do not
  • produces interesting counterplay for defenders

The Problem

If a fleet size cap exists but there is no benefit to operating multiple fleets in concert, the cap is a pure tax on military players. They are forced to split their forces not because it is strategically interesting, but because the rules demand it.

The result is that military play reduces to: research the highest fleet size cap possible, fill one fleet to that cap, send it at the target.

A coordination bonus changes the calculation. Splitting forces and coordinating them becomes a genuine strategy, not just a workaround.

Option A: Fleet Size Cap Only

No coordination bonus exists. The fleet size cap limits how much power can be concentrated in a single fleet. Military players raise the cap through research or work around it by sending multiple fleets in sequence.

Advantages: - Simple to understand and communicate - No complex bonus system to design or balance

Tensions: - Splitting forces is a constraint, not a strategy - Multiple fleets attacking the same target simultaneously has no advantage over a single large fleet - Does not create interesting decisions around fleet coordination

Option B: Multi-Fleet Attack Bonus

Multiple fleets attacking the same target simultaneously receive a bonus — flanking, coordinated bombardment, overlapping fire, or a pincer effect.

The bonus rewards military players for the harder task of managing multiple fleets in parallel. It also creates genuine counterplay: a defender concentrated at one point faces a coordination problem if an attacker can threaten from multiple vectors simultaneously.

Advantages: - Coordination becomes a genuine skill expression for military players - Creates interesting decisions: concentrate for simplicity or split for a bonus? - Produces strategic counterplay — a defender must decide whether to split their own forces to cover multiple threat vectors - Trading players do not benefit from the bonus at all, keeping player archetypes distinct

Tensions: - The bonus magnitude is hard to calibrate — too large and solo large-fleet play becomes unviable, too small and it is not worth the coordination cost - Requires careful definition of what "attacking simultaneously" means given real-world travel times - Could be exploited with trivially small flanking fleets that contribute little but still trigger the bonus

Current Direction

Option B — multi-fleet attack bonuses — appears more aligned with the game's strategic pillar.

A game that rewards planning and coordination should express that in its military systems, not just its economy and logistics. A coordination bonus makes managing multiple fleets a meaningful skill, and it produces richer strategic situations for both attackers and defenders.

The calibration challenge is real, but it is a balance problem rather than a design problem.

How the Bonus Might Work

One direction: the bonus is applied per additional coordinating fleet, up to a cap, and requires fleets to arrive within a defined time window to count as coordinated.

1 fleet attacking:  no bonus
2 fleets arriving within window:  +X%
3 fleets arriving within window:  +Y%
4+ fleets:  +Z% (diminishing returns or hard cap)

The time window requirement means a player cannot just dispatch ten fleets over ten days and claim the bonus. Coordination requires actual timing.

Open questions

  • What does the bonus apply to — combat effectiveness, siege speed, something else?
  • Does the bonus require fleets to arrive simultaneously, or within a window? How long is the window?
  • Are there diminishing returns on additional fleets, or is the bonus linear up to a cap?
  • Can very small fleets (one or two ships) trigger the coordination bonus, or is there a minimum fleet size to qualify?
  • Does the defending player see that multiple coordinated fleets are incoming, giving them time to respond?

Interaction with Fleet Limits

A military player with a high fleet count cap and a high fleet size cap can field many large fleets. The coordination bonus rewards them for doing so effectively.

A military player with modest limits must choose: invest in raising fleet size (fewer, larger fleets) or invest in raising fleet count (more, smaller fleets that can coordinate for a bonus). This is a genuine strategic fork that produces player differentiation.

Open Questions

  • Should the coordination bonus be a separate researchable system, or is it always available to any player who can manage multiple fleets?
  • Is coordination between allied players' fleets possible — can two different players' fleets trigger a coordination bonus against a shared target?
  • Should there be an equivalent coordination bonus for defenders (e.g. a fort bonus when multiple defending fleets are present at the same location)?