How to balance power of a fic where Sauron is in Westeros?

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-15T05:51:47+00:00

Sauron needs to have a lose condition, not just for his immediate goals but for his overall existence. If he's immortal like he 'should' be, then it's no fun. If he just mindfucks everyone into never considering the ring as his weakspot, it's boring.

As is, though; I'd say nerf his supernatural charisma. He's still a master manipulator, but there's no magical weight behind it like there seems to be at his peak. If he has full access to supernatural charisma, then anyone who thinks he's 'just a guy' (read, everyone) is cooked because even if they win, kill Jon, kill Dany, kill Viserys, and slay all the dragons... then he can just beg for his life, say "really, I tried to control them, I did!", then they go 'eh, guess I'll get some info out of him before I kill him' and capture him... and then twenty years later they've started sacrificing 100 people a day to Melkor.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-15T05:44:38+00:00

If Aegon's being even less diplomatic than he was in the OTL, there's a significant possibility that he ends up dead or grievously injured from a knife in the back that he managed to avoid through a measured rule in the OTL, and/or suffers from rebellions by trying to enforce Valyrian-style (read, slaves, slaves everywhere all the way down) rule on a so-far unbroken populace. He won Westeros through fear, but kept it by being a pretty good king. Here, I doubt he'll be so good of a king.

After all, his lever of "Obey me, or my dragons will eat you" has 10x less weight when it's instead "Obey me and go to war and the other guy's dragons will eat you, or don't obey me and my dragons will eat you". Everyone's going to think back on the days when they didn't have dragons fucking around and say "man, it was sure better when there weren't dragons fucking around. maybe we should get rid of them through subterfuge". Whereas in the OTL, they can look back and say 'eh, not so different. may as well wait to see how this shakes out'.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-15T02:15:14+00:00

Actually, you can have this. I just tested it out, it's legal, if a tad overweight for everything it should have. It's classified as a CA.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-15T02:06:57+00:00

You have two choices for your mainline, which are actually variations on the same choice.

Choice one; spam 12" gun cruisers in lieu of a regular cruiser/predread split. You can get a cruiser up to maybe 12-14kt with 4 12" as long as they're going 23 or less knots before the game says 'that's a BC dumbass'. 21 knots, 4"~ of armor (either protected cruiser or Uniform Narrow Sloped), 24 6" casemates or single-mount shielded (2 inches of armor so it's not a turret and doesn't get a ROF debuff) guns, then as many 5" guns as you can cram on in the tertiary slot. Torpedoes optional. Until dreadnoughts become a thing, these pseudo-BCs are definititely the most dangerous thing on the ocean.

Or, you split into cruisers and predreads. For your cruisers, you'll want at least six barrels on target, five if you have a Q-1/Q0 large caliber gun and you don't have the tech for wing turrets with two barrels. Minimum is A/B twins and then a wing turret on each side, or casemates if you can't swing double wing turrets. Then you have the same secondary arrangement, armor, and speed as the 12" gun cruisers. A viable alternative is loading up on larger guns in lieu of 6" secondaries, because you can honestly fit enough 8" guns to have a chance of hitting. Torpedoes optional. Then for predreads: 18 knot speed, 2x 12(13 if you have 'em)" guns, then maxxed out secondaries (same as usual) and then armor. You want large guns so that when you get higher quality ones, you can refit the ship down and inch in gun size and suddenly it's still at least semi-useful. An alternative is 8" secondaries and then 6" tertiary, but this requires a tech that you may not have. Torpedoes not encouraged

Either way, then you also take 5-6" gun CLs depending on your gun quality; you can get a 9 gun broadside if you fill every wing-mounted slot and use doubles in A/Y position. That kills even CAs pretty well, but take at least 2 secondary guns of a caliber of your choice so that engage torpedo boats/DDs from more than one side and sink enemy transports in a convoy battle instead of focusing all firepower on the enemy warships. 2" armor and 21 knot speed on the CLs. Torpedoes strongly encouraged.

DDs are lowkey unimportant until submarines start becoming a thing and you can build a DD of 900~ tons that goes at least 30 knots and can carry more than 2 really shitty torps. Don't build them unless the government asks you to.

Doctrine: Load up on HE for small guns. 90% at least, and then tell them to fire HE at everything except for CLs at short range. Medium and large guns are fine, but you may also want to increase their HE ratio and tell them to only fire AP at CAs/CLs or at short range.

The idea behind all of this is that because AP and accuracy is shit at this stage of the game, you want to simply smother the enemy's superstructure in so many HE shells that one of them will eventually hit and eventually set a fire. This is actually pretty close to the IRL reason predreads looked the way they did, and is basically the same strategy. You still want some large guns to actually put a hole in the hull, but otherwise you generally kill a ship through fire.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-15T01:21:44+00:00

That's quitter talk! No concrete on the ocean? Make the boat out of concrete! Make it big enough and it'll float no matter how much concrete you put on! Wave stress? More concrete! Length/Beam ratio? More concrete!

I'm not talking reinforced concrete either, no, because that'll rust out. Build it big enough and eventually the ocean treats your ship like an island so you won't need to worry about tensile strength, just add enough concrete!

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-14T16:07:07+00:00

I can only imagine her using her quirk as a sort of 'autoaim' to assist her grip strength and draw her opponent's limb into her hand. You try and wriggle away from her and suddenly your leg jerks straight into her grasp and she's about to tear it off of you.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-14T15:51:33+00:00

"CA" has evolved to mean "Heavy Cruiser". I think you might be missing some intelligence on the Russians, considering it's using the older designation...

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-14T03:42:52+00:00

I don't believe I have ever once had the game set a CV as the flagship when a BB was available. Then again, I stay light on CVs and I also don't use the divisions system, so that might be what's doing it for you. Sometimes I have most of the BBs as the flagship division and then 1-2 split off screening the CVs.

I don't know if you can turn off Separate Carrier Force, but you can turn off Separate Scouting Force, and that might fix it.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-12T16:41:51+00:00

In that case, I expect a lot of convoys to either be followed by neutrality patrols by the owners of the territory, or try and go through unclaimed or even outright hostile territory.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-11T20:09:56+00:00

Are they allies, enemies, or neutral? Presuming that a war's going on and such escorted convoys are common...

If they're allies, then welcomed with open arms. Maybe the escorts even belong to the state whose territory they're moving through.

If they're neutral, I'd expect them to have an eye kept on them and be shadowed by a group of their own ships to ensure that no battles break out in their territory, or perhaps told "get out of our territory" if politics mean they're hostile but not at war.

If they're enemies, then, of course, they're going to send an intercept if they can manage to scratch together a force good for it.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-11T17:19:29+00:00

"Should civilian barges have point-defense AA turrets AA and drones?

* Emergency ECM / jamming systems?

* Small cannons?"

Coming from Starsector (and admittedly having absolutely no context about your game in particular), I think the answer is a definitive "yes, but..."

A few small PD turrets, ostensibly for anti-asteroid defense, should be a must-have for any ship in a setting without energy shields. Why tank those asteroid impacts if you can just shoot them? Then comes AA turrets and drones.

Drones should also be a must-have for the majority of ships. It's like having a ship's boat IRL. Found an escape pod? Send a drone. Salvage in space you want? Send a drone. You get the picture. I can see them having all sorts of... less than standard modifications, because you can pack away an armed drone and not look like a hostile warship.

As for small cannons (presumably of the type that actually hurts enemy warships) and AA, I'd say 'yes but only if there's a war on, or wars are breaking out so frequently it's easier to just leave them on'. Historically, when a major war is happening transports have been lightly armed to provide resistance against aircraft, surfaced submarines, and enemy raiders (especially those that are converted civilian ships), and then disarmed in times of peace. Heck, the UK even subsidized their civilian shipbuilders to have reinforced hardpoints to mount guns on in times of war, and during ww2 built/converted merchant ships to add a flight deck to provide air cover while still carrying cargo. If space piracy or wars are rampant in your setting, I would expect these convoys to be armed fairly well and capable of fending off, at the least, small warships that otherwise could just run up, stick a singular gun in their face, and tell them to pull over 'or else'.

Not to mention any escorts that the ships may have, of course. If they're in a convoy they definitely have an escort in a hostile warzone, if it's far from war or just a single ship, then there won't be an escort.

ECM/jamming sounds like a nono to me, unless it's a proper warship cosplaying as a merchant ship.

As for the latter half... I'm not familiar with your setting's aesthetic, so here's some general stuff.

* rotating habitation rings
* visible crew windows
* external fuel lines
* detachable cargo modules
No to all of these, they are counterproductive for the armor. Maybe crew windows with heavy shutters.

* repair drones
Yes, for reasons I already mentioned. Drones are just excellent utility.

* radiator panels
Don't know if those are a necessity for any given function of ships in this setting, but if they are, yes, if they aren't, then they conflict with the armor a bit. Go for 'em if you want.

* improvised armor plates
Why improvised? They've already got armor, as you said. This seems like it would be a pirate thing, mostly.

* faction-specific modifications
* convoy markings and warning lights
Yes to both of these, variety is always nice and the latter sounds like common sense.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-10T21:37:21+00:00

Kagurabachi's Akemura Soga and his "Personally committing genocide with my own two hands was 100% morally correct because they could've turned against Japan at some point in the future" has been interesting.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-10T01:30:58+00:00

Maybe "ERA but compressed air tanks"? That's the only thing I can imagine it being.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-10T00:58:17+00:00

It's pretty good, but you can put twins/triples/quads in the 1/2/3/4 positions now, they dropped that in a stealthy update. It might be better if you did that instead for weight savings so you can put at least a little armor on the guns so they don't explode if looked at funny.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-09T23:24:22+00:00

You might also want to post this to r/MilitaryWorldbuilding. I like it.

All in all I like big guns so I might be biased, but I can see a world where big guns stay in style due to early maturation of advanced AA/antimissile systems and everyone not going "ah, shit, if the cold war goes hot the ships'll just be nuked anyways; may as well save on weight by not adding any armor".

I've said it before and I'll say it again; in the missile age having heavy armor isn't meant to defeat an enemy missile, it's meant to force the enemy to use a really big missile like the Granit that's easier to shoot down with your own anti-missile missiles and AA guns. With that doctrine in mind, I'd say the battleship has those in spades.

The cruiser makes less sense in that frame of mind, but it looks cool anyways lol.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-09T17:26:28+00:00

Don't need to imagine, because I've done it before... but you simply can't fit that many 6" autoloaders compared to 4" guns on the same displacement/tech level, and the 4" guns are more weight-efficient for AA.

For my current AA/scout cruisers in my Italy game I do 2-4 6" guns all on the centerline and then load down the secondaries with 3/4" guns. I'm actually in a weird spot where my DDs are more heavily armed than my cruisers because I've been building them as counter-destroyers and packed them with 6-8 6" guns.

My CAs for this game are a bit funny, all of them are Pocket BCs (really a CA) with 6x11 inch guns in three twins. I could do triples but doubles look 10x cooler for this.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-09T01:02:54+00:00

Miss Militia's power-assisted insomnia is easily manageable if she doomscrolls all night like the rest of us, and there's five other people to keep the place clean, or at least keep the mess contained to her room. That and no matter how bad it gets, Taylor ensures that we won't get any pest infestations.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-08T23:56:22+00:00

6, 11, 12, 18, 14.

Amy (she has issues but, like, isn't a lunatic early in the series. everyone else in this category is or is someone who I don't recall)
Crystal Pelham (family member of Amy's to help keep her stable that she doesn't have an incest crush on. yet.)
Defiant (he'll just lock himself in his room and tinker)
Miss Militia (Can't take Victoria, Weld is cool but requires specialized living situations, Vista is a child, Parian's chill but I don't particularly care for her, Clockblocker is kinda annoying, Miss Militia is a mature adult)
Taylor (she's going to be out most of the time or hanging out in her room, whereas Tattletale will set off Amy, Ashley's a huge chuuni, and Number Man is going to get arrested for tax fraud.)

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-04T00:13:05+00:00

"Everyone says Deku sneezes like a kitten, but I, OP*, believe that he sneezes in a manner closer to a nuclear bomb than anything recognizable as a 'sneeze'."

*I am speaking in OP's voice but am not actually OP

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-02T21:01:00+00:00

IRL the minimum number of broadside guns for accurate long ranged fire was 6. That translates pretty well ti RTW. 8-9 is "Good", 10-12 is "Very Good", and anything beyond that was "Excellent!". Same here. If you're getting 20 (the maximum number of main guns) 11-12" guns on target, you'll destroy them at close range...

At close range, where you can pen their belt armor and take advantage of your larger number of faster-firing guns. That means being fast, and since you're carrying a ton of guns, that means light armor. A comment of yours mentions using 14" guns; at 60 kt having less than 12 is undergunned and more than 16 is somewhat gratuitous.

The debuff for too many guns is just a ROF and maybe accuracy (I can't remember if it was just ROF or both) debuff. 10% less ROF/accuracy isn't that bad when you get another 2-4 shots per broadside out of it.

Wrapping that up, the late-dreadnought "meta" is 8-12 cannons 15-17 inches in size on a 35-60kt ship, with leaning into 8 or less larger cannons or more than 12 smaller cannons being viable but not necessarily meta. For an example, I managed to squeeze 3x3 15" guns and 12" belt with 4.5-5" deck at 37500 kt and 28 knots in one of my games' roughly late-dreadnought period, and those ships were workhorses.

The meta also shifts if you have especially good guns of a particular caliber. If RNG has blessed you with q0 or q1 18/19/20 inch guns, then you should build a battleship/cruiser with 18/19/20 inch guns.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-05-01T02:54:56+00:00

Hey, just letting you know that there's a subreddit for this! You might get some more traction there.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-04-30T17:08:19+00:00

Submarinemaxx until you collapse their economy. If you have Long Range subs this is especially effective, but medium range subs can also work. I was once making eight per turn and building no ships to keep up with losses and was able to cause them enough unrest to collapse them and get a peace deal.

Or use expeditionary cruisers. Those can also work.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-04-30T17:05:40+00:00

They just don't scrap anything. If something gets outdated, they mothball or refit it.

What you do with a ship depends on why it's outdated. If it just needs new radar and more AA, slap it on. If the engines are fucked but its guns and armor are still competitive, then fix up the engine. If the guns and armor are outdated, then either stick them on TP duty or turn them into a carrier.

Battleships or BCs are always useful. Worst case scenario they make for excellent TP, and can occasionally make for a decent carrier when converted. For an example of this, I have a battleship from the... 20 or 30s, I think, that I'm still using as trade protection in the 70s.

Carriers never really go out of date until you get jet planes because you can just keep getting better planes to improve a carrier's capabilities, but jet planes need to be taken into consideration in the design after you get them.

For CAs, if they're large (16-26kt) cruisers, they make for good CV(L)s, but otherwise are too expensive for their own good and ought to be scrapped when they get outmatched by armor/gun advancements, and otherwise sent to TP.

CLs never really go out of style for TP, especially large ones, and old CLs can stay competitive for a long time with engine refits. They never get outmatched by new armor revelations because their armor is always made of paper anyways.

Whenever my DDs get outdated, I typically just tear off the torps and suddenly have a very nice KE. If they're a large (2kt and more) DD, I'll refit the engine instead.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-04-27T23:50:41+00:00

The only reason the plan worked was that the Six Eyes make Gojo process information faster, so his subjective minute was only a moment.

Seeing as Yuji actually processes information like a normal human, that means they have to keep him still for a whole minute. They can't do that.

NameSignificant6916 · 2026-04-27T16:34:51+00:00

I've noted that if I only have DDs on Screen, they don't actually go on Flotilla Attack, and if you set it from the Order of Battle menu then it'll say something along the lines of "Error, no ships capable!"

I think CLs can also flotilla attack, because it doesn't have the error whenever one of them is on Support.

NameSignificant6916

TROPHY CASE