Two battles in different locations at the same time

[sea knight]

What happends in this case? can the player choose wich battle to fight?

[Mowers]

I'll add something to that.

2 battles that happen simultanously one east of the other.
Both friendly fleets sail towards each other.

Will they ever meet in the tactical battle?

[Mobeer]

The battles start one after another. The user gets no choice as to which is fought first. It actualy makes no difference because the same ships cannot be involved in both battles - each battle is entirely separate.

[WallysWorld]

To answer Mowers' question, in my campaign when I had one friendly force (4 Russian cruisers) involved in a battle, a second friendly force (1 Russian auxiliary cruiser) also appeared on the battle map.

If the task forces are close enough on the campaign map where a battle occurs, they will all appear on the battle map if the visilibility is good. But you must look at the map overlay to see all of your forces otherwise there's a chance you might miss the other ships.

[Mowers]

The battles start one after another. The user gets no choice as to which is fought first. It actualy makes no difference because the same ships cannot be involved in both battles - each battle is entirely separate.

So new fleets will never appear in a battle?

[Bullethead]

So new fleets will never appear in a battle?

Actually, they do--SOMETIMES. However, my observations so far are insufficient for me to tell you exactly why this happens in some battles but not in others where you'd think it should. I can, however, offer some theories based on my experiences so far...

To begin with, the answer to SK's original question above, unfortunately, seems to be a definite "no". The campaign engine appears to be limited to resolving only 1 tactical battle at a time. This limitation carries a slew of consequences for the rest of the campaign world outside the single battle in progress. The most important of these consequences seem to be as follows:

The campaign engine is under pressure to finish battles quickly, so it can quickly start another involving ships far away on the campaign map that meet while the original battle is in progress.
This pressure to finish battles quickly appears to result in dynamic changes in the rules as to what constitutes a battle-ending disengagement situation. Sometimes, you'll see battles ending far earlier than you'd expect, at an illogical point with the ships still pretty close together and plenty of daylight left. At other times in the campaign, ships in similar circumstances continue their battle, sometimes with the map expanding 1 or more times in the direction the chase is running. However, it appears that if another battle needs to start, the current battle is essentially put on hold, regardless of the situation, while the focus shifts to the new battle many miles away. Once this 2nd battle comes to an end (under the same pressure to finish quickly), the action often jumps back to the original battle, only with the ships in slightly different positions. Or there might even be a 3rd battle instead, again miles from either of the 2 you've seen so far, before a return to either the 1st or 2nd. OTOH, sometimes you don't get to return because in the meantime the ships in the early battles have moved too far apart while "on hold", following their previous campaign orders.
The pressure to finish fights quickly affects not only the rules for what constitutes a battle-ending disengagement situation, but also how the AI behaves. In a chase that starts beyond about 20kyds, the AI won't keep running the pursuing ships at full speed more than a few minutes (this applies to both its own and your ships). Instead, it drops them back to cruising speed, allowing the range to open up quickly and thus ending the battle. However, the ships then go back to the campaign map and resume their "map speeds". This brings the forces back into contact and another battle starts. This is why, I think, we keep seeing repeated battles involving the same forces that we've run away from several times before.
NOTE: this drop to cruising speed in battles happens to distant forces even if the enemy is being engaged closely by other friendly forces, making it hard to concentrate forces in battles that do continue.


Anyway, in situations where none of the above apply, it IS possible for reinforcements to enter an on-going battle. I've seen this happen several times. Most often, this happens as a result of a chase reaching the original edge of the minimap. Then, instead of the battle ending, the map expands in the direction of the chase, and sometimes the new minimap area contains reinforcing ships. Once, though, when a battle stayed on its original minimap, I saw some reinforcements enter the existing map from an edge. But either way, this only appears to be possible when nothing else is going on in the campaign world.