Tycondero

I think that in general more game actions should require prestige as a currency. Right now, most prestige can be leaked by in game events, but these are rather passive as in you never know what event you get. If things like, coordinated offensieve, more income/budget or even temporary boosting ship building capacity by requesting the government to enable more war time economy laws for instance, could be traded in for prestige that would make the game more flexible and give you more things to do.

Indeed. We need more reasonable money sinks or less income. Due to massive GDP growth some countries get massive budget. I am very much okay with some countries having an economical advantage, such as the USA, UK and Germany, as these nations did historically develop their economies very heavily in this time frame. I would personally be in favor of just getting a certain (small) percentage of the national budget ,with some "dictatorial" governments allowing for a higher percentage. having a feature to request more funding when required would be great. This is somewhat in the game already with events and "going bankrupt". But having it an in game action would be better I think. Furthermore, it would also be great if we could manually affect the naval base capacity for each territory. Some colonial bases are very tiny eventhough their contribute a significant share to the GDP.

One thing I noticed is that both wealthy AI nations as the player seem to hoard money at some point. Especially during war, when the naval budget is increased a lot, wealthy empires (e.g. Britain, Germany, France) will hoard more than they can ever spend. Is this intended for the game? This almost amounts to unlimited money at some point. Furthermore, it seems to the demand territory in peace deals still doesn't work that well. I demanded a territory from Spain, but after the peace had been signed I received nothing.

In my recent beta campaign I observed some weird AI building behavior. The Italian AI especially was (according to the political view) having billions of credits as naval funds, yet even though they had only 4 ships left they never build new ones, hence that the Italian navy was no longer existent. This behavior also persevered during peace time as well. Furthermore, I am sometimes wondering whether the AI manages the funds appropriately. Often the AI accumulates large sums of navy funds but is still only average in tech level. To me this says that the AI seems to underspend in the research category. P.S. I reported this using the in game bug reports.

I think the refit option for ships needs a calculation overhaul. Some calculation don't make sense. For instance I swapped the steam engines for a turbine drive in some older ships. This but the refit at a couple of months, however increasing the ship speed limit decreases the time to refit. That makes no sense. The same is true for replacing guns or armor. Some options take huge amounts of time whereas others decrease it even though it is still a change to the ship. I feel that some changes really fall into the rebuild category (take a lot of time to complete) whereas others are an upgrade or even minor improvement. Changes that require a rebuild (taking at least 1/2 of the full build time): - Changing the citadel type (should this even be allowed??) - Changing the armor technology (e.g. from Krupp I to Krupp III) - Changing the main gun type or location (e.g. going from 12 inch to 13 inch) - Changing the engine type (especially when implementing Steam to Turbine or Turbine to Diesel) Also the time required for a rebuild should be mostly limited by the component that takes the longest, meaning that replacing all of the above would hardly further increase the time to rebuild even further. Components that are upgrades (taking up to 1/4 full build time at most) - Changing the main gun calibre and barrel length (e.g. going from 12 inch to 12.5 inch) - Changing the torpedo protection - Changing the range finding equipment (including adding radar or radios) - Changing ammo types or composition - Changing the gun reload mechanisms - Changing secondaries

The game has improved a lot in balance over the last couple of patches, both the AI and economy feel more in balance. However diplomacy still feels rough, furthermore the AI seems to always end up behind me tech wise (I just push 100% tech budget all the time with some priorities here and there). There are still too many full world wars occurring. I like that it can happen, but they happen too often due to all these alliances that are created. Also, the AI still needs some more strategic understanding of the situation. I have seen France putting all their ships out in the wide world with the result that they got blockaded.

Good to read that you will continue to develop the game. Especially the weather and visibility mechanics are required as this was a promised feature. Another feature that I do not hear anything about anymore is naval treaties. I believe we were supposed to get the ability to have countries sign a naval treaty at some point, like the Washington Naval Treaty. Besides the list that you provided I think that the campaign AI and balancing of the campaign is most needed. Currently, the game is a bit too easy, especially when you are a couple of years into the game. As Germany I am swimming in money, even though I am building ships to the maximum dockyard capacity all the time. It feels as if money is no longer a factor in the game.

The game still needs a lot of work to feel fully finished. Especially the campaign AI and balance is not that great. As Germany I am dominating the waves, however I have like 23 billion in the bank with accumulating about 400 million monthly. Yet have the largest fleet in the world (tonnage and numbers). There needs to be a greater money sink, albeit rather not just through random events as they can cause too much shocks in the budget, especially for the AI. I feel that the greatest restriction is currently the total shipyard and port capacity. I think this is excellent. However, the money flow balance seems to still date from a time when you could build an unlimited number of ships simultaneously. The AI seems to also still want to build in numbers that predate the shipyard tonnage restriction limitations. I have seen AI Britain, USA and France all wanting to build 200+ ships. Though I cannot see what kind of ships these are, I have the feeling that they are severely overloading their building capacity, which could even cause more delays for them than desirable to fix their fleet power.

The campaign AI is just not that great. Indeed illogical wars are regularly declared and the AI seems to have difficulty in understanding how to have a sensible naval build program. I have seen hundreds of ships getting queued by AI Britain, USA, France and I don't believe that even Britain has the ability to build 350 ships without incurring a severe shipyard construction penalty. Unless the AI is not bound to the same rules as the player of course. Also, AI diplomacy has improved. I see moves being made by the AI to me. However, still there is much to improve on that front. Especially minor nations seem to make illogical alliances. For example, why would Portugal make an alliance with Japan. Seems to me little sense to me.

Yes it is very annoying, however I fear that will not fix this at this point in development.

Would be great. I would also like it to see how many kills a ship has over its lifetime.

I have seen a couple of campaigns in which Germany rolls up France on land, but gets decimated at sea by having their transports (hence economical activity) sunk. Effectively, France lost the land campaign and should capitulate, but by the luck of Germany being near to revolution or economical collapse gets saved, eventhough they hardly have any troops left to do anything, even in their colonies. Although I am fully aware of how WW1 ended, with effectively Germany suffering from revolution and economical collapse, I feel that once Germany takes over large parts of France (North and South) they should capitulate and sue for peace. Also, I would advocate to split France proper into more provinces. There should be an Alsace-Lorraine like province between Germany and France, as this was the "source" of much hostility between these nations. Also, a central French provinces which includes the Paris area should prevent that when the northern part of France falls to Germany that effectively the war on land is lost. EDIT: Also, offensives should be reinforced by the attacker and defender where possible/necessary. Indeed defense of the core provinces of a nation should be the highest priority. Now, an offensive is set up with some forces on either side from the start and someone eventually always wins (often the attacker) eventhough the nations involved still have plenty of troops in adjacent provinces or even within the province.

Economical Collapses are still happening all over the place. In my German 1900 campaign, I am now 4 years in and managed to avoid war (by diplomacy). However, the other AI great powers have been engaging in several wars and as a result by november 1904, The Russian Empire, Great Britain and France have collapsed. I find that these kind of events are a bit too frequent. This happens probably due to excessive transport capacity being sunk. However, I feel that the level of GDP drops that result from that are a bit much. In addition, it would be great if an nation AI will actively do a couple of things: - Do not commit into more than a single war at a time (I see some nations getting involved in 2-3 separate wars at once) - Actively try to maintain peace with powers if you are unsure that you cannot "overwhelm" them. This should prevent great powers that are too weak from seeking out fights with other nations that they should not be able to win. The AI should judge this based on GDP and current naval assets. - Seek out peace when the risk of economical collapse or revolution gets too high. I feel that this one is by far the most important, as AI nations seem to want to fight it out to the death. Also, gameplay wise, I would advocate that "collapsed" nations are not wiped from the map, but forced to capitulate in which harsh peace negotiations will be enforced. These collapsed nations should hence refrain from any conflict for the next 5-10 years.

I still feel that the army invasions and a loss of territory has not sufficient impact. I have seen a couple of games started in 1900 in which Germany controlled 2/3 main provinces of France and the war still continued. With so much occupation, the French should not be able to continue the fight or at the very least not willing. EDIT: I also observed that when the occupier collapses, the occupied provinces are not returned to the owner, but remain neutral. Furthermore, the German AI has severe issues in maintaining economical stability during war. Countries that are close to this should try to sue for peace. Alternatively, I believe that some countries, like Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary might be too vulnerable to blockades/economical warfare. Also, I would recommend that all nations start out a bit less hostile to each other so that we do not get a war already within 3 years. Perhaps only the 1910 and 1940 campaign startdates should be an exception to this due to historical reasons.

Small ahistorical bug I found right away. The flag of Austria-Hungary in the opening of the campaign screen (so not the navy ensign) should be the same as the one used for the 1920 and onwards campaign. The double-eagle flag is the correct one for the entire timespan of the game. The yellow-black flag was used for the Austrian Empire before 1869.