Tycondero

I would love better graphics and I think they are actually pretty much required too. The textures especially could use a polish. While we're at it, I would also like better sound. There are no engine sounds as far as I noticed. However, as some others mentioned as well, first we need to have a functional product. Features are still added and on the to-do list. I would rather have to invest time and resources in getting the game up and running right now and make sure that AI is much improved than have a photo-realistic ship generator. Again, I would love them devote their attention to improving the graphics, but first let them build the fundamentals.

I agree, old names should be repurposed providing the ship with that name is no longer operational. I wouldn't mind if it were just the same name (no need for roman numerals etc).

This is a great update post. I am really looking forward to it. Submarines Regarding submarines, will we be able to design them according to certain specifications (e.g. number of torpedo tubes, deck gun, speed, max depth)? I would love to be able to see the submarine in 3D in the shipyard at least, even though I understand we will not control them in battle. Task force control Will we get some more control over the mission of task forces? Task forces are formed with a task in mind (hence the name), so it would be great if we can set the mission of a task force to assignments like convoy defense, port strike, naval invasion, convoy raid, patrol etc. That way we can direct the missions that you get with them and also let them be more than just a group of ships sitting in a certain sea zone. If anything setting up the strategic use of task forces is the premier task of the admiralty during war time. Therefore, we should be able to do so in a game revolving around being the head of the navy.

Indeed. The formations cannot be maintained as the game stands now. I often find that initially the formation of the group at the start of the battle is very much to my liking. However, once you start to adjust directions or give other roles (screen, scout) the formation gets messed up. We need a way to set formation, similar to Total War games. A more important issue is that the AI does not know how to fight well at all. 1 vs 1 is already problematic, but when trying to do fleet vs fleet engagements it really seems that the AI just dives in and goes for 17th century naval "skirmish" tactics. The AI does not deploy and use its fleet to its strength by forming battle lines and letting the BBs duke it out if it has an advantage there for instance. Ideally the BBs should try to force the hostile fleet to cross its T. If it feels it cannot win, it should try to escape etc. Right now, I cannot notice any fleet manoeuvre that the AI seems to conduct in an premeditated and organized manner. I can understand it's hard to program, but as this is a single player game, having a skilled AI capable of challenging a player is vital to its reception as a good strategy game.

As the game seems to stand now, I believe that none of these assets will be designable by the player. For one, aircraft carriers are likely not going to be in this game for the foreseeable future. Submarines will be in the game, but should only affect campaign gameplay by sinking transports and occasionally naval ships in transit. Transports seem unlikely to be intended to be designable, as they are not really naval control assets anyway and represent the civilian merchant fleet of a nation. I think the only asset that is going to be in the game and would warrant design by the player could be submarines. Some basic aspects such as range, number of torpedoes, number of torpedo tubes, deck guns, speed, battery life/range, and maximum depth could be interesting to be defined by the player as this might affect their mission efficiency, role and cost.

The AI is the major problem with the game. Although I think some new mechanics (like the citadel and guns of recent), the game becomes rather boring quickly if it offers no challenge. The AI is just too lackluster, so there should be a major effort to implement a better AI.

Like you said, the major problem for the AI is that it is also forced to fight too frequently. Peace often lasts no more than a year or so before a new war breaks out. This prevents the AI from developing a decent fleet. Relations between countries deteriorate way too fast.

The same, the game really needs a massive boost to AI capabilities. The AI is so horribly bad that a decent player easily wins against the AI. Like the OP says, both the ship design and strategic part of the campaign suffer from bad AI. Also, I think that the tactical part of the game (naval battles) leaves much to be desired. The only strategy the AI seems to develop is to go head to head like it we are have 17th century naval skirmishes. As a result, a battle with a lot of ships usually develops into a big mess with AI ships rushing in. Tactically the AI needs to become better in: - Retreating/breaking contact when necessary if the battle goes against their favor, providing that they have enough speed to escape or break contact. The AI should also actively end the battle when retreating and this is allowed. It is somewhat unfair that the player is allowed to choose when to end the battle, as a player might exploit this. - Actively use some of the screens (DDs, CLs) to scout ahead and spot your force, these ships should also keep contact/gather intel (ship specs) providing they are not spotted - Use and keep formations in which BBs are covered by screens - Perform torpedo runs to force enemies to retreat in case the AI controls DDs with torpedoes - Use smoke screens to cover retreating fleet - Engage more cautiously, even if it has a force/numerical advantage over the player fleet. Only if the AI has a severe advantage should it go and engage in a skirmish like fashion. - A tactical naval strategy should be developed based on the most powerful ships in the fleet. For example, if the AI has better BBs that are capable of delivering effective firepower at a longer range than the player, then the AI should exploit this benefit by keeping sufficient distance. - The AI needs to become better at preserving ammunition, if the AI starts with a reduced ammo design, it should switch to save main battery ammunition.

I find the "tracer round" effect by which you can see the way the shells travel informative from a gameplay perspective. However, I think it would be nice to have an option to remove this effect in the setting screen to those that would like to observe the game be a bit more realistic fashion. For instance, the game "War on the Sea" doesn't have this effect and although it might be less informative, there is something nice with just seeing the shells dive in without having these streaks of light following them.

Can we (eventually) get a more realistic system for ship range in place for the campaign? I do not know for sure, but I believe that the range parameter in the ship designer works with steps (minimal, low etc) to give mission generation benefits instead of looking at the absolute distance that can be travelled. For example, a maximum range destroyer can do 9000 km in some builds whereas a maximum range BB can be up to 20000 km. I have the feeling both get the same mission generation advantage, even though one has a vastly superior range over the other. Also when combining ships into task forces, from my understanding of the game, the idea is that they remain in operation in the assigned area. This means that they actually also travel back to refuel and rearm throughout the month? If the case, it would be a good option to introduce or have an indicator on mission efficiency (similar to how fleets and air forces are handled in HoI4). A fleet that operates a large distance away from the nearest port should be very inefficient in conducting its mission (i.e. sea control), as it should have go and refuel more often.

I found a bug during the campaign game. I just fought two wars with France and sent fleets all the way up to the North Atlantic. However, eventhough all the fleets have been recalled after the war the game still reports that there is one CA (fleet) in the North Atlantic. I cannot see this ship/fleet anywhere and also when looking into the fleet screen there is no CA reported at sea. The main issue with this bug is that it triggers hostillity with France (loss of relations) and thus speeds up the "road to war" again.

When accepting events, if spending over the amount of naval funds (reserves), the amount of money is not removed from the naval funds budget. However, other effects (i.e. unrest, prestige, alliance) from the event are effective. EDIT: -If you acquire ships during a peacedeal the flag of the (captured) ship is still of the country from whom you received the ship. -After signing peace, you should not be able to get involved in another war against the same nation very soon. Now, relations detoriate very fast so that war is quickly trigger again.

The VP bug still exists. The enemies get your VPs.

Not sure whether it is intensional. Would be great to hear the devs on this.

I agree with these suggestions. The barbette option needs to be refocussed as a damage control/limitation tech.

Lol, seeing torpedoes coming in frontally, hitting the nose of a ship and causing major damage is nothing short of frustrating in my book. I am very happy we will get duds with regular impact detonators. @Nick Thomadis Magnetic detonators should (eventually) be a (tech) feature for torps too, however I think it would be best if these are only effective after the target has been fully identified, because in order to effectively set magnetic detonators you will need to know the draught of a ship. Fully identifying a target before would simulate that the running depth of the torpedo can correctly set to be slightly below the ship's hull.

Will we also get barbettes that (automatically) match with the size of the guns? I hate to see (especially for the AI) the use of overly sized barbettes to mount guns.

AI still needs quite some work. It seems that it remains somewhat easy to win in a naval battle even against the odds. I think that this could be mostly due to the still mediocre AI ship designs. Design by human beats design by AI. The AI seems to still make suboptimal choices and forgets to put emphasis on certain doctrines that are more powerful than others during certain stages of naval design (e.g. torpedoes during the 1890-1910 area) and making this work during battles. Sadly, I do not know how to improve AI for this game, but I do think that it is vital that the AI will be capable of making more "conscious" choices. ATM it seems rather random, random designed ships combined with a random battle tactic. Perhaps certain doctrines should be scripted for the AI to guide it in making better choices.

The only advise I can give is that you should try to build better ships and combine your ships in a task force. This should allow you to win most engagements by just having the number advantage. Really, as GB prevailing over your enemies shouldn't be that difficult. You have the highest naval budget and the best tech.

1.05, playing as Austria-Hungary in the first (1890) campaign. How do you prevent the sinking of the merchant fleet? I currently just hope to keep my merchant shipping numbers up by constantly building a lot of transport capacity. Is there a better way to prevent enemies from sinking transports each month? I have seen that you can give task forces the protect role, but how does this work/what works best? Is it better to spread out and have multiple small task forces or one big (large radius) task force and assume it protects all shipping within the radius? Also, are non-task force ships (i.e. in being or sea control from your harbor) still of any use in protecting your convoys/transports?

Yes, also we need the ability to expand port capacity. I guess this will be introduced at a later time.

Indeed. I encountered the same bug. Also prestige seems to go negative rather than positive when playing as at least the Austrians. I haven't tried to play as any of the other new nations yet.

Regarding refits. I think this option is too flexible. Why should we be allowed to change beam and draught as part of a refit? That seems too flexible to me. Also Refits should be more gradual, with minor refits (e.g. changing ammo loadout, or range finding equipment) requiring much less effort than a full engine/gun refit. Main gun refits were rather difficult (if not impossible) anyway.

Sorry, but the IQ of 100 is the mean value, so by definition half of the population does have an IQ below 100.

I don't think so that this feature would necessary make it impossible to tackle Great Britain or the United States. However, in the game there will already be a disbalance as Great Britain or the United States have more funds for the naval program than the other nations (at least at the very start of the campaign). Furthermore, you should be able to adjust the capacity too, just as you can with the maximum displacement that is currently limited by the yard size in the game. The great thing about taking shipyard number and size into account is that it directly diversifies your strategy. With this it could actually make sense for a nation to focus on quality over quantity and to upgrade rather than scrap ships, which Japan did during the interwar years for instance. It gives the player some extra strategic considerations which should be part of the historical start (as these were historical issues for some nations). Furthermore, I am pretty sure that the blockade mechanics will be revised in the upcoming versions as we will get taskforces it seems and also at some point submarines (for the campaign gameplay). The game's campaign will likely feature a historical start and a balanced/equal start scenario option. The same funds and number of yards for each nation could be part of that option. That shouldn't be hard to code. I hope that my points here could convince you that an implementation of this doesn't need to break the fun of the game.