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I would love tons of hulls to play around with. I think we all would. At the same time I think that maybe the development time would be better spent in more flexibility with the hulls that are already there (placement of barbettes, guns, towers etc.) and making other things work, than including more and more different hulls. This is not to say that the number of hulls is already sufficient, there is still some lack in the DD and CL department especially, but I am a bit worried we are focusing too much on hulls. I was really, really hoping for a taste of the campaign next Alpha, but can fully understand that they are not quite there yet. Here is a feature I really want and I don't think it's coming for this update, or have I missed something? Saving your design in custom battles! Let's say I designed a US BB to fight a UK BB. Cool, I won. Now I would like to see how that design would do against 3 UK CAs. Or maybe 2 old UK BBs. I will have do redo the entire design. I hate that. Also, it would be great if we could a) design all ships that take part in custom battles b) at least the ones for you side

Trying to start a thread for small things the campaign should have, which sometimes easily get overlooked during development and become a PITA later one. This is not supposed to be about discussions if the campaign should be RTS or open world. I am assuming something similar to RTW2 here and will post some gripes I have: 1) For the love of god no hard-coded end date for the campaign. If I want to continue playing, just let me, even though things might be a little weird with 1940s tech in the 1980s. So what? 2) I am assuming there is some sort of "tech tree"/ research. If possible, research could continue past the 1940s with generic techs that improve certain aspects like guns, engines, ROF, think "future techs" in CIV maybe 3) There really need to be wars and battles between AIs as well. It killled my immersion that there were none of those in RTW. 4) Allow for some asymmetrical battles, those can be a lot of fun. A CL squadron caught by an unescorted BB in transfer, etc. 5) Definitely have the AI run in campaign mode as it did in the last alpha. That was great and very sensible. Cut your losses, run home and live to fight another day when the battle starts going to your disadvantage. That's what most humas would do, it's what the AI should do as well. To spice things up, have the AI charge at you with everything it's got even when losing in 5-10 percent of cases. 6) Peace negotiations - the UI should be a lot better for this than in RTW, it should also allow you to be more specific about what you want after a war you have won. 7) The government could give you missions during the war, e.g. "Invade this or that coast", "defend that island at all cost" etc., with the results determining how willing your government is to enter peace talks. 😎 Fleet and sea zone management is a PITA in RTW. Please come up with something better. Thoughts? Additional ideas?

Both of those are very good ideas. The first one should be very easy to implement. The second one might take time and resources that at this point are better invested elsewhere, but I still like it. Maybe the community can help with this and provide some of those designs at a certain point? I think there are certainly some enthusiasts around who would relish doing this and the design team's efforts are better focused elsewhere, since it is such a small team.

What if we don't like WoWs combat and are hoping for something a lot better here and don't want MMO gaming and just want to play 1v1 against a friend. Where do we go then?

I think the more options you allow, the more difficult it is to make sure people cannot simply game the system. While this is probably going to be SP only at the beginning, people being able to game the system too easily will still be a problem, as they will flood the forums (steam forums especially) with "omfg this is way too easy" posts.

Resources aside - why are some people so against MP campaign? It has really added so much to Total War campaigns for me. The campaign AI can never compete with a human. The tactical AI can never compete. Playing against a human opponent who takes over the AI in battles has proven so much more exciting. I oppose 2v2, 4v4 etc. games, because this will lead to some of the WOWS crowd coming here and hoping for a similar game. Everything that is 1v1 is fine though.

Honest question - is it this hard, to just program MP into a game if you DO NOT really care about balancing? Just the net code, allowing a) a human player to take over for the AI in custom battles. additionally b) the possibility to play the campaign with two human players exactly like in later TW games To a layman like me, it seems this would not take up a lot of ressources. However, looking at games that have been developed in the past years, this seems to be much more of an issue than I am thinking... Can someone shed some light onto this? EDIT: I usually would be patient enough to wait for MP and CVs for UA:D 2. If you could be sure there is going to be one. With games such as this however you can never be sure that there will a second one, so I am hoping for MP and CVs to be included in this first (?) one. My perception is also that CVs are A LOT harder to include than say MP.

Screw balance (*). Don't even think about aiming for "competitive" MP (and I am sure the devs are far from it). Just give us the opportunity to fight against other humans, friends mostly. Think Total War. *I have always said, in historical games, if you play with nations of different historical capabilities, give them different objectives: Germany v UK? UK: Blockade Germany Germany: Break the blockade Italy v Austria-Hungary: Italy: Keep AH in the Adria AH: Sink more ships than you lose etc.

Thank you two for the really fast answers - on Christmas to boot. I conveniently overlooked the -50 % penetration on Lyddite. Wow

So far, I was under the assumption that a German 11" Mk 2 gun has exactly the same characteristics as a British 11" Mk 2 gun. My last battle had me thinking: Here is my German 11" Mk 2 gun, penetration at 1,000m/10,000m at 18.1" and 10.9" Here is the British 11" Mk2 gun. penetration values are 33.2" and 19.9" 😨 So - is this down to national differences or how did the British AI achieve such a massive difference? If so - I like it!

Just one ship. If you chose different types though, you can pick which type you design. The others are done by the AI.

I tried replicating two famous WW2 battles, with mixed results: Battle of the River Plate Player: Germany (1 CA) Ship I built Pretty much copied the Deutschland class, had to settle for 5" secondaries though. 11" Mk5 guns AI: Britain (1 CA, 2 CL) 1 CA (Exeter): This one arrived with 6 11" Mk3 guns. Maximum bulkheads. 2 CL (Ajax, Achilles): light designs with 5" guns. Both, CA and CLs were way too slow compared to RL models (around 23 knots). How the battle unfolded I started hitting the "Exeter" early on at around 12km. Focused on the CA, ignored the CL. Heavily damaged CA, which tried to run when at around 70 % of structure (I support this, was a wise decision). The two CLs closed in under a smoke screen and tried to torpedoe "Graf Spee". I dodged the torpedoes which allowed the "Exeter" to gain distance on me. When the CLs came out of the smoke screen at around 6 km, my main batteries made quick work of them. I then followed the "Exeter" (which would have escaped had it not been for her slow speed) and sunk her. While I was only lightly damaged, I spent so much ammunition that I would have been in a huge problem had there been another fight later on in a "campaign". I found this battle highly satisfactory and very close to the historical one. Battle of the Denmark strait Player: Britain (1 BB, 1 BC) Ship I built I wanted to build the Hood and see if I could get her sunk. So I went for a BC with 8 x 15" Mk 3 guns. I gave myself 1930s tech to simulate a middle ground between the 1920s BC Hood and the 1940s BB Prince of Wales. The Germans were given 1940s tech. At 44,000 tons, I was able to easily replicate the Hood's capabilities. I gave her historical armor at Krupp IV, 30 knots, only hydraulic turrets, the best FC and radar but only standard bulkheads and cordite I as propellant as well as Barbette I, trying to set her up for a fatal ammo explosion. However, as I still had lots of unspent tonnage left, she was also given citadel IV. At the end I still had around 7,000 unspent tonnage left. Ship the AI built for me: BB Prince of Wales I had no influence on this one. I expected a ship better and bigger than the historical counterpart and I got it: 61,700 ton monster 4 x 3 16" Mk3 Armor 2.6-18.2 at 98 % 28 knots Bulkheads: maximum Initially, I was ok with that, as I expected the German ship with its 1940 techs to maybe even sport 17" or 18" guns. AI: Germany (1 BB, 1 CA) 1 BB Bismarck 58,000 tons 4 x 3 14" Mk 4 Armor 2.3-16.5 at 88 % 22 knots Bulkheads: few Not sure what happend here, why the AI chose such a small caliber and so few bulkheads. How did it spend all that tonnage? Certainly not on speed. 1 CA Prinz Eugen 10,500 tons 2 x 3 8" Mk 4 0.7-8.1 at 98 % Bulkheads: minimum The AI did ok with the hull it chose, but that hull was very old, it still had casemate guns. How the battle unfolded Hood started to get early hits on "Bismarck" at ranges of 20km+, even earlier than "Prince of Wales". "Bismarck" didn't hit anything for a long time (I suspect I had better FC and radar on Hood than Bismarck had) and went down to about 75 % structure before the first hits landed on Hood. "Bismarck" chose Hood as target and when the hits landed at around 15 km, they started to hurt. Wonder how it would have gone with 15 " guns for "Bismarck". I then positioned Hood (67 structure) behind PoW, which prompted "Bismarck" to fire at PoW for a while, before switching back to Hood. About 35 minutes into battle, PoW started hitting hard. "Bismarck" started running at around 40 % structure. Had PoW close in, while keeping Hood (55 % structure) at a distance. "Bismarck" sank 78 minutes into battle with Pow at 84 % structure (9km distance) and Hood still at 55% (14 km). Both ships then focused on PE which had been undamaged up until that point. She was gone within eight minutes, mainly due to hits from PoW. I expected the battle to be lopsided, as BB/BC v BB/CA probably is in a game such as this. I was not happy with the BB the German AI built though. Bonus: Jutland Tried to replicate Jutland. This did not work out well, as there simply were too many ships and frame rate was atrocious (AMD Ryzen 5 2600, GeForce RTX 2070). Nevertheless left it running for around 15 minutes. Battle Cruisers were in deep trouble. Conclusion/TLDR Custom Battles should: - allow you to specify a tonnage limit - allow you to specify a maximum/minimum main gun size for both sides - allow you to design all the ships in a fleet, not just one type - allow you to design BOTH fleets (think Steel Panthers by SSI/Matrix Games, where you can compose the enemy force and then have the AI play it in a custom battle) Huge Battles: I am not sure the AI on both sides will handle ships well in those. The ships I leave to the AI usually do decently with RTW 2. I don't think they are doing well in this game, prompting me to micromanage. I am pleased with how the AI handles torpedo runs for your DD flotillas in RTW 2 and with CLs. The DD/CL AI here still needs a lot of work. In a big battle (20v20, 30v30) you would probably focus on CAs and BBs/BCs, with the CLs and DDs left to the AI, only occasionally micromanaging those. This is why I think DD/CL AI especially needs to be worked on.

You know a ton more than I do about historical naval combat. I would love for things to work as you described them. One issue though: How confident are you that all these things will eventually make it into the game? Or how likely is it that the devs will be pleased with a less realistic approach?

No I didn't realise this. Are you sure that's the sole reason? Even if it was - this doesn't change my reasoning: No AI I know can stand up to a decent human player in any of the wargames I know. This is true even for rather simple games like Panzer General. Let's talk CIV for instance: On higher difficulties, the AI gets so many bonuses that it's absurd to try to compete for world wonders. You are left with waging wars to be able to compete, because that is the one area where you can easily outperform the AI.

At no point could what I originally suggested be called "whining". Just because you think MP is unnecessary does not mean it is. As long as AI is lacking as badly as it currently is in all strategy or tactical games there are, MP is a necessity to get the most of a game. To spell it out once more, just for you: - no AI can currently give you the gaming experience you have when battling a fellow human being. I'd appreciate it if it did, but it doesn't. - thus= AI either cheats or needs an unrealistic amount of assets to be able to compete, which kills immersion - NO MMO (heavens no)! - SP development should clearly be prioritised above anything that is MP I love UG: Civil War. I hate the concept of "scaling". While it gives me enjoyable battles, it also takes away the joy of annihilating an enemy army, knowing it will be back to full strength at the next battle, because otherwise of course the campaign would be over after two or three battles. That's why I ultimately would like a MP campaign experience. Because all the advantages the AI needs kill immersion. For me. That is my subjective POV.

What I want from this game is bascially RTW2 (or rather RTW1 as it looks) in 3D with some nice improvements. Looking at where development has gone so far, at the previous titles and at what they have advertised, it's obvious this is never going to be an open world game, a sandbox or god beware an MMOG. Hoping that my judgement is right here, I bought the game and what I have seen so far has surely convinced me I did the right thing. The only thing I wish for is for MP to be included - at the barest minimum of what is possible and with the least amount of ressources taken away from other development areas: - a simple battle generator, define the era, the countries, ship classes and funds. this should work in SP and MP. No need for complicated balancing, that's between the two players - the possibility to play the campaign in MP similar to TW. Don't bother with balancing. You will never get it totally right. Have two options for MP campaign: a) all countries equal b) all countries with historical abilities as in the SP campaign. That's it. While I understand that many players don't feel the need for MP and prefer SP experiences, there is one undeniable fact: Having played against other humans, it's just hard to go back to playing the AI. Humans have so many more interesting ideas and ways of playing you that an AI just feels dull after a while. Nothing beats MPing with a decent other human being - one that prefers to have a good game over winning. This is also the reason why most MMOGs are a massive fail in my opinion: because most players just try everything to win instead of having a good gaming experience. I have made good experiences with games like this one here. You will relatively easily find someone who is more interested in having a good gaming experience than winning. So no need to heavily invest time into balancing, players can make that work. TLDR: Fully focus on the SP experience and balancing, especially the campaign. Playing the AI can never give you the same experience as facing another human. Divert a mininium of ressources needed to make MP happen. Include a SP and MP battle generator. Don't worry about balancing for MP. Include a MP campaign mode. Don't worry about balancing.

I have to agree about one thing: the AI is always, always, always inferior in these kind of games. I just experienced that again in RTW2 today. Fine game, but the AI needs clear superiority to compete. UA:D needs multiplayer in the end. When I played Total War against the AI, I felt confident entering a battle even when outnumbered. When I started playing MP campaign against a friend, everything changed. Every battle was so much more exciting. Attacking a smaller neighbour would still work, but it could come at a terrible price, as my devious friend would play that AI's troops in the tactical battle and inflict hurt on me. 1v1 battles in the campaign with massive armies - it was brilliant, even if TW is far from brilliant. No need to make it too complicated. Just allow a competitive campaign as in the latest TW games. Don't worry too much about balancing: allow for historical starts as in the base game (and let players work out the balancing), or allow for totally balanced (if unhistorical starts). Balancing will never be 100 percent fair. If players are ready to accept this, a ton of fun can be had nevertheless.