So, I have been spending time trying to build Commodore Dewey's flagship, USS Olympia. To say that it has been a frustrating experience would be putting it mildly.
There is no combination of hulls, towers, engines, etc, that will allow the building of a 344ft. cruiser with a full load weight of 6694 tons, that has all the armament that Olympia carried. In fact there is no way to even come close. It's either way too heavy, or way under gunned, with no middle ground. I won't even get into the fact that none of the available hulls come close to looking the part.
I hope this can be rectified by the time we get to full release, as the pre-dreadnought era is my happy place. I love the aesthetics of the ships of that period, and have otherwise enjoyed the battles I have put together with these fine old ladies of the sea. These were the ships that put the US Navy firmly on the world stage, and it was an interesting time overall as the rapid changes in technology made for some elegant, and bizarre, (France I'm looking at you) solutions to the problem of building a navy in such a time of technological and political flux.