SodaBit

This sounds pretty good. If we're the most respected naval officer in a nation's history, it would make sense to have a bit more influence over internal politics. I'd personally like to see political party endorsements/condemnations, in order to promote the party that gives you +30% GDP growth, or, you know, tell the Nazis and Commies to go f*** themselves.

I've got some ship designer feedback here, but it's not exactly a new thing, unfortunately. A few months ago I put up a post about improper DD design of behalf of the AI, mainly outlining just how dangerous executing a torpedo run on a hostile capital ship could be, and how even the best DD's money can buy would struggle to pull it off without suffering casualties. The main crux of the issue was AI DD's/Torpedo Boats being WAY too slow to actually get into torpedo range before being killed. A Crux That Has Yet To Be Removed, It Would Seem. So, here we are again, several months later, discussing the exact same issue, which is still taking a ghastly toll on AI light forces. This is a "Semi-Modern" DD of British make, fitted with most the components you would expect for something laid down in the early 40's. The glaring issue with it is, of course, the top speed Of Only 31 Knots. ON A 1940'S DD. More than a few capital ships in the Royal navy, as well as Every Single Cruiser in Europe, and Perhaps the World Can Outrun This Thing. Needless to say, the only thing this ship is good at is absorbing shells that might have otherwise mildly inconvenienced another, more capable ship. That's it. That's all this class of ship does. It doesn't do any real damage, it often goes down with all her torpedos still in their launchers, and never returns to port after seeing combat. In short, The Crew Of This Ship Has Been Sent To Die For No Good Reason. As far as I am aware, the only modern units this thing can run down are a class of 4 BB's I recently built, all of which are armed with 8 530mm guns with a range of ~35km, and 14 (per side) 150mm guns, with a range of just over 20km. Even then, they only have a 3 knot speed advantage, and as anyone who has tried to chase down an enemy using such a small margin of advantage will tell you, it can take quite some time to close the distance, and God forbid you have to close it under fire from guns that could erase your ship from existence with a single hit.

Please, for the love of God, and all that is holy, PLEASE LET US REJECT ALLIANCES. I Don't Need Spain or America's Help To Fight A No Longer Austrian, Nor Hungarian, "Empire" That Only Possesses A Single BB, All They'll Do Is Sign A Peace Treaty That Will Prevent Me From Putting This Failed State Out Of Its Misery, And I Couldn't Give Less Of A F*** About What Ever Conflicts These "Allies" Of Mine Drag Me Into. There Is No Reason For Me To Fight Their Wars For Them. PLEASE. STOP. FORCING ME TO. I don't care if I'm only the head of the navy, this lack of control is only detracting from the gameplay experience. Even though it has been in the game for multiple patch cycles at this point, this feature has yet to provide any benefit to me. The allied ships I am assigned to help with my own missions are often poorly designed deathtraps that would only serve to give me revolt risk and my enemy free victory points. I'd rather sail into battle with a single 35,000 ton BC of my own making that two of the honestly laughable 70,000 ton BB's provided by my allies. Every land battle has been won by weight in numbers provided by my own nation's army, with next to no contribution from allied forces. In return, all I get is my wars cut short, even when my side is decisively winning, and under no pressure to sue for peace, and my own ships are kept out of action so that my allies can send along some "help" that I never asked for, which I always send away for the sake of not helping the enemy by giving them VP. Please Revert This Change.

Got some quick campaign feedback here, though it's not what anyone would call new. Just fought a battle near the Straights of Gibraltar. Went well enough, but both BC's and one of my CL's needed repair afterwards, and will reinforce once that's done, returning to the site of the battle as soon as they are able. By next month, one of my BC's is doing just that. But there's a pretty massive problem. This battlecruiser was only lightly damaged, so was able to make repairs in pretty much any port she stopped in. Naturally, having just fought a battle off the coast of Spain, rather than stop in a near by allied port, or return to Germany, She Sailed All The Way To Truk. I'm not really going to bother explaining why this is a problem. The situation speaks for itself. Also, despite the Straights being closed to me until I can successfully capture the Rock, the other BC in need of repairs went to do so in Odessa, apparently being capable of running the Straights, and evading all French and British units as she sailed the Entire Mediterranean Sea By Herself, then making it safely to the Black Sea, all with her bows flooded from a torpedo hit.

So remember that Flying Dutchman bug that really messed with trying to build/refit ships? It's back, but only in a limited capacity. The "ghost hull" isn't just obscuring view of the actual ship, but is actively causing collision issues, making working around it impossible. Luckily, this only seems to happen with the USN's unique Dreadnought model. However, it can only be bypassed by closing the game entirely and going back to the ship designer, without selecting a design using said hull.

I've got a campaign map pathing issue here. I've noticed while playing as Great Britain that the AI takes a rather unique path to get to British home waters when sending units through the Indian Ocean and around the Horn of Africa. Rather than go from the Java Straight to the Straights of Madagascar, they're making a rather massive detour to travel the entire length of the Red Sea twice. As far as I'm aware, this isn't just a UI issue, they're actually sailing past every singe port in the Red Sea, reaching the Suez Canal, then turning around and doing it again because they can't use the Canal. Needless to say, anyone with a handful of mines in the area is going to have an absolute field day, as if you own the entire coast, you have 6 different ports to lay mines from, or you could just station a few submarines in the area to intercept the enemy.

I've got some campaign battle feedback here, but I'm pretty sure the issues here go beyond battlefield tactics and doctrines. Bloodless victories in naval warfare are an exceptionally rare occurrence, even with one-sided slaughters like Cape Mattapan, or Santiago de Cuba, the victors still lost some personnel to enemy fire. However, in UA:D, bloodless victories are not only rather common, but actually completely bloodless. Examples Given. French cruiser taskforce engaged by 2 old British battleships and their screen. 0 British casualties. French battle-line units engaged by British heavy cruisers. 0 British causalities. Large contingent of the Spanish Navy is engaged by 2 British CL squadrons. 0 British casualties. HMS Minotaur Engages 15 French Warships By Herself. No French Survivors. 0 British Casualties. That's dozens of ships sunk, and tens of thousands of enemy sailors killed, for no loss of life on the British side. I'll spare you the rant about how unrealistic this is, and how bad it is for game balance, and get right into what I think's causing it. 1. Reliance on Obsolete Units to Achieve Numerical Superiority/Parity Numbers alone don't mean anything in warfare if you can't maintain those numbers. While it is much cheaper to keep a bunch of obsolete deathtraps hanging around to oversee quiet sectors or escort shipping through low-threat areas, these same units are liable to be destroyed before they even get to spot the enemy, let alone engage them. Furthermore, whilst obsolete battleships and battlecruisers might be able to deter enemy cruisers from going after a convoy, the same cannot be said about obsolete cruisers. They are more likely to be viewed as a nice bonus for catching a convoy rather than an actual threat. It's more beneficial for the raider if a convoy is guarded by these units than if it were simply unguarded, because now you get to send several million dollars worth of hardware and a trained military crew to a watery grave along with the vital war material and a civilian crew. 2. Use of Short Range "Mortar-Style" Guns. This is one of those things that can be argued as a personal preference on paper, but doesn't hold any water in practice. The main benefit that you get out of using short-barrel guns in an improved rate of fire, at the cost of range and accuracy. On paper, overwhelming the enemy through an unending torrent of fire can work, where the lack of accuracy is made up for by volume of fire, with more hits being scored using this method, and thus more damage being dealt to the enemy than to you. In practice however, this tactic relies on something that cannot be achieved by modifying barrel length and loading arrangements: actually being able to outmaneuver your opponent, and getting into range to use your weapons to their greatest effect. In short, in order for this approach to work, you need to be significantly quicker than the enemy, and have armor to withstand the hits they will inflict before you get into an effective firing range. If you are unable to do this, You Will Die. This is one of the reasons why my cruisers pictured above have been so effective, they're taking the opposite approach to gunnery superiority, while maintaining a higher speed than the enemy and having more durable armor. My CL's are armed with 12 200mm/L50 guns, with a maximum range of over 24 kilometers, while my CA's are armed with 8 300mm/L55 guns, with a maximum range approaching 40 kilometers. This allows them to hit targets before they get spotted, and keep hitting them with extremely accurate fire as the enemy closes the range. It's not uncommon for one of these units to land several dozen, if not over 100 hits, before the enemy gets the chance to open fire. Thus, slow-firing long barrel weapons can achieve a higher effective rate of fire than their short barrel counterparts. 3. Ineffective Scouting. The method by which the AI searches for their opponent is rather ineffective. They will often use fast units capable of very effective scouting in the screening role, denying them the opportunity to make use of their high speed by being tethered to larger, slower units. The best approach I've found to scouting is to form a small unit of my fastest ships, usually my CL's, who can go 40 knots (or 73.5 in HMS Juno's case?) and send them ahead of everyone else to establish contact with the enemy. Once they achieve this, everyone else behind them should still have the range to engage the enemy, albeit at somewhat reduced efficiency, leaving the scouts free to do whatever they please, so long as they can keep the enemy spotted. The AI, on the other hand, has the situation awareness accompanying tactical foresight of a headless chicken, when using their current method. The results are somewhat predictable. My forces are able to engage the enemy with almost no threat of retaliation, as the enemy refuses to do proper reconnaissance. Unspotted, and thus in no real danger, they are able to maneuver freely about the battlefield, and destroy the enemy at their leisure. 4. Lack of Crucial Technological Advancements. In my current campaign, only a handful of powers have discovered RADAR technology, and despite having the technology myself for several years as of 1940, I Have Yet To Encounter An Enemy Ship Using RADAR. When you go to design a ship for 1940, either in custom battles or as a shared design, you have access to RADAR Gen 3, the most advanced variant available. It makes sense that the campaign's AI should have something approaching the baseline tech level that is available for custom battles. Even powers that are considered Advanced or Average have yet to implement it on their frontline warships. This might be due to the enormous backlog in the world's ship-building industries, as it seems everyone and their grandmother is trying to build at least 1,000,000 tons of warships at any given time, causing massive delays to everything, but as I mentioned above, only a few powers actually have this technology. The second nation to get it was Japan, and that was back in 1936. I believe this to be down to the tech priorities that the AI sets, and these priorities not changing as they should, or to adapt to the current situation. EG. French "big gun" technology circa 1939: A Mark 1 16" weapon. I understand that France generally adopts the Jeune École doctrine of fleet building, but that's hardly an excuse to neglect a technology branch this badly, especially one as essential as big guns. By 1939, they should at least have a Mark 3 variat of either a 16" or 15" gun to use on their battle-line units. That said, even the "small gun" technology of the French navy seems to have been somewhat neglected as well, I don't think they have any Mark 5 weapons available in that category. The net result of all these issues is the AI getting slaughtered at every turn, and posing no real challenge to a decently competent player. To date, I've only lost 4 ships in this campaign, despite having fought dozens of battles, and sinking hundreds of enemy ships. Iirc, the harder difficulties in this game just give the AI more income. This might result in them having more units and slightly better technologies, but won't fix some of the fundamental issues present with the way the AI conducts itself.

Okay, I know I said that ships should exceed their design speed by a bit to form up, but I think we might have over done that just a little That's a 10,000 ton cruiser moving At 73.5 Knots. To give you some idea of just how fast this is on land, that's equivalent to ~85 mph or 136 kph I don't think any ship, let alone any waterborne object has ever moved that fast.

2 bugs, one of which might be irrelevant because campaign was started last patch. First, several hour long stern chases are back. At a leisurely 33.4 knots, USS Phelps was never going to outrun the cruiser squadron sent into the Baltic to deal with her. At least she lived up to the name. Second, America just had a "Revolution..." Only to place the same people they overthrew back in power. How cynical.

Please, for the love of God, and all that is holy, remove the weight increases from late game techs. EG for why this is such an issue: HMS Ark Royal, originally designed in 1932, at a displacement of exactly 77,011 tons. As you can imagine, it takes a hot minute to build one of these, I have 4 under construction right now, and I'm going to need 28 more. Obviously, I can't build all 32 at once, that'd cause a massive steel shortage which would be a very bad idea in the middle of a war against the United States. But before the first batch is even half done, the design is no longer valid, as it's now 47 tons overweight. The repeatable techs are the cause of this, namely... "Advanced Bulkhead Protection" and "Super Torpedo Protection" And, since I have the largest technology budget in the world, at almost $1B thrown at R&D every month, the design's weight is going to increase AGAIN before the first batch is actually finished, which is when I would start the next batch, if I was able. I'm fine with small buffs to survivability, but these small buffs are not worth the weight increase in the slightest, especially since I can count on one hand the amount of torpedo's I've taken in this campaign, and Ark Royal, as well as most of the ships I design, have 0% flash fire chance to begin with, and I have gone an entire campaign before without a single ammo detonation on board one of my ships. Meanwhile, the drawbacks these techs incur might seem small at first, half a percent of additional hull weight, 1.5% additional gun weight, until you realize that we're taking about a few percentage points of several thousand tons of steel. Ark Royal's hull weights an astounding 17,000 tons, and her turrets weigh 5,000 tons a piece. The only saving grace of this design is that I'll have Improved Face Hardening in 4 months, which should bring the weight back down a bit, allowing me to build the design again. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to build 28 of them at the same time to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. Edit: Turns out there is no saving grace to this design. Researching something that gave a passive weight decrease didn't lower the weight back into acceptable range. In fact, it didn't lower the design's weight at all. So, modifiers that increase a design's weight DO apply, but modifiers that decrease a design's weight DON'T. Kinda feels like the system's set up to screw me over at this point. Sucks to suck I guess.

After this battle, I took pretty much my entire fleet into refit to rebalance them, as I really don't need 60+ km of range on a BB, so I'm really not sure if you can classify the designs as old ones from a previous patch, or up to date ones using the latest patch's settings. Either way, the ranges on some of the weapons are truly amazing, with the Mk.5 53cm/L60 being able to reach 73.6 kilometers, the 149.9mm/L50 going out to 26.5 kilometers, and the 55mm/L40 having a somewhat ridiculous range of 15.0 kilometers. I should note that all of these weapons are using end-game technologies, with the most advanced versions of each gun, and very long barrels. The examples above are at 15%, 18%, and 15% increased barrel length. However, I have also run into AI ships using outdated guns, which seem to have a significantly reduced range. The issue seems to be caused by a combination of increasing the gun caliber, barrel length, and technology level of the weapon, giving a slew of range modifiers resulting in a massive increase in range, to a value we've never seen before. This can be achieved to a limited degree in custom battles, with the Mk.5 13" gun having a range of about 38 kilometers, and all of the small caliber weapons listed above being available. As a side note, I'd like to mention that I think this is a very good change over all, as this is probably the best state large caliber weapons have been in for a long time, and may very well be the exact buff to them that people were looking for. The main issue comes from smaller weapons having ridiculous ranges, if you use the 149.9mm on a DD, you can outrange some of the older battleships, and basically empty your entire magazine into them without getting spotted. Iirc, the enemy BC in the post above only had a main battery range of ~15 kilometers, which is kinda crap for a vessel from the 1920's but not entirely unheard of.

So about the new gun mechanics... I think you might have overdone it just a little The 20cm/L46 (Formerly the 20cm/L50) has a range of Over 30 Kilometers on a Light Cruiser Stettin here just outdid both Scharnhorst and Warspite by scoring a hit at a staggering 28.5km, or 17.7 miles, shattering the real world record of 15 miles/26 kilometers. Before this patch, the longest range hit I managed was done by a 36cm weapon, at 30.5 km. I'm very much looking forward to what I can do with the new changes on my BB's. Given that the 42cm/L63 (Formerly the 420mm/L69 gun, I'm really going to miss that one) has an astounding range of 66 Kilometers. It looks like hits over 40km are going to be a somewhat regular thing in the mid to late 1940's, as these guns can apparently hit targets at a range of almost 50km.

Some things I'd like to see in no particular order, except the first one which I think could work out pretty well. 1: Miniature "Theater of War" Campaigns Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. These campaigns would focus on a single area of the map, similar to the first iteration of the campaign in the North Sea. I know that this might sound like something of a downgrade, but realistically, it would probably work for most players. If you're playing as Japan, you couldn't care less about a war between Italy and Austria-Hungary, as this is completely outside your sphere of influence. It might become something to consider depending on who's allied to who, but otherwise, it won't effect you in the slightest. You're more concerned with the powers in your area of the world, such as America, China, Russia, and Britain if they still have some holdings left. You can essentially cut down the map, and remove some of the powers, or add a few new ones based on the area you find yourself in. Some examples are as follows: North Sea: We've seen this before, Britain versus Germany, with France tagging along for the ride if you want. Netherlands and Denmark can be added as playable "Regional Powers," taking the place of powers who have no influence over the North Sea, and would thus be excluded from this campaign. Mediterranean Sea: A 5 way free-for-all between Spain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Britain, based out of Alexandria. Greece and Turkey can be added as regional powers, using Italian and German equipment respectively. North Atlantic: A massive theater by comparison, mainly focused on a war between the United States and Britain, with Spain and France again featured. Regional powers could include the Dutch and Portuguese, though I'm sure nobody would mind if a few Brazilians showed up at some point. Pacific: Stretching from the Straights of Malacca to the American West Coast, and primarily focused on a conflict between the United States and Japan, with China, Russia, and the colonial powers making contributions as well, including the Dutch as one regional power, with Australia and New Zealand being the other. Using British equipment, they start off allied to their mother country, but can break that alliance and take matters into their own hands if they so choose. These campaigns would be available along side the main Global campaign, and the war between the main powers wouldn't stop until one is eliminated, with the exception of the Mediterranean Sea, which goes until there's only one power left standing. 2: Obligatory "Please Add More Hulls" Section While it's well and good and all to focus on the big capital ships, we need more options for cruisers, lights in particular. Atlanta, Cleveland, and Helena are already planned, which is good, but I'd also like to see the Omahas make an appearance, casemate main battery guns included, as well as the post-war Worchester class. The Towns/Country/Crown Colony class should also be on the list, as well as the D/Dido class. Basically a British Atlanta, but don't tell the Brits I said that. This format of "AA-cruiser" should be made available for all countries as well, since it can be rather fun to pour an un-ending torrent of small-caliber shells into an enemy formation, even if it is somewhat ineffective at times. As for the powers on the European mainland, I'd say we need something to represent the treaty era German cruisers, such as Nurnberg and Koln, as well as a hull for the M class. I'm not sure how similar the two would be, but if they can both be covered with one hull, that's great. I'd also like a better hull for the Hippers, as the current one is too wide, and doesn't really get the superstructure right. The French cruisers also need some work, I know that Algerie and the rest of the treaty era cruisers have been mentioned before, but I'd also like to see some of the 1940's designs represented, as cruisers that were actually built in real life don't cover the whole spectrum of what the French had planned for their cruiser force, thanks to the minor issue of the country being completely overrun by Nazi forces before they could build anything new and shiny. As for the Russians, I'd say that Kirov and the Project 26 variants are a good addition, as well as the Chapayevs and Sverdlovs. I've also got something of a soft spot for the Project 66 design, so I'll throw that in as well. Moving even further east, the Japanese cruisers are in a good spot but could still use a bit of a touch up, mainly with regards to the Myoko and Takao class cruisers, which don't really work on any of the hulls implemented thus far, as there's not really enough space up front to mount 3 8" turrets. Cutting back the raised portion of the hull on CA3/4 would be a great fix for this. That's it for cruisers, but I'd like to make a mention on some of the capital ships as well. There is still no hull for the Amagis/Kiis, which is something of a disappointment. Also, the Tillman family should be added as sort of a meme for late game USN, with these ships being absolutely massive, but extremely slow. 3: Designated Large Cruiser Class I've been saying this for a while, and I think the argument still holds water. Large cruisers/Panzerschiffe are in a pretty weird spot right now, and can be classed as either a CA or a BC depending on nation you're playing. With many of the late game CA hulls, you can quite conceivably get a Large Cruiser out of the max 23,000 tons you have for the class. When matched against actual enemy heavy cruisers, it will proceed to kick the crap out of them in any perspective gun fight, and cannot easily be stopped from doing so. The last iteration of Panzerschiff I made came in at exactly 23,000 tons, had 280mm/150mm of belt/deck armor, and was armed with 9 283mm guns, with a top speed of 32 knots. That's not a heavy cruiser by any definition of the term. Meanwhile, if you tried to build this sort of ship on one of the "Large Cruiser" battlecruiser hulls, which all tend to weigh between 30,000 and 40,000 tons, you'd get a ship that couldn't really go toe to toe with contemporary battlecruisers. The German variant of this hull weighs 37,000 tons, and can reasonably mount guns of a caliber up to 14 inches, iirc. Meanwhile, across the North Sea, Great Britain is capable of building the "Super Battlecruiser," which can weigh more than a Yamato class battleship, and is based on a design that called for 6 20" guns. This ship may very well have up to 15" of belt armor, with a 6" deck, and would be a significant challenge to take down for a ship that is usually armed with 12" guns, but can go up to 14". Unless you're Japan, then feel free to mount 46cm. guns on a 35,000 ton ship, nobody's stopping you. 4: More Freedom with Regards to Gun Caliber This point is pretty basic. There are certain calibers of weapons, such as the 100mm, 380mm, 150mm, that saw a fair bit of service during their time, but are not available in game. While you can get close enough for government work, it's not really the same. Also, like I mentioned earlier, the Japanese can mount 46cm. guns on a 35,000 ton ship, but the Americans, for some reason, can't mount 16" guns on a ship of 50,000 tons. Back when this was possible, my go to BC design for the USN was basically USS Iowa. The same thing happened with the German "Modern Battlecruiser" hull, weighing 49,000 tons. This is only 1,000 tons shy of Bismarck's weight of 50,000 tons, so it made a lot of sense that you could mount 15" guns on it. You can't do that anymore. In fact, the largest weapon you can mount on the ship's main tower is a 36cm gun. Another example is the secondary battery of the Yamato's main tower. You can place 5" guns on the bottom row of mounts, but not the top row. In order to have both rows of secondaries at the same caliber, and thus able to share ammo, I have to use 120mm guns. All of these changes seem small, and to be honest, are small, but I'd still like to see them implemented, along with other examples I probably haven't mentioned. 5: Designated Nomenclature for Classes and Authentic Names for Minor Powers Again, this is one of those small things that I'd like to see implemented. When building large classes of ships, I like the names to be somewhat consistent, i.e. don't throw in a Kearsarge into a class that has Pennsylvania, Ohio, Vermont, and Montana as its other members, nor a Bonhomme Richard into a class that has Cleveland, Biloxi, Montpelier, and Denver as its other members. Also, ORP Jean Bart doesn't make a whole lot of sense, nor does HMAS Vittorio Veneto. Again, this shouldn't take priority over other features, like the ones listed above, or over fixing bugs, but I still think it should be added at some point.

Noticed you fixed a bug that caused crashes due to ships not having a port to dock in. Loaded up my old Germany campaign were this happened to test it. And it works! Austria has no ports, and thus no navy, (albeit they're still building ships for this now defunct branch of their military) so no crashing. Hopefully. Good job with this one, please give the rest of the team my regards. Y'all just saved me 17 years of progress with this fix.

Just lost another campaign save because of the Austro-Hungarian Navy losing all of its ports. Please, for the love of God, find a fix for this. I know it's not realistic for the Empire to collapse outright if it loses Croatia and Montenegro, but please make an exception just to stop this bug from happening. Adding ports to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia would also help, just so they can have a bit more breathing room before being completely knocked out of the game. Also, for the sake of realism maybe consider making the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapse if they no longer own Austria or Hungary? Or change the name to something that makes a bit more sense like Yugoslavia?

What I need is the gun model, I can live without the upgrade, and make up for using an older version of a gun with other upgrades to fire-control and loading arrangements. This solution is probably the best we can we can get.

So about the AI trying to run When It Is Statistically Unable To Do So I thought an hour and a half long stern chase over the span of 150 kilometers was as bad as this issue was going to get. I Was Wrong. Over 2 Hours And Almost 260 Kilometers To Find The Enemy. Is this ever going to be fixed? Because if not, I'll just stop posting about it here, and stop wasting my time trying to run these bastards down.

Non-bug related feedback here. Please, for the love of God, let us choose the models we use for turrets. "Upgrading" guns shouldn't result in a worse design. E.G. DRS Emden as designed, with Mk.3 88mm guns: Enough 88mm guns to make the Berlin Zoo jealous. Now, the "Upgraded" version, with Mk.4 88mm guns: This isn't an upgrade at all. The old mount was fine, there's no reason to mess it up. What this means is that the Ship Can No Longer Receive Refits Without Greatly Compromising The Design. This is the exact opposite of what a refit is supposed to do. Refits can change secondary batteries,, fix design flaws, or remove obsolete systems in favor of modern ones, but the overall objective of the process is to improve an existing design by utilizing new technologies, and incorporating lessons learned in ship design since the original conception of the unit. The reason I have so many 88mm guns on this thing to begin with is Because It Works. It Works Very, VERY Well. The old Emden design was a perfect solution for screening capital ships against torpedo boats, destroyers, and light cruisers. She could also provide effective fire support against larger target with an unending hail of small caliber shells, starting numerous fires, disabling secondaries and torpedos, and generally making life difficult for damage control teams. Now, that potential is pretty much gone. The most 88's I'll be able to fit on this ship is about 4 turrets per side, down from the crushing 14 per side. Even if I used twins, I still won't be able to make up the lost firepower. The issue of turret models is also present in most designs of HMS Hood that receive modernization after the Mk.3 15" gun is researched, but that's a story for another post. I think I've made the point pretty clear with this one.

So it seems that the Austro-Hungarians continue to be something of an issue. New campaign as Germany, and I decided to go to war with them. Austria revolts and declares independence from the Empire, so there goes the direct route for conquering them. Take Croatia instead, and now the Austrians have nowhere to base their fleet again, as they lost Montenegro before the war even started. However, there's a problem in Pula. Those Aren't My Ships Docked There. They're what remains of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Getting repairs in what is now a hostile port. In fact, I can even dock alongside them. If the port's mine, then everything in it should also be mine. If there's enemy ships in a port, they should either be scuttled, or if that fails, captured by the invading troops. BONUS: So I played 1 battle against the only other ship in the Austro-Hungarian Navy, a CA that was docked further South in another Croatian port, destroyed it, and then the game crashed on "Loading World." Relaunched, attempted to load the save, crashed on "Loading World" again. Same thing when I tried to load again. I'd also like to note that they were still building ships for their own navy. Where these ships would have spawned is somewhat of a mystery. This happened in my last campaign as well. Despite being at war with multiple powers during the 1940's, nobody could actually find and engage the Neither Austrian Nor Hungarian Navy. I had been at war for them for almost a decade when 1950 rolled around, and they never showed up on the horizon.

Sorry for hogging the thread, but I'm still finding issues that need to be addressed, this time it's in relation to campaign AI. December, 1949, the very last battle of a campaign that started in 1920. The British are sending in one of their oldest units, the Australia class armored cruiser HMS Natal, into the fray against the pride of the Japanese Empire. These things have been around since 1920, and I used the term armored cruiser rather than heavy cruiser to describe it because... That's just what it is. You could make a very good argument that these things were obsolete when they entered service back in 1920, and certainly should have been scrapped by 1930, as the shiny new heavy cruisers came online. But no, someone locked Jackie Fisher in a broom closet somewhere and decided that all their old armored and protected cruisers would serve until they were destroyed. This is a very, VERY, VERY bad idea, as these old ships still require crews, ammo, fuel, and places to dock, all of which should be going to better units. When they are sent into combat, they are literally just free victory points for me, and additional revolt risk for Britain. The Brits don't have to use these units. They can afford better ships, and have the technology to build them. Despite losing all their Pacific holdings, several colonies in Africa, almost all of India, having a revolution that saw the monarchy finally abolished, and having to fight a rather bloody land war on the British Mainland during the Scottish war of Independence, the British (Or I guess just English now?) economy is doing just fine. In fact, I'd argue it's doing better than fine. They've practically sent the Pound to the Moon, and can churn out warships at a rate I simply can't hope to match. Of course, number's don't matter when most of the ships you send into an engagement die in one salvo. Despite being "Very Advanced" the most capable gun I saw the British using was an 18" Mk.2. I used similar guns to build the Yamato class back in 1930, as soon as I had researched them. Come 1947, the 18" Mk.5 is available, along with improved radar, more efficient armor, and a host of other improvements to the design. Which kind of brings me to my point here. I'm fine with the AI using old ships, so long as they are kept somewhat up to date, and can still be useful in some capacity, even if it's only convoy escort, or shore bombardment. During this campaign, I didn't send a single battleship to the breakers, pretty much for this exact reason. The first 4 BB's I built are still afloat in 1949. Once newer units were available, they were assigned to quiet sectors to ensure naval supremacy, or to support the various invasions of the British Pacific territories. This allowed the more capable BB's to get stuck in with the British, without having to worry about being badly needed somewhere else. Despite being almost 30 years old, they're still perfectly capable of providing shore support, or seeing off cruiser squadrons, because at the end of the day, if you've got a CA that's proof against 14 inch guns, chances are it's so slow that I can just hit it over and over again before it gets into range, because these old BB's have been modernized to have Mk.5 guns as well as the best RADAR and rangefinders available. In short, while they couldn't be used for their original role, they still had some use. The opposite is the case for the old British units I ran into over the course of this campaign. HMS Natal has not changed since 1920. She has no RADAR, nor RDF, her rangefinders are woefully out of date, and her guns have neither the range nor penetration capabilities to be of any real use in a major battle. Coupled with her low speed of less than 20 knots, even my oldest BB's can run her down. She's nothing more than a floating coffin at this point. A complete waste of fuel, dock space, ammunition, and above all else, a crew that's never going to make it home.

Some more battle feedback here. Image speaks for itself. There's still 2,200 men aboard this floating coffin.

I've got some feedback here with regards to the AI. On more than one occasion I've had to chase down badly-damaged ships, and it almost always goes a little something like this: 1: All divisions who can actually catch the enemy if it's going full speed start following the RADAR bearing, and make ready for battle. 2: Wait. For a very long time. 3: Enter the Shadow Realm in pursuit of the enemy. 4: Keep waiting. 5: Find enemy, and realize they've been absolutely booking it at full speed for the past hour and a half, despite the division leader and all ships in the division being badly damaged. So, we've got a few problems here. The past Hour and a Half of the battle was completely pointless, and could have been skipped. To give you a sense of just how far these lil guys have run, I parked my BC's about 10 minutes into the battle, since they probably wouldn't be in range before my lead ships destroyed the enemy. Those BC's are now over 150 kilometers away. I would have simply preferred to send them home, and let their escorts deal with the enemy. Adding a mechanic to release ships from battle early, assuming they have enough distance between them and the enemy, would allow for ships that aren't going to be used, or can no longer be used, to leave the field would reduce clutter and probably improve performance as well. There's also the issue of the ship damage. While I like ships in the same division being able to all go the same speed, that speed should probably be the speed of the slowest ship. Again, I am in favor of ships exceeding their max speed to get into a certain position within the formation, (such as cruisers falling our of a screening formation to form a line of battle) but the speed of the formation as a unit should still reflect the limitations of the ships in it. I can give a better example of this if needed.

Well, it finally happened. The Austro-"Hungarian" Empire is on its deathbed again, and this time it's Lost All of its Ports. By retaining control of Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Slovenia, the von Habsburgs technically still have enough land to keep the empire from dissolving, but now has nowhere to base its fleet. Despite this, they are still able to build ships. Where are these things even being built? Is there a secret naval base somewhere along the Slovene coast that can handle building 40,000 ton battleships? I'm not sure this is working as intended or not, given that you need somewhere to resupply and repair a fleet before you can actually reasonably field one. Still, it is rather humorous to see the Austro-Hungarian Navy become the sea-born equivalent of the Czechoslovak Legion. Bonus: It is now Neither Austrian, Nor Hungarian, Nor an Empire. The only people left in the von Habsburg empire are the Bosnians and the Slovenes. 2 provinces that aren't even connected to each-other doesn't really constitute and "Empire." Probably not working as intended, but honestly, I'm not sure if I want this fixed. I kinda want the Balkans to be the nonstop geopolitical clusterf*** we all know and love.

Please for the love of god fix the deck pen issue I have 85% chance to hit the belt armor but all I get is shells shattering on the deck Which is thicker on this CA than it was on the Yamato class BB's

So I did some experimenting, and I'm pretty sure I've figured out what the most cost-effective ASW escort looks like. It's this. 7,149.13 ASW points on 1354 tons at $13,626,860. If the enemy decides to go Submarine Only (which it does sometimes, for some reason) just use this. The reason why it's so good at ASW is the same reason why it's so bad at surface combat. All that fancy equipment you need for gun fights out on the surface increases your target profile, meaning the more of it you have, the harder it'll be for you to fight subs, as they'll have an easier time spotting and tracking you. If I built the DD I'd actually want to use in a surface engagement, the ASW score would be significantly lower. I'm not sure if this is intentional, making it so that units that a good at surface engagements are crap at ASW, but I'm pretty sure I've got some issues with the way things are set up for ASW right now. For the purposes of ASW/Submarine warfare, a ship's target profile should be dictated by its dimensions, not the equipment you've slapped on the hull. You're more likely to spot a ship based solely on its hull and superstructure, rather than the size of its main battery, or how many torpedo tubes it has on it.