Defaultface

Yes you get far more ships when you hit auto generate. I just tested it and got 5 BB, 3 BC, 7 CA, 8 CL, & 7 DD. If you add together the cost of these ships as the AI designed them you get to: 419 million.... far more than the 90 you get to build your own.

To build on what was said above: It would be fine if the germans even had enough cash to simply defend themselves at the start. If you could build a fleet so that you maybe don't have the capability to challenge the enemy, but good enough that you can at least defend your convoys to prevent the economy from collapsing, the first phase of the campaign could be spent gathering intel on what ships the enemy has built, while you research the techs and build the ships to be able to challenge them a year or a year and a half down the line. This would require better abilitys to control what your ships are doing/ how they are used or when they engage the enemy though which are currently not implemented.

To some extent you may be right.... but I am trying to build economically. Maybe I will post a screenshot of what I manage later, I'm still fiddling with designs. but after the first run of designs, and then a second set of more budget designs I'm still struggling to see how to stretch the money much further. For example right now the cheapest BB design I have is about 14 million, and it's all around mediocre. Maybe I could rebuild the ones I used in the 1910 campaign (btw it would be nice to be able to save the designs from Campaigns as well) which were around 11-13 million IIRC and were good ships in that campaign but might be undergunned with only 12" guns in the 1920 campaign. so let's say I build 3 of these for 35 million. Then building a CA around the 9" or 10" guns, 25 kts, lowest tonnage, medium bulkheads, medium range, No barbette citadel or torp protection upgrades, no engine upgrades, no reloading or ammo upgrades, the most basic rangefinder etc and you're still somewhere close to 10 million. Putting basic versions of some of the upgrades in brings it to maybe 11-11.5 mill. That also isnt even using up the tonnage limit of the smallest tonnage version of the hull. lets say I build 4 of these for 40 million. Thats 75 of 90 million spent for 3 BBs and 4 barebones CAs. That leaves 25 million for CLs and DDs. Maybe you can build equally barebones CLs for around 6 million and DDs for around 2.5 or 3 (right now my CLs are coming out to 8 and DDs at 4 but they could definitely be made cheaper). So that gives me some mix of maybe 2 or 3 CL's and 4 or 5 DD's. I also have built 0 BC's. In summary building mostly very very basic ships: 3BB, 4 CA, 2 CL, 5 DD That gives me those ships vs the AI's current 5 BB, 3 BC, 11 CA, 17 CL, & 24 DD From my experience in the other campaigns the AIs ships while sometimes poorly built and sometimes not, usually cost more than my designs, and also come with trained crews which I don't get either. Edit: I checked and in this campaign the AI's CL's cost 15.9 million. At 17 CL'S thats 272 million just in CL's... DD's cost 4.4 mill each. x 24 = 106 mill Not that the campaign isn't winnable, it just makes the gameplay fairly unrealistic. In the 1910 campaign I basically built a similar ratio of ships as above to the enemy (although in 1910 I could build budget, but still pretty decent ships) and quickly lost 60% of transports because I got blockaded and didnt have enough presence to protect convoys I guess. But I was able to defeat their ships in almost every single battle without losses due to weak AI designs and bad tactics until there was a revolt from all the negative prestige I guess. The AIs poor ship design was RNG as in a previous campaign they had built the same amount of much more dangerous ships which would have made things more difficult. If you are able to come up with cheaper designs that aren't just totally barebones Id be interested to know how.

Just trying out the 1920 campaign. Even after the buff it still seems to me that the germans don't get enough starting cash. Even building outdated, slow and poorly protected ships (cheap as possible) you cannot even build half as many ships as the brits start with. Also I haven't checked but I guess the auto generate fleet probably still gives you more ships than designing yourself?

It is also possible to "skip" the early year campaigns by just letting the AI build the fleet and skipping through turns. If you manage the budget to not go bust and maybe build a few ships here and there eventually it seems like you win more often than not in 1890 & 1900. In one case the british even started just scrapping their whole fleet for no reason at some point so I won. I would agree with the others as far as the budget for 1910 though. At least when playing as the germans its difficult to make any useable amount of decent ships, while the AI gets lots of high quality ships to start and continues to build more and more. An auto generated fleet gives you 6 BBs worth 11 million plus numerous other ships, but if you choose to design your own you only get 68 million for the entire navy to work with. It would also be helpful to have some sort of explanation as for how to better prevent losing transports. Does it have to do with how many ships with what ranges I have based in what ports? Is it to do with total tonnage/naval dominance vs the enemy in some area? I find it difficult to prevent losing transports, and it seems I lose huge amounts of them at random on some turns whereas the AI doesnt. I like the idea behind the mechanic but without some way of assigning my fleet to protect my convoys or raiding the enemy convoys it feels like RNG.

I made an account just to reiterate this. Please let us skip the early years. Maybe I'm not hardcore enough but the 1890 gameplay is absolutely 0 fun for me. Accuracy is appalingly bad even at point blank range, battles take forever, and even when you get a hit the enemy can repair flood damage faster than they take it. When the enemy ships are damaged they turn tight circles at 0.5 knots so that my ships, which cant go faster than 20 anyway, always have to shoot at high angles forcing the already infrequent hits to be ricochets or ineffective. Inevitably one has to close to within a km on these tail turning ships in order to have any chance of hitting, at which point the AI will reshuffle your own damaged ships or steer them to avoid collisions or whatever and inevitably drives them right into enemy torpedoes. There's plenty of fun to be had with this game but sitting through these frustrating & uninteresting battles is not it.