I've been playing around with the campaign game since it was released and have come to some conclusions:
1. Anything before 1910 is impossible, don't even bother. The ships are rubbish. This game is called UA: Dreadnoughts , so let's get to the dreadnoughts. 1910 is the point at which the game gets fun as the ships have a decent number of options and can start to hit the broad side of a barn.
2. If it's not a battleship, don't even bother. All other ships are totally useless. I find that battleships sink TB, DD, CL and CA with negligent ease, a couple of main battery hits and they're on their way to the bottom. BC's are also no match for them, taking only a little longer.
3. Secondary guns are totally useless. Never hit, never do damage. All they do is take up precious ship tonnage. I don't fit any of them.
4. Hull torps are useful adjuncts, particularly for finishing off stubborn enemy BB's that won't sink. Take reduced torps to save weight.
5. Go big or go home with the main guns. Fit the best guns you can, though not necessarily the biggest as there can be a big dropoff in efficiency with mark 1 guns. Take the heavy or superheavy shells then save weight by taking reduced ammo, you won't need all that much shot.
6. Two-gun turrets are by far the best balance of weight and space. Three or four gun turrets lose a lot of firepower because they fire so slowly. You can do the math of how much tonnage is required to achieve one shot a minute and the more guns in the turret the worse it is. One gun turrets are most efficient weight wise but take up too much space. I favour the good old layout of a pair of two-gun turrets fore and aft.
7. Get all the best tech in every category. There's no point fitting obsolete tech to your brand new ship, always go first class.
8. Speed and agility are essential to dodge torps, the one real danger to a player's BB's. A good turn of speed is also useful for running down fleeing enemy capital ships.
9. The computer seems to select at random from your available ships so build nothing but BB's and you'll go in with the heavy mob each time. Hilarious to have five BB's escorting a convoy that then quintuple curb stomp the AI ships.
10. Armour like a tank, with strong armour on the mid and forward hull and on the turrets. Save weight on the rear of the ship. You should always be driving towards the enemy, not fleeing like some coward.
With these points applied I find that I can beat the AI in a campaign in 1-2 months. I build all BB's according to my murderous efficiency schema, then sink nearly every AI ship in every encounter and they just collapse.
