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I returned after 4 Months of frequent updates, there are only two months left and yet there are still so many issues. I started a campain and before even getting into a first battle there is more than a boatload of issues, that range from annoying to game breaking! The campain is still a glorified slot machine. The game fails to provide information (like relations to minor nations or the current relations to other nations when deciding your reply during an event), the provided information can't be filtered (the game still has no filters in the world map, the log can't be filtered, the information from the promts at the start of each turn can only be seen once and during that you can't look at other information). The actions of other nations are random. (At the start of one turn both promts appeared: Spain and USA declare war. - Spains provocations were ignored by the usa.) Generals randomly improve and worsen relations (the same). The map has not been fixed, there are still ports inside the gradient on the eastern side. A non-looping map is fine, but the borders have to be done well. Minor allies still order ships above my buildcap. The Idea that the players control is limited is alright but currently the player has way to little control and the systems outside the players control are to random and to important. @Nick Thomadis I have a question: What about the option to have more control, like setting it at the start of the campaign?

There is a strange increase in memory use while staying on the loading screen of a custom battle. Yes it's 100 Ships, but still there shouldn't really be happening anything while idle. It happened again with the same designs, during the design phase (autogenerator) the use looks normal but then starts to increase a lot. Note the first derivative decreases but there is still an increase

I’ve had some time to spend with the game, though I’m a relatively new player I’ll give some feedback: The games basic concepts and mechanics have potential and there was thought put into it. Sadly I think somewhere along the way feature creep and over ambition have started to take it’s toll. This results in bugs, imbalances and impracticalitys that at the minimum reduce the enjoyment and at worst ruin the experience. Half baked aspects and features. Things are added but often not really thought trough. A wish from the community was an undo button in the editor, the team obliged and gave us one but it wasn’t really though through – some towers and turrets have gun/funnel-placements but undo only brings back the object that has been removed itself – if one accidentally deletes the main tower undo is completely useless. Auto mirror. Sometimes it’s necessary to rotate turrets to make them fit or get the relevant firing angles (If they can’t rotate fully), the feature just ignores rotation altogether. Things that have been placed with it will be deleted together but not moved – pretty annoying if you’d like to move something that’s not on one of the predefined spots. On the topic of moving things sometimes with super firing barbette the gun in front is moved with it, sometimes not – still not sure how I set it. Landwar – it’s there to solve the issue of regions without direct access to the sea not being conquerable, but seems to have never really been thought through. There is now something pretty decisive in a war the player has no real control over. There is no coordination between the branches. This is where the inconsistent concept of the player is not the government comes into play. Additionaly: Why is the manpower so spread out – in case of a military offensive (especially the attacker) will concentrate it’s forces (beforehand). Carriers are not planed, so adding an airforce doesn’t make any sense but it was pretty significant in the latter years – just something as food for thought. If the army needs the navy for logistics is highly dependent on the area so a general link doesn’t make any sense. (My observations suggest that the value is primarily influenced by naval strength and number of territories.) Diplomacy options. Another example of the players dependence on luck/chance (RNG) and not the government. Even though help states if the player is not at war with a nation reduce/increase tension should be available – this is not really the case, I don’t know if it’s a bug or not but definitely an inconsistency. I personally think there should also be the option to just (at least suggest to) go to war with a major nation. Naval Invasions are a great idea – but poorly implemented. I don’t know how much tonnage is actually needed beforehand (This is primarily an issue when it’s more than 100.000t). This robs the player of the option to plan the actions either way. There is no indication of how it’s progressing, just tonnage and time. Dissolving nations. Nations don’t just leave a void if they collapse, their territories still exist, the wars they are involved in continue. What happens is colonies and some regions gain independence and a new nation is established. Right now I had an ongoing naval invasion in the western Philippines when Spain collapsed and the invasion was just canceled. Minor powers / allies. They are a nice addition to fill the void between the major powers, but their alliances and their cancelation seem to be another case of randomness. The player has no insight into the relations to minors and no way to influence them – as allies or neutrals. The player can’t decide (or suggest) to go to war with one, just through random quests. For example to capture “Tonga” isn’t fun because from my point of view it’s pointless, there is no value to it (be it income, ports, oil, etc.), I’d rather go after northern Egypt for their oil and control over the Suez canal. The sale of ships is an alright feature, but again something the player has no meaningful control over. Normally nations don’t export their latest and finest warships to other nations, but the allies order just random ships and the player can just accept or decline (which from my understanding influences the relation to the ally). There was no thought put into their orders, if Sweden would like a fleet to rival and beat several major powers they can. Their orders don’t take the current capacities into account, their orders can not be delayed. Releasing a hull without checking if one can place guns in all spots that are designed for it. The UI is something that really holds the game back. The load times are long – considering it’s a single player game without fancy graphics running locally on a good machine. (This is just something of note, I can’t judge how much can be done about it, so I’ll leave it at that.) There is a lot of opinion to this. World: There are by default three to four large windows, that cover a significant portion of the screen at all times. These can’t be moved, resized or disabled. They make part of the map annoying to reach, because it is just a fixed image. Not the best solution from a usability standpoint but surely other considerations lead to the decision, so it’s fine. However this requires other things to be userfriendly, like adding a bigger dead zone on the sides to allow the player to easily reach the ports near the end. (Visible in the image – something funny I noticed for the first time when taking a closer look, there is something missing on the side - doesn't really matter though.) In addition, when placing the ports nobody bothered, to think that ports more or less inside the edge are a bad idea. Regarding the first window, the players nation. There is some useless information contained, like the date (it’s already on the bottom above continue), your max shipyard size (usage would make much more sense, as in worldview nothing connected to it can be done). Showing me my wars there but the ships only in the separate window in the top left is odd. I don’t really care for the feed, there is way to much happening every turn to really read through it, for example if I don’t take notes the information about a nations discovery is absolutely pointless for me, as I’d also need to change view to cross reference it with my research. Something like being able to take a look at each countries research-tree with some form of overlay to the own would actually allow one to judge how the nations compare. There are a lot of events that don’t concern me, so reading about them is rather pointless. I don’t think I shouldn’t be able to receive it, but I need more control over it. For example instead of writing a line for every ship laid down, show how many of what type the nation is building in politics, as to keep track of it is otherwise to much work for very limited gain. Instead of informing me about every engagement, give me a way to look at all engagements of a nation and how they panned out, a view to view all engagements of a war would also be a nice touch. For the map: There is no easy way to identify the regions controlled by each nation. (like a political map) If I want to know if one of my territories is at risk of invasion in case of war there is no easy way to check, you need to manually take a look at all of them. There is no way to filter the map, in a war I only care for my enemies and allies, but the map is now filled with tons of icons, for every task-group, port, oil, etc. (For another example if I just want to reorganize my fleet I only care about where my taskforces and ports are) The view for coordination should be clear, not confusing – otherwise a core mechanic goes from fun to a chore. There is no overview over current uprisings and revolts, that can be accessed during a turn, so have fun finding them... There seems to be no cosistent way to see all ongoing wars and how they stand. Taskforces are a good idea. But managing them is not really fun. Currently they are limited by crew, for invasions and ports their tonnage is important, for coordination and planning time until arrival is relevant – these three in formations are missing from the short overview and are also not present in the menu which in general contains a lot less information about your taskforce than the hoverwindow (if you want to know the tonnage, get your calculator or waste a turn heading to a port, want to know how long it will take, just move them again...). The Nearest port on the otherhand seems rather pointless, as I can only land in allied or own ports. In addition, their path doesn’t get highlighted when hovering over it. To much popups lead to them just beeing annoying. Limit them to important things and provide summaries (more work I know but better). Let me access the other pages, if I’m asked how would you like to handle x, then I can only see the consequences, but don’t know how my relation with the power is or how much capacity is available. Politics: Something minor, but “Nation’s people” for unrest is a strange wording, especially because in worldview it’s still called unrest… As said, also showing the ship type for refit, repair and building would be nice – again for planning. Regarding other nations ships, a solution to denote sales (of the building) and some information about their ships, because differences matter – especially because nations normally tailor their navies to their requirements and enemies. (A lot has been mentioned before) Again something not thought through, elections I only get a popup and a feedmessage once per term to know what my government is comprised of … (The image is not politics, but there I can't see it there either) Again regarding information, the player doesn’t really know if the level of oil is good or bad, the power percentage (something that seems pretty arbitrary to me) Fleet: Show taskforces and allow setting of role from the fleet view. Allow selection of all, for example to set them all to “In being” after a war. Allow scrapping, suspending and resuming for multiple at the same time. Some way to jump from Fleet to a specific ship in worldview. Editor: Show angles when moving the barbette. Regarding UI two highlighted sections (Yes towards the end I wrote less, in some regard because there is less to complain but also because I can’t go on and on, these serve more as examples and are by no means complete.) Battle: There is no way to arrange the ships bevorehand, so first thing is to manually arrange them like I want them and at the positions I designed them for – this leads to extreme chaos and the ships violently crashing and blocking each other – in reality this would be catastrophic. Reordering ships inside diffs is also something that would be great, as would be reordering diffs. Choosing the flagship and the diffs leaders manually Merchant ships are in divs, likely so protection can be assigned. But then why can’t I at least give them directions and reorder them based on speed. (I noticed there are different ships with different top speeds grouped together in one dif, something that in reality would never happen.) There are sometimes armed freighters, why can’t I control their weapons in battle. Again taking away control from the player is a balancing act. I still haven’t found a way to manually assign targets to each sides secondarys… Gameplay: Balancing is key in a game about development like a fair and competent AI. (A generator that understands the concept of primary vs secondary armament, selects somewhat fitting barbettes for the guns and reacts reasonably to torpedos, I've developed the method and habit of torping "manualy" from knifefighting range) The research tree should be somewhat logical, don’t let me research something that decreases me below my current level if I understand the game correctly. Avoid redundancies, like a overall max displacement construction and displacement-limits per type. What’s the point – I can build 20.000t battleships, so I should be able to build torpedo boats with maximal displacement. (It makes balancing a bit easier, but isn’t logical) I as a player like to make decisions and have influence, if I’m stuck with randomness at every turn I feel like my decisions don’t really matter and I’m limited in my influence on the games progression. (The feeling is the issue, for example if I win and keep asking to finish the war several times) For example don’t force me to put torpedo tubes on TB and DD’s – I might just want to build designated mine layers/sweepers. (Also for current purpose build ships) My mine layers should take paths that avoid enemies and don’t try to corner a full taskforce … Give me the option to build escort ships. This is a lot, a 4 page document to be precise. There is a lot of critique in this and some of my frustration might be shining through – I hope you can look past it. I’ve primarily scratched the surface with examples, as there is a lot to be discussed and thought about – but there seems to be a team that is capable and willing to make a good game, I just hope the higher powers at play will let that happen, as UAD is promising. There are still issues that made me decide to stop now – I’ll surely come back to take a look, let’s hope the team has enough time to finish what they started. (Though 6 months are little time…) Conclusions: The player should feel like being in control and able to influence what happens – not dependent on RNGs. Like in the description: “Design your warships the way you want them, command fleets, […]” Balancing and AI are still not where they should be. The game is complex so explaining how it works and presenting the necessary information's is key. The current help is no where near sufficient and the UI needs a significant overhaul. (Please not that this was based on version 1.1.7 Live R - so no improvements could have been taken into account.) EDIT: Minor notes, added missing images, removed image refference, added version disclaimer

I'd like to keep my minor allies but they keep ordering ships exceeding my production cap - I can't suspend them only buy them. In addition their orders seem a bit excessive as staded in my previous feedback regarding that in generall without this excessive issue.

I've sent 2 ships from the same port to different destinations. But they get grouped together and just go to one destination.

I can't trade something

Better explainations of the mechanics - the current help pages are little more than a nice overview for the most part. The game has a lot of complex and interconnected mechanics, so just trial and error are neighter really fun nor really a good way to learn how they actually work. What's good or bad: Are x barrels of oil per capita good bad ? How's my navies fleetstrenght actually derived - it's used to define my logistics strenght (disregarding it's seemingly a bad estimate)

Regarding victory points, now how and why does one have two different numbers - the screenshot is a bit older bevore I had the alliance and no there was no previous alliance that resulted in this point distribution.

Extremely annoying - I've encountered it several times already, it's again something that makes it feel like a fair fight... Generally to not be able to select the div leader and to change order is extremely annoying, as the switching will often destroy your formation, expecially when some ships decide to run from torpedos until they are shure they have no more fuel to run anway and one of them is now the leader and the one that stayed in the vicinity of the enemy now runs there.

The naval power rating on which ones army strength in invasions or the defense against lays seems arbitrary to me. I'm currently leading by 71 667 VP (89895 to 18228) but my naval power is 30 to 43... No matter which side is trying to acchive a peace treaty they allways get denied. My transport cap is currently around 170%. (I can't post any screenshots as the forums size limit won't permit it anymore)

Fixing the VP awarding for predamaged ships - have recently (1.1.5) again lost a battle were I just outran the AI never even spotted one onother (the ships were predamaged) but the AI just got awarded VP

I second that

I can understand that the players are not in full controll of the goverment, but more control over it would be great. The ship orders from minor nations seem to be a bit excessive - sweden ordering (and having) 7 BBs (4 Major Nations have equal or less bbs). Also suspending orders from minor nations should be possible - especially if they buy 7 BB almost at once. Also some way to invite minor nations to an alliance and suggest minor nations to be attacked (id like to conquer northern egypt for example but don't know how to initiate a invasion - I don't have any relations stats so I don't see if parking a fleet there does anything)

Something seems to be wrong with the hull tree at least for britain: Even though listed in the Branch overview I don't get my advertised Armored Cruiser II. From the 19th Century WS I neighter get nor see it in the oveview: Small Torpedo Cruiser, Gunboat, Turret Cruiser and the advertised but missing Armored Cruiser II. Now New structural Steel gives BB III, at least it claims to I still don't have access. After that I get BB II - don't know if it's just listed or only claimed.

Some strange pathfinding - why go around if you just could go directly...

First of all, Thank you. I'm aware of that method, but thought there might be some easier method because that's not that practical. Can you move ships inside divisions. Can you move divisions in the menu bar. I seem to have ships actually moving to another division, but I'm unsure if that's a bug (I'll try to send the team a recording, maybe they can evealuate the issue.) Good to know. Interessting, seems like it was just the endless evading but that made it look like they wont speed up to catch the leader - I was able to see that they actually do when tested in a vacuum. Good to know.

I have some questions regarding divisions: How to set the division leader? Can the order within divisions be changed? Can the order of the divisions be changed? Does someone else notice ships switching divisions without instructions (Seems to occur when they take damage sometimes)? Can the automated switching of division leaders be turned of? (can lead to issues if they are not close together and they break out the get to the back of the divisions) Can I get the ships to speed up to catch up to their leader (for example after evading torpedos)? Do ships often evade torpedos indefinitely? (Geting stuck in evasion even after the torpedos have missed or are gone)

I have to correct myself, it also puts bigger guns on smaller barbettes. I don't know how it got the idea to just use the larger barbette for the smaller gun and vice versa. Weight distribution is not an argument it's 23.6...

But something went wrong, I just had an enemy with both. Likely they started building during the war but got bogged down in bureaucracy or had firesafety issues and till they were ready to put the flag up on the tower masts it was already property of the federal republics navy ;)

I think the autogenerated designs still needs some work, it still produces a significant ammount of strange designs. A few examples (just cut togehter): It really likes to put secondarys on large and/or useless and/or impeding barbettes. I think when looking at these is that the primary placement is much better, but secondarys are not really utlised and it seems to struggle with their placement. For examle only putting a singe raised one on the aft deck on the nelsonesk or a single raised on the foredeck of the second is really inneficient. (There are still some other things like designs suffering from low fuel, imbalaced designs, .... but these three are some nice visualy striking examples)

I'm not shure I can agree. I admit I've never served on a heavily armored vessel, but I doubt there is so much work needed that is directly impacted by different armor that would lead to a change in the maintainace cost in the millions.

Thanks for the information. Seems like I confused myself by testing with AI Generated fleets. That changes the issue slightly, then it's a autogenerator bug - because it definitely shouldn't accept designs that have close to low or low fuel levels. In addition in my oppinion it takes away from what I think Custom battles are meant to be - a "playground". (Bevore the update I never encountered the issue.)

I agree there is an argument for some maintenace cost difference for corrosion mitigation (paint, anodes), but these are likely rather limited especially because these are necessary anyways. That's why it seems strange to me that more than a third of the maintenace cost of a hull (with it's inner workings) would be for just armor. And more than 23% of a "complete" (it's not a realistic build) battleship would just be armor maintenace.

During experimenting in custom battles I noticed low fuel issues. For testing I let the AI design a Fleet for AT-HU (2 BB, 2 CA, 2 CL, 6 TB) vs Spain (identical fleet) - Time is 1890 BB: 48%, CA: 51%, CL: 28%, TB: 38% BB: 49%, CA: 68%, CL: 65%, TB: Low BB: 43%, CA: 58%, CL: 63%, TB: 35% Time is 1900 BB: 51%, CA: 69%, CL: 67%, TB: 41% For testing I let the AI design a Fleet for UK (2 BB, 2 CA, 2 CL, 6 DD) vs Spain (identical fleet) - Time is 1910 BB: 71%, CA: 46%, CL: 65%, DD: 63% But it doesn't seem to be Autodesigns fault because I built a BC that had initialy 64% fuel. Designed range 45.168 km.

That's clear. The question is why is it applied to maintenance cost? (In other words: Why does/would different armor need vastly different levels of maintenance?)