How Different are the Different Nations actually gonna be?

[Accipiter]

i really Hope it changes more things than just the color of the flag on your ship, and the ship names, but seeing how the game is so far and the type of game they want to create, i'm not sure it will.

i was thinking if we whould see nation specific hulls, maybe specific bonus to research certain technologies (like Royal Navy, US Navy and German Navy being able to get radar before others, japan gets bonus to torpedo research, ect...)

maybe some specific bonus that outright give buffs and debuffs to ships trough the campaign, depending on doctrine, for exemple japan gets better and cheaper crew training and upkeep cost to heavy cruisers, since one aspect of their strategy was building lots of very armored and very heavily armed heavy cruisers to make up for not being able to build as many BB as their rivals)

a little bit like in a Total War Game where even where factions play mostly the same and have the same core mechanics in a campaign, they get some buffs or debuffs here and there, to certain units or technologies, or research, or some faction traits, ect... to make them a bit different.

the thing is, i'm not sure if that whould work in a game like UAD, because the campaign is pretty much gonna unfold totally differently than real life, it whouldnt even make any sence to give nations their historically accurate ship designs or faction traits and strategies, since the further you go into the campaign, the more the world is gonna be totally different from real history, different balance of power, different alliances, different countries and dates of technological breaktrough... heck, maybe even different borders depending on how wars go (we dont know)... and so these real life choices and decisions whouldnt make any sence in the world of the game or could even end up playing against them...

on the other hand though, if every nation is literally just the same but you need to defend and control different sea regions of the world, it whould be pretty boring and limit replay value a lot imo... imagine late game where everyone has modern BB's, they'll all use the Yamato "modern BB" hull we have in game, and sure they'll have slightly different gun configurations and armor and so on, but ultimately they'll still use the same hull and superstructure and smokestacks and the gun turrets will all look the same... trough the campain all your ships and all of the ennemy ships whould look the same, boring imo.

i want to see some of those striking and iconic real life features that make a BB instantly recognizable as a japanese one (like the tall and complex pagoda mast, the use of only twin gun turrets except for Yamato ect...) or an american one (the characteristic flat and wide profile triple 16 inch turrets of all their modern BB, or the striking Hyperboloid lattice masts of their Dreadnoughts), or a french one (the use of quad gun turrets with a safety separating bulkhead in the centre of the turret, the all-forward facing main battery at the centre of the hull), ect...

so i'm curious about what do you all think about this?

Edited November 2, 2019 by Accipiter

[SiWi]

1 hour ago, Accipiter said:

i really Hope it changes more things than just the color of the flag on your ship, and the ship names, but seeing how the game is so far and the type of game they want to create, i'm not sure it will.

I think alot of difference will come simply from the geographically situation as well the economy and the political events.

For Spain for example a early war with the US means that you won't have too much time to be ready.

Russian needs to splitt its fleet power between 3 major areas which can't easily reeinforce each other.

ect.

1 hour ago, Accipiter said:

i was thinking if we whould see nation specific hulls, maybe specific bonus to research certain technologies (like Royal Navy, US Navy and German Navy being able to get radar before others, japan gets bonus to torpedo research, ect...)

Diffieantly thinkable, but also I see flat tech bonus (research armor 10% faster as example) and if I undertand the devs right then there will be special technologies only a certain nation can get.

For Japan that could be a special tech for they "long lances".

1 hour ago, Accipiter said:

maybe some specific bonus that outright give buffs and debuffs to ships trough the campaign, depending on doctrine, for exemple japan gets better and cheaper crew training and upkeep cost to heavy cruisers, since one aspect of their strategy was building lots of very armored and very heavily armed heavy cruisers to make up for not being able to build as many BB as their rivals)

a little bit like in a Total War Game where even where factions play mostly the same and have the same core mechanics in a campaign, they get some buffs or debuffs here and there, to certain units or technologies, or research, or some faction traits, ect... to make them a bit different.

the thing is, i'm not sure if that whould work in a game like UAD, because the campaign is pretty much gonna unfold totally differently than real life, it whouldnt even make any sence to give nations their historically accurate ship designs or faction traits and strategies, since the further you go into the campaign, the more the world is gonna be totally different from real history, different balance of power, different alliances, different countries and dates of technological breaktrough... heck, maybe even different borders depending on how wars go (we dont know)... and so these real life choices and decisions whouldnt make any sence in the world of the game or could even end up playing against them...

That is a bit of a problem...

I made a thread a while ago about if nations should have tendencies to use historical designs or not.

The problem of course is that of the AI builds a certain way all the time it gets predictable. 

But then again having the Ai be purely random does rob the fleet their characters...

 

Japan without long range torpedos would be weird, the same as UK without exploding BC...

1 hour ago, Accipiter said:

on the other hand though, if every nation is literally just the same but you need to defend and control different sea regions of the world, it whould be pretty boring and limit replay value a lot imo... imagine late game where everyone has modern BB's, they'll all use the Yamato "modern BB" hull we have in game, and sure they'll have slightly different gun configurations and armor and so on, but ultimately they'll still use the same hull and superstructure and smokestacks and the gun turrets will all look the same... trough the campain all your ships and all of the ennemy ships whould look the same, boring imo.

That is a danger thou mind you that fact that there is 1 "yamato" hull is due this being alpha. I'm sure the devs will add alot of more hull variants then seen right now.

So you will see more variety because there will be more options.

Thou for the player there is a danger that a radar battleship with as much 18 inches as possible will simply be the end game (unless we get bigger guns, quite possible), simply because it will be the most efficient.

1 hour ago, Accipiter said:

i want to see some of those striking and iconic real life features that make a BB instantly recognizable as a japanese one (like the tall and complex pagoda mast, the use of only twin gun turrets except for Yamato ect...) or an american one (the characteristic flat and wide profile triple 16 inch turrets of all their modern BB, or the striking Hyperboloid lattice masts of their Dreadnoughts), or a french one (the use of quad gun turrets with a safety separating bulkhead in the centre of the turret, the all-forward facing main battery at the centre of the hull), ect...

so i'm curious about what do you all think about this?

More customization for the optics is indeed requested a bit. Some turrets look simply cooler then others and to give your fleet a color scheme could be a cool feature. 

 

[SiWi]

thinking about it, maybe you should have a "policies" tab were you as high admiral can make general decisions about your navy.

Like how to discipline your crew, what is the focus on training how to storage ammunition, should the loading doors keept open to fire faster...

 

a bit like stellaris policies

[TAKTCOM]

As we know, the developers have as a landmark “Rule the Waves” (which I personally find encouraging), so that we can watch how does it work RtW and expect something like that

 

 

 

 

[Tyrendian89]

another source of inspiration might be how Hearts of Iron does it - where you can decide on game start whether the AIs should (attempt to) follow a vaguely historical path, or be allowed to go wildly off course (communist or Imperial Germany anyone?^^). Couple that kind of setting with multiple historical bookmarks like 1890 (or whichever year we end up starting), 1905 (HMS Dreadnought), 1914, 1918, 1922 (Washington), 1930 (London), 1938, Dec1941 and 1945 that you can start from and you should be able to tailor the experience to your liking...

[SiWi]

31 minutes ago, Tyrendian89 said:

another source of inspiration might be how Hearts of Iron does it - where you can decide on game start whether the AIs should (attempt to) follow a vaguely historical path, or be allowed to go wildly off course (communist or Imperial Germany anyone?^^). Couple that kind of setting with multiple historical bookmarks like 1890 (or whichever year we end up starting), 1905 (HMS Dreadnought), 1914, 1918, 1922 (Washington), 1930 (London), 1938, Dec1941 and 1945 that you can start from and you should be able to tailor the experience to your liking...

my guess is that you will have an option for have a game that is relative historical, safe the difference yourself make, aka Imperial Germany winning WW1 because it got naval supremacy for example, and then an option to have wildly different events to be more likely, like for example revolutions before WW1 or French and UK clashing before WW1.