what we know about the campaign according to the "help" section.

[BobRoss0902]

1: It will be turn based with a "special event" card/decision every turn

>Currently you can only trigger war with the answers you choose in special events that appear at the start of a campaign turn.

2: As of right now AI can only declare war on you, not other AI nations.

>War at the moment can only happen between you and AI ai nations

3: You can have ships end up like Graf Zepplin where if you don't want to scrap what you have, and you don't have the resources to finish it, it will stay in a sort of limbo.

>suspend: this option is very useful to control your expenses if you are low on funds.

From what I have heard it is possible that aircraft carriers will be added however if they are they will be used in the same way submarines are where they are a map only thing and are not involved in direct combat.

[Muppetlord]

Sounds a lot like Rule the Waves then. Which I guess is a good thing. I just hope they handle the UI aspect and fleet management a bit better.

Shame that CVs won't show up on the battlefield. I hope they change their mind before we get there, I'm guessing that's still far far away (a year or more minimum).

It'll be interesting to see how they'll handle ship building. Sounds like it will be somewhat similar to RTW as well as you can suspend production and such.

[Cptbarney]

17 hours ago, BobRoss0902 said:

1: It will be turn based with a "special event" card/decision every turn

>Currently you can only trigger war with the answers you choose in special events that appear at the start of a campaign turn.

2: As of right now AI can only declare war on you, not other AI nations.

>War at the moment can only happen between you and AI ai nations

3: You can have ships end up like Graf Zepplin where if you don't want to scrap what you have, and you don't have the resources to finish it, it will stay in a sort of limbo.

>suspend: this option is very useful to control your expenses if you are low on funds.

From what I have heard it is possible that aircraft carriers will be added however if they are they will be used in the same way submarines are where they are a map only thing and are not involved in direct combat.

small pete voice: aaaaaaaaaaahhhh! i see.

Shame that cv's won't be buildable, was hoping to make muh waifu yorkie ;w; well i hope they add californias hull in then!

I hope they expand upon the campaign as well would be nice to add some cool features to it, like museum ships, sabotage and espionage, reverse engineering, world events etc.

[Ishtar]

Not a fan of Rule the Wave's battle generator mechanics, I'd rather something like total war with an abstracted convoy escort/submarine system

[Jatzi]

So when the first version released there was a bug that let you play the campaign. You couldn't save at all and it was very much a work in  progress but yeah you could play it. I and I think a few others mentioned it on here obviously awhile ago. Probably why it got patched, my bad. But yeah unless they made massive changes it'll be basically RTW 1 with 3d graphics. I saw some things that looked like they were gonna expand on some stuff a little more. I think somewhere I saw a screenshot from someone, one of the devs or someone else, that showed the start of a war. The player was building ships for a minor nation and had siezed those ships at the start of the war in order to use them. This is a vague memory and for the life of me I cannot find the screenshot so take that with a grain of salt. But that sort of thing happened quite a bit so I hope it's actually a thing

[Tycondero]

I really hope/expect that AI vs AI wars will be happening in the full version of the game. Otherwise I regard this game as a failure and just a RTW copy.

[Cptbarney]

1 hour ago, Tycondero said:

I really hope/expect that AI vs AI wars will be happening in the full version of the game. Otherwise I regard this game as a failure and just a RTW copy.

Ye this is what i want as well, i want the AI to fight each other along with humans and against humans, plus forming alliances, federations etc with or without human players and even human players being able to start them in some cases.

Could be cool watching the wars as well so maybe you see a bunch of crossed swords but the colour and extra things (like bloody flags, ruined ships etc.) indicate how severe, bloody or important the battle was.

I expect the campaign to be bare bones for now to test stuff and flush it out, but i do want something closer to total war and hearts of iron.

[TAKTCOM]

1 hour ago, Tycondero said:

...this game... just a RTW copy.

Good enough.

[vikings1000]

On 5/13/2020 at 12:52 PM, TAKTCOM said:

Good enough.

RTW is a decent baseline for an early version campaign, but I really hope the Game-Labs team considers going above and beyond.

Like others have mentioned, I was hoping for something more like Total War or the Hearts of Iron series for fleet movements, with even better mechanics of course for diplomacy/politics. 

The use of a cards system for event reaction, or having AI only go to war with the player, is extremely immersion-breaking and limits player agency. But I would guess the AI war restriction will probably go away at some point.

This era is remembered as much for it's dynamic geopolitcal/economic/diplomatic flashpoints (which the navy had to react to in real-time or in anticipation of, not when a card was pulled from a deck), as it was for advances in naval arms development and fleet expansion. If the former aspect is trivialized, the latter aspect becomes largely meaningless, no matter how good the battles are. A solid campaign would have depth in both categories. 

I realize we have yet to see the campaign in action and the game is still in development, so perhaps my comments are off base, but Game-Labs has an opportunity here to make a true gem in an era rarely shown in strategy games. A solid campaign will make the difference between a good game, and a great game.

 

[Jatzi]

I suspect from what I've seen and read that it'll be very much a RTW clone with some differences. Later a sequel or dlc or just future updates will bring in aircraft and whatnot, like RTW 2 did, as well as add in more depth that RTW lacks. Perhaps by the time that happens RTW will have gotten more depth added to it. RTW 2 is still being worked on, missiles just got added in recently in fact.

Also it's not cards but more just random events. Tensions won't go from totally peaceful to all out war like that so you should have time to react, shift forces around and whatnot. In RTW there are also usually ways to reduce tension at the cost of prestige if you're not ready for war yet. 

Also I don't want total war or Hearts of Iron here, they're naval systems are total crap in most of their games. Total War Empire, Napoleon, and Shogun 2 had good naval combat systems but past that it's trash. I suspect if there are AI wars we'll learn about the wars from "news outlets". Like how in RTW when you have allies in a war it'll occasionally tell you that some ships are reported to have been sunk in a battle between your enemy and your ally. And nations know about the size of other nations navies so you can gauge how a war is going just by comparing their losses to their total numbers. 

I do want the ability to declare war or if AI wars is a thing, then to intervene and join a war if you want. 

[Alcar]

On 5/12/2020 at 7:09 PM, Jatzi said:

So when the first version released there was a bug that let you play the campaign. You couldn't save at all and it was very much a work in  progress but yeah you could play it. I and I think a few others mentioned it on here obviously awhile ago. Probably why it got patched, my bad. But yeah unless they made massive changes it'll be basically RTW 1 with 3d graphics. I saw some things that looked like they were gonna expand on some stuff a little more. I think somewhere I saw a screenshot from someone, one of the devs or someone else, that showed the start of a war. The player was building ships for a minor nation and had siezed those ships at the start of the war in order to use them. This is a vague memory and for the life of me I cannot find the screenshot so take that with a grain of salt. But that sort of thing happened quite a bit so I hope it's actually a thing

I'd love to see those old screenshots if anyone has them.

Or maybe the devs could share some teasers, like a screenshot of the map screen or something. 🙏

[DougToss]

I know people have mentioned RTW, I'd like to mention Avalanche Press' Great War at Sea Series, probably the best naval system in a board game ever. I came across it because it is used to train naval officers, and I can see why. Even if you don't want to spring for a copy of one of their titles, the Avalanche website is fantastic and has many fantastic articles on ship design, fleet doctrine and management, and of course combat. 

I hope some of those Designer's Notes are read by the Devs ( @Nick Thomadis 😉) because I think they thoughtfully outline their principles of game design and balancing granularity and abstraction in a naval game. A computer lets you do more calculations than a table or dice roll, but the principles are the same. 

[Gebus]

There already is a baseline for a naval game campaign set up way back in the 90's. Great Naval Battles: North Atlantic 1939-1943. It was actually a real time campaign with fleets zooming across the map, you'd have to get close to enemy fleets to get to the tactical combat. It was simple, it was perfect, and what I hope is for this game to replicate that. And build a bit on top of it. 

That game still is my most favorite naval combat game. And this one has potential to be better (the combat part clearly already is, as is the ship design, GNBNA didn't even have ship designing), the campaign bit is the only part that sounds really flimsy for UA. They can do better, others already have almost 30 years ago :)